Location: Lincoln Park Zoo
Date: Saturday, December 21, 2013; 4:45-9:00 pm
Spread over 35 acres along
Chicago’s Lakefront, Lincoln Park Zoo is over a hundred years old and for every
day during that period it has remained open and free to the public. Every holiday season all the trees,
other plant life and in general the entire zoo comes alive after dark with the
annual ‘Zoo Lights Festival’. I had attended it the previous year and
had been thoroughly impressed with what I had seen. Little did I know that One Brick helps out through ‘Arts & Crafts’ activities for kids,
who are amongst the thousands of visitors that the zoo gets each year for this
festival. I had done a project at
the zoo earlier in the year, pouring beer at ‘Living Social Craft Beer Festival’. Today, I would be the EC to Wilson’s EM and thankfully no
alcohol or intoxicated people would be involved.
Since we had some time to spare
between the ‘Chicago Cares Caroling’
program and the start of this one, we spent the afternoon roaming around the ‘Lincoln Park Conservatory & Zoo’. Looking at the displays and the general
maintenance of the place and the animals, I found it amazing that the place was
free. The Conservatory had
exhibits of holiday train models running routes around the plants and as far as
I am concerned, the world cannot have enough train models – an absolute delight
to watch at any age. We were to be
stationed at the Zoo’s ‘Primate House’
and arrived there around 4:30 to wait for our volunteers. Besides One Brick, Wilson had recruited
from Meetup and so we were expecting a big turnout. As the volunteers started filtering in, I looked around us
and we were surrounded by the Primates cages. It was certainly the most exotic locations
that I had ever done a project in.
It definitely made for a fantastic experience, though the ambient
lighting could have been brighter.
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| Scratch-off ornaments |
The site rep told us that we
would be managing 2 stations this evening, one making Antlers, which would be
located at the center of the ‘Primates
House’ and other for decorating scratch-off Christmas tree ornaments, which
would be located near the entrance.
We had plenty of volunteers and we split them in two groups to manage
both the locations. The group with
the scratch-off ornaments had different shapes like Santa, sleigh, Christmas
tree, snowflakes, and various animals like monkey, big cats, etc. There were pointed objects that looked
like pens and which kids could use to expose the bright colors on the cards and
make their designs. There were
strings to form loops and the hang on trees as ornaments. The Antlers were already pre-cut and
the kids would be using the thousands of stickers that we had to decorate them
and then tie flexible string around it and put on their head. There were more number of volunteers
there, including Maureen who leads the ‘Young Scientists’ project at McCormick Elementary
School. In fact her entire family
was here, including her sister and her sister’s baby that had been delivered in
a car!
The crowds started coming in
thick and fast and both of the stations started getting busy. As the EC, my job was to walk between
both tables and ensure that the volunteers got what they wanted. A new volunteer who called himself Mr.
Jeff had been recruited through Wilson’s meetup and asked how he could
help. He appeared to be a
good-natured person and so I put him at the entrance to greet the people coming
in and direct them to the first table.
He was fantastic and sold the heck out of our programs by getting people
excited. His energy was
terrific and he spent the entire evening on his feet cheering the
visitors. At the scratch-off table
was a lady who I thought was with us.
When I couldn’t locate her on the sign-up sheet, Wilson told me that she
was a General visitor who had special needs and had enjoyed the previous days
activities to such an extent that she had returned and wanted to participate
today as well. She was harmless
and having a great time, so we were please to have her there.
 |
| And the Antlers |
Wilson had portable speakers that
I connected to my phone to play some Holiday music near the scratch-off
station. While it did create the
mood, most of the kids and their parents were totally engrossed in the
activity. The beauty of the 'Arts
& Crafts' activities is that while the kids are making their own creations,
the volunteers get involved and do their own projects. Today was no exception and I saw
several folks scratching off their own cards and making some beautiful
designs. The antlers group was
doing the same and I joined in to make some antlers and put on top of my
Santa’s cap that I had been wearing since the morning. We were really busy and our volunteers
were working non-stop. I kept
asking folks if they needed to take a break and almost everyone said no since
they were having a great time.
When someone at the scratch-off table did go for a break, I took over
and worked with a little girl who came and made a cat like creature. She was concentrating hard and I asked
if she was going to name the cat.
She thought about it for a moment and said “Maybe”. I was making
a snowman and she seemed interested in that, giving me suggestions on what
additions to make. Once I was
done, I gave it to her and she seemed pleased. Aah, another satisfied customer!
It wasn’t just the kids who were
having fun, two young couples came and started scratching off the designs and
by looks of things, were engaged in some sort of unspoken competition with each
other, with me egging them on! I
went to check on the antlers group and realized that one of the volunteers was
a professional chef. Wilson and I
were going to be leading the cooking project at ‘Ronald McDonalds House’ soon and so spent some time discussing the
potential menu with him. He
brainstormed with us and even gave us his ‘Restaurant
Depot’ card to use I
love multi-tasking, for it looked like we had a solid plan for that project…and
had managed to secure discounted groceries.
 |
| It was beautiful outside |
It was getting close to the end
and we started cleaning up. Our
volunteers had performed exceptionally well under the onslaught of the traffic,
not least Mr. Jeff who had been a trooper. As we prepared to leave, we saw the lady with special needs
still by the table, working on some project. Wilson went over and asked if she
required a ride and she said that someone was going to pick her up. It was raining outside, but the zoo
lights were spectacular and we got to admire them as we walked towards the
exit. Some of us went out to eat
and Mr. Jeff had us in splits with his stories. I have a feeling that I am going to run into him quite
frequently. Wilson dropped me home
after what had been a long, but wonderful day. It had started with the Caroling group and ended amongst the
brilliant zoo lights. For me there
were two lasting memories from the day.
First were the residents of ‘Lakeview
Nursing’ who had responded to our singing in a way that I had least
expected. Second was the special needs lady who had spent the entire evening
at our table working on the scratch-off cards. It was meant to be a program of the kids, but had mattered
most to someone else; showing that we should never take the impact of anything for granted. Today were
my last projects of 2013 for both, Chicago Cares and One Brick. In fact, I had finished 3rd
in the number of hours that I had put on for One Brick Chicago this year. And what a year it had been. One that I will never forget.
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