This Sunday is the "Fifty Dollar Outreach Experiment," during which you will have the opportunity to take fifty dollars into the community and find some way to put that money to work for God. Keeping in line with Kaleo Fellowship's tradition of going into the community instead of keeping to ourselves, we want this to truly be God's hands working through us to serve Bakersfield and show people that God loves them. The church is not a club, shutting its doors and enjoying exclusive membership rights. The church is the body of Christ, and our buildings are simpy meeting places where we can gather before going out into the world as God told us to do.
Take a moment to share your $50 story and how you came up with your idea. Share how the experience made you feel, how it made someone in the community feel, and what you will do now to keep that feeling going.
Click on "comments" and add your story. If today inspired any ideas of future service projects, PLEASE share those ideas as well. God may be using YOU to come up with something big!
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Today my group was given 50$ to spend how ever we wanted to...as long as it was not on us. Now being a group of girls and told we were being given 50$ all of us started thinking of different ways we could spend it for those ideas to be completly stopped the moment we were told that the money was not for us. But i mean we still were thinking about going shopping even though we knew that we would not be able to. So once we were given the ok we left American Kids and were on our way. First stop would be to go pick up these two yong women from a rehab house. Then we left and headed to Food Co. where half of us bagged groceries for the people in the lines while the rest of us went and got suckers, cookies, water, and ice. After that we headed over the Memoral Hospital to the Pediatric Center. Our plan WAS to had out suckers to the kids over there. Before we got there we called to make sure that we could. When we arive we were told to go to the third floor. Once on the thrid floor we turned to the left but it was not the Pediatric Center so we went over to the other side of the thrid floor to be told that it is on the fourth floor. So we get back on the elevator and head up to the fourth floor. Once there we step out and dont see a Pediatric sign so we turn right once we do so we see a nurse and ask where the Pediatric Center is and once again we were in the wrong spot, she told us it was back on the third floor. So then we ended up telling her they just sent us up here so the nurse said to check the other side of the fourth floor. So we were off again on the search to find the little kids. Once we get to the other side of the fourth floor the nurses said that the Pediatric Center is on the other side of the fourth floor. Getting some what annoyed we say that is where we just came from. Then the nurse looks at her chart and says to us "oh well there are not any kids here anyways, only one and the kid is still in the ER and you probably will not be able to go and visit down there". So after that we just decided to pass out the suckers to the staff and the patients in the hospital. After that we stopped by target to get one of the ladies with us a dress from target, though again no such luck we did not find anything so we left there empty handed. Now we were on our way to give water to homeless people. Well another plan that did not go too well. We went to the places where there are usually alot of homeless people to find that there werent any. All because it is too hot. So with the car low on gas and not sure as what to do next we stop at the gas station where we decided to pass out free water and such. So at first the people were timid as if it was some sort of scam or something but we were able to pass out the waters. Then the next part of the day was to get the two women a hair cut so we stop by a salon and have their hair cut while we were there we passed out suckers to people sitting and waiting for their turn. Once we were done we headed over to the fire department to give them their cookies that we had bought them. So when we get to one of them we rang their doorbell and no one came in the mean time we noticed a picture of a baby. Having to explain to Brooke that the picture ment that if anyone has a baby they want to give up with out question you can take it to the fire department and no question will be asked or anything, this helps to prevent people throwing the baby in a dumpster to die. Well since the fire trucks were gone and no one seemed to be there we decided to try a different fire department. So when we got to the fire department on Rosedale we get out of the car noticing that their fire trucks seemed to be gone. So we go and ring the doorbell. Now that Brooke had finaly understood that you could drop a baby off she picked up Karena out of annoyance and started to yell at the door that she had a baby that would be thrown into the green dumpster next to the driveway if no one answered. So we waited a few more minutes to realise that no one was going to come. So once again our plans did not go over too well. So we still had a few waters, lots of cookies, and WAY too many suckers. That is when our group leader thought that we should give our water, cookies and suckers to the two girls rehab house. So that is exactly what we did. We had so much fun it was just like a girls day for us. Even though we did not go shopping for us in the end we still did in a way. Just being able to brighten up their lives even for just a day was so great. So even if it does not seem like alot of money that 50$ was streched to the limit we were able to do so much with that money. It was alot of fun and a great day.
We (the morrison family) had a specific family we decided to help. A friend of Layton's from kindergarten named Steven lives with his single mother, Heidi and younger sister, Haley, in a tiny one bedroom apartment. Nothing extraordinary about that you might say, but it is actually quite a step up. They had been homeless and living in the women's shelter. They are going through an ugly divorce, in which the husband and father kept the three bedroom house while his children and wife were homeless. She has always remained strong in spirit and motivation during a situation that would crush a lot of others. She is working at least two jobs just to afford the tiny apartment and a life for her two young children. We admire her a lot for her determination and strength to go on for her children. We took our fifty dollars and bought a gift card to the FoodsCo by her house. We tried twice today to go by her apartment and both times they were out. So we left her gift card with a note saying it was from us and Kaleo Fellowship. We let her know how much we admire her and that we, along with our church, are praying for her.
It was a great experience for us and our children to talk about helping others. The bummer of the day is that we asked for a FoodsCo manager to find out if they would be willing to match our fifty dollars. They sounded very willing, but the manager who was authorized to give donations was out of town. But keep that in mind! FoodsCo will donate gift cards!
Heidi just called in tears. She was so thankful, but could not really speak. I'll talk to her some more tomorrow.
My group decided we were going to make peanutbutter and jelly sandwhiches and we bought bottled water. Our original plan was to go to the Bakersfield Rescue Mission and pass them out around that area. However, we failed to find the rescue mission. We then drove to the GET bus station downtown and passed out water and sandwhiches there. We met a homeless coupled names Correy and Joe. They told us that they'd really like help with other projects involving the homeless. We told them we'd be more than happy to help and gave them the church number. We also then helped them gather the empty waterbottles so they could recycle them.
After we handed out to all the people at the station, we started to drive looking for parks. We saw a man waiting in the sun on a bus bench. We pulled over and one eof our members ran out to give him our goodies. When our member returned, he said the man began to cry. We pulled around the block and parked. We asked the man if we could pray for him. His name is Anthony and he shared with us his story about how he was just beaten up and had no food or water. After that he shared with us his testimony of how he's been in prison a few times and how his heart right now was full of revenge and anger. His eyes filled up with tears when he began to talk about how he knows God and loves him, but always loses focus. The way he spoke was full of passion and love for our Creator. We prayed God would soften his heart and guide him. He thanked God for sending us to him and thanked us for the blessings we gave him.
I believe our group was touched by Anthony. He gave us a greater sense of God's love and forgiveness in our lives. It's amazing how God does little things in our lives that make the biggest impact in our hearts.
1) Five Large Ice-cold Bottles of Water - $8.45 = one park dweller and another family's thirsts are quenched.
2) Gas Money - $20 = two families get a little relief at the pump.
3) Bus Stop Surprises - $10.55 = two anyonomous bus riders blessed.
4) Random Act of Kindness - $5 = lonely lady hanging in an empty lot praises God.
5) Donation to help pay for Grandma's funeral - $1 = one family blessed in their hour of need.
6) One Starbucks gift card - $5 = Frazzled mom gets a much needed pick me up.
Four girls getting out of their comfort zones...PRICELESS!
What a great outreach you are doing. It was wonderful to read how people were using the money to reach out to others in need. You are doing a great work. God bless the Kaleo family and its leaders!
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