Young Women's New Beginings

This post has nothing to do with DIY, 

but it is a such a fun great idea I had to post about it!  

At church I work with the Young Woman (girls ages 12-18). Each year we have an activity to explain the Young Women's program to the girls who will be turning 12 that year. 

It's called New Beginnings.  

I work with about six other women. This year we decided to theme it around the girls being Diamonds in the Rough. For invitations we gave all the girls a charcoal briquette, wrapped in tissue paper with a simple tag stating where and when.  It really peaked their interest.  

All the girls arrived and were given a cute diamond tag like the one below upper left, the colored boarder was how we divvied them up later into smaller groups. Jamie, below, came running in after we had started our meeting. She excitedly told the girls that she had found diamonds and we were going to go mining for  them. One group at a time ventured into the dark gym, guided only by a battery operated lantern. Each group went to a different station and learned about a small part of the Young Women's program from one of our older Young Woman. Each station also had a fact about how a diamond was formed or mined. After a few minutes a bell rang and the groups rotated to the next station still in the dark only guided by their group lantern. 

Besides the stations with the girls, they also got to stop at the mine.  

This mine was awesome!!!  

Les made this mine entrance out of scrap wood we had. He built it so it fit perfectly into one of the bays under the stage where they usually store tables and chairs.  

Can I just say my husband ROCKS!!  

It looks so cool and even kinda scary when the lights are out and you only had the light of a lantern.

OK, I almost forgot to tell you what they did at the mine. Each girl got to take a lantern into the mine and crawl to the back and get a piece of coal. This was really a craft diamond we got at Michael's and wrapped in homemade Play dough dyed black. Once dry, they looked like pieces of coal. Each girl later was told to break open her coal and find the diamond within.

After all the girls had rotated through all the stations, we had them all come to the center of the gym to listen while we talked of how they were working on becoming diamonds. The leaders related the diamond process to the girls. It was very spiritual. That's when each girl then broke open their lump of coal to find their diamond, which they got to take home as well as a ring pop!!

We ended the evening with treats of coarse!!  

Chocolate cupcakes with rock candy sprinkled on top. One of the women I work with in Young Women's made all the rock candy which takes weeks!! Yeah Joy is awesome!!!

It was soooo much fun. 

 I would love to take credit for this awesome idea, but it truly was a group effort. 

 These are most of the beautiful ladies that I work with!!

Thanks for letting me share!  

Are you shocked that I do more than work on my house?

Let me just say, I am also on the PTSA board at my kids junior high, and high school, and on the junior high community council. Just keeping it real!!

  I, like you, do more than DIY!!!!

Thanks for stopping by!