Sight & Sole Walk

This will be the third year that I attended this event. The venue changes every year along with the amount of people present. Without fail this event has increased their numbers, and more people are getting involved. This is the first year that I have worked behind the scenes as opposed to walking around the lake for the visionally impaired, so my perspective of the event changed.

This year I was in charge of the Disney characters; I had to make sure that they weren't bombarded with people, the line to meet them didn't get out of hand, and take pictures for those who intereacted with them. At first, I didn't even think it was an important job, but as I saw the faces of the children as they saw the characters walking around, my whole mentality changed. I had forgotten that for kids, seeing these characters was basically a dream come true, similiar to seeing them as Disney. To me, it wasn't impressive because I knew they were not real and it really wasn't a big deal. I had to change my mentality, and it kind of all hit me at once when their faces lit up.

Since the Sight & Sole walk was for the visionally impaired, there were kids and adults who couldn't see, but they were able to communicate through sign language, and their other senses. One girl who actually brought tears to my eyes was blind; although it hurt me to see her in that way, it also brought joy to me because she was able to engage with people through her other senses, communicate, and most importantly just be happy. Sight is obviously one of our biggest senses because this sense is how we are exposed to the world and our perspective, but this girl was able to see things so differently while being happy. According to her parents, her favorite Disney character was Snow White, and she happened to be there at the event. Her parents had told her "Honey, snow white is here to see you", she immediately perked up, and grabbed her hand and started touching her hands and put it against her face, and just started smiling so big. I had to turn around and not show weakness as my eyes teared up. It was something so little that can change someone's life, or even state of mind in a heartbeat. Snow white continued to talk to her and tell her stories about the "dwarfs" and her "animals", and you can just see on the girls face that she was listening intently and 100% engaged.

To conclude, sometimes you don't know how important a job can be until you actually do it, or until something positive happens. It might be something you don't even realize until later, but also know that when you volunteer, no matter what, you're always helping someone even if you can't see it or don't get praised.
My entire perspective changed about this event, and I am excited to continually go to the LightHouse of Central Florida's events.