Great start to GOOTH!

GOOTH is off to a great start this fall. After a fabulous Kick-Off Event, we had quite the time at our Parent-Youth Event the following week and at Kick-Off Part Deux last Sunday. The Parent-Youth Event was not the typical fill-out-the-forms meeting. We did mixers, energizers, sang songs, and had a great time of fellowship, before getting down to business – an hour or more’s worth in close to 30 minutes! woohoo!

Last week at K-O Part Deux, we continued playing some of the games and activities that we didn’t have time for at the first Kick-Off. Again – fun times.

This weekend, we have TWO lockins. Middle School tomorrow night, and High School Saturday night. I think i’m insane for trying it, but i figure this way, my sleep pattern is only disrupted for ONE weekend, rather than TWO! I’ll let you know how it went on Monday!

We are also excited about Sunday night, because we are going to Greensboro to see David LaMotte in concert! It will be my 5th time in the last year, I think. I’m pumped. The youth are, too, since we had him in concert in April.

Can’t wait to see the GOOTH again!

GOOTH Kick-Off 2008

GOOTH had our annual kick-off tonight and had a fabulous time! we had 46 youth and about a dozen adults! that’s a record high number of youth for clemmons presbyterian! we had a great time with an odd assortment of food: finger-food rolled mini-wrap sandwiches, watermelon, and cake. yum! we sang several songs, including bebo norman’s “I AM” that we learned and fell in love with at montreat. then did three energizers: sparkle, istanbul, and run around. that took most of our time. we rounded out our time with some fun noodle games outside and a nice rousing chorus of “bambera”!! (jarrett you’d be proud!)

we missed those youth who couldn’t be there tonight, for whatever reason. some had games, some were out of town, some were sick. we had a lot of visitors and we hope they come back! it was great to have some new faces in the group. i’m looking forward to next week and continuing this year with this great group of youth!

the fourth one about nyc: the rainy game

Tonight was baseball night…there was a rain delay, but it was the best part! here are three more reflections from the GOOTH…

Adam Chatham (9^th grade)

Hi, during the baseball game it started raining badly. Lucky for me I was under a roof. Before the rain started we all went and got food and free baseball caps. Some of us went to get them signed but the hat was ruined by the rain. I think after 30 minutes of the rain me and two friends were getting bored. They had to cover the field and wait for the rain to stop. Stephen suggested we take a look in the gift shop. By the time we got there we realized that there was nothing there we could afford and the rain was still pouring heavily. So we played a game where we had to guess the prices of items. We first did the hat. I guessed 30 dollars and Stephen said 20. It was 15. Then we went to the t shirts. I guessed 25 and Stephen guessed 30. Well it was actually 40 dollars. We started to talk about how overpriced things are here. When we got to the jackets we made guesses and we were way off. The hoodys were 80 dollars. Finally we went to the replica Yankee shirts. They were over 200 dollars. We all started laughing. After that we went back outside and the rain had stopped so we took our seats and started watching the game again. The Yankees had a shutout going when we left.

Alyssa Brown (12^th grade)

Today was a busy day; my group went to a clothing bank at an old army terminal in Brooklyn. We sorted through tons of clothes, first men’s then women’s clothes. The clothing brand Chaps (for men) had just donated a boatload of shirts, jackets, sweaters, pants, etc. Most of the clothes that were donated were used as samples and were made in foreign countries such as Korea, China, and Taiwan. In order to get import taxes reduced, the factories cut minor holes in the clothes and we had to throw those clothes away because they sent a message of inferiority to those receiving the clothes. We also bundled a ton of women’s sweaters and on our break, we went down to the pier and saw the Manhattan skyline. When we got back to YSOP headquarters, two social workers talked to us about working with homeless people and how they lobby the NY State Congress to pass laws in favor of homeless/low income people. It was a pretty long seminar but also inspired me to want to help and volunteer more. Then we came home and went to the baseball game which you already read about and now we are about to go to bed to get ready for tomorrow!

Sarah Hoyle (9^th grade)

So, I guess none of you blog readers have heard from my group yet. But Jill, David, Hannah, Katie and our leaders Sam and Jennifer and I are all in a YSOP group on Manhattan. On Monday, we worked in a place called Food Change where we made food to ship out to different agencies that would distribute it to hungry people. Hannah, David and I chopped 250 POUNDS OF POTATOES! It was actually really fun. We also chopped some carrots and onions and celery and other vegetables to put in a delicious pot of beef stew. We had lots of fun. On Tuesday we worked in the Love Gospel Church…yea. It was defiantly a new experience, but there were WAY too many volunteers. 52 in a room half the size of the church fellowship hall. When we prayed as a group right before we served the food, there were lots of AMENS shouted. It was intense. We had the job of resetting the tables after they had been cleaned as the guests were leaving the soup kitchen. Then today our group worked in a place called Furnish a Future. Apparently it was on the Today Show, and for good reason. This two story warehouse building was filled with furniture and other necessary household items that had been donated and would be given to individuals who were starting in a new home from being homeless. I thought it was really great that there was SO much new/slightly worn furniture to give out. We had the job of putting the finishing coat of varnish on about 20 nightstands. During lunch break we walked around the neighborhood and it was very interesting to see the differences between each block we walked. We saw a VERY fresh poultry house that had chickens and rabbits sitting in cages to be slaughtered for meat. You definately don’t see places like that on your average street in Clemmons! This has been such an awesome experience for me and I’m really looking forward to these last few days!