“The journey to healthy adulthood is made up of a million little steps.” It’s easy to be moved by stories of dramatic changes and transformations that people make. But most deep and significant changes happen slowly, over a long period of time, especially for students who are battling […]
Here’s a little secret we (at SCYM) might not have told you before: When we tell other people that we work with kids, sometimes they respond like we’re Mother Teresa, or maybe an alien. Or just kind of a freak. “Oh wow … what is that like?” “I could never do what you do.” And […]
In 2010, Steve Eisentrager (the CEO of Ohio Valley Surgical Hospital, an active member of Lake Avenue Christian Church, and one of the most humble guys we know) approached SCYM about getting involved with kids and families somehow. Because of Steve’s crazy schedule as a hospital CEO, however, he couldn’t commit to a program time […]
About four years ago, we started brainstorming with our friends at Southgate Baptist Church about what we could do together to serve middle school kids in their neighborhood – an area where most kids know more people who’ve been to prison than people who’ve been to college. There were a whole lot of challenges to […]
In 2006, while I was working with students at the old Clark Middle School here in Springfield, I was stunned by how many kids in poverty, at such a young age, had lost a parent or someone else they loved due to something preventable: Drugs, reckless accidents, diabetes or heart disease at a really young […]
Another week, another tragic headline – at least, that’s how it feels sometimes. We read Springfield’s tragic headlines – murders, assaults, arrests – and we feel sad, angry, afraid, maybe even numb. And maybe we start to believe there’s nothing we can do to change our headlines. But that’s not true! There is something we […]
Middle school was a very difficult time for me. It was a time when I really wanted to be treated like a grown up and yet I wasn’t. My friends were having growth spurts and maturing but I still looked like a third grader. My cushy existence as an elementary school all-star was no more. […]
From time to time I will have a volunteer call me and ask, do you need me today? And my response is always yes! Imagine you were at a family reunion. If you are a grandma and see that there is already another grandma present, it would be silly to think that you should leave […]
Like one out of every three Springfield kids, six-year-old Marco lives in poverty. And while summer is supposed to be a time of fun and adventure, Marco’s summer will mainly be focused on survival. He’ll spend time playing with friends on his block, but his mom worries about crime and drugs in the neighborhood, so […]