What Did Slate Hill Do With Ten Bucks and a Talent?
The challenge: to turn ten dollars and a talent you have into resources for expanding the reign of God. During this summer, participants in Slate Hill: Mission in Motion, the intergenerational Christian education series, had the opportunity to invest time and talent into raising money to buy supplies to make solar food dryers, which will be used in Haiti to preserve food for sale at markets and for eating in the off season. Designed by Johnny Zook and supported by Thriving Villages International, the nonprofit started by Ben and Jen Fredrick, a solar food dryer like the kind that will be built in Haiti sat at the front of the church throughout the summer as a reminder of where the ten-bucks-and-a-talent money was heading.
So what talents did people put to use to go along with the ten dollars? The following is not an exhaustive list, in part because the projects were just finishing up in late August and early September, but it includes at least some of the participants and the creative projects they did:
--Betty Zimmerman made purses and sold them at the Messiah Village gift store, with proceeds benefiting both the solar-dryer project and a Messiah Village fundraising project.
--Paul Sollenberger baked cookies and sold them at the Slate Hill rummage sale.
--Julie Zook made jewelry and sold it at various church functions.
--Lucy McAloose made packages of cookies to sell.
--Nancy Nisly and Janet Zimmerman sold whoopie pies and Nancy sold zucchini bread during coffee time.
--John Eby made greeting cards and Joyce Eby made mini-loaves of zucchini bread and pies to sell during coffee time.
--Lorraine Myers made blueberry and rhubarb jam and sold it at the Slate Hill rummage sale.
--Dave Haury baked four batches of butterhorn rolls and sold them during coffee time at church.
--Dottie Seitz made apple, strawberry-rhubarb, and blueberry pies and sold them to friends and family.
--Jeremy and Stacy Stoltzfus made pulled pork barbecue to sell at a kids' soccer game on August 21.
--Matt and Ben Fasick, Micah and Ellie Frederick, and Sam, Isaiah, and Henry Weaver Zercher bought additional refreshments to sell at the soccer game on August 21.
--Isaiah and Henry Weaver Zercher sold spinach and radishes from their garden to neighbors and grandparents.
Several people, like Dottie Seitz, reinvested their initial profits in order to produce more items. Dottie took the proceeds from sales of her first pies in order to buy supplies for future ones. She says that when people heard that the profits would be used to make solar food dryers, they were eager to donate even more than she was asking for per pie. "People were very willing and glad to give to that," Dottie says. "My cousin gave me twenty-five dollars for one pie!"
Slate Hill: Mission in Motion was coordinated by the Evangelism, Peace, and Service Commission in cooperation and with support from the Christian Education Commission. Thanks to Luisa Miller for keeping attendance with the "passports" and to Rose Haury for making the Slate Hill: Mission in Motion banner.
-- submitted by Valerie Weaver-Zercher
Ben
No comments:
Post a Comment