JOY Ministry
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I began volunteering with the special needs (JOY) ministry at my church when I was around 9 years old. I started by volunteering at respite which my church has once a month on a Saturday. It is from 5 to 8 pm and we welcome people special needs and their siblings. Occasionally we will have adults come, but the majority of the time we have children show up. This allows the parents to go and do anything they need and have a few hours free from the kids without having to worry about people not knowing how to take care and look after their child with special needs. Early in middle school I began coming on Wednesday nights and helping out with our adult class. We had a lesson every week and a bible verse that we all learned. Some weeks I would be the teacher and others I would simply come and enjoy sitting in on the class and socializing with the group. After eighth grade I really started getting involved in Vacation Bible School (VBS) in the JOY Ministry. My first year I was just a regular volunteer and I loved it. I have come back every year since then. Every year I have taken on more responsibility and the summer of 2017 (after my junior year in high school) I decorated all three rooms we occupied and our hallway and ran the ministry the whole week. We averaged about 25 participants, including our adults and our children, each day. I plan to continue volunteering at VBS with the JOY Ministry as long as I am able to. Around the time I started high school I started regularly going to help out during one of the services at our church. We have a large adult class which I have helped out with on occasion, but I am normally in with the younger children. We recently added a pre-teen/teen class on Sundays which I help out with as well. We do a game, story and copy down the bible verse for the week. During the summers I have helped out with our adult class that we have on Mondays. We do a lesson and have lunch every week. Something else we just started is a 24 hour camp called Kayla's Retreat. We do the younger kids and the teenagers/older kids at different retreats at different times of the year. We have only done a few, but they have been an amazing success! The JOY ministry at my church has grown greatly since I began there and they have an abundance of things to teach everyone. They show love like no other. Click here to see the link to our page on Lakewood Baptist Church's website.
Backpack Love
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I started volunteering with Backpack Love through the Honors Work Based Learning Program that I have been a part of my senior year of high school. To see more about the program click here and scroll to the lower half of the page.​ Backpack love is part of Straight Street Ministry and provides backpacks for students in the Hall County area who do not have enough food to sustain them over the weekend. They pack and send out around 600 backpacks every week. They send foods like ramen noodles, rice, beans, tuna, and macaroni and cheese. All the food is fairly easy to prepare and most only require you to heat them if you can. With the backpacks they send out they feed about 3,000 people every week. Each school in our cohort was assigned one food item to do a food drive for. My school was assigned ramen noodles. We got together and brainstormed and decided to make it a competition between each 4th (lunch period) class. The class with the most and the class with the highest ratio per student would win a special lunch. Overall, we collected between 1,500 to 2,000 packets of ramen noodles! My afternoon Honors Work Based Learning cohort got together and volunteered for about 2 hours one day during our work periods. We stacked cartons of food onto palates and then wrapped them in saran wrap for the people who would be packing the backpacks later. We stacked them so that they were easily accessible and the assembly line for packing was more efficient.
The Next Chapter Bookstore
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I have been volunteering with The Next Chapter Bookstore through the Honors Work Based Learning Program I have been a part of my senior year or high school. To see more about the program click here and scroll to the lower half of the page. The bookstore employs adults with special needs and houses them through Our Neighbor Inc. which is the company that owns the bookstore. The store is on the square in Gainesville, GA. Our group has done a dinner for all of the people living in the houses. We all pitched in by donating things and if we were able to going and volunteering during the dinner to serve and spend time with their community. We have also sold tickets for a car that will be raffled off at a car wash they will be holding. We have plans to volunteer at the car wash when it is rescheduled due to weather. Each of us had the opportunity to also buy a shirt with their logo on it to help support them.
Salvation Army Bell Ringing​
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During my 2017 senior Thanksgiving break my friend and I decided to volunteer with the salvation army outside of our local Hobby Lobby. My friend had volunteered before and set it up for us. Being able to help the Salvation Army by volunteering my time was a great honor for me. We completed about 5 hours over two days. The organization is a great one. I enjoyed being able to talk to people who came up to us and spend my time worrying about others instead of myself. The experience was very humbling. I hope to volunteer more in the future.
Community Service
