A Cafe' with a New Twist

The girls up above do not go to the Barn. In fact they never even knew that the Barn existed until Saturday May 15th. "Why then," you ask, "have you put a picture of them up on the Barn Blog site?" Well my friend... I could talk about the amazing turn out of 70 or so people, of the amazing music, and creative art that students and local artists displayed, but right now I just wanted to talk about how the students are reaching out to those around them.

As you may know, this fall we started a group called, "Project Reach" at Pleasant Valley High School. Project Reach, is a student lead group that seeks to engage their school community through global outreach. Therefore, they have been brainstorming over that past few months different ways that they can impact those around the world. So after a few meetings they decided they wanted to raise money for a group called, "Pick-a-Pocket".

Pick-a-Pocket is an offshoot of YWAM Ministries, and is a group of individuals who traveled to Ethiopia and discovered a group of people who practically live out of the trash heaps there. From this encounter they decided to find a way to help these people. Presently, they are traveling around the United States selling a book they created and using art/music to promote awareness and raise funds to end extreme poverty in this place they call "Garbage City".

The students from the Barn (now via Project Reach) have taken up this mantle and decided to make a difference themselves. Back to the girls above: These girls have never been to the Barn before, they simply work at Rita's Italian Ice, but - warning here is the exciting part - through Project Reach they came out to the Cafe' at the Barn this month to sell Italian Ice to everyone. From the ice sold 30% of the money made goes toward "Pick-a-Pocket". Not only that but the kids are selling lids from quarts of Italian Ice for $5 and for every lid sold "Pick-a-Pocket" will receive $1 (which a local bank will match).

So I decided to skip over the Cafe' for a moment and just share about how exciting it is to see students making a difference in the world around them and really seeking to reach out and love others just like Christ has...

For more on Pick-A-Pocket check out www.pickapocket.net... and pray for next Thursday as they will be stopping by the Barn to share with us about their ministry!!