2018 Ashley Micro Grant Reports

In 2018, sixteen micro grants were funded, for a total amount of $6,700. Highlights of the year include

Fall Harvest Festival at Union UCC in St. Louis Park

A good time was had by all! We danced to a professional square dance caller and shared a meal together. A wonderful way of being intergenerational: moving, talking, laughing and eating!

Messy Church, Zwingli United Church of Christ at Berne (West Concord, Minnesota)

With your help, we introduced Messy Church at our Berne Wood-Fired Pizza (BWFP) events this past summer. We had 13 of these events—every Wednesday evening in June, July and August. They brought 1,000 to 2,500 people onto our rural church grounds each week for brick oven pizza and live music.

We prepared three outdoor crafts or activities, one of which was always a painting station (very popular). The activities were connected to a Bible story, which was shared in the last 15 minutes of the hour, usually in the sanctuary inside the church. Examples included first aid kits (Good Samaritan story), oobleck/pig swill (prodigal son story), a treasure hunt (lost coin and sheep stories), a tornado in a bottle (Jesus stills the storm), and snakes and a turtle from the local nature center (first human naming the animals).