Has it been 3 months?

I know I have not written here in so long, but I have been volunteering. I did the DC Shorts film festival, saw some lovely films, earned a great tee shirt, and went to the most awesome raging party at the Gibson guitars showroom. As usual with events like these, they always have extra goodies left over. I picked up 3 goodie bags for me, Jason and Ari, and 2 sets of Stella Artois glasses. One set for us, one set for Ari's new home.

Then I did Crafty Bastards, the CityPaper crafts fair. It was a rainy, blustery day and i forgot my jacket, so I caught a cold. Many free goodies abounded as i got some waterbottles, lip balm and nail polish. I also won tickets to Cinematic Titanic, MST3k live. In the volunteer bag was a tee shirt and 2 passes to Landmark Cinema.

Up next I am doing AIDS walk Washington, the Autism Speaks walk and the Reel Affirmations film festival.

The best laid plans...

I have not posted in so long because I have had nowhere to volunteer lately. Columbia Heights day, which was supposed to be on Saturday got canceled due to the hurricane Irene, and it will not be rescheduled. Jason took a message for me on Friday from someone from DCPS "Eat more salad" about a schedule screw up. I called back, now I am waiting for the organizer to call me. Apparently there is some sort of schedule screw up, so I might not be doing that either. Well, my first shift as an usher at Arena Stage is coming up and I need to buy a white button down. There's also the SPX in 2 weeks, and I am going to sign up to volunteer at Crafty Bastards, the City Paper's crafts fair.

I have also decided to log my hours volunteering from now on. I think it will be fun to see how many hours i wind up with by the end of the year. I should have started to count at Fringe, then I would have a ton already. Talking about Fringe Festival, the fall installment has been announced for November.

Rocky Horror Month 3.

Some of you know that I am a props crew volunteer for DC Rocky Horror- The Sonic Transducers. I love working props. It means that I get to be onstage without taking a part. I run on and off stage holding the "Fear Not and Be Just" sign and the sign demonstrating how to do the Time Warp. I also run out to set up the dinner and driving scenes. I think I'll be doing props for a while. I have no interest in going out there in a corset and fishnet stockings.

Volunteer opportunities that I signed up for coming up- DCPS Eat More Veggies campaign, DC Small Press Expo, DC Shorts and Columbia Heights day. Still no word from Arena Stage.

This week in volunteering.....

I still did not get my schedule from Arena Stage- I'll go nag them about it today. I hope that they did not forget about me. I am sure that they did not run out of space. They have 4 more volunteer orientations set up for this month. As I said, I shall look into other programs too- I hear that Theatre J is looking.

Buddy R told me about the Small Press Expo in Bethesda in September. I signed up to volunteer for that. Three days of indie publishers- Can't get any more fascinating than that.

Next garden build day is tomorrow. Going to haul earth for the good of the garden and we can get more plots to more people. Did you know that in some areas of DC there are years long waiting lists for garden plots and some gardens are filled with drama out the wazoo? I am so glad that they built a garden a neighborhood away from me. 

DC Shorts

I have signed up for yet another Film Festival. This one is DC Shorts . It is a film festival made up entirely of short films. It's perfect for anyone, like me, with a short attention span. The festival is in mid September. Volunteer benefits are pretty good. A tee shirt, screening pass and after party. Go to the DC shorts website to sign up and be a volunteer.

I just heard back from Columbia Heights day. The volunteer coordinator addressed me as Gina. Huh? I would love to do the face painting in the Kid's Zone because I am the face paint girl at the roller derby.

Still did not get my envelope from Arena Stage with my volunteer shift information. I am curious to know what shifts I got. If you want to volunteer usher at Arena, note that there are a few more orientations this month. Check the website for more details. 

ZineFest, and Columbia Heights Day.

DC ZineFest was awesome. Unfortunately they never got back to me about volunteering. Perhaps I e mailed them too late to participate. Maybe next year. The energy among the zinesters was amazing. I would love to be part of that by starting my own zine. Read here at my other blog for more details about the fest.

I found out on Prince of Petworth about volunteering at Columbia Heights Day, so I e mailed. Let's see where this goes.

Arena Stage

The zine fest did not get back to me. It's probably too late to try to volunteer for it anyway. I still plan on going on Saturday. The resurgence of zines is a good thing.

I went to usher orientation at Arena Stage last night. Arena stage takes in a ton of ushers. According to them, their army of ushers is 2,000 strong. If you volunteer at Arena Stage, you get to see the show that you are working for free. It's probably too late for me to get to see Oklahoma!. It was the usual volunteer orientation where the people who have done this before ask questions that show all the attendees that they are not noobs. I also think that I may have been one of the younger people in the crowd. I did not get my show assignments last night, because i had just registered that morning.

I know, I know I did not get hired by them for a job I really wanted 2 years ago, but they are a great regional theatre. No sour grapes here.

We were told to spread the word that Arena Stage does need more volunteers, so contact them and go for it!

Holy Cats!

I was in the Washington Post! on the 13th! and I didn't know it! Why? Because I was chasing the fame monster on my other, now defunct blog. No dear, I was not in the actual newspaper- I was in the online arts section. I wonder how they found me?

Well, Fringe is over, and it was AWESOME. If you have Fringe in your area, volunteer, such a great sense of community is made, and volunteering around creatives gives me great energy. Every time I walk past Fort Fringe on my way to Safeway I am going to smile. I am going to remember the brilliance of Kimleigh Smith in T-O-T-A-L-L-Y, The high energy of Illuminate, the sad sweetness of Priscilla Dreams The Answer and laughing my ass off at Who Killed Captain Kirk.

Meanwhile, an article in the Express told me of a ZineFest this weekend. Maybe they need volunteers?

Getting Fringed.

So far I have worked the first weekend of the Fringe Festival DC. I waited tables for the first time in my life, sold tickets to shows and hauled ice. I have met some pretty amazing people. I have also been taking on extra shifts like crazy because I live blocks from Fort Fringe. I gave the volunteer hotline my phone number so that I can take extra shifts.

I was eating lunch with Ariella J. who had just gotten back from Israel. My phone rang and it was Nyree- the volunteer goddess of Fringe offering me shifts for tonight so I grabbed them. I truly have no life. Ariella looks at me, rolls her eyes and then says "was that Fringe?"....Oh yes it was! As I said I belong to Fringe for the next two weeks. Slowly, I am getting to see my shows.

On Sunday I saw "I love you, we're fucked". Kevin Thornton is very funny, but one of the skits made me shrink back in hypothetical pain. I'll be honest, I did expect a lot more sex out of the show.

Howdy!

Hi everyone! some of you may know me from my other blog, Boxed Whine. Boxed whine started out as an off the derech blog. Off the derech meaning having left orthodox Judaism. I eventually turned it into a blog about my life, kvetching nearly every day. I now get between 1,000 to 2,000 readers a month. Not shabby at all for a blog I expected no one to read.

I am not working right now and I got really lonely, so i started to volunteer. There are places and events to volunteer at all over DC. I started this kick 2 years ago by being the face painting girl for the DC rollergirls. I also occasionally volunteered at Washington Animal Rescue League, I don't volunteer there much because it is so far from my home. I joined DC Rocky Horror last month as crew. Last month I did SilverDocs at the AFI and now my ass belongs to Capital Fringe Festival for the next 2 weeks. I also go through Craigslist and find one day events to volunteer for.

Why the name "I do it for the tee shirts" ? Because no matter how different each event is from each other, they all have a common thread- The volunteer tee shirt. These tee shirts make me feel like an awesome insider, like a cool kid, like i am in the know...which i am.

So sit tight as I volunteer my way clear across DC doing ticket sales, gardening and everything in between. First stop? Capital Fringe Festival 2011.