By Curt Williams, Founder & Executive Director
How can you put a dollar figure on the opportunity that Youth-Reach affords a boy? For-profit residential treatment programs that are licensed, staffed and structured much like Youth-Reach typically charge between $2,500 and $6,500 a month. Because people like you generously support our ministry, we are able to provide a healthy, fully licensed and fully staffed Christ-centered residential program that has never come with a fee. All we provide is free of charge to the kids and parents we serve, but that certainly does not mean there is no value to the opportunity that a boy receives here at Youth-Reach.
We regularly receive phone calls from desperate single moms who are low on resources and receive little to no support from the boy’s father. They call our offices for more information, speak with our staff and give the now-familiar stories of delinquency, trouble in school, stealing, run-ins with the law and growing problems with drugs and alcohol. We tell them about Youth-Reach and ask them questions about their son. There are often tears of sorrow and some of regret, and then with a bit of resignation in their voices, they ask the question, “How much does this program cost?”
Years ago it was I who fielded just such a call. The mom was broken and hopeless, and when she asked that question, the answer just came to me. I said, “Ma’am, we have talked and talked about what we would charge for this; for the chance to change a life; how we could put a dollar figure on the opportunity for a boy to change his entire future, to alter his life. And we concluded that this would be incredibly expensive. In fact, it would be so valuable it would be beyond the ability of anyone on earth to pay this amount. So we are going to give it away.” The mom was shocked. She thought at first that I was kidding, but I explained that we had never charged and that our model was set up to provide a full-service residential program that did not depend upon anyone’s ability to pay.
This is why, when you visit Youth-Reach, you will most likely see boys working around the property. They are earning their beds. They are demonstrating each day that they appreciate you, our donors and supporters, investing in their lives and futures. If they do not earn this opportunity, we will give it to the next kid on the waiting list because we may not charge, but this fresh chance is not free.
