OUR APPROACH
“Reasons one is able to leave poverty…a key relationship and a vision or goal.”
A Framework for Understanding Poverty
Healing Through Relationship
Our approach is holistic, but at the center of our mission is relationship, because that is where true transformation from a “youth in poverty” to a “youth with hope for the future” occurs.
Only through relationship do we earn the right to speak into someone’s life and expect them to trust, respect, and follow us.
Inner city kids want the real deal and can spot a phony immediately. Until they know they can trust you and you respect them, they may go through the motions, but the respect and commitment to relationship won’t be in their hearts. They can walk out on you in a heartbeat and never look back because people have walked out on them all their lives…
Only in relationship, proven friendship, will trust and respect be developed that stands the test of time.
We build relationship over time, becoming the second family that struggling youth often need:
- We work together and play together
- We eat together and travel together
- We train, instruct, and counsel them
- We pray together and weep together and laugh together
- We believe in our youth even before they can believe in themselves
- We know them, and we love them
It is through our commitment to true relationship with the kids who walk through our doors that they are able to forge healthy identity, find dignity and shape vision for the future.
I would have been a menace to society – BIG time! I remember Lanell always telling me to read my Proverbs. ‘Just one chapter a day, Butch. It’s a good way to start your morning.’ Those words helped me shape my future.