It was a tough day, one of those days where you ask your Spanish class “Como estas?” and they all respond at best “Asi asi” (so-so) and more commonly “Mal” or “Muy mal.” The student who was supposed to bring in the game that the afternoon’s community service group would play with the 3rd to 5th graders at Federal Street Elementary School forgot, and we had to scramble to get together a backup plan. That afternoon, driving to the school, everyone was a little fed up. One of the girls asked if she could get out of community service altogether for the remainder of the term (through March), and all the others said they wanted to drop this activity and do something else. Frazzled and tired, I was maybe a little snippier than usual in replying that no, under no circumstances would we waive the community service requirement, but on the other hand I was inclined to agree that it was getting to be time to find another site at which we could work. When we arrived at the school, the girls went and hid in front of the bus, and I wondered for a fleeting moment how hard I would have to work to get them physically in the building.

As we walked down the hall toward the classroom where the older children had their after-school program, we saw them streaming in from some outside activity. Often, kids coming in from recess tend to drag their heels somewhat, but these kids were moving unusually rapidly. As they saw us walking down the hall, their eyes lit up, and they whipped off their coats and sat down promptly at the hexagonal tables in the classroom to see what we had planned for them today.

We introduced the unfamiliar girls (who had been upstairs working with the younger children up until today), and explained that we were going to help them fabric paint their own t-shirt. Their teacher suggested we move to the art room, where they were soon running back and forth from t-shirt to t-shirt, checking each other’s progress, getting new ideas, sharing squeeze bottles of paint, while my students and I circulated to offer encouragement and help find the ever-elusive yellow neon glow-in-the-dark paint bottle. One of the parents, arriving to pick up her son, stayed to watch for a bit, and softly thanked us for coming, saying “This is so great,” and Kirsten, the teacher, was positively beaming. One of the younger girls had taken a Jackson Pollock approach to her t-shirt, and impulsively folded it over on itself and pressed it together, producing an amazing and unexpected work of art, and all the kids were pleased and happy with their results. Once all the t-shirts were finished, we headed to the gym for the now-ritual game of capture the flag, and rather than moving excruciating slowly as they sometimes do, the hands of the clock flew around to 5:15 before we knew it.

As we raced each other back to the bus, the girls looked back and, touched, told me that all the kids were staring out the window watching us leave. After a quick game of “hide from the teacher” in the parking lot that probably wasn’t, in retrospect, the best role-modeling we could have done, we got on the bus and headed back to SBS. The girls rocked with laughter as I, yet again, cut the corner too tightly and the right rear tire bounced on the curb. “Did you want me to hit that pedestrian?” I asked. “There was no pedestrian” they teased. A few moments later, the bus became silent, and I observed “You know, if ever we were looking for a sign that we really are making a difference in these kids’ lives and that it matters very deeply that we come every week, today was that sign.” No one argued the point.

I’m sure there will be other discouraging days, just as there will be other fun days. But next time, we will have the lesson of today to draw on to help get ourselves through the discouragement and focus on what service is supposed to be all about.