Monday nights at 6:30 volunteers and clients look forward to “Ladies Night,” a group started to celebrate, encourage and uplift the women living in the shelter.  The group is centered around nail polish.  We hang out and talk, do manicures and pedicures, have massage therapists do chair massages once a month and do other various fun activities.  It has been a fun group to start an watch grow and we plan to blog more on it in the upcoming weeks.

June 1st Response will be starting a similar group for the kids, Monday Fun-Day.  I put some volunteers in charge of planning and running the group as I am deeply involved in the Monday night women’s group.  Here is what the leader of that group, Adam, has to say about their planning so far:

“Yesterday was one of those days where have you step back and know that you are not in control of anything. 
 
I am probably one of the most unorganized, random, right-brained people you will meet.  I have been placed in charge of putting together a kid’s group for the summer at the shelter.  As you can imagine, my right-brained functions don’t quite allow me the pleasure of planning this thing by myself successfully.  I recruited some help.  The two people that are helping me plan this whole thing are just has random as I am.  It has been interesting thus far to have planning meetings with these two and we have all kinds of funny stories about our randomness already.  We have an entire 14 week program planned out for kids at the shelter from 2nd grade to high school with the goal of positive mentoring to serve like Christ.  Most recently I have been freaking out about volunteers and finding the right ones.  I made a huge list and reduced it down to about 4 people I could depend on, including myself and the other 2 people helping me plan it.  Through friends of friends most recently though I’ve seen the list jump to 10 solid people who are actually excited and passionate about this group.
 
Yesterday I set up a meeting with 2 people I’ve never met before in my life.  Through exchanging of emails and phone calls I realized that God brought them right to me.  I am meeting one guy tonight at a local coffee shop and a girl Monday night at the same location.  Through the emails and phone conversations I am sure that they will fit right in.  I’m meeting with them to really hear their stories and make sure they will be a part of this group because they couldn’t see themselves doing anything else this summer.  I see God doing big things through this group organized by the most unorganized.  Next week we are meeting with all the volunteers to do a brief orientation, hand out the summer schedules and go over basic ins and outs of how we want to be as a group this summer.
 
Now that I look at a detailed goals and methods sheet, a full 14 week calendar, and list of 10 solid volunteers with similar hearts for these kids and this shelter, I just step back and say thank you, thank you to a God who is and has been putting all this together in order to do a work this summer He planned long before He allowed me, a messy, right-brained, unorganized guy to even get involved.”

Check back often to get updates Ladies Night, Monday Fun-Day, and how the shelter is changing lives and impacting our city. 

-Julia