Weeks later the harvest came and it was every bit as gentle and fierce as we’d imagined. The mill filled with people we’d once only spoken to on conference calls: trustees who now seemed smaller and kinder when they saw the children’s hands stained with jam; volunteers who had once been reluctant but now returned with a steadfastness that made my chest ache with gratitude; kids who ran with sticky mouths and shouted the kinds of careless joys that stitch communities together.
That day the three of us moved through the crowd as both hosts and lovers, our hands found often by donors who wanted to congratulate, by mentors who wanted to thank, by children who simply needed a warm palm. We watched adults’ faces soften when a child recited a poem they’d learned at the center; we watched skeptic
