The month of October has flown by with lots of performances, volunteer activities, and celebrations of birthdays and other important dates keeping us busy. The team welcomed Insung Harbour from Georgia and Jung Hee Choe from South Korea, who are joining the Year of Service. It seems that our WAIT family is always expanding!
At the beginning of the month, WAIT, along with Lightsmith Productions, took a trip to New Jersey’s Felician College, where former WAIT Year of Service member Cathlene Bell is attending, to hold a screening of the LightSmith feature movie, “Cashing Out.” We had a small but impressive audience who spoke out afterwards about the positive message, quality of the story and production values. We were also able to meet with Dr. Mary Norton, who is Associate Dean and Professor of Global Academic Initiatives, and who coordinates an NGO program for students to work within the United Nations sphere. She proposed a collaboration between WAIT and the various UN programs, and provided some leads for video production projects as well.
The Demott Family Church hosted another screening of “Cashing Out” the following day, for the youth program there, which was well-attended.
Kensei and Insung traveled to New York City the next week to attend a weekend conference on audio engineering. They came back ready to apply their newfound knowledge to WAIT audio projects, and are currently recording some new music for a dance to be choreographed by Lan and Christella.
The team performed at two schools this month, New Hope Academy and Parkdale High School. Using positive peer-to-peer interaction, the team shared the message with the students, and many signed up to join the team. From those performances, a number of new team members have already come to be trained. Welcome new members!
One rainy Saturday, the team donned rain coats and bright yellow ponchos, grabbed large black trash bags and combed the West Lanham Hills neighborhood picking up trash and later, the boys helped transport the bags to the waiting dumpster. Later, we enjoyed the pizza provided for the volunteers, and chatted with the neighbors.
On Saturday the 24th, we performed at a “Stop Child Trafficking” rally in Baltimore. At the request of the organizers, we kicked off the event by performing the dance to “Beauty from Pain.” Speakers shared the seriousness of children being bought and sold for sex, a modern day slavery that thrives in our own nation as well as abroad. We heard about girls forced into prostitution, criminalized, without any place to turn for protection from those enslaving them. Of course, they are often infected with HIV, making their lives even more painful.
Like tears from above, rain began pouring from the sky as the WAIT performers took their places on the wet pavement and danced a defiant declaration of the importance of each person’s life to the song “Stand in the Rain.” The audience stood in the rain with us, tears mingling with raindrops on several faces. At the final moment, as the dancers lifted Mie on their shoulders, the sun broke out from the clouds, like a sign of hope within the storm.
Of course, October also included our ongoing community service: we now serve at the MAGNET gleaning warehouse and the Noah’s Ark bread distribution point on Tuesdays, and on Wednesday, distribute food in both Capital Heights and in our own community in Hyattsville on Wednesdays.
We are grateful that the West Lanham Hills Citizens Association voted to donate to the Noah’s Ark program to help them pay for the transportation of the bread, and supporting our ability to provide bread for all of our neighbors. (A side note: through the 96 person hours of work we contribute each week, our community receives about $2,700 worth of food each week, or $10,752 per month. That’s about $127,000 worth of food each year!)
We are scheduled for several other events before the end of October too, both in terms of presenting and volunteering.
A great month for all of our many volunteers!
More
- Performance Clip- "Stand in the Rain"
- WAIT in Japan
Video
- Webisode ep 2 - "The Food Bank"
- Webisode ep 1 - "WAIT for what?"
- WAIT Kenya meets with Pres. Obama's Grandmother
- New WAIT South Africa Website online!
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LightSmith Productions traveled to New Jersey to screen their second feature film, "Cashing Out."
Kate Tsubata and the WAIT Team meet with Dr. Mary Norton at Felician College in Rutherford, NJ.
The team performs "Stand in the Rain" at the October 24, 2009 rally against child trafficking."
 The WAIT team performs for a health class at Parkdale High School.
The WAIT team volunteers weekly at several food distribution points in the DC/MD area.
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