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| Community Serve Day Oct 2008 |
In the Spring of 2008 I was sitting at my table at
MOPS and one of the women expressed how she was considering giving up her secular philanthropic work and wondering if there wasn't a place she could serve with her daughter that would have "more meaning". That began a discussion that ultimately led me to serving on the
Solana Beach Presbyterian Church Community Serve Day committee -- something that was just being birthed -- with a focus of what it looks like for our children to serve in God's Kingdom.
Here it is February 2015 and this past Sunday we had up our annual Community Serve Day - worship services shut down, over 1300 volunteers served at 78 sites throughout the county. Young and old working together to bring good to our community.
Over the years I have had the incredible opportunity to dialogue with children, families, ministers, parents, grandparents and caregivers about service. We have talked about what it looks like for children to serve. We have shared different ways for families to serve together. And I have wrested firsthand with what it looks like for my family to serve within our faith community.
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| Community Serve Day 2010 |
On February 21, 2010, I served as Developer of Family Projects as we saw the reality of over 3,000 people serving in community throughout San Diego County. That year I visited some of the 48 sites we had with children so I could experience family involvement first hand. After much debate my husband and I opted to make the visits as a family – which meant taking our 4, 2 and 7 month old with us. We ended up visiting 13 sites that morning -- incorporating ways for our kids to experience serving along the way as we visited and shared volunteer experiences. Planting a flower, learning how helmet liners are made, writing an appreciation card, buying and collecting food, are just some of the many activities we took part in that morning as our community came together across our county.
We saw nuclear families with babies in carriers serving. We had families divide and conquer – parents and grandparents supporting the interests of different children. We checked out childcare who were touring sites held on the church campus while their parents were serving at other sites. Some children had caregivers or grandparents serving alongside them. It was an incredible testimony to me of the diversity of my community. We had a common purpose -- to fulfill real needs in San Diego County - but that purpose was carried out in so many ways!
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| Community Serve Day 2015 |
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| Community Serve Day 2014 |
This year our children – now 9, 7 and 5 – consider Community Serve Day to be a way of life. This past year we had the opportunity to serve at our own school – washing windows, doing some gardening, picking up trash and pressure washing the lunch area. This year they have been on the look out for projects and were ready to tackle their school on a whole different level. Community Serve Day is no longer one morning where their little bodies grow weary as they work to pour out love on others and expand their view of the needs around them. It is a growing awareness of the needs around them every day. A growing appreciation for the projects that can be done in a few spare moments and the ones that take longer planning and the participation of friends. This year as they worked to resurface picnic tables, painted parts of the Kindergarten play area, recycling center and school dragon mascot I watched them build deeper relationships with friends as they worked together.
What started as my thinking about how I could model service and equip my kids to serve has been birthed into my children having their own ideas of what it means to serve and how it should be done. They are already talking about next year. And we are continuing to talk about the big questions – like what are the “real” needs of our community? How do we meet those needs when they seem bigger than our resources?
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| Community Serve Day |
Through Community Serve Day my children have been greatly blessed by our faith community. They have seen new ways to serve that I never would have thought of exposing them to. They have experienced service in ways my husband and I couldn't model. They have experienced what it means to collaborate with others. And they have been given a vision of service that far exceeds what my husband and I could have given to them alone. We are so thankful to be part of a community that believes in serving not just with our words but with our actions.
I can't wait to see the next steps in our journey!
You can see more photos of our community serving at the links below:
2013
2014
2015
