Bringing Home the Cup

I didn't wake up until 11:18 this morning.  I'm still debating whether I should be happy or embarrassed about that, but I clearly needed the sleep.  I deserved it after this week too, especially with the success of our course yesterday!

I am part of a small group of students in my PT program that plan, organize, and host continuing ed courses for practicing clinicians.  Continuing Ed courses are a licensing requirement for PTs so we bring in speakers from around the country (who are usually awesome, by the way) to help educate.  But, that's not even the best part.

All of the money that is raised through the courses (which is a lot!), goes directly to the Foundation for Physical Therapy.  They, in turn, provide money through scholarships and grants to help support research in the profession.

So where does the fun come in?  Well, raising money has become a huge nationwide competition between over 80 schools, known as the Marquette Challenge.  Marquette University started the competition back in the 80s, but let's be honest, we've kind of dominated things here in Pittsburgh!  Competition is healthy when it's for a good cause, right? 

Each year, the challenge is renamed for the school that raised the most money and won the previous year's competition.  This year, it's the Pittsburgh-Marquette Challenge since we WON last year.  Coincidentally, we've also won most previous years and you best believe we are on a quest to do it again this year!

Hopefully we'll be bringing the cup back to Pittsburgh after the big Gala in June.

So that's why I was tired.  I spent a countless amount of time this week arranging for food, shopping for supplies, making nametags, and printing enough papers and forms that I probably killed an entire forest.  All that on top of worrying that I was going to forget something entirely.  Everything went wonderful though, and it was a win-win-win for all.

Now, on to the next course!