We choose our friends. We decide to hang out with certain people and not others. Our family, we are born into. Whether biologically related or adopted, we can’t decide who our parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts or uncles are. Then there is a group of people we come across that we aren’t born into but we don’t necessarily choose them.

That group is our volunteer family.

I am beyond fortunate to be able to grow up and give back to the children of my community with such an amazing group of people. We all choose to be apart of the organization and through that choice we all connected. The people come with the organization, but we didn’t choose the organization because of the people.

In this “family” it takes a lot of work to get things done and sometimes it is challenging to work together. We all have a lot of different opinions. We are all different ages, and we all have different pasts. However, we all have a common interest in motorcycles. But most importantly, we give up our own personal time to raise money for the local children.

I am beyond fortunate to be able to work with such amazing people. They are all so wiling to step up and help out and care endlessly about the kids. Most importantly, we have fun working together and making a difference.

Sometimes I look back on the events we hold and wonder how we are able to do it. We have held one of the biggest events in Montgomery County for 1,000 people and just recently held our first Christmas in July ride with about 200 people attending. Year after year our big fundraiser goes off without a hitch, just like this year’s ride did. I think all of us in the organization are amazed at how well we host our events.

We are all ordinary, hard working people with ordinary jobs. No one is a millionaire nor is anyone famous. But we manage to raise remarkable amounts of money through just one event. We are also to raise money throughout the year in other ways.

The tasks we challenge ourselves with are just that, challenges. We take on big feats and have to pay attention to a million of small details and we do it.

I am honored to be apart of Hogs and Honeys and the volunteer family the organization has created. They support me in the roles that I take and have helped me grow over the last few years. Many of the people have even supported me in life outside of the organization.

Every time I reflect on the group that we have, I am grateful. Grateful for the support they provide not only to me, but the other young kids that help in the organization and the other adults. I am grateful that they too are willing to work hard to help support the kids that our events benefit. It is humbling to see what these people do to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the kids. Most importantly, I am grateful that these people are apart of my life.

To my volunteer family, thank you. You are changing my life and together we are changing the lives of the kids.