Day 4/Pinning Ceremony

Thursday was a busy day. We saw over 110 children, with the biggest rush coming first thing in the morning. We started the day off by taking the group picture in front of Iris, the vision van. We had quite a few volunteers from the Lions club, as well as various Sunglass Hut locations. They helped the day breeze by.

At the end of the day we unwound at a restaurant called Sauced, where we enjoyed some Atlanta style soul food in a really cool, 70's retro style atmosphere. We intended to hold the pinning ceremony there, but were unable to because of the noise level. We instead decided to head back to the hotel to hold the ceremony. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at one of the oldest Krispy Kreme locations where we were pleased to find the "Hot Now" sign lit up. Inside we were able to watch the doughnut making process, including what I liked to refer to as the "waterfall of goodness" that you see in the picture. I highly recommend visiting Krispy Kreme when the red sign is lit. The hot, fresh doughnuts were amazing.

Once back at the hotel, we held our pinning ceremony. A few days earlier, we all drew names from a hat. The name we drew was the person we were to pin. When pinning a person, you were to talk a little bit about the person, telling others about that person's life, and what enjoyed about that person. While many people get nervous about having to stand up in front of everyone and speak, the pinning ceremony is a good time, and it's great to hear how and why each person is appreciated, and how they contributed to the team during the clinic.

The pinning ceremony also signaled that the clinic was coming to an end. The next day was going to be a busy day of seeing children, packing up clinic, and traveling back home. After the ceremony, most stayed up for a while to chat and tell jokes. We knew that we might not have much time to say goodbye on Friday.