"Truly I tell you, whatever you do for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me." Matthew 25:40 For the past four years, St. Matthew Lutheran School has hosted a family servant event, where those in attendance had the responsibility to make over 400 bagged lunches for the NOAH Project, a homeless shelter located in Detroit. An additional blessing that evolved from this experience always occurred on the following day when our 8th grade had the opportunity to deliver the meals, work in the kitchen, and serve the guests that frequent the NOAH shelter.
As the principal of St. Matthew, I have always had the privilege to chaperone this powerful field trip, and each year, watch the servant hearts of our 8th graders spring into action and do whatever was requested. In addition to watching our students work, some of my fondest memories include watching our students playing UNO with some of the young children at the shelter or listening to our students sing while a guest at the shelter played the piano located in the main dining hall. Upon our return to school, the feedback was always consistent with such comments as "That was so much fun!", "That was such a great field trip!", and "I'll never forget that experience!"
Due to the pandemic, COVID protocols now prevent us from gathering, preparing, delivering, and serving a meal to our friends at the NOAH Project in our traditional manner. However, the reality is that the 400 homeless guests at the shelter still need to eat each day. As a result, we believe that God does not want us to cancel this event, but rather re-design this activity because we know "There Is NO Impossible With God!"
As we prepare to celebrate National Lutheran Schools Week, we are going to embrace this year's Lutheran Schools Week theme, "Sent To Serve", and deploy our young disciples to "Shovel Out Hunger" (or Sweep/Dust/Vacuum Out Hunger if the weather does not cooperate!). It is our hope to make this activity personal, wherein our students do some type of work to earn money so that our students can sponsor a pizza lunch delivered to the NOAH shelter on Monday, January 25th.
This Friday, every student will receive a little shovel reminder, along with an attached donation envelope. We are "sending/asking students to serve" by shoveling or doing some type of age appropriate chore to raise and donate a few dollars for pizza for NOAH's guests. The goal is not the amount as much as it is the servant experience. We are asking that all donations please be returned by Friday, January 22 so that we can prepare to order food for the 400 guests that are projected to be visiting the NOAH Project Shelter on Monday, January 25.
We know that this is a big task, but it's not impossible, and we look forward to working together to help those who are in need. To help inspire one another, please take a photo of your child in action completing his/her service task and send it to Julie.Yeskie@st-matthew.org so that we can post on Facebook to share.
Thank you for your support. We look forward to watching God bless our efforts.
In Jesus' Love,
Mrs. Palka