Hope Church puts on annual festival

Hope Church on Saturday sponsored its annual Fall Festival and Talent Show for kids and adults with special needs.

The event, which is in its seventh year, is an outreach for both adults and kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The large gym and smaller rooms had places where games were played. Also inside there was a talent show, food areas, a room with swimming pools filled with Legos, inflatable bouncy slides, face painting, a manicure station and music and sensory enhancement spaces.

There also were many tables set up where parents, friends and care givers could learn about what resources were available at the church, if needed.

Hope Church doesn’t just provide space once a year for an event tailored for people with special needs. Hope has a ministry devoted to them called “Hope 4 Macky & Friends.”

“Macky” is Macky Oates, who was a young man when his parents came to visit Hope in the earlier years of the church’s history. The Oates family was looking for a church the family could call home. Macky has developmental challenges and he wanted to know if the church could be not only a place of worship, but also a resource that could provide services.

“Hope’s viewpoint is that we not only welcome the families with special needs members, we want them to be here,” said Karen Walls, director for Hope 4 Macky & Friends. “On Sundays we have volunteers waiting to help the families enter and get settled in so they can enjoy their experience here. If God made them, we want them to be here.”

For information, visit hopepres.com/special-needsministry.