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Sunday, August 09, 2009

Nothing Says Tired like 4,000 kids in 3 hours

I don't think there's any amount of caffeine, energy drink or other legal or non-legal stimulants that can properly prepare you for 4,000 kids in just 3 hours. Today was the Mayor's First Day Festival at the Sommet Center which is really cool. It's free for vendors and free to attend and hands out thousands of free information and school supplies to kids before the first day of school. I love the idea of this event and in its purest form, it's spectacular.

However, in its actual form, it can be spectacular, tiring, frustrating, exhuasting, infuriating, surprising and short. The good things come from the reactions of the majority of the kids. The please and thank yous and smiles. Especially knowing that most of the kids there can use the pencil and activity sheet and information we gave away.

The bad impressions come from parents yelling at me that they have 8 kids so they need more pencils or the elementary school kid that snipped at me that he needed more than one pencil to get through the school year (I didn't realize that my supply was supposed to take 4000 kids through 180 days of math problems, English essays, and homework, but whatever) or the parent that took a handful of pencils and then when I said "one per child" refused to put any back but instead grabbed another handful AND THEN proceeded to come back two more times 30 minutes later ( I did NOT allow him any more out of spite).

The only other thing that stinks is that because of the size and number of participants at the event, vendors have to be checked in by noon. That means that even if I push it to the latest, I'm still sitting there waiting for 2 hours before doors open. It's a little much.

However, despite all that, I know that we reached a little under 4000 kids in three hours of passing out and talking. When all that energy comes your way, you try to match it for as long as you can, but there's always a wall. And I'm hitting it now. I bet I'm asleep before 9:30 tonight. Oosh.

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