Here’s Mud in Your Eye.

I’d like to start right off by pointing out that I have a college degree. In Communications. With concentrations in both Mass Media and Interpersonal Communications. A degree that cost my father a good deal of money (thanks dad!), and took me 7½ years to earn (I worked full-time all the way through school, gimme a break). Yep – I’m college-educated and I spent a recent Friday at work making mud. Dad must be proud.

A few years ago, a pastor of a local church visited our agency to find out who we were and what we did. He showed up late in the day on a Friday, and when our Development Director at the time got the call from the front desk asking if she had time to give him a tour, she was less-than-enthusiastic. Being the pro that she was though, she put on her “Development Director Hat” and did her job. She took Pastor Roger Grandia, the interim pastor from The First Reformed Church of Fremont on a tour and told him about all the many different services we provide for “the needy”. He was impressed. So much so, that he decided that he and his congregation needed get involved. He dreamed up an amazing idea for a fundraiser for our agency; a mud volleyball tournament and “Mud Bowl Mania” was born.

Mud Bowl Mania is a big event, and one of the biggest tasks is field prep. A couple of years ago, volunteers from the church sunk permanent poles for the nets, but each year the ground still needs to be turned, rocks need to be “picked” (and every year, there are more and more rocks..), and the courts need to be flooded and the dirt turned into mud. Dirt Bowl Mania doesn’t have the same ring, and doesn’t sound nearly as fun. The first year, we tried running garden hoses and sprinklers out to the fields. That didn’t really do the trick and we ended up paying for some of the water to be delivered via water trucks, and begging the Fire Department to make many more trips than the one they had generously agreed to.

Last year our well guy, Ron Wells (yes – the guy who put in our well is named “Ron Wells”… I’m not being funny…) donated about 300 feet of plastic pipe and let us borrow a bunch of fittings and large hoses to run water directly from our new well out to the courts. What a life-saver. Being the ‘Facilities Manager’, as I was last year – a lot of the field prep work fell to me… at least the mud-making part. The Wagenmaker family of Fremont has volunteered a lot of time over the 3-year life of Mud Bowl Mania prepping the fields, and there have been a countless number of people who’ve picked rocks out of those courts over the years. But I do believe I’ve probably made more mud than any other one person… a fact that I am oddly proud of.

Let me just say - It’s a terrible job. It’s back-breaking, dirty, and sweaty work. I think my exact words after last year were; “I’ll quit before I do this again!” or something equally melodramatic. This year was going to be different though. I’m NOT the Facilities Manager any more. And we’ve got a great, new Volunteer Resources Coordinator that had scheduled a bunch of people to pick rocks and make mud, etc.… ahhh – the best laid plans, right?

On the Friday before the event – we were supposed to have a large group of big, burly teenage boys here to make the mud. Two showed up. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. They were awesome and the two of them worked very hard, but it just wasn’t going to happen. Since I am the “most experienced mud-maker” on staff – I was called to duty. The process is simple, albeit back-breaking, dirty and sweaty. You haul a hundred lbs. of plastic pipe and rubber hose around spraying gallon upon gallon of water into the courts while walking around mashing the earth into mud with your bare feet. Sounds fun, doesn’t it?

About 3:00 in the afternoon, I realized that at the rate we were progressing, there was simply no way the courts would be ready by Saturday morning. Wasn’t gonna happen. So I hosed myself off, and went inside to inform the “powers that be” that we were in trouble. In all fairness - throughout the day, there had been a handful of our staff out picking rocks, and helping to water the courts (thanks to Ricky, Calvin, David, Charlie, Lora, etc., etc., etc.) but we were in an “all hands on deck” scenario now.

What happened next was right out of a bad Lifetime movie. I went back out to continue watering, mud-making and rock picking, and for the last two hours of the day, groups of staff came out to help. First the Director of our Housing and Family Services Department with a bunch of our case workers came out, rolled up their pant legs and waded into the mud to pick rocks. Then the Director of our Project FOCUS and PACE programs came out, then our Food Programs Volunteer Coordinator, then the CEO of the entire agency came out... and she’s… well, I don’t know how old she is, and it’s probably rude to speculate, but she’s older than me, and she’s my boss’ boss, and in charge of the whole place! We even had this guy who is a college student, who was doing an internship with us out there, and he was wearing linen that day… LINEN… in the mud! Finally, about 5:00 PM a big blue van pulled in full of Jr. Camp Counselors from our girl’s resident camp - Camp Newaygo, and they jumped in (literally) to help.

I’ve said it before – but it’s worth repeating; I work with and for some very cool people. With only a couple of exceptions, every one of the people out there making mud and picking rocks, in their nice work clothes that day, was a “college-educated professional”. Social workers, educators, graphic designers, and a CEO for Pete’s sake. I suddenly felt in very good company making mud. But if this happens again next year, I’ll quit first… just sayin’.   

Anyway, that’s what happened in a day in the life of TrueNorth.