 | In Indiana (Reset)
Jamie Jo Hampton :: Friendship Church - Friendship Kids Greenwood, IN :: 2010
I am the Director of Friendship Kids, a ministry of Friendship Church in Greenwood, Indiana. This is our first year doing the Souper Bowl of Caring and we are so impressed with the response and big hearts of the children in our church! Due to 3 of my Sunday morning kids, a neighboring school collected over 150 bags of clothing, toys, and games for the Wheeler Women and Children's Center of Indianapolis, Indiana. They had invited me to a surprise presentation, and I had no idea about exactly what they had been up to! When I arrived (after the poor 5th graders sitting through my teary thanks for about 10 minutes!) we began an impromptu question and answer session that really helped the children understand what it would be like to be homeless. The children had many questions about why women and children may have to leave their homes in the middle of the night, or because of an unsafe situation.
After the presentation, one boy came up to thank me and shake my hand. After the other children had all left, he came back and asked if he could tell me about himself. I said sure, thinking he was just excited to miss his next class. But then he said, "You know how you were talking about moms and kids running away in the middle of the night, and not having any place to go? Well, that happened to me and my mom, we had to stay at a place like that." My heart dropped to my stomach! He went on to tell me how he was being severely physically abused, and that he and his mother had to pack up everything they could in one day, and escape to try and start a new life. I made sure he was in a safe place now, and that he and his mom were doing ok, but his response absolutely effected me in a way I will never forget. Our Souper Bowl of Caring experience started by a friend/ministry volunteer (who happens to be a school counselor) shooting me an email about the program. She was very frustrated because she proposed the program to her school, but they declined because it was associated with God! But, God is bigger than the word no. She asked if we could look into it for our Sunday Morning programming, and decided to create an entire 7 week lesson series all based on the Souper Bowl of Caring. Because of your program God was invited into our public school system because of three brave young 5th graders. He is ever powerful, and ever at work in all things! Thank you so much for this awesome program and this awesome experience!
Participant Stories
Mary :: First Christian Church Kokomo, IN :: 2010
Because the Indianapolis Colts are in the Super Bowl and our congregation has a tradition of wearing Colts attire, we are strongly urging them to donate $5 to wear Colts blue or $10 if they wear the other team's colors. Children under 12 years old only have to donate a quarter.
Jamie Jo Hampton :: Friendship Church - Friendship Kids Greenwood, IN :: 2010
I am the Director of Friendship Kids, a ministry of Friendship Church in Greenwood, Indiana. This is our first year doing the Souper Bowl of Caring and we are so impressed with the response and big hearts of the children in our church! Due to 3 of my Sunday morning kids, a neighboring school collected over 150 bags of clothing, toys, and games for the Wheeler Women and Children's Center of Indianapolis, Indiana. They had invited me to a surprise presentation, and I had no idea about exactly what they had been up to! When I arrived (after the poor 5th graders sitting through my teary thanks for about 10 minutes!) we began an impromptu question and answer session that really helped the children understand what it would be like to be homeless. The children had many questions about why women and children may have to leave their homes in the middle of the night, or because of an unsafe situation.
After the presentation, one boy came up to thank me and shake my hand. After the other children had all left, he came back and asked if he could tell me about himself. I said sure, thinking he was just excited to miss his next class. But then he said, "You know how you were talking about moms and kids running away in the middle of the night, and not having any place to go? Well, that happened to me and my mom, we had to stay at a place like that." My heart dropped to my stomach! He went on to tell me how he was being severely physically abused, and that he and his mother had to pack up everything they could in one day, and escape to try and start a new life. I made sure he was in a safe place now, and that he and his mom were doing ok, but his response absolutely effected me in a way I will never forget. Our Souper Bowl of Caring experience started by a friend/ministry volunteer (who happens to be a school counselor) shooting me an email about the program. She was very frustrated because she proposed the program to her school, but they declined because it was associated with God! But, God is bigger than the word no. She asked if we could look into it for our Sunday Morning programming, and decided to create an entire 7 week lesson series all based on the Souper Bowl of Caring. Because of your program God was invited into our public school system because of three brave young 5th graders. He is ever powerful, and ever at work in all things! Thank you so much for this awesome program and this awesome experience!
Tricia Hart :: Redkey Church of the Nazarene NYI Redkey, IN :: 2010
This will be our 5th year in the Souper Bowl for Caring. This program has inspired our youth group to put out a garden for the local food pantry which currently is helping about 50 families in a community of about 300 families. We did not know that there was such an increase of need. The Lord has laid this on our youths hearts and they are up to the challange and all the produce will go directly to The Redkey Food Bank. What a joy it will be when we harvest and take up to the people. FRESH VEGETABLES!!!!!
Courtney Babb :: First Presbyterian Anderson, IN :: 2009
The students in our youth group wanted to have a little fun this year with the Souper Bowl of Caring. We did our normal collection after the worship service and raised $431.05. Then during their Youth Group time they broke up into teams and and went door-to-door to collect cans of food. I made up a scavenger hunt for them and certain items of food were worth certain amount of points. The students had a blast doing this and requested that we go door-to-door collecting food every month!
A Chance to Give :: St. Andrew Presbyterian Church Muncie, IN :: 2009
On the Monday after the Souper Bowl of Caring collection, my fellow Co-Director of Christian Education and I gathered all the food items. We counted carefully, bagged the food and loaded up the car. Excitedly we headed to our small downtown area in Muncie. Upon arriving at the snow entrenched street at Christian Ministries, I jumped out to see if the drop-off area was open.
I stood waiting, listening to the phone calls coming into Christian Ministries that morning. Calls were coming in for baby essentials. Unfortunately, the employees had to turn down the calls. They just did not have the items on hand. My heart just broke. Having 4 girls of my own and knowing that my colleague had 2 girls of his own, too, I couldn't imagine being unable to change a dirty diaper because I didn't have the money for a clean one!
Returning to the car, I turned to my co-worker, Michael, and told him the story. He and I quickly decided that the monetary donations received for Souper Bowl of Caring should be shared with Christian Ministries for these baby items.
Although our church may never meet the adults or children that we served in this small way, we know that just for a moment...they could feel that someone cared. Isn't that what it's all about? We want to share the love, God's Love, with our community.
Respectfully Submitted:
Cassie Bolander and Michael McClure
Co-Directors of Christian Education
Melanie Dages :: Servants of Christ Lutheran Church Youth Group Indianapolis, IN :: 2009
The Sunday before the Souper Bowl of Caring event at Servants of Christ Lutheran Church, the Youth Group had a ‘kick-off’ activity. Below is our newsletter article re-cap:
Youth Group “Mystery Trip”
On January 25, 11 of our Youth took a “Mystery Trip” to Wal-Mart! Two teams were formed (the Cardinals and the Steelers, of course). Each team was given a $100 dollar bill and the challenge to fill their shopping cart with at least three different priced items. They only had 15 minutes to get as many canned goods as possible without going over the $100 and they were not allowed to use a calculator or cell phone, etc. When the two teams checked out, both teams were just under $100 and they had 292 items for our Souper Bowl Sunday event!
The experience was a great "Pay It Forward" activity! A special "KUDOS" goes to Mrs. Rhodes, Mrs. Krol, and Mr. Krol for driving our two awesome teams to their "playing field” and to our Wal-Mart cashier, Tanya! Of course, the real winners are our neighbors in the community who will benefit from all the donations to the CAFÉ Food Pantry after Souper Bowl Sunday.
The Servants of Christ Lutheran Youth Group held their 4th annual Souper Bowl Sunday Event on February 1, 2009. A grand total of 1,754 canned goods and non-perishable items were collected PLUS $654 was raised. All donations will go directly to CAFÉ (Community Alliance of the Far Eastside) Food Pantry. Way to go, SOC Youth Group!
(Three pictures sent.)
United Methodist Youth :: United Methodist Youth Rockville, IN :: 2008
We had a 24-hour Lock-In at our church the same weekend as the Souper Bowl collection, even though we might not have been as awake as we would have been another time, we all wanted to help out our community and support our food pantry. We knew we were going to be in church, so it was cool that the adult members were willing to help us out. We were really surprised that we went over our goal of $50.00. We hope to raise even more next year. Thanks for the oppertunity to help out.
Sally Riley, Youth Director :: St. Pauls Lutheran Church Richmond, IN :: 2008
We started a new, younger, youth group this year and they were excited. We not only collected before and after Sunday services, we also glazed and fired bowls to auction off to the highest bidders. For a new take on this event, it was very well supported and the kids were very proud of themselves.
They counted all the money at youth group in the evening and really learned lots about hunger in the world with the supporting materials available from the Souper Bowl website. We look forward to a bigger and better year next year.
David Schnake, Youth and Young Adults Di :: Eden Church Muncie, IN :: 2008
We loaded up 3 vans full of junior high and senior high kids at 4:30pm. Their goal for each team was to collect the most number of canned goods or money from friends, family, neighbors and then total strangers. The winning team would win McDonalds gift certificates. I drove one of the vans. We drove from house to house in our community knocking on the doors of school friends, family members, and neighbors collecting canned goods and money. In one hour our team had collected 129 items and $15. All the teams ended up at the home of one of our church members to watch the Super Bowl. We did a gift raffle throughout the evening and had a great time. Little did we know that all three vans had each collected in a little over a hour over 100 items per each van. I keep thinking what we could have brought in if given another hour. It was just a great afternoon. Christian Ministries came an collected the canned goods. They were so happy. They said they had had to turn people away last week because they were so low so our 434 items and money was donated all in God's timing. Thanks Souper Bowl of Caring for the work that you do.
|
"We invited a representative from the Miami Rescue Mission to worship with us the following Sunday so that we could formally present our donation. Our pastor was so moved by the message from the represenative, that he donated the additional $1,000 fr" (more) Sonja Denson, Young People's Division, , Mt. Hermon A.M.E. Church Young People's Division in miami gardens, FL
|
