We love keeping up with what God is doing through his people on the other side of the country and all over the world. Andy Frizzell is the youth minister at the Woodward Park Church of Christ in Fresno, CA. We've been encouraged by what's happening at their church and were super excited when they planned their recent youth rally around the heart of what led us to start GO! Camp. Check out this awesome recap of their GO! Fresno event!
Here's what happened - in Andy's words:
Creativity has never been a particular strong point for me but I feel like I can appreciate when someone is doing something that should be promoted or copied. With that being said we used our Teen/College Workshop to spin off of a camp that happened at FHU this summer. GO! Camp which was the brainchild of Brad Montague is a camp that was created to empower teens to find sustainable service opportunities in their areas and giving them the tools and motivation to get started.We invited many of the Central Valley churches to inspire valley teens to do the same.
It was a great day for us! We had over 100 students and volunteers working with Poverello House, Pyle Elementary School, and Westcare Rehabilitation Facility, We selected projects that could be sustainable for our group and worked to develop relationships that can be continued on a weekly/ monthly basis.
Poverello House:
We sent 30 students to Poverello House Fresno to serve on the lunch line, food preparation, sack lunch production, warehouse projects, and sorting clothing for giveaways. The Poverello House is one of the biggest organizations in Fresno working with and for the homeless of our city. Our students came back with ideas for how to better serve this organization and the homeless of Fresno. It was a great experience for us because many of our students have never seen that side of Fresno or knew that these needs existed in our own city.
Pyle Elementary School:
Cherie Walters is the principal at Pyle Elementary School in the Fresno Unified School District and she had expressed the need to me for school supplies, kleenex, and hand sanitizer for her class rooms. We were surprised that over a month into the school year this was still a need so we asked for donations from all of the teens that came to GO! Fresno. We took in $500 toward shopping for these supplies! We sent 35+ students and volunteers out to purchase supplies for the students and faculty at Pyle. This is a relationship that we will be able to continue throughout the year. Working with Cherie we will continue to provide lawn care and maintenance, school supplies, underwear/ socks, and anything else that may be needed.
Westcare Rehabilitation Facility:
We have partnered with the Westcare facility of Fresno to do a monthly clothing, toiletry drive plus BBQs and children's events. We sent out 40 students and volunteers to purchase and put together toiletry bags that will go to families living at Westcare. We were able to purchase $200 worth of toiletries from the 99cent store which added up to toiletries for 10-12 families for the next several months. This will be the first of many toiletry drop offs we will make at the westcare complex. The relationships we will build through this with the families will be the lasting legacy.
In the afternoon Eli Hooper, from Grass Valley, talked to our teens about the call to go into our community and show our neighbors that God's people are here. We ended with small groups allowing the teens time to react to the opportunities of the day.
Special thanks to the GO! FHU team and to all here in Fresno that made GO! Fresno a success.