The Community Beat

 This was a new event for our church and it was designed to bring the community together and to serve as a food drive for Kids' Food Basket and Flat River Outreach Ministries. The event committee found three food trucks that would not charge a fee just to show up so they were our trucks. Two Scotts Barbecue, Kool Breeze, and Ohana Hawaiian Ice set up in the church parking lot. The church offered wine and water for sale as well as craft beer from Gravel Bottom Brewery (no water was turned into wine at this event). People slowly started to show up and over the next three hours, several hundred people came through. The bounce house and balloon animals provided great entertainment for the little ones. Food truck lines became long but no one seemed to mind. Live music was provided by Flatland Grip and they enhanced the event without over-powering it. Kudos to the band! Tables were filled with people, just happy to be together on this beautiful night. The generosity of the attendees resu...

This event was planned and organized by Edward Kuo. The backstory below is by Edward. "The Abundant Love Project: In September 2019, The Community Church in Ada invested the proceeds from a land sale by giving $242 to each of its members, encouraging members to apply the funds in individualized ways to bless the world. This event is part of a series of themed social events, raising awareness of specific causes and funding others to replicate this process to positively affect the community around them. We debuted the series with the 'Abundant Bourbon Project' this past fall and raised nearly $750 for the Ronald McDonald House of Western Michigan. We hope the 'Abundant Sushi Project' can raise around $1,000." Edward chose Heartside Ministry as the beneficiary of this event, and a diverse group of 20 people gathered at the Simple Fish Restaurant for our 'omakase' experience. (The phrase 'omakase' is most commonly used in Japanese restaurants when ...

  Back in March of 2019, we received funds to provide a hot meal once a month for eight Sundays at Heartside Ministry, to be served when the church service was over. Our first lunch took place on May 26, 2019. We were all pretty happy with how it went and made some minor food quantity adjustments for next time. Ada Fresh Market worked with us on getting the best deal we could on fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and we picked up the cookies.  June 16, 2019 July 21, 2019 We added cole slaw to the mix. Each month, it was a great opportunity to get to meet new people and realize we were not that different from each other. Some volunteers wished there was more opportunity to sit down and talk to people. Attending the Heartside church service would be one way to spend more time with people but that wasn't always an option for folks. We had difficulty finding volunteer servers over the summer so our next lunch didn't take place until October 20, 2019. We always made sure the...