Get Sweaty and Uncomfortable
It’s Messy, But Worth It
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“Your hand is sweaty,” the middle school girl told me.
Frankly, her words surprised me.
We were holding this event because of Trudy Smith. Trudy is one of those saint-like people that shines a light bulb into everyone’s lives. For many summers, she’s gently cajoled a group of us into helping her run a summer camp in the evenings in a neighborhood with lots of shade trees. The camp offers food and activities for the kids.
Shade trees yes, but it’s a neighborhood that appreciates any help provided. Most of the lots are owned by one landlord. Some of the homes are in such disrepair they are being torn down. Mobile homes don’t require a wrecking ball.
A few summers ago, a boy in the neighborhood finished swimming in a small pool in his yard. He got out and touched the aluminum siding on his house, perhaps as leverage to open a stuck door. And was electrocuted. To illustrate how bad the house wiring was, someone had clamped the ground wires together with a pair of vise-grips. The house siding was a hot circuit, especially to someone with wet feet in contact with the ground.
That was a painful summer because around the same time, we lost an elementary school principal to illness. She was in her thirties, was a mom, and had worked with us during her vacation because she loved the kids attending her school. My last memory of her is following her car out of another neighborhood, her taillights glowing in the night. She had checked on a student she’d heard was in need. We didn’t let her travel there alone.
Before he retired, Phil Kite worked in aerospace. For this year’s camp, he designed a hands-on project for the kids, a picture frame around a chalkboard, complete with a kickstand. They like challenges and building things and Phil kept it just above their current skill levels.
We helped them square the pieces, drill pilot holes, sink screws, all while hearing about how one’s dad was a landscaper who was still at work even though it was evening, while another’s dad kicked a soccer ball with the neighborhood kids. He sported a decent kick and a huge smile.
It was while helping the middle school girl on the picture frame craft that her hand slipped off the screwdriver and hit mine, holding the frame stationary. It was incidental contact in a open area with dozens of people, some mere feet away. Then came her comment about my sweaty hand. Phil and I shared a worktable. I think Phil laughed, as I wanted to.
“Yeah, it’s summer,” I said, shrugging, unable to help myself from being icky.
It felt a hundred with the high humidity. After carrying and setting up tables, hauling boxes of food and toys, spreading tarps over the grass, after two of us walked a camper to her house to get papers signed for her cousin to join us, after walking through calf-high grass and jumping drainage ditches, sure that the chiggers would feast on us that night, after working on the frames, it was a wonder I wasn’t drenched all over, engulfing the work table.
After all the activities, everyone lined up at a van and we gave them bags of food to carry home. Bigger families got more bags. I’d already had a conversation with our food pantry partner. This year, it seemed like the bags weighed less and I complained, “We like to send them home with lots of food.” They’d heard it elsewhere and explained their shelves were less full for some reason. Good to know, as that’s a problem we can fix. Because of people like Trudy and Phil and others who keep coming year after year, even while I’ve missed a summer or a week.
They’re doers even when it feels like a hundred, when we go back in the neighborhood to where the chiggers lurk in the grass for us, where to be there for the kids and their families, we have to get sweaty and messy.
Want to know a secret? It felt surprisingly serene to be uncomfortable.
All the Best,
Geoff
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Great story to read this morning, Geoff! Thanks for the work you do - the world needs it!
Volunteer work seems to always take a toll on you. But giving back is important to do no matter your station in life. It makes the world go 'round. Say, what kind of trees are those? Looks like a grove of hickory or ash.