Serving for a good cause
Several students and chaperones ventured to Pederson Pumpkin Patch near Echo on Saturday to serve lunch as a fundraiser for a scheduled mission trip next June.
Hope Lutheran Church, which has hosted a mission trip every other year for the past six years, will be embarking on a trip to the Niagara Falls area in New York next June.
“This mission trip will include any students that go to school in Minneota,” said Terri Myhre, a coordinator for the mission trip.
“We will be working in the soup kitchens at shelters serving meals to the homeless, working with under privileged children, and focusing on community beautification.”
There will be 59 students and 12 chaperones going on the mission trip. The group will leave on June 23 and return on June 29.
They will fly from Minneapolis to Detroit and then rent vehicles to drive out to the coast of Lake Erie and Niagara Falls near the U.S./Canada border.
Other mission trips hosted by Hope Lutheran Church included Daytona Beach, FL, in 2015 and San Diego, CA in 2017.
This will be a busy week for the mission group. After they served a lunch of pulled pork sandwiches, chips and bottled water at Pederson Pumpkin Patch 34 miles northeast of Minneota, they were serving hot dogs, BBQs and coney dogs at Wednesday night's final regular-season football game at K.P. Kompelien Field.
And they will serve a beef commercial supper at Hope Lutheran Church from 5-7 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 21.
The mission workers will also hold a fundraiser on Sunday, Dec. 2 in which they make and sell lefse, Belgian cookies and truffles.
“We have different groups of kids and adults serving the various lunches,” said Myhre.
“We try to split it up so the same people don't have to do each one.”
Several people from the Minneota area came to Pederson Pumpkin Patch on Saturday to help support the mission trip fundraising efforts, while also purchasing pumpkins from the Pederson’s large pumpkin patch.
There were also games and a bouncy house for kids, as well as vendors selling various merchandise and homemade products.
“The community support we've been getting has been phenomenal,” said Myhre.
“We've even had one person (who requested anonymity) in Minneota who has pledged to match anything we raise up to $500.”