April 28th, 2012
Okay, so I have only gotten around to writing this now on
account of my busy school schedule. But since it’s the weekend I thought it
would be a good time to post this. As most of you probably don’t know, my
birthday was on the 27th of April and for my birthday I decided that I was
going to go on a huge volunteering spree. I know, what a weird thing to do on
my birthday right, Well, I‘m kind of different that way and find that since
people are helping me celebrate and make this one day special for me, I would
do the same for others.
The first event which I took part in was the 30 Hour Famine,
which was held at our school. This event was run by the Vice Principal Mrs.
Wilcox and my English teacher Ms. Wilcox.
During the event, I felt a little out of place and socially
awkward. In fact, for the first 2 hours, I was doing homework (yeah, what a fun
and exciting thing to do.) Soon after, some of my friends came over and offered
me to play “Taboo” with them. I had no idea what Taboo was or how to play for
that matter, but I still joined them. It proved to be very fun and amusing.
This continued for about an hour until we decided to go play basketball in the
gym for a little while. Soon after, we were informed that dinner was ready,
dinner meaning a cup of rice. After all, it was a famine. We made our way to
the kitchen, where Ms. Wilcox was standing serving rice to the other students.
My friend Kia and I stood patiently until we were informed to come. We both
stood there awkwardly while she waited for us to present our cups. Both Kia and
I, being the polite people that we are offered the other to go first. “Go ahead
Shannon” she said. “No, you go Kia.” I responded. This went on for
approximately 10 minutes while the teacher stood there and laughed and said
“This is amusing.” Finally after a long debate, I won the debate and forced Kia
to go first. This proved to be quite amusing for everyone involved.
Next, we moved on to play some video games. Someone had brought
in Guitar Hero. Since I have played that game before, I figured that I would
try to play again. After carefully asking if I could play (yes, social
awkwardness shows here) I took on the role of guitar. After about 2 hours, a
group of us continued to play until we got carpal tunnel. However, a weird and
strange occurrence happened. Our English teacher inquired if she could play
with us. To be honest I’ve never heard of something like that, but either way
we let here join in. She took on the role of vocals, I stayed on Guitar and
another peer of mine took on drums. After we readjusted ourselves, we began to
play again. At first she looked a little bit awkward and uncomfortable, but
then she got into the mood. She actually had a pretty good voice to say the
least.
When we finished playing, Josh, another friend of mine had
brought in Super Smash Bros. Once again, I have no idea what the game was or
how to play. As you can tell I’m not the video game type, but I decided to play
anyways. After a while, I kind of got the hang of it and was told “Shannon,
you’re too good for this game!” To be honest, I was just hitting random buttons
at that point. Suddenly, another guest wanted to join us in our “brawl”. Guess
who? Ms. Wilcox! Again, she wanted to join us and play. Since we are all
students of hers we said that it was okay. When we started playing again, it
was evident that she had played this game before. However, a strange occurrence
in which I proceeded to punch her character multiple times and then proceeded
to throw her off the cliff changed the mood of the gaming experience. This was
followed by the sound of Juniors voice saying “Shannon, I think you just killed
Ms. Wilcox.” I then stared over at her, in slight fear that she was going to
rage at me. I was met with a long stare proceeded by laughter.
After, this long gaming experience, we were told that it was
“lights out”. It was only 11:00pm, but for some people that as late. We then
proceeded back to the library where the rest of the students were met up.
-We were told that we were going to participate in a school
wide Hide and Seek match. The twist, it was going to be played in the dark. In
pitch blackness. No lights, no limitations, just a good old fashioned game of
Hide and Seek. We proceeded to begin, and soon after, it turned into quite a
match. The hiding places people found, under the stage, in between vending
machines, even in garbage cans! It was extremely fun, even though I had to stop
after the 5th round or so. This continued on until 2:00am, where we
were told that it was “bedtime”. I believe there is no such thing, but
none-the-less I complied. There we all changed and ensued to set up our
sleeping stations.
There we sat (Junior, his younger sister Zena, Kia, Josh and
I) all sat around Kia’s laptop to watch Adventure Time. This went on for a good
2 hours. By then everyone was exhausted and basically fell into a deep slumber.
In the morning, I proceeded to wake up at 5:00am, like I
normally do with the exception of 10 minutes behind. I changed into normal
clothing, cleaned up my station and packed up my bags. I got ready and
refreshed myself up to prepare for breakfast. When I got to the cafeteria at
6:00am, there were the other students all lined up waiting for pancakes, a
sustenance of food in which they had lacked for 30 hours. Of course since I
can’t eat pancakes, I waited until the end, where I was met by “Mr.Wilcox” in
which he served me a custom made breakfast consisting of steel ground oats,
maple syrup, fresh juice and fruit. This made me feel special and welcomed as a
vegan.
After breakfast, I was picked up by my mother where I said
goodbye to my friends and thank you to the supervisors. We then proceeded to
head off to my next volunteering event.
The next event, which was a little bit shorter, was my
annual Environment Canada CANWARN training in Nepean. At this event, we learn about storm spotting
techniques and the knowledge behind extreme weather. This event was only about
6 hours long, in which 4 of it was a 124 slide presentation presented by
Environment Canada Meteorologist Peter Kimbell. He proceeded to inform us about
the facts about the types and severity of weather occurrences. To be honest, it
was nothing I have never seen before; I’ve known these facts since I was
basically 8 years old. What are the types of clouds? What is a microburst? What
is the Fujita scale? All of this was basic common knowledge to me. Never-the-less, it was fun to recount storm
spotting adventures and learn of newer techniques to storm spotting and chasing.
The last event of my volunteer spree was that on April 29,
2012 I attended the National Capital Vegetarian Association’s (NCVA) 4th
annual Veg Fest at the Glebe community center. This was no new occurrence for
me, as I have been there numerous times in the past. However, this year was
slightly different. This year I was given the honour of volunteering with the
NCVA at their booth.
The first event in which I took part in was that I, my
sister and another volunteer all dressed up in the NCVA’s mascot costumes. My
sister took the carrot costume, I took the mother Earth costume and the other
volunteer took the cow costume. We then headed out to Bank Street to spread the
world to those who hadn’t heard. At first I was actually scared to do this, as
I am not that comfortable with public places. We grabbed our flyers and signs
and stood at the corner of Bank and Third.
We continued to pass out flyers to passing onlookers
informing them about Veg Fest and directing them towards the action.
A while into this, a man dressed in a black vest and blue
shirt walked by us and said “Nice costumes girls. Keep up the good work!” I
found this a bit peculiar and strange, but no matter I said “Thank you.” My
sister pointed out the fact to me that the Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson was the
man that passed by us. I was a bit in shock and looked down the street and
Even though we got quite a few stares (and photos taken of
us as well), it was an interesting experience that changed my perspective about
what volunteering truly was.
After we completed
our 2 ½ hour shift outside, we received a break and time to look around at the
various other booth’s that were exhibited. I saw many new (and old) booths
while I was walking around. I saw some of my favourite booths, including Auntie
Loo’s (who were displaying their delicious vegan confections), Café My House
(sampling their amazing vegan fare), ZenKitchen (offering up their fine vegan
cuisine). And finally a new favourite of mine called Gypsy and Company,
featuring their unique apparel, jewelry along with delicious homemade vegan
snacks. In addition, I also encountered some new exhibitors which offered up
some surprises. The first was Simply Raw Express, a new vegan restaurant
opening on May 12th which specializes in raw cuisine. I sampled some
of their dishes such as raw kale salad and was met my pure astonishment and
deliciousness which roused my mouth for a good remainder of the event. The next
booth was Credible Edibles, offering delicious vegan recipes and fare. Finally,
Simply Natural Kosmetics was a booth that contained a wide range of natural
vegan friendly cosmetics and beauty products.
After our break, my sister and I moved onto our next task,
which was to manage “NCVA booth 2” in the Guest speakers building. There we had
to inform people about the NCVA and fill out membership forms. This occurred
over a period of approximately 3 hours. In that period of time we managed to
sell 7 memberships and help approximately 40 or so onlookers with questions
about veganism and the NCVA.
By the end of the weekend, my feet were hurting, my back was
breaking, but the satisfaction of a strong volunteering experience was loaded
onto my mind. And over 30 community service hours later, I can say that I am
proud to have partaken in this event and I can surely say that I will in fact
do this again.
Here is a link to all the booths I have mentioned in this
post:
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