Go Cincinnati

On Saturday I was fortunate enough to partake in Go Cincinnati. 'What's that' you ask?

Well, (as I copy and paste from the http://www.gocincinnati.net/ site)...

Each year, an army of volunteers impact Cincinnati through various service projects in a one-day, citywide blitz of compassion. Working alongside other churches, we love on hundreds of community-based organizations throughout our city.Last year, over 4,000 people from Crossroads and other partner churches went out into the city to serve the homeless, pray with the broken, paint schools, clean camps and help make a difference in our city. This year we're upping our impact: 5,000 volunteers at over 200 projects around the city.

That 5,000 number got blown away. I think they were talking crazy numbers like 6,400!

My friends Bethany and Andy worked with me. We had the glorious job of cleaning up trash on the West End. Boy howdy, those are a few pretty dirty blocks! Seriously, there was a lot in between some houses (and these are beautiful historic houses that haven't been taken care of) that people just threw their trash. Literally, I was pulling trash bags full of trash and putting it into my heavy duty trash bag. We swept the street, used a weedwacker to get rid of pesty overgrown weeds and met some people in the neighborhood. I should note that I didn't personally work the weedwacker...I think that was a good decision on thier part! Afterwards, we held a mini picnic up the street from where we worked. We invited people as we worked to come get a free hot dog and play cornhole. It was definitely something somewhat out of my element, but it felt good to do something for someone.

And after our mini picnic, there was the BIG picnic. Go Grub. Now, this was such an awesome event to see. An executive chef at Boca and Nada (yummo if you haven't been to them!) came up with the idea to feed everyone after Go Cincinnati. He personally called other 9 executive chefs from top restaurants in the city to volunteer their time, food, service and chef skills to feed everyone. Not only did they feed the 6,500 volunteers, but anyone we pulled in off the street. Homeless or not homeless. Hungry or not hungry. There was amazing food (talking pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, fancy schmancy food here folks), rhymthic music, and lots of people watching. You couldn't help but smile at what was actually happening and knowing that bigger things were happening than just handing out free food.