SO, this was Giving Tree Sunday. A practice we started a few years ago to help our teen groups get to know each other better and help out some kids in the community. What we know is that the tags on the trees in the mall that are least likely to get taken are those for teens, so it seems logical that if we give a group of teens sufficient funds they would be able to pick out a selection of age appropriate gifts. This was one of our most successful trips yet, we had 18 young people, who we divided into 5 groups, each with $100 to spend, and gave them 45 minutes to come up with as many gifts as they could.
Of course, there were moments of typical teen-ness, the analysts ended up in the same group and got a little bogged down by possibility, they just needed a little extra push to remember the purpose of the trip and their goal, then they went off very successfully. The group of boys who discovered a place to get "really cool" shirts that came with headphones for only $12.99 were the efficiency pros for the day. In all there were 20 or so gifts (it depends on how the Rotary sorts them out) and they donated about $2 of left over cash. A pretty fun and successful project!
The best part about the trip today for us, maybe not for the mall merchants, was that it was not a zoo as it has been so many times in the past. We actually drove right there and found parking really easily.
I sang in my first concert of the season last night. In many ways I am glad that I'm not a church musician anymore and don't have to prepare for service every week with special events and services concentrated this time of year. Other times, I'd like to be back in the organizational side of it, maybe if I didn't have to work full time too, because then I'd be in the rhythm of the church calendar and be more "Tuned up" all the time.
The concert went well, although some anticipated performers were unable to attend and the audience was pretty sparse. It is a recurring one, we do the reading of the Christmas story interspersed with songs - maybe people figure they have seen it before, so why bother. I like to be there each time because I want to see how the other participants have changed, and for many of them, grown. We don't meet ahead of time, we each rehearse our own pieces and so it's always a surprise to see what other folks are doing. Our fearless, peerless, leader manages to pull it all together pretty well. Even when it isn't seamless, no one who isn't a participant does.
Next Friday is our BIG concert, the quartet has been working on this 1940's radio show that should be a knock out. We have actually been promoting it,Dunny put it on a web site and submitted it to the local paper, and we both made it events on Facebook, so who knows what might happen? The ideal would be to fill the room, since we are going to contribute any funds we bring in to Chrissie's school, I'd love to see a crowd.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment