Rush Limbaugh notwithstanding, it seems like everybody has been motivated to do something to try to help the people of Haiti. Early last week, Charlotte’s teacher sent an e-mail to all of the parents of her class to let us know that they would be running a lemonade stand to solicit donations for Haitian relief efforts from their classmates; parents were asked to contribute items they would need, such as cups, juicers and a huge amount of fresh lemons, and, if possible, to sign up to help out on the day of the event. We signed up to provide the cups, and I volunteered to go in and help out.
Charlotte’s school is grades one through three, with a total of somewhere around 350 kids, so the actual amount of funds to be raised from this would only be modest, but the entire school district had done a separate fundraiser which collected a couple thousand dollars on top of this event’s proceeds. It speaks well of a town that is mostly white, lower-middle class and prime Scott Brown country that the schools felt that they could ask for and receive the kind of support they’ve gotten.
Today was the big day, and I arrived at the school just as Charlotte’s class were being led through the hall (quietly and single-file, of course) to gather up the several hundred lemons, gallon jugs of water, five-pound bags of sugar, and whatever else needed to be taken to the cafeteria. I and another dad, along with the teacher’s husband (who, not coincidentally, is Haitian) got the tables in place and plugged in the half-dozen or so electric juicers. I passed out lemons to the kids and showed them how to roll them to make them easier to juice. The moms on hand helped with slicing lemons and supervising the kids on the juicers. Every kid got at least a brief turn doing each part of the process, except for the two boys who declared themselves the “Ice Patrol” and took it upon themselves to make sure every container of lemonade was adequately supplied with ice cubes. Though Charlotte wanted my direct attention a few times, for the most part she stuck to her assigned jobs and interacted with her classmates. It was fun to watch her be one of the kids rather than be part of a performance or other staged event where she gets to be the deliberate center of attention.
I think the actual task was a little bit bigger than the teacher had imagined when she came up with the idea, but the kids were exceedingly well-behaved and did whatever was asked of them. As the momentum of things shifted from one task to another, I tried to run interference and do whatever seemed to need to be done: showing the kids how to stir the bottoms of the containers to dissolve all the sugar, ferrying completed containers to the “Ice Patrol” to keep them working steadily, clearing away the emptied water jugs, and so on. Our hour and a half sped by, and the kids were rewarded with a cup of their lemonade; as you can imagine, some batches were unbearably sweet, others impossibly tart, some just watery. The kids mostly drank their cups, though some only took a sip or two. The kids were then seated for an early lunch so they could spend their regular lunch period selling the lemonade, and the adults handled cleanup and pre-pouring the lemonade for service. A second shift of parents had volunteered for the lunch hour selling, and they began to drift in just as we finished and the rest of the school kids were starting to line up for the caf.
I’m pleased and proud of Charlotte and her classmates for their willingness to make a real contribution to helping people who have suffered an unimaginable tragedy. Sunday evening we watched the “60 Minutes” segment about Haiti, and Charlotte got to see the footage of the piles of dead bodies being loaded with a back-hoe into a dump truck for mass burial, and I think it took her aback a little bit. I hope this taught her that being willing to offer even a little help can be worthwhile.
