To the Unnamed Volunteers

Goodbyes at the Airport 

The man behind the scene… Alf.

The warehouse job is finally done, a year in the making, every Monday night Marina and Alf would host a group of volunteers while I finished work and raced over to Burnaby after they arrived. My job was to separate out a trays of incoming glasses in order to load the industrial washer, I'd complete six loads before the night is done. No Monday night football or Canuck's games can keep us from our duty. No kid activities can be scheduled on Monday nights as Evan and Emma know all too well that they will be at the warehouse with Mom and Dad....often saying"Mom, I'll finish my homework at the warehouse" as she feeds them a rushed supper and I fill the minivan with boxes of donated eyeglasses that arrived that week at Marina's office on the other side of the city.  And as a treat for being well behaved, Evan and Emma look forward to the McDonald's drive thru ice cream cone before going home.   Most nights we arrive at the warehouse just after 7pm but we know we can alway count on "Uncle Alf" to be there to open the doors right on time, rain or shine.  150 man-hours times the number of volunteers over this past year resulted in the packed contents in the van pictured below now winging south for the TWECS-Nicaragua 2011 project. It's nice to see all the early work done by the many participants over the year who never come on a project with us but also give up their Monday nights, this is blog is for you.  Thanks

-Derrick