It’s been a while since I last updated this blog and not to say I’ve been super busy but I have had a lot on my plate.

Anybody who knows me knows I can be pretty vocal thus public speaking should come naturally. Wrong! I get so nervous to the point my hands shake and I start to talk at high speed.

However, in the career field I am in, public speaking is an everyday task. Take for instance last night when my supervisor gave me the opportunity to speak on behalf of Big Brothers Big Sisters at a NAHSE meeting.

We were at the Outpatient Center of Johns Hopkins University amongst health services executives. Everyone was either in a suit and tie or business dresses with heels. It was kind of intimidating. There was an array of catered food laid out, but I stayed away from it. When you have butterflies running all through your stomach, its kind of hard to eat.

After a few small talk conversations here and there, I walked up to the podium and gave my plea for mentors. I don’t know why but in the beginning I started talking about myself. I guess it was supposed to be an introduction but somehow it included my age and other irrelevant information.

Fighting through my nervousness, I finally got to the essence of my message. For the most part I knew my audience. I knew they were all professionals so it was no need to reiterate Baltimore City’s statistics on education and crime amongst our youth. We’ve all watched and heard about it on the news. We know there’s a need for volunteers in every non profit agency.

Therefore instead of talking about the negatives, I really wanted to remind them about that special person in their life that served as their mentor. Maybe it was a parent, a family member, a teacher or an athletic coach. I then had them think about all the kids that don’t have that special person in their life. 

That was my message. The community of children we serve don’t have a parent to give them the love and support they need, a teacher willing to devote extra time and probably aren’t enrolled in an extracurricular program to have that support from an athletic coach.

And that’s where mentors come in. I told them that we can’t always rely on that invisible person to take care of the very problems that exist in our own neighborhoods. We can’t ignore the problems facing our youth of tomorrow. We need real people like you.

At this point I was so happy I finally got my message across. I gave one last plea and told them that Baltimore City needs them and returned to my seat.

There were a lot of things I left out in my speech but it was definitely a learning experience. Moments like this really make me love my job 🙂