Make it what you want it to be.

Tomorrow is a new holiday, and you may not have heard of it yet.  It’s “Darryl Appreciation Day.”

Here’s how this fledgling celebration day came about:

See, in my new place of work there’s some pretty ugly politics coupled with some severely bad leadership. Some of the crap that’s been pulled even in the short time I’ve been there created a strong bond between one colleague and myself, after an incident in which we stood up to the perpetrator of said evils. Kelly and I (she of my previous post, Like Chalk Drawings in a Rainstorm) in particular came out on the other side of that incident good friends. Afterward, we agreed that the best way to stick it out until that person retires later this year was to do everything we could to make the organization into the kind of place what we want it to be.

One of our co-workers, whom I especially appreciate, receives no respect from our organization’s “leader.” Darryl works in our warehouse, keeping the food pantry stocked, getting incoming shipments and donations stored properly, helping our senior clients out with their monthly commodity boxes. Darryl is also the guy I turn to several days out of every week to help me get large, heavy items in and out of the back of my SUV; donations I’ve picked up to save the donors a trip downtown, bins of sack lunches that groups have made for us to give away to neighbors; more bins of sack lunches we’re able to share with other local organizations for their own hungry neighbors. Darryl has saved me a lot of back pain over the last six months, and his sense of humor brightens my day every time I see him.

I mentioned to Kelly today that I wanted to do a little something for Darryl. I was thinking of baking him some cookies. But Kelly doesn’t do anything by halves. In no time, “Darryl Appreciation Day” was born.

Kelly’s an artist. She created a gorgeous invitation for Darryl to his special celebration: lunch in my office, cooked by the two of us. She’s making a banner to honor him, and my dear husband got into the act by supplying the the gifts: items from his stash of brand new tools he has on hand simply because they were too good a deal to turn down, and some of his own favorite snack foods. We’re calling it “Darryl’s commodity box.”

Kelly and I were texting about the event this evening, and we concocted a plan to create an “Appreciation Day” holiday for each of our coworkers over time.

In our current world, there’s nothing in the news besides jaw-dropping acts of cruelty and greed. The events of the last year have taken a toll on my emotional state, as I know they have to some of yours.

It’s good therapy to create love and healing where we can.

 

Advertisement