Yes, Another Story About How November Project Changed My Life
Dear Mr. Vogel,
I’ve never lived in Washington, DC. I’ve never run the Lincoln Memorial stairs. In fact, my only real memories of seeing the Lincoln Memorial are from an 8th grade school trip from a small town in Washington State to the nation’s capital to learn about the history of this country. How quintessentially American.
And the beauty of this story is precisely in that fact: I’ve never run with November Project DC, but they’ve changed my life. And the lives of thousands of others.
My story (for these purposes) begins in Boston. I graduated from Northeastern University with a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. A fantastic school, a terrific college degree, and a promising future. I moved to sunny San Diego as a 23 year old to begin that life. Like most post-collegiate students (even way back then in 2009), I struggled. For me, the career came easily. But the friendships, the relationships, and finding my place in this world did not.
It was 2013 when I first began to see November Project Boston pop up on my Facebook news feed.I immediately knew this was something I had to do, despite knowing almost nothing about it. Come September 2013 the city of San Diego was pledging to have it’s own November Project chapter, with myself at the helm.
Talk about life changing. A quiet, introverted, reserved, and very self conscious girl, here I was hoping to someday have 40 people show up to one of my workouts (and not pee my pants out of fear while leading them).
We stand here in San Diego almost three years later. A wish of 40 people turned into close to 200. 200 people on any given Monday or Wednesday that will wake up before the majority of the rest of the world to hug, to smile, and to sweat.
Coinciding with my journey here in San Diego was the journey of November Project DC. See, we both began to “pledge” at the same time. Along with Denver, we were cities number 5, 6, and 7. Those pledging leaders became some of my best friends, with this shared experience, despite living thousands of miles away.
In three years I’ve seen people get engaged (literally at workouts), tribe members get diagnosed with (and go through treatment for) cancer, pregnant women become mothers (and bring their babies to workouts), 80 year old men run alongside 20 year olds, countless active duty military men and women get deployed and come back months later to a open and welcoming community waiting for them, and so much more. I myself fell in love with a man that I met because he started the November Project Los Angeles, and this shared passion for community (and fitness) brought us together.
What’s astounding to me is that these are simply the stories of San Diego. The same stories happen in Denver, and DC, and the 26 other tribes across the world. And they don’t just happen occasionally, they happen every single week.
We live in an America where people are more disconnected than ever. They are fearful and often divided. Yet at November Project that doesn’t exist. I’ve seen thousands of people from all walks of life use this community to come together when tragedy strikes (from a tribe member’s parent dying to the Boston Marathon bombings, to Orlando), to mourn together, to love together, and to use each other to move forward. And I’ve seen them use November Project to celebrate together the memories of the past, the successes of the present, and the hopes of the future — of themselves, of their city, of this country, and of the world.
And in the end, I have to believe this is what our founding fathers (like Lincoln himself) had hoped for the American people and that they would indeed be proud.
“I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” — Abraham Lincoln
Lauren Padula
co-founder, November Project San Diego