Youth Summer Trip Car Wash

May 18, 2008 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Religion, Youth 

Yesterday we held our “Free, Sponsored Car Wash” to raise money for the two summer trips.

This summer, one trip will be a mission trip to Philadelphia to work with Broad Street Ministry.  The youth and adults will stay at their building for 5 days and will do various ministry work.  The other trip is to the Montreat Conference Center Summer Youth Conference, week VI.  For that trip the group leaves on Saturday, drives to Greensboro, NC and stays overnight at a church.  The next day we arrive at Montreat and do the conference through the following Saturday morning, when we take the 12-hour drive home.

This car wash raises money to augment the participant fees for the trips, and also allows us to cap the total cost for families with one or more youth taking one or both trips – otherwise the fees would add up fast.

This car wash is a Sponsored, Free Car Wash.  Each youth and adult going on one of the trips is expected to gain sponsors for their participation.  The sponsors pledge either a flat amount or a small amount per car washed.  For example, I got cash donations of $71 plus a pledge from one person of 0.25 per car for another $11.  We hoped to get about $100 on average from the youth and adults but right now the church members have already been asked to give to a lot (including the capital campaign and special funds like today’s collection for Myanmar and China disasters) so we know that we might not make the goal.  We also accepted donations from people whose cars were washed (even though they weren’t expected) and that totalled just over $700.  I found this idea on the Youth Ministry Exchange website.

This was an environmentally friendly car wash.  Rich Richards (the youth director) and Jason Meyers (who just completed his freshman year at Carnegie Mellon) diverted the gutter downspouts at the church into trash cans and collected nearly 200 gallons overnight.  We used that water to wash the cars, and only used tap water from the hose to give them a final rinse.  Also, we used special environmentally sound soap bought at Whole Foods.  Drying was done with synthetic chamois and cloth towels.  Rich also noted on the white board Information Board that no paper was used, because we used a white board.  (How recursive.)

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Over the course of 3 hours (until the recycled water ran out) we washed 45 cars.  That was just about the right number – any more and the wait would have been excessive.  We had two washing stations and one drying station.  The youth and adults all worked hard on the washing and drying.

Now we wait to see how much we get in sponsorships – the youth haven’t turned in their forms or money yet.

I am a little sore from bending in directions that I don’t usually bend (I generally don’t have to bend over to wash bottom fenders often).  I also think I managed to get sunburn on the backs of my calves – probably from leaning and bending.  It was satisfying work.

Wish us luck!

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