I used to do it for the pie.

Back nine or so years, as part of the annual public service efforts of my dotcom job, I started volunteering with Community Servings, an organization that prepares healthy meals for individuals and families struggling with life threatening illnesses. As a group, we first did a stint in the kitchen -to my memory washing pounds and pounds of broccoli. Then we discovered Pie in the Sky, an enormous bake sale that raises thousands of dollars each year. Some of us fell over heels for the pie hospital (can you guess where some of those “sick” pies end up?)

Now days, I do it for the tradition. For the moment of walking into whatever enormous warehouse the pie quality-checking and packing operations are set up in. The refrigerator-chill and boxes of pies stacked higher than our heads.

I do it for time with friends and “ex” co-workers.

I do it for the music pumping through the speakers of that excellent lady DJ, spinning beats that keep our feet moving as we honor our imaginings of all of the people who will continue to receive much-needed meals as a direct result of just a few hours of our labor.