9-11 Day of Service (Kids Doing Great Things)

Today was 9-11.

A day of remembrance.

President Obama has asked us to make it a day of service. I think that's the perfect way to remember those who died that day and to honor those who lost their lives trying to rescue the victims. It's the perfect way to show those who were trying to break us that they haven't won.

None of us old enough to remember 9-11 will ever forget that day. It was my daughter's first ever day of preschool. My son's second week of kindergarten. I was afraid to let them leave the house. I watched the second tower go down on live T.V. I cried buckets and hugged my kids and felt like I had lost someone in my family.

For a few short weeks, our country was united. I'll never forget that part either.

Nine years later, sometimes we do forget. Life is busy. It moves forward. So when my church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) organized a community service project for today, I admit, I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about it.

For one thing, the project was removing ivy from a community park. Not very glamorous. Not very fun. And having battled English Ivy in my own yard, I knew it was a losing battle. (For those of you not familiar with this plant it will cover EVERYTHING. It spreads, it climbs, and it kills trees. And just when you think you've gotten rid of it...)

When the time came to get out of bed and go to the service project this morning, excuses like coming home late from a high school football game last night and trying to catch up from the first week of school made me almost decide to stay in bed. But I didn't.

(So far this has been all about me and it's not even Monday. But hold on, I'll get to the point.)

When I got to the project site, I saw kids--teenagers down to almost-toddlers--working with their families and friends. They were doing the thankless, itchy, back-breaking job of yanking out ivy. And they were smiling. And they were having fun. And they were working together to do something good for their community.

It was great to see teenagers from rival high schools (who had battled it out on the football field the night before), joking with each other and working side by side. I laughed when my nine-year-old pretended he was a super hero, rescuing the trees from the ivy. I had to smile at a sweet little girl with her arms full of vines stumbling towards an overloaded compost pile.

A simple service. No lives were saved (unless you count trees), no medals were awarded. Nothing but a thanks from the mayor and a less ivy-covered park.

Dirty and tired, the kids who had worked so hard went home to clean up. I bet they didn't give a second thought to what they had done. They were probably thinking about a dance tonight, or homework they needed to finish, or maybe just taking a shower and a nap.

Most of them are too young to even remember 9-11, and pulling weeds probably won't stop terrorists or create world peace.

Except...

For three hours this morning, the kids (and adults) were doing something for their community. They set aside their own lives, their busy schedules, and even their rivalries. They met some new people, worked side by side with friends and family, and made a community park a better place. As I watched everybody working together it reminded me of the sense of patriotism and unity that we all felt after 9-11. It was a good feeling.

So maybe I'm making too much of a morning of ivy removal.

Or maybe even little bits of service make the world a better place.

Creating Tradition--"Fiddler on the Roof" at Aspire Part 2

This is the perfect musical for us--a well-written piece of theater and one filled with challenges... As important as anything this is the perfect first musical because it is a beautiful story about community at its best.

--Chris Traber, director of Aspire's "Fiddler on the Roof"

From the moment the young actors and actresses danced on stage singing Tradition I knew that Aspire's production of Fiddler on the Roof was going to be something special. There was something in the cast's energy and professionalism that struck me immediately. Keep in mind, these are middle school students--roughly aged 12-14. They were incredible. I watched all five performances of Fiddler. (Confession time, my daughter was in it.) I felt their intensity every time they came on stage. I got chills every time I heard them sing Sabbath Prayer. I was amazed every time I saw the bottle dance. (No tricks, ten kids were really balancing bottles on their heads and DANCING!) I was touched every time I heard Far From the Home I Love. And I wanted to cry every time I watched the actors, portraying the Jews driven from their village, proudly raise their arms to the last strains of Tradition.

In short, I laughed, I cried--I was impressed.

The play itself is beautiful. In my opinion, Fiddler on the Roof is one of the best written poignant, funny, and entertaining plays ever put on Broadway. For that I give credit to Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Jerome Robbins--respectively original writers, composers, director and choreographer. Still, to put a production of this magnitude into the hands of 12-14 year-olds (and their fearless directors) and come up with the show they did is an amazing accomplishment. And Aspire has only been in existence for a year!

The leads and their understudies were incredible, but every single actor contributed their best. They knew their lines, they knew the dances, they were acting the whole time they were on stage, and they looked like they were having fun. There was so much energy and emotion put into all the scenes that I almost forgot that I was watching middle school students. (Except that most of the male leads were shorter than the female leads. And yes, the line "When did he grow to be so tall..." brought a laugh every single time.)

Watching the actors cry and celebrate together after the last performance I knew that they had done more than put on a great production. They had achieved what Ms. Traber had hoped for when she chose Fiddler on the Roof for Aspire's first musical--a sense of community and the beginnings of a wonderful new tradition.
Photos courtesy of David Wolf Photography