Strides4kidz- One Coach's Effort to Make a Difference

Longwood University's Assistant Women's Soccer Coach, Svetozar "Steve" Brdarski, has started his very own charity with support from his team and his friends. Brdarski wants to make a difference and be remembered for something great much like the inspiration for the group Sgt. Andrew McConnell who passed away in September 2009. Brdarski described him as "a great young man who served his family, friends and country everyday of his life." In a message sent out to all the members of the Strides4kidz Facebook group, Brdarski stated that at Sgt. McConnell's "it was said that ‘one’s life is not judged by the duration, but by the donation you give to life’. Sgt. McConnell and this idea inspired Brdarski to do something more with his life, to give back, and to help children in need.

He wants this to "continue to be a driving force in [his] life and other people's lives." The group's mission is explained in more detail in an article I wrote for Longwood University's campus newspaper, The Rotunda. Since this article the group's membership has jumped to 480 and more concrete plans have been made for the Shamrock Marathon coming up on March 20 in Virginia Beach. Brdarski is looking forward to this event and is asking that even "if you can’t run or donate, don’t worry. Feel free to come down to Va. Beach and join the rest of the group that will be down." He has plans to interact with the kids there and he hopes to "be giving out free T-shirts."

The marathon is going to be raising money for the VCU Children's Medical Center. Shira Cantor, public relations coordinator for the medical center, stated that "this is the first year they have done the marathon to benefit us." All money raised for Strides4kidz will be going directly to the medical center. Brdarski explained,

"I want every single penny to go to whoever we’re trying to help. The good thing about the race coming up is that I’m not even touching the money."

All money raised in the name of Strides4kidz from now until the marathon is going to the VCU Children's Medical Center. Once the race is over another child or group of children in need will be selected as the focus of the group. Brdarski told the group, "The most important thing is to think about the lil' people ... If there is a situation or someone you know that needs help, please tell me so that we can get information out to the group."

Brdarski and Ashlee McConnell, a former member of the women's soccer team and Longwood University alum, are working to sell the T-shirts with the logo shown above displayed on the front. Brdarski is "currently looking for a business sponsor for the shirts, so that all the money can be donated to VCU Children’s Hospital."

On top of running in other organizations' marathons, Brdarski would like to set up his own Strides4kidz marathon at Longwood University. He has considered "doing a 5k on campus in [Sgt. McConnell's] honor for the ROTC program" but no plans have been set as of yet. "The second thing I want to do is to get Longwood students to go to the YMCA and work with the after school athletic programs [and] eventually I'd like to set up a race for kids in this area.” He stated that he wants to help the kids in the local community as much as he wants to help kids all over the world. Brdarski has big plans for the fledgling charity and he wants everyone to get on board, including children. He's asking that "if you've got kids bring them to the race ... that's who I want to see there."

One goal that Brdarski hopes to see accomplished is that children can "eventually say that 'Strides4kidz really helped me out whether it be that Strides4kidz put me on the right path or gave me the attention I needed to get confidence in myself or helped me pay my medical bills so I could get on with my life.'" He strongly believes that this charity is not only about raising money because, he explains,

"Money helps in a lot of situations but so can your time and energy."

He wants this charity to help children financially but to also do something for them individually. The Facebook group should be looked at like an open forum, Brdarski stated, where people can get on there and post about children in need so that Strides4kidz can work to find a way to help.

Interested in helping out? Go to Facebook and search Strides4kidz.

Social Construction & Ignorance

"For most Whites, to think about what it means to be White is itself a radical move" (Cooks, 2003).
How would you describe yourself? What are some important characteristics that you would list about yourself if you had to write them all down? Take a minute and think about this. Make your list. What did you come up with? Did you include your race in this list? If you're white, you probably didn't even consider it. In fact, you probably never consider your race unless something outwardly brings it to your attention. And a white person rarely considers what it means to be white in this country. Race, even though it is socially constructed, meaning that society decides what race means or stands for, plays a huge role in how we see people and treat them. Society puts the focus on whites as being the "better" race and the one's deserving of more than others. To not be white is to not be part of the norm. The unprivileged groups get largely ignored since this is a white centered nation. Black people get one month out of the year to focus on them and whites get the rest. The privilege that comes with being male, nondisabled, heterosexual, and white has nothing to do with these characteristics in and of themselves. It has everything to do with the way society views them through these social constructions. In order to understand inequality we must first see our own privilege and we must see privilege as an issue instead of hiding behind it. Whites hide behind this privilege whether consciously or not. Being able to ignore one's race is a privilege and the only time that whites usually consider their privilege or their race at all is when something happens to bring it to their attention. Something just like that happened last week at the Longwood Men's Basketball game. It was Greek night and a large crowd had gathered to cheer on the team. A player on the visiting team was being a bit obnoxious on the court and calling attention to himself but when he missed a foul shot the crowd decided to let him know that he was noticed. A group of young men began making sounds like monkeys in this player's direction and no one in the crowd or on the court did anything to stop this outright racism. Our silence added to this racist act because we did nothing. We chose to ignore this. But I'm willing to bet that the young man on the court wasn't able to ignore it. Our ignorance adds to the societal view that whites have privilege. I'm sure that everyone would agree that these men in the crowd were in the wrong and should not have done this, but why did they think they could in the first place? Because they knew they could get away with it? Because they knew they could hide behind their privilege and claim that they didn't mean anything by it? This is unacceptable behavior and I hate that myself, my peers, and everyone else in that building didn't do anything to stop it. That was inequality in our faces and we did nothing. Why?
"Although most scientists agree that race is socially constructed, people still act on race as if it were natural" (Cooks, 2003).

Cooks, L. (2003). Pedagogy, Performance, and Positionality: Teaching about Whiteness
in Interracial Communication. Communication Education, 52(3/4), 245-257. http://search.ebscohost.com, doi:10.1080/0363452032000156226

Ableism Showing up at Longwood

A large amount of snow fell this weekend here in Farmville, VA. The campus of Longwood University is still covered under the snow and many sidewalks are still treacherous. I know because I've slipped several times just walking to and from class. On Monday the school opted to have a short delay and open up for classes starting at ten. The sidewalks were in a much worse condition than they are now and were slowly being cleaned up. I'm not bashing the staff and volunteers who came out to do the big job of shoveling all that snow because I know how hard of a job that is and campus has a lot of sidewalks to try to uncover, especially since the snow had just stopped coming down on Saturday evening. Now, I'm not complaining just because classes weren't cancelled and I didn't want to get out of bed. I'm complaining because of how ableism showed up here at Longwood on that icy morning.

As a nondisabled person I had very little trouble besides maybe a few slips here and there getting to and from class, but what about those who are disabled? Who was concerned about them when classes started and the sidewalks weren't clear? Who was concerned about their wheelchairs not being able to make it up a hill or through the icy patches? It seems to me that no one considered them in the decision to keep school open. If I'm wrong and there was a plan for disabled students to be able to get to class then please tell me. But as far I can tell from the stories I've heard there was no such plan. Rumors tell me that a student in a power chair got stuck and had to be physically carried into a building. My professor of Sociology, Dr. Milne, said today that it was kind of that person to help out but why did they have to? He also pointed out something that I hadn't considered: The nondisabled students got an unearned privilege on Monday which is something that some lazy college students may not look at as a privilege but on that day even the laziest nondisabled student had the privilege of physically being able to make it to class one step at a time all on their own.

This unequal treatment for the disabled by the nondisabled is ridiculous. What should the University have done in order to help these students? Maybe for starters they should have considered the condition of the sidewalk before telling students to go to class when not ALL students had an equal chance to get there. Now some could argue that the students who had to drive to campus in the mess were in a predicament too or that those who had to walk to class could have trouble also. But mind you, the unequal treatment that I'm talking about here has to do with the fact that nondisabled commuters and students had many more options of how to get to class than those students who are confined to wheelchairs.

Ignoring our privilege is easy because we don't feel like we have to deal with it for many different reasons. As nondisabled people, we can choose to consider our disability or the disability of others. Taken from Allan Johnson's book entitled "Privilege, Power, and Difference" he points out that "nondisabled people can choose whether to be conscious of their disability status or to ignore it and regard themselves simply as human beings." On that day, when the snow and ice still covered many walkways the nondisabled students got to see themselves simply as students who could go to class or leave their building with very little consideration of their disability status.

Sometimes facing inequality makes us uncomfortable or feel guilt but that won't help the situation. We must face inequality and our own dominance in society in order to ever have a chance of getting things evened out.