Offering a drink of water in Jesus’ name, the Doulos Sunday School class logged a fourth on the 4th—its fourth year delivering free water bottles July 4 at the Kernersville Fourth of July Parade.

From tents on Mountain Street in front of the Wells Fargo banking store, the vacant Four Brothers gas station on Cherry Street, and across from the Kernersville Post office, class members distributed nearly 3,000 water bottles.

The evangelism outreach is called “Project Thirst No More” after the Bible verse (John 4:13-14a) and story where Jesus tells the woman at the well about the source of a spiritual water that quenches souls forever.

Doulos has ministered to the community through the parade since 2011.

“We picked the name of our class after the Greek word for bondservant, and want to live out our love and service to Christ in very tangible, practical ways, like giving a bottle of water away to someone who needs one on a hot summer day,” said Jason Johnson, who leads the class.

Because of the walk-in coolers in the new Worship Center/Gym building and its large ice-maker, Doulos members didn’t have to meet under the canopy this year July 3 for their “Ice the Ice” party. Instead, the water went into the walk-in coolers beforehand and then was delivered to each of the three sites a few hours before the parade.

Two trucks delivered water and ice to each site, where volunteers kept the bottles chilled in ice-filled plastic trashcans before distribution to runners in the 5K race before the parade, or to paradegoers along the route once the parade began.

“The new facilities saved us time and money, as we did not have to purchase ice this year,” Johnson said. “It was cloudy and cool right up until the parade started, and I thought we might have a lot of water left over, but the sun came out, the temperature rose, and our water proved in pretty high demand as we gave almost all of what we bought.”

Jo Holt and her twin sister Jill Bussell served at the Wells Fargo location captained by Jeff Huffman and Tim Vestal in their first Project Thirst No More experience. Johnson and Eddie Hawley captained the Four Brothers location, and Michael Eads and Phil Myers led the team based near the Post Office.

“We’re both people persons and were looking for an opportunity to get involved in one of the many service projects our class is involved in,” Holt said. “We love to be outside so this seemed like the perfect way for us to serve.”

Added Bussell, “What we liked the most about it was seeing the reaction when people realized the gift of water came with no strings attached. Some people had something to drink and would say ‘no thank you’ but for those who didn’t, you could tell they really appreciated the water.

“We’ll definitely do it again.”