Location: Mary Hartwell Catherwood Apartments
Date: Saturday, June 15, 2013; 7:30 am-2:30 pm
After weeks of discussion,
preparation and anticipation, the day had finally arrived. It was time for Chicago’s single largest day
of service and I had the privilege of being one of only 29 primary leaders who
would be directing the thousands of volunteers that would be
participating. Periodically, I had been
receiving updates and various project related material from my Chicago Cares contact
Jocelyn. This included the project descriptions, inventory of items and also
talking points for the speech that I was required to deliver while welcoming
the volunteers and during the wrap-up. I
had spent some time studying all of these things and although there were a few
questions, I had no doubt that Alisa, Claire and I would be able to figure
things out. I was ready as I was going to be.
I was about to step out my
apartment at 7 am when I got a call from Jocelyn. She said that there was a slight problem with
our food supplies. We were expecting 60
guests to show up and had planned accordingly.
However Jocelyn said that now we were expecting 80-100 people meaning we
would fall short. There were some
options open to us such as telling our site rep that once the food ran out we
could not serve more; or changing the menu slightly to make dishes that could
feed more people or in a pinch running out to get more supplies. In my book there was never going to be a
situation where we turned people away.
So I made a decision of buying more groceries and the only question was
when and from where. Alisa and I were
scheduled to meet at Fullerton station and go to the site together. I remembered that there was a Dominick’s
store right next to Fullerton station and so I took a cab and arrived there
with 15 minutes to do a speedy purchase.
 |
| You can't make an omelette if there are no eggs! |
In the cab I had looked at the
food inventory and done some mental math to calculate how much more we would
need for 30-40 additional people. I
grabbed a cart and started with 4 dozen eggs, 60 hotdogs and 60 buns. I also picked up 5 bananas, 5 apples, 1 pack
of strawberries and 1 bag of grapes. Now,
besides the food, I also needed extra plates, utensils, pans and cups. With several bags in hand, I waited for Alisa
outside the store and once she arrived, we hopped in a cab while I told her
what had happened. We arrived at the site
and with all of the bags in tow, went to the security guard, who had absolutely
no idea that we were coming. I asked if
the site rep Caroline was around and he said that while she wasn’t here, we
could call her. I did, and she
did not answer the phone. The guard let
us through and we went into the community room to wait. This was a different building than the one
where we have our Saturday Breakfast and much smaller. I called Jocelyn and after a few tries was
able to get through. She said that all
of the supplies were there on site and inside Caroline’s room. The room was locked and Caroline was
unreachable. So we did the only thing
that we could do…wait.
Claire arrived and said that
there was a school bus waiting outside.
I knew that the volunteers were supposed to get on a bus at Daley Plaza,
but this was too soon. I went outside,
just as one lady was talking to the guard.
She was the bus driver and was there to pick up the people. I said that this was the wrong location and
that she was supposed to go to Daley Plaza, pick up the people and then come
here. She left and I thanked our stars
that we had discovered this on time, but still we were running way behind
schedule. I was trying to reach Caroline
on all possible numbers, with no success.
We were going to host a picnic and looking at the skies, I was concerned
that the weather was not going to cooperate.
So we had to have an alternate plan and I went to check on the larger
room where we have our breakfast meetings, so as to move everything there. I was greeted by a foul stench and wet floor
just outside the room. A sewage pipe in
the neighboring bathroom had burst at there was no way we could have the picnic
there. Was there anything that was going
to go right! I walked back to tell my
team about this, when I saw that there was another person who had joined
us. Caroline had finally arrived!
The reason for her delay was
miscommunication, where she thought that she was supposed to arrive at 9 am and
we were expecting her an hour earlier. But
Caroline was not only nice person, she was enthusiastic and just as committed
to making this work. We had a quick team
meeting to discuss the roles and responsibilities of the day and what we would
do if the weather was bad. With the big
room out of commission, we would have to move it to a much smaller room which
was really not convenient. But first
things first, we had to do the inventory.
We went into her office and got all the supplies that Jocelyn had
dropped off and started to divide between the two projects. It was evident that Claire needed some more
cooking utensils and I decided to borrow from the main supply closet that
housed our breakfast project materials.
The only thing to remember was that we had to put things back after we were
done.
Claire seemed to have what she required,
but not so Alisa. The number one
priority for our project today was creation of three murals. The way murals are done is by projecting
transparencies onto canvases, tracing the outline and then painting them. Although we had the three projectors, there
was no sign of the transparencies.
Without them we were dead in water.
I tried reaching Jocelyn, but not only was she unreachable, her
voice mail box was full and I couldn't leave a message. After several tries she finally called me
back and when I said that we could not locate the transparencies, she insisted
that they were on site. This led to
another thorough search of Caroline’s offices, cabinets and also some of the
garbage we had discarded. When we were unable to find, we called Jocelyn back and she said that she would have to
make more copies and drop them off, but with her other sites and traffic, it
was not sure when. Until she arrived, Alisa’s
team would have nothing to do. To compound
the problem, while we had pencils for sketching, there were not sharpened and
there was no sharpener on site. This
meant that even if we had the transparencies, there was nothing to sketch them
with.
While it appeared that things
were falling apart, it was very important that neither me, nor Alisa
or Claire panicked. This is why choosing your
team correctly is so important and in the two of them, I had the best. So when Wilson called asking if there was any
help required and if I wanted him to come and do something, I told him that while we
had some minor hiccups, we would handle it. This was our responsibility, my accountability
and there was no way I was going to let it fail. But the concerns were real. While we had overcome the shortage of food, a
late start and a burst pipe; not having transparencies would effectively jeopardize, and even derail the project. The only
hope was that Jocelyn got here before the volunteers.
Just as I thought that, two yellow school buses pulled up outside the
apartments. The volunteers had arrived… and
with them, so had the rain.
...To Be Continued
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