Blessing Carleton Students Once again with another "Exam Pause Table"

 Greetings again to you who read this blog : )

This next post is a short one, but just one to let people know that Calvin, and several other churches, were able to bless 1400 Carleton students over 3 days this past week via Carleton's "Exam Pause Table" 

The first one Calvin participated in was back in December 2023, and you can go there to have a look at more details than I will place into this entry. 

Once again, I put the call out to our Congregation for either cash donations or food donations and once again Calvin came through. 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH to those of you who donated just over $1000 in funds.  That enabled me to get the following items this year. 

• Earl Gray tea

• Small Pringle Packs

• Little bites from Sara Lee chocolate chip

• Packets of trail mix

• 600 Ziploc bags

• Bear paws

• Dole fruit salad 

• Microwave popcorn

• Assorted oatmeal packets

• Sesame snaps packages

• Rice crispy squares

• Assorted juice boxes

• Bagels 

• 300 paper sandwich bags

• Peanut Butter and Jam and Margarine

• Chocolate chip cookies 

And a few items I can't recall.  

Some of you also donated items or baked.  

Super Thankful for you as well :).  

The van is full and ready to go.  

This year we started things off by doing the Monday of the three days. 

Another church joined us, but we once again had the bulk of the items for the day.  

It's always fun putting things out and seeing the tables fill up with items to give away. 

We started at 10:30 a.m. this time and business was brisk the whole time. 

Megan and Jack and Mary joined me and all did a great job.  

The students kept coming. :) 

Jack and Mary were at the bagel table once again (well, Mary was there for the first time).  

Lots of great spiritual conversations happened there as people waited for their bagels to toast.  

At times the lineup was rather long.  

Great to see.  

So many students were thankful and surprised once again.   

This is a great way to bless students in a low-key way.  

At about 1:00 p.m. things started to slow down.  

We ended up serving 500 students on Monday.   

I came back on Tuesday to see how others were doing the pause table. 

This group of two churches was more on the baking side.  Lots and lots of muffins and baked goods.  

Neat to see. 

And the line ups were long for them as well. 

Another 500 served on Tuesday and 400 on Wednesday. 

A HUGE thank you to all who donated towards this cause.  

It will happen again in December, so stay tuned for another request to be a blessing to students who can be rather stressed out during exam time.  

Calvin's First Annual "souperbowl" event and spending time at 220 viewmount.

 "Soup"erBowl Potluck Event

Greetings once again. 

After a GREAT "Learning Opportunity" during March break, fellowship events continue to happen at Calvin.  

This one was a new event for us. 

A spoof on watching the super bowl game, I learned of a "Souperbowl" potluck event by another church and decided to try it here at Calvin. 

It was a hit!!  : ) 

The idea is that:

1. People come and bring their favourite pot of soup.  

2. Those who attend taste test all the soups, 

3. Then select their top three soups. 

4. The soup with the most votes wins the "Golden Ladle!!" 

We were not sure how many would come out, but we got 22 pots of soup and about 55 ish people.  

Whoot!! : ) 

The soups are numbered and ready to be tasted.  

Let the selection begin.  

Yes Jeremy, what to select first?? : )

That is the question.   

There were also bread and salads 

People took multiple bowls, reused their same bowl, or just stood at the tables and sampled from bowl to bowl : ) 

It was fun watching everyone try to figure out their top 3.  

Here's a listing of all the soups.  

Quite a variety.  

And very delicious!! 

One person took copious notes to ensure their top three choices were the best choices :) 

You'll see on the table the basket that the voting sheets went into.  

Gabby tallied up the results.  

And she made our very own 

"Golden Ladle"!!!  : ) 

So, at the end of the day, here are the winners. 

3rd place went to Annet and Evert with their Split Pea & Sausage

2nd place went to Carrie and Michael with their Dill Pickle

and

1ST PLACE went to Phil with his Carrot Ginger. 

Here is his acceptance speech.  

Listen carefully, as the audio could be clearer. 

This will happen again next year for sure : ) 

We just need to find a way to have people sample several soups at once : )  

Thanks to the fellowship committee for helping make this event a great success 

AND thanks to all who made a delicious soup for us.  

Whooooottttt !!!! : ) 

Games night at 220 Viewmount

Once again our youth group travelled to 220 Viewmount to spend time with some residents there fellowshipping through games.   

It was a smaller crowd this time due to the flu travelling through the building, but fun was still had by all. 

This group is learning how to play Mexican Train.  

This group as well.  

Uno is always a fun and easy game to play.  

And Quirkle.  A game we play often at home.  

It was a good time of fellowship. 

Thanks to those youth who came out and mingled.  

Blessings to you alllllllll  : ) 

Whoot!!!!