Glitter & The Girly Girl: Dream Bigger

There is a guy that sits on this ledge in a pretty prime spot on campus with a white board that has a quote written on it at least once a week. He reportedly used to attend Emporia, but does not anymore. I had him in a class my freshman year, but word on campus is that he does not actually attend classes anymore. He is known to some as the “Free Hugs” guy, but he never really talks to anyone as they pass by. He just sits there with his board with a quote he jotted down on it for the day. The first quote he had this school year was, “If your dreams don’t scare you enough, then you need to dream BIGGER!” This confirmed to me that I needed to stop thinking about blogging about the need to dream bigger and actually do it!

This whole idea of dreaming bigger came to me as I was standing in the admissions office by my desk last spring. I had just found out that BUILD Beauty would be expanding and becoming official at K-State. It was just a week or two after Easter when my aunt had asked me if I wanted to expand it to other colleges eventually. I decided then when I replied to her that I was going to make it a goal for it to happen before I graduated college. Here I was a sophomore and it was already happening. That’s when I thought I needed to dream bigger.

Last year I had come back from the CASE ASAP conference in Nashville with ideas galore that I wanted to make happen at ESU. I made a board of all my ideas that I even decorated with glitter of course and I presented it to our executive board in hopes that some of these ideas could actually happen. I had some success getting the Pay It Forward program going, but there was another idea I was really excited about that didn’t get to happen. It was the T-Shirt exchange. We had managed to get a little funding for it, but not enough, so it was put on the back burner for the rest of the year. A few days before retreat, our adviser called and told me that we would have money for it this year and she wanted us to decide on it at the retreats that week so we could get them ordered and ready to go by the first football game which was August 30^th. It was decided we would try it out and the shirts were ordered a week before we needed them to start doing the exchange two days before the big game. They arrived the day before we needed them!

We ordered 500 shirts. 100 would be used Tuesday in the Memorial Union, the same for Wednesday and then another 100 would be used before the game at our tailgating area. We encouraged students to bring in a shirt from another college and they could swap it out for an ESU shirt. If they didn’t have that or didn’t want to give up their shirt, they could buy one for $5. On the first day in Memorial Union, we started at 10am and we were down to just 4 shirts by 12:30pm. We ended up with a full box of t-shirts and made a good amount of money! The second day all 100 shirts were gone by 12:00pm! We decided to take 150 shirts to the game and got rid of almost all of the shirts then as well. It was really successful overall and it got a lot of people talking. The shirts will be donated to shelters in Emporia which makes it a win-win for everyone. It warms my heart that it is also for a good cause too.

It was cool to see it come to life and see students wearing these shirts to class, around campus, and to the football game. I thought back to the poster in which I had the idea decorated with glitter and now here it was happening before my eyes.

Emporia State has really shown me that you can make dreams come true. You need to put in some work, have trust in your team, have faith that it will turn out okay and don’t give up! You have to take chances, ask questions, and speak up. Sometimes you have to take the imitative if you want to see it happen. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to do all the things I have been doing. I am going to continue to dream bigger and expand myself even more. Dreams can be small, such as the T-shirt exchange. It is not a dream like becoming the first woman president. It is fine to have small dreams that can be achievable because man does it feel good when you do achieve them. Now I am not saying you can’t dream to be the first woman president. This whole blog is about dreaming BIG! If that is what you want to chase after, then start running! I just want to let you know that you can have dreams whether they are big or small and you don't need to be a certain age. My mom is now making bags and selling them at a dance studio. It is neat to see them as she makes them at home and then see them hang on the rack at the studio to be bought! Anything is possible. They are still dreams, they are still yours, and it will feel great when they come true for you. They can happen, you just need to chase after them!

Sparkle & Shine,

Rachel