Service for Bellingham Community Meals: 2-28-16

The Pikas reunited this past Sunday for a unique outing: we spent much of a windy and wet afternoon inside, aprons donned, to bake up a storm for Bellingham Community Meals. BCM is a group of volunteers that comes together once a month to prepare and serve a warm meal free to the community. The only thing that isn't prepared onsite is… DESSERT! This is where we put our energy, and the girls collaboratively counted, measured, stirred, whipped, beat, melted, poured…and cleaned!

Aviva and Iza getting sticky

After an introduction to our project, we explored questions like: Whose "cups" are we filling today with this project? What other needs are we meeting by helping with this community meal? What would happen in our community without these resources? The girls responded with thoughtfulness and compassion. We all agreed that filling others’ cups makes our cups more full. Today our goal was to help people meet the basic need of food. But going a step beyond this, the girls discussed how community meals meet other basic needs as well, like love, community, and connection.

The girls split into three groups, with determination to stir lots of love into the batter along with the other ingredients. The kitchen was a-flurry with egg cracking, whirling beaters and recipe checking. We remembered to go one step at a time, implementing our motto, “Think It Through Before You Do.” Soon our treats were baking and our mouths were watering, and we began a serious Leave No Trace kitchen clean-up.

After our hard work we ate lunch together. What fun it was to laugh and connect with each other while being dry and warm! Then we geared up and headed out for a mini-exploration of the Bellingham Co-Housing grounds. Ruby, one of our newest Pikas, lives with Susie at Bellingham Co-Housing, so she took us on a comprehensive tour, which wound us around buildings, by happy puppies and hot tubs, and eventually through an orchard to a wetland. We explored through the brush around streams, stopping to enjoy some stick and leaf boat races on the rushing water.

We arrived at Happy Valley Park with time to spare, and the girls giggled their way through many rounds of Bat and Moth and Sleeping Fawns. Our girls practiced echolocation, as the blind bat clapped for the delicious moths, who all were eventually eaten up by the moth. In Sleeping Fawns, the girls lied still in the grass (like, you guessed it, sleeping fawns..), as the silly, sneaky fox tried to get them to smile in their slumber. Some of our Pikas did a stellar job at keeping a straight face amongst all the silly banter and movement. Hannah, on the other hand.....


We could have kept exploring and game-playing for hours, but before our day came to an end, we had one last task to tackle: bagging the sweet treats! We headed back into the Community house and packed nearly 90 bars to share with others. We enjoyed a final Attitude of Gratitude in our closing circle, expressing thanks for our group, for filling up our "cups" even more, and for the humans who will enjoy our baked treats.

Our words of the day? "Baking for the community and marshmallow mud!"

Mottos especially in use today: Our Cups Overflow, Leave No Trace, Everybody Helps, All Things Are Connected, Widen Our Circle

Check out our photo album of the day here!