Live for 175 Blog: Day 1

The words child abuse can be some of the scariest words to ever come into casual conversation. After recognizing this affected my family directly, I think of these words in a different way. Child abuse has helped me see the inspiring strength that others have. To most, the word hero resembles some kind of superhero who defeats evil and saves the world. To me, that definition describes three of my family members to a tee. By overcoming domestic violence and sexual abuse, these three have inspired me with their stories and unbelievable strength.

As my attempt to understand and learn more about the inspiring strength of victims of childhood abuse, I have asked Keke Luv if I could follow him around and document Live for 175 on this blog. My goal is to get inspired, gain understanding, and hopefully help others and myself understand the mission behind the message, “It shouldn’t hurt to be a child”, that is if anyone reads this besides my mom.

Day 1:

After helping set up for the event starting at 6:30 am, I was already exhausted by 10 am when the event actually started. In case you didn’t know, for a 23-year college student waking up before the sun rises is an extremely difficult challenge.  Before the event even started, there were people lined up at the registration tent. From that point on, I realized this is going to be a very long week.

Before the event, I interviewed KeKe to try and get a better understanding of the event. One question I was absolutely dying to know was how he builds trust with his listeners for them to open up to him. He said it all started with one story. According to Keke the first year of Live for 175, they had a pretty quick first couple days. On day three a woman called in complete tears and explained her situation and from then on it was a domino effect.

Keke explained to me that people want to share their stories because they hear other people’s stories on the radio and realize they aren’t alone. He said, “The reason our message, It shouldn’t hurt to be a child, is so powerful is because it’s real. There’s no script, these stories are people’s real lives.”

On day one, I got to see first hand how powerful and real this message is.  With groups of people biking for three hours at a time and people sharing their stories, I’m ready to see what else this week has in store for me.