some backstory

Since 1999 a Christian volunteer team (now known as the Green Team) has been serving at schoolies celebrations each November in and around Victor Harbor. They give out food & drink, arrange entertainment, look after the intoxicated and generally make it a safer and more fun place to be. Thousands of young South Australians return home having had positive dealings with Christians. Green Team is bigger than BWO and deserves to have its history written too, if that hasn’t been done. There are also similar teams at schoolies elsewhere around Australia.

Schoolies offers a unique opportunity to love people on a large scale. Jason Hoet (Unley Park Baptist) and PJ Taylor (Rosefield Uniting) were on the team at schoolies in 2000 and got thinking about what could be brought closer to home – how could their youth groups serve the community?

A popular youth activity in the Adelaide Christian community around that time was Big Night Out, held from time to time in the holidays. They booked several fun venues – bowling alleys, video game arcades, a pool hall etc. Young people could play at these places all night, travelling between them on buses and their parents would pick them up exhausted in the morning.

Jason & PJ considered that church youth groups had many options like Big Night Out for having fun, but few organised avenues for serving. They ran Big Week Out as a way of giving their youth a go at this.