Bowled over

[Chelsea K]

Ahhhh, yesterday was my 25th birthday, and I recently moved to a new state to live with my best friend(KTP) and her fiance (Stephan) while I work out a new job and living situation, so basically aside from those two (and my best friends Mom (Mama Lyttle) who was here visiting) I know no one in this state. KTP volunteers at a local animal shelter, and yesterday a group of volunteers from the shelter where asked to become a bowling team to take part in a Bowl-A-Rama put on by the area local shelters. I pledged the cash that I had in my wallet (AKA $10) to  KTP and her shelter, and then Stephen, Mama Lyttle, and I all went to watch KTP bowl with the plans of going to an all vegan restaurant after for dinner.

This event was really great! When we got there animal shelters of all kinds where there including plain old cat and dog rescues, a great pit bull rescue group,  horse rescue, bunny rescue, AND EVEN a rat rescue group (apparently people just abandon them when they are tired of them!) I was quiet bowled over by the whole experience. Groups with troops of volunteers had tables and stations set up, silent auctions, team theme shirts, and members in costume, including a skunk, snow white, a duck, and a biker gang... Okay the biker gang may have been real, but they were a pit bull rescue group so I'm not sure if they were just being facetious or not.

Any way we got there and after looking around for a bit KTP went off to find the other member of her team, but no one was there with their bright blue shelter volunteer shirt,. We were a bit early as always, so we figured that the rest of the volunteers would be rolling around right on time or maybe a little late. Let me premise this story by saying the KTP's shelter is run 100% by volunteers and most time is spent concentrating on the animals, as it should be, but sometimes this leads to a lack of communication/organization. So KTP checked in and was assigned to the lane to wait for the rest of her team... but lo and behold by the time that the event was supposed to start KTP was still the only one from her shelter that had shown up. At this time I decided to go and find something to drink, which took quiet a while due to the mass amount of wonderful animal lovers in the bowling alley.

When I returned Stephen and Mama Lyttle caught me walking past the shoe station and explained that while I was gone KTP had made friends with the head honchos putting this shindig on and when they found out that no one else from the shelter had shown up they suggested that Mama Lyttle, Stephen, and I bowl in their place to make up the team so the shelter could still participate and earn money.  So gratefully we all donned beautiful bowling shoes, and headed over to join BF at her lane. Despite my own personal horrible performance (hey I can't even remember the last time I bowled!) the event was incredibly fun! We had a blast, we were surrounded by volunteers who were passionate about something that we were all passionate about, and we all got a chance to put our bowling "skills" on the line to earn money for the animals.

Following the Bowl-A-Rama we headed to an all vegan restaurant that none of us had tried before and it was amazingly tasty and satisfying. The night was topped off by a wonderful vegan ice cream desert and my friends singing very loudly and in wonderfully tone-def harmony "Happy Birthday" to me in the middle of the restaurant, I am pretty sure I was Red Cross red by the end of it, from sure embarrassment!

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my birthday, and first day of the giving challenge. I am really looking forward to giving something even better today than yesterday!

 

For anyone who would like more info in the Bowl-A-Rama and it's various animal shelters please click the link ---> http://www.pacc911.org/Bowl-A-Rama.html

[Deb~ Community Manager]

Happy Birthday to you! You celebrated in a fabulous way~ Welcome to the community!

[Lois55 wwt]

What an awesome awesome post.....happy birthday!! This is the way to start a challenge, pretty perfect!