Town of Trenton, Wi – The sun has not yet risen. Yet the halls of Ozaukee Christian School are abuzz on a Saturday morning. The smell of cinnamon wafts around the school. A classroom door opens, and the savory notes of chili warming in a Nesco join the aroma parade. It could only mean one thing; it is Pie Day.
There are volunteers who have been busy since before the first volunteer shift of the day began: the volunteers for the volunteers.
They were turning on lights, getting out ingredients, pulling trucks up to doorways, plugging in cords, and putting out refreshments.
Amanda Kasinskas is one of those volunteers for the volunteers. She runs the classroom-turned-breakroom that will soon see a steady trickle of volunteers stripping off gloves to reveal clean hands and apple juice spattered forearms.
“I really like it in here,” said Amanda. “It’s so rewarding.”
She said she appreciates all the hard work happening outside of the peaceful retreat she has created. But what she has done is no small feat either.
Fall decorations grace the tidy tables. Grandpa Bill’s chili is kept hot and ready with a multitude of toppings. Breakfast items, drinks and treats are kept stocked and orderly. A coffee station is ready to keep the entire operation on track.
Down the hall in the Multipurpose Room, a sanitized version of the room that normally sees goldfish cracker crumbs and jump ropes is now covered in sheets of plastic and meticulously cleaned tables arranged into stations.
A crew of apple peelers begins to arrive. Friendly voices call “Here, we have a spot open!” as new people walk in. A hum of getting-to-know-you questions takes over the room as bins of sliced apples fill up.
Soon Dave Swartz is waving a group of volunteers to an empty line of tables. The work of the volunteers who came for Box Day on Thursday and Topping Day on Friday collides with the freshly peeled apples, and the first pie comes off the assembly line, just half an hour after sunrise. The pie is bagged, boxed, and hauled off to the freezer truck.
Pat Dunham and Julie Ball arrive for childcare duty, and soon the preschool room is full of little ones whose parents are producing pies at an extraordinary rate.
Older students and their parents and alumni and their parents join forces, sharing their OCS stories from the past and present.
“When I went to OCS…”
“When we came to the new building…”
“When they had the first Pie Day…”
It is a family reunion of sorts. Memories are made and shared.
By 3:30 p.m., over 4,000 pies have been made and prayed over. Maybe it is the cinnamon in the air, but it seems that happy tears are in the corners of the volunteers’ eyes. The day was well spent in service to the ministry of OCS, all for the glory of God.
