volunteering

Today I worked at a local church making braille books for blind second-graders. There were six of us in a small room. Four volunteers took over the task of loading paper into metal jackets, running these through an ancient braille machine, removing the metal jackets and stacking the pages into booklets, and then binding a front and back cover to each book. My task was punching the holes in each page in order to go through the binder. I've actually had experience doing this; as a teacher I put together many kid-made books for my classroom. After binding each book, Mildred signed  Lutheran Braille Workers on the back cover. We made thirty-six books, each with 18 pages. It was about God and forgiveness. These books are shipped to California where they are then distributed all over the world. Afterward we had lunch at Panera Bread, talking about our families and generally solving the world's problems.