Dinner At The Wells Street Cafe

Location: Breaking Bread Ministries/LaSalle Street Church

Date: Wednesday, May 06, 2015; 5:45-8:15 pm

I arrived to see that little Hannah was already there, along with some of the regulars.  I was especially pleased to see Marianne, who had been missing the last couple of times that I was here and she welcomed me warmly.  My first task was to help out with some buns that were being toasted.  There was a volunteer who was buttering buns and she said that she could use some help in opening and laying them on the baking pans.  I started doing that and there were 20 buns that were to be placed per pan.  The pans that were ready then went into the oven for 3 minutes.  This cycle continued till we had used all pans for the 220 odd buns, meaning we were good for 100 sandwiches.  As we did that, the volunteer asked me how long I had been doing this and I said 2 years. Wow.  It has been a long time.

I had asked Marianne if I could participate in the "Spirit Feeding" that happens here and she had said yes.  They were about to get started and so I went out and joined some of the regular ‘Moody Bible’ students as well as some of our guests.  We started by holding a candle and saying aloud what had been bothering us recently and why we were here this evening.  Most of the students mentioned that they were worried about their studies.  I said that I was thinking about “short term vs long term” and whether we should sacrifice something in the short term for a long term thing that may or may not happen.  We each had a Bible and were studying ‘Mark 5:1-20’; a story about a man who is possessed by a demon and Jesus helps him by sending the demons to the pigs.  The town people, who had previously shunned the man, now tell Jesus to leave.  The man wants to follow Jesus, is now told by him to go back to his town and tell the people what had happened.

The folks at our table now took turns reading and then we had some questions for discussing, especially our interpretation of the story.  I had interpreted the story as a person who had “demons in his mind” and that why he was hurting himself.  People had shunned him without trying to understand him.  The pigs were symbolic of the differences between humans, who have a choice, and animals, which do not.  Jesus helped the man make that choice; and even after he did that, the town people had a prejudice.  The others were agreeing with my assessment and it was a great conversation.  We talked about compassion and our facilitator asked if we have seen people with compassion, who help others.  I said there are many with compassion but not everyone helps.  This place was an example of people doing something to help.  This discussion got one of our guests to open up about problems with her mom and how she had never understood her when she was alive.  She was pretty torn up about that and the other guest said that she should not let that affect her and use that knowledge to be better with her own kids.  For the second time is 3 days I repeated, “Remember the past but don’t let it be a burden”.

Our menu for the evening

Time was up and we concluded with a prayer and our facilitator asked everyone for something to include in the prayer.  When it was my turn, I remembered what my “psychic” had said to me in New Orleans and mentioned my “missing soul piece”, which made it into the prayer.  Dinner service was about to begin and Marianne wanted me on juice, though I started with salads.  I was pleased to see that finally, after two years of my complaining, we had moved to smaller bowls; meaning less waste. The menu was “pulled pork sandwiches” with “refried beans”, “hot sauce” and a side of “corn and beans”.  Plus, for dessert there was “bread pudding” and I asked Chef Dani if that would have a topping of rum! 

We started by following Marianne’s directions on which tables to serve and once the first round was done, she asked me to count the seconds.  People lined up soon and started picking up the takeout boxes and I was telling them to wait.  I knew that Marianne usually wants to make an announcement, but Chef Dani doesn’t believe in waiting for that and so permitted them to start getting seconds.  I wish I had known the process before turning people away.  But we got things going and soon had everything running well.  Once all the takeout and seconds were done, I went and helped with the dining room clean-up.  Before leaving, Marianne asked if I could come on June 17^th for their summer party.  She wanted experienced volunteers that night and I gladly signed up.  It had been a good evening, especially with the “Spirit Feeding”.

Senior Birthday Club

Location: Judge Fisher Apartments

Date: Tuesday, May 05, 2015; 6:30-8:00 pm

Last month’s project over here had been cancelled since they were using the apartment common room as a polling station.  That must have been something, because I’m sure the seniors did not appreciate the government interfering in their Bingo fun.  I arrived to see that Jason was already there with 3 other volunteers as were the 2 fun ladies who are always the life of any party.  The gentleman with whom I had sung Sinatra songs arrived and he recognized me, saying that he was still pleased about seeing "My Way" on ‘Youtube’ and added that he had a great memory.  I was pleased to see that he had managed to secure some earphones and a music player, something that he was longing for the last time we had met.  I looked at the prizes Jason had bought, and there was everything ranging from the usual soap etc. to a bag of potpourri and even stuffed animals.  But we had a problem.

There would be no Bingo this evening

The guard with the key to storage closet had taken the night off to celebrate his birthday – an irony if there ever was one - and so we did not have any Bingo supplies.  While I found a phone app which could generate random Bingo numbers, it still did not help us, since we were missing the cards.  With no other option, someone said that we could go to the nearby ‘Dollar Store’ and see if there were any games.  I told Jason to stay here while I and another regular volunteer went to the store.  We looked around but there was nothing that could be used as a game...unless you counted ‘Legos’.  We came back and told Jason that the only option now was “trivia”, though some of the residents were not pleased regarding that.

Jason had bought some milk and cookies for snacks, but there were no cups or plates, meaning another trip to the ‘Dollar Store’ for me.  I came back to see that Jason was already conducting the quiz and when he went to get the snacks ready, I took over.  I put in "Trivia for seniors" as a search term on my phone and chose a link that had both, easy and difficult questions. I started with the easy and the first one was “Which is the largest state in the USA?”  Many said “Texas”, which was not the right answer, though some did say “Alaska”, which was of course correct.  Our problem though was that people were yelling out answers without raising their hands and so it wasn't always easy to point out who was right and who should go get a prize.  Fortunately people were not being too feisty today.

I had my choice of questions and did some like "Oldest US President to take office”, the answer to which was “Ronald Reagan at the age of 69”.  Other questions were "The year 'Titanic' sank", "The largest freshwater lake", "Who invented airplanes" etc.  I saw a difficult question and said that whoever comes close without going over would win.  The question was "What is the height of Mount Everest" and even I did not know that.  People started at 25,000 feet and went up to 52,000 feet.  The correct answer is 29,029 feet and so I gave it to closest answer at 28,000 feet. There weren't many questions remaining on this site, and so I was looking for other webpages.  I found one which did not have any answers, but I knew some of those for few of the questions and plus we had only a few prizes remaining.  Speaking of prizes, one lady took a bag of Oranges as a prize, till we realized that they were actually meant as snacks for everyone!  There were some questions on movies, like "What song did Doris Day sing in ‘Man who knew too much’" – “Que Sera Sera” - and "Who won academy award for 'To Kill A Mockingbird'" – “Gregory Peck”.  Finally there was one prize remaining and so I just had to ask, "Which band came to the U.S. in 1962!!"

The prizes were done, but the residents seemed to be enjoying themselves - though we had lost a few.  So we said that we could continue the trivia for fun and they agreed.  Another volunteer took over and I sat next to my “Sinatra friend”.  There were several questions on Astronomy and I was able to get them because...well, because as an ‘Adler’ volunteer I should!  As an answer to number of planets I said I will count ‘Pluto’ since I studied that in school.  Then for something where ‘Uranus’ was the answer, I asked if anyone could name one of its satellites. I said that that I would give them a hint – They are all named after female characters from ‘Shakespeare’.  It was another useless fact that I had picked up at ‘Adler”.  I also learned that there is a difference between a ‘Hog’ and a ‘Pig’.  Someone said ‘Pig’s’ are females, though I am sure that women would disagree with that!!  It was a lot of fun and all of the remaining residents were enjoying themselves – including my buddy.  At one stage there was a question related to the ‘pH scale’ and he remembered that I had studied ‘Chemistry’. Wow, he really does have good memory!  We were getting close to the end and one of the funnier things about the evening was that the residents knew all the answers when it came to questions related to medicine or diseases.  That was amusing and poignant at the same time.

All good things come to an end and so did our “Trivia Night”.  I thought we had a great time, but before leaving, the residents said that Jason should ensure that we play Bingo next time. Ouch, you can’t win them all.  As we wrapped up my buddy asked what religion I believed in. I said that I believe in science, to which he replied that science cannot explain everything.  "True", I said.  But I had spent a lot more time studying science and none whatsoever on religion.  So while I was not disparaging religion, all I was saying was that I do not understand it as much as I do science.  He asked if I had been to the ‘Moody Bible Institute’. I said that it was funny that he should ask that, since I was going to attend a session with them at my project tomorrow.  I left after a nice evening and even though the Bingo had not gone our way, it had still been a lot of fun. 

Lakeview Seniors Pet Therapy

Location: Lakeview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center

Date: Monday, May 04, 2015; 6:15-8:15 pm

Our team for this evening

I arrived to see that Jim, Larry and Jack had already assembled at their usual table.  It was especially pleasing to see Larry since he had recently been in a hospital.  Jim said that they had missed me at the game night last Wednesday, something that I wanted to come for, but had been delayed at work.  Veronica, who was the leader for tonight, came over to and asked us all to assemble in the hallway.  There were a lot of dogs tonight, including an outrageously cute ‘Westie’ named Bodie, who seemed excited to see me.  Despite his enthusiasm, I was paired with a volunteer named Mel and a lovely ‘Corgi-Black Lab’ mix named Shiena.  Though she was 4, Shiena had the spirit of a puppy. 

We started on 3^rd floor and our first stop was with a gentleman who I had not met before.  He had been a dog owner in the past and was keen on talking about them.  Next, we moved to the adjoining room and another lady whom I had not met.   She had also been a dog owner and when I asked what kind of dogs, she replied, "What didn't I have".  We learnt that at one time she had as many as 7 dogs, including a ‘Doberman’, a ‘German Shepherd’, a ‘Poodle’ etc.  She also had a ‘Black Lab’ who was named Jack Black, but she called him “Blackie”.  I asked if they all had separate bowls for eating and she said that they usually came in one at a time.  She said that they did so because there was one big ‘German Shepherd’ who would have otherwise eaten everyone's food.  I asked if she had cats as well and she said no since her sister was afraid of cats.  It was a nice visit and reminiscing about the old days seemed to please her.  I am sure that it also helps in their constant battle against something like ‘Alzheimer’s’.

We moved on and stopped to say hi to Pearl.  She told me that she was going blind and had been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease due to lack of proper nutrition.  She once again reiterated the poor diet here and I said that she needs to get that issue to the forefront amongst everything else that she was doing.  I introduced her to Mel and Pearl called herself a "provocateur"; but in a good way I added.  Pearl said that she has a “doctorate degree” and so she should at least know a bit of what she was saying.  She showed us some of the jewelry that she had been working on and I said that I wanted to get some, but did not know who to give it to. Pearl said that she makes jewelry for men and that I could wear it, which would be stretch since I don't even wear a watch.  I told Pearl that we had to continue on, but I would be back at the end of the night.  Before leaving, she told Mel that I was a “ray of light”, which was the sweetest thing that I had heard in a long time.

Shiena

Next stop was with Polly and Dena.  Polly told us that she liked her time here and having just come from visiting Pearl, I said that this was the first time I had heard anyone say that about this place!  She talked about possibly going to ‘Northwestern Hospital’ after this.  That’s not bad, but she said that she preferred staying here than with doctors around.  I could understand that.  We went over to see Hannah and as soon as I had introduced her to Mel, Hannah told her the story of Johnny B and his kidnapping.  I asked about her book and she said that her lawyers are looking for an agent.  I said that perhaps she could do “crowd source funding”, because I’m sure there are many cat lovers out there who may want to help out.  Before we left, Hannah told Mel and Shiena to sign up for talent agency!  We went to see Jerry and as usual, Shiena loved him and his treats.  After giving him plenty of licks, we left to go down to the 2^nd floor and see David, who rubbed Shiena down and she enjoyed every minute of it.

Our final stop was to see Loritta and she was in top form today.  I asked if her son was going to wish her for ‘Mother’s Day’ and she said he’d better.  We talked about her two grandsons, one who has a “doctorate” and the other who is high school dropout.  She said that the educated guy does not visit as much as the other one does.  I said it goes to show that education alone doesn’t define anyone.  I asked why she wasn’t moving to Georgia to be with her son and she mentioned she would never go to a “Southern State” after what happened in the past, leading us to discuss segregation and prejudice.  She asked if I had faced it at any point and I said never.  She mentioned how people were treated in Chicago, as recent as 1987, like not being allowed into certain establishments.  I said “remember the history, but don’t let it be a burden” and she said that it was easy for me to say that.  She said that she would rather live in South Africa amongst the lions rather than the South…and lions eat us she added!  I laughed at that as well as when she mentioned how people have prejudice against dark skin people, and yet spray tan themselves to look like them.  That was a hilarious observation.

Time was up and I dropped off Mel and Shiena downstairs and thanked them for coming.    I went back up to see Pearl and she was with some other volunteers and dogs.  I went in after they had left and she told me that a girl had said that she never knew compassion till her conversations with Pearl.  I said that it’s because despite all of her issues, Pearl has compassion towards her fellow residents.  She told me about an “Alzheimer’s” patient down the hall and how Pearl showed her a video of a comedian musician called Tim Hawkins.  Then she went on to show me the video and it was rather funny.  Music and humor, that’s what people need I told her.  I left soon but not before she encouraged me to think about wearing jewelry.  She also told me that she read this blog and “it gave further clarity to the person that she knew I was”.

*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy

Read–With-Me At HGS

Location: House Of The Good Shepherd

Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2015; 6:30-7:45 pm

It was a nice day and I arrived early, so stopped at a coffee shop to get ‘Affogato’…because that’s what you do when you have the time.  I then walked over to HGS and arrived just as Wilson was pulling into the driveway.  Marvin, who was leading, was already here as were a couple of other volunteers.  That was it.  The younger kids group did not have enough volunteers either and so we couldn’t borrow from them.  While we were waiting, Marvin told us that there was a group of 4 kids who were new and they could be a handful.  He also mentioned that we would go outdoors today as the weather was cooperating. 

We went downstairs to see that the kids had already assembled and were playing hide and seek.  They all knew Wilson and were excited to see him, asking when they could see a movie.  It seems like Wilson has been showing them movies on my portable screen.  It was time for introductions and all of the kids gave us their name, age and what they like to eat.  One girl said different fruits, other said vegetables, another said fruits. What was this - A health show!  Fortunately one guy said pizza and then not to be outdone by others, he added a smoothie.  Kids nowadays!

Our book for the evening

The introductions were done and now it was time to pair up.  As usual, I wasn’t picked – though one kid recognized me from last time since I read with him.  Wilson was with two girls and so I joined them, sitting under some contraption that looked like yoga mats!  The girls were taking turns reading a book called “The Day The Crayon’s Quit”, which was about various crayon colors writing to a boy named ‘Duncan’, pleading to be his favorite color.  It was fun to see the different colors like ‘Yellow’ and ‘Orange’ stating their case, claiming to be the colors of the sun.  One of the girls said that ‘Blue’ and ‘Pink’ were her favorite colors and so she wanted to read about those.  When a page on ‘Pink; came, there were 4 characters on it.  One of them was a ‘Princess’, which she claimed as her role; a ‘Dinosaur’, which was claimed by the other girl; a ‘Cowboy’, that was Wilson; and then a ‘Monster’, which was me.  Oh well, you accept the part that’s offered to you. 

The girls were doing a good job of reading and whenever a difficult word would come up, I would pronounce it for them and also explain its meaning; for example, “career”.  We also played “spot the animal” in the pictures, during which I learned that one of the girls did not like cats and dogs because they had the fleas!  Soon the reading time was up and Marvin had bought cookies and mango treats, which all the kids were excited to eat.  We had initially thought of going out, but Marvin said that it had cooled down a bit and so we would play indoor games like “musical chairs”.  We arranged the chairs and while everyone was participating, I was appointed the “DJ” and chose “Happy” from ‘Despicable Me’, having my back to the game when the song was on.  For the next 10 minutes we had a lot of fun with volunteers doing as well as the kids and competing for the available chairs.  In fact, I joked that a female volunteer who was wearing high heels would probably end up winning!  But eventually a little girl won and by now the time was up.  It had been a fantastic evening and the kids were wonderful.  I even got some high-5s before leaving, which is a win considering that I wasn’t even picked for the reading!

American Cancer Society Making Strides ELT Meeting

Location: American Cancer Society Office

Date: Monday, April 27, 2015; 6:00-7:30 pm

I had been selected to be on the “Executive Leadership Team” or “ELT” tasked with organizing the “Making Strides” walk this year, and today was our kick-off meeting.  I arrived at the ‘ACS’ offices along with Le’Loni and we went upstairs to see that our Committee chairs Allyson and Katherine, along with 2 other ladies were gathered in the smaller conference room.  Other than them, there were a couple of other ladies who couldn’t be here this evening and we would be the team for the year.  We started with introductions and I learnt that with my 3^rd year on the team, I was the longest tenured committee member in the room, and that included Allyson and Katherine!

Our first 'ELT' meeting

We discussed the 2015 Goals in terms of attendees for the 2 kickoffs that we have planned – one in Southside, which would be more family friendly, and one for the corporate sponsors in downtown.  I asked what we were targeting in terms of conversion rate i.e. how many of these attendees would subsequently start teams or even register to participate.  I felt like that should be the point to having a kickoff, but perhaps not everyone shared my views.  Every year, we keep pushing for “Teams” to register and I asked why, because at the end of the day “Participants” is probably a more relevant metric.  But I guess teams is important since we do want people to come together as a community and that helps in fundraising. 

The main change for this year was that as per the national mandate, there would be no more registration fee and I felt that from a fund raising perspective, that was a big loss, since $25 is a big number.  I said that we should promote this everywhere.  ‘ACS’ does not have a Marketing budget, but I said that this “no fee” structure will help us attract teams, and we should make everyone aware of that.  We talked about registering for the walk and I asked if the committee was going to have a team because if we were, then I would much rather join that than start my own.  Allyson said that we should.

Our main responsibility as an 'ELT' was to help recruit new Teams and Sponsors.  I said that we should have some sort of “shared” document that will allow us to see who the existing sponsors were, so that we are not recruiting either them or even their competitors.  Also, if certain people have committed to come back e.g. yoga instructors, masseuse etc., then there was no need to recruit them.  One member talked about how she can arrange for a donation of cookies which have “omega-3 oils” and she said that they were delicious.  Whatever happened to the good old fashioned Chocolate Chip!

Next topic was membership to ‘CAN’ and with the Governor’s budget cuts, this was a key topic.  We all had to get membership and the first two tiers were $10 for “standard” and $20 for “premium”, which gets you a pin.  I wanted to get the lower tier, but did not have change and no one else could break a $20.  Le’Loni kept saying that I should get the premium not because I had the money but because of “the goodness of my heart”.  My only problem with the committee is that it is mandatory for us to get this membership.  While we would do it anyways, I just have a problem with being told to do something or else being turned away. 

We then had a general brainstorming session on our strategy to recruit teams.  I said that I could post on ‘Meetup’, with a message approved by Allyson and Katherine, and they liked the idea.  I said that since I’m analytical, I would like to be able to track how many people we were recruiting through various channels, such as ‘Meetup’.  Apparently when you register, you can answer that question.  Next, I mentioned that we as committee members should be given some talking points, so that we could promote our cause in a unified manner.  I said that I get a lot of questions on the difference between us and ‘Avon’ or ‘Komen’ and so it would be nice to have some discussion points along those lines as well.  Le’Loni said that we could say that we are the only walk in October and while that was a bit weak, Allyson said that we could point out that almost all of the money that we raise goes back into research.  Now that was something I could build on.  Our final task of the evening was to schedule future meetings and we did so from now till October.  We all left with action items and homework for next meeting – come up with 5 strategies to create teams and recruit sponsors.  Looks like I have my work cut out.

American Cancer Society: Walk & Roll

Location: Soldier Field

Date: Saturday, April 25, 2015; 8:00-11:30 am

I had volunteered for them 2 years ago and it had been an ok experience, primarily because of the people in charge.  But this year Jessie was running things and Carrie was on the committee as well.  So I said that I would help out and she put me on the “Tribute Wall” from 8-1, though I told her that I would have to leave around 11:30.  It was cold and wet as I took a bus to 'Soldier Field' and then walked over to the side of the stadium where several tents had been set up.  I saw the "Volunteer check-in tent" where Allyson and Katherine – my new “Strides” committee leads – checked me in and then gave me a t-shirt to wear; which I promptly put over my jacket.  It was raining and really cold.

The "Tribute Cards"

We had a tent set-up for the “Tribute Wall” and I was paired with another volunteer, Heather.  She had already started setting up the black maker pens on the table as well as arranged the "Tribute Cards".  The cards had a ‘Velcro’ tape on the back and that would stick to the ‘tri-fold’ tribute board.  We had plenty of “In honor of” cards, but just 4 “In memory of”.  So we decided to just use the “Honor” cards.  Besides the cards, there were also ribbons that said “In honor of” or “Survivor”, which people could put on their shirt with a pin.  As we were setting up, the wind was playing havoc and there was a risk of our board toppling over. It needed to be weighted down and so I got some heavy boxes and we used them as support on the back side.  Now we were just waiting for people to come...and stay warm and dry.

As we waited, Heather suggested that we get started by making some cards ourselves.  I made one for my Uncle, who recently underwent treatment, and stuck it on the board, just as people started coming in.  In the meanwhile, the cards on the table were getting wet because of the rain and I was wiping them up before people could use them.  There was a suggestion for a donation, though it certainly was not required.  However, many gave whatever they could and we collected that in a pouch that we had.  And it wasn’t just the visitors; several volunteers did the same as well.  Many were honoring someone and quite a few were “Survivors”.  People asked if we had the “In Memory” cards, but we told them that they could cancel “honor” on the existing cards and write “memory” if they chose.  One gentleman came and made a card for a woman who had passed recently.  Heather was wearing a ‘Red Sox’ cap and he was from Boston as well.  In conversation we learnt that all 3 of us had lived in town a few miles apart.  We also learned that he was a part-time member of a rock band where he was the only member not in their 20s!

Everyone was out braving the weather

People started coming in droves and the wall was filling up.  Many asked if they could come after the walk to collect their card and we said of course.  In fact, I thought that all of these should be saved, and Carrie did indicate that these would be boxed.  I wondered if there is way that ‘ACS’ could build a wall in their office, which would be full of these; just like the ‘Make-A-Wish’ office.  A group came where one of the girls had a dog dressed in a pink shirt.  But the poor thing was getting wet and the girl said that they may have to take her back, which was a shame.  One lady came with 6-8 pre-made cards and then made some more.  Everyone wanted to take a picture with their card or at least a picture of their card on the board.  We were letting them come inside our tent to do so or taking their camera and clicking ourselves.  If people had multiple cards, they wanted them placed in a specific way so as to get all of them in the picture.  Hey, this was a great thing that they were doing and so we did whatever it took on our side.

Jessie stopped by and asked if more people were reluctant to stop by because of the “donations” sign and I said not really.  She asked us to use our discretion if we wanted to leave the sign there.  People came and asked if this was only for the “survivors” and we mentioned that they could make a card to honor whomever they wanted.  Many people were also taking the ribbons and putting them on and it was proving to be a popular thing.  Many were asking logistics related questions such as when the walk was supposed to start or location of various tents, and we were in turn directing them to the “Information Tent”.  All I knew was that the walkers, skaters and bikers were all starting at different times and following different paths.

I literally had to "stand" on the tent

While it was cold and wet, the ‘MC’ on the stage was doing a fantastic of motivating people.  He was keeping everyone’s spirits up with his chatter and choice of music.  While we were shivering, a gust of wind came and one of the legs of our tent came out of the ground.  This was dangerous as the tent could easily collapse on us.  I informed Allyson about this and she said that she would call Carrie. But immediate steps were required and so I went outside and put my foot on one leg of the tent to keep it down.  I was literally standing on one end of the tent to keep it up.  Carrie came and said that there were several other issues going on due to the weather, and so in interests of time and prioritization, we should just call it quits for this one.  I do not like quitting and neither did I think that it was fair to take the board down since people seemed to like it.  But we couldn’t continue the way we were.

I went over to the “Survivor Tent” and asked them if they could accommodate us, and to the credit of the lady there, she made place for us to put our stuff.  So I carried the board over to that tent along with some of our boxes.  We were now set up inside the big tent which was much better in terms of managing the wind.  Around us were t-shirts, wristbands other things for “Survivors” and “Caregivers”.  There was also a makeover station with makeup, wigs etc. for women if they so desired.  There was also some breakfast comprised of bagels and muffins.  In one corner of the tent there was a couple sitting with yoga mats but with the weather, that wasn’t happening and so they left.  This was a shame because they seemed like good folks.  I chatted with the lady who had helped us get set-up and learned that her name was Lisa, and that she has been a volunteer with ‘ACS’ for 20 years.  We had a great conversation as we waited for the walkers to return. 

Our "Tribute Wall"

After a while, the people did come back and a few wanted to collect their cards as promised, making me glad that we had moved in here instead of wrapping up.  I saw a couple of “special needs” volunteers; a man and a woman.  He had put a card on the board in her honor – which was smooth move - and was telling us about all the upcoming things they had in terms of volunteering; including a mid-week protest against the Governor’s policy on health and housing benefits.  I said that their week was looking to be more exciting than mine!  They were a cute couple and I enjoyed their company.  I waited till 11:30 chatting with Heather, Lisa and some of the other volunteers, before leaving.  The weather had started improving and the ‘MC’ now had the crowd dancing.  Kudos to him and all of the participants, for they were the real stars of today.  Certainly makes my job easier.

On Every Street - At 400

400 indeed

It has been some time since the 300.  Part of it is due to me being lax in my writing; but one of main reasons has been the reduction in my volunteer hours.  I have always believed that volunteering should never be a chore and if one finds it as being so, then it is time to stop or at least pull back.  While I never considered it a chore, I wasn’t feeling as committed as I had been in the past.  My travels had taken over most of my weekends and work often left me tired on weekdays.  But there were a few projects that I was particularly fond of and ones which I tried to attend regularly – “Lakeview Senior’s Pet Therapy”, “Dinner At Wells Street Café” and “Adler After Dark”.

I will never forget my very first visit to ‘Lakeview Nursing Home’, for it was my very first project.  I have written at length in the past on “What’s The Word” and how that became one of my favorite activities, right until its cancellation last year.  Through that I was introduced to other projects that Chicago Cares ran here, most notably “Lakeview Seniors Bingo” and “Lakeview Senior’s Pet Therapy”, besides some of the weekend projects.  But the one that I am particularly fond of is “Pet Therapy”.  Yes, I love dogs and this project gives me an opportunity to indulge myself in their company, but it is so much more than that.  This is probably the most “hands on” project that Chicago Cares has when it comes to seniors, since you are literally visiting with them in their rooms.  This is not some Bingo game in a community hall, but a personal experience and perhaps the only interaction that most of the seniors have during the week.  I have seen everything from raw humanity to intense vulnerability to misplaced optimism and even resigned humor during these visits.  And I have met some unforgettable characters like Hannah, who is always ready with a story and Loritta with her endless smiles and my newest friend Pearl, who is as well-read and educated as any person that I have met.  In my opinion, this project is truly the most significant one in Chicago Cares’ portfolio. 

I had first gone to “Dinner At Wells Street Café” through Chicago Cares and had taken an instant liking to the project, primarily because of the people involved.  Marianne, who is in charge of the volunteers and pretty much runs the place, is just the kind of motherly figure that you want to see at the end of a hard day…of which there have been plenty.  Her reassured touch makes what could easily be a chaotic evening a well-run machine, but with the most important ingredient – a human touch.  She never lets us forget why we do what we do and ensures that our guests have the best experience possible, along with the volunteers.  Every month as I visit there, I am reminded of the great people I work with, people like Joe and John; an especially little Hannah who continues to amaze with a maturity far beyond her young age.  It is truly a family environment and the love and respect that our guests have for Marianne is evident.  Even though we have cycled through 3 chefs since I have started here, the one constant is always the high quality of the food.  There is no compromise on that and our guests are treated to a meal worthy of any restaurant.  Plus there is always plenty to go around and no one leaves hungry.  It is my privilege to be able to serve here and more importantly, be a part of that family.

Ever since I moved to Chicago to take up my current job, my association with the scientific community had been reduced to occasional conversations with my old colleagues.  That was till one day at a “Volunteer Expo”, I came across a team from the ‘Adler Planetarium’ and they told me about the volunteer opportunity as an “After Hours Education Host” at their premier social event – ‘Adler After Dark’.  I decided to apply and what followed was a long process, which included a grueling interview – one of the most difficult ones that I have given – and intense training.  But it has all paid off in the end, for this is one of the best volunteer experiences. For 4 hours every month, I get to discuss science with people.  The entire evening is not only designed to provide our guests a great experience, but the volunteers are rotated through various stations, so that they do not get tired and jaded.  On any given evening I talk with ten’s if not hundreds of people and often end up teaching them something that they were not aware of.  Plus every event has its own theme and different set of experiments to accompany it, which keeps everything fresh.  Also, I enjoy the company of my colleagues, who are as nerdy as me when it comes to science and we spend most of our free time debating the latest scientific discovery or even better, “sci-fi” movies.

While these 3 projects will remain some of my more frequent activities, over the course of last 100 articles, I have spent a brief time as a volunteer at ‘Lincoln Park Zoo’ and also finished my first “Jimmy Fund Boston Marathon Walk”.  Besides that I had an opportunity to meet Baby Kyler and be a part of the wish that sent him to ‘Disneyworld’…before it was too late.  And I was able to attend a classical concert unlike any other with the residents of ‘Misericordia’.  It has been an incredible journey and it still is.  Even though the stops have become a bit infrequent, it is still an experience that introduces me to amazing people…on every street.

*All the client's names have been changed in order to respect their privacy