Sub Sale

At our church, our middle school youth group has an annual fundraiser. The sell sub sandwiches. It's not the only fundraiser they do, but it's the one that comes around every year at the same time (except this year.....it was a month later than usual). This is our first year as middle school counselors, so we've never participated in the sub sale before. And since I was not able to go on the ski trip, since someone had to stay home with Alison, sub sale was all mine.

The kids took orders and turned them in last Sunday. Yesterday we were all to meet in the church kitchen at 7:00 AM to make the subs to fill the orders. I dragged myself out of bed at 6:00 and made it there by 7:05. An assembly line system was set up and the kids had just started cranking out subs. I don't remember the final total (if I ever even heard it) but they made at least 150 subs in several different varieties: turkey/ham/cheese and lettuce, turkey/ham/cheese and no lettuce, ham and cheese with lettuce, ham and cheese without lettuce, turkey and cheese with lettuce and turkey and cheese without lettuce. There may be one more that I'm forgetting, but that's the general idea.

I didn't get to be in the kitchen for very long because one of the other counselors and I got sent out to the fellowship hall to do quality control and labeling. It didn't take long for us to get waaayy behind, because there was a lot of quality that needed to be controled. The subs were wrapped in plastic wrap and most of them needed to be re-wrapped because at least one end of the sub was hanging out. Once we got a system going, and a couple of kids to help us out, we caught up pretty quickly (also aided by the fact that sub production stopped for a period of time while someone went out to buy more cheese.....they ran out). Then the hard work began. We had to figure out how to organize the subs for pick-up and there's nothing like leaving that up to two people who have never done it before.

Most of the orders were being picked up (and then delivered) by the kids, so that made it a little easier. We just handed out the order forms to the kids and let them fill up bags or boxes (depending on the size of the order). Things got a little more complicated when it came to orders with customer pick-ups and people who hadn't paid for their subs yet, but we, again, had the kids bag up the orders. Then came the tedious task of going over all the bags and boxes and making sure that the orders were correct and properly labeled for easy pick-up. We had to make a few substitutions...some people who wanted lettuce on their sandwiches got them without lettuce, and a couple who ordered turkey/cheese/lettuce ended up with the works and some who wanted ham/turkey/cheese ended up with just hame and cheese because they ran out of turkey before they could finish all the turkey subs.

It's hard to believe that everything was accomplished in just over 2 hours. It felt like a lot longer. At one point I told one of the other adults that I would much rather go back to senior high and do roll bakes (their 4-times-a-year fundraiser) than do another sub sale. But, at 9:20, only 5 minutes after the service started, I was making my way into the sanctuary. Thank goodness we won't have to do that again for another year. But the kids had a good time, and that's probably the most important thing.

I would also like to add that, despite the fact that I did not lay out an outfit for Alison, Kevin mananged to get her fed, suitably dressed for church (right down to the right color tights to go with the jumper he picked out) and dropped off in the nursery in time to come down and help us out for a few minutes.