What kind of carousel maker includes only one unicorn on the ride? (August 22, 2007)
This past Saturday was my first official volunteer day at the Give Kids The World Village in Kissimmee. I arrived at the on sight ice cream shop ready to make milk shakes, floats and banana splits. After training and putting on my gloves and apron, one of the volunteer directors frantically barged in and announced that my co-worker and I were needed to switch places with some younger volunteers and work the carousel instead. This was a relief at first because one of my first jobs during high school was working in a little ice cream parlor in Deland. I was fired for losing one too many fake nails in the ice cream bins. Traumatic, no... but if I can avoid the food service industry for the rest of my life, I intend to do so. Of course, not working in the A/C all day meant that wearing jeans was a bad choice. However, aside from the heat, I must admit that it was a very rewarding experience.
I took the position of "Engineer" (which basically means that I got to push the button... see Bexxx, told ya I had a weird thing about buttons) and Maribel was left being "The Gate Keeper". Basically, my main responsibility was to make sure I took the master key out of the box whenever I left my post to help buckle and load the kids and to stand with my hand near the emergency stop button in case any of the children freaked out. Maribel had to count and log everyone, and I believe we had over 175 riders during our shift. I could write a very long entry with details about how I called the little boys scaredy cats when they asked if it was going to go fast ... or how I kept letting the cute little girl with the tracheotomy tube in her neck ride the unicorn, while everyone else got stuck with the regular animals ... or how I became the master at quickly locking and loading the wheelchairs into the turtle and the snail seats... but instead I'll focus my writing on one incident that struck a chord with me. A family came up with a little girl of about 7 or 8 who appeared to have an advanced case of elephantitis. One leg was purple and swollen twice the size of the rest of her little body. We switched the turtle from wheelchair mode to regular non-moving bench mode and her father picked her up and sat in it with her across his lap. Her mother and sister seated themselves on two of the horses behind them. After pushing the start button, I smiled and waved at the little girl each time she circled by, and by the third time, she began to smile and wave back. Those two minutes were magical. When the ride stopped, I assisted in unbuckling and helping everyone off and with tear-filled eyes, the mother stopped and thanked me. Her eyes locked mine with such genuine and sincere gratitude that I nearly began to cry myself. I think this moment can be marked as the single most prominent instance in my life (thus far) where I have felt like I was the best human being I've ever been.
You hear all the time how a smile is contagious and that positivity is a chain reaction... and while that's all well and good... imagine the impact it has when you might be the reason that a child forgets about how different and difficult their short life has been... if only for a hundred and twenty seconds on a carousel ride. I cannot wait to return this weekend or the next. I've decided that this work is going to be a permanent part of my life from here on out.
I took the position of "Engineer" (which basically means that I got to push the button... see Bexxx, told ya I had a weird thing about buttons) and Maribel was left being "The Gate Keeper". Basically, my main responsibility was to make sure I took the master key out of the box whenever I left my post to help buckle and load the kids and to stand with my hand near the emergency stop button in case any of the children freaked out. Maribel had to count and log everyone, and I believe we had over 175 riders during our shift. I could write a very long entry with details about how I called the little boys scaredy cats when they asked if it was going to go fast ... or how I kept letting the cute little girl with the tracheotomy tube in her neck ride the unicorn, while everyone else got stuck with the regular animals ... or how I became the master at quickly locking and loading the wheelchairs into the turtle and the snail seats... but instead I'll focus my writing on one incident that struck a chord with me. A family came up with a little girl of about 7 or 8 who appeared to have an advanced case of elephantitis. One leg was purple and swollen twice the size of the rest of her little body. We switched the turtle from wheelchair mode to regular non-moving bench mode and her father picked her up and sat in it with her across his lap. Her mother and sister seated themselves on two of the horses behind them. After pushing the start button, I smiled and waved at the little girl each time she circled by, and by the third time, she began to smile and wave back. Those two minutes were magical. When the ride stopped, I assisted in unbuckling and helping everyone off and with tear-filled eyes, the mother stopped and thanked me. Her eyes locked mine with such genuine and sincere gratitude that I nearly began to cry myself. I think this moment can be marked as the single most prominent instance in my life (thus far) where I have felt like I was the best human being I've ever been.
You hear all the time how a smile is contagious and that positivity is a chain reaction... and while that's all well and good... imagine the impact it has when you might be the reason that a child forgets about how different and difficult their short life has been... if only for a hundred and twenty seconds on a carousel ride. I cannot wait to return this weekend or the next. I've decided that this work is going to be a permanent part of my life from here on out.
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