Yes, Yes… I know. After every ride we have, I always talk about how great it was. But for real, today was pretty fab! First off, our turn-out was phenomenal and it was just a great weekend to showcase NEW VOLUNTEERS! Read on…
(disclosure: this email has really just inspired me to compose 4 other, more involved, emails/posts in the coming days, celebrating projects and relationships we’re working on! It’s in the pipeline, y’all…)

It’s eeeaaaaarrrrllllllyyyyy…

It’s so early in the morning when the alarm goes off… You know that “time to make the doughnuts” commercial from back in the day? For a few of us it’s “time to heat up the burritos,” and we love it. (Well, once I wake up anyway.) Today I was stoked to get to the meet-up spot because I knew that we were going to have some folks joining that I was looking forward to meeting. You see, this worked out to be the weekend of the NEW TALENT! We had half of our donated burritos come from new people who had never served with us before. HUGE GRATITUDE to first-time rollers Frank and all of the folks in Stephanie’s bible study group! We had some new riders joining us as well. “Hello and Thank You” to Tara, Emma, and (other) Stephanie, along with some familiar friends. Anytime we can get some fresh blood into the group it always injects everyone with an energy that’s such a joy to share.
Today, when we met at Kroger, there were nine of us in all. We had three brand new riders! We shook hands all the way around, loaded up, and were off by about 9am.
First stop, as always, was Jeff Street. Here we were met by Ryan, who was just hitting the one stop (9 and a 1/2 riders?) with us, the reason being that Ryan had a mission this morning. We are looking for some new acts of service to engage in, and we’re working on an idea involving the donated bicycles we’ve received. Ryan had, during previous rides, connected with a gentleman by the name of Ray. More on Ray in future postings, but Ray and Ryan had been discussing Ray’s need for reliable, sustainable transportation in order to get to work. Ryan took it upon himself to rehab a free bike he’d picked up from Craigslist, partnered it with a helmet, lock, etc, and donated it to Ray so that he could have a means to support himself. It was awesome to be a part of this amazing connection between Ryan and Ray, and I hope to be able to write more extensively about this in the future. It was really amazing for Ryan to take on that project for someone in our community!

Look at ’em go!

I thought about something today that I used to encourage in my co-workers when I managed in retail. I would say, “Try to take at least one person home with you today.” By that, I meant for the employees to seek out opportunities to create at least one experience for a customer that was so meaningful that, at the end of the day, they would carry the pride and pleasure of that experience home with them. This would also serve to help them remember that customer’s name and details of the interaction for future reference in creating outstanding customer experiences.
I was reminded of that today, as I took Leroy home with me. I had a chance to connect with him in a way I hadn’t previously and enjoyed the opportunity to talk with him and learn some of his story. I plan to stay in contact with him and connect with him again so that I can monitor his success and support him emotionally. He’s been on the street since October and is staying at Wayside. He’s recently earned a position at Hotel Louisville working security and will eventually earn a private room for himself there. I can’t wait to see him again so that I can hear how the new job is going. Actually, I’m way overdue to meet up with the GM of HL so maybe I’ll see him at work. (I wanted to link to Hotel Louisville, but I couldn’t find it.)

They Like us!

     Schwowza! Our Facebook page got serious all of the sudden and we now have 211 “Likes” for the Burrito Riders! Now, we just need to get them ALL subscribing to the email!

Please & Thank You

Thanks to Curtis for being the first to suggest we resume a previous post-ride tradition, stopping at Please & Thank You for a post ride cup of coffee and a chance to hang out together. It was pretty funny though today, rollin’ up on P&TY with the 9 of us and finding that it was standing room only in that place. We enjoyed some good conversation in a fun atmosphere, good coffee, and a couple of vegan treat options.

Come for the community service, stay for the coffee and conversation!

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