Celebrating our friends

OK, time to get caught up.

Tuesday evening of this week saw a few of us light for a few hours at a local banquet facility.  The purpose of our visit was the Annual General Meeting and fundraiser for the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth.  This wonderful group of adolescents and young adults have been a part of our parish life for at least the past year or so, and we ourselves are by far the winners in this relationship.

Last year at this time, we asked the leadership of SACY to consider a possibility that our Beech Street Community Kitchen could be of some help to their clients.  We invited the then Executive Director to tour our facility and to meet some of the people who are here with us (both in a leadership and a participatory role).  The result of this brief meeting, and a few other meetings over the summer, was that in early September we welcomed the first of the young people from SACY to our kitchens.

Over the past year, they have cooked with us two days a month, taking the proceeds of their efforts back to the Action Centre to be shared with others who may 'drop in' for supper that night.  It has been an absolute joy for us to see so many of SACYs clients working with us.  We know only too well how difficult life has been for them.  Most of them are street kids, who for one reason or another have nowhere else to turn, but thanks to the efforts of some unsung heros at SACY these young people are being given another chance.

It was such a joy for us to witness the Peer Mentor program graduation which took place this week.  Some of the graduates have entered our kitchen, have stood beside us, have begun to share with us some of their struggles and joys, so we feel like we're part of the family now.  Even the staff at SACY are among the learners (as we all are), and perhaps this is the true magic of the BSCK: it's a place where all who enter are students, where all who enter find a safe place to tell their tales, where all who enter are invited to experience the joy of accomplishment, and where all who enter are believed in, perhaps more than they believe in themselves.

The current interim Executive Director at SACY described their raison d'être as people who care.  Well if this week's AGM was any indication, we're glad to count such wonderful people among our community partners, among our friends.