Sunday Night Outreach

Tonight was a big surprise to me. Since the weather has been nicer we have been having less kids on Sunday Night usually about 20-30. I did not expect many tonight because of the rain. At 4:15 14 kids came in we don't start until 5:00. We had one teacher at the church she took them to color pictures as we were a long way from being ready to eat. By 4:45 we had 40 kids by 5:00 we had over 50 kids. Some of the kids (as they were walking in 40 minutes early) were asking if they could have seconds tonight, they said they were hungry and it hit me--- it is the last day of the month. They ate about 2 1/2 cases of corndogs, 8 pounds of french fries and two restaurant size cans of fruit and drank five gallons of Kool aid. Two teachers were there and I was going to take the third class. With over 50 kids we did not have enough teachers. We had 4 high schoolers who would need their own class, 12 middle schoolers, about 15 elementary kids, and about 20 pre-schoolers/kindergarteners. Three of us could not do it, nor did we have enough craft supplies etc. we were ready for about 30 kids. We had two cooks and 5 servers three of which were there for the first time, we also had one "getter"(person who picks up kids). We had no option to keep things safe to feed the kids and send them home.

At 3:00 we had only loaves of bread to give the children, we usually have more. At 3:15 our friendly reporter, Tom Carey brought in 30 pounds of bologna, when he saw we didn't have much he went home and got some more things he had. The kids went home with full bags of food, enough to get through at least the next day or so. We also gave out a great deal of toilet tissue. I learned this week that some go to fast food restaurants and each family member takes 4 or 5 napkins home to use as toilet tissue. I do want to stress that not everyone that comes on Sunday night are in dire situations but tonight it seemed like there were more than normal. Please keep us in your prayers as next week we go outside into the complex for cookouts.

Thanks Jeff