By Carys Walter
Hope For New York is a coalition of kind and compassionate New Yorkers who are committed to seeing our city flourish. For over 30 years, we have partnered with nonprofits and churches to support vulnerable communities in need.
We now partner with 80+ nonprofits, including Back on My Feet, a national organization that empowers individuals experiencing homelessness and addiction to transform their lives through a running program that builds community. Hear one volunteer’s firsthand experience with Circle Ups, a program that brings people together to build discipline and community through running, walking, or jogging 1-3 miles on a regular schedule.
It doesn’t sound crazy, in the middle of an NYC summer, to join a running group that meets at 5:30 am. In fact, that’s an ideal time to run–the sun is just coming up, and the blistering heat/humidity combo has not quite set in. This is what I told myself when I saw the listing on Hope For New York’s volunteer page for a Morning Circle Up volunteer with Back on My Feet (BOMF). After a few weeks of fruitless searching for a way to volunteer in my neighborhood, I had finally turned to HFNY’s board for anything located in Brooklyn.
BOMF empowers individuals experiencing addiction and homelessness to build community through running or walking together three times a week. I figured, if I couldn’t do something for my literal neighbors, at least I could serve a community that was already important to me. After a long pep talk about how I could commit to one early morning a week, I signed up–only to receive an email that the Circle Up location was a 5-minute walk from home!
A year and a half later, I have learned a few things worth sharing. First, if 5:30 am feels early in the summer, it does not get better in January when it’s 18° and dark outside. Second, early mornings are a wonderful equalizer–everyone is similarly disheveled and ready to start moving so they can finish in time for a morning coffee. Third, sharing activities and goals across participants removes the apparent distinctions between volunteers and members. This last one requires a little bit of explanation, but it is the core reason why I love BOMF.
A few weeks ago, we gathered in Central Park for our annual run to the Rockefeller tree. Every Circle Up group in NYC was represented there by a mixture of volunteers and members—it’s one of the few times a year we all see one another. Amidst all of the new faces, it was impossible to tell who was what kind of participant. Everyone shared, with equal vulnerability, something they were grateful for; then, we came together to say the same Serenity Prayer and run the same route.
By running and walking together, there is no sense that one group is serving and the other group is being served. This is the unique joy of BOMF. Some members are better runners than volunteers, some volunteers are happier to be awake in the morning than others, and so on. Together, we highlight our humanness as we bear the image of God and learn how we equally need one another to grow and become transformed.
Carys Walter is the Operations and Executive Coordinator at Avail NYC.
Interested in volunteering with Back on My Feet? Request information today!
