Having fun spending money

Now that this ministry has grown beyond the youth area, I am always looking for more ways to keep the youth in contact with what God is doing here. We have been blessed with many generous cash donations including gift certificates at a local grocery store. The food pantry at church and at the Day Center was getting pretty low, so we decided to have a Scavenger Hunt that involved shopping for the homeless ministry.

On Friday, January 23 several youth came to church to participate in this scavenger hunt. We ended up pitting boys against girls and each had a shopping list to purchase from while in Giant and a list of goofy things to either bring back to take photos of in and around Route 40 in Ellicott City.

Each group was given $150 in gift certificates and they could spend no more than that. They got points for being the closest without going over. The boys won that part, they spent $149.89. We did have a very nice cashier who helped us use coupons and let us run back to the aisles to purchase more stuff. Luckily it was a slow night at Giant!!

The girls ended up winning the event, but the homeless ministry really was the winner. We were able to stock our shelves and lots of cans will be taken to the center. Here are pictures of both teams.


We all had fun (isn't it more fun to spend other people's money?) and we did some good work as well. If you see one of these youth, make sure you thank them for serving Jesus.