Thank you all for serving Saturday! We will have some pictures up as we get them in. What a great day!
Friday April 13th, 2012
Dear servants,
What a day it has been. Some of you may have seen the wonderful article the Santa Maria Times did on the Serve Santa Maria event. It was front page! God has been opening doors for amazing cooperation and collaboration in our city!!!
The Serve Santa Maria Leadership Team had its final meeting with the city this morning. Again, the city is so supportive of this event and has been instrumental in connecting with the media. The media has been contacting us! The event may be on the news Friday evening on KSBY at 5:00 or 6:00. Stay tuned. They may want to do a “live” report from Preskier Park where we will be doing a lot of work. The interview could be dangerous, though, with a pastor (we are sometimes known to have motor mouthJ). Pray this goes well.
There have been numerous people calling the church I serve today wanting to help. God is gathering all kinds of people for this event on Saturday. The Probation Department may be bringing 10-15 kids to teach them the value of community service. There are other groups as well. We are being given the opportunity to demonstrate our love for Christ in our community. We, the people of God, are letting our light shine. So shine on!
Remember, registration is from 8:30 to 9:00. I have attached the registration form we are asking everyone to fill out or (CLICK HERE). If you want you can download it and fill it out ahead of time so when you arrive you can simply hand it in. You will also need to sign a waiver form for the city when you arrive. If you are among the first to arrive at 8:30 we could use some help registering others and helping with the sale of the T-shirts.
We will have a little opening at 9:00 with a couple of songs and a prayer. We always need God’s help in whatever we do!
The T-shirts are supposed to be done on Friday so there won’t be time for any pre-event sales. So come early to get your color and size. The T-shirts cost $8.02. We are selling them for $8.00. If you want to give $9.00 or $10.00 or more it would help us recoup the expense for making them. The Leadership Team thought this could be great publicity in our community.
ABOUT THE PROJECTS
1. Preskier Park
This is where most people are going. We will be planting 40 trees and spreading bark. Bring gloves, metal rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows and a great attitude. Let’s beautify one of our city parks!
2. Grafitti
The city informed us there are NO major needs with grafitti. The last two years this has been a major focus. Perhaps we are winning the battle with grafitti?
3. Removing paper, tape, staples and other visual clutter from telephone poles, stop sign posts, etc.
Why not also remove trash and litter as you drive around? We will provide you with a trash bag, but you will need to bring gloves, putty knives, scrapers, pliers or whatever to remove the clutter. We have divided the city into 19 areas. Let me know if you want to do this. If we get enough volunteers, we hope to do the entire Santa Maria Valley, including Tanglewood and Lake Marie area! Let’s go for it.
4. Pioneer Park
I think we have about 8-10 people who have weed wackers and can knock down the weeds in this park. We could use a few more.
5. Other Park Clean Up
If you would like to take a park in our community and pick up trash, this is something that is always needed. Let me know what park you want or we can assign you one. This could be an easier project for those who have physical limitations.
6. Two houses will be worked on
We have developed a Special Forces Team (People who can work all day and can handle physically demanding challenges). We have enough people on this. Would you like to join the Special Forces Team? Let us know on your registration form. It is one of the questions.
Take pictures and send them to me of the project you are on. My email is CarlNielsenNews@BethelSantaMaria.org It helps tell the story of what we are doing. The Santa Maria Times will be out at Preskier Park taking pictures of the tree planting and bark spreading. Wouldn’t it be a great photo seeing people in lots of colorful Serve Santa Maria T-shirts planting trees? We’ll see.
Thank you to all of you who are giving yourselves as a gift on Saturday. You are giving your time to help beautify our city, helping neighbors in need, and letting your light shine as a person of God!
We will have coffee, juice and donuts for you as you arrive, courtesy of the Santa Maria All-American City Committee. Lunch will be provided by the Salvation Army. All of this is FREE! Just like God’s love that we are giving on Saturday.
The weather is supposed to be around 62, some wind, but no rain. Hurray! Praise God! Bring some water too. See you Saturday morning,
Pastor Carl Nielsen
Bethel Lutheran Church
Wed, Mar 21, 2012 Here is the flyer!
Dear Fellow Servants,
The Leadership Team has met again last night, and we have great news! We have plenty of projects lined up:
~
Planting 50 trees at Preisker Park, helping numerous households meet city code compliance, graffiti removal, sign post beautification, building fences, ~ making wheelchair ramps and many others.
Please save the date; meet at Abel Maldonado Youth Center/Paul Nelson Pool (map) Saturday April 14th, 2012. Signups with complimentary donuts, coffee, and juice will be ready at 8:30 am, with teams put together at 9:00 am. Plan on being finished between noon and 1 pm so we can meet back up at the Abel Maldonado Youth Center to enjoy a free lunch served by the Salvation Army's new Mobile Response Unit "Sally 1". Special thanks and recognition to the Bethel Lutheran Church and the Santa Barbara Foundation!
Sally 1 |
help us transform houses from this |
to this! |
On behalf of the Leadership Team,
Pastor Carl Nielsen
Bethel Lutheran Church
Sat, Jan 28, 2012
Dear fellow servants,
The Leadership Team has met and we have begun planning Serve Santa Maria 3. It will be the Saturday after Easter...April 14, beginning at 9:00. The city of Santa Maria has already contacted us and is seeking our help. The Code Compliance Team of the city has a couple of houses with people who need help and there may be a couple more. We have a logo that is very cool which we hope to put on T-shirts. Serve Santa Maria has received a grant for $5,000 from the Santa Barbara Foundation. What a blessing from God!!!!! God is moving again through this event. We hope many of you can participate. Pass the word and this email.
On behalf of the Leadership Team,
Pastor Carl Nielsen
Bethel Lutheran Church
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Update: The Leadership Team for Serve Santa Maria has decided to postpone the November 5 event. With just over a month before it is supposed to happen, we felt we needed more time to plan it well. We will keep you posted.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
God has blessed the servant event, SERVE SANTA MARIA, a couple of times now. Many expressed an interest in doing another event in 2011. So we have formed a Leadership Team consisting of Pastor Steve Dastic of Vineyard Fellowship, Pastor Josh Johnson of Cornerstone Church, Lynn Spier of First Christian Church, Dr. Warren Gabaree who headed up City Watch 2010 and worships at the Salvation Army and myself, Pastor Carl Nielsen of Bethel Lutheran Church. We are planning another Serve Santa Maria for Saturday, NOVEMBER 5 (Postponed, see above)
Churches, please begin to publicize the date in bulletins and newsletters.
The Leadership Team has met with the Code Compliance Team of the city of Santa Maria and they are looking for 2-3 homes we can serve who need help. This was a huge success last time. We need to contact the Park and Recreation Department to see what they have. People from there are on this email list, so I hope you get this and we can begin the dialogue. How can we help our city? Also on the email list are people from the Santa Maria All America City Task Force. Their committee was a great asset last time as well. It’s time to make connections with others to pull together another awesome day. Let’s see what God has for us.
We have been working with a graphic artist who has donated his time and come up with a nice logo. Perhaps we can have some T-shirts made. We’ll see. It all takes time and money. Does anyone have any connections in this arena?
Recently the Santa Barbara Foundation interviewed me. They like what we are doing in the community with Serve Santa Maria. It is bringing together city officials, businesses, and churches. There is a chance we may (perhaps) receive some money to support the effort we are doing. I ask for your prayers regarding this. We need to ask God’s favor upon this process. Your prayers would be greatly appreciated.
God seems to be blessing what we are doing. All this would not be possible without God’s help. How else do you explain the convergence of so many different groups and people coming together to do what is good, right and pleasing to God? It is a pleasure to serve in a community with so many wonderful people. Let’s do it again.
Pastor Carl Nielsen
Servant of Jesus
