“Use your voice for kindness, your ears for compassion, your hands for charity, your mind for truth, and your heart for love.”  Anonymous

Thanks to our generous neighbors next door at The Way, we have wifi!!! And thank you Donna for helping set it up and making us feel so welcome.

After having a great community day on Sunday, today the group did the not glamorous job of moving all our tools, supplies, cups, plates and kitchenware. They did a tremendous job moving and organizing all the gear and because of their efforts, the program will run that much smoother for the whole summer.

After our hard day’s work, we were rewarded with a delicious Italian meal of baked ziti (with spinach and without) and a salad. A nice filling meal after a long day of work.

The evening wrapped up with a reflection on memories. We were each given a card with a question triggering a memory. We shared our question and answer with the group and got to know each other a little better.

Just a reminder that The Way will be open Monday, Wednesday and Fridays from 10-3 starting next Wednesday. Wednesday we have a volunteer who wants to teach crocheting to any that want to learn and on Friday we have two programs to offer. One volunteer will be helping you to tie-dye t-shirts and another will be teaching self defense classes.  If you are planning on taking part in either of the crocheting or tie-dying activities, please let us know so we can have all the materials needed. You can respond with your name and age (and t-shirt size if plan on tie-dying) on Facebook, email: pvprogram@gmail.com, or call or text: (304) 890-2337. Besides these activities, you are more than welcome to come for the open gym or other craft projects. Keep a watch here for more updates of programming.

This Saturday marks the beginning of the 19th PV Summer Program in Wyoming County, WV. Volunteers from all over the country will be spending time living in community, doing service and reflecting on their experiences. If you are joining us, we can’t wait to see you! If you are unable to be with us, please keep us in your thoughts for a safe and productive summer. We will be posting throughout the summer so you can join us for the adventure ahead!!!

Better late than never, right? We wanted to share pictures from the Seattle week this year. We have had some upload issues and haven’t been able to share pictures of the volunteers and all the wonderful work the volunteers did during their service week. Enjoy!

Monday: Low Income Housing Institute

Tuesday: Nature Consortium, Site Seeing Downtown, Alki Beach Fire

Wednesday: St. Francis House, Woodland Park Zoo

Thursday: Operation Sack Lunch, Union Gospel Mission Night Rescue

Friday: WestSide Baby

Wyoming County Youth – Come join us this summer!

We will be opening up The Way Youth Center in Mullens, WV 3 days a week during July. We would love to have you come and join us! Below is more information and a calendar of special programs we will be doing. Updates will be made on the PV Facebook account.

Hope to see you this summer!

As they have the last several years, the Schletzbaums held the fundraiser for the PVs based around farming and gardening. Scott Chartier, from a local company, donates seeds and a cash prize to support the event. This year’s event brought in a whopping total of $1,810! The first place winner who won seed was Tom Halling. And second place was Michael Schletzbaum who took the cash prize.

Thank you Lucy and Dan for having this event to support the PVs!!!!

Friday morning the rain was back and greeted us in the morning as we pulled our weary bodies out of bed (well off the floor from our air mattresses) after a late night with UGM. Today we worked with WestSide Baby in White Center, just 10 minutes from church. WestSide Baby was founded in 2001 by a new mom who recognized the stresses of caring for an infant. WestSide Baby is the only social service agency in West King county area that collects, inspects and distributes free diapers, clothing, cribs and safety gear for babies and children. More than 120 local social service agencies, including shelters and food banks, rely upon us to provide critical necessities for low-income families. WestSide Baby distributed more than 1.2 million free diapers in 2015 along with 848 car seats, 316 cribs and clothing for infants and children up to size 12. The PVs have worked with WestSide Baby each of the four years of the Seattle PV Program. The first two years we helped to recycle car seats, last year we sorted clothes and unloaded a semi-truck of diapers. This year, we painted a new office space as well as helped to move the warehouse around so that they could get flooring put in the following day. We worked alongside the volunteer coordinator and the programs coordinator and learned so much about all that WestSide Baby does and how much it helps those in need in the community.

After we finished up at WestSide Baby we headed north for a Potluck with friends and family who are also supporters of the PVs. Before others arrived, we had our closing reflection service and then helped to finish setting things up. It was a nice evening where volunteers could talk about what they did during the week and the locals could share their own experiences. We ate good food, pickle-ball was played and as the evening drew cooler, we had a fire where people could warm up.

We had a great week and none of this would have been possible if we didn’t have a place to lay our heads at night. Thank you to Our Lady of Guadalupe in West Seattle for giving us such a comfortable home for the week. What an example of outreach you all are!

Thursday was a busy day for the PVs in Seattle. We had not one but two service activities for the day. In the morning we worked with Operations Sack Luch an organization who has provided more than 5.5 million no cost hot meals and sack lunches in the greater Seattle area.  They serve 3 meals a day, seven days each week. I encourage you to read more about the organization as they are doing fantastic work that I can’t begin to touch upon here. The PVs helped to prepare the lunch meal that would be served in four different locations. After lots of chopping and can opening in the kitchen we served at the site where we prepared the meal, the Compass Center. After service was done and we ate, we packed everything up and headed up to the outdoor meal site under the free way. Here we served 200 meals to people who were waiting when we arrived. They received the same hot meal that was served earlier in the day. It was explained to us earlier that some people can’t go into soup kitchens for meals because of PTSD, fear of their things being stolen and/or their companion animals. By offering a meal, no questions asked outside, OSL is proving a fantastic service to people in need.

At night we worked with Union Gospel Mission. We have worked with UGM in the past in their mens shelter kitchen preparing meals, but this year we tried something different going out in their van at night for their “Search and Rescue” program. We met up with UGM staff and a couple of local volunteers for an orientation before we headed out for our night. The UGM Search and Rescue program goes out into the streets to provide blankets, food, hygiene kits and clothing to those living on the streets. The van had 7 stops planned before the 11:30pm end time, all in downtown Seattle. The van would pull up to an area and the UGM intern would go with a couple of volunteers into the areas where there were people living (under freeways, on benches, in the wooded areas) and let them know the van was there if they needed anything. They always leave a couple of seats open in the van so if anyone wants to come back to the shelter they can. It was really impressive how much of a relationship the UGM staff has with the individuals they are serving . They remember names and faces, ask after their well-being and even literally giving their shirt off their backs. They were both an inspiration sharing their own experiences of homelessness. Our last stop of the night we met a young man who had recently moved to Seattle from California and when offered a ride back to the shelter he decided to come. It is nice know that UGM is out on the streets daily to offer comfort and support to the city’s growing homeless population, and to know that one less person is sleeping on the streets because of them. It was truly a life changing experience.

In between these two fantastic service activities we decided to stay downtown and do a little site-seeing. We went to Pike Place Market, some did the Underground Tour and we met up for dinner at Seattle’s iconic seafood restaurant on the waterfront, Ivars.

Thursday was a long day, a challenging day, but ultimately a day where we learned and grew in our understanding and compassion for those living on the streets.

Today we returned, for the third time, to work at St. Francis House in Seattle.The traveling PVs of week were joined by five local PVs for the day, so we had a mighty group of 10! St. Francis House is established in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi to be a presence in Seattle to serve those in need and to inspire simplicity and charity in its volunteers and those they serve. Volunteers each were assigned tasks for the day. Two served hot coffee, pastries and sandwiches, all of which were donated, to anyone who came in the door. Others were working in the different areas helping clients to pick out clothing, distribute hygiene kits, bedding, household items, furniture, food and other items that were donated to St. Francis House. Towards the end of the day a young man came in needing a mattress but had no way of hauling it to his apartment a few blocks away. Since we had a mini van we offered to help the young man and deliver his mattress and other larger items that he had picked out at Francis House. We were happy to help in this small way.

After we left Francis House we made the short drive over to the Woodland Park Zoo for a couple of hours and then headed back to the church for dinner. Tonight we had a tasty treat of tuna noodle casserole (thanks Lucy!) and salad. It was especially tasty have a hard days work.

On Tuesday morning we woke up to sunny skies, but cool weather. We did not have to be at our site until 10am and needed to be out of the church by 8am, so we all went down to my apartment and I made pancakes for everyone. Also convenient, the site for the day was just above my apartment. After our stomachs were full we headed up to our site for the day, via many flights of steps and uphill about 500 feet, to the College Street Ravine in West Seattle.

For the day we worked with Nature Consortium. Nature Consortium is a grassroots, community-based organization whose mission is to connect people, arts and nature. They produce an EcoARTs Program, an Urban Forest Restoration Program and the Arts in Nature Festival. The PVs worked with their Urban Forest Restoration Program at the Duwamish Head Park alongside volunteers from the EPA. Our task as a group was to bring in 5 gallon buckets of mulch down the trail about 1/4 mile to cover an area where another group had pulled invasive English Ivy to keep it from reappearing. We formed a line and had quite the bucket passing process to get it all down the trail. By lunchtime we were done with the mulch project, so after a break we were tasked with continuing to take out invasive ivy further down the trail. Staying true to their mission of connecting people, arts and nature, a local banjo player (and his dog) was brought in to serenade us as we pulled ivy. Not only did we get a lot of work done during the day, we learned a lot about the natural ecosystem in the northwest.

Tuesday we also did quite a bit of site seeing and enjoying the local area. The PVs took a water taxi across Elliott Bay to downtown Seattle and walked around on the waterfront. After arriving back in West Seattle we had a beach fire down on Alki Beach in West Seattle, roasting hot dogs and s’mores over the fire. We were joined for the evening by a few family and friends, making it a fabulous day.

(We are still having problems uploading new pictures. We will share once the problem is solved.)