Investment Activity

This afternoon we had our annual investment activity for the youth group at Calvary. Basically, the activity runs this way...teens come w/two dollars a piece and a good idea. They form groups usually broken up guy/girl w/4-6 in each group. They meet at church then break up w/sponsors to go to their houses for lunch and a brainstorming session. Then, the groups go out for a few hours putting their ideas and two dollars together to make a reasonable profit. The resulting money is then pooled together at the end by all the groups & given to a missionary (which is usually determined by who is coming to missions conference a couple weeks afterward).

Well, Dave Gee and I were given a group of 5 guys (7th-9th grade) to work with. We split up into two groups & went our separate ways with these basic prodigious ideas: cleaning inside (possibly outside) of cars & if that fails, buy candy at a low price then resell for 2-3x its value. I took Adam, Zach, & Dustin and did just that. We were successful in washing only 3 total cars & cleaning inside one. After many rejections on the car idea, we decided to move to candy which worked well for us as well. As you can see in the pics, they took great pride in their work...often getting themselves more wet than the cars but they enjoyed it. We had an awesome time & ended up raising $75 from our group of 3 guys alone (a 700% profit...pretty awesome). The teens collectively were able to raise over $1,100 for missionary Jim Hayes in Thailand...so, all in all a great activity w/an awesome Biblical principle to back it up which is seen in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30, so let verse 29 sum it up for ya'.

29 "For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away."