Go Love Kokomo 2014

Go-Love-Kokomo-Wide-Logo

Wow what a great experience it has been for our church to serve our community the last 2 years through a special service day called “Go Love Kokomo.” A few of us came up with the idea about 18 months ago to have one big day of service where we do a number of service projects all over the city. I originally suggested that we get all the different home groups to each serve together to fill the different projects, but our home group ministry was not large enough for that yet. We knew we would get a much better turnout if it felt open to the entire church, not just to those in home groups, so we scratched that idea (for the time being at least). Last November (2013) we had about 8 service projects in one day, and the feedback was almost all positive. We heard some pretty amazing stories of the ways God touched people’s lives that day.

After that we knew this was something special, so we tried to do everything bigger in 2014. We went from 8 to 12 service projects, although we ended up canceling one. So we had 11 service projects all over the city of Kokomo, Indiana. We wanted to reach as many different areas and types of people as possible with God’s love on this one day. Here is a list of the projects we did:

  • Beautify 26

    • Highway clean-up of the road our church is located on

  • CAM Partnership

    • Painted some rooms for this homeless ministry.

  • Neighborhood Outreach

    • Door-hanging goodie bags on 2,000 front doors in several different neighborhoods
    • *This project ran out of time and only hit 1,200 homes, which is still a bunch of houses!

  • Nursing Home Outreach

    • This group visited 2 nursing homes, giving out handmade crafts, singing and spending time visiting with the residents.

  • Free Oil Changes For Single Parents

    • We partnered with a local auto-shop to perform free oil changes for 48 single parents.
    • This has become a very popular service project, as we had a long waiting list of single parents after we filled the 48 spots.

  • Cookies to Firefighters and Police Officers

    • We baked and bagged hundreds of cookies, delivering them in person to all the local fire and police stations to show our appreciation for keeping our community safe.

  • The Crossing Partnership

    • The Crossing is a Christian alternative school that gives people 2nd chances to finish high school or their G.E.D.
    • We painted several hallways and classrooms, and we sorted their clothing room, where clothing donations are kept and distributed to students that need clothing.

  • Handmade Fleece Blankets

    • We made fleece blankets by hand, and these were delivered to the homeless, hospitals, etc.

  • Partnering With Taylor Elementary School

    • We painted shelves, rooms, and doors around the school.
    • We picked up trash around school grounds.
    • We cut and replaced ceiling tiles.
    • We replaced mulch in the playground.

  • Childcare

    • One of our service groups simply provided childcare for parents with young kids (birth through 5 years old), and this allowed these parents to serve elsewhere in the city.

Everyone who served that day had a great attitude and had a great time. The thing I love about a service day is that we can be confident that God is at work all over our city, but we may never personally see the results of that work. Days like this plant seeds in people’s lives, and who knows how God will make those seeds grow!

Here is the highlight video from Go Love Kokomo…