For the past few months I’ve been helping lead Children’s Fellowship, with Stephanie and others, at church on Wednesday evenings. Saturday mornings and afternoons I’ve been going to the Presbyterian Community Center to help people do their taxes (and doing our own last week), not going in on Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday, when taxes are also done. Wednesday morning I got a voice mail message from the PCC’s Charles, pitching for me to come in to a final special Wednesday PM Tax Night version of taxes there. And I had been trying to think of a Children’s Fellowship activity to help connect our kids with some of our church mission endeavors. In between Children’s Fellowship (which I had already been missing too much – last week I missed Martha’s Easter walk, which the parents helped out with) and a couple of Guatemala mission meeting scheduled, I wasn’t sure I was actually going to be able to help people with taxes. But Stephanie and I hit upon an idea that we would bake (first cupcakes) then – ultimately sugar cookies while the kids were in Children’s Choir, then get frosting, sprinkles, and colored icing spray cans so that the kids could each decorate two or more cookies – one for themselves, and one for volunteers or clients at the PCC. Charles had said that 60 clients came in to try to get their taxes done Tuesday night, and – since they had to turn some people away – I figured a decent number would be there tonight (plus it turns out almost all of this tax season’s volunteers were there).
Already Tuesday night on the way home we had bought some stuff, and Wednesday morning I got more. Martha seemed to like the idea, and so – although we never get there as early as we’d like – with help from Dana and others – we got the sugar cookies baked and cooled and the frosting, etc. out. We caught a break because the lights and electricity flickered and Debbie decided to give the kids a Children’s Choir break, and so they played on the playground for several minutes, which makes them less antsy. But they were pretty excited about this project and ended up decorating way more than two cookies each. We wound up with two vats full of cookies for PCC folks. Each of the kids got one, and some saved some cookies for others. (The adults were bad and beforehand ate a fair number of cookies we decided were too dark – not very Weight Watcher friendly – not all food must be eaten.)
Below Ethan decorated. Ethan attended to this actvity more than some past ones.
Below, Oden decorated. Oden is a meticulous and creative artist who helped us a little making the dough before Children's Choir started.
Cara, below, decorated a bunch of cookies, including one each for her father, mother, and two sick nieces, Olivia and Lucy.
Oden and Ethan - below - are Children's Fellowship buddies.
The dads relaxed during the activity. Ethan and Hannah's Dad, Luke, took a break from cooking quesadillas with great pico de gallo (?) sauce for us, and talked with Oden's father Paul and Ariana's father Marcus (who talked to me about him working a third shift half shift at UPS).
The dads relaxed during the activity. Ethan and Hannah's Dad, Luke, took a break from cooking quesadillas with great pico de gallo (?) sauce for us, and talked with Oden's father Paul and Ariana's father Marcus (who talked to me about him working a third shift half shift at UPS).
Hannah, in the background (Ethan's sister), and their mother, Dana (in the foreground), both decorated cookies. Dana, Luke's ex-, has started coming to church and helping with Children's Fellowship (beginning a little bit after Luke and Lenora, Hannah and Ethan's then stepmother, split up). Hannah and Ethan were classmates (broadly construed) of Vincent at Brown.
Anna is a woman who comes with Leyla (who for some reason I got no good picture of - except for the group picture above top) to help out. You might recall that Leyla was a singing sensation at the Talent Show. After I'd left Stephanie got Leyla (who without Lucy is the youngest - and definitely the smallest - kid there).
The kids (and adults!) were both very creative and very productive. Note the cookie with the dollar sign (we explained what we were doing).
Oden finished a couple more cookies.
When I got to the PCC at 715 p.m., the place was packed. There were nearly a dozen tax volunteers there, plus several dozen clients and friends and family members having their taxes done or waiting. Plus there seemed to be some other families there for other activities. No time to take out my camera – I was quickly passing out cookies to people all over. Some folks were quite judicious – deciding they weren’t hungry or didn’t need all of that sugar – but the cookies were very popular with plenty of people (including kids and also some adults who took more than one). I actually probably could have used a whole nother vat or two of cookies (of course, I couldn’t stack them because that would mess up the icing).
Inefficiently, I drove back to church for one of my Guatemala meetings, then back to the Center with a few more cookies, in time to do one more (for the season), relatively complex return (which I made a relatively minor error on, that one of the coordinators, Pam, caught). The client turned out to be someone who knew me – someone who had worked for another office in the Presbyterian Center, but was then downsized in the 2006 layoffs (that nearly got me too). She was frank that getting laid off devastated her (working at the Center, she said, had been like being part of a family) and led to some health problems that had essentially disabled her (until God brought her back from the brink, she said). Still, she was good-natured, and I vaguely recognized here. As with some of these complex returns and chatty clients, I spent an hour plus with her, before heading back to grab some fried chicken and Pam (below, with her) checked the return. (Pam and Tenida both have paying day jobs as accountants also.) (Like many of our clients, this woman was a repeat client - though I had not done her taxes myself last year.)
I sat back in the kithen and chatted with Tenida, Charles (pictured below), and eventually Pam. We still miss Bill (Tenida's predessor) (health problems and longer work hours sidelined him as coordinator) and Wanda, who eventually retired from the Center (then came to work again at the Presbyterian Center - before getting caught by the layoffs).
Before leaving I stopped by the computer room/taxes room to get my stuff. Teenagers also use the room as computer lab during the other eight months of the year. Although Tenida was going to come back after having chicken to actually electronically file the 50 returns we'd done that night (10% of the 500 we'd done during the whole season in that one night) before midnight (I lived around 10:30 p.m.), after that - in terms of tax volunteers and tax clients - this room will stay silent and empty until January 2010 rolls around again, when we'll start up again.
The kids (and adults!) were both very creative and very productive. Note the cookie with the dollar sign (we explained what we were doing).
Oden finished a couple more cookies.
When I got to the PCC at 715 p.m., the place was packed. There were nearly a dozen tax volunteers there, plus several dozen clients and friends and family members having their taxes done or waiting. Plus there seemed to be some other families there for other activities. No time to take out my camera – I was quickly passing out cookies to people all over. Some folks were quite judicious – deciding they weren’t hungry or didn’t need all of that sugar – but the cookies were very popular with plenty of people (including kids and also some adults who took more than one). I actually probably could have used a whole nother vat or two of cookies (of course, I couldn’t stack them because that would mess up the icing).
Inefficiently, I drove back to church for one of my Guatemala meetings, then back to the Center with a few more cookies, in time to do one more (for the season), relatively complex return (which I made a relatively minor error on, that one of the coordinators, Pam, caught). The client turned out to be someone who knew me – someone who had worked for another office in the Presbyterian Center, but was then downsized in the 2006 layoffs (that nearly got me too). She was frank that getting laid off devastated her (working at the Center, she said, had been like being part of a family) and led to some health problems that had essentially disabled her (until God brought her back from the brink, she said). Still, she was good-natured, and I vaguely recognized here. As with some of these complex returns and chatty clients, I spent an hour plus with her, before heading back to grab some fried chicken and Pam (below, with her) checked the return. (Pam and Tenida both have paying day jobs as accountants also.) (Like many of our clients, this woman was a repeat client - though I had not done her taxes myself last year.)
I sat back in the kithen and chatted with Tenida, Charles (pictured below), and eventually Pam. We still miss Bill (Tenida's predessor) (health problems and longer work hours sidelined him as coordinator) and Wanda, who eventually retired from the Center (then came to work again at the Presbyterian Center - before getting caught by the layoffs).
Before leaving I stopped by the computer room/taxes room to get my stuff. Teenagers also use the room as computer lab during the other eight months of the year. Although Tenida was going to come back after having chicken to actually electronically file the 50 returns we'd done that night (10% of the 500 we'd done during the whole season in that one night) before midnight (I lived around 10:30 p.m.), after that - in terms of tax volunteers and tax clients - this room will stay silent and empty until January 2010 rolls around again, when we'll start up again.
-- Perry
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