Purpose-driven

Each year, I Am ALS plants 6000 blue flags on the National Mall, a tribute to the 6000 people diagnosed with ALS every year. Each flag bears the name of someone diagnosed with, or deceased from ALS.

The stark reality is this year we planted 6572 flags with pre-printed names on the mall, more than IAA has ever planted in the five years they have been doing so.

In order to help visitors fully appreciate the scope of this installation I thought I would describe how our dedicated volunteers are able to create this thoughtful display.

With the combination of prior requests and this year’s requests, we had over 9000 names on our list. Our data analytics team of two deduped the list first with a formula and exact matches, bringing us down to about 7200, and then manually deduping the rest, comparing Tom to Tommy to Tombo to Thomas, all being the same person, submitted multiple times, with different spellings, different age of diagnosis, differing, veteran status… you get the idea.

There are only five days between closing the requests to the day the final list is then sent to the printer with explicit instructions on formatting and symbology. It takes three weeks from submission of the list to completion and shipping of the flags, which usually arrive a few days prior to opening day.

In preparation for “installation day“ a small, but determined team spends one day to inventory and sort the flags into alphabetical order, bundling them in groups of 25, packing them into crates for transport over to the Mall.

There is only the light of one day to complete the installation of flags. There is a great buzz of excitement as volunteers gather and the crates are unpacked, bundles distributed all the way downfield in preparation for laying row after row of precious blue flags. The planogram is reviewed with the installation team, describing the rows very carefully plotted so the flags will fit into the space we have, while still leaving wheelchair accessible rows for visitors.

The volunteers are briskly divided up into flag distributers, flag installers, measurement advisors, and supervisors whose sole job it is to make sure the letters remain grouped properly, with all the A’s together, all the B’s together, all the C’s together... it takes every one of those positions working in harmony to pull off this fete.

Did you know the turf on the mall is planted in hard-packed clay? Before the flags can be placed in the ground, volunteers must first pound a hole into that clay with a screwdriver and a mallet, then force a flag into the hole made large enough for the flag pole to go in, but small enough so the flag can remain upright. It takes a certain skill, attention and strength to get it right.

By the time the third row of flags has been planted each volunteer has gained perspective on just how physically demanding this labor of love is. The excited buzz gives way to much grunting and puffing as it becomes clear exactly how demanding. People shift to a job that least hurts their body at this point.

The weather for this year’s planting included a full compliment of morning rain, followed by a sunny afternoon that was sufficiently warm to thoroughly dry out our wet clothes, yet cool enough to keep up the pace without too much perspiration.

Even though there are exponentially more flags than there are hands and hours in the day to install them, and more pain in our quadriceps than the BenGay and Aleve in our medicine cabinets can relieve, there was enough love and were enough dedicated hearts to push our team to the finish line. We wanted to quit at the L’s, we really, really wanted to quit at the R’s, but when the cry rang out “only 1500 more flags to go; come on, we can do this!” Everyone looked to their left, and looked to their right, gritted their teeth and pounded another hole in the dirt. Never was a team more satisfied when that last flag was planted! But also, never was a team more honored to be of service.

We know our job doesn’t end with installation day, we understand that there will always be another job to do in our journey as advocates. I heard it said recently that “Purpose isn’t what you do, purpose is how you make other people feel when you do what you do. “ I love how people feel when I do what I do. And I know every single advocate on our team does too.