Hydration

As a runner, my understanding of the word “hydration” is that it is a fancy word for drinking water. In the summer, I may talk about “staying hydrated” on my long runs or to encourage my son to take an extra bottle of Gatorade to a lacrosse game. Today, I learned a different meaning of the word.

This morning when I checked my Twitterfeed before starting my workout, I saw this tweet from the Dalai Lama:

 @DalaiLama Dalai Lama
It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives.

The message struck me as powerful, but I had no idea how much it would affect my day.

Today is the first Wednesday in Lent, and I had been thinking about going to a Bible study class at the church near my house that I visited on Sunday. (Earlier in the week I even rescheduled my manicure to tomorrow to keep my schedule open for the evening.) I took a look at the information in the church bulletin, and saw that you were supposed to get a book at a bookstore or on-line. That was not going to work for a last-minute person like me.

During the announcements at church someone also had mentioned a “hydration” project that needed volunteers tonight. The bulletin also had information on that:

Oral Re-Hydration Therapy: This project involves the assembly of packets of dry ingredients (sugars and salts that, when added to boiled water, are the equivalent of Gatorade). Given to the severely dehydrated they truly can make a life  death difference. . . . We are engaged in this joint venture with Temple Beth El again this year. Please participate! We need about 25 volunteers to put the ingredients list & formulation recipe in the packets.  This takes place Wednesday evening from 6:30 to 8:00 pm.

Hmmm. This sounded like a simple project that would not require advance preparation, and, knowing how crazy things are on week nights, I was pretty sure they could use my help.

When I got to work, I looked up more information on the project.  I found this information on a Reform Judaism newsletter site:

To help fight worldwide dehydration/diarrhea—one of the top five causes of children’s death in developing countries, killing 1.5 million youngsters annually—Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, Virginia sponsors an all-day community-building project in which volunteers from the temple, local synagogues and churches, high schools, univer­sities, a senior center, a local Rotary Club, and other organizations assemble Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) packets—small bags comprised of salt, sugar, baking soda, and potassium to be distributed to children in refugee camps worldwide. At each table, 6–8 people bag the measured ingredients in an assembly-line fashion. In the six years that Beth El has held the event, 87,000 packets have been assembled—20,000+ this year alone. For every one million ORT packets distributed, an estimated 14,000 lives are saved.

I was sold.

A crisis at work almost interfered, but I got everything wrapped up in the nick of time, and traffic cooperated so that it was only a few minutes after 6:30 when I got to the Temple. When I walked in, it was easy to spot the volunteers at work, and the coordinator greeted me and put me right to work.  

Everyone there was from the church except for me, but they seemed glad to have my help. People were talking as they folded the directions and stuffed them in the packets, and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. As one person put it, the task was “pleasantly mind-numbing” after a long day at the office. Our assembly line system was efficient, and we had all of our allotted packets stuffed by a few minutes before 8:00.

I am making plans to go back for “the big day” on March 27, and already have roped in at least one friend to join me. (If you live near me you may be hearing from me about this!) The goal is to prepare 20,000 packets again this year, and I know we are all hoping that our efforts will somehow help the people in Japan.