What is a Harvest?
Hey guys.....Well last weekend I was involved in my Church Harvest. In Trinidad almost every Catholic parish has their own Harvest, schools have something similar but it's called a Bazaar. Our Church Harvest is one of the best and most popular because we have the best prizes and entertainment. I am a volunteer with a stall called Lock & Key and another stall called Cat in Bag. What are stalls? And what is a harvest?
A harvest is like fun family day with games but you have to pay to play because these harvests are how the different parish churches raise funds to deal with any expenses, repairs or major renovations that needs to be done to the church. Our church had to change the roof 2-3 years back and it was funded by the money made from the different harvests we've had. It is normally either held in a school yard or as we do, it's set up under tents on one of the community's larger grounds, which is named after our famous cricketer, Brian Lara. So on the Brian Lara Grounds, all the stall tents, church tent, food tent, chit tent, Kiddie tents etc are set up based on the committees layout.
At these harvests there are stalls which are different booths with a particular game, for example, of the 2 stalls we run one stall is called Cat in Bag. What is this game? Well this one isn't so much a game as an old time concept where for $10 you get a bag and you have no idea what you'll get in the bag. It could be something unexpected, something really nice or something not so nice, but we make sure to have great prizes in our Cat in Bag. For the women you might get a stretchy jeggings, a purse, wallet, bowls, pot spoons, something to massage yourself etc. We have bags for women, men, girls, and boys. We tend to get a crowd and everything disappears really quickly.
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Our other stall, Lock and Key is a game where you pay for a certain number of keys, $10 for 2 $15 for 3 and $20 for 4 keys. Then if the key opens the lock I have, then you pick a card to get a prize. The hitch is the key that opens the lock is in a bag with other keys, and you have to choose the number of keys you paid for without looking in the bag and hope one of the keys you chose is the one that opens the lock. I know it sounds difficult but it's not as bad as it sounds, because people win often. It's based on the more keys you buy the higher your probability of getting the right key. We have great prizes like food hampers, beer hampers, alcohol and small appliances, so we get quite a crowd.
This year as with every year it tends to rain mid day then stop and the day flows as usual. This year it rained but it was the heaviest we've ever gotten, but it didn't dampen the Harvest and people stayed around. They ate, yes because lots of food is on sale. They played games, won a lot of stuff, enjoyed the entertainment and went home happy. It was also extremely hot, we've been having some really high temperatures lately that are crazy!!! You have to keep hydrated, drink your water and avoid going outside. I was pretty cool that day though because although it's been hot these days, there is also always a lot of breeze. Where I sat I got a lot of breeze and my friend was next to me so we had a ball.
Coming down to the end of the day and especially when the main prizes are approaching, the crowd gets bigger and more aggressive. So I had to be very strict and lay down the law. No pushing ahead of anyone, wait your turn and then at a certain point when the crowd gets too much we stop the game and we go one at a time in dealing with a customer. There are normally 6 of us doing the same Lock and Key game. This is where it gets noisy and frantic because the main prize is a Toaster Oven.....Goodness....the excitement!!! One of my players won it and that is why every year certain people play with me because they tend to win and win big. I love when they leave happy and with our stall, when you lose the first time you, still get to go away with something, we give a consolation prize. They may not be as amazing as the hampers, oven, small appliances or alcohol but people still feel good that they got something.
So that was my weekend. I worked hard before the Harvest and during. I made up like 90 hampers for the prizes and I begged clients to get prizes. The owner of the stall was even better at this than I was but we did well and I hope the stall made a lot of money. In fact I hope the entire Harvest was able to make a lot of money for our Church as it is needed to repair a wall that is falling onto the cemetery and to build a retaining wall so that we can have a safer Car park. God is good all the time. Have a great day people until next time.
P.S I apologise for my non-existant post on Thursday 12th, don't know what happened, Guess age is catching up with me as I seem to have forgotten to post that day and my day late post today. SORRY GUYS!!