Em and I dropped in on some of our high school boys doing some light landscaping and painting at one of our local elementary schools this past Saturday. The connection to this school actually arose via our children - long story but the principal at this school used to be at our kids' elementary school. They needed some help so we threw it out to one of the grade level classes at CpR. Think connectedness and D. Funny thing, two years ago, ESunde and EmGberg did some community scouting at this very school.When SPACE started, part of the vision was to broker [I like that word] community service opportunities for our students. It was to provide for opportunities that were there but not capitalized upon, because we knew our students could make a tremendous impact.
Random acts of kindness is a trendy youth group thingy now, and SPACE did a bit of that when we first started. Those kinds of service events push kids to the edge of what they think they can and cannot do, helps them with the tension of risk, and increases their relational dependence on each other and God. But as much as those are good - local, indigenous partnerships are that much better, like in the case of this school. This particular class did some other landscaping over the summer and this weekend they were back, having kind of adopted this school as theirs. The principal knows and appreciates them.
By the way, these are sophomores in high school, and they invited freshmen to join them. The sophs were at Chain Reaction this summer. Next weekend, they are reconnecting with a church in Baltimore that they served with this past summer. Yes, that young. And yes, they have started their high school careers with service as part of their dna.
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