And the people we meet along the way.
In 2016, I was part of a host committee that volunteered our time for a year to plan and set up a conference, called WACYPAA, in Sacramento, over New Years weekend. I am purposefully being vague about what it was for. We planned events to make money to fund the conference, traveled up and down the West Coast — mostly from LA to PDX to outreach and spread the word about our conference (god that sounds so religious and culty, I promise it’s not religious — culty, maybe a little, but that’s a whole other post,) and visited other smaller and larger conferences, alike. Some of us traveled to the South, East Coast, etc. to outreach for this conference. We really put in the work to spread the word. We really put in the work to make this thing poppin’. All the planning, traveling, teamwork among a large diverse group of people in charge of various tasks. It was a year long job. But the most rewarding.
The conference came and it went — and it was beautiful. I cried due to the exhaustion — all that planning and driving and meeting new faces and staying up all night playing games and making friends. All that self sacrifice to show young people there’s hope for you too. I drove…
