The Best Time of the Day

So today, at precisely 2:13pm, I got a text that said this: "It's hug time!" And it put the biggest smile on my face.

For the past three summers I have spent my time working for a non-profit organization called the Appalachia Service Project (ASP). It's a Christian based organization that does emergency home repair for people in poverty across the central Appalachian region, and it's the best thing that has ever happened to me. More on that later though; now, back to my story. Although, I guess before I can continue too far, I need to explain how ASP works. Sometimes I get a little ahead of myself when I get excited.

Basically, for 8 consecutive weeks in the summer, 25 ASP centers (spread across 4 states) host about 60-90 volunteers (mostly high school youth, plus their adult leaders, and sometimes college groups) each week. Those volunteers come and do the physical labor involved in the home repair, and the ASP staffers are responsible for organizing, managing and supervising the construction that goes on at these homes. The staffers are also responsible for leading evening gatherings that bring the focus and meaning of the week together for the volunteers, as well as ensure the volunteers have a great week overall, whatever that may entail. Ok, now back to my story...

So in an effort to make the work day fun for volunteers, it is a tradition to often have theme days such as Tie-dye Tuesday or Pig Tail Tuesday:


Wacky Wednesday, Thugged Out Thursday, or Formal Friday:


Or really anything anyone on staff comes up with, such as Harry Potter Day:


It's lots of fun. Another thing staffs commonly do is 'hug time'. We pick a random time during the day, ask people to set their watch alarms (if they have them), and then drop everything they're doing at their work site at that time to give everyone around them a hug. It's quite possibly the best time of the day, but then again I absolutely LOVE hugs! (Either way, I suggest you try it to find out for yourself.)

For the past three summers, my staffs have done hug time almost every week we had volunteers. This past summer, our designated time was 2:13pm (random, right?). One particular guy on my staff, Trevor, was on the ball with hug time. He always had his watch set and he always made sure we hugged. Even after volunteers were gone, and we had 4 days left of wrapping up projects, cleaning up our center, and finishing paperwork, we celebrated hug time. I think my favorite day of 'hug time' was when Trevor and I were at the dump unloading a truck bed of construction debris, and we stopped unloading dump to hug eachother on top of the pile of stuff in our truck bed. I'm sure the workers at the dump were giving us strange looks that day.

Anyway, you can only imagine how happy I was today to have a piece of ASP with me out in Colorado when I received that text. Here's a taste of what I was reminded of:



Don't you just want to go hug someone now?!