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Jonathan's Resource Ezine

Weekly Resources, Ideas and Articles from The Source for Youth Ministry
 Wednesday, April 25, 2001

In This Issue

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Mother's Day Idea

by Jonathan McKee
April 25, 2001

I've been getting e-mails about Mother's Day, asking if there are any activities for this holiday.

After kicking out ideas such as "Pin the Tail on Your Momma" and "Chubby Mommies," I thought I'd give you my opinion about one of the best things a youth group can do around Mother's Day.

Most churches today have a number of single mothers in the church or community. Some of these mom's have great financial needs.

Put together a work party on the Saturday before Mother's Day to do a work project at a needy mom's house.

    1. Find a needy mom.
    2. Find a service need she has- if necessary, ask her what her biggest need is around the house (ie: yard needs serious work, house needs cleaning, windows done, roof needs work, etc.)
    3. Find the resources to do such a chore. I find that there are usually a huge number of resources in any given church.
    4. Organize it- get sign-ups.
    5. Do the work day.
    6. Present a huge card, signed by the entire youth group, wishing a "Happy Mother's Day."
For more youth ministry ideas like this one check out Jonathan's newsletter archive page:
http://www.thesource4ym.com/archives

Service Project/Fund-raiser

Every year I always run a work day that accomplishes two tasks:
    1. IT RAISES HUGE DOLLARS!!!
    2. It is one of the best experiences youth have during the year.
    The fund-raiser I use each year- with outstanding results- and a bonus of social service experience, is what I simply call a "Salvation Army Work Day."
I dial up the Salvation Army and schedule a day we can come and work for 8 hours. (Sometimes I've used other organizations- I just like to use places that provide hands-on experience feeding the homeless) Then I make up pledge sheets for the kids. They try to get pledges per hour, for 8 hours. (ie if they can get 20 people to pledge a dollar an hour, they will make $20 an hour for 8 hours of work. That's $160 for ONE KID!) If you do the math, this is better than your typical car wash- and it's a great experience at the same time.
EVEN A TOUGH KID NAMED JAKE

I'll never forget an experience we had one year with a student named Jake who went on one of these fund-raisers. He was a pretty tough kid from a pretty rough background. I had already had to kick him out of a youth meeting or activity more than once throughout the year.

He went out and got about 12 bucks an hour in pledges and was ready to work at the Salvation Army for 8 hours. After preparing meals for a few hours in the kitchen, it came time to serve the homeless people lunch. We gave out so much food the students were amazed. The line of people kept coming with no end in site. Finally we ran out of food and had to turn people away. This one man was so sad because he didn't get a sandwich. Jake was standing there as the man was turned away. Jake told the man to wait, went over to his backpack, pulled out his own lunch and gave it to the man. The man smiled and said, "God bless you son."

Jake started weeping. He couldn't stop crying for an hour.

Even the toughest hearts can be broken.


God Bless,

Jonathan
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