Location: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
Date: Tuesday, May 14, 2013; 6:00-8:00 pm
My only visit to The Leukemia and
Lymphoma Society had been my very first project with One Brick. So while it wasn’t quite the prodigal son
returning, it felt good to be back where it had all begun. As I arrived at the location, my first
problem was finding the right door to enter.
Once that minor hurdle was crossed, I ran into a security guard who was
determined to perform his duty to the extreme and refused to let either me or
other volunteers through, till someone from the Leukemia Society came down to
find us. Now this is good on principle
and a policy followed by many buildings in the city. But the problem I had was that the gentleman
refused to call the offices himself, and wanted us to do so. This meant that I had to locate the number
from One Brick email that Laura - our EM - had sent and after reaching the
voicemail a couple of times, Regina from the society came down. We went upstairs and besides Laura, there
were other familiar faces like Amanda, Dianna, April and Jake.
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| The green bags |
Our task tonight was to stuff
goody bags for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s upcoming Grand Finale Gala of
the ‘Man and Woman of the Year Campaign’. According to the project description on One
Brick website, ‘Every year candidates
throughout the country accept the challenge to vie for the title of Man &
Woman of the Year. After ten weeks of campaigning, the announcement of the Man
& Woman of the Year is announced among community supporters at the Grand
Finale Celebration. During year following the Finale, the Man & Woman of
the Year winners are profiled in local press, advertisements, and other
announcements. Pediatric Honored Heroes are asked to participate as our local
Boy & Girl of the Year, to motivate and encourage the candidates and their
supporters to help in Creating a World Without Cancer’. There was a long table in the center of the
room and we would be walking around it, filling a green bag with things such
as, Chicago magazine, some gift vouchers for places such as 'Paris Club' brunch
and some winery, pen and notepad, water bottle, shoe horn, letter opener, beer
sleeve, nail polish and a protein bar. Some
of the items were at our discretion - such as choosing between either a letter
opener or a beer sleeve - but the rest was just a mechanical job and all we had
to ensure, was not tripping over a wire connecting the TV to the wall plug
point. I was about to mention that
Wilson would call that a hazard and lo and behold, the man showed up!
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| The nail polish |
We all gave Wilson a hard time
for being late, but he had just wrapped up the AIC program and had rushed
here. Since we were just going around
the table over and over, we did not have much of a choice but to converse; not
that it was a chore since everyone is quite friendly, especially Amanda. I hadn't see her in some time, but we caught
up about all that we had been up to and since we both love Classic movies,
chatted about the greats of Hollywood like Jimmy Stewart, Bogart, Cary Grant
and Billy Wilder. I can talk about movies till the cows come home with a fellow aficionado and we could have talked for hours
about movies like, ‘Philadelphia Story’,
‘Sunset Boulevard’, Some Like It Hot’ and ‘Double Indemnity’. Wilson
knew all of these and got in the conversation as well. Seriously, when does he have the time?
I chatted with April and learned
that she was going to volunteering at ‘Chicago
Green Festival’ this coming Sunday, something that I had signed up for as well. Laura mentioned that I was going to get
trained as an Event Coordinator soon by Polly, who leads One Brick Recruitment
and Training program. That was happening
a week from Thursday, the same evening that my building was having a patio party
with Cuban themed menu and drinks. I
told Laura that such was my commitment to One Brick that I was giving up
Mojito’s and Cuban sandwiches for something called ‘Coffee With Polly!’ We were
still going round and round and I asked Wilson to keep track of how much we had
walked that evening. As I put the
nail polish in the same gift bag as a men’s shoe horn, something didn't add up
and I said both things couldn't possibly be useful to one person at which
Wilson replied, “It’s for their
significant other”. Of course! How
silly of me.
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| All filled up |
Wilson’s arrival did help speed
the process because he was trying to fill two bags at the same time and when we
ran out of water bottles, rather than removing one at a time, he just cut the
bottom of the box and removed 20 at the same time by lifting the box around the
bottles. We talked about some upcoming
One Brick projects including some which involved Beer and Wine, not that we as
volunteers would be eligible to drink during our duty hours. As we went around the table, soon we started
running out of some things such as pens and then shoe horns and then water
bottles etc. Regina told us to put whatever
was available, but soon it was apparent that we would just be left with the
magazine and nail polish! We called it a
day for the bags and instead started putting the bags inside boxes. My job was to tape the boxes so that they
were ready to be shipped. Soon we were
done packing and as Regina thanked us, we asked her how the ‘Man of the Year’ was determined. She said that one dollar constituted one vote
and person with most votes won. This led
to Wilson asking the obvious question that I expected from him, “How
much can a man of the year be bought for?”
We left after having walked
several miles – as calculated by Wilson – and found a bar with outdoor
seating. It was a pleasant evening and
it gave me further opportunity to chat with Amanda about travel and especially
New England. Dianna, who went to college
in Massachusetts joined as well and we talked about travelling in the Northeast
and I told them about my experiences in visiting Acadia National Park on a
misty morning or having pancakes and maple syrup in Vermont on a chilly dawn or the cliff walks of Newport. I
recounted my favorite New England story of Thanksgiving 2006 when me and a
buddy went in search of the best breakfast place in Massachusetts and found one
on the small main street of Plymouth. It
really was a relaxing evening for me, chatting with people that I have grown to
like, sitting in the pleasant breeze and being set adrift on memory bliss. Let’s see the ‘Man of the year’ beat that.
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