Every year Alaska Mission runs a concession stand during a week-long basketball tournament. The tournament is the largest in the world with over 50 teams that participate. While it’s not the all-stars, the players are of varied abilities, ethnicities, and most are vertically challenged. As I wrote this post, I’m overheard a conversation that described this tournament as the time when all the small villagers come from miles around to what ends up being a giant family reunion. With such a reunion the families drink too much and this is when so much incest occurs.
Friday after I arrived I was assigned to relieve the leader of the stand and when I introduced myself to the leader, she assigned me to the cash drawer. Flexibility. There were no cash registers, no formal counting system, just folks throwing money at me and telling me what change they needed. I mostly got it right. This was a stretch…change, disorganization, no accountability. You’d have been proud of me.
Each night after the tournament, around 10:00, the entire crew of 65 people was responsible for tearing everything down, putting it away, and cleaning the entire recreation center. Bedtime would have been around midnight had there not been a team meeting and worship time following.
The proceeds raised during the tournament go to the Nome women’s shelter and to Logan, an autistic boy who responded to the Iditarod dogs by speaking his first word and would benefit from a Paws dog. I can’t think of two better beneficiaries of our efforts.
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