The Beacon in Brighton: SERVE, SUMMER ARTS CAMP and other stuff

It's been a busy start to the summer!

Back at the end of June we awarded two graduating youth the “Beacon Youth Centre Respect Award” at ENSS graduation. Recipients were chosen by ENSS staff; Madeleine Bailey and Caroline Birch. A plaque has been put up and we will keep track of our winners every year.

In July, although The Beacon is not open during our regular schedule, which resumes in September, Colin Maltby has opened the space to local students on Friday evenings. This outreach is going well. Colin has made many contacts locally and he came with me to the graduation at ENSS and met a number of students that I knew.

click here to find out about Colin's Beacon Squad postings on facebook

Some of the youth Colin invited to our Beacon

The second week of July I helped out at a Quinte YFC summer Performing Arts camp for younger kids.
The camp was held at Bethel Pentecostal church in Trenton. The theme was heroes and kids were all ages! From Grade 1 (difficult for an old guy like me!) to Grade 8, a group of ten or so. I did the drama portion of it, assisted by Quinte Youth Unlimited summer staff Annabelle Schmidt (student intern from Germany - no relation) and Kat (local summer intern). The girls were a great help in getting the kids into the improvisation sessions. We learned some basic improvisation techniques, games to reinforce the concepts and the kids had lots of opportunities to be inventive.

Two of our 'Heroes' get a mask layered on.

We made plaster-of-Pairs masks also, and these turned out well.

the masks take about 20 minutes to dry

Annabelle with some of the students

Click here to learn more about Quinte YFC and performing arts

The next week Fellowship CRC in Brighton (my home church) held a SERVE week; the first of three successive years we will be doing SERVE. About fifty teens from all over Ontario and Michigan joined the teens from our church to do work projects around Brighton and communities nearby. Many seniors and others, especially those with no present church connection, benefitted from the work these youth provided.

I have participated in SERVE three times in the past. This year as part of the host team my job was as a site supervisor at the Community Partners for Success in Frankford. The organization benefits adults and their children with a host of programs and some day care.

The old building. Notice the peeling paint.

The Community Partners for Success is housed in a former water treatment facility (and it still looks like one) and runs on a shoestring; depending on local volunteers and charity funds to exist. These people do great work in the community.
The outside had a 'happy' paint job done by children long ago, but the paint was peeling badly and many interior rooms also were in bad need of a new paint job. As well, the grounds outside also needed a lot of TLC. Several SERVE teens worked very hard on three different days and the results were really impressive. Thanks to Vivienne Wu and Rick Hamilton who assisted me with preparing for the new paint job.