mikeandronda
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- May 13, 2003
- Messages
- 1,888
Hey pointer94 your Idea of posting info on how to contribute to our Youth group is a great Idea. Im not sure how Iboats feel about soliciting for contributions So if it is at all against Iboats policy I understand and welcome JB and the Mods to edit my post. <br />Here is some info on our group. Its called Way Cool Youth Group. It started about 2-3 years ago when two churches here in lacrosse saw that there were many smaller youth groups doing many of the same things around town and they decided to merge their groups to form on non-denominational Christian youth group. It flourished for about a year but because of the leaders not seeing eye to eye on how to run it split back into two groups (sad) It has since then gone through some changes and a little over 9 months ago me and my wife took over it as volunteers full time. When we started it had just gone from 30+ kids weekly down to 8-9. God led us to reach out to the kids that we saw wandering the streets in downtown Lacrosse and we began to see a huge need for a safe, fun and positive place for them to hang out. New Beginnings Christian Fellowship gave us their basement to use and we began renovating the bottom floor of this 100-year-old building. My wife and I spent 100's hours and much of our own money to paint and fix up this place that this Church allowed us to use. Each week we saw new teens come in and take place in our weekly meeting but it became apparent that they wanted more. We would be down there daily working and when we would go outside to leave there would almost always be some kids hanging around wondering if they could come in and hang out or even help. We began to understand that these same kids who to the city of Lacrosse and police were trouble waiting to happen, just wanted to have a cool place to hang out. So we started thinking that we needed to open more than 1 day a week. We have now begun to be open 2-3 times per week and we range from 15-25 teens at a time. Some times its a bible study others just discussions and on every other Saturday it is open just so they can hang out and shoot pool or play ping pong or video games. Every bit of money (other than $300 for paint donated by New Beginnings) has been either donated by my wife and me or has been raised by the teens themselves. We would love to be able to provide these teens with more recreational items as well as continue renovating our space. We have many plans for the future but alas we have to rely on privet funding. 100% of donated items and moneys go towards the teens and renovating. Our group is run completely on a volunteer staff. If anybody feels it in their heart to help our cause in anyway please contact me: <br />Mike Detrick ( youth leader)<br />Mikeandronda@juno.com<br />Way Cool Youth Group<br />C/O<br />New Beginnings Christian Fellowship<br />1-608-782-8030 ( so you can call to verify info)<br />Senior Pastor Debbie Huber <br />122 North 5th Avenue<br />La Crosse, Wisconsin <br />54602
