Sidewalk Ministries - 7th Annual BBQ

The Lord blessed us with a beautiful day to enjoy our Annual Sidewalk Ministries BBQ!  It has become a tradition to enjoy delicious BBQ by Pit Master Scott Hudson and the team from Batson-Cook who created and have faithfully planned and sponsored this event for the last 7 years!  Guests were treated to "Sidewalk Swag Bags" donated by Board Member Alan Fickling. We appreciate The Covenant School of Jacksonville for hosting this event! Thank you to all who attended - Sidewalk Ministries truly depends on your partnership and could not expand our services without YOU!! We are very thankful to all of our supporters!

With over 100 people attending, we enjoyed a great meal, information booths about the programs of Sidewalk Ministries, and an engaging panel moderated by Board Member, Ed Varnes, sharing updates about exciting areas of growth and new initiatives! We announced our first-ever grant from The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida to support our Sidewalk Excellence in Education and Knowledge (SEEK) tutoring program. We also announced our search for a Program Director to Launch our "Pathways" program to combine our SEEK and Career Expos and expand our Life preparation of Sidewalk teens to include Financial Literacy and Driver's training. Please pray as we find the right person to lead these areas of need and to fulfill our Mission - "Reaching youth with the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ by teaching, leading, and mentoring so that they find Hope and fulfill God’s purpose for their lives!"

We continue our weekly "Funday School" mission in five underserved communities throughout Jacksonville. All five sites are well-established and develop deep relationships with our kids and families. Site Leader and panelist, Angela Warren, shared about our connection with a family at Desert Winds. Because of growing relationships, we were able to provide beds for kids who had been sleeping on the sofa for years. We also came alongside a young pregnant mom, encouraging her to keep her baby and assisting with their needs. God is working through our weekly sites and we are excited to be a part of HIS work! Through these relationships, we can rotate about 50 kids attending First Baptist church on Sundays and Wednesdays (we are limited in transportation to taking about 30 kids at a time). FBCJax, a long-time supporter of Sidewalk, continues to partner with us in hosting our kids at VBS, Summer Camp, and our Happy Birthday Jesus Christmas Party.

Our panelist, Caleb Floyd featured our Teen Development initiatives. Caleb along with Abby Lynn Adams have established a regular Bible Study with about 15 teens at Desert Winds! They meet twice a month leading our teens to engage with the Bible! Both Caleb and Abby Lynn were recruited by our Ministry Director, Joni Alexander who trained them to lead Power Up Clubs. In addition to working with Sidewalk, Joni is the founder of Power Up Clubs which meet in 80+ host homes all over Jacksonville in a single week (including all of Sidewalk's communities)!

We also featured Charles Smith "CJ" as a panelist, is a longtime "Sidewalk Kid" who decided to follow Jesus at one of our HBJ parties about 4.5 years ago. Now, at 19, he feels called as a youth pastor and was just accepted into Trinity Baptist College here in Jacksonville. CJ is already having a significant impact for Jesus, making disciples of his friends. We are proud to support him in his journey into ministry, he will be working with Sidewalk part-time as he pursues his Biblical Studies degree! At the BBQ, we had technical difficulties in sharing his social media posts, so please enjoy here as well as photos of the event below!