Way FM Faith and Fun Night

On Saturday the 20th Take It To The Streets took some of the kids from our outreach neighborhood to Way FM's Faith and Fun Night at the North Charleston Coliseum. We got to see the Charleston Stingrays play some great hockey followed by an incredible concert by Group 1 Crew. For these kids it was the first hockey game they had ever seen. They quickly joined in with the crowd in cheering on the home team and taunting the away team. It was a small thing bringing the kids along with us as tickets were not that expensive but to them that arena could have been a million miles from their daily struggles in their neighborhood off of Dorchester Road.

After the concert was over Way FM brought out Group 1 Crew who rocked the house with a lot of songs from their new not yet released album. Between each song each band member gave testimony to where they came from and how God had brought them to where they are. Their testimony actually sparked conversation between the kids as they talked about coming from a broken home, not knowing their father, and growing up poor. All of these themes resonated with the kids as they listened to their words and yet saw these individuals talking about growing up this way yet where standing before them preforming on stage. No part of their story glorified the use of drugs and alcohol but rather gave glory to God. One of the things that even touched me was the true humility in which their testimonies were given and that like our kids this was the first hockey game these three had been to as well. Through the second half of the game Pablo one of the band members actually sat in the row right behind us to watch the game. The night was a great time of fellowship for our leaders and volunteers as well as certainly expanding the kids bubble allowing them to experience a piece of life that many take for granted.

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To The Rescue

This is a fun blog for me to write and I think it will be an even funner one for you to read (is funner a word?). It all started with a phone call on Thursday March 11th from Fields To Families Jacki Baer. Jacki said, “Connor I have got 100 lbs of collard greens, but there is a catch you have got to pick them up today – actually in two hours”. I said, “Sure we can get them where are they” Jacki said “ Mt. Pleasant”. For those of you who are not up on TI2TS news we have a new partner Fields To Families (www.fieldstofamilies.org), they are a non-profit who started in 2006 that works to ease hunger in the Lowcountry by gathering crops form generous farmers and community gardeners and distributing them through their network of partners. This was such great timing with Neighborhood Fellowship on Saturday we could hand them out almost instantaneously! So I called Jesse and asked if he could get the van and scoop them up, as at that time I was having lunch with one of the parents of young leaders. Jesse said “no problem – text me the address”. At that time I thought everything was great easy peasey. The next morning I got a call from Jacki asking me “where were you yesterday I thought you were going to pick up the greens”? I didn’t know what to say and apologized for any inconvenience I may have caused. I let Jackie know that I would leave right away and could pick them up personally. She explained to me that it was to late that she already called another agency partner who was on the way. As you can image I was disappointed and worried that we had damaged our relationship with Fields To Families. Later that day Jesse, Mike and I met up for lunch to talk about TI2TS as well as this issue. At that very moment that we were talking about this issue Jesse’s phone rings – then mine, it was from David Truluck from Shield Ministry. We both agreed that we would call after our lunch. As we left Alex’s Restaurant, Jesse called me and said did you hear the message from David? I said “no, why”. David called to inform us that there was 100lbs of collard greens in the van. As you can image this was quite an experience for both of us. Shield Ministry was the partner agency that was on the way to pick up the collards.

On Saturday five children from the ages of 8 to 11 bagged up sixty grocery bags filled with collard greens and granola bars. Then on their own street they went door to door (with TI2TS volunteers) and began to pray with their neighbors, BOLD! I can’t tell you how proud and impressed I was with these boys this was a BOLD and Courageous move that most adults I know couldn’t or wouldn’t do. So next time you see Jahlea, Eddy or JJ give them a high five and tell them great job!

P.S. The neighbors loved the collard greens praise Fields To Families, Shield Ministry!

Connor McIntyre

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Neighborhood Revitalization

This weekend Neighborhood Revitalization lead by Bergen Hall put in hours of work clearing trees away from power lines and helping a family rediscover they had a backyard under all the dead leaves and tree branches. Neighborhood Revitalization is working to help give a community in need of hope a renewed sense of pride in their homes. Many of the individuals that live off of Ranger Road in Dorchester are single moms, disabled or elderly. They do not have the means or ability to do the normal upkeep on a home that helps to keep it in shape. You can not imagine the blessing it is for these people to feel the love from strangers who are willing to give of their time and themselves to help with basic yard work and home repair. It is truly a blessing both to them and the servants who live out "loving your neighbor as yourself".

We are still in need of volunteers who can come out and help us revitalize this neighborhood. On the first and third Saturday of each month from 9 - until we will be out in the community helping our neighbors. If you can give 1 day a month to help be a part of this growing ministry please contact us here. Just a few hours of your time, whatever you are capable of giving, can make a huge impact in the life of another.

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Searching the Web can support your favorite charity.

Take It To The Streets is now partnered with Good Search a search engine with a conscious. Good Search takes a different business approach to searching the internet. Instead of spending large amounts of money on advertising and increasing the profit margin of the company it allows users to select a charity they want to support. Every time you enter in a search, pennies on the dollar are given to the charity. In the large scheme of things this may seem like nothing but your giving away that money anyway right. Google and Bing work the same way and every time you make a search on their page you are giving money to those organizations so why not help a Non Profit group instead. By taking two minutes of your time to add a search bar to your internet browser or change your home page from Google to Good Search you will be helping support a charity every time you are on the internet. The cost is nothing to you but it channels BIG Advertising dollars from corporate coffers such as Microsoft and Google into the hands of charity's that are working to change the world. Of coarse we would like to see you help our cause and you can now type in Take It To The Streets as a group you would like to support, however you can support multiple organizations through your searching. Since Good Search does not spend money on advertising it relies on its users to spread the word so that more charity's can be supported. You will find links both on this Blog and on our website to search through this group.

You can also shop online through Good Shop. Good Shop is portal to all the major online shops like Best Buy, Amazon, and Ebay. You can buy all your items from the same stores you always do but by going through Good Shops page rather then directly to the store the advertising money again goes to the charity's. A percentage of whatever is spent through the online sales goes to the charity of your choice. Think about how much time you spend online and how by spending a few minutes you can make a part of your daily habits a way to generate money that will help feed the poor, bring clean water to those in need, or support urban missionary work. Is a few minutes of your time to try a new site worth the impact you can have with no sacrifice required?

For those of you out there like myself who run solely on FireFox you have search bar built in at the top of the browser that lets you select which search engine you want to search from. Below is a link that will the add Good Search to that list so every time you use that search it will go through Good Search and save your favorite charity to your cookies.
Firefox Add-On
If you would like to add good search to your Internet Explorer options click here.

If you would like add good search to your Google Chrome options click here.

Good Shop

Good Search

Michael Waters
Web Graphics/Digital Media Designer
mwaters@ti2ts.org

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Blessing a Family

This week we had the privileged of being the instrument of God in blessing a family in need. Jamaal and Michelle who have five kids have been staying with a friend over off Wye Lane. With the birth of the newest member of their family Michelle is back at work and they have gotten their own place. However all of the furniture and household items at their previous residence belonged to someone else and they had nothing to move into their new house. In one weeks time God provided enough furniture to furnish their entire new home.

I would like to thank those who donated items and are still donating items. For those of you who could not be a part of moving the furniture in I hope the pictures can convey a small sense of what was done this day. Jamaal could not stop smiling and saying "God is good, yes he is". I would like to also thank everyone who helped pack a Uhaul full of this furniture and move everything in to their new home. At times it was some dirty work and it has been a week long process to get everything together. Everyday they wake up in their new home this family and their kids will have a constant reminder of God's love and an amazing example of the obedience of those he has called to serve him.

Jamaal will be attending the Take It To The Streets Education Program starting in Feb. These classes focus on resume building and goal setting and we also work to help every member who comes through the program find a job. The second greatest commandment we were given was to "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30-21) and I know at this moment these neighbors feel loved. As they have friends and family over that love will be passed on. Their friends and neighbors will see, in their home the physical manifestation of the love of God carried out through his humble servants.

If you have donations you would like to make or be a part of more service projects like this please visit our website at http://ti2ts.org and go to Contact Us.


HIS humble servant,

Michael Waters
Take It To The Streets
Web Graphics/Digital Media Designer

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Burns Buddies

Group I am very proud to announce a new edition to the Take It To The Streets programs Burns Buddies. This program is a partnership with Trident United Way, Charleston County School District, Cummins & Take It To The Streets. The leadership group has been working on this partnership sense August of 2008 and has just recently underway. At this time the Take It To The Streets leadership team has been on the ground almost daily at Burns Elementary School meeting with teachers and students. We have also started building an independent website burnsbuddies.org which will allow all agencies to show case this program to their constituents. As many of you are aware this school is directly across the street from the Take It To The Streets Family Field Day Field as well as it shares the parking lot with the JB center were we hold our Young Leader and Work On The Street Program. At this time we have identified several teachers that we are going to be partnering with from 1st to 5th grade. All of these classes currently have Take It To The Streets children enrolled in them. The kids are SUPER excited to see us in the school as well as having the opportunity to eat lunch with us. This partnership gives Take It To The Streets an unique advantage point to how the children are living out what they are being taught on Sundays. Often time the feedback provided by their teacher is the most detailed and impactful.

As it isn’t a surprise to many of you our Take It To The Streets children are struggling in school, some of which are three grade levels behind. There are numerous behavior issues and at time the kids can be known as a handful. I believe this is why God has put them in all of our lives, and it is obvious that they need his help to make it through these early childhood development years. At this time we are open to volunteers participating in the Burns Buddies program (Lunch and Learn 11:30 to 12:30 M-F). This program is not for beginner volunteers and all volunteers will be fully vetted prior to having access to the school. As you can understand this is a tremendous opportunity for both us and the children, God Bless and have a great day!

Connor

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Servicing the Community

This outreach was a special outreach because on this Saturday we had a full fledge service project where we cut down trees in Mrs. Alma’s yard, who lived on Ranger Drive. Mrs. Alma has always been encouraging to us since we began our Neighborhood Fellowship two years ago. Her husband accepted Jesus into his heart about 6 months before he died. He was such a joyous person. This past Saturday we saw the vision of true neighborhood fellowship come alive as two brothers Quan and Jahleel ages 8 and 9 volunteered to help us with Mrs. Alma’s yard. They truly enjoyed helping out. The bothers were able to walk around with a leaf blower and Quan got to use the chain saw, which he was very excited to do. They probably had never seen these tools before, but they trusted us and they served with their small Take It To The Streets shirts on.

These two brothers had been coming out to the field for a full year and they have been able to get closer to many of our volunteers. As Myself, Brooks, and Bergen worked the chain saw, pressure washer and extended saw, our two little brothers continued to help and they enjoyed every minute- they took a few breaks and we could see them being kids and jumping on the trailer as they said hi to guys walking by that they knew. I could tell that some of the guys walking were up to no good- maybe they were drug dealers. It does not really matter, because our two young volunteers had joy in their hearts as they served Jesus. What was very exciting was when Mrs. Alma saw the house and how it was pressure washed- all she could say was “God Bless” “Love You” and “God Bless”. All the volunteers were certainly blessed because the King sees all things and Jesus was looking down on everyone and smiling. That is the glory of God when light can begin to shine in a place that was otherwise dark, literally and figuratively.

~Jesse Williams

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