By Wil Crews
sportscrews@
opelikaobserver.com
Regional Director of H&S Commercial and Industrial Services, Raven Harvis, has been selected as an ambassador for the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama.
“I’m extremely excited,” Harvis said of the honor. “To me, it’s so refreshing. Especially coming off of a pandemic year where we had so many things that divided us, made us go into our homes and not be together. Then to have the World Games so close to us to bring the whole world together is something I’m excited to be a part of.”
H&S has offices in Birmingham, Opelika, Mobile and two in Mississippi. Harvis, who has served as regional director at H&S since 2008, works in Opelika but said she was selected as ambassador because of the business’s deep-rooted connections to the Iron City.
“We do quite a bit of business in Birmingham and are a part of their business community as well,” Harvis said. “So, just like in Opelika, we reach out to the community and try to see how we can give back. We were identified as one of the companies that was connected to the community in Birmingham, so they wanted to have representation, I think, of some of the people who were giving back already.”
Harvis is one of just 40 to 45 ambassadors to receive the honor.
“Everywhere I go I make sure to represent Opelika, and the committee is excited to have someone from east Alabama represented,” she said.
The World Games is an 11-day celebration held in the year following the Summer Olympic Games, representing the highest level of competition for more than 3,600 international athletes and 30 plus unique sports.
“It’s going to be a lot of things that are not like typical sporting events, but I think it will be super fun to watch,” Harvis said.
She and her fellow ambassadors attended their first meeting on March 18, learning more about the ins-and-outs of the games. In her role as ambassador, Harvis said she will be working in hospitality.
“They broke us into committees and we were able to kind of pick our subcommittees and what we were going to focus on,” Harvis said. “I love being hospitable, so of course I wanted to work with hosting the hospitality events for the VIP’s and also helping to promote the world games throughout the state of Alabama.”
The 2022 World Games will take place from July 7-17, 2022. The event will feature competitions in a wide range of unorthodox sports, each falling under an umbrella of either Athletic Sports, Ball Sports, Martial Arts, Precision Sports, Strength Sports and Trend Sports. From tug-of-war to sumo wrestling, the World Games brings together an eclectic group of international athletes to perform a spectacle that anyone can enjoy. Harvis said she is looking forward to one competition in particular herself.
“This is a guilty pleasure, but I have never seen anybody do artistic roller skating,” she said. “So I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes.”
Overall, Harvis is grateful for the opportunity to be an ambassador and encourages everyone in Alabama to realize the scope of this event and to support it like so.
“I think the one thing I would want the public to know, when we have historic events just like when we had the Olympics in Atlanta, when we have things like this so close to us, it’s so important for us to support it and be a part of that history because we don’t know when opportunities like that will come back around again.”
For tickets: www.twg2022.com/tickets/
For more information: https://twg2022.com/sports/#.