Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Always Learning

Sunday was the second ever Cool Deeds Field Trip. Everything is a little more complex when I try to get myself, my son, and a posse of parents and kids out of the church and into the community. It makes me nervous, because it’s never as simple as you think it’s going to be. This was set to be very simple — we were going to make up bags of helpful things for the families at the Opportunity Center: 18 bags, one for every family. We planned to do it over President’s Day Weekend, because we always have smaller attendance, hence a more manageable crew to take on adventure. The thing about holidays, though, is that people don’t like to commit to be anywhere. Maureen and I were nervous that we didn’t have a lot of advance commitments, but trusted that this would be great like all the previous special events, where people turn up at church even on a holiday, and want to be part of the fun. We watched the donations of laundry detergent and gift-cards start to fill up the entry to my office and crossed our fingers.

By coincidence, we had just received a donation of FABULOUS papers and stamps from KarenLee Smith who had recently moved out of state, so we started the morning by making cards and notes for each family. The older kids were sorting out our donations into piles of like objects to create an assembly line for the bags. I had our math whizzes dividing our total sponges by number of bags, and adults bustled around seeing how we could make every bag come out even. A couple of parents rushed off to the store to buy “everything else.” (“Really?” I thought. “That seems like a pretty big donation” but they really meant it! People can be so generous.)

As usual, some of the children were totally absorbed with the drawing and writing, and others were done in a few minutes and ready to run circles. I called them all together to read a story called “Tight Times” by Barbara Shook Hazen. The illustrations are beautiful drawings, very expressive, and the story always feels very real; what it’s like for a family when times are tight, and how on earth you explain that to your 5 year old. The kids were so quiet and attentive while they listened, it seemed like they were really able to take it in.

Then when “everything else” came, the children and youth lined up and filled their bags, the adults made sure the bags all came out right, Maureen handed me a big pile of field trip forms and a list of who-goes-in-what car, and after I convinced my son’s playmate to join us, so that my son would be willing to leave his water games on the playground, we headed off. Almost every parent of every child wanted to come, and each transported a few of the bags. Waiting for us at the Opportunity Center was Case Manager Kristin Chandler who was sweet and gracious and lead us to the Family Drop-Inn Center where we delivered our bags of goodies and she told us a bit about their programs. She even was kind enough to show us over to the classroom named for our church, because of our participation in their capitol campaign.

I had been to the Opportunity Center once before, but none of these parents or children had seen it for themselves. It is such an amazing space, with such care in aesthetics as I have hardly seen in a place designed to serve families experiencing “tight times.” My son was devastated when I told him it was time to go. He just wanted to stay on his rock in the sunshine, out in the front open-space of the center.

When I this church in June, I hope that our connection to the Opportunity Center will stay strong. I know that for great parents and children and for anyone who gets to see it first hand, you will want to stay connected.