Location: Jumpstart Offices
Date: Wednesday, November 13, 2013; 6:00-8:00 pm
The previous time I had done this
project, I had declared it my favorite One Brick event. And why not! We had recorded Children’s Books, and
had done so with much enthusiasm and also somewhat passable skills. So when Laura mentioned that they had
requested us to come back, I was excited as can be. However, the original date that had been proposed did not
work for me and I persuaded Laura to move it to this date. All that it cost me was a “Spiked Milkshake”, which I promised to
get Laura after the project, and I thought that it was an extremely small price
to pay for an evening of fun. Laura
kept reminding me of this whenever we met at other projects, but I was looking
forward to this one…not to mention one of those milkshakes for myself! I arrived at the location and saw Laura
at the door. The look on her face
told me that something was amiss and indeed, she said that instead of recording
tonight we would be making kits that were going to be distributed at schools. Well, what is it they say about the “Best laid schemes of mice and men…”
From the looks of it, I wasn’t
the only one who was disappointed.
One of the other volunteers had come with her friend who was a
voice-over artist and when she
realized that we wouldn’t be recording, they decided to leave. This upset Laura and any thoughts I had
of protesting disappeared. Well,
even with this minor hiccup there were enough familiar faces for me to have an
enjoyable time. We went upstairs
and met with the ladies in charge, Alana and Rachel. Before we could begin, we were asked to sign a long
two-sided liability form and it felt as if we were signing away our life. I said as much and Alana replied that’s
exactly what we were doing! Our
task for the evening was to insert into a plastic bag things like some
pamphlets, two sets of Bingo cards, a set to make tambourines – which included
two punched paper plates – colored tie wraps and mini cowbells. It looked like it was time for another good
old-fashioned assembly line.
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| The Bingo Card |
While the rest of our folks lined
up to start inserting the stuff, they needed a couple of people to cut the
bingo squares. Irina, who was in
attendance, and I retired to another room and sat down with a stack of paper in
front of us. Printed on it were 3
rows of 6 squares each, and had pictures of a puppy, kitten, baby etc. Wherever this game of Bingo was to be
played, it promised to be a lot of fun.
One thing I have realized when cutting paper is the importance of
finding the right scissors. I am
not referring to the sharpness, but rather the grip. There was a box full of scissors in front of us and I tried
a few before settling on the one I felt comfortable with. Well, even with that there was a lot of
paper to be cut and while Irina and I were having a good time chatting, soon my
fingers started getting tired. After
an hour or so, two other volunteers came in to take over the cutting duties and
I went outside to work on the assembly line.
I positioned myself at the head
of the line, meaning I had to take the plastic bag, insert the main page in it
and pass it downstream. For all
those who think this is an easy task, I have news for you. Putting a paper sheet inside a plastic
bag that is hell-bent on sticking together can be a bit annoying, especially
when people after you are staring when there is a delay. The last thing anyone wants to be is a
bottleneck and I was scrambling as fast as possible. However, working in that group had its perks since there was
a lot of chatter going on, especially as regards movies based on book series –
something I could contribute towards.
We started with the ‘Harry Potter’
series and continued with ‘The Hunger
Games’ and the upcoming ‘Divergent’,
thankfully skipping over the totally unnecessary ‘Twilight’ saga. The
main discussion was if there should be the same Director for each of the
movies, since a change might affect the overall interpretation of the story and
characters, something that the fans dislike seeing. I said that while it was a valid point, making a movie is a
herculean task and with the pressure from the studios to release sequels in
rapid succession, it is very difficult to do pre, production and post on
different movies back-to-back – unless you are Peter Jackson with unlimited
resources.
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| The Kit |
With all of this discussion, time
was flying by, though we were all working non-stop. At one stage I got a paper
cut and while it is a very trivial thing, the sting from a paper cut is one of
the most irritating feelings. One
of the volunteers Molly said that I should put some chapstick on it, which was
something I had not heard of before.
To my surprise – and relief – I found it to be an effective solution,
though I did take advantage of this to take a break to check on how the cutting
team was doing. When I came back Molly, who had taken over the paper stuffing duties, readily handed my old job
back to me, saying it was difficult to force a paper into a new plastic
bag. Now that’s what I’m talking
about!
Our time was nearly up and we had
managed to stuff 600 of the 825 kits that they required. Rachel said that these kits were going
to be sorted by college kids and then sent to the schools. Before leaving there was more paperwork
to fill out, this time it was a survey with questions regarding our volunteer
experience, such as “Will this experience
encourage you to volunteer again?”
I joked with Laura that I was having second thoughts, but I gave top
grades to everything, and then it was time for milkshakes. As promised I got one for Laura, even
though it was not the activity I had hoped for. Nevertheless we had once again enjoyed a nice evening and
yes, even with a paper cut, this experience would most certainly encourage me
to volunteer again…hopefully for recording the next time we come here.
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