Saturday, November 13, 2010

Teens impacting their world!

Edge Teen Center has been open for a year and a half now and hundreds of teens have come through our doors. They have come for battle of the bands, movie and anime nights, during the week they come for focused groups that consist of leadership, girls issues and creative writing. On Monday, Wednesdays, Sundays they can attend programs that will have them grow in their faith, if they choose to do so. Many of them come after school where they can hang out and are greeted by adults that care about them and the issues they are dealing with, which are many. In this way Edge serves as a haven for after school teens where single parents and dual income families can rest assured that their teens have a safe place to be after school.

While we are excited about all the great things that have been happening. We have wondered if we are actually fulfilling our mission statement, “Empowering Students To Impact The World.” We wanted to be more than just a hang out spot and about a month ago we received our answer. After receiving a grant from the Arrington foundation we hired a part time person to head up our Community Service Program, Molly Hare, who has been doing an incredible job. She hit the ground with both feet running and immediately met with the government teachers at Lakota East High School to explain to them that we have partnered with social services agencies in our community (Whiz Kids, Middletown Food Market and Hope House) and will begin to take scheduled trips to these agencies. We have also partnered with UGive to keep track of volunteer and student hours. So far we have taken teens to these agencies for about a month now and have logged 100 teen hours and about 45 adult volunteer hours. We have also seen an increased attendance by teens that just hang out at Edge that participate in our community service program. We are currently using a 20 year old van to transport teens, it’s mechanically fine but visibly horrendous! If you feel compelled to make a donation for a new van, or you know of a dealer that would be willing to donate a van and do cross promotion vehicle wrap on the van we’d be willing to talk. Just think a dealer having their van driven around town taking teens to places to serve and the van has their logo as well as the tag line... “We care about teens!” If you have any leads let me know! We will keep you up to date as we continue to empower teens to impact their world.

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