Usually in the past years, if we had a sunny day during the Thanksgiving weekend, we were pretty lucky. But this year, the sunshine is gorgeous and brilliant for the whole weekend. The sun seems almost impatient to break through the day, and streams of blinding light pours into the windows early in the morning.
I saw this ad on the newspaper a few weeks ago about the community tree planting project this weekend. So I rallied the ESL classes to go for it. As a reward for their effort, I cooked two turkeys the day before and planned to serve them lunch afterwards.
The room was full of bodies when I arrived. I tried to sort out who were the ones going to the tree planting.
Secretely, I was hoping just the younger families. But no, all the older ladies wanted to come too. Even with my van and two cars, I still had to do a second run to bring everyone to the park. I bought some lawn chairs thinking of seating the elderly couple I had invited. Fortunately, I also had a big typolene in the car, so I threw it on the grass for the others to sit on. But no one wanted to sit yet. They all wanted to work.
The ground was so hard after having no rain for nearly three months. It was dry as bones even digging a foot deep. I was having a hard time. The older women told me how many trees they had planted already, some two, some three. One said six, everyone cheered. The children asked me how many I planted. I said I was still digging my first one. They couldn't believe it. So I told them I had been doing the harder job of driving and taking pictures. It suprised me how enthusiatic everybody was.
The supervisor told us after the job was done, that normally, they would take back 50 out of 100 trees to their storage. Since our group came, they were able to achieve the goal of planting them all.
When we got back to the Centre, the hungry crowd had to wait awhile for me to bring out the food. Even though turkey is not their normal diet. Everybody (less one fussy eater) was happy for the meal. And thanks for the inspiration from above, that we had 'No sweat, healthy Turkey Donair'.
That was a real Thanksgiving lesson everyone had learned. To be thankful and giving at the same time.
I saw this ad on the newspaper a few weeks ago about the community tree planting project this weekend. So I rallied the ESL classes to go for it. As a reward for their effort, I cooked two turkeys the day before and planned to serve them lunch afterwards.
The room was full of bodies when I arrived. I tried to sort out who were the ones going to the tree planting.
Secretely, I was hoping just the younger families. But no, all the older ladies wanted to come too. Even with my van and two cars, I still had to do a second run to bring everyone to the park. I bought some lawn chairs thinking of seating the elderly couple I had invited. Fortunately, I also had a big typolene in the car, so I threw it on the grass for the others to sit on. But no one wanted to sit yet. They all wanted to work.
The ground was so hard after having no rain for nearly three months. It was dry as bones even digging a foot deep. I was having a hard time. The older women told me how many trees they had planted already, some two, some three. One said six, everyone cheered. The children asked me how many I planted. I said I was still digging my first one. They couldn't believe it. So I told them I had been doing the harder job of driving and taking pictures. It suprised me how enthusiatic everybody was.
The supervisor told us after the job was done, that normally, they would take back 50 out of 100 trees to their storage. Since our group came, they were able to achieve the goal of planting them all.
When we got back to the Centre, the hungry crowd had to wait awhile for me to bring out the food. Even though turkey is not their normal diet. Everybody (less one fussy eater) was happy for the meal. And thanks for the inspiration from above, that we had 'No sweat, healthy Turkey Donair'.
That was a real Thanksgiving lesson everyone had learned. To be thankful and giving at the same time.
posted by Echo at 11:01 PM
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