Our Block Party this year capped off a wonderful Kids Bible Club week that saw about 30 neighborhood children discover how exciting the life of Jesus can be. It never could have happened without the prayer and help of our awesome team from Grace Community Church in Pennsylvania and the generous participation of so many amazing volunteers. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts!
Saturday started off with deep clouds and threatening thunderstorms but opened up into a sunny blue-sky afternoon with only scattered sprinkles. God's hand was evident from the very beginning, and so many human hearts and hands were involved in making our day a success that it will be hard to list them, but I'll give it a try. Our setup crew arrived early and up went the tents! Then Matt Doward arrived with his horses and their yellow-shirted "friends", Richard Stutzman hopped out of his car as Happy the Clown, Mitzie Collins and Tom Bohrer set up their Punch and Judy show, Liz Jefferson and the Owens' got their balloon-filled face painting tent ready, and a fantastic circus atmosphere began to emerge. We closed off Arnett Blvd. between Warwick and Rugby, fired up the grill, and a crowd began to gather that numbered in the hundreds by mid-afternoon. When Jeff and Rachel Peden opened up their Airplay Jugglers stage, we knew the show was on!
Special thanks go out to Rora, Eula, Nancy, and all the other faithful members of the Arnett Block Association whose tireless planning, preparation, and free food service made the whole event possible, to the City of Rochester for letting us block off Arnett Blvd. and the Rochester Police and Fire Departments for coming with their trucks and crews, to rap artist and brother Cuevas Walker, to Community Bikes for their generosity in giving away 10 free bikes and fixing numerous other ones, to Willie Lightfoot for his lively performance as our Master of Ceremonies, to all our sponsoring merchants who provided us with so many generous donations and raffle prizes, to Wanda Miller and Mindy Monk for bringing the "WOW" factor to our HCR/GFM medical booth, to Lisa McElroye for her free massage demonstrations, to Mark Dixon and Gabe Pellegrino from the Arnett Branch Library for their kids' story time, to Richmond Futch for his painting demonstration, to David Dey for hosting an open house at Risego, and to Tony Nichols and the entire New Life Fellowship Gospel Choir and Flag Team for the wonderful tribute they paid to our Lord by leading us in open worship before our God and Maker at the close of the afternoon.
Remarkably, everyone pitched in and helped to the very end, so even the cleanup was a breeze and by 5 pm you never would have known the event had happened. Already folks are asking about "next year's Block Party." Hey, let's talk about it - after we've all had a breather... God bless you all!
Labels: Neighborhood, Youth Outreach
