Back to School Bash - Wow!

It's hard for me express the excitement I feel about what happened last night at Century B Park! Those of you who were there know what I'm talking about. Here's some quick points about the evening:

- We gave out somewhere between 360-380 backpacks full of school supplies.

- The event began at 6:00, but the line began forming at 5:20.

- Our set-up team did an amazing job getting everything put together neatly and quickly in extremely hot and sticky conditions.

- I can't count the number of kids I saw with blue and green lips from eating snow cones!

- Bill Haynes and his cooking crew cooked so many hot dogs that they had to use a shovel to get them off the grill. I'm serious, a shovel, I watched them do it.

- Our volunteers were overwhelmed with how thankful the folks we gave backpacks to were. There were people hugging our workers and telling them "thank you" all over the place.

- Our band did their usual great job playing. I thought it was good for the people there to get a taste of what Sunday mornings at Freedom are like.

- Kenny Plumley and Jim Grubb must have made ten trips to Kenny's shop to keep us supplied with ice for the snow cone makers.

- There's not a lot of things I enjoy more than seeing excited kids, and in the area where the rides were I saw tons of excited kids.

You might be asking, "what are we going to do with the remaining backpacks?" Well, I'm glad you asked. We are planning to give out a few more this week from the office for people whose kids couldn't be with them last night. The rest will be divided up and given to area schools. We believe that the teachers in our schools will have the best idea of who needs the supplies, and they will be able to get them in the right hands quickly.

Last, I want to thank Donny Kauffman and the rest of the planning team that made the Back to School Bash happen. Donny led a team that included, Brian Thomas, Steven Somers, Tamara Whitner, Shea Dorris, and Barrie O'Sullivan. They did all the organizing and directing of this event, and they did it well.

We are already talking about doing this again next year, so let us know what went well and what can be improved. Thanks for your help, and let's pray the seeds that were planted last night will grow into changed lives. Wouldn't be awesome if the first step to someone finding true freedom in Christ was eating a free hot dog and receiving school supplies for their kids?