A core group of dedicated volunteers keeps the food flowing during Bangor High School sporting events. And they’re hungry for more help.
The message from the Bangor High sports boosters club was a stark one for Monday night’s home field hockey action: “No concessions tonight due to a lack of volunteers.”
The club is searching far and wide for more help at the concession stand at Cameron Stadium, trying to get the word out both at school events and on social media.
“Last year and this year there have been more instances where we’ve just said we’re not doing it because either we had one person sign up or nobody,” boosters club president Rebecca Croce told me Tuesday night. “So there have been more times in the last two years that I’ve posted, ‘We’re just not having concessions.’”
The boosters rely on a main contingent of eight to ten volunteers, Croce said. And while a quieter weekday night might only require a handful of helpers, a busy Friday night football game calls for more like 18 to 20 people.
The ongoing call for volunteers first caught my attention on Facebook last week. As the sports editor at the Bangor Daily News, I spend much more time around the press box than the concession stand. So I wanted to learn more about the staffing challenges and what it takes to step behind the counter and keep a stadium fed during games.
And what better way to understand the situation than to get in there and see how the hot dogs are made?
The boosters accepted me into their ranks, at least for Tuesday night’s home varsity soccer game, without hesitation. And after a couple hours of pouring hot chocolate, dipping pretzels, learning how to operate and clean a popcorn machine and generally doing my best not to get in the way, I left Cameron Stadium with one unshakable thought:
That was a lot of fun.
“It seems maybe overwhelming to jump into it, but it’s really not,” Abby Pierce, one of the concession stand regulars, told me at the start of my shift. “There’s tons of people that are going to be willing to help train you.”
While some potential volunteers may be worried that they’ll be alone or thrown into the deep end of the stand right off the bat, Pierce said they’d make sure that there would be experienced members of the team present to help guide any new arrivals.
“I just feel like people get worried that they’re not gonna know how to do it, so they don’t try it,” Pierce said. “And once they come they’re like, ‘Oh this wasn’t bad, this was easy, this was fun.’”
That was certainly my experience. Granted, I wasn’t there on a football night with nonstop lines. But the work was steady and the vibes were fantastic.
The other volunteers helped me every step of the way. It’s a team made up of unsung heroes, each finding a way to keep the line moving and the fans happy.
Lincoln Mazzei had the grill on lockdown, cooking up a slew of hamburgers and cheeseburgers during the halftime rush. Shaleagh Earl made the popcorn machine her domain. Croce and student volunteer Elodie Enos took orders and took care of all sorts of tasks throughout the game.
It was the kind of team that anyone would want to be on — balanced, efficient and good-natured throughout. Even with me as an inexperienced interloper, they made it look easy.
The two-hour shift flew by as the girls soccer team secured a 3-1 win. And while a halftime surge on the snacks made it feel busy for a Tuesday night, it never felt overwhelming.
“It’s fun and it goes by really fast,” Enos said. “And it’s easy and everyone that works here is really nice.”
The club has also made it easy to sign up for concession stand duty online, and has a scannable QR code that enables people to quickly view and fill needed slots. They even offer financial incentives to individual students or student groups who volunteer.
“Every time a student volunteers, their name goes into a drawing per grade,” Croce said. “And at the end of the school year we draw one name out for each grade, and they each win a $100 gift card.”
Additionally, student groups that send five people to a football game or other major events like home playoff games are able to earn $300.
A key to bulking up the concessions staffing is getting more parents involved, and Croce says the boosters aim for a sort of pay-it-forward model where parents pick up shifts during games that their kids aren’t playing in — that could mean football parents showing up for soccer and field hockey games, or vice versa.
“We don’t want you to have to do it during your student’s sport,” she said.
The boosters are also hoping to upgrade and expand the concession stand. But first, they need more people to help staff the space they have now.
I learned plenty of things inside the concession stand on Tuesday night — including that doughboys and Airheads Xtremes are some of the most popular menu items, and that there’s no such thing as too much hot chocolate during a fall evening game.
I also learned that picking up a shift isn’t as daunting as it might seem. If I can handle it, pretty much anyone can.
