The Youth Group and Sunday School at Saint David’s on-the-Hill have had a busy couple of months of service and fellowship as they kicked off the new school year. Earlier in October, the group participated in the Making Strides walk for the American Cancer Society in Providence. As is the annual tradition, the Youth Group and Sunday school walked as part of the team “Save Ann’s Apples,” which was started five years ago by a parishioner who is a breast cancer survivor and former Sunday School teacher, Ann Pellegrino. The team walks to honor both the breast cancer survivors and those who have passed away from breast cancer.

On October 29, the Sunday school hosted their fourth-annual Go Orange food drive to benefit the Interfaith Food Pantry. Saint David’s on-the-Hill takes a turn running the Interfaith Food Pantry during the morning hours on the first Saturday of each month, and the Youth Group and Sunday School students would be spending the following Saturday morning after the Go Orange food drive participating in those efforts at the food pantry. The drive brought in both food and monetary donations for the food pantry.

The youth attending the October 29 service were also asked to come dressed in their Halloween costumes, in celebration of Halloween and All Souls Day, which falls on November 1. Fr. Gary Lemery, a substitute pastor at St. David's, celebrated the interactive service and spoke to the youth about the origins and significance of the special celebrations and traditions surrounding Halloween and All Souls Day.

On November 5, the Sunday school students presented the first of several Youth Sundays held throughout the year. Youth Sunday allows the Sunday school students to organize and run all parts of the service such as being the official greeters, ushers, and reading the weekly biblical readings. In addition, the students make a presentation about what they have been learning in Sunday school. This most recent Youth Sunday presentation focused on All Saints Day, which allowed each student to present a short summary of a saint they had learned about during Sunday school. Youth Sunday takes place several times each school year.

The Saint David’s Youth Group and Sunday school’s next undertaking on November 12 will be to create and assemble Thanksgiving bags for the families in need at the Interfaith Food Pantry. The Sunday school students will be donating the foods for the bags. This food drive will be followed by the start of preparations for their winter Epiphany pageant, which will be presented at the next Youth Sunday in January.