Rebuilding The Walls (The Next Phase)

The Ark is a youth outreach program in a low-income community in Southern New Jersey. We have responded to our calling from God for the youth in this community. Starting in a small local church, we have become our own 501(c)3. Since our inception, God had done amazing things through this ministry and with our limited financial resources, we have offered the youth of this community an alternative to the stigma that has been so prevalent in this community for years. This community is labeled a community of drugs, alcoholism, low-income broken homes, despair and a community without purpose. Through this ministry the kids are learning they have purpose, meaning and do not need to be trapped in the stigma that envelops this community. As we pray and look for direction of the ministry, we feel it's time to move to the next phase. Project "Rebuilding The Walls," so named because of the burden on my heart for the foundation of this community, is much like that of Nehemiah. The burden that God placed on a praying man's heart gave Nehemiah the resources, strength and resolve to accomplish a task placed on his heart by God. This project is a three phase plan to help remove the stigma, implement programs and create awareness to build the youth up in understanding they have purpose and meaning. Our mission statement, "Building up our youth in Truth, through Faith, Hope and Love," will be further perpetuated.  

The first phase will consist of reaching deep into the church community and sharing the vision and burden to become involved in the project and help rebuild the walls. We will need funds to build an interactive database on our website for volunteers to become involved. The database will give volunteers the opportunity to be categorized in their talent fields, commit to their availability and give us the information we need to facilitate them into the organization in helping the youth directly or indirectly. Putting together a volunteer base of professionals and laypeople is vital to the foundation on which to build the youth of this community.

The next Phase will be to reach deep into our community. Bring awareness to the culture the kids are consumed by, as well as help tutor, mentor and show Christ's love. We wish to saturate the community with information about who we are and project "Rebuilding The Walls." In this phase we will be having a community event and an awareness seminar, as well as rolling out a few of the programs we wish to implement for the youth; Our after school tutoring program and our Skate for Christ. To promote this, we will need funding for mailings and to facilitate the events, speakers and programs.

The final phase will be using our relationships and growing presence in the community, along with the relationships we have built over the past three years, to bring in businesses, local government, education systems as well as other strategic partners. We currently work in conjunction with the local government to facilitate a program at the local community center. We wish to bring further awareness through a second event in October which we will talk about the stigma in this community, the successes of  project "Rebuilding the Walls" and how we propel this forward into changing the culture in the community to affect the youth, then eventually the families and finally the culture as a whole.

The project will require $40,000 to fully implement the programs and effectively facilitate “Rebuilding The Walls,” and integrate it into the community, in turn propelling the ministry forward into our next phase. I believe the ministry has the support to bring in $15,000 through many who see this ministry first hand.  They see the behavior of these youth whom may be neglected, left alone, or uncared for, without appropriate role models which to learn right from wrong. Children who suffer abuse at the hands of family violence often learn that violence and lashing out is natural, even expected. They are unable to trust and feel they have any real meaning in life. Without this youth outreach, this epidemic would and seemingly already has, begun to reach epidemic proportion. We need commitment and involvement on many levels like those who are already committed to this cause to further our organizations impact on our community and I cordially invite you to join us.

We know our success depends on many factors and trust the results to God.  However, ongoing evaluation is a critical part of the project and the next phase. With the integrated database program to simplify interested individuals to volunteer and become involved, we will have the capacity to evaluate involvement and interest and it will be easily measured. Sign-in procedures, and already in place data recording, will show current involvement and increased participation. Evaluation techniques will be implemented to determine program effectiveness such as pre/post surveys, interviews, and satisfaction surveys. The progress and success due to your help in funding will be measured and disclosed.

We believe within the next phase and forward, this youth outreach will produce results pertaining to many complex social issues, including poverty, addictive behaviors, and traumatic events in the lives of our youth. Our outreach addresses their value as humans and help them redirect their lives to that of purpose and meaning. We believe the future of this program will aid the entire family unit creating the opportunity for complete behavior modification through support, love, and trust. Ultimately leading to overall reduction of risk factors that lead to addictions, despair and brokenness. Through this program, we will provide awareness, resources and support that are crucial to ending the stigma that plague this community we serve. Success would mean the families and communities we serve would no longer be overcome by brokenness and despair, but would have hope, purpose, meaning and faith instilled.