Dear Parents, 

I know what you’re probably thinking, “yay, another group attempting to explain how we are going to try to navigate the new norm of living in the age of COVID-19." We are all making adjustments, and now we are living in an ever-changing sea of details. It’s not ideal, I know. However, we truly love being able to meet with students and want to continue to be able to meet in person, so the following is our best attempt to ensure we can continue to do so. We will be resuming our fall meeting schedule this week. DIG (grades 6-8 th) will meet every Tuesday from 7- 8:45pm starting on 8/25. SUMMIT (grades 9-12) will meet every Wednesday from 7-9pm starting on 8/26.

First, we want you to know that in this season we are committed to communicating with you. When your student shows up to either DIG or SUMMIT we are going to check them in and ask for your contact info so we can contact you if we need to make any changes regarding what is happening at Youth Group in the coming weeks. We anticipate this will be the case at some point as we learn along the way. Second, checking your student in will also enable us to break students up into small groups each night and keep track of who is where in case there is a need to provide information for contact tracing. Once your student is checked in, we will have them go sit in a chair (spaced socially distant from another) in our gathering area in the gym. They will be asked to stay in their chairs until we dismiss them into either the game time or small groups for the night. Since we are meeting inside, we will ask that students wear a mask for the entirety of our meeting time. If your student has a medical condition that prevents them from wearing a mask, we ask that they either bring a doctor's note or a signed note from a parent indicating this. We will meet outside as long as we can, weather permitting. If we are outside, students will be asked to remain distant. However, we won’t require them to wear their mask. Our game selection will reflect whether we will play inside or outside. If we are inside, the game will avoid physical exertion to enable students to wear a mask for the entirety of our meeting time.

We would ask that if your student shows any symptoms of COVID-19 or if they have had any known contact with someone with COVID-19, that they not attend for at least two weeks or until they are no longer showing symptoms. If your student has traveled out of state in the last two weeks, we would recommend that they consider not coming to DIG or SUMMIT for the two-week quarantine period or get tested and receive a negative result before attending.

We want you to know we are doing our best to make sure that in spite of these safety measurements we are still committed to creating a fun space where your student can come and grow in their relationship with God. Our team of staff and volunteers is excited and prepared to welcome you student back to Youth Group this fall!

Lastly, we want you to know we are working hard to keep our website up to date. If you visit macmissoula.com/youth, you will have access to our upcoming events, sign up for seasonal emails, youth group meeting times and location, and the most recent safety measurements that we are taking for MAC YOUTH. We are also adding a button titled “MAC YOUTH PARENT” where you can go to find out what we are covering at youth group each week, from announcements, to scripture, to the questions we are asking in small groups!

If you have any questions and would like to talk further, you can reach me at ryan.sullivan@macmissoula.com.

We hope to see you and your student soon,

Ryan and Allison Sullivan & Anna Fenlason