Non Profits in Campbell River
Leora Sawatzky
October 16, 2012
Non-profits in the community
The journey from there to here has been an interesting one. There was; before my eyes were so widely opened to the need for love, help, care, mercy in our very own community and that I have part to play in filling that need. Here is; - now that I have begun this journey, how do I not turn around without being overcome with seeing how great the need really is?
We (as a ministry staff) started working through ‘Barefoot Church’ back in April. What a challenging read! We went down to Victoria to hear Brandon Hatmaker (the author) speak about his journey and his ideas for helping us see and meet the need around us. Sometimes when I read trendy books, I feel like the authors aren’t for real, like they are super human or that they wrote a book to make money. Brandon was down to earth, real with his answers, admitted when he didn’t have the answers, and practical with his advice.
We came back moved, motivated and ready. Now where was the starting line? Through the many transitions, changes, and range of emotions we have felt here at CRBC over the last few months, we picked a date to start a transformation in our church and in our community. Our motto that sits above our baptismal tank for all to see, reads; “Leading people to become committed followers of Christ.†For me, that meant learning to follow Christ where he would go and do what he would do.
So along comes the gospel primer course, our chance to get our feet wet, hands dirty and hearts squeezed.
The second chapter of the ‘barefoot primer’ had us look up and write down as many different non profit organization that we could find or were interested in in our own community. I typed into google “non profitsâ€, only two or three came up. I typed up ‘volunteer campbell river’ and a very long list appeared before my eyes. I read through the list and started to see the needs that these organization were working towards meeting in our community and the needs they have in volunteers to partner with them so that they can do their job of meeting the various needs of the least in Campbell River.
I zeroed in a few. Having an educational background and a love of serving children so I found a few organizations that catered to serving the least in this demographic. I found the email address and emailed Tara at the John Howard Society.
Tara works half time in a program called KidStart. “KidStart recruits and trains caring adults to mentor vulnerable kids through the game of life.†Tara informed me that there are 80 marginalized, at risk children (ages 6-18) that she has ready and waiting to have a positive adult mentor in their life. 80 children! 60 boys and 20 girls! And what does it take to help scoop 40% of them out of the lifestyle their lives often end up (jail, bullies, dropouts, teen pregnancy etc). You’d think with 40% success rate you’d be this trained professional with all the tools in the world to help these children, but you know what you need? Love. 3 hours a week. Care. Mercy. Time to listen.
I couldn’t help but think, what would happen if even 50 Christ followers signed up to spend time with a child for 3 hours a week. That could be 50 children that know the love of Jesus by your actions. The potential change for our community even if 10 children were in a positive mentorship relationship could be huge! Forget 10, I’ll start. Let’s make it 1 person. Cause that’s all I have to give.
If I’m going to lead people to become committed followers of Jesus than I better start to think a little bit more like him, and a little less like me. Act a little more like Him and a lot less like me. To reach the ‘least’. Reading the gospels, I see what Jesus does, I hear what he says, now to act on it.
Finally - one of the biggest highlights for me on this journey so far has been watching and interacting with the people who work for these non-profits. Tara at John Howard, Leanne at AVI - overjoyed and surprised at our meager attempts be ‘good news’ to those in need, to be a light in a dark place.
If you get the chance to volunteer somewhere, make sure to take note of the weary person’s face as you tell them you can volunteer. That - my friend is the ‘be good news’ Jesus is talking about.
The journey from there to here has been an interesting one. There was; before my eyes were so widely opened to the need for love, help, care, mercy in our very own community and that I have part to play in filling that need. Here is; - now that I have begun this journey, how do I not turn around without being overcome with seeing how great the need really is?
We (as a ministry staff) started working through ‘Barefoot Church’ back in April. What a challenging read! We went down to Victoria to hear Brandon Hatmaker (the author) speak about his journey and his ideas for helping us see and meet the need around us. Sometimes when I read trendy books, I feel like the authors aren’t for real, like they are super human or that they wrote a book to make money. Brandon was down to earth, real with his answers, admitted when he didn’t have the answers, and practical with his advice.
We came back moved, motivated and ready. Now where was the starting line? Through the many transitions, changes, and range of emotions we have felt here at CRBC over the last few months, we picked a date to start a transformation in our church and in our community. Our motto that sits above our baptismal tank for all to see, reads; “Leading people to become committed followers of Christ.†For me, that meant learning to follow Christ where he would go and do what he would do.
So along comes the gospel primer course, our chance to get our feet wet, hands dirty and hearts squeezed.
The second chapter of the ‘barefoot primer’ had us look up and write down as many different non profit organization that we could find or were interested in in our own community. I typed into google “non profitsâ€, only two or three came up. I typed up ‘volunteer campbell river’ and a very long list appeared before my eyes. I read through the list and started to see the needs that these organization were working towards meeting in our community and the needs they have in volunteers to partner with them so that they can do their job of meeting the various needs of the least in Campbell River.
I zeroed in a few. Having an educational background and a love of serving children so I found a few organizations that catered to serving the least in this demographic. I found the email address and emailed Tara at the John Howard Society.
Tara works half time in a program called KidStart. “KidStart recruits and trains caring adults to mentor vulnerable kids through the game of life.†Tara informed me that there are 80 marginalized, at risk children (ages 6-18) that she has ready and waiting to have a positive adult mentor in their life. 80 children! 60 boys and 20 girls! And what does it take to help scoop 40% of them out of the lifestyle their lives often end up (jail, bullies, dropouts, teen pregnancy etc). You’d think with 40% success rate you’d be this trained professional with all the tools in the world to help these children, but you know what you need? Love. 3 hours a week. Care. Mercy. Time to listen.
I couldn’t help but think, what would happen if even 50 Christ followers signed up to spend time with a child for 3 hours a week. That could be 50 children that know the love of Jesus by your actions. The potential change for our community even if 10 children were in a positive mentorship relationship could be huge! Forget 10, I’ll start. Let’s make it 1 person. Cause that’s all I have to give.
If I’m going to lead people to become committed followers of Jesus than I better start to think a little bit more like him, and a little less like me. Act a little more like Him and a lot less like me. To reach the ‘least’. Reading the gospels, I see what Jesus does, I hear what he says, now to act on it.
Finally - one of the biggest highlights for me on this journey so far has been watching and interacting with the people who work for these non-profits. Tara at John Howard, Leanne at AVI - overjoyed and surprised at our meager attempts be ‘good news’ to those in need, to be a light in a dark place.
If you get the chance to volunteer somewhere, make sure to take note of the weary person’s face as you tell them you can volunteer. That - my friend is the ‘be good news’ Jesus is talking about.