Denver Rescue Mission Service Projects and the Family Housing Welcome Back BBQ

On a random note, Sam likes to build barricades using all his toys. He stacks them on top of each other and completely surrounds himself. Then he tries to get me or Don to squeeze in to the tiny space next to him behind the barricade. It makes us laugh.

In July, I organized a canned food and clothing drive for the Denver Rescue Mission. The youth did a door to door drive in Superior (where most of the youth in our congregation live) which we did on a Wednesday night. Then, I asked other congregation members at church to bring items to the church.  We had an enormous response and had two cars completely packed to overflowing that we took down to the Mission on August 10th. 

I was in charge of the service project for all the youth in July and when I started to look in to what we could do, I got really excited about helping the kids learn about the problem of homelessness. I organized  a series of service projects with the Denver Rescue Mission with the goal of helping them really understand what life is like for these people who live on the street and have an opportunity to get to know and love them. I didn't want it to be something that they saw once and forgot. I was hoping that this would be an experience that would cause a deeper, more permanent change. 

When we arrived at the Mission and began unloading the food, the volunteer coordinator, Lee, and the other workers were amazed at how much we had collected. I had told Lee that we had carfuls of stuff and I think he thought I was exaggerating at first. He told me to have the kids put the food in a small area of the room. It wasn't until that area was completely filled and we were filling a good portion of the room that he realized I was serious. He said it was the biggest collection he had ever seen. 

After we unloaded the food, we sorted it in to the pantry and helped with some of the dinner prep. Then, Lee gave us a tour of the shelter and told us about life for the people who frequent the shelter and the program they offer to help people get off the street, recover from addictions, and develop skills to be able to get a job. After our tour, we walked by the area called "the triangle" where prostitutes sell themselves for nearly nothing to buy drugs and many drug deals and murders happen regularly. We walked to a park where a lot of homeless people hang out and had our dinner. We discussed pan-handling and how to help people we see out on street corners, etc. 

Then, we headed back to the shelter and went to the chapel service. It was a fascinating and eye-opening experience, especially for many of the kids who had never been to any other church besides our own.

It was a great experience and the kids still talk about what they learned. In September, the girls went down and served dinner. They were really excited to go after having been in August and they had a wonderful time. They can't wait to go again. Organizing these service projects took a lot of time but it was well worth it to see how happy the girls were after helping at the Mission. This has been my favorite experience in the three years I've worked with these girls.

The group at the Mission. I wish I'd gotten a picture of all the cans but I didn't. We'd already sorted and put them away at this point.

Dinner prep.

Funny kids. 

Back to Sam. Sam's two obsessions of the summer were watermelon and the moon. One night, we decided to take him outside so he could eat his watermelon and look at the moon at the same time. He was thrilled. He doesn't have a shirt one because at this point, he refused to wear a bib so everytime he ate melon (he also loves cantaloupe), we just took his shirt off. As soon as he saw the melon, he would say, "Shirt off!" 

Each Wednesday, Sam and I go to the library for storytime and we get new books. I took him to the kids' astronomy section to find some books about the moon since he is so in love with it. These books are clearly written for kids writing reports in elementary school about the moon but Sam was fascinated with them. He sat down with a complicated book that had a diagram of the moon in the different phases circling the earth. He pointed to the picture and said, "Moon go around the earff." I was amazed. For the next several weeks, all he wanted to read before nap and bedtime were his moon books. I learned more about the moon than I had ever known before. It is so neat to see Sam's interests and personality come out as his language development skyrockets. Daily, he says new sentences with words I've never heard. It is so exciting!

On Saturday, August 13th, I was in charge of the Family Housing Welcome Back BBQ. We had 700 people show up (we only had about 570 last year!) and I brought in 16 groups from campus and the community to share information about the services they provide. They each had an informational table and we had a raffle for 3 ipod shuffles to get people to visit the tables (which worked much better than the previous year when hardly anyone visited the tables). We also had a DJ and dancing, CHIP - the CU Mascot, the CUPD with their squad cars and motorcycles, and the fire department who brought a fire truck and let the kids spray water out of the fire hose. It was a huge event and everything went really well. We had campus catering take care of the food and I think everyone had a great time.

Sam at the BBQ - eating watermelon, of course.

I just loved all of these Indian grad students with their ice cream cones hanging out with CHIP, the mascot. 

Me and CHIP! Hurray for another successful event.