Saturday, April 21, 2007

No cookie jokes, please.

I have ten little African-American Girl Scouts working in the warehouse this morning. They are aged 8-13. It is a delight to watch them and also an adjustment to realize how long it takes a group of five to do something I could do by myself. That's OK. Facilitating volunteers is only partially about how much work gets done. Mostly, it's about providing volunteers with opportunities to learn more about themselves and the world outside their spheres.

They are currently lined up outside my office for the bathroom that is next door, drinking water from the machine and resting. It's 10:15 and they've been working for an hour taking school supplies out of boxes and putting them on shelves. One of them just said as I was walking past, "Now I see what grown folks mean when they be saying they tired."

Oh, the facts of life.

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