By Curt Williams, Founder & Executive Director
We just completed our Holiday Fund Drive, making a massive end-of-year push to raise the needed funds to finish 2023 strong and enter this new year on firm financial footing. Because of your generous response, we exceeded our $200,000 goal! We are very grateful that so many of you responded to this call to give.
All of this is necessary because the need we are facing is not really financial; the need is human.
What faces us is an overwhelming and ever-growing tide of need where the phones ring everyday with stories from boys and desperate parents who need what Youth-Reach provides. They have called the for-profit programs and been dismayed by the exorbitant cost and short duration that their financial wherewithal can provide. Then they find us and discover a quality program that does not charge a fee and does not have a predetermined length of stay.
Yet then we ask, “Is the boy willing to earn his bed here?”
As our name and reputation spreads, we are receiving boys from across the country, and now we are facing the prospect of expanding our facilities to meet this growing need. To do so, we must solve two problems: Staffing and funding. These two issues are inextricably linked, and we are attacking them as one. To begin, we have a simple “ask” for each of you reading these words—one simple question: Will you run the ball for us?
Over our almost 40-year history, many churches have supported our work. Here in this newsletter, you can find a list of the churches that currently support the mission of Youth-Reach Houston. Each of these relationships came about because someone ran the ball for us; someone spoke up for us, and someone in each specific church went to those who make the decisions regarding missions funding and placed us into consideration.
Is your church on our list?
Does your church currently support Youth-Reach? Notice that we have a church in Fort Worth that supports Youth-Reach, one in Beaumont, and even one in Baker, Louisiana, just outside Baton Rouge. In each case, we have a relationship with someone who spoke up and got us in the door. This year, we will be visiting every one of these churches, and we are excited to do so. These churches believe in us, and we are grateful they believe in us enough to financially back our efforts to reach damaged and often discarded boys.
If your church is not on our list, and you are willing to make a little noise to help us get in the door, please email me at curt@youth-reach.org, and let’s set up a time to meet with the folks at your church who need to hear of our work. First, we want to build a friendship. We are not just after money, though to grow, we must have more churches and more individuals step out to hold the rope for us. Please let me know if you can run the ball for me. CW
