In case you haven’t heard, there’s a big ole sportsball game coming to Houston. Yep. The Super Bowl (the 51st one if anyone’s counting) will be hosted by Houston in our darling NRG Stadium on February 5, 2017. Over one MILLION people are estimated to travel to Houston for the event.

That’s going take a lot of work and man power to pull an event of this grandeur off. In fact, the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee has been planning for the “Big Game” (Disclaimer: I hate I when they call it that) since 2013 when they announced that Houston would be the host city. In order to ensure that every visitor that rolls into Houston has the best time evaaaa, the Host Committee has been in the process of selecting 10,000 volunteers to assist around the city and “be the face of Houston.”

Yep. You read that correctly. 10K. Ten thousand humans. That’s a lot of zeros. To me that sounds like a whooooleeee lot of people, but for the head volunteer coordinator, that’s nothing. He was in charge of the London Olympics where they apparently had 100,000 volunteers.

Anyways, the company that I work at in real life (yeah, sadly I’m not a glamorous full-time blogger) is one of the sponsors of the Host Committee. No, we’re not a sponsor of the game–that’s the NFL. And no, we don’t get tickets to the game (that would be like 15% of the stadium!!). So naturally having no idea what exactly this event is going to entail, I signed up to be a volunteer. Because #IHeartHou

I applied over the summer, got an interview a few weeks later, and last Saturday morning I found myself entering the Houston Host Committee headquarters in downtown Houston. The Committee has taken over some office space on Main Street and transformed it into a volunteer’s headquarters. There’s photo booths, quotes and fun facts about Houston lining the walls, a plush green carpet designed to look like a football field, and 20+ interviewing stations for volunteers.

Over 17,000 people applied to be a volunteer and were interviewed in this space. Once I checked in, a volunteer took my picture for my ID and then lead a group of us through the space giving us time to read Super Bowl history facts (I nailed the Beyoncé half-time show questions), watch a hype video about Houston, and learn why Houston is the ideal place for such a big event. Then we were led upstairs, greeted by an interviewer and led to a cubical station. We were asked six questions ranging from our proudest moments to our ability to work in teams. I almost got hung up on the first question: “Do you like football?” Uhhhhh. Luckily, the question continued to be “or Houston?” To which I clearly had a wildly passionate answer for–I’ve written nearly 200 blog posts about that topic in the past two years. So yeah, I’m kind of a fan.

After the interview, we got sized for uniforms and got to sign the “Make Your Mark” board. I think the boards are going to be on display at Discover Green later in the year–so be sure to check the out and search for the It’s Not Hou It’s Me shout out!

I’m happy to say that a few days later I got a congratulatory email accepting me into the Host Committee volunteer corps and inviting me to the volunteer kick-off at Toyota Center later in October. Rumor has it, the volunteer uniforms are siiiiick and they’re going to announce them at that event! I also hope they give us an idea of what our volunteer jobs might entail. I’ve signed up for 6+ shifts in the Downtown area and will be working the week leading up to the game (January 7- February 5).

It’s going to be AWESOME. Stay tuned for more blog posts about being part of this incredible moment in Houston’s history!

If you’re interested in becoming part of this historic experience in Houston, as of earlier this week 9/25 the applications are still open! Click here to apply and learn more.