The Midnight Run, held on June 6, 2022 blessed us with perfect weather, plenty to offer, and experienced as well as first-time volunteers. Of course, as always, we met many interesting and kind people in upper Manhattan, NYC.
The atypical late June date for this spring’s Midnight Run was prompted by several factors and seemed to have several unexpected consequences.
As we waited until both the St. John’s Nursery School and ballroom dance lessons had finished for the season, we were able to make use of the parish hall for the entire week. Being able to spread out-both timewise and table-wise-meant we were much more organized with all our offerings.
The later date, however, also seemed to reduce the number of available volunteers as many people are engaged in end-of -year celebrations or summer plans. In fact, by the Wednesday prior to the Run, we had volunteers in place for only about 30 lunches (we prefer to take 60-80 lunches on each run). Thankfully, one email was all it took. Each of the lunch makers volunteered to make extra sandwiches which were transformed into complete meals early Friday evening.
Not quite the loaves and fishes, but we ended up making the Run with 75 lunches—enough for the night and enough to send the leftovers to Open Arms in White Plains the next morning.
Many thanks to Lisa Young, Bonnie Kraner-Clabby, Carolyn Gallaher, Tori Pough, and Valerie Guglielmo.
As is often the case, we do not know the identity if each of those generous donors (nor are we able to personally thank everyone) who fill our collection bins with the clothing, shoes, towels, etc. Your contributions are very much appreciated. Nancy Pierson did run into Dacey Hall, Lisa Young, Matt Wrzesniewsky, Catherine Fleury and Melany Gray dropping off items. Nancy extends an extra thanks for the conversations that came with the donations.
Carolyn Gallaher helped with the sorting and even better, can always find a home for the clothing that is not suitable for us to take on the Run.
Dave Ingram, in addition to driving the van on the run, retrieved the van from Dobbs Ferry Friday afternoon (with St. John’s Senior Warden Robin Ingram as co-pilot). Dave had previously led the Voyagers in packing many, many bags of toiletries. And Robin, when she was not driving with Dave, or preparing for the Vestry Retreat, found time to make about 80 hot-dogs, put them in buns and individually wrap them in foil.
Dave was joined on the actual Run by veterans Frank Pierson, Matt Wrzesniewsky, Sebastian Gold and Daniele Toselli. They were joined by first-timers Valerie Guglielmo and Alex Lessie.
The night was clear but steamy. Our assigned stops were mostly on the Upper East Side. Frank Pierson reported that they met about 55 people including about 15 women (the number of women we see seems to continue to increase).
Towels are a fairly new item for us to offer and they were in high demand, particularly the smaller ones. Sweat pants were often requested but we had very few. It is likely that due to the warm weather, our spring/summer coats were not as popular as on previous Runs. T-shirts were definitely preferred over polo shirts.
We made our last stop after midnight and most people had turned in for the night. Our crew was able to leave lunches and water next to about 15 people and heard sleepy voices calling out thankfulness.
Currently, as we assess the amount of “hot weather clothing” we have remaining, we are considering doing a Mini-Run later this summer. This may take place over Labor Day weekend as that weekend often goes without any Runs at all. We will share more on that as we get closer.
Many, many thanks to all.
Nancy Pierson
Melissa Pierson (who had stitches in her hand and, for the first time in many years, and to her great regret, was not able to go into NYC for the Run!)