IJM Day!
Hello lovely readers!! It’s been a while. How have you been? Well? Busy? Over the moon that you’re reading a blog from yours truly again? Sweet! Glad to hear it!
Let me just catch you up in 1 sentence. This semester is by far the busiest I’ve had, but it’s (for the most part) a good busy because it’s classes and organization involvement that I really enjoy giving my time to! (Don’t you fret. I’ll expound on some of these experiences in later posts.)
I do want to highlight one area of involvement that is particularly important to me. When you find a cause that you really love, you end up bringing it into conversations a lot. That’s kind of how I feel about human trafficking. It’s a huge and heavy need around the world, and I have been SO ecstatic about getting involved with International Justice Mission (IJM) to help make my mark on this injustice.
As you may remember, Vanderbilt started it’s own campus chapter last semester, and I was given the privilege of being the Fundraising Co-Chair for this calendar year. Our chapter definitely had small beginnings, but we’ve grown in number and influence over the past few months!
On October 1, the city of Nashville declared the day to be IJM Day as a way to show its active support of freeing those enslaved in human trafficking. Nashville was the only city in the world to do such a thing, and hopefully it won’t be the last. The founder and CEO of IJM, Gary Haugen, came to give a talk at the steps of City Hall after Jenny and Tyler and Dara Maclean played music (we’re in Music City, USA, after all) with campus chapters and the general public present to show their support. It’s nice to know that I’m living amidst such proactive people, and it was great to hear Mr. Haugen give us encouragement and cast vision for the future of IJM!
Later that evening, two fellow Vandy IJM members and I were given the honor of attending the IJM Benefit Dinner held at the beautiful Nashville Convention Center (fo’ free!) and listen to speakers who are passionate about ending human trafficking share their experiences and goals for the future. It was such a great event to witness, and the three of us were speechless upon leaving.
Moral of the story? Find what you love doing, and run with it. It doesn’t have to be a cause. But when you’re committed, things start falling into place and then you get to say stuff like: “Yea, I got to be a part of that.”
[Also, in case you didn’t click on the IJM Day link, check out the promo video that my talented Co-Chair made!!]