CYT Volunteering

On Saturday, April 15, Delicious Leadership had the opportunity to help the Fredericksburg Christian Youth Theater (CYT) with the stage breakdown and cleanup in the CYT warehouse. Our team met at 8am to discuss ideas for our upcoming presentation, devise a plan of attack and get to joke around a bit as we got to know each other. At 9am, we met with Andy, who told us more about Christian Youth Theatre and shared the passion and commitment that these students and their families have for this program. Once we had learned a little bit more about why we were here and how appreciative Andy was that we were willing to spend our time helping a greater cause, he gave us our work assignments for the morning. 

When we first walked in the warehouse, there was a gigantic pile of 2x4's, plywood and green board, some of which was attached and some was not. Andy told us that our job was to disassemble the plywood and 2x4's from the green board, save as much green board as we could as the students were able to reuse almost everything in the warehouse, and this also saved the organization a quite a bit of money. 

Andy gave us the 5 of us 3 power drills to unscrew all of the screws that secured the green boards to the 2x4's. We were also asked to organize and stack the wood at the back of the warehouse once all the screws had been removed from the wood. 

I was not lucky enough to get one of the power drills, so I began organizing the green boards which had already been detached from the wood and needed to be placed like books on a bookshelf in what looked like a gigantic closet for murals. While this was not the most important task of the day, this was the task I enjoyed most because as I was putting away the backdrops and scenery, I was able to examine some of the previously used scenery for other productions. And might I just say, these students are very talented artists!! The bookshelf of artwork was a beautiful memoir of all the hard work students, families and volunteers have contributed over the years. 

Once the green boards had been put away, a pile of wood had started to accumulate. At first I began to look for a power drill so I could help my team members complete the task faster. When I did not find one, I was saddened at first, but then I realized - hey - Sarah, if you start organizing and putting away all of the wood, we'll be done faster than if you were removing the screws from the wood! This has been a leadership skill that has slowly started to develop over the past 4 years for me. Growing up a millennial and a result of extremely, and probably too helpful parents, I've become very good at doing things that I'm told to do, but realized within the last four years that I really need to work on doing things that I see a need for, taking more of an initiative and making my own expectations and rules. I was so happy that I was able to do this at the CYT warehouse. While it may not have been the most visible task, and as I examined what I was doing I couldn't help but judge myself for 'just cleaning up' but I was proud that I found a need on my own, didn't ask anyone's permission and just went about it and did it on my own. 

All the while I thought it was outstanding that we all found our little niche where we were most needed and we felt most useful. I even broke out my phone about two thirds of the way through the session and we all bonded over the Allman Brother's Pandora radio station. We all left sweaty, stinky, satisfied and starving. We took several funny pictures before we left the warehouse, which will remind us of the seemingly small but terrific things we did that day, and as a bonus our team got along exceptionally!

Afterwards, Dan had to leave to see his family, but the remaining members of Delicious Leadership sauntered over to Adventure Brewing, which was fatefully across the parking lot. We all filled our stomachs as we laughed over stories and new found friendships.