On the most recent episode of NPR’s excellent Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, Stephen Thompson proposed a new holiday: Appreciation Day, “on which each and every world citizen takes the time to say the nicest possible thing to each of the treasured people who surround us.” He proposes that twitter is a great place for the short & quick praise for the people we care about.

Sounds like a good plan, but I’m going to fudge a bit and go post here to say thank you to DC Central Kitchen and all the volunteers who make up the organization.

Both Fedward and I walked around the Fancy Food show; he covered Sunday and I was there Tuesday, the last day of the show. As the show floor started to wind down the DC Central Kitchen folks were convening around the corner, planning the operation that would end up collecting over 70 tons of food to use to support their mission. The above shot was taken before everyone was there; according to DCCK almost two hundred folks ended up helping the operation.

I couldn’t come down to the show floor as they started their work; any trade show breakdown is a flurry of barely controlled chaos. I took a few shots from the mezzanine above, however, as the process started.

Here you see stage one of the operation – volunteers walking the floor, talking to show attendees willing to donate product rather than take it home. Two sorts of stickers went onto boxes; one color indicating perishables that would need to be gathered and loaded into a 2 door commercial fridge for refrigeration quickly, another showing non-perishables that could wait longer before being picked up.

Trailing behind that operation is the pickup, which would go on into the night. I wasn’t allowed into the work areas, but volunteers were told to plan on being there till 9pm, a full workday.

So to DC Central Kitchen and all those people who labored to do so much good on that day and so many other: Thanks. We appreciate you.