Laying low

You know how it is when the finish line is just in sight and you’ve been running a long, long race and you know the hardest stuff is almost over? We did that for the last few days. Oyster Easter was over, the giveaway (interrupted by tornado warnings) was done and the move back into CRC is imminent. So we goofed around a bit, kind of like looking back at the end of a race and realizing there’s nobody on our heels.

By the way, here is a beauty shot of part of the offices taken by Rachel Paul, a professional architectural photographer who donated her time to record our lovely space for posterity. When Sybil McClain from Street Dixon Rick set the photo shoot up for us, I foolishly thought it would take about 45 minutes. I am obviously not well versed in architectural photography. It took six hours! But it was fascinating to watch Rachel as she carefully set up each shot and made sure the light was just right and that every detail was perfect.  I mean look at this place. Is this not the coolest space ever? I am quite sure when people come to visit I will instruct them to take their shoes off at the door and provide them paper booties to wear.

So we kept a low profile for a few days. Betsy took some time off to play with Kirstin Sunshine. Kim went off to fly fish with breast cancer survivors who enjoy Casting for Recovery. That Kim is a do-gooder even in her off hours. And I met a friend of more than 30 years at a mountain cabin to watch The Wedding.

As of Friday, we will have phone and internet. I can remove the accursed CRC phone from my personal office at home after more than a year. I will no longer have to shoo Mark off the deck because he does not understand that even in my shorts and t-shirt, if I am at the computer I am working. Actually, I have to give Mark a lot of props because he has endured the CRC phone ringing at all hours of the day and night.

We will be in an official work space again, albeit a fun one. Strategic planning sessions will once again take place at the open dock door in camp chairs. Our patient nonprofit partners will not have to set their GPS for the latest temporary warehouse we’re inhabiting. However, they will have to wear paper booties.

Always we begin again.

The kindness of strangers

This may have been the most amazing day of my life, at least professionally. We started out the day with just a flooded out warehouse. We ended the day with a temporary warehouse, an official designation by the Mayor’s Office as the agency to distribute in-kind donations (what Betsy and I affectionately refer to as “stuff”), a partnership with Hands On Nashville and a really nice lunch at Sambuca.

So it started with this man, John Scannapieco. We call him the Wartime Consigliere. John is the president of the board at the Community Resource Center and we had breakfast yesterday at Noshville. We didn’t even have time to order. John was on fire. “Let’s give stuff away!” he said. “This is what our mission is and we can’t sit on the sidelines during the worst disaster to hit Nashville.” Give stuff away? I’m still bleary from little sleep and dealing with the flooding at the warehouse. “We can do this,” he says. “Let’s make a list.”

Make a list. That rings a bell (see a few posts down). So we do. At about the same time, Betsy was realizing that people were calling Hands On Nashville trying to donate goods, but that HON didn’t have the infrastructure to deal with that plus deploy thousands of volunteers to flood-stricken areas. Hello, hello? This is what we do, she said. We give stuff away professionally. We have the infrastructure and the experience. Stick with me. This may be a longer post than normal, but what happens next is amazing, almost a miracle.

Last night, I blog about trying to find warehouse space. This amazing woman, Tina Hamilton from the Susan G. Komen Foundation responds almost as soon as I hit the “publish” button. “I know where you can get space.” I call her immediately and she tells my about another amazing person, Robert Craig. He manages A+ Storage in Nashville. I call him and leave a message.

This morning  I call him again. “When can you come over?” he says. Well, right away. He shows me fantastic warehouse space in what may be the classiest storage facility in the entire universe. I am not only giddy with excitement, I am about to faint. He donates space to us. If you have bulk donations, please click on their website. All the information’s there.

At the same time Betsy is communicating with Hands On Nashville. Over Betsy’s cellphone on speaker we come up with a quick plan with their executive director, Brian Williams.

The Mayor’s Office comes on board. By the way, if you are not immediately impacted by the flooding you may not know that the Mayor’s Office has done an incredible job, just incredible. As have the police, firefighters, emergency crews and every other Metro agency. We have had a Katrina event, without the disasters that took place in the aftermath on a government level.

So here we are. This is our temporary space. Without a single notification to the public, we already have a few donations. Betsy is on the computer over there, already working it. Did I tell you Betsy is a force of nature? We will be open for business tomorrow. Betsy joked that we are the Queens of the Universe (she wants capes), but we kind of feel like that tonight. We may get the best sleep of our lives. This all happened in one day. Largely due to kindness of strangers.

Oh, and Sambuca. Betsy and I were starving around noon and A+ Storage is in the Gulch, just around the corner from Sambuca. We had a wonderful lunch. Quite unlike our normal repasts of leftovers or KFC. The bill came. The waiter said it wasn’t much, but the restaurant would like to extend a discount. It was much. It was totally appreciated. The kindness of strangers, indeed.