Thank You for Volunteering

Scheduling my Thanksgiving in New Orleans without friends and family challenged any typical plan for the holiday, where considerations took me to the New Orleans Convention Center Thursday morning to volunteer for the sheriff’s annual Thanksgiving dinner, incongruously served during the brunch hours. Whoever planned a serving of tryptophan at 10am is un-American. Considering New Orleans diverse decent, this could be completely possible.

The door to Hall D opened onto flying high ceilings and reflective tiled floors with balloon vines, funneling volunteers, and eager eaters distinguishing the entrance. Checked in and walked through the doors to view patient tables, more balloons, a stage, twin screens, and a flow of orange-apron-wearing volunteers. Everything was up and running and my early arrival at 9:30am seemed too late!

Joining the nearest drink station by an organizer’s initial orders failed as fifteen people worked a five person job and another organizer offered a better answer. Off to the furthest drink station I contently trotted, and though the same situation existed, thirteen of these fifteen people were deputies in training and could care less if a little twenty three year old snuggled in to work the table.

In fifth grade for no recollected reason, volunteered time during recess dumping ice for the lunch ladies earned me a cheap meal of French bread pizza or chicken nuggets. Silver scoops used to gather the ice seemed large at the time but manageable as I filled cups for Americorp kids to carry out to the patient tables. More and more and more volunteers arrived, experiencing the jobs shuffle or christening as a soda fairy to refill eater’s cups with diet coke, sprite, and coke.

Being a little mystical creature seemed more fun than an iceman, so with liters under my arms, I went into the crowd. Working the floor saw much more action than standing behind a table, with eaters and volunteers dancing, hollering, and clapping to the music and marching band.  A woman three times my age danced three times as better as I could behind the stage’s standing crowd as I made my rounds in the surrounding tables. Would any of you like a refill on soda? Many appreciative nos, a handful of yesses, and a scattered questioning if a cornucopia, row of balloons, or apron could go home with them. Hey, if it makes your day better, knock yourself out.

At noon, a large portion of the first wave emptied while a second sat down. As a newly deemed garbage dog, I wandered with others collecting trash during the transition, where conversations with a local architect, Troy Architect, led me to my new dinner plans. His friends, Sweetheart Zoya and Talkative Mike, offered a 5pm seat at their Thanksgiving feast, so I traded in my previous plans of enjoying a fifteen dollar drink at the Roosevelt for a fifteen dollar bottle of wine, leaving the Convention Center content as a new adopted iceman-fairy-garbage dog.