Ishpeming New Year’s Eve “All Nighter”

It’s New Year’s Eve and the gymnasium at the Ishpeming High School is filled with local teenagers, along with some parents and volunteers. The group of roughly 100 youth will ring in 2009 and will spend the entire night at the school as part of an All Nighter event sponsored by the Good News Assembly of God Church in Ishpeming.

First, the youth checked in to register and get their All Nighter t-shirts. Then they headed upstairs to the gymnasium where they played games, listened to music, and just hung out instead of going to outside parties where they might see alcohol or drugs.

Participant Michelle Weygandt, fourteen, of Ishpeming, thinks the All Nighter was a good idea.

“I think it’s a great way for teens to stay out of trouble on New Year’s Eve,” she said.

Ben Marta, seventeen, of Negaunee, agreed that was the most important aspect of the event.

“I think it’s a good idea because it gets a lot of the teenagers a place to go on New Year’s Eve, and it keeps them out of trouble I think,” he said.

The Good News Assembly of God has sponsored the event for the past three years, but it was held for several more years before that under different organizations. According to Robby Gitzel, the youth pastor with the church, this is the first time it was held at the Ishpeming High School. He said the change in location to the school was the likely reason that the crowd nearly doubled to over one hundred.

“Kids have been encouraged to invite their friends, and they’ve brought a lot of friends,” Gitzel said.

The all-nighter started at 11:00 p.m. and ended at 6am. Because it was held at the High School more games and activities were available to the kids who attended. They were able use the older gym for hanging out and listening to music and the new gym for games such as Dodgeball, Blow-up Twister, and Whopper- hopper. The kids also took advantage of the pool in the 2:00 a.m. hour. The participants were able to choose from a variety of activities and even though the games were fun they weren’t the favorite part of the night for Stephen Weygandt, sixteen, of Ishpeming.

”My favorite part was just being able to hangout with my friends and stay up all night,” he said.

In general parents where comfortable to leave their children at the All Nighter because it was well organized and well supervised. Becky Kuliu of Ishpeming was helping out and had four children at the event.

“I think this event is a great idea because a lot of kids don’t have anywhere to hang out,” she said. “And they also need to get to know each other on different levels and play with each other and hang out.”

According to Gitzel, The Good News Assembly of God held a faith program for interested youth earlier in the evening at the church. At the earlier gathering there was Christian music and messages about faith, however once they moved over to the High School, it was just about having a good time.

“We encouraged them to invite their friends to a non-threatening place where they can just let them know that Christians can have a fun time too,” he said.

Stephen Weygandt explained that his youth group at the church, Legacy Student Ministries, was happy to play a part in the event.

“I see it as an opportunity for my youth group to reach out to other kids,” he said.

Marta, meanwhile, pointed out that the portion of the event at the school was not specifically about religion, it was still a great chance to blend friendship and faith.

“It brings me closer to everybody, which naturally will bring me closer to my religion,” he said.

The event is scheduled to happen again next New Year’s Eve.

Editor’s note: This story was written by Tia Platteborze, 12,Lorissa Juntti, 11, Sydney Dorow, 10, and Mariel Morton, 9, with contributions by T'nia Burse, 11 and Alyssa Usimaki, 9. This is the first story from our Ishpeming Bureau.