One thing. That’s all it takes. Before the summer started, I found myself in a world turned upside down. I’m a rising senior at the University of Alabama, located in the beautiful Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a place that I have considered home for the past three years. Being a college native, I know that the common spring tornado warnings generally result in an afternoon thunderstorm. On April 27th, when my classes were cancelled for a tornado, I headed to my friends apartment for some pizza, movies, and pre-final studying while we waited out the storm. The next thing I can remember was being under a mattress in my friends back bed room, seeing a visual on the television I would never forget. According to James Spann, our local weather guru, a bigger than life tornado was headed towards the stadium, only a matter of feet away from where I was. The television, along with the power, dropped. The building was shaking, and my friends and I were holding hands, trying to talk each other through it, not really knowing if this was our last talk. Just as quickly as it happened, it was over. We walked outside to see our downtown on fire, and our main streets stripped bare. It hit me just as fast as it hit the 25,000 other students at the university. We need to make a difference; for ourselves, for our friends, for our town. iMADdu means making a vow to yourself, to do one thing, big or small, that will make a difference in someone’s life. Life changes in the blink of an eye, if we could all make a difference each day we are given, we can change the world.
