Today on the Gateway Blog, Ashley shares about a sweet ministry to the community:
It is a few days after parent’s night out and I’m still feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by how awesome Friday night was! When we first started talking about planning a parent’s night out we really felt it was something that was needed in our community. As parents ourselves we knew how needed time away from the kids is, time where we know they are safe and having fun. We also know that there were two things that may hinder people from taking that time, finding someone they trust to watch their kids and being able to afford it. We set out to make sure our event was affordable and reassuring for parents. The response from our community was overwhelming and the registration forms flooded in. We knew we were in for something big.
Over the next few weeks volunteers trickled in and I (personally) was getting worried we would not have enough people to help with these kiddos. On the night of the event we had 81 children and 54 volunteers. Our volunteers stepped in wherever they were needed and even moved around working with different children and activities as needs arose. We had volunteers that originally said they could only work part of the night stay the whole time because they were having so much fun. We had volunteers who had never worked an event this big say that they couldn’t wait until the next one. All this was #becauseJesus.
Our volunteers spent their time and energy at this high pace and very tiring event for no other reason than they wanted to love their community the way God loves them. We made so many new friends with the kids that were there and we hope we get the opportunity to hang out with all of them again. Those kids were awesome! We were able to talk to some of the parents at pick up who were so grateful that they were able to get away for a bit, even if it was just to paint the living room child free! I am still completely amazed at how well this event went and look forward to the next one.
