Branden Keath: Serve Days

Branden Keath, a freshman at ELCO High School, is an active participant in his church’s youth group. Within this group, he is able to help out with “Serve Days” that his church organizes. Here, he shares one of the recent “Serve Days” he was able to participate in.

“My youth group and I went to Brooklyn, New York last November. We were there for three days and did several projects in their community. Some of us went to meals on wheels, helped at a lady’s house from the church we stayed at, stayed back at the church and did some projects to fix it up, lastly I personally went to the United senior center. There I met some really nice people who put their pride and joy into the senior center. I helped this guy named Dave and another lady crush box’s, helped participate in an exercise class, served their meal and dried there trays. The following day we went to a soup kitchen where we helped cook a meal and give it to the homeless. Although it was hectic we all worked as a team and served. We also packed them a bagged lunch for the following day since no soup kitchens would be open because it’s Sunday. Later that night we split up into several groups and gave out blessing bags. These bags were filled with several goodies for the homeless. Personally for my group we walked, and walked, and walked and we couldn’t really find anybody. Then we decided to go down in the subways and the one worker named Tiesha let us on for free and told us different stops to get off at. She was a huge help and my group was so thankful for her. We got rid of all our bags except one. It was so great to help out these people. Then Sunday came we got to watch the New York City Marathon together and encourage everyone running. It was a great mission trip just seeing everyone come together as a whole serving and doing what we love.”

“What I personally got out of it is don’t judge a book by its cover. You don’t actually know what their story is until you take the time to talk with them. I know for me I am shy around different people but this trip definitely got me out of my comfort zone a little bit. It was an awesome experience just to see everyone getting along working together and serving the community of Brooklyn.”

Branden is a good example for ELCO Cares because he and his experiences not only reflect the philosophy that service uplifts us—he also shows that they can teach us things about people. Service can bring us to understand others more and become more connected to them as we see what they go through. Empathizing with others can help us to realize what positive things we have in our own lives, as well. Like he said, service can be hard and can bring us out of our comfort zone, but it is totally worth it in the end. Thank you Branden for your story and your example! Happy Sunday everyone! :)