Monique Koszty | Banner Lydia Nolen, senior international studies major, fills out a card that will be given out during the SOS trip this summer.
In preparation for their upcoming trip abroad, the Summer of Service United Kingdom team hosted Create and Cultivate, an event showcasing student artwork and homemade crafts as a means to raise funds.
The event, held in Innovator’s Auditorium Feb. 12, welcomed students to purchase homemade cards, bottles, stickers, soaps, succulents and canvas art made by the team in addition to photographs taken by California Baptist University students.
Supporters were gifted with pressed juice and live music and had the opportunity to write words of encouragement to the students on the UK team.
Lisa Orona, sophomore graphic design major, Ashley Costelow, sophomore marketing major, and Jordan Norberg, junior sociology major, were some of the team members who helped make some of the artwork sold at the event.
According to the team, the purpose of the event was to not only raise support for the trip, but to demonstrate to others the focus of their ministry.
“Events like Create and Cultivate are a great way for us to raise funds so we can afford our trips, as well as work as a team and to prepare for something that is greater than anything that any one of us could have done by ourselves,” said Tyler Johnson, junior business administration major. “Working as a team, in this aspect, has really been nice because we can see everyone’s different talents and different strengths and use them to develop a night that can bring CBU students together and ultimately send us off.”
Along with events like Create and Cultivate, the team has done many things to prepare for their summer abroad.
“To prepare for any trip, I believe is a lot of prayer, a lot of studying the word and just immersing yourself in who God is and what he has called you to do,” Orona said. “Through that, we have a heart of passion to serve and to get ready for who we are going to serve and how we are going to serve. “We have to make sure that we are prepared spiritually as well as through books and through training and through real-life situations.”
