Volunteers Make the World Work (+ Happy 100th BCH!)

 Many places would be in big trouble without volunteers. I hosted some volunteers this week and did some of my own volunteering on Sunday. Plus, I attended a centennial anniversary celebration that I'm sure operated with volunteer labour. 

Book Fair

The Scholastic Book Fair has returned to my school. I debated with myself (and there's a lot to debate) about running it again but I knew how much enjoyment the community gets out of the event, so I acquiesced. I've been involved with book fairs for a very long time but I never saw such crowds as I did on our Curriculum Night on Thursday. We had five staff members helping out, including myself (thanks Renee, Shanu, Julie and Katrina) and we didn't have time to breathe! These were the only photos I captured, before we opened it up on Thursday night, with no one in it.

Birch Cliff Heights P.S. 100th Anniversary

I attended Birch Cliff Heights Public School as a student from 1976-1985. On Saturday, October 15, the school hosted an open house for its hundredth anniversary. It was nice to revisit my old stomping grounds. The gym at BCH used to be leased out in the evenings to the Scarborough Entertainers Baton and Dance studio, and I used to teach out of that gym for years after I left the school. The gym is smaller than I remember it being. Here are some of the photos I took at the anniversary.

This is from the time capsule.

I'm starting to think about my own school's upcoming 50th anniversary and this weekend has inspired me to start brainstorming appealing things to consider for that event. (I've got time - it's not until 2031.)

• "panels" of certain themed gatherings in the gym (e.g. all the principals that have ever served, all the teacher-librarians that have ever served, etc.)
• name tags so people can identify others easier (I saw someone at BCH with a button she made saying "Don't worry - I don't recognize you either!")
• souvenirs or memorabilia of different types and costs (the 100th had t-shirts but I don't wear a lot of those kind of t-shirts anymore)
• decade rooms (often used, and helpful gathering spots for alumni) but with colour replica of photos (there were a lot of images but many were photocopies so hard to see details in some)

Guyana Christina Charities Bazaar and Bake Sale

My aunt-who's-not-really-my-aunt (which is very common in Caribbean culture) asked me to volunteer to run the raffle table with her. I gave my Sunday afternoon to this charity. I was told that the crowds were not as large as they have been in the past, but a lot of the food sold out completely way before the scheduled end time of 4:00 pm. I bought some chhana curry dahl puri, pine tarts, black cake, mauby and sorrel. 

All of these events do have something else in common - they used to be a huge part of my mother's social calendar. 

1) My mother used to run my book fairs for me for many years and I used to hold it on Curriculum Night because she was "booked" to run the Book Fair at Birch Cliff Heights PS during Parent-Teacher Interviews (the most popular time to host a Scholastic Book Fair). 

2) Speaking of Birch Cliff Heights ... I may have left BCH in 1985 but she remained there for decades afterwards, volunteering in the library. She was a constant volunteer at BCH from my JK year (1976) until the 2010s. In fact, she served on BCH's 75th anniversary committee in 1997. Many of the artifacts I saw were part of her contributions. 

3) The reason why I was conscripted into helping at the Guyana Christian Charities sale was because my mother used to help at the raffle table for years. Her advanced dementia prevents her from participating in these things like she used to do. (She last went to the GCC Christmas lunch with me in 2019. Now, she doesn't know who I am and she works best with comfortable predictable routines, like when I take her to Mass every week.)

Before this post ends on too melancholy a note, let me thank all of those volunteers - for book fairs, for school events that happen outside school hours, and for charities and non-profit organizations, - who make it all possible.