It was five o’clock on Thursday, May 2nd, and one of my students sat beneath a tree on the lawn of a house on South Main Street. She was counting cash. When she finished, she looked up at me with her eyes wide and her mouth agape. “$934, Mr. Hoch! We raised $934!” And that was just the cash; it didn’t account for the Venmo transactions yet. When all was said and done, Redeemer’s Leadership for Life class had raised $1,116 for AVA Care in a single day. I could hardly believe it myself.
As part of Leadership for Life — a class I teach and all 9th graders take — Redeemer students plan and execute a service project from start to finish. This accomplishes two goals: [1] getting students involved in serving others, and [2] providing the opportunity to practice the leadership skills that we’ve been talking about all year. I provide few parameters for the project, so students are able to choose where, when, and how they’ll serve (so long as it’s within the 2nd semester of the school year). They also set their goals for the project (i.e. the number of hours they want to serve, the amount of money they want to raise, the number of lunches they want to pack, etc.).
This year the class chose to organize a fundraiser in support of AVA Care, a local pregnancy clinic. Their idea was to sell hot dog lunches with a goal of raising $400 (which they thought would be a challenge to reach). The GRILL’N GIVE was born. Once the idea was solidified, they ran with it. They reached out to AVA Care to get permission to raise money for them in this way, to use their logo in promotional materials, and to coordinate marketing the event. They researched the cost of the food items and created the menu. They reached out to a JMU student who lives near the Quad to get permission to use their front yard as the location for the event. They bought all of the supplies, set everything up, cooked all the food, handled all the transactions, and cleaned up afterward. From beginning to end, the students planned and executed their own service project and did so beautifully.
One week after the GRILL’N GIVE cookout, students had the privilege of hand-delivering a check to AVA Care Executive Director, Susan Null. Afterward, we got to tour their new facilities, and learned all about their ministry. It was a beautiful moment that drove home the main goal in all of this: glorifying God as we serve others.
In my conversations with the students afterwards, they shared just how much fun they had working on this project together and the joy that they experienced in being able to support a local ministry through their efforts. It was a keen reminder to me that, here at Redeemer, we’re doing more than filling heads with knowledge; we’re shaping student’s hearts to love others and training their hands to do good in their community. What a blessing to be a part of such a high calling.
THANK YOU to all of you from the Redeemer community, and supporters of AVA Care, that stopped by not just to buy hot dogs, but to encourage our hard-working students as they served others. You, too, play a huge part in our fulfilling our mission and we’re grateful.
