Location: Brunson (Milton) Math & Science Specialty
Elementary School
Date: Saturday, February 16, 2013; 9:50 am-11:30 pm
Like my adventures on Thursday,
today was going to be a busy day as well.
Besides a Chicago Cares project, I had signed up to volunteer for a
charity fund raising event, where not only was I going to help with the set up, but also work during the actual event in the evening.
When all was said and done, I expected to be back home after fourteen
hours of volunteer work. I really need
to get a pet or something!
For the third Saturday in a row,
I was headed towards a certain neighborhood.
This time it was back to Brunson Elementary School and I took a bus ride
to get there. While the sidewalks were
not as bad to walk on as the previous week, it was quite chilly and all I
wanted was to be inside the warm school.
Well, that was easier said than done, since I arrived to find a locked
door. There were other volunteers
waiting as well, but even though the clock said 9:50 am, there was no one to
let us in. Emily arrived with Sara and
finally the doors opened from inside and we were able to get away from the
chill.
 |
| What's 'Mardi Gras' without masks |
As we defrosted in the play room,
Emily told us that we would be making ‘Mardi
Gras’ masks. We received hand-outs
on ‘Mardi Gras’ and its significance,
how it is celebrated around the world as well as examples of some of the
colorful masks. Sara, who was going to
be taking over as a leader for this project, and Emily left to get some
supplies. That left me in the room with
other volunteers and it was very quiet. None
of us were talking with each other and we could almost hear the crickets. Finally, I said let get down to making some
of these mask and then, as some pressure had been released, everyone started
interacting. The first task was to cut
the mask templates from the printouts that Emily had provided; a job that
required some dexterity with the scissors.
I was maneuvering around the corners when the kids arrived.
Interestingly, we had only boys
today and one of them approached me and said “I know you”. I recognized
him as Arthur, from my science project last Saturday at Young Elementary. He was actually in another project and that
left us with even less number of children.
We all gathered around one big table and got down to making masks. I found myself sitting next to Kenneth, twin
to Jada, with whom I had worked during my previous visit. I asked him where she was and he said she was
visiting their cousins. It was a shame
for two reasons, one because I had enjoyed her company and two, it would have
been fantastic to have them side by side doing an arts project and comparing
and contrasting their designs.
Kenneth is an extremely well
behaved and polite boy. Not only was he
going about his work in a quiet way, he was very generous when it came to
sharing and on several occasions offered me his colors. I asked him about his family and learned that
they have two one year Pit bulls, a male and female. Are they brother and sister, someone asked
and we were all laughing when Kenneth replied, “No, boyfriend and girlfriend”.
I asked if he was responsible for one of them and he said yes, the
male. While he was answering all of my
questions, he was completely focused on his mask. For my part, I was going to town with the colors. After
all it was meant to be festive!
 |
| Sara's feathery creation |
.JPG) |
| Here's mine: Making sure I used all available colors! |
It was about that time when we
had to start cleaning up and once it was done the boys left, not before there
were some pictures with all of them in their masks. I looked at my creation and while it would never
start a trend, it would definitely make my office wall. Emily dropped me at the train station and as
I got back into downtown, I had no idea that the most frantic part of my day had not even begun.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy
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