Friendship.

Describe a friendship that you've had or do have at this point in your life.

Darrel Phong
Pacs 1 Sect 27
Friendship

March 7th, 2009. It seemed insignificant at the time. College applications were done. Summer was still 4 months away. Senior year was boring. I was coasting through life with no direction. And I was thrown into the conference room at the Orange County Chapter of the Red Cross with a room full of virtual strangers. This was the group of people I would spend the next seven months with, having only one thing in common, our love for the Leadership Development Center. We all had applied for the position of “staff” in January. We were the only ones excited when the applications came out in December. We were the select few that made it back after going through the camp as “delegates”. I know for me personally, I was excited to come back just so that I could have an impact on a delegate’s life, like it did for me. What coming back turned out to be, though, was an experience of a life time. Little did I know, that for the next seven months, I would meet my best friends in a place we thought of as a home away from home that we would eventually spend more time at than our actual homes.
The beginning was a bit awkward. People could tell right off the bat who was new to staffing and who was a seasoned veteran, but it didn’t keep us from getting close. It started off with simple AIM conversations and Facebook posts. From there it flourished into something greater. As the days progressed, and camp began to materialize into something tangible, we had gone through over 200+ hours of service together, not including the time we spent outside of the Chapter. We laughed. We cried. We frustrated each other. And never could I imagine giving them up for something more. By the time camp came, we had become a family. Inside jokes galore and plenty of support for one another got us through nights where we would get about 1 hour of sleep.
Every time I see someone or something that reminds me of the staff from LDC 2009, it brings nothing but happiness to my face. Every time I pass the Sesame Street aisle, the unflushed toilet, the sleepless nights, everything just seems to tie back to camp. The bonds built during this past summer have embedded roots that run deeper than just the summer because there will never be another Staff of LDC 2009, we are it. Every single workday and training since March 7th our liaison would always tell us when something needed to be done or we freak out about something, “it’s a non issue”. Now that we’ve moved on and I don’t get to see everyone everyday, I feel like sometimes we begin to separate. But every now and then, “it’s a non-issue” would reverberate in my head, and I can’t help but smile and move on. March 7th didn’t seem significant back then. It seems like an eternity ago. Little did I know that those strange faces I saw as I took that first step into the conference room would be the faces that I missed the most when camp was over, and I moved on to Pacific.




Leadership Development Center 2009. Dare to Dream.

til next time guys.
take care.