The Beach Ball

Item Information

Title:
The Beach Ball
Creator:
Fenuccio, Jacob
Date:
April 15, 2013
Format:
Documents
Genre:
texts (documents)
Location:
Northeastern University Library
Collection (local):
Our Marathon
Series:
Public submissions
Subjects:
Boston Marathon Bombing, Boston, Mass., 2013
Places:
Massachusetts > Suffolk (county) > Boston
Link to Item:
http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20264378
Terms of Use:
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Contact host institution for more information.
Language:
English
Notes:
Submission text: We had just approached the end of a three-day charity event that our fraternity, ZBT, was hosting at the finish line for the Boston Marathon. The charity we were working for was "Get on the Ball," where we rolled a giant 6 foot beach ball around the city all weekend gathering signatures and donations for the Boston Children's Hospital. We had support from several generous individuals and organizations who agreed to donate based on how many signatures we could get onto the beach ball, so we planned on going to the most dense area in the city at the time, which was the Boston Marathon finish line at Copley. The charity went smoothly the first few days, but when the bombs went off towards the conclusion of the third day, we were thrown a bit of a curveball. Instantly we knew something bad was happening and it made me proud to see that throughout the whole ordeal, my fellow brothers, classmates, and Northeastern Huskies who were with me doing charity, upheld a calm and collected attitude as children, mothers, and officials started running in all directions. Our priorities had shifted from raising money for a charity to helping the situation at hand. We quickly made the best of the circumstances by rolling this giant beach ball throughout an awe-struck crowd and just talking to people as we were herded away from Copley towards Boston Common, saying "follow the beach ball and everything will be fine" to little kids walking past just trying to crack a small smile and take peoples' minds of things for an instant since we were such an unexpected site in a crisis. After a few hours without cellphone reception, since authorities cut it as a safety precaution because cellphones are often used as detonators, the members of our charity group got in contact with their loved ones and reassured everyone who heard from either facebook, twitter, or the news that we were OK and made it out safely. It was the next day that we all met to reflect on the event and collect the donations we received from the weekend when we decided that we want to make the beach ball event an annual occurrence on the Marathon weekend so that we can hopefully provide a more fun and enlightening Boston event in a city we all love and call home. Boston Strong!
Crowdsourced submission originally received via the Our Marathon "Share Your Story" page.
Notes (historical):
Contributor Name: Jacob Fenuccio; Contributor Age: 20; Contributor Race: Bostonian ;); Contributor Gender: Male; Current Location: 02120