Location: Thorp Elementary School
Date: Saturday, January 17, 2015; 7:00 am-4:00 pm
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”
-
Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.
When the email came asking for
participants, as usual, I had replied in the affirmative. Then they said that they didn’t need me and I
had responded by saying that I really wanted to do it and that it would be “heartbreaking” if I did not. This dramatic appeal seems to have worked
since I got a phone call from Chicago Cares saying that they would find
something for me. Finally, I got an
email from Rich asking if I would help out and I said that of course I would. So I was finally assigned to a school way
down on the South side where I would be leading the painting of a classroom.
 |
| It was time once again |
Once again, Stacy was my Primary
Leader and she said that she could pick me up, but it would have to be
early. That was fine with me and so at
6:45 am, she picked me up and we drove all
the way south to the school. We arrived
to see that Rich was already there, along with a few other leaders from ‘Target’. Rich was recovering from a broken ankle and
so had some sort of a scooter on which to rest his leg. I said that we would be having races down the
corridor by the time this was all done. We
went to the Principal’s office to drop off our stuff, just as other leaders
arrived – both Chicago Cares and 'Target'.
 |
| The state of the room when I arrived |
Besides the class room paintings,
there were projects to make murals and wall logos, building planters and making
pillows…though I had no clue what that meant.
We went for a walk
and the school had two buildings, with most of the classrooms in the
annex. My classroom, 143 was right next
to where all the supplies were stored.
Well, at least I wouldn’t have to travel far. But all of my enthusiasm went out of the
window as soon as I stepped inside my classroom. No prep work had been done. All of the furniture was still in place. It looked like a reading room for kids and
all around were tables and shelves of books.
Plus there were lot of things on the wall and the room was overcrowded
with…stuff.
Since there were 2 hours to go before the volunteers arrived,
I got down to work and started by moving all the furniture to the center of the
room. Some of the bookcases and tables
had wheels, while some did not and were heavy.
I moved the furniture for next hour and it was brutal at times. I tried to get everything pushed away from
the wall and to the center of the room.
I told Stacy that I could ask the volunteers to take down the wall
things, but she said I should get started.
I must admit that I was a bit ticked off that the school officials had
not done anything to prepare for our arrival.
Some of the wall hangings were screwed tight and Rich said that I should
leave them in. I started taking the
posters down and they had been stuck using duct tape; some of which was peeling
the paint when pulled off. A volunteer
leader from 'Target' came to help me, and for the next several minutes, the two
of us took down stuff from the wall. The
most time consuming thing was then taking off the tape from the back since it
was extremely sticky. Ironic that I was
helping make things from duct tape just 2 days ago!
The 'Target' volunteers had started arriving and it was time
to go to the auditorium for the welcome and orientation. As we waited, I was chatting with the Chicago
cares volunteers and learnt that almost all of them were “Auxiliary Board Members”. They usually do these annual events and I urged
them to try and get out in the field more often for not much has been learned
by just sitting in the boardrooms. Inside
the auditorium the 'Target' volunteers had assembled and were waiting for
instructions. We had each been given
cards stating our projects and were asked to recruit volunteers in the crowd by
handing them these cards. I had 7 cards
and I was sure that I would need more than that. I went into the crowd and handed out my 7 cards. The opening ceremony started, with a choir
followed by a performance by the school’s cheer leaders. Stacy got the crowd going – and she is
fantastic at doing that - followed by the Principal welcoming everyone. Then one of the 'Target' managers took the mike and
really got the crowd excited by getting them to cheer “We are Target”.
Now it was time to go and I held up a sign for my
volunteers, so that they could follow me, and only 3 girls of the 7 showed
up. I told Rich that I would definitely
need more people. I learned that two of
the girls were sisters and the 3rd was their friend. One of them said that we should have music
and I said that she could be in charge of that, though there was music blaring
through the speakers. I said that we had
3 main tasks – Prep, Paint and Clean, in that order. Just as I was doing that Rich got me 3 more
guys to help out in the room. We laid
down the paper on the floor and I helped two of the girls put drop cloths on
blackboards and other permanent fixtures.
The guys got on the ladders to take down some of the posters that were
still there, and clean the top half of the classroom. We were changing from a light brown to a light
blue color. I put the girls on the lower
half of the wall, especially taping off the edges and around moldings, posters,
windows etc. Speaking of edges, I had
never seen so many edges and corners in a room before!
We were taking a long time in taping and it was getting
close to 11:30 am, with just an hour to go for lunch. I asked my crew to pick up the pace and joined
them in taping and even painting. Even
though our progress was slow, it was steady and everyone was working quite well
with each other. Rich sent over more
people and now we had the room buzzing. This
allowed me a chance to go and look at other projects and I found that most had already
finished one coat of paint in their rooms, meaning they were able to lend me a
few of their volunteers. In our room, the
lower half had a coat and so I sent the girls off for lunch. I decided to relieve people in staggered
shifts and so asked the 3 guys to stay back to finish at least one coat all
over the classroom and to their credit they stayed back. We were done soon and then left for lunch.
 |
| All painted in Blue |
Inside the auditorium everyone was having lunch and catching
up with each other on their morning’s activities. I stuffed myself quickly and went back to my
classroom. The 3 girls were already
there and I got them painting a 2nd coat on the lower half of the
room. I painted the top using rollers, but soon the
guys arrived and took to the ladders to paint the top. Other folks arrived and now we were really
rolling. The guys were doing a great job
with the top and I thanked them for their dedication. One
of them was a store manager and he said that I deserved some credit as well,
which was a kind thing to say. We
finished the 2nd coat and then started peeling the tape. We were soon done with that and now it was
time for cleaning. I was taking the
sleeves off the rollers and it was getting a lot of paint on my gloves. We double bagged everything that had paint on
it and threw away the drop cloths and paper on the floor. Despite the paper that we had put down, there
were paint drops on floor and we all got down on hands and knees scrubbing. The volunteers were fantastic in their
help on this.
 |
| One more 'Celebration of Service' in the books |
We did the best we could and then all of us went back to the
auditorium for the closing, but not before I had taken a picture of my
fantastic crew. Stacy thanked everyone
and then everyone lined up for group pictures.
There was a poster with MLK on it and
everyone was signing it. I did so as
well and then went over to thank my team.
They really had done a remarkable job…similar to the other 'Target' volunteers of previous years. After the 'Target' team had left, the leaders took a picture of all of us, and then all of us went back to
outside of my classroom to scrub some more of the paint drops. When the floor was looking decent, we
collected our stuff and Stacy dropped me off. There had been some hurdles like the lack of preparation in the room and few volunteers, but we had made it work. It had been another successful
day of ‘Celebration of Service’.
No comments:
Post a Comment