An Icy Summer Night

For those of you who don’t know where the Ozone office is located, it’s probably because we’ve never held an event there; and for that you should be thankful--thankful that we never tried to cram 60 people into what used to be known as our office. However, just recently, the Ozone office was moved to room 130 at the Jones Center in Springdale (which is perfectly capable of holding over 60 people)...

Ozone Room!

Ozone Dining Room & Kitchen!

Because of the partnership with such a superb facility, we are able to offer more opportunities for families and children in NWA by hosting some of our events in the same building we office out of. Our hope is that families and students will be able to stay connected to the community by being a regular part of Ozone activities and, therefore, be submerged in the growing population of Northwest Arkansas.

What better way to introduce what we do, where we are and why we do it than to invite our families to Family Night! Families and friends from all four cities met at 6pm last Saturday, July 23rd, at the Jones Center for some mid-summer Ice Skating! The rink was filled with people of all ages and abilities who spent a joyful hour skating, or possibly even scooting, around in the 50 degree room. What a great break from this hundred degree heat!

An hour and a few bruised tailbones later we turned in our skates and relocated to a warmer room! There we had some ice cream sundaes topped with chocolate syrup, nuts, M&Ms, and whipped cream! While chowing down on our delicious treats we played board games, had conversation, and talked a little bit about what Ozone offers to students in NWA! Families got the opportunity to ask questions about our program and get a feel for what we do year round!

If you missed this opportunity visit our website at www.cwe365.org! There you will find information on kickoff events and parent meetings at the beginning of the school year! You can also find your city directors’ contact information and email them with any questions you may have! Don’t let your students miss out on all of our fun events and activities this fall!

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.