Around 300 young people aged between 18 and 30 from all over the UK, Ireland and Europe came together at the Coventry meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Crhist of Latter-day Saints for a convention and gave of their time to serve others and enjoy each other’s company.
| Temple Square is always beautiful in the springtime. Gardeners work to prepare the ground for General Conference. © 2012 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. | 1 / 2 |
The weekend convention began with a dance on the Friday evening enabling delegates to get to know each other in an informal, fun environment. Following breakfast and a religious devotional on Saturday morning, they enthusiastically threw themselves into supporting the Coventry Stake’s long term involvement with the ‘Help Stamp Out Poverty’ campaign, in aid of Oxfam and Leukaemia Care.
Once organized into groups they processed used stamps that had been donated by members of the public, including local businesses and schools. One group trimmed excess paper from around the stamps whilst another sorted them into UK or Overseas. The final group counted out 500 sorted stamps and bagged them so that they can be sold by the charities to raise vital funds. For example, £18 raised by Oxfam is enough to buy a pair of goats for a family in Africa. Over the course of the day, more than 36,500 stamps were processed – enough to buy six pairs of goats.
University student, Maddy Janickyj, the President of the Coventry young people’s group said, “We have people here from all over the UK, Ireland and even Spain! Everyone has had a great time working together and it has been wonderful to support such a worthy cause and help people whilst having fun.”
The other fun events included bowling, inflatable activities and more dancing. There was also a Sunday morning meeting where everyone was able to worship together before starting to make their way home, looking forward to the next time they could meet together – to have fun, but more importantly to help other people.