Day 61 -- Serving dinner at Whitman for newspaper

"Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind."
---Rudyard Kipling

Tonight I served dinner at Whitman to the students who write for the school newspaper, the Black & White. Parents take turns bringing and serving meals so that the kids don't need to leave the school and drive to restaurants in many different cars. It save them time, promotes their safety (by not driving) and benefits the environment - a win-win on all counts. Meanwhile, the kids, under the direction of a teacher, produce an outstanding and even award-winning school newspaper.

Interestingly, the two people with whom I volunteered were both dads. I've done this volunteer job at least 4 times in the past and never has there been even one dad. Does this mean times have changed? Are more dads involved in volunteering at their children's schools today compared to 5 or 10 years ago?

I would have to say yes in my experience. Seems like especially at the elementary level, dads are there midday just as moms are, whether it's to volunteer in the classroom, attend a special event, or go on a field trip. Surely the number of moms still far outweigh dads in most communities, but still, seeing a dad there is no longer an anomaly.

Nevertheless I was surprised to see two dads tonight. Fortunately I enjoyed speaking to both of them very much and stayed quite a while afterwards chatting. This was to the dismay of my youngest daughter and her two friends, all of whom came to help serve but were hoping to play basketball in the gym afterwards. No such luck, as we didn't find a ball, but we managed to play several versions of tag and monkey-in-the-middle, 2 of my favorite childhood games!