Volunteering with University of St. Augustine students was even better than a day at the beach

This group of physical therapy graduate students at the University of St. Augustine spent Friday afternoon volunteering for Pink Up The Pace 5K and let me going them.

Early today I was in historic downtown St. Augustine for the annual Pink Up the Pace 5K to support breast cancer awareness. I have participated in this event twice before and over 2,000 runners/walkers were expected today. It’s a festive event and always has numerous cancer survivors participating. There’s always music and even folks along the historic streets in old-time costumes to support you.

I think it is the only race in St. Augustine where historic downtown is closed for the run, so that also makes it special.

But I have got to admit, I might have had even more fun Friday when I volunteered to work at the race expo/packet pickup from 2’6:30 p.m. at Anastasia Baptist Church. I understood I would not know anyone but I tend to be able to still make friends. However, I hit the jackpot when I got to work the packet pickup station with physical therapy students from University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences.

I found out that it was the largest physical therapy school in the United States and confers the most degrees of any graduate PT school in the country. Most of the 13 volunteers also planned to participate in the run this morning.

They could not have been any nicer or more welcoming to a 69-year-old Kentuckian — and a couple of them even told me they hoped UK beat Florida tonight because they are Florida State fans. One Kentucky fan — Travis — who now lives in St. Augustine after growing up in Dry Ridge, Ky., was there wearing his blue UK hat, and obviously we had to also talk about the game.

The grad students did a great job greeting everyone who came to pick up race packets. Remember, we gave out over 2,000 packets in four hours. They never loafed in the down time and were always polite with those who came to pick up packets. They answered questions — and if they didn’t know the answers they found out.

It was refreshing to see so many graduate students who obviously are goal-driven not only volunteering their time but enjoying it.

Savannah drew short straw apparently and got to start out working on the back line with me stuffing packets while most of the others handled packet pickup. Enjoyed finding out she was from Marathon — near Key West — but somehow was not a seafood eater. Another student soon will try his first triathlon. In 4 1/2 hours, you get to share a lot of stories.

So as nice as another day on the beach would have been, getting to spend time volunteering, meeting so many motivated young people, and experiencing the real St. Augustine culture was even more fun.