Autism Society of Colorado: Day Three

Wednesday, March 24 2011

Five o’clock in the morning is a cruel time of day. As I crawled out of my sleeping bag, grabbed my clothes and towel, and sloshed out to the shower, I struggled to open my eyes. Once I had gotten ready, at 5:35AM I started in on my first cup of coffee. We all ran around the church getting ready for our day with Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. By 6 AM I had returned to the kitchen for my second cup of coffee.

At 6:50 AM we arrived at the Central Presbyterian Church located two blocks down from the Capital building. Outside in the cold morning air we meet up with Erika, Christina, and Jin, the employees from CCHI we’d be working with that day. First we carried in items from their cars for the day’s event.

Once inside, we began the set up of bagels, coffee and fruit for the morning’s guests. By 8 AM, I was back to the comfort of coffee, also known as my third cup that day. By 8:45AM the CCHI team began an introduction and discussion of the activity for the day, lobbying for health care. We then waited for everyone to walk down to the capital, and then began to set up for the afternoon’s activities at the church which included lunch and health resource fair. Kim from ASC offered to give our group a tour of the capital building. However, Erika really wanted our help back at the church so I stayed to help move and set up for the afternoon fair.

At around 10:30 AM, the girls returned and we started to carry balloons, presents, and cupcakes for the celebration and rally down the street to the steps of the capital. With a couple of trips back and forth between the church and the capital we had all the supplies to set up for the rally. The theme of the rally was a one year birthday party for the passing of the health care bill. So with the birthday celebration supplies in place, the guest speakers took their place. The key note speaker was Wendell Potter, who was a former employee of a major insurance company. Today he speaks against the policies of big insurance companies, and advocates for health care that is accessible to all. The rally gathered a large group of individuals concerned about health care in the state and celebrated our step in the right direction in the aspect of affordable and accessible health care.

After a quick clean up, we headed back to the capital with supplies in hand ready to help with the luncheon and health resource fair. At 12:30 PM I grabbed my fourth cup of coffee, and then helped serve lunch to those there for the fair and legislative panel. Quickly, we each ate a small lunch (and my fifth cup of coffee) before beginning cleanup. A large portion of the leftovers from that day’s meals went next door to a homeless shelter, including two trash bags of bagels.

When we finished cleanup we headed a couple blocks down to the 16th Street mall to relax after our long day at work. We stopped in a couple stores and even found an amazing gelato shop. Around six in the evening we headed back for a meal of nachos and then passed out before midnight.