Ozone Family Night at the Northwest Arkansas Naturals

On June 9, one future Ozone student experienced his first baseball game. Nine-week-old Aiden joined his two older sisters and parents for a fun-filled night at the ballpark. Aiden was just one of over 100 Ozone students and family members who attended Ozone’s first family night of the summer. Students and parents alike cheered as the Northwest Arkansas Naturals defeated the Arkansas Travelers with a score of 6 to 4. Ozone families sat together on the lawn of the third-base line and enjoyed time with their families while getting to know other Ozone families and directors. Wes May, a recent addition to the Ozone staff as the Springdale Director, says, “It felt very ‘natural.’ It was a great venue to introduce my family to many of the other families in Ozone.”

Ozone plans on hosting another family night on July 21, at the Jones Center for Families. Check out the website for more details!

Ozone Ministries Hosts All City, All Ages Food Drive

It’s Saturday morning and instead of sleeping in, watching tv or playing video games, Springdale Ozone student Travis runs from house to house passing out bags for the Ozone canned food drive. Travis was just one of the many students who took part in the annual event, which provided over 375 bags of canned food to area food banks. The next Saturday, elementary Bentonville Lifeline student Sara collects similar bags, lugs them back to the van and helps distribute them to a food bank in the area. A couple of days later, Rogers Primetime student Jonathan sorts cans of vegetables, fruits, soup and everything in between in preparation for distribution at the Samaritan Community Center in Rogers.

Ozone Ministries’ annual event, Together We Can, enabled students from every age group and every city to participate in helping to fight hunger in Northwest Arkansas. The high schoolers in each city started off the event by stapling informative flyers to large paper bags and distributing those bags to their local neighborhoods. The elementary kids came on board next, collecting the bags of food in teams one Saturday morning and thanking those who donated. Middle and Junior High School students finished it off by sorting the cans for organizations such as Samaritan Community Center and LifeSource International. Ozone had the opportunity to serve organizations in Springdale, Fayetteville, Rogers, and Bentonville. Every age group had a distinct and important part of the canned food drive and together we were, and are, able to accomplish much more than we could have done on our own. 

Dinner Club Community

In a corner house in a Bentonville neighborhood, High School girls are learning to like their vegetables. Every Monday (and sometimes Wednesdays) this semester, Bentonville High School Ozone students have met for “Dinner Club” and community at Assistant Director Ellie Chase’s home. They show up excitedly, ready for a nutritious meal and conversation with friends and leaders.

Traditions are formed; girls grow to expect warm bread and sweet tea with each dinner. After the first few weeks of Dinner Club, the girls became eager to learn and to serve their fellow ozone students. One high school sophomore, Brianna, enters the kitchen each Monday and pulls out the ingredients to brew sweet tea. She serves her peers weekly, crafting something she’s learned to make through instruction during one of the first dinners. Another student, Allison, a Bentonville High School Freshman, prepares salads with creativity and willingness to serve. Others offer help in everything from food preparation to clean up. Girls celebrate with one another as “Birthday Dinners” are joyously recognized, complete with a birthday song and candles.

Throughout the course of Dinner Club this semester, knowledge of food, nutrition and cooking has been in focus. During a three-week cooking challenge, groups of girls and leaders researched recipes, wrote up shopping lists and led in the kitchen in order to feed others. Each meal keeps fresh ingredients, vegetables and natural foods in mind, guiding girls in proper eating habits without making it about rules or obligations.

Dinner Club has built a close community in Bentonville Ozone through fellowship, service and fun. Girls are learning and growing together in an environment of support and trust. And that environment has the occasional ice cream sandwich for dessert.