Happy Friday! Someone once said, “I don’t care if Monday’s blue, Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too. Thursday, I don’t care about you. It’s Friday I’m in love with.” We love Fridays too because that means there is a new blog! And that means we have a new person to introduce to you! This week we decided to do something a little bit different. Instead of introducing you to one person, we thought it would be fun to introduce you to a group of amazing individuals. These individuals have been volunteers at our annual banquet and have helped us at a couple of past fundraisers. They are always in the background, and most people don’t know they’re even there. We would like to officially introduce you to the young men and women of Bible Baptist Church’s youth group!
Much like other youth groups in our community, Bible Baptist Church’s youth group has been helping Bella Vita at our annual banquet since 2011. BBC’s youth group has worked as waiters, kitchen crew, washed dishes, cleaned tables, brought out drinks and food, helped to sign people in, sat people at their tables, and the list goes on! Without the help of BBC’s youth group, and other church’s youth groups, Bella Vita would not have had such successful banquets in the past! Bible Baptist Church, along with other churches, have supported Bella Vita since the beginning, but their youth group didn’t get involved until Rhonda Adcock, one of the founding members, roped the youth group into helping serve food at the first annual banquet. Now years later, with a completely new youth group, the tradition lives on! Malachi Adcock is the youth leader at Bible Baptist Church. He said: “It’s important to Liz (youth group helper) and I that our teens continue to serve Bella Vita and the people who help our community. I love watching all of my teens work together and as a team. They are always helpful with the guests and loving to each other. I am always immensely proud of them!”
Since we’re telling the story of a group in this blog, we decided to change up the way we usually do our interviews. This time we simply asked them what they wanted to say about their times volunteering. We also asked them if they had any words of encouragement for teens who are going through an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. Since BBC’s youth group mostly volunteers at our annual banquet, we wanted to show their perspectives on how they see Bella Vita. Now we know you’re dying to meet and hear from this remarkable group of teenagers, so let’s get started!
First, we would like to introduce you to Hailey, who is one of the youth group helpers at BBC, and she is also a former member of the BBC’s youth group. Hailey said, “Serving Bella Vita is one of my favorite things we do as a youth group, not only are we coming together as a group for something so much bigger than ourselves, but we are able to see and hear about the impact they are making around the community and be a small part of it! Even if it’s just serving food and cleaning up afterward, every job makes an impact.” Next, we’d like to introduce you to Reece, who is a senior at Oregon Davis High School. Reece told us, “What I enjoyed most about serving with Bella Vita is being able to have the opportunity to be a part of such an amazing cause! I feel that Bella Vita’s mission to stand up for the unborn and the expecting families is absolutely life-changing. I would tell a teen who was pregnant to absolutely go to Bella Vita for help! Bella Vita is an amazing ministry that will help you to be able to bring a child into the world and help you to properly support them and you!”
Let’s introduce you to Tori and Laine, who are twins and seniors in high school. Tori told us, “I personally enjoy helping Bella Vita because I love volunteering for our community! I would say that if someone was in a pregnancy crisis, then that person should go to Bella Vita because it is a wonderful organization that we definitely need in this world, especially now!” Laine went on to say, “I enjoyed giving my time to help people in need. As for the second question, I would tell them that it is a good idea cause Bella Vita does whatever they can to help them. They are really nice and informative and want what’s best for you.” Let’s get some boys in here, we would like to introduce you to Clayton! Clayton is a sophomore at Knox High School, and he told us, “I enjoy being with friends while working at Bella Vita. I like that it doesn’t feel like work even though we’re usually the ones taking out the trash. Volunteering is a good chance to do something really good for a good purpose”. That’s what we like to hear from our volunteers! Ryan is another youth group helper, and he told us, “I honestly enjoyed helping people in need! I love Bela Vita’s mission because it’s the type of organization this community has needed for a while now. If someone’s going through a pregnancy situation, they should definitely reach out for help, even if they don’t need a lot of help. They have some amazing resources and connections!”
We love and appreciate everything that Bible Baptist Church’s youth group and other church youth groups have done for us over the years! Even though these youth groups generally only help at our annual banquet, they have also stepped up whenever we’ve asked for help. That is the great thing about volunteering! You don’t have to continually be involved or coming in. You can come as you are and when it works best for you because we always have work available for people who want it. Looking back, our banquets would not have gone as smoothly as they have without the help of these teens listed above and more who are not named! Thank you to the young men and women who have decided to spend an afternoon cleaning dishes, serving others, and taking out the trash so we could continue to serve our community. We hope you got a glimpse into some of the amazing teenagers in our community and grown to appreciate them as much as we do! We look forward to bragging about the next youth group that helps out at Bella Vita!