Wednesday at Raleigh Youth Mission

FPC Newton Middle School Mission Team participated in an Urban Walk of downtown Raleigh where we visited several “spaces” where outreach work was being done. We were given a map with numbers which we had to find the location. Parker, our RYM intern, would then describe the importance of this location.

Stop #1- We visited a new location for a Pay what You Can Restaurant. These are restaurants were you have five options:

Pay what you are able to afford.
Pay what you would typically pay for a similar meal. (We will have a suggested donation)
Pay what you would typically pay, plus an extra donation.
Pay specifically for someone else’s full meal.
Pay by volunteering with us.

Stop #2 Raleigh’s First Parklet- place where two parking spaces are taken up to create a green space for people to sit, read a book and enjoy beautiful flowers. NCSU Design Department created the design with beautiful benches, planters with flowers and greenery.

Stop #3 Nash Park and Moore Park

We compared the two spaces/parks. Nash Park has more trees and fewer homeless people where Moore Park is located near the central Raleigh Bus Center and more people in transition.

Stop #4 Christ Episcopal Church, across from the NC State Capitol Building. This church keeps their sanctuary doors opened during the day for people to get out of the heat and sit, meditate or pray in the air conditioning. How many churches in our area would do the same without a member sitting and watching?

Stop #5-- Water Fountain at the Capitol Building- We were reminded about our baptism and how we take clean water and its availability to people in transition.

Back to FPC Raleigh to pick up corn hole, games, snack packs and cooler of ice water. Youth played cold water with people in the park, distributed the snack packs and the hit was cups of ice water.

The afternoon was spent at Healing Transitions which is a recovering men’s facility in Raleigh. This is a wonderful facility where men go through a 12 step program for a year and leave with a job and a new life. We played volleyball and corn hole with the residents, handed out lots of popsicles and had a great time.