The youth of Winnipeg are coming together to spend spring break serving the community this coming week.

Matt Braun is the Director of the SOAR youth conference. The event is taking place throughout spring break week in Winnipeg. 

"This is the 21st year for SOAR," says Braun. "It's been a joy to be able to connect youth with missions locally here in Winnipeg. We love to say it's both a youth conference and a missions conference. We want to bring youth together so they can both become equipped and then we want them to go out and serve alongside some of our long-term ministries."

For some of the 200 youth, this will be a weekend event and for others, they'll stay the entire week. 

"On the weekend they actually walk around the north end and go into a whole bunch of the ministries, and hear stories from those leaders. They do a blanket exercise which opens their eyes to some of the community they're interacting with."

Some youth help put on Vacation Bible School (VBS) programs for the kids in the neighbourhood. 

"There's a lot of different opportunities for them to connect with some of the needs with the local community. One of our ministry partners said we won't know the impact of SOAR until maybe 10 years in. For me, the fruit comes in the transformation that happens in the hearts of the youth."

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