We had a group of 6 youth and 2 adults go on a mission trip from 6/30/19-7/5/19 to Philadelphia.

This year in Philadelphia, we went to a senior-high only site (only the second time we’ve done that as it just worked based on the age of our youth – usually we go to a jr/sr high site since our youth are 6th-12th grades.

In Philadelphia, the site is focused on helping with food insecurity in the city — 1 in 4 people oro 200,000 are considered food insecure, or don’t know where all 3 meals will come from. There is also a lack of affordable fresh fruits and vegetables at the corner stores. We spent the week mostly doing urban gardening — pulling weeds and preparing various urban gardens – in some 90 degree heat!

Our group also spent the Fourth of July during the day doing service jobs around the Salvation Army shelter for women and children.

There were a total of 60 kids and leaders there during our week — fun addition to us, from Missouri, Virginia and New York.

We are divided into “crews” which are some of our own youth and adults and usually another group. In that crew, we do our mission work and have a schedule of other things such as dinner prep, building cleanup and breakfast cleanup.

Every summer, it’s a life-changing experience for our youth and adult leaders — we go to serve and are always served ourselves and grow in our relationships with each other, others and God. We are very lucky to have a supportive church that helps us with our year-round fundraising needs.