By Curt Williams, Founder & Executive Director
We are all hearing it. There is a critical labor shortage across America. Employers are constantly seeking employees. Production numbers are down, customer service is lacking, turnover is at an all-time high, and labor unions are demanding more pay for less work.
The pandemic did not help the situation but exacerbated an already simmering problem in the American labor force. It gave many people a taste of a life of ease, of being paid to do nothing, of being rewarded for a sedentary existence … and they liked it. Universities are pumping out graduates with worthless degrees who owe tens of thousands in student loans. Tradesmen like plumbers, electricians and carpenters are seeing retirements quickly outpace new skilled workers entering the workforce. We are producing less and less while demanding more and more.
And here at Youth-Reach, we see all of this as an advantage to our boys.
When you support the ministry of Youth-Reach, you are not supporting a program where the residents are sitting around watching daytime television, playing video games and getting fat. They are up early every morning. There are intense workouts designed to bring the body into a disciplined condition to handle stress and build endurance. There are regular, everyday chores, and then there are work projects where the boys learn the use of tools, the way to do a job right, and how to judge if a job is finished well. The staff are right there in the mix with them, getting muddy, greasy, and sweaty as we teach boys what it is to WORK.
John Eldredge, author of Wild at Heart, stated that “Femininity cannot create masculinity.” In other words, it takes a man to create a man, and in our world, we need more real men. Here at Youth-Reach, we only hire alpha males. That does not imply macho, arrogant, brutish males, but men who are strong in responsibility, character, standards, and protection over those they care for. These men exude courage, and they are here to shape troubled boys lovingly yet firmly into honorable men. Then our goal is to release them into a workforce desperately in need of leaders, employers, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs willing to outwork the competition and demonstrate how men of God should behave.
If they absorb what they are taught, and if they walk out of these doors having adopted principles of godliness, hard work, and a high standard of personal behavior, they will stand head and shoulders above their peers. They will fill vital roles in their families, churches and our society. This is what we are asking you to support. This is what we are about.
Thank you for sacrificing so that we can create men from boys.
