be the change you wish to see in the world.

I have been the biggest slacker when it comes to my blog despite the fact that a number of noteworthy events have taken place in the past couple months.  Recently my church, along with 49 other churches, teamed up to bless the city of Cincinnati.  Crossroads has been a part of this venture for years and I have had the privilege of working on beautifying a number of different sites around the city.  This year I worked at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore which sells donated household items such as dishwashers, doors, bathtubs, furniture, etc. and all the proceeds go directly to Habitat.  The idea behind the Restore is to at least double the number of homes built in the tri-state area per year.  So our job was to clean the appliances and get them ready to be sold.

One of the service projects was even featured on the news: here And I'm sure my church will have a recap video available, which I will post as soon as it's released.

Afterward we headed down to Mt. Washington Park where, for the 2nd year in a row, 9 of Cincinnati's top chefs have prepared a FREE lunch for all of the 7000 volunteers, plus the entire surrounding community.  It was an awesome opportunity to break bread with the people we were serving.  There is music, dancing, games and face painting for kids, and of course lots of delicious food!  This awesome after party has been lovingly deemed "GO GRUB!"

Pictured front left with the crazy curly hair is my friend Lisa who took all the photos provided in this entry.  She has a bunch more I hope to share as soon as she gets them posted. It's so awesome to have friends to share this kind of experience with and make a difference together.  She had goosebumps despite the fact that it was a good 70 or so degrees outside because she realized how rare it is for people of all walks of life to come together to share a meal and celebrate the love we have for our city.

To my pleasant surprise, I ran into my homeless (at least I've assumed he's homeless) friend Booger.  My friend Lisa and I met him last year, as she was having me take pictures with random people we ran into, Booger being one of them.  This year, Lisa and I had the distinct pleasure of becoming official Boogerettes.  He made us recite a pledge and everything, which I'm pictured to the right doing.  Go Cincy and Go Grub have just been great experiences and I cannot wait to see the many ways we continue to bless the city in the years to come!!