So today, as part of Starbucks 'community relations project' I spent 5 hours handing out free coffee and tea to single mothers with pre-school children.
I got there for 9:30. 26 families had been notified of the event, but by 11:30 none had shown...getting frustrated the organisers phoned a local kindergarten and got some of the mums there to bring the kids down. The aim of the whole thing was to get kids to see they had access to books and help education in underpriviliged areas. So it was pretty heartbreaking that no-one showed before we phoned them.
And then there were the kids. One kid, Mitchell, kept coming behind my table and taking soem paper towels and cleaning up for me. This kid is three years old and he's helping me clean. Mitch was really cool, we were looking at pictures of rabbits in a pet book and I tried to explain to him what the famous scientists on the nearby wallchart had achieved in their lives. I even got him to say 'Louis Pasteur' thought it came out as 'loogy paska'.
You hear people going on about how they'd never want kids, how they don't want to be tied down and how they want their independance. Well I challenge any of those people to work closely with a kid for just one afternoon, and to feel that glow when the child smiles or laughs, or when something you've taught them comes off.
No drug can match it. I guarantee.
I got there for 9:30. 26 families had been notified of the event, but by 11:30 none had shown...getting frustrated the organisers phoned a local kindergarten and got some of the mums there to bring the kids down. The aim of the whole thing was to get kids to see they had access to books and help education in underpriviliged areas. So it was pretty heartbreaking that no-one showed before we phoned them.
And then there were the kids. One kid, Mitchell, kept coming behind my table and taking soem paper towels and cleaning up for me. This kid is three years old and he's helping me clean. Mitch was really cool, we were looking at pictures of rabbits in a pet book and I tried to explain to him what the famous scientists on the nearby wallchart had achieved in their lives. I even got him to say 'Louis Pasteur' thought it came out as 'loogy paska'.
You hear people going on about how they'd never want kids, how they don't want to be tied down and how they want their independance. Well I challenge any of those people to work closely with a kid for just one afternoon, and to feel that glow when the child smiles or laughs, or when something you've taught them comes off.
No drug can match it. I guarantee.