Location: Chicago Foundation For Education
Date: Monday, November 11, 2013; 5:30-8:00 pm
My last visit to the CFE had
resulted in me sealing more envelops than a postal worker. Well, I exaggerate, but it was
close. Nevertheless, this project
is great for socializing, since most people are sitting around a table either labeling postcards or filling envelops and so they usually end up
chatting. I was the EC for the
project tonight and Wilson was the EM.
As has been his practice recently, he had recruited a lot of people
through Meetup, which was good since we were not having any luck through the
One Brick website. However, we had
our first real snow of the season leading to several cancellations, but even
with that we were still sure to have enough volunteers for the evening.
I walked over to the CFE building
and as I went in, the doorman smiled and said, “You must be headed to CFE”.
He was referring to the fact that everyone was exiting the building
while I was coming in, and that could only mean that CFE was having an evening
working session. This doorman was
in stark contrast to the unpleasantness that I usually encounter at the ‘Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’
building. I went upstairs and saw
Julie, who is a staff member at CFE, as well as 3 other volunteers – all
through Meetup. Soon others
started filtering in, and since most of them had very little idea on what One
Brick was, I started filling them in.
Wilson finally arrived, followed by a gentleman who called himself ‘TH’ and he proved himself to be as interesting a character as some other legendary One Bricker’s like Charles
Paul.
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| "Funds For Teachers" |
Julie gave everyone an overview
of CFE and the programs that they conduct for teachers. Our task this evening was to label two
different sets of flyers that were going to CPS teachers encouraging them to participate
in the “Funds For Teachers”
program. Through this initiative,
they get $5,000 to go on a sabbatical to anywhere in the world. In fact, we saw a map with pushpins on
various locations that the teachers have been to – lots in Japan, Peru and
Mexico, with several on the East Coast of US as well. One of the flyers was to have two
labels, one with the address and then an orange one with dates for the various
deadlines. The second flyer was
going to be sent a month later and serving as their final reminder. Both the flyers needed to be organized
by the mailing runs. One group of
volunteers went to another office for labeling the 2nd set of
flyers while most of us, including me, stayed in the main conference
room. We got underway and soon
realized that one of our volunteers was from Ecuador, as was another
volunteer’s mom. This meant they
had something in common to discuss and so bonded over that, though I did wonder
if their families lived on the same side of the equator!
Even then, TH was providing the
main entertainment of the evening.
He liked asking random trivia questions and so asked me if had watched
the original ‘Star Trek’. When I replied in the affirmative, he
asked me if I knew what ‘Captain Kirk’s’
middle name was. I said “Tiberius” and then asked him if that
was what the “T” in “TH” stood for. He just smiled and I knew we were in
for a rollicking time. Next we
learned that as with other One Bricker’s, many in attendance were ‘Dr. Who’ fans. This led to a lot of discussion on who
was the best ‘Doctor’ as well as
everyone’s favorite episode. For
me it has always been David Tennant, who is not just my favorite ‘Doctor’, but also one of my favorite
characters of all time. Plus as far as
episodes are concerned, I am yet to see anything better than ‘The Girl In The Fireplace’. TH was very much involved in this
discussion and even told us of an upcoming marathon ‘Dr. Who’ viewing party at some bar in Wisconsin that he was
planning to attend.
Since we were preparing flyers
for teachers, Wilson asked us who our favorite teacher had been and why. This got everyone involved and most
named teachers from their High School.
Wilson said that the best teachers are those from whom you can learn
earlier in your life and I said that I disagreed and that mine was my boss from my
previous job. I in fact texted my old boss and mentioned that I had named him as my favorite teacher. He responded saying, “What is a teacher without a good student”. I miss him a lot, though as with
everything in life, one must keep moving forward. I was sitting next to a volunteer Ed, who is a Doctor – the
real one – and an anesthelogist. I
found that topic fascinating and spent a lot of time querying him on it. The labeling was progressing well and
what was breaking the monotony was the non-stop chatter from TH. He always had an answer for everything,
including an opinion. I could only
wonder what would happen if we managed to get him and Charles Paul in the same
room!
I went outside and chatted with
Julie about the various teachers programs. She showed me a book, which was one teacher’s journey on her
sabbatical. She had done a
terrific job of capturing her experiences and was a wonderful advertisement for
the program. We were soon done
with the labeling and left after compiling all the packets according to mailing
runs. A few of us went to ‘Elephant & Castle’ for dinner and
TH continued to amaze by telling us about his meditation group that usually
meets during full moon nights.
This led to us having a robust discussion on effect of full moon on
humans and the lack of scientific evidence thereof. This then evolved into a discussion on “faith healing”, something TH believes in and which left Ed shaking
his head. It had been a fantastic
evening and once again volunteering had led me to cross paths with another fascinating character in TH. I can’t wait to work with him again.
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