Task Masters

The hum of the window AC unit, tiring overhead fluorescent lighting, 80s music playing softly in the corner, and about a dozen volunteers buzzing around the room calling out random children's book titles as they sort through hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of randomly piled books in a storage room in the basement of Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Algiers, New Orleans.  I am sitting, taking a break from painting a stairwell and patiently awaiting for our lunch to be delivered. 

"Goosebumps!"  "What are we doing with the Lemony Snickets series again?"  "Awww, I remember this book!"  "What is this shower curtain doing here?"  "Pizza's here!"  And they all scurry upstairs.

When we arrived on Monday this room was filled nearly to the ceiling with piles and boxes of disorganized books for the school's library which were haphazardly stored here when the school was taken over by a new charter last spring.  Each individual book has to be looked up online to find it's grade level and sorted as such, then color-coded, and eventually (we haven't gotten there yet!) put into their library upstairs.  It is a very slow process as not every book has been cataloged online.  So it is a matter of searching several sites to find the grade level; many times it may not be found and the veteran teachers will "eye-ball" the grade level and make a judgement call.

Now it is Wednesday and the room is about 75% sorted.  We have even managed to get some painting in where we have been asked- a classroom on Monday and today a couple of stairwells. 

I am absolutely in awe of the people I am working with, veterans and greenhorns to this experience alike.  They are what I like to call "task masters" (some of my favorite kinds of people!).  They are given a job to do- and they don't complain, they don't ask why, they don't hesitate, they just do.  It is people like this who make things happen and make change happen.  I feel very fortunate to have met them all, and be working by their sides.