On a Tuesday evening in Bellingham, Wash., the Bucket Boys—a band of friends from First Christian Reformed Church in Lynden, Wash., with additional community volunteers—distribute peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, socks, and bottles of water from five-gallon pails slung over their arms. It’s a weekly practice started in 2020 by First CRC members Cal Buys, Glen Blankers, Robert Smit, and Gene Tinklenburg. At 5 p.m. Tuesdays they drive south from the small farming community of Lynden to walk the downtown streets and visit with the men and women living there without housing. When their buckets are empty, they grab a bite to eat themselves and head home.
From 12 to 20 people help out each week, Buys said. “We always tell new people who join us, ‘You do not need experience to go on the street with us, but it will be an experience.’”
Partnered with Bellingham’s Envision Mission, the Bucket Boys’ street nights also are supported by other local congregations. During the colder months the Lynden Christian Second Chance thrift store provides the ministry with coats and blankets. Volunteers also knit hats.
Other than that, the participants prepare the supplies. “We are pretty self-sufficient,” said Buys. “One person brings water, another socks, and a couple more bring sandwiches.” A typical Tuesday has volunteers sharing two cases of water, 60 sandwiches, and 30 pairs of socks.
Buys credits his spouse, Laura, with planting the first seeds for the weekly street walks. She was the Spiritual Life director for a SERVE team—visiting summer youth ministry—in 2018 and invited Cal Buys to help out. Buys found himself drawn to the Bellingham street-focused ministries and began volunteering at a shelter.
When COVID pandemic restrictions ended those opportunities, Buys found he missed the weekly ministry, and as he was pulling back from farming he was looking for something meaningful to fill his retirement hours. He, Blankers, Smit, and Tinklenburg decided to walk downtown, extra socks in hand, to see who might be around. Soon they added sandwiches and water to the supply of socks, carrying everything in buckets, which when emptied provided sidewalk seating for conversations. The “Bucket Boys” name landed and stuck.
Buys believes the team’s consistency is the key to connecting with the street population. “They count on us and have grown to trust us,” Buys said. “Some even come up to us and say I do not need anything, but might you pray for my family?
“People ask if we see lives changed. We do see some changes and hear heartwarming stories,” but “it sure has surely changed us.”