YOUTH MISSION WEEK
By Tiffany LaMotte

For the second year in a row our youth ministry here at Saint Michael spent a week of their summer serving around Dallas with various ministry partners. Thirty-one youth signed up for the opportunity to serve our city while also building friendships with each other along the way. Each morning students would meet at SMAA at 8 a.m. to make their lunches, have some time for worship and then head out for their day of service. Each afternoon everyone met back at church to share about their day and process what they had learned and experienced.

During the four days of service, we collectively served over 1000 hours of community service!

Students delivered close to 140 meals for Meals on Wheels™ and packaged over 500 holiday gift bags for VNA. One of our groups served 250 lunches at Austin Street Center—it was the first meal served in their new building! We partnered with United to Learn to help spruce up the garden at McShan Elementary School. To go along with our summer M&O project, our students donated 31 bags of food to North Dallas Shared Ministries and sorted hundreds of pounds of food with them. Two groups also helped stock the shelves at Aunt Bette’s Food Pantry at St. Philip's. We also worked with Jubilee Park and Community Center to help with their summer camp and an outing with their Senior Citizens to the Dallas Museum of Art.

Serving our community was our number one goal for Mission Week, we also spent time focusing on how we can continue to serve throughout the year. Service doesn’t just happen one week in the summer; these are on-going projects throughout the year. Our students did a wonderful job processing what they experienced and talking about ways they can continue to serve in the future. I am proud of all of our students and appreciate the amazing support from Saint Michael!

**This article was written by Tiffany LaMotte and was featured in the 2022 Fall Archangel.