About
This summer 47 leaders and students got to experience God’s real and transformative love in Harrisburg, PA. Real love was the theme, and the main scripture focus for the week was Romans 12.
The organization Youthworks makes connections with the community, and their main goal is to enable us to come alongside and be part of the incredible things already happening in the community. The desire is for relationships to form and for participants to understand that God is at work everywhere and that we can join Him in His work anywhere.
All week long we got to experience being part of His real love as we served others in the community and in our group! It was an absolutely beautiful week of getting to know the people of Harrisburg and embracing real love!
Michelle Paquette, Director of Student Ministries
"I was reminded how much I love to love and how simple it really is."
Work Sites
Allison Hill
Allison Hill is one of Harrisburg's neediest neighborhoods. Plagued by years of neglect, drug abuse, and life circumstances, this neighborhood has struggled to thrive. With the commitment of an organization called Wildheart, this community is being invested in, and the future of Allison Hill is flavored with hope. YouthWorks partners with Wildheart in Allison Hill to do city beautification. This consists of brick weeding, cleaning up lots, planting flower boxes, and much more. What takes place goes far beyond city beautification, though. Relationships are built. The community is extremely grateful, thanking volunteers as they serve. Even more than thanksgiving, you see the landscape of Allison Hill truly changing. When you start to clean up the landscape of a neighborhood, you begin to see hearts changed as well...our hearts among them. A piece of our hearts is laid in those bricks in Allison Hill.
Allison Hill Kids Camp
Allison Hill holds a summer enrichment camp for kids that is run by community members who care about their neighborhood and want to see it thrive. The husband and wife team of Bill and Nadine Jamison saw a need and have been investing their time in the youth of their community for years. The kids have a place to hang out and be kids in the safety of the Allison Hill Community Center. They also have a place to learn and grow through enriching activities and programs. The kids get to play, learn, have fun, and are so loved at this camp! During the week, our group was able to come alongside Bill and Nadine and invest in the lives of the kids at the camp and have our hearts invested in along the way. Magical note: Bill and Nadine are 81 years old and have no plans to stop serving anytime soon! Bill’s key verse is from Matthew 25. As he explains, “If they are naked, clothe them, if they are hungry feed them- but that means you have to be where the hungry are. You have to be where the naked will go.”
Community Service
City beautification happened in other areas of the community as well. One group got to experience a potpourri of service as they helped serve in a community garden, at a food pantry with a local church in Allison Hill, and with the Bethesda Men’s Mission. The mission is a shelter designed to point people to Jesus and experience true recovery in every area of their lives.The Bethesda Men's Mission was an eye opener for many in all the ways it helped the men. It offers an onsite dentist and doctor, connects men with outside mental health care, and provides services to teach life skills. Our group was able to serve meals and join in conversations with the men to hear their stories of life change. This was so rewarding, as they had story after story to tell. One man told our students a powerful story of life change connected with foot washing on the very same day we were doing our foot washing experience. Talk about a God moment!
Midwest Food Bank
The Midwest Food Bank is a faith-based organization whose mission is to share the love of Christ by alleviating hunger and malnutrition. They provide food to different organizations that help with food relief, including agencies who serve immigrant workers, boys and girls clubs, local food pantries, churches, homeless shelters, and much more. The Midwest Food bank has a very small staff and relies heavily on volunteers. Our group was able to serve all week and see the full scope of the food bank's mission. By the end of the week, our students were experienced in pulling and packing orders for the agencies, and they even got to meet many of the agency employees and hear their stories. One of the greatest joys of the week was eating lunch with two food bank employees and one long-time volunteer and learning something new each day.
"I experienced God's love in the people already working in the community and seeing their passion and drive to help those in need."
"God taught me humility and compassion this week. I learned how to love more deeply than I thought I could from seeing God love me."
Thank You
Thanks to all of you, we were able to have an opportunity to be a part of this community, build incredible relationships, and serve Jesus! These pictures and words are a thank you…to parents, to those who sponsored us and prayed for us, to adult leaders who gave precious time to go on this trip, and so many more. Thank you for constantly being REAL LOVE.