On Sunday, October 1st, from 7:15 a.m. to 1:15 p.m., 13 members from the AYLUS Roslyn Branch joined the 1,500+ volunteers at the 2023 New York City Triathlon in Manhattan.
At the beginning of the race, Athletes had the option to drop off clothing bags which were transported to the Finish Line for them to pick up after the race. Our assigned shift was to cooperate with the volunteer captain to help with finish area clothes pick-up.
Members met at the Clothing Pick Up area near the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park early in the morning. Before the trucks arrived, some members started unpacking and organizing the medals for athletes at another station that was short of volunteers. Then, we all helped unload boxes of clothing bags from the four clothing trucks. There were hundreds of bags with bags that had numbers on them, ordered from 100-4000. After we finished unloading, we organized the bags and the cardboard boxes in numerical order so that they were easier to find. After the athletes crossed the finish line, we were able to quickly locate their clothing bags and give back their belongings. Members got lots of compliments from the athletes and other volunteers because of how efficient we were. For example, one athlete said, “Getting this back so fast is the REAL prize!” As we emptied the cardboard boxes, we folded them and helped the park personnel load them into trollies so that they could be recycled. Finally, we cleaned up the Clothing Pick-Up area, putting the fences away, stowing the chairs and tables, and picking up garbage on the ground.
Members that participated include:
Leah Chan (6 hours), Philip Chan (6 hours), Elyse Jin (6 hours), Kacie Li (6 hours), Angeline Li (5 hours), Letao Tao (6 hours), Isabelle Tsui (6 hours), Natalie Tsui (6 hours), Zihan Wang (6 hours), Serena Wu (6 hours), Michael Zhang (6 hours), Katelyn Zheng (6 hours), Jolina Wu (6 hours), Kayden Li (6 hours), and Leo Zheng (6 hours).
Reporter: Leo Zheng
