I wish I had taken photos of tonight. I forgot to bring my camera. But no worries, there will be other opportunities. I am definitely going back to Give Kids the World to volunteer. I don't think I have ever been so happy to help people in my entire life.
I signed up like a month ago to join this random team from Disney who was going to volunteer. Disney's cool like that and is always sending groups over, but I've never been able to commit any of the other times because of my crazy schedule. But tonight, it worked out!
So we served Christmas dinner to the kids in the Gingerbread House tonight. Every Thursday night is Christmas. To be honest, I don't even know what they served for dinner, I was busing. At first, I was a little bummed to be busing as I was expecting to serve food, but it turned out to be possibly the best time I've ever had busing tables.
The families were sincerely some of the best people I've ever met in my entire life. All of them, so happy, so grateful, so kind, loving, and just to reiterate, happy.
We carried the trays for the families to the tables, especially the ones with little kids (it was cafeteria style). Then walked around tables asking if people wanted refills on drinks (we weren't technically supposed to do that, but those cups are TINY! it's impossible not to). Then cleaned and bussed after the family was done. At one point I asked a family if I could take their dishes and the little boy in the wheelchair held up his little bowl of corn. Just a few kernels were left in it, but as I reached for it his mom said, "No honey, look. There's still corn in there. We don't waste food."
Normally when a parent tells a kid to finish their vegetables there's at least a bit of a fight. This boy put the bowl down and looked at it. Then looked at me grinning. "Oops. One second. I have one more bite!" His dad helped him scoop out that last bite of corn, and really it ended up being two bites. He obediently ate it and then held his plate high to me to take away, with a huge smile on his face. And then he told me "thank you."
You would think a family who was getting unlimited food for free for a week wouldn't even notice that. But these people notice everything. Most of the plates were entirely spotless. Cleaner than when I used to bus tables at Texas Steakhouse.
It's funny how, when you take money out of the equation, it changes people. Well, I guess you take money out and put in some life threatening illnesses, it really changes them. The truth is, I didn't even think once about how these children were so sick tonight. It hardly even occurred to me until I was on my way home and started thinking about that little boy with the tube in his throat playing the clapping games with his dad and showing me how he could dance. The girl who we carried the tray for because she couldn't walk without her crutches. The kid who was in that wheelchair finishing his corn.
No, I didn't cry. No one did. We were all having too much fun seeing Santa and getting ready for the little parade. We had too much fun laughing with the little kids and meeting the families. I had too much fun meeting the people I was working with. The guy I was busing with was from Alabama and was visiting here on some conference for work (he's some important guy that works at Sam's Club). There were also some kids from a college in Minnesota. They said for their Spring break they chose to go on a service trip down here for a week and help out at GKtW.
I felt so humbled by the incredible families and their joyful lives. So humbled by the people who travel hundreds of miles and choose to go to Give Kids the World, when I live twenty minutes away and this was my first time. It felt like I visited a whole different world tonight. And I certainly plan on going back to it. I just hope it will always be my choice to be there.
1 comment:
You didn't cry? Cause I sure am.
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