Attempting to post from my phone for the first time, and doing so while crossing the Chesapeake on a train nonetheless. I am actually just making assumptions about the Chesapeake; all I really know is that I am somewhere between Baltimore and Philadelphia, and if I miss one of the million of spelling errors I'm making, it's all the train's fault. Though it may make for a more interesting post if I left all the errors.
So how did I end up on a train anyways? Remember the big Pitt Marquette Challenge I posted about a few months ago? Well the winners were notified in May, and all the awardees were celebrated at APTA national convention in National Harbor yesterday. It was with great joy, excitement, and relief that we proudly walked across the stage at the awards ceremony to shake hands with the Physical Therapy Foundation president as we were announced as the first place school. As co-coordinators of this year's challenge (the challenge each year is named for and co-coordinated by the previous year's winner), we shared in speaking duties. I eagerly volunteered to speak, but I may have died a little inside when I came around th curtain at the ceremony and saw how many hundreds? Thousands? Of people were there. Eek. Not so much as a stutter though, and I made it on and off various stages in a strapless dress and some crazy heels with no mishaps; that's a win in my book!
We were there to have fun and celebrate though, so that we did. The real fun comes after the awards ceremony, at the gala dinner and dance. All the top winners are again recognized, but more importantly, the super secret totals are announced. Unfortunately, I forget the exact amount, but the total for this year's challenge was somewhere around $265,000! That brings the all time total to over $2 million dollars raised for the foundation by PT and PTA students. That's a phenomenal number coming from the work of students!
From Pitt's end of things, we took place with a total $56,800! That's a jump of nearly $17k from our winning total from lay year and a greatreflection of the tremendous amount of work we put in. That was a lot of late nights, and super early weekend mornings to get us ther, and I couldn't be more proud of my team of classmates and our accomplishments.
Now back to the gala. Starting last year, the foundation also began awarding a trophy cup to the first place team, awarded to each year's winner and engraved with the winning school's name. The cup had taken up residence at Pitt for the last year, and while we had to send it back to have the new winner engraved, we were happy to have it back with us last night!
The cup, imagine it as the Stanley Cup's itty bitty baby brother. When you have a cup though, the only obvious thing to do with it is, fill it with something to drink, dance with it over your head, and take lots of pictures. Pictures to come soon!
It should also be said that there was some fun smack talking coming in our direection at last year's gala, and I'll be honest guys, we were a little nervous. The night honored a great number of other schools that put out a phenomenal effort, an impressive 62 schools in all participated! A big congratulations as well to Sacred Heart University and Emory, who took home 2 nd and 3rd place respectively. And good luck to University of DelawAre I believe it was who couldn't keep their eyes off the cup and swear they will be chasing down the legacy next year.
For more information about the Pitt-Marquette Challenge:
Visit Pitt's site at www.pittmarquettechallenge.com
I promise more links and lots of fun pics when I get home!
Not on my way home though- who wants to guess where I am waking up tomorrow?
No comments:
Post a Comment