Octoberfest is right around the corner and it marks the start of our fund raising efforts to send out youth to 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans.

The ELCA has a National youth event once every 3 years. This event is a big deal ans since it is one that generates national observance, it is very, very large. Over 35,000 youth attended this event and surveys have shown that it was extremely meaningful to those who participated.

The last event was held in 2009, 4 years after the devastating hurricane and yet there was still many, many projects within the city that needed to be worked on. As we all know, New Orleans is still trying to rebuild and they have opened there arms to having our Church return to New Orleans and work together building lasting relationships, deeper faith, greater understanding of service and of course having some fun too.

It is our goal to raise enough money to send all of the students who are interested in going to this amazing event- for some of our youth, it will be the only opportunity, our younger youth will have the opportunity to go twice- lucky them and our older youth, those that will be in college, are encouraged to sign up as volunteers with the ELCA and attend as a part of our church and we would therefore include them in our fundraising.

As you might guess, these type of events can be quite costly and the cost has not been released, so we are current planning around $1000 per person. In order to raise that amount of money we are going to start now with a silent auction. Stay tuned for more information as Octoberfest gets closer.