Friday, November 8, 2019

Friday, November 8, 2019

Tonight's picture was taken on November 30, 2007. We were visiting Peter's parents house for Thanksgiving. Mattie was outside running around with his cousins and they were taking turns jumping from a swing into a pile of leaves. Of course all of us at one time or other probably jumped into a pile of leaves. It is one of the great things about Fall, at least from a kid's standpoint. But I was always hovering around because I wanted to make sure Mattie wouldn't get hurt. Ironically, Mattie was a naturally cautious child but being cautious did not stop him from trying an activity. 


Quote of the day: Generosity brings happiness at every stage of its expression. We experience joy in forming the intention to be generous. We experience joy in the actual act of giving something. And we experience joy in remembering the fact that we have given. ~ Buddha

Peter had his hands full today. While I was at a five hour licensure board meeting, Peter was managing the candy drive ALL DAY. That may sound easy, but it is a very laborious process. It involves moving candy around (which is VERY heavy), manage continual clean up of bags and boxes, and of course assisting volunteers as they sorted candy. 

While I was in my meeting, I could see Peter text messaging me. Typically I don't respond to messages while I am running a board meeting, but today was different. I know what the candy drive is like and given the volume of donations today, I could see Peter needed help. I literally was texting messaging friends today to go help Peter. Do you see all those black bins and bags? They were filled with candy donated today alone!!!

Some of our volunteers! From left to right: Peggy (who found out about our candy drive on her neighborhood listserv), Leslie, her son Ben (a cancer survivor), Lana (one of Mattie's preschool teachers) and our friend Mary. 

Some of the action throughout the day! Candy is sorted for multiple reasons. First it helps to screen the candy that we are donating. Also sorting candy by type and bagging it, helps hospital staff restock our snack and item carts more efficiently. 

Once the candy is bagged, it then goes into bins for transportation. 

Honestly! Have you ever seen so much candy? This is just some of the candy donated from the Washington National Cathedral School! Though I ask our participating groups to sort candy, it doesn't always happen. So sorting candy in these boxes will take hours tomorrow. 

Literally candy and bags surrounded the garage today. Tonight, our entire car was filled with garage..... bags, candy wrappers, broken boxes, etc! Thankfully we have access to dumpsters at our home, because trash generated from one day of the candy drive would be impossible to fit in the average household garage bin!

When I got home from my licensure board meeting, Sunny was besides himself. He needed to be walked. So I walked him for 75 minutes, then hopped into Uber and met Peter at 5pm at the Candy Drive. I worked with him for another two hours and then we closed it down for the night. We have a VERY VERY full day ahead of us tomorrow, with more candy deliveries and a whole lot of sorting.