"You don't come to watch it, you come to feel it!"

Today, Zeta had an early call to volunteer at the Philadelphia Marathon.  As a growing chapter, we were pleased that we had enough volunteers to fill not one, but two teams!  We had Zeta represented by passing out water to runners at the 8 mile mark as well as the finish line.

MIT Team at the mile 8!

Almost our entire MIT class attended.  For many of them, working the Philly Marathon was one of their first big project with the whole chapter.  We were happy to have them along and thankful to have the extra hands!

By the time our shift ended, we were less than 4 hours into the race, which meant the people that we handed water to had impressive times.  One girl that stopped to replenish at the end of the race was sobbing with joy. "I did it! I can't believe it, I did it!"  Seeing her overwhelmed with pride was very touching.

And not only did Zeta cheer on all the random runners, we had a very special runner in our heart.  Zeta's own President, Isabel, started training for the half marathon months ago.  Great to see all your hard work paid off, Madame President!

Zeta cheers on Isabel!

Many of the runners thanked us for coming out to volunteer as we handed them their cups.  Even with our two teams, we were only a few among 3,000 volunteers.  As our chapter exists right in the heart of Philadelphia, being involved in community service projects to give back to our city is a huge strength in Zeta's service.

Our team at the finish line