Kids First Family Fellowship

Last week, Kids First had the INCREDIBLE opportunity to partner with Revival City Church and Starfish Jamaica. We helped serve some of the 70 families of children with disabilities that Larry and Debbie, of Starfish, serve every single day. We did this through hurricane relief projects, front porch fellowship, worship nights, food packaging and delivering, prayer, and just sharing the love of Jesus everywhere we went.

You may notice there are not a lot of pictures of the families themselves or the work we were doing and that is in part to protect those families and this ministry. But we hope the photos we are sharing gives you a tiny glimpse into the amazing work that is being done in Jamaica for the Kingdom of God every single day.

Here are a few of our kids enjoying a fun end to a great week!

We are taking a moment to publicly honor the life of one of our dearest friends and longest serving Kids First volunteers, Fred McLean. He is hard working, joyful, the best teller of dad jokes, the door holder, the food passer, the small group leader, and one of the kid's favorite faces to see at Kids First each Friday afternoon. He served us, keeping big smiles on our faces, every Friday for almost 16 years. A few weeks ago, he moved on from this earth to live in peace and wholeness in heaven. We love you and miss you every day Mr. Fred. Thank you for all you gave us in your beautiful years on this earth❤️

We are having SUCH an awesome start to our spring semester! Here are a few close ups of some our fun, silly, hard working, AMAZING kids this year!

We had a visitor this Friday at Kids First from our VERY FIRST kid that ever came to the program over 20 years ago!! That "kid" is a beautiful over 30 year old woman now and is back working in the community she grew up in! We love you Keke!!

Before our kids start back in late January, our Executive Director is hard at work at UGA learning about ways to make Kids First even better than it already is! The future is exciting!

What a truly amazing time we had at our annual Kids First Christmas Party!! We ate, we played, we got presents, but most importantly we heard and reflected on the story of Jesus! How amazing! God is so good!!

Merry Christmas to Kids First!! A few months ago we were able to purchase our very first passenger van to help transport all of our awesome kiddos to and from our afterschool program. Thank you to all of our generous partners who helped make this happen. We especially want to thank the Moss family and the Mahoney family for their contributions towards this wonderful addition to our ministry!

Driving our van around Athens this season feels like a giant Christmas Present! And while I love presents for myself, I love giving presents to our kids and families even more! Our big Christmas event is coming up SOON and we need your help! At this event we serve dinner, give out gifts to all of our children, and tell the Christmas story! It is such a wonderful time! If you would like to volunteer to make this event wonderful, please use the links below or contact me directly!

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C054AA4A929A0FBC34-58798546-kids #/

This Thanksgiving, Kids First had the joy of serving our community with meals, love, and hope. All of our wonderful supporters and volunteers helped make it possible.

From hot food to warm smiles, last week's events reminded us why this ministry exists: to walk with families physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. We were able to serve Thanksgiving dinner at our two weekend outreach programs as well as host an amazing Thanksgiving celebration with the families of our midweek ministry. At that celebration we had a blast eating together, playing games, developing deeper relationships, and being reminded of all we have to be thankful for because of the work of Jesus in our lives!

This GIVING TUESDAY, we’re inviting you to help us continue this mission. Every gift today fuels the work we do all year — meals, tutoring, mentoring, outreach, and discipleship!

Will you join us in supporting our wonderful families?

GIVE HERE - https://www.kidsfirstfam.com/give

We have had a blast at Kids First lately! Here are a few snapshots of the kids doing a variety of things over the past month: serving at a food distribution, learning about the water cycle, making edible walls of Jericho, and hanging out together!

We had such a wonderful time at our mom's dinner last night! We ate pizza, went shopping, did a craft, and spent time together! We also talked about how God both hears us and speaks to us and that if we will tune into Him our lives are forever changed for the better. That led to a wonderful time of prayer, sharing, and decorating prayer journals!

Oh also, the kids got to enjoy pizza and a movie in a separate space so the moms could have a break but the kids could have fun too!

What a night! It was so special and God is so good!

Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers and staff who helped to make this a wonderful night!

WE NEED YOU!

Happy Monday all! I hope you're doing well! Soon we will be starting another wonderful fall semester with Kids First and one of the KEY ingredients to every successful semester is volunteers! If you or someone you know might be interested in mentoring a child in need in the Athens area, please contact me at [email protected]!