A weekend of pizzas and music!

31st July 2024

Truck Music Festival has been running since 1998 near to Didcot in Oxfordshire. Rotary clubs have been there serving food from the start. In recent years all the charity food stalls have been together in the Feel Good Tent. And it is just that - a Feel Good Tent. All the Truckers know that they are being served by volunteers and that all the profits go to support the work of many amazing charities.

Karen has been there almost every year since 2009. For Ievgeniia and Bandana it was a first and they didn't quite know what they were letting themselves in for! This is what they thought of it........

Bandana

The Truck festival was an unforgettable experience with it being my first ever music festival and first volunteering experience as a pizza cutter. I found myself joyfully serving pizzas to a seemgly endless queue of hungry festival-goers. As we danced through the 9hours of pizza serving marathon we were delighted not just to be satisfying cravings but also serving for a cause. At the end of the day, our exhaustion gave way to blissful sleep with the memories of the festival still vivid in our minds.

Ievgeniia

"To serve is to live," as Rabindranath Tagore once said, and I never felt the truth of those words more keenly than during my stint selling pizza at the Truck festival. As an academic, I'm more used to serving up lectures than slices, but there I was, apron on and pizza cutter in hand. It was unexpectedly fun! There's something deeply satisfying about serving people who are genuinely grateful for a hot meal. 

I couldn't help but notice how people's pizza choices were changing throughout the day. It got me thinking - there should be a substantial research done by the British scholars about when people crave spicy pizza versus veggie options depending on what type of music is played on the background, what is the phase of the full moon and the speed of the wind (how many festive pints have been drunk) 

Overall, observing people from behind the pizza bar is a real  anthropological experience. You really get to see all types at these events - the quiet, humble folks, the rowdy drunk ones, the nerdy types analyzing their pizza toppings, and the shy ones barely mumbling their orders. 

When someone asked if I was well-paid for this gig, I laughed and said yes, but quickly added that the money wasn't the point. Making the world a better place is what counts, right?

By the end of the day, I was absolutely beat. Serving pizza non-stop is no walk in the park - it's hot, hectic, and you're on your feet for hours. But I'd take this kind of exhaustion over writing super boring academic papers.

I've got to hand it to Rotary  - they really know how to organize these events and make a positive impact. It's impressive how they bring people together, raise funds for good causes, and create these opportunities for community service. Being part of this is truly enriching. And everyone should do this as it's one thing to read about charitable organizations, but it's another to roll up your sleeves and pitch in alongside them.

I might be heading back to unreal academic world with sore feet and smelling like pizza, but I'm also taking with me some valuable lessons;

1. The baking time of pizza is 8 minutes. 
2. Time is relative, hunger is not. 
3. Sometimes life sends you more chicken and bacon pizza than people can want. 
4. The more you wait, the tastier pizza becomes. Pursuit of happiness at its best 
5. Best pizza is not from Italy but from the warm heart. And hot oven. It makes things easier.

So guess what!? They will both be back next year!!

And here are a few more team members. See.... it's impossible not to smile when working so hard for Rotary!