B1 Event: How-to Steps to Action

How does the B1 program work? Here are some concrete steps that your youth group can take.

Love

• Commit to B1.
  Fasting takes many forms. Your group can hold a 24-hour food fast, fast from media for the week, or engage in another activity that enables your group to best be in solidarity with the poor.
  
  Many United Methodists are surprised to learn that John Wesley fasted two days a week, Wednesdays and Fridays, in his younger days. Later he fasted on Fridays.

Justice

• Learn about the many faces of poverty and of unjust systems.
  You'll learn more about poverty and our global community through your B1 fasting event.
• Help to empower local communities.
  After you've learned a little about poverty and how it looks, check out the Advance projects for which your group can raise funds. These projects work daily to empower local communities... now you're a part of that work too!

Hope

• First set an awareness goal.
  Thisgoal includes items such as the number of people you want to tell about B1, what your youth group is doing, and ways that you're called to make a difference in our world and in yourself.
• Next set a fundraising goal.
  This goal is the amount of money you hope to raise to make a difference through the work of the Advance project your group chooses.

Aim high with both of these goals. Think creatively about the ways to ask people for contributions.

Service

• Now decide what you will give.
  Will you be the first name on your own sponsor envelope? Use the "Pledge to B1" page to record your goals.
• Collect the money from your sponsors before your youth group's fasting event.
  Remember to thank your sponsors for being one with you and your sisters and brothers around the world.
• Attend your fasting event.
  Learn, soak it all in so you can go back and tell your sponsors about what you learned.

Joy

• After your event, thank your supporters and sponsors.
  Tell them about your experience, ways you were challenged, and ways you were changed...and keep changing!
• The work's not done...continue to learn and work for justice.