Volunteering at the festival "Riga Wintering"
With Riga being European Capital of Culture, grand public events are organized every month, and often volunteers are asked to lend a helping hand. One year ago, many citizens took part in pilot project of Riga Wintering featuring interactive playing with some of the newly elected symbols of Riga. This year, however, the project was developed into a carnival, its main symbol being the beaver of Riga Channel. Apart from various Latvian musicians creating a festive feeling on the stage, the festival included many small workshops and games, where participants could make badges and vests with the symbols of Riga, count illuminated stars and record their voice thus becoming a part of Riga's ''Cat Choir''.
Although I have collaborated with Riga 2014 volunteers many times before, this was the first time we were required to meet a day before the event in order to diminish chaos and confusion during the festival and make sure that everyone knows his position. I found the meeting very useful, for - despite me being more or less aware of the official program - I could not guess the purpose of a workshop called ''Sing as Pētergailis" or some others without an explanation. Also, each of us had the chance to sign up for a particular workshop, and I got to help organizing Riga's ''Cat Choir''. Considering that I wanted to work at this position after simply reading the titles, I was surprised when there was no competition for this position.
In the end, my work place had nothing to do with singing cats and meowing people, for I was transferred to another workshop that apparently lacked volunteers. As it turned out, apart from a girl, Klinta, from the organizer's team, I was the only one there, and saying that we hardly managed the work would certainly not be an exaggeration. The idea of this workshop was to get people to gather around the large campfire that was set up in the middle of Esplanade park and roast marshmallows. Initially - before the festival had truly begun - my task was to walk around with the fire with a basket full of marshmallows on sticks and offer them to every person walking by. Needless to say, most of people were delighted and even surprised, which is understandable. How often is one offered free marshmallows in the city centre? Also, some people were not even familiar with this delicious dainty and found it hard to believe that they were supposed to roast it. Had I not been so busy, I would have asked whether they liked it. Either way, judging by the number of people happily gathering around the fire, I think they had fun from the process itself.
As 5 pm approached and the number of people in the park doubled, one basket emptied in ten minutes or less. Soon enough we were out of give-away marshmallows, so I had to retreat from offering them and help Klinta at putting them on sticks. Thankfully, the campfire was near and I could go warm my otherwise numb hands, for it was around 0°C and I had to work barehanded. At this point the work got dull - although we tried to keep up a fast pace, it seemed as if for every marshmallow we prepared two were taken away. People were literary coming from all sides and shamelessly taking up to five sticks each. Some at least had the decency to take one at a time and return for more later.
Still, we gave away more than a thousand of marshmallows during the first hour alone - more than expected. As the organizers got worried about us running out of marshmallows well before the festival was over, they asked us to put the basket behind us and hand marshmallows only to those who ask, and even then - no more than one per person. Some people naturally kept coming back for more, and even though I remembered their faces I could not decline, since such an attitude from a volunteer could ruin their thoughts of the festival. Of course, adults seemed to understand when I pointed out that the marshmallows were limited, but children were just impossible to disappoint.
Because we worked in shifts, I do not know whether the workshop did not have to close up early due to people being extremely responsive, but I hope everything went well.
The following pictures are taken before sunset, hence not too many people there:
preparing marshmallows for handing them out
nothing to stress about ...yet
people happily roasting marshmallows
me offering marshmallows
me in my red volunteer's jacket
so, would you like a marshmallow?
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My reflections
Thanks to Riga being the European Capital of Culture this year, I get to enjoy the wonderful atmosphere of many newly created events from a volunteer's point of view. Although I did not participate in the last year's pilot project of "Riga Wintering" or maybe because of that, I found the very concept of this festival rather unusual, which was also the main reason for taking part in the realization process. I must admit, I was quite nervous about being asked to hand out advertisement booklets, for that would have been neither a particularly enjoyable work nor a new experience, and I am glad I got a position at one of the workshops.
While the work I was mainly assigned to do - offering free marshmallows to people passing by and beckoning them closer to the campfire - was truly pleasant, - because of the people's responsiveness that beat the expectations of the organizers - eventually I had to retreat to a less interactive duty: poke the marshmallows on sticks. Logically, considering that the treat was for free, people desired more than we physically managed to prepare for giving away. Hence out of the five boxes of marshmallows that we had in total, we spent more than one during the first hour already. If the original idea included the volunteers not only offering the marshmallows but also helping people roast them, then in the end we barely managed to meet their demand, wherefore the whole evening turned out quite stressful. Still, despite the monotony of the work, I had a lot of fun working with other volunteers and trying to figure out how to decrease the rate at which the marshmallows were disappearing. As my main objective was to spread joy and do a good deed, I am satisfied with the outcome, because the people who came to our workshop were sincerely delighted and left us not only with relatively fuller stomachs, but in better moods as well.
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