small group, big life.

one of the service projects we did with our group, during Skip Church Serve The City, was to clean our neighborhood.  we got some bagels and coffee and hit the streets for a couple hours picking up trash.  turns out that astoria is surprisingly clean, but it was a nice feeling anyway, and you could tell people took notice.  a couple other times we served together at a soup kitchen in the upper eastside, at a church called All Souls NYC.  we were introduced by amy, who has been serving there every monday-night for the past few years.  this organization serves a really nice sit down dinner to anyone who comes in.  it's a full three course meal (salad, soup, bread, main course, dessert, coffee, etc), complete with little vases of flowers on each table.  it's always refreshing (and humbling) to know you're helping others.

a few of us are regular volunteers on Sundays.  a couple of us help out with the Hospitality Team (setting up the coffee/drinks and treats for the service) and the KidStuf Team.  if you're interested in helping out with us on one of those teams, let us know!  although Forefront has a lot of other opportunities to help too.  check out the bulletin at church for other options (first impressions, finance, setup/tear down, etc).

it's important not only to serve your community and your home church, but also to be of service to each other.  and one way we do that is to support one other during life changes.  when tawny moved [to Hershey, PA for her new play] we gave her a goodie basket filled with applicable treats: a candle for her new room, herbal tea and honey for her throat, earplugs for rehearsals, a new journal, and hershey chocolate bars.  when mike grey moved [driving across country to LA],  we gave him a bag filled with snacks for the road: pretzels, water, snapple, sunflower seeds, chips, candy. and when kassaundra and ryan left overseas, we gave them each a water bottle filled with travel items: a toothbrush, toothpaste, lip balm, band-aids, etc.  here's a video of one of our gift-givings.