Chapter 11: 4th of July

And waiting…
My doctors were working at a snails pace and all the waiting was making me depressed. I had to work hard not to be in a permanent funk.
Like many women, I suffer occasional boughs of depression. Luckily mine rarely lasted more than a day or two. Maybe it is because I have good body chemistry or maybe it is because when I feel down, I get up.
I have found that the best way to stop feeling sorry for myself is to focus on someone else. Try to do something nice for another person. I was not looking for a big project, something small would do. I don't usually have to look far because I find that if I keep my eyes open, an opportunity to help someone will present itself.
One such opportunity showed up when Emma, one of my favorite older church ladies, handed me a bags of books after church one day and told me that she wanted to donate them to the library. I thanked her and I thought that that was the end of it.
Later at a church coffee hour (a time of fellowship after church each week), I made a point to sit with Emma and thank her again for the books. The best way to describe Emma is to say that she was a character. Emma was in her eighties, about five-foot nothing and a bundle of energy. I got tired just watching her work a room. The children all call her 'The Candy Lady' because every Sunday she brought a bag a candy to coffee hour and gave each child (and adult) a piece or two of candy. I liked her because she cracked me up and I admired her because her husband had Alzheimer's and she had been taking care of him for years.
Anyway, Emma and I stared talking about books. During our discussion I discovered that she had lost most of her eye sight and the reason that she gave me so many books was that she could no longer read them. I was shocked. I had no idea that she could hardly see. I asked her if she listened to any books-on-tape.
"Books on what?"
"Books-on-tape." I said. I went on to explain to her that best selling books were recorded so people could listen to them.
"How do I get one?" she asked. I told her that we had books on tape at the library and I would be happy to bring her some. I asked her what kind of books she liked and told her I would bring her some every week. And that is what I did. Each week I would check-out two or three books-on-tape, make a list of what I brought her and record if she liked the book or not. It was a simple thing to do, yet it brought us both so much joy.
I needed another project to keep me occupied through all of the testing and waiting. I got my next project idea from an off-handed remark made by Claire, who is another (much younger) one of the church ladies,
Claire did a lot of volunteer work at the church. One of the things that she did was once a month gather all the donated food that had been put in the collection box that we keep in the church and take it to the local food bank. One Sunday as I was helping her put the food in her car, we both notice how little had been donated and she remarked:
"The food bank looks so sad this time of the year. People just don't donate as much food in the summer and they do around Thanksgiving and Christmas." That was it! That’s when I decided to coordinate a summer food drive. First I though to do a 'Christmas in July' theme, then I thought nahhhh too goofy, I left acting goofy to my husband. So I decided to have a 4th of July picnic food drive.
I have been involved with food banks in one form or another for years. My interest started in the late seventies when I became a fan of the late Harry Chapin. To see a Chapin concert meant not only listing to his wonderful music, it also meant listening to him lecture about how obscene is was that in our country of abundance, people/children went to bed hungry every night. I never went to a concert with out a few cans of food for the local food bank. Funny how being a Chapin fan turned out to be good training for being a minister's wife.
The first person that I call with my idea was Diane and we put together a typical BBQ menu: Hot dogs, hamburgers, buns, pickles, catsup, mustard, chips, chicken, soda, fresh fruit and corn-on-the-cob. I had talked to the woman who ran the food bank a few weeks earlier and asked if they had refrigerators to store the perishables, she did. We ask the congregation to donate food, money and freezer space. We got everything that we ask for and more. Everybody really jumped into the spirit of giving and I found myself very busy organizing everything.

And waiting…
For the next two weeks when ever a member of the church ran into either Diane or me they told us that they thought the food drive was a great idea. People drop-off bags of buns, condiments, pickles and beans at my house, other people gave Diane or me cash, telling us to buy what every meat or perishables we needed. On the morning of July 2nd, Diane and I took the cash and headed out to the local supermarket. We both brought our children. We turned the shopping trip in to a math game for the kids as we tried to get the best deal for each item. The kids helped. They liked to try and figure out which brand of pickles would give us the most jars for our dollar. Because of a big holiday sale we did better then we anticipated.
We bought hamburgers, hot dogs, coleslaw, and potato salad, enough to feed between ten to fifteen families. We still have cash left so we bought twenty bottles of soda, but like everything else that we bought, the soda was on sale. We still had money left. We bought bags and bags of potato chips. We still had money left over; we decide to donate the extra money to the food bank. It took two mini vans and my car to get all of the food to its destination. When we arrived, a volunteer (a very nice older gentleman) came over to help us unload. He asked us if we had a picnic that was canceled. We told him no, that this was the result of a food drive. He was amazed by all of the corn-on-the-cob and fruit. Soon staff members and other volunteers came out to help us unload the cars.
The manager was overwhelmed. I reminded her that I called a few weeks earlier. She just smiled and said 'thank you' but gave me a look that said 'I didn't think that you could pull it off'. I walked back to my car feeling the high of a job well done. I thought that our effort would feed people for days. What I didn't know was that this food bank (which was located in one of the wealthiest counties in the state) distributed about three hundred and fifty bags of food a day…a day. So our little effort barely scratches the surface. But it was a start!