Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013; 5:45-10:15 pm
One of the bigger advantages of
volunteering with One Brick is that you get to work at an occasional gala and rub shoulders
with men and women wearing suits and cocktail dresses. This was first of the few such events that
One Brick would be doing over the coming weeks. We were required to dress in black from head
to toe and since I was going to be coming straight from work, my colleagues
must have thought that I was protesting something. It was drizzling outside and I was delayed at
my office due to a deliverable. Furthermore, I could
not find a cab and so I arrived at the event site not only a bit late, but was
also wet.
Wilson was supposed to be the
Event Coordinator for this project, but due to floods that were ravaging the
Chicago suburbs; he was detained with the Red Cross, managing shelters for
hundreds of displaced people. I saw a
mass of black, which could only mean One Brick volunteers and there were a few
familiar faces, including Irina. Our
Event Manager, Kinga, assembled us all in an elegant boardroom. Then Stephanie,
an Esperanza employee, gave us our assignments.
For my first task, Irina, another volunteer Dave, and I would be helping
out at the Art sale. There were over a
hundred pieces of art on display and our job was to carry a clipboard and mingle with the guests in
that section. If anyone was interested in buying a piece, we were to note their name, their ‘bidder
number’ and then put down a red dot next to the art piece to signify its
sale. Seemed easy enough,
but this was no ordinary art collection.
Every piece had been made by a member of the Esperanza community.
 |
| The art of Esperanza |
According to the description on
One Brick website, “Esperanza Community
Services has been serving children and adults with developmental disabilities
since 1969. They inspire and empower participants by providing individualized
therapeutic, educational, and artistic services. Their bi-lingual programming
includes a school, an adult vocational program, two supervised residential
homes, and client and family support services.” This program was started when a mother decided to create the academic and
developmental services that were not available to her disabled son anywhere
else. The organization aims to support
the participants and allow them to reach their full potential, so that they can
live as independently as possible. This
art collection was a step in that direction.
I was impressed by
some of the art on display and strongly contemplated buying a piece for my own
apartment. But my main job was to sell
and I chatted with the guests, all of whom were extremely friendly. Many people asked me for advice on which one
to choose. One lady took me to a couple
that she liked and I asked her some questions regarding her décor and tastes
and then made a recommendation – not that I knew too much about that. A gentleman came with his daughter and she
picked one. He made the purchase and
then after a few minutes, they both came back because they had changed their
mind. They switched their purchase and
then he decided to buy both, which worked for me. One lady said that she was on a fixed budget,
but still wanted to support the artists.
In fact I heard from many how much they admired the artist’s and some
were even buying since they had purchased the artist's previous
piece and liked their work. The red dots were flying from my clipboard and at the end of the session; I had
managed to sell 24 pieces of art. Many
of the artists were in attendance and it was nice to see their reaction to
people appreciating their work. It had
been a worthwhile activity.
 |
| The art bagged - almost |
The guests left for dinner and
live auction, but we still had some work to do to sort out the art sales, as well as the silent auction that had been going on in parallel. Stephanie wanted us to make invoices for all
the purchases and started by asking who had good handwriting. I immediately disqualified myself and instead
started removing the purchased art from the wall and bagging it. Once bagged,
Stephanie wanted us to place the bags on the floor alphabetically. The problem was that most of the art pieces,
as well as silent auction ones, were much bigger than the bags and would not
fit. This meant that they would have to
be placed on top of the bag, but it would be difficult for the guests to carry these at the end of the evening.
We tried mentioning this, but Stephanie was not having much dialogue and
was very controlling about the entire process.
I texted Wilson to express my displeasure on her behavior and his
response was to cut Stephanie some slack since she was under a lot of
stress. Well, we managed to finish this
task and then it was time for dinner.
I was immensely surprised to see
that the dinner for us was the exact same that the guests were enjoying in the
grand ballroom upstairs. The 3
courses were presented to us, artistically, in the conference room and I must
credit the organizers for doing that. After
dinner I went up to the registration area to act as a runner for auction
items. There was some problem with the
process and it led to a huge backlog and a bunch of unhappy guests. All the Esperanza organizers, including
Stephanie were having a tough time and dealing with some unpleasant people,
including a couple who embarrassed themselves by carrying their drinks to the
check-out and causing a rowdy scene by misbehaving with the volunteers as well
as amongst themselves. I did my best by
carrying whatever receipts came my way, including things which did not fit in
the bags and which made the guests unhappy.
All in all, it was not an ideal place to be in and seeing that we were almost an hour over our scheduled time, Kinga called it a night for us all.
 |
| The One Brick crew at Esperanza |
I had work to do that night and
was more than happy to depart. Plus, I
was very disappointed with the overall treatment of the volunteers and had a
thing or two to say about that. But Wilson,
even from miles away had been right. It
was not Stephanie’s or anyone else’s fault for all the problems. Like us, they were trying their best. On occasion, during these projects you will encounter
some difficulties. It doesn't all have
to be good, as long as you see the bright spots. The old adage is that, “When life gives you lemons make lemonade.” Now, you don’t always have to do that. For sometimes all lemons need to do, is make for a great garnish on
a cocktail.
No comments:
Post a Comment