Serving AU students and their parents on "Moving Out Saturday"

Saturday was the final “moving out day” for most AU students.  The day was chilly and a bit rainy, but everyone was in excellent spirits for an event that tests the resiliency of all participants.  For me, it is a bitter sweet time, since I will saying farewells - often final farewells - to students who, in some cases, have been my friends for four years.  I have watched them transform themselves from wide-eyed first year students to mature graduates, facing ‘real life’ with a mixture of self-confidence and trepidation.

My role during this important transition, less ceremonial than graduation, but equally momentous, is to hand out food and drink.  This Saturday, I appropriated to  two tables in the Anderson Hall lobby, covered them with Indian print table cloths,  and was on hand from about 8:30 until nearly 1 PM.  By then most students had moved out and my larder was bare.

A review of my grocery list conveys a rough picture of this operations’ scope.

9 dozen doughnuts (a mix of glazed and unglazed)

12 lb. strawberries

12 quarts of orange juice

3 dozen klondike bars

3 gallons of lemonaide

2 dozen sugar free popsicles 

about 100 cups of coffee (and a smaller number of cups of regular and herbal tea)

6 dozen chocolate chip cookies (when the donuts ran out)

4 dozen assorted cookies 

Throughout the entire morning, I can’t recall a single instance of bad temper among students, their parents or staff.  This is a remarkable result at a high stress, exhausting  event involving, probably, four hundred or more individuals in less than ideal weather.  I like to think I may have contributed in a small way to this outcome,but the lion’s share of the credit must go to Housing and Dining Staff members - especially the hard working Anderson Resident Director and Resident Assistants, and to the students and parents, themselves.