While the Morden Corn & Apple Festival offers new experiences and foods to fairgoers every year, attendees (both local residents and visitors alike) also tend to have their favourite traditions on one of the busiest weekends in the Pembina Valley. Youth For Christ (YFC) is striving to make itself a part of the annual traditions that the community looks forward to — with pancakes.
Ev Thiessen is the Junior High ministries coordinator at YFC Morden, and Reilly Smith is the ministries director at YFC Morden and Pilot Mound.
“We're doing our first annual pancake breakfast,” says Smith. “That's what we want it to be — an every year thing that you can expect at Corn & Apple, where [we’re] starting at 7 in the morning and we're going until 9.”
Smith says that the idea is to provide parade attendees with breakfast before the event. Even those in the parade will be able to enjoy a warm meal since YFC will be ready with takeout containers.
The pancake breakfast will take place in the YFC backyard at 809a Stephen Street in Morden. The meal will be $10 a plate ($5 for children 5 and under). There will be pancakes and sausages.
“[We will] have a tent up [in the back], so you can eat there or just grab your . . . takeout containers and then find your lawn chairs and sit down for the parade,” says Thiessen.
Smith says that the funds from the pancake breakfast will support vital elements of Youth For Christ.
“This goes towards our general funding,” he says. “This funds everything from our drop-in to our bible studies to small group to girls and guys nights. Every single program. This just funnels into that and helps us keep going.”
The services that YFC Morden offers to the community are well-received. The summer drop-in program saw an impressive number of teenagers gather each week.
“We had anywhere from usually 20 to close to 40 kids a night, every week,” says Thiessen. “Every single summer event that we ran, we were surprised at how many kids showed up and signed up for the event, so that's really cool.”
As for what YFC provides to youth in the community, at the top of the list is a listening ear.
“There's a lot of one-on-one mentorship that happens with staff, and we're hoping to branch that [out] into volunteers as well, just taking kids out for lunch, checking in, [asking] how they [are] doing. There are a lot of teens who come from rough backgrounds, and they need extra support,” says Smith. “They need someone to come alongside them and just help them figure out life because it's a tough age to figure out at times, especially when you don't have everything lined up in the other aspects of your life.”
While summer programming has concluded at YFC, there will be a variety of programs in fall, beginning with the first fall drop-in on September 19th. To learn more about what will be offered, click here.
For now, YFC is focused on its pancake breakfast, for which nearly 40 people have volunteered already.
“It's been really cool just seeing the interest and [that] people [are] willing to give up their time on Saturday morning before the parade [to] help out and serve,” says Thiessen.
To begin a day of Corn & Apple festivities with a hearty meal on August 24th, visit YFC’s inaugural pancake breakfast at 809a Stephen Street in Morden. Don’t forget to add the budding tradition to next year’s schedule, too.
~With files from Ty Hildebrand~