The Littlest Fingers Can Lend a Hand

Among the many places a four-year-old does not belong, a 40,000 sq. ft. bakery is probably one of them.

Yet there we were: one preschooler, her two sisters, and their parents – roaming the cavernous, cinnamon-spiced spaces of Leo's Bakery in South Boston, on the weekend before Thanksgiving. 

To kick off our holidays, my husband wanted our family to do something purposeful together. With visions of helpfulness dancing in his head, he web-searched his way to "Pie in the Sky," the annual event that marries the generosity of bakeries and restaurants with pie buyers. The $25 pie purchases go to Community Servings, a highly regarded nonprofit organization that makes and delivers meals for critically ill patients. Leo's, a wholesaler, was lead baker for the fundraiser. Our family volunteered in anticipation of helping to box 5,000 pies.  

(My husband swears he cleared the kids' ages with someone – a well-meaning someone, who thought it would be fine for us to be around the pies.)

So, after a Sunday brunch with friends that made all the kids a little restless, we took a short car ride to Southie, during which I lectured the grumpy occupants about approaching life with a better attitude: as in, "the world does not revolve around you," that kind of thing. My family knows Mommy's temper, and each child had done something to set me off.  By the time we arrived, hugs were needed to calm the teary girl who'd been kicking the back of my seat during the drive, and my poor husband was trying to rally some enthusiasm for the task now at hand.  

We entered the nondescript building into a bright room, where a calm crowd of aproned-and-gloved volunteers and staff was lined up alongside long tables, tipping apples into pie crusts. Friendly greetings ensued, and we met the lovely "Mrs. Leo," a volunteer herself, who was helping her husband for the weekend. She led us to the back room, where stickers were being applied to sturdy pie boxes. A man named Nick Schiarizzi set the tone and lightened our moods by introducing us to the few cheerful volunteers already working there.

We started the afternoon with a beginner's task – perfect! Hundreds of boxes needed labels – one outside showing the pie flavor, and one inside with the bakery's name. Corrugated boxes were rapidly stickered and stacked, teetering on pallets around the room. Nick gave instructions, cheerleaded, and brought new volunteers in. One of them was Sylvia, little sister of a Leo's employee, who became great company for my kids. Then a family with two boys arrived, and armed with packing tape they made dozens of larger cartons for the pies that they arranged in beehives along the walls.

After snacking on pumpkin pie, we were treated to a tour. "Mrs. Leo," aka Wyley Proctor, showed the children the gigantic mixers and state-of-the-art ovens. Ms. Proctor's husband is Leo's young owner, Zaki Enayetullah. He says that Leo's was the first company to buy these super ovens, my "ooh, aah" favorite of all the super-sized toys. At home, you need steady hands to guide one pie plate full of soupy ingredients into a hot oven.  But here an entire rack of pies – seven or eight dozen of them – rolls right into the baking space. 

Moving its operations from Marshfield, Leo's Bakery has only been in Boston since the first of September. And this was its first go at being part of Pie in the Sky, yet they produced and donated many of the 13,000 pies sold last week. Why spend three days on such a task when they'd barely moved in? "The more we learned about Community Servings … we were inspired to want to work with them," says Mr. Enayetullah. 

He has company on that count. For Pie in the Sky 2011, hundreds of ordinary volunteers, 600 pie sellers, and the 150 bakers and their staffs gave time. That translates into more than half a million dollars raised, and thousands of healthy meals to be delivered to about 1,300 clients and their families who cannot shop and prepare their own food. When Community Servings began in 1990, it fed AIDS patients with "Food as Medicine," as CEO David Waters says. Today they help homebound patients with other chronic diseases throughout eastern Massachusetts, and their work has expanded to include programs such as nutrition education.  

With the pies not yet cool enough to box, lunch was on. Sylvia and my girls played some hide-and-seek. 

As the bakers moved on from apple crumb to double crust pies, everyone in the back room was eager to put some pies to bed. So Nick and Wyley directed the rearranging of tables and we set ourselves up to box pies: Hair nets and gloves on. One pie per box, ten boxes per large carton. Having forgotten to relay a lesson on Henry Ford and assembly lines, our four little girls and three grown ups degenerated to a messy but fast group. Too soon, it was time to leave for dinner and homework.

Despite our underage crew, we suffered no casualties – for the pies, that is. At the end of the day, we'd had one nosebleed (nowhere near the food), and one lost tooth (recovered for the Tooth Fairy – and again, not anywhere near the pies)! But we fared well enough to try volunteering together again. 

Heather Jack, founder of The Volunteer Family (TVF), says that organizations may need to think out of the box to welcome children and parents as volunteers, but when they do, studies show that the nonprofits themselves find the families to be very effective. Through their website, Boston-based TVF lists volunteer opportunities in 40 states for families and groups. "It's a great way to teach your kids at the same time that you're helping your community," says Ms. Jack, a mother of two grade schoolers. "The families love it, because the children grow up with it, and it becomes part of their lives and traditions. Especially around the holidays, it becomes really meaningful. Years later, I'll hear stories … and [volunteering] becomes part of who they are."

When we asked our kids whether our time at the bakery had been "fun" – still a benchmark for success in many of our endeavors – the responses ranged from a shrug, to "sort of," and "yes, but" we stayed too long. A lukewarm review, but that's fine by me: I don't need them to claim it felt good to volunteer, not yet. Because I'm thankful that Sylvia, the other little girl volunteer, reminded me that my sometimes shy, reserved kids can make fast friends in the right atmosphere. We got an insider's look at a great bakery and met some very nice people. And I'm really happy that we didn't drop any pies.