King’s Day At “A Window Between Worlds”

Today would have been Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eighty-second birthday and although the tradition has developed to do a work of service on the day of official celebration (this year Monday 17 January 2011), I was able to do service on his actual birthday by attending the Volunteer Day at A Window Between Worlds.

I was the first of the volunteers to arrive and the Volunteer Coordinator, Lonnie, did remember me from the last time I volunteered, several months ago. Today’s main project was the making of Sculpey balls, hands, and rocks. This AWBW art activity was a new for me. However, my task was to clean already made Sculpey balls so that they could be reused. Working with the clay balls was a bit trying because they resisted becoming completely clean. While the volunteers at the other end of the table were making hands and rocks, four people at my end of the table were making the Sculpey balls. They were Amanda, a new intern at AWBW (she started yesterday), who is studying psychology at Cal Poly Pomona; Kris, an AWBW board member; Mike, Kris’ fiancée and the lone male of the day; and Jean, a volunteer from the last time I was at AWBW. While I cleaned away, the four of them broke off and shaped pieces of clay of various colors (red, orange, green, blue, yellow, purple, brown, black, white) into approximately half inch balls. The balls were arranged in clear plastic trays in rainbow order plus the neutral of five balls for each color. The goal set by Lonnie of five trays was exceeded by one! Part way through the morning, Kris and Mike went upstairs to work on the other volunteer projects with a friend of theirs who was already there.

Met Kris and Mike’s friend Dustin (who, despite the name, is a woman) outside during our pizza lunch. She commented on my Red Sox cap and said she dumped a former boyfriend who was a Yankees fan. Good for her! Chatted with the three of them while enjoying bar-b-que chicken pizza and diet coke. Seem like fun people. Mike is from Massachusetts, though he left when he was two years old; Kris commutes from Arcadia to Beverly Hills for work; and Dustin is an actress. Another of their friends is doing marketing for the Golden Globes. And to keep the industry theme going, I talked with two other women, one of whom is named Barbara, about films and actors we like. I mentioned the screeners I’ll get for the Spirit Awards, but drew a blank on titles other than “The Kids Are All Right” and “Winter’s Bone”. Oh well…

After lunch I finished the cleaning of the clay balls and then went upstairs to cut up magazines. There were a couple of other people cutting up magazines and the others were painting small envelopes. Kris and Mike recounted how they met and how they got engaged on airplanes. Mike’s pick-up line was “Are you coming or going?” They’re planning on getting married at the end of June. The other people upstairs were Dustin and Barbara (women I talked to during lunch), Fran, who was at AWBW last time I volunteered, and a couple of other women whose names I didn’t get. A small, but lively group. Managed to get halfway through the magazine before Lonnie came to tell us it was time to begin cleaning up. Another Volunteer Day that passed very quickly. Lonnie had placed the leftover pizza in plastic bags for the volunteers to take home and someone else had dropped off a bag of lemons. So I took a bag of pizza and a few lemons on my way out. Pizza for dinner, but not sure about the lemons – perhaps some tea with lemon. An unexpected treat for the day.

Happy Birthday Martin!!!


Image is of AWBW’s website header from the website awbw.org