United Church youth group helps other churches, urban programs

Ronald

McDonald House, the Common Roots urban garden, the Spryfield community garden, Turning Point shelter for men, the breakfast program at Brunswick Street United Church: These programs and others are getting a helping hand from a group of United Church youth, doing everything from serving soup to shovelling gravel.

The GO Project was started in Toronto six years ago by United Church minister Michael Shewburg.

“His youth group went on a trip to Montreal and Maine, and thought they wanted something more, with a United Church-centred theology and values, and a mission site in their backyard. So it started in Toronto with them, then after two years it (expanded) to Halifax, then Vancouver,” said Alana Martin, Halifax coordinator for The GO Project.

St. Andrew’s United is the host church for Halifax, which this year is hosting 25 kids aged 13-19, the most since the project came here four years ago. There’s a large group from Bedford, four from St. Andrew’s, others from Halifax, Bridgewater and New Brunswick, and four from Toronto.

“They live and eat at St. Andrew’s. We cook together. The boys sleep in the sanctuary, and the girls are sleeping in the choir room in the basement, on air mattresses. The leaders sleep on site as well,” Martin said.

“They get this experience that they really can’t get anywhere else, living in a church with 24 other youth, and you’re out in a community volunteering every day. And part of The GO Project is discernment workshops. Youth, in these workshops, are guided into thinking about action plans that they can take home from this experience, how they can live GO in their daily lives at home. That’s why we encourage groups to come together, like the Bedford group, because they’ll have that support system when they go home.”

Martin said it’s unusual to have so many local kids taking part. The first year, almost everyone living at St. Andrew’s for 11 days was from Toronto.

The group breaks up into smaller squads and works at three different places each day, and putting together the schedule is the most challenging part of Martin’s work.

“Because there are 25 youth and seven leaders, about 12 different work sites, and everybody is supposed to go to every mission site at least once,” she said. “So it’s this huge puzzle.”

A couple of United Church youth from Halifax are taking part in The GO Project elsewhere this summer, including one girl who is in Vancouver, having joined up for the third summer in a row.

Participants pay $500 plus travel to take part in the project. This is the second summer for 16-year-old Katie Smith of Mississauga.

“My mom is my youth group leader and she got together with the creator of The GO Project to create a mini retreat for my youth group, and then I heard about the 11-day program, which I was a little nervous about at first,” Katie said. “Then I went and had an amazing time, last summer at Islington United in Toronto. I love volunteering. I love meeting new people. I love going to new places.”

It’s Katie’s first time in Halifax, which she chose because it’s cheaper to get to than Vancouver, plus she “just felt like coming down here.”

“I love it here. People are much nicer than in Ontario, so it’s great to be welcomed here,” said Katie, who hasn’t even minded sleeping on an air mattress.

“There are some that have gone flat, but mine is fine.”