Can I tell you how much the Chicks love their jobs? Routinely, we get bulk donations from a major retailer that we just adore. And it’s like Christmas in whatever month we’re opening them. We love all this stuff because it makes us smile and we know, in turn, it will make someone in need smile. Just to have something whimsical.

I have to digress for a moment. Do you know someone on Facebook actually took a shot at a Contributor vendor for having a cellphone? Are you kidding me? These fine folks stand out in the rain, the snow and the heat selling the newspaper so they can afford to get off the streets and, yes, get a cellphone. Give me a break.

But back to hats. We have to model the hats. Betsy chose a lovely Nanook of the North design, perfect in these cold winter days when the temperatures in warehouse rarely rise above 50. Yes, we have heaters in the warehouse and I believe they work since they’re brand new (a side benefit of the flood), but I am too cheap to turn them on. I told the architects that we didn’t need heaters in the warehouse but they wisely ignored me. I chose a lovely Christmas-themed bonnet. I am attempting to look sexy here, but I just noticed when I purse my lips the wrinkles really stand out so I believe I have failed in that effort. And I don’t appear to be pouting. More like grimacing. I used to be able to carry this off, dang it.

Oh, well. It’s giveaway day tomorrow and the hats will go to new homes. Maybe they will end up at a senior center where a warm hat is appreciated or an elementary school where a Christmas hat that plays Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer brings a laugh to a child. Everyone gets to have fun with hats.

Let me just say I don’t remember looking like this in the 1980s and I’m slightly offended that Betsy would plan an entire fund-raising event at my expense. However, it did allow her to alarmingly stretch her job description.

I will have to look it up in the employee manual, but I do not recall that Betsy’s job calls for:

1. Hunting down a life-size cutout of Michael Jackson for the Thriller dance-off (see above photo).

2. Spending hours upon hours making playlists on her computer for inspiration (we hired a DJ who had his own playlist).

3. Abandoning her post at work to hunt for a prom dress at Goodwill.

4. Purchasing a giant can of hairspray  to tease her hair and calling it “work related.”

5. Making Kim and me dress up. We hate to dress up. (We’re smiling here, but we’re not happy).

I will say that Kim really got into the spirit of the thing, actually allowing her sister to dye her hair blue. Was that an ’80s thing? I’m not sure, but it looked good on Kim and she briefly considered keeping it.

I make fun, but the first annual Prom was a huge success. The great folks at Whiskey Bent let us use their party room, we had a huge “candy” bar in addition to the real one. There was a prom photo booth to memorialize the event, a rockin’ DJ, great food and, best of all, guests who really got into the spirit of the thing.

Of course, every prom has to have a king and queen. For the inaugural event, ours were King Damon Bagwell, dressed as Prince, and Queen Jackie Neach. I am sure they will wear their crowns proudly as they reign this year. Betsy is well into planning the next Prom, which will feature Heroes and Villains. Batman. Superman. The Joker. I think Betsy is going as Wonder Woman, a title she well deserves. The whole party was her creation, from start to finish, and it came off without a hitch.

Kim and I will be hiding out for Heroes and Villains, though. We don’t do tights.

We literally work from 9 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon making these piles. Some agencies serve almost 1,000 people. The large piles are assembled on pallets that are then transported to the staging area by our pallet queen, Kim. We do not need to go to the gym after this. However, we need a little pick-me-up now and again.

“Hey, Kim, ” Betsy texts. “Can you pick up some Bailey’s on the way in?” I think that’s against  CRC’s human resources policy. But I don’t check. We make a pot of coffee. Bailey’s in a little coffee is a very nice way to stay warm in the warehouse. Very nice, indeed. We make a second pot. Our volunteers here to help sort piles are convinced this is the best volunteer opportunity EVER.

But wait. There’s more! After our unhealthy lunch of fast food and bakery goods, it’s cocktail hour. Doesn’t every company offer Chardonnay during their afternoon break? Really? They don’t? How about funny hats? Are we the only company that encourages the wearing of funny hats? Actually, we require it. That may be against our human resources policy, too. I don’t check.

At the end of the week, Betsy, Kim and I will have given away well over $300,000 in gift items to nonprofits that will then distribute them to tens of thousands of people in need. Not bad for three chicks in a warehouse. Hic.

Ben Prom sports a jaunty look with a corn hat and a Christmas tree hat

Oh, we are all about hats here at CRC, especially at this time of year when a legion of volunteers joins us to sort inventory for our giant Christmas Giveaway. In the next week, we will distribute more than $100,000 in Christmas gifts to our nonprofit partners so their clients will be remembered this holiday season. And that involves a lot of sorting.

So Saturday we had a group in and Betsy, the originator of the hat requirement, bought festive head gear for all of them. I can’t tell you how impressed I am that these two guys were secure enough in their manhood to wear these things. We spent five hours sorting gifts into boxes that we can pull from to make up our “piles” for our partners. There are the predictable categories: men, women, teen girls, teen boys, children. And then there are our own inventions: God Box (for religious items that will go to faith-based nonprofits) and Granny Box (for gifts suitable for senior centers).

We always run across some fairly silly stuff when sorting. How about the Mr. Romantic Doll (with 16 romantic phrases including “Why don’t you make dinner and I’ll make breakfast?” Hehe). Or the plastic Queen Elizabeth statue with the solar-powered waving hand. Who wouldn’t want that?

You know, I have to say that I love my job all year long but especially at this time of year. Spending a Saturday in the warehouse with great people wearing silly hats, sweets from the Hermitage Bakery, biscuits from Cracker Barrel and piles of stuff, most of which will mean so much to the recipients is a good thing. No, it’s a great thing.

I am stupid. The “donations” are junk. What are people thinking? You have just lost your house and all your possessions in a natural disaster of epic proportions and what you certainly do not need are the following:

A greasy scratched electric skillet. Yes, that will be so appetizing to cook with. If you even have electricity, which you do not because you have

Greasy scratched skillet

just lost your friggin’ house and they don’t allow cooking in nasty skillets in the Motel 6 where you are staying while you ponder how to put your life back together. But someone thought this would be useful. No, that’s not true. Someone thought, “Oh, goodie, I can get rid of that nasty thing and feel good about myself at the same time.” No, you cannot feel good about yourself. Not at all.

Or how about this one: a frosting spreader. Yes, indeed. The first priority on the list of recovery after a disaster is to bake a cake in the oven you just lost to the twister without the electricity you don’t have anyway. Are you kidding me? Would the generous donor really feel good standing before a tornado survivor and saying, “Here you go. Have a nice day.” These pallets are almost completely loaded with this kind of crap. Sorry, junk.

I didn’t even shoot photos of the bags upon bags of ratty old clothes, dirty stuffed animals, broken suitcases and the odd lampshade or frayed decorative pillow. But I couldn’t pass up this one: two weightlifting belts. “Hey, honey,” I can just imagine some burly guy saying to his wife. “I know there are a lot of displaced weightlifters in the state of Alabama right now and even though I love my old weightlifting belts, I’m going to make a sacrifice and donate them.”

Before our own flooding disaster in 2010, I don’t think I understood the incredible insult people add to injury when they clean out their attic and plop their discards down on your doorstep for you to throw in the trash, which is what the donors should have done in the first place.

So to end this on a positive note, the next time there is a disaster of any type please purchase and donate the following:

1. Personal hygiene products

2. Paper products

3. New, NEW, clothing, particularly underwear and socks.

4. Cleaning supplies and tools such as mops and brooms.

5. Money. If you really want to help, donate money.

Betsy is proud mother to Kirstin Sunshine, a vivacious fun-loving 14-year-old. Kirstin has a few limitations but Betsy doesn’t see it that way and neither does anyone else who has come within 200 miles of the Everett family. So we are at the awards ceremony earlier this week and Betsy is called up to receive her award. And there is applause. Kirstin loves applause. She thinks everyone is clapping for her, even if they’re not. And Kirstin starts to laugh. She has an incredible laugh. When she starts up everyone just follows along.

The emcee tells the audience Kirstin loves applause and they start clapping again. More laughing. Betsy and Kirstin return to their seats and the next presentation begins. Kirstin is still laughing and now Betsy and I are laughing, too. How inappropriate. How wonderfully inappropriate. Spontaneous laughter. But we are in a room full of spontaneous people and nobody minds.

Is Betsy the mother of the year? You bet she is. Just look at her kid.

So I try to take a serious photo of them assembling shelves. And that is actually a side story. We got shelving delivered for HCA Community Day, but a couple of the particle board shelves were broken. So we called the company for replacement shelves and they sent two new complete shelf sets at absolutely no charge to us. Well, we thought, if were were not the completely transparent and scrupulously honest nonprofit agency that we are, we could just keep calling them for replacements and shelve the whole warehouse!

I am trying to provide photographic evidence of actual hard work performed by my staff. And this is what I get. “Take a picture of us, take a picture of us!” They were pretending to be asleep on the job. Except Betsy was so tickled she couldn’t keep her head down. On a serious note, these shelves replace ones lovingly built as an Eagle Scout project by a board member’s son. They were truly beautiful and only the wrath of the Cumberland River raging through the warehouse could have destroyed them.

And I should also disclose Kim and Betsy were actually doing hard work because putting the bottom panels in the shelves was really tricky and the executive director abandoned her post as ineffective help-mate to go get the camera.

Someday I’ll actually photographically document their hard work. Or not. This is more fun.

Our HCA Community Day volunteers came out to the warehouse last week to install shelving and help us sort inventory that will end up in the Christmas Giveaway. Because of the flood and being out of our warehouse for more than a year, we have a lot of unsorted inventory. A LOT. So a few pairs of extra hands came in very handy indeed. Willie, Jeff, Kim and Evelyn arrived bright and early, festooned in their royal blue HCA Community Day t-shirts. HCA also knows how to brand. I should disclose that Willie is on our board of directors so we’re always pretty sure he’ll be on the crew. That man has always answered the call.

The shelves were assembled. Pallets and pallets of boxes were sorted. The Chicks got to know the HCA folks over a gourmet lunch of sub sandwiches.  And at the end of the day CRC was more organized. There are lots of companies with a social conscience. But I’m not sure I know of one that plays that role better than HCA. It’s at the core of their identity, just as their founder intended.

“Be happy in your community. Be active. There is so much good to do in this world and so many different ways to do it.”

- Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Sr.

So Kim is the stage manager, lighting director and the head of photography. Here she is setting up the very sophisticated lighting system on the monkey stage, which may look as though it is simply a cart but you would be wrong. And if you think the lights look suspiciously like a string of Christmas lights you would also be wrong.

Betsy is the set designer, head writer and editor. She has just informed me that this project is work-related because she needs to learn editing in her role as marketing manager. I’ll accept that. Creative interpretation of just fooling around. This soon-to-be-award winning video will be showcased on You Tube, thereby introducing the world to the Community Resource Center. Or at least introducing the Monkey Dance-Off.

Important business. We’re on top of it.

Betsy is most likely having a midlife crisis. First she does this Warrior Dash, which involves signing a consent form that acknowledges there is significant opportunity for injury or even terrorist activity. Then in a few weeks, she’s going to some field in Georgia for Alchemy, which is basically an alcohol-infused festival in which participants build their own city, hold activities such as parades, dress in wacky costumes and burn a giant stick figure at the end. She and her team have been planning this for months.

I’m going to have to keep an eye on that girl. She might try to set up a flash mob in the parking lot.