Those who work outside have backs; those inside, minds.
This dawns on one only too late, long after one has been assigned to the Rotary Auction drop-off area in the Woodward School parking lot.
The words of Rotarian Don Mannino – “Ah, another rookie to train…” – echo mockingly, as vehicles laden with furniture, televisions, equipment and building materials roll down the driveway toward one for unloading.
Mannino’s counsel: “Just smile and act like you know what you’re doing.”
Over the course of the day, one tries to do just that – emerging eight hours later sore of limb and back yet full of stomach and heart, and with something approximating a news story to show for it.
It’s mid-morning Monday, and already the school’s front sidewalk looks like the Normandy beachhead the day after the landing – mountains of materiel accumulate, waiting to be sorted through and carted off for use elsewhere.
This is the “stuff” that draws thousands of frugal bargain hunters, fat-walleted collectors and droll curiosity seekers to the massive rummage each summer.
Yet no matter how many years one has enjoyed the auction itself, a day spent setting up for the event brings a changed perspective.
This is particularly true working drop-off. One no longer evaluates items in such terms as “well, that’s unique,” or “how much might this fetch?” or “I’d like to own this,” but rather, “how much does this [%&$#] thing weigh?”
“Even the vernacular changes,” agrees Rotarian Bob Linz, the auction’s volunteer coordinator.
“Until 2 o’clock Saturday, we call ‘em ‘treasures.’ After the auction, it’s all ‘junk.’”
After two hours meeting donors at the curb – actually a good place for community networking, it turns out – a new opportunity beckons: a ride-along with a truck driver for donation pick-ups in the field.
“I like it, because you get to know the island really well,” says volunteer Russell Herron, who estimates the task to be “20 percent grunt-work, 80 percent driving around Bainbridge.”
He quickly revises his math; appropriately so, as the first pickup on Sunrise Drive includes, amongst other items, a metal desk (heavy), a sofa (ugly, heavy) and what surely must be the most cumbersome screen door ever manufactured.
And then there’s the dishwasher.
And the cabinetry.
And the safe.
Two furnished homes and a full storage locker later, we are back at Woodward, and a new strategy emerges: go inside to find bottled water, and and leave someone else to unload.
Even after carrying the 20th television or the 50th box of encyclopedias, after being on one end of the umpteenth computer desk or fold-out bed – even then, one is barely a dilettante. This work goes from dawn to dusk for nine days straight.
So far this year, Linz has seen 215 non-Rotary volunteers turn out, contributing countless person-hours to the cause.
“The whole thing’s amazing to me,” he says. “It’s a little like herding well-intentioned cats.”
For all the heavy lifting at the curb, perhaps the real work – and talent – can be found elsewhere.
Because for every computer and television and stereo, every one-eyed doll, rumpled dress, careworn vacuum cleaner or painfully out-of-fashion lamp, some volunteer is inside (or, in the case of high-mileage bikes and lawnmowers, out on the grounds) trying to repair it, spruce it up, appraise it, price it or just figure out what the heck it is.
(The popular game at dinner each evening is “What Is It?”, in which particularly inscrutable items are displayed for identification. Whoever said “there’s nothing new under the sun” clearly never visited the Rotary Auction.)
Many volunteers are youths just out of school for the summer and looking for something to do. Some folks work once and call it good; others return every day leading up to the auction. A few laggards – usually teenage boys, one learns – fiddle around and are sent home.
Yet most find in the auction the synthesis of talent and opportunity.
“It’s interesting to watch the Rotarians, and even the volunteers,” says Tom Lindsley, the club’s president-elect. “Over the years, they’ll find places where their mind and body function the best. Some day, I expect to find a room to just sort of fade into…”
To be sure, the perks for volunteers go beyond the club’s “service before self” ethos.
If one can actually step back for a moment and see the items on their merit, one will prove immensely popular with friends and neighbors who want to know what goods will be for sale on Saturday. Inside info on a donated 1976 Jaguar, a robust Ford Bronco, a vintage Cadillac, for example, is sure to titillate.
Another perk: you eat well. An honest day’s work Monday was rewarded with a prime rib dinner, followed by key lime pie.
At the core of the project are the Rotarians themselves.
Two years ago, the club added a second weekly meeting – a Wednesday luncheon, aimed at professionals who work on the island – and virtually doubled its membership to 93. The infusion of fresh blood is proving key.
“It’s not that we couldn’t have kept limping along,” Lindsley said, “but this auction has just grown exponentially over the years.”
The 1995 event, for example, grossed a once unimaginable sum of $85,000.
Last year’s auction – in an unfamiliar location and a down economy – brought in an astounding $220,000 for community projects.
Could 2003 be the first quarter-million year?
Lindsley won’t speculate, and a volunteer has no time to ponder such trivialities anyway. There’s another truck to unload, and another sofa to move.
—–
The 44th annual Rotary Auction and Rummage runs 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. June 28 at Woodward Middle School.
The auction preview runs 6-8 p.m. June 27; admission is a $1 raffle ticket to win a $500 grocery spree.
Drop-off donations will be taken through 5 p.m. Thursday – but with the lengthy queue of vehicles that forms on Sportsman Club Road on the final day – and the iron resolve of those charged with closing the gates at the appointed hour – only blind optimists and the truly foolhardy will wait ‘til the last minute.
Information: bainbridgeislandrotary.org
