When Craig Cole arrived eight years ago as youth pastor at Church of Genesis, he made one thing clear.

There would be no youth group.

“I always stress to our kids that we’re not a youth group,” he said. “We’re a youth ministry. Youth groups kind of think of themselves as hanging out together. Ministries think outside of themselves and do things for others.”

Thus, one of Cole’s first orders of business at the 303 N. Cedar St. church was to create Servant Saturdays. Once a month, the teens under his guidance — collectively known as Soul Patrol — gather to lend a hand with someone’s yard work, painting or cleaning. They’ve also pitched in on Mahoningtown clean-up days, helped out at community service agencies and even pumped gas.

Their only reward? The satisfaction of having made a difference.

“It’s such a good experience because you see how many people you’ve helped,” Union High senior Destiny Bloom said. “Like whenever we go and pump gas, it surprises so many people that teenagers would actually do that and not want anything for it — just do it to help out.”

Some don’t understand the generosity.

Josh Kohnen, also a Union student, recalled one man who asked the teens to take $5 for their efforts, and when he was told they weren’t seeking donations, he tossed the money on the ground and left. Another also repeatedly insisted that he be allowed to give a financial gift.

“So finally I say, ‘OK,’ and he says ‘Hold out your hand,’” Kohnen said. “Then he pours this whole can of change — like $10 worth — in my hand.

“I’m like, ‘Thanks,’ and he said, ‘I had to get rid of my change.’ “

On rare occasions, someone will even take advantage of the outreach. Kohnen tells the story of a man Destiny approached with the offer to pump his gas.

“He said, ‘OK, but I’ve got to fill up this.’ It was a 50-gallon drum. She had to sit there for like 20 minutes, pumping the gas, pumping the gas.

“It was so funny looking back, seeing her standing there, not moving an inch. We’d all get like five or six cars, and she’d still be there, pumping gas, pumping gas.”



THE MESSAGE

Billy Wansitler, a Geneva College sophomore, noted that churches sometimes aren’t perceived as caring about their communities, and that Servant Saturdays are a chance to shatter that illusion.

They also, Sam Heaberlin added, provide the opportunity to clear up any similar misconceptions about God.

“It’s such a blessing to people because you can show them that God isn’t just rules and regulations,” the 2009 Union High grad said. “It’s more of a relationship with people, and how you want to show them who God is and how great he is.”

In 2009, Soul Patrol decided to up the ante.

In addition to their monthly efforts, members opted to take on a year-long project centered around a Habitat for Humanity home being built in Union Township. The group previously had traveled eight times to York during summer breaks to help build Habitat homes there.

But Cole — who’s spending all of 2010 teaching on selflessness during Soul Patrol’s Wednesday night meetings — wanted to do more.

“We’d done pretty much everything there is to do,” he said, “from the Crisis Shelter to the (City) Rescue Mission, the Glory Grille at First Presbyterian, visiting a nursing home.

“I love all that stuff, it’s great, but after years of it, I felt like rather than do one little thing a month, let’s take a whole year and do one big thing. Let’s try to mean a whole lot to one person or organization, instead of just a little bit to a bunch of people.”



THE PROJECT

Soul Patrol accepted the challenge and decided to raise money for the Union home. Members set a goal of $5,000 — $4,000 more than the group’s average annual Wednesday night offering.

To reach that, members would have to not only boost their own giving, but also tackle a variety of fundraisers.

The church helped out by paying the teens $50 each week to cut its grass. Kohnen — knowing that the building is surrounded by a blacktop parking lot and concrete sidewalks but for two strips of grass on the east and south sides — jumped at the opportunity.

“I think me and everyone else said, ‘50 bucks for that? Yeah!’ “ he recalled. “The he (Cole) takes me down the street to this huge lot of grass. I’m like, ‘Man, this is going to take forever.’ “

Maybe not forever, but the teens put in 90 minutes to two hours each week to get the job done, Cole estimated.

Destiny, meanwhile, orchestrated a yard sale that netted about $400, and Billy and Josh delivered pizzas for a downtown pizza shop, donating their tips.

“It was a fun day,” Josh said, “but there were a lot of places that we delivered to that were sort of scary. He (Billy) made me run out in the projects and deliver a pizza. I was terrified.”

“Sometimes,” Billy added, “you’d be waiting at a door for like an hour, and someone would finally come out and give you a quarter tip.”

Cole anticipated the fundraisers, and would have liked to lend a hand, but he and the teens agreed that the Habitat project would be entirely in the youths’ hands.

“I told them from the beginning this is your project. Don’t come to me and ask for help,” he said. “That got kind of frustrating because I wanted to jump in and help.

“But mainly, I wanted to encourage them to give out of their own hearts. I knew they were going to have to try to raise some of the money, but I really wanted them to try to be the givers.”

That may have been the toughest lesson of all.

“A lot of us are just in high school or junior high,” Billy said, to which Sam added: “Most of us don’t even have jobs.”

“It’s hard to be sacrificial,” Billy continued, “and take 10 percent of your paycheck and say, ‘I’m going to give this to the offering.’ A lot of teenagers wouldn’t do it. We hoped to be different.”

They were.



THE OUTCOME

Soul Patrol ended up boosting its 2009 offering to $3,300 and raising $700 through various fundraisers. The church’s grass-cutting job provided another $1,200, boosting the final tally to $5,200.

Well, almost final.

Cole and five other youth leaders agreed to kick in $2,500 if the kids met their goal.

So in the end, $7,500 went to Habitat — complementing work the teens also performed at the construction site — and $200 was set aside as seed money for this year’s project, sending 132 shoeboxes full of gifts to Operation Christmas Child

That means Soul Patrol members once again will be looking for ways to come up with the money they need to lend a special helping held. But they’ll also be back out pumping gas, painting fences and performing other chores simply for the joy the receive by doing so.

Much of that comes from seeing the appreciation of those they help. But there’s also a fellowship component that shouldn‘t be discounted.

Josh talked about a day when Soul Patrol members raked leaves for an older woman in the church after there already was snow on the ground.

“It was snowing and it was cold, but it was worth it,” he said. “It was still fun because when you’re with people you’re close to, no matter how hard or boring a job is, it can be fun.”