Don Woods!

Where to start for the Volunteer of the Month this November is EASY. When one thinks of Don Woods, one thinks first of one thing. If you know Don Woods, you’ve certainly already thought of it, and if you don’t, you are, we’re sure, excitedly waiting to find out. My friends, this is called narrative tension. There’s one thing we keep alluding to, and you keep reading to find out what it is. We talk about narrative tension a lot around here.

Part of making a reader continue to read is to tease them a little, drop hints about things you WILL tell them, but then cleverly change the subject. For example: As many of you know, we hold Volunteer Orientations once or twice a month. At these gatherings, we speak to a group of 30-50 people for an hour or so. As you might imagine, while we try to make a lot of eye contact, the faces tend to blur together, but at each orientation, there are generally at least one or two people who really stand out. At an orientation last spring, this was Don Woods.

He stood out for the reason we keep hinting at, sure. But mostly he stood out because he was: incredibly gregarious and very engaged in what we were saying. He nodded enthusiastically. He asked questions. He stayed after to chat. He left, and Rachel turned to Amy and said, “That’s a good one.” And, as far as we can tell, that statement has been proven true, true, true.

Don has helped us out in a number of capacities. And now, it’s organic enough to stop teasing. Don is VERY tall. See the picture up there? That’s Don in ANY crowd. He’s TALL, there’s no other way to say it. One of our fondest memories of Don is when he facilitated what wound up being the Tallest Workshop Ever, led by former Volunteer of the Month Chris Hiltz (7'1") and co-facilitated by Piet Kleymeer (6'9"); it was, truly, a sight to behold.

In addition to being tall, Don does tasks from semi-tedious administrative work (updating our Facebook page) to helping out with programs (largely workshop facilitation) to fundraising (you can congratulate him on being Volunteer of the Month by giving some money to his Euchre-for-Cheaters team here). Furthermore, put your thumb and forefinger really, really close together. THAT, my friends, is how close Don is to OFFICIALLY serving on our Board of Directors. Which would make him the second tallest member of our board (the top honor going to Interim President Chris Taylor [7'5"]).

We’ve spent so much time beating around the bush, as it were, that it’s about time to wrap it up. So we’ll just say: he’s tall, he’s great with kids, he’s incredibly reliable, he’s super nice, and we love having him around.

Don Woods, thanks for everything you’ve done and continue to do for us. Best of luck at Euchre-for-Cheaters (although our money’s still on Amy’s parents). Hooray, Don!