Hi Friends,
I wanted to summarize this year’s Caroling in the Courtyard event. I think it was even better than the previous years, if that’s at all possible.
The facts:
- We distributed 150 ziplock bags of cookies (with stickers listing Advent and Christmas services) and 150 cups of cocoa to passers-by (walking and in cars)
- FLCers used 100 cups w/lids and polished off two big trays of cookies
- We sang approximately 40 carols
- People heard us singing from down the street and walked over to see what was going on. Some of these people stayed to sing with us
- The children and older youth stepped volunteered, and handed out a lot of the cocoa and cookies
Our volunteer crew included:
- One musician
- One musician’s assistant to manage song sheets
- One hot beverage coordinator to manage many gallons of cocoa
- Two consistent beverage pourers
- One sidewalk table manager/ sidewalk greeter
- 4+ car greeters
- 2+ corner greeters (the kids did this at the corner of Berkeley and Marlboro. They did great!)
- Friendly faces to chat with people who stop by and invite them to come sing
- About a dozen bakers
- 4 bag-labelers and cookie bag stuffers
- Eager hands to help with the carrying tasks of setup and teardown. Both went quickly thanks to the helpful folks of FLC
- Many joyful voices lifted up to sing the joyful news of Jesus’ birth
In addition to the fun of joining in with 50 of our closest friends and FLC family members to sing great music, we proclaimed Christ’s birth to hundreds of people on Sunday. Quite a few people stopped to talk to us; some live and work in the neighborhood and never really noticed the church before. We personally invited all of them to come back and worship with us.
Special thanks go out to our musician, Jon Wessler, who volunteered to play again for us, even though it means shoe-horning another event into a busy time of the year. Special thanks also go out to Carol Holderness, who produced the labels with the worship schedule, as well as the gallons of cocoa.
I was asked recently how the logistics of planning such an event work. I gave a few details about the songsheets, cocoa, etc., and then summarized with, “and then people show up and ask how they can help. It’s FLC. People ask for a task to do, and it all gets done.” So thank you to all volunteers to stepped up to manage the myriad little tasks, and did them joyfully and well. I look forward to singing again with you next year!
