Page 15 - Final Annual Report 2020

Minister to Youth 2020 Annual Report
Pastor Diane Anderson

“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” ~ Anne Frank

This past year certainly presented the youth group programs with unique challenges. The number one question of the
year was, “How do we keep our youth active, engaged and most of all, safe during a worldwide pandemic?” The
answers kept coming through lots of prayer and with the assistance of Zoom, a big white tent and a fire pit!

Spring
Throughout the Spring both the Senior Youth Group and the Kindness Club meetings took place on Zoom. During
their meetings, KC discussed You Tube lessons from Steve Hartman’s Kindness 101 series. This was a wonderful
series that explored themes such as character, optimism, friendship, courage and empathy. The Kindness Club also
took on a new “Kindness Challenge” each week such as donating food to a food drive, writing thank you notes to
frontline workers, delivering candygrams to graduating seniors and placing blessing stones out on nature trails.

The Senior Youth Group had lots of thought-provoking and insightful discussions about movies during their
Springtime Zoom meetings. They discussed The Blind Side, Freedom Writers, The Pursuit of Happyness and the
documentary Oceans. These films all contained themes that were relevant to living a life of faith. SYG members also
completed the Strengths Finder online survey to discover some of their core character strengths. They then had a
discussion about how members could apply those strengths to make the world a better place.
The Senior Youth Group encountered two major disappointments during the Spring. The first was the need to cancel
their annual Work Camp trip. SYG members had done their fund-raising in the fall and were excited to head to
California to join with the Blue Theology program to do environmental service work. The second disappointment
was that, due to Covid safety concerns, SYG members were unable to participate in the traditional Easter Sunrise
Service at Farm Pond. The service ended up being live streamed with just a skeleton crew of adults leading it. Thank
you to Brad Kohl, Doug Ambos, Eric Dragsbaek and Doug and Ryan Peterson for their help with the service.

Although there were disappointments, there were also a couple of wonderful highlights… SYG had a wonderful
Zoom farewell party for our beloved advisor, Kathy Somerville. Lots of SYG graduates attended as well. We
presented Kathy with gifts and shared memories and appreciations. Kathy has been such a blessing to SYG for so
many years. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to honor her and shower her with love and gratitude! The other
highlight was the SYG Senior Night. Although it felt a bit odd having our traditional Senior Night on Zoom, it turned
out to be a lovely, heartfelt event. The night included the traditional reading of Oh, The Places You’ll Go! It also
included sharing appreciations and presenting gifts. A big thank you to Marilyn Marlette for contributing her
beautiful handmade prayer shawls for the graduates.
One other important event that took place in the Spring was the Pilgrim Church Peace Vigil. This event was
organized while protests were going on all over the country related to racial injustice and police brutality. The vigil
was a call for God’s peace, love and justice to prevail during such challenging times. Many KC members and their
families attended the vigil and several SYG members helped with this event. Special thanks to SYG graduate Owen
Searle for speaking, to Meira White for her artwork, to Anna Scott Johnson for ringing the church bells and to SYG
graduate Trevor Bowman for filming.

Fall
By the Fall, there was a better understanding in the medical community about how the Corona Virus spreads so we
felt that, given the new information, we could safely begin to have the youth groups meet in person as long as we
gathered outdoors with distancing and mask wearing. The church installed a big white, open-air tent which we
gathered under for our meetings. This worked well! Both youth groups were very active during the Fall…

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