The Story of "A Refugee Story: from Citizen to Castaway"

Have you ever run into somebody you haven't seen in over five years and they ask, "what have you been up to?" Typically, you just say "oh, ya know... nothin' much. How about yourself?" Later, you start asking yourself the same question - what have I done? Most people cover up their undertakings during face-to-face conversation, but have you ever thought what you could say? Maybe you'd ask yourself the following: "If I'm busy all of the time, what am I busy doing?"

A few months ago, I felt like I was just running in circles, doing work and school and scraping any remaining time with my friends. I'm not saying it was bad, but it wasn't remarkable to me. If you have a similar life to the one I had (and now have), I'm not saying your life isn't satisfying, I'm just explaining why I decided to make "A Refugee Story." I wanted to make a difference, albeit tiny one. Nevertheless I don't want to hide that my intent in writing this is to have people—YOU!—make a difference and do good as well.

Before school started in late August, I started working on a charity run created by students called Run4Refuge. I was intrigued by the idea that regular students could go out of their way to do something meaningful. I sought to turn my music background and business skills to make something that's never been done before, too. The idea was a benefit event would fill the people's demand for helping refugees at BYU. I started talking to people. One conversation led to the next and actions led to more actions. Before I knew it, BYU Humanitarian Club had approved the event, people had started volunteering, and we got speakers and musicians for the big night.

I spent 30-40 hours a week in the month and a half leading up to the event. It didn’t happen because of hard work alone, though. Clear to me, it happened because of dozens of small miracles. I wanted to give up about six times from beginning to end because of tough obstacles. To my surprise, every time I felt like giving up, another miracle would occur! For example, when we found out from BYUSA that we could not actually do the silent auction, which raised $465, I was considering eliminating the cultural fair completely. Then unexpectedly, 24 hours later, the BYUSA advisor over the event (who initially said it was impossible) called me and told me a unique way to still raise funds.

I'm convinced all the miracles came through other people. As the event drew closer, people would show up at the right time to fill in the necessary roles to make it succesful. Every type of volunteering included; i.e., booklets, musical performers, advertising, fundraising, organization, etc., I estimate that total volunteer time totaled to about 1,200 hours. Each hour made a significant difference. In the end, we raised almost $2,200 towards Lifting Hands International. 

My last takeaway from the event is really simple: people want to do good and make a big impact. I hope that my efforts showed them that making a difference is possible.