BOYNTON BEACH, FL – Last week was Jupiter Christian’s R.E.A.C.H. Week, where the JCS students got to pick their weeklong activity. For the week, I picked the Local Outreach trip, where I would be locally volunteering. This trip was put together and supervised by Mrs. Bloomfield and Mr. Payne, and they did an amazing job at reaching out to the community.
The first day started the week off well. We went gleaning, or harvesting, tomatoes to be donated and sold. We went to fields located in Boynton Beach. We picked and filled a couple of dozen boxes of tomatoes.
The next day, the group went to House of Hope in Stuart. There, we helped stock their grocery store that allows those who struggle with food insecurity to shop for free. We also helped clean up their gardens, where they grow fresh fruits and vegetables to donate. House of Hope was an amazing organization to help, and they are truly blessing the community!
On the third day, we worked at a food shelf called Feeding South Florida and sorted food to be donated to families. We unloaded around 12 pallets filled with boxes of food that had been donated. We then checked the expiration dates and the state of the food. Then we sorted it to be donated.
Wednesday when we volunteered, we went gleaning again, but this time we were harvesting corn. This day was challenging work as we were in the fields for hours. We were also volunteering alongside an elementary school, so we were paired up with other kids to pick the corn. Overall, the day was great, and we picked lots of corn!
On the last day we got to go to Universal Studios after a long week of volunteering and hard work! Universal was incredibly fun and the group had an exciting time.
Overall R.E.A.C.H. Week was a success as we helped to serve the community and did it through the Lord’s strength!