Celebrating A Great Year

Yesterday we celebrated our last day of Kids With A Vision for the year!

I cannot express what a blessing it is for us to get to do this KWAV's thing.  Sure, it is a lot of work.  Sure, there are times where I think, "Is this worth it?"

Here are some random shots of our last day together, and every one of them speaks very loudly that THIS IS WORTH IT!

our kindergarten kiddos on their weekly pilgrimage to KWAV's

... The Jump Over The River Trophies being admired ...

... One of our Junior Counselors leading the kids in "warm up exercises" for the final Jump Over The River contest ...

... Our JOTR Champ, Ryan McManigal!  I cannot believe how far these kids can jump.  The trophy may look like a baseball trophy from 1983.  Just ignore that.  (and, thank you to our wonderful neighbors who donated their old trophies to the cause!) ...

other JOTR champs: Lisi Sanders (top upper grade girl), Kaleb Annett (top lower grade boy), Indy Johnson (top lower grade girl)

 ... The kids hearing from Margo Day - an amazing woman headed to Africa to work for World Vision ...

And then, this year, we started a new tradition.  We gave our "Character Awards" to all of our KWAV's kiddos.  We brought each child up and gave them a certificate and shared the character quality we were honoring them with and why (friendliness, gentleness, courage, respectfulness, responsibility, etc.).

These are just a few photos that captured the moment with some of the kids.  They were so proud of themselves and so proud of each other.  It was MY FAVORITE MOMENT of all of our KWAV's gatherings.  

We are so thankful for the opportunity to partner with these families and to invest in these kids.  Truly.

I know we have quite a few people who have found this blog via pinterest or some other link to our famous "blessing bags" post.  I would encourage anyone who is wondering if they should try to do this in their neighborhood to go ahead and take the plunge.  Grab some kids and moms and start your own version of Kids With A Vision.  You will be so thankful you did.