Mentoring 500 Alaskan Youth through Sports

     It is fairly easy to go crazy during this time of year.  There are festivities to plan and presents to buy and parties to attend and weather hazards to navigate and family to visit and a thousand other details that all feel important.  The holiday season is an amazing time of reflection and celebration but it can also raise your blood pressure and deplete your bank account in the blink of an eye.

     Joel's Place is just as hectic this time of year.  There are fundraising events to host and skate camps to plan and concerts to promote and grants to close out and year end reports to prepare.  It is easy...really, really easy...for me to lock myself in my office while searching for a small piece of silence in order to knock out some of the work.  I am able to get a lot done...but I lose something special that comes along with this time of year.  The holidays, Christmas in particular, are a perfect time to reflect on unexpected gifts and hidden treasures.  The arrival of the Christ child did not appear on anyone's dayplanner.  The choir of angels was not scheduled inbetween other meetings.  The miracle of God's gift to humanity took everyone by surprise and changed the world forever.

     Joel's Place has been full of unexpected gifts this fall.  They mostly come in the shape of young men who come through our doors needing somewhere to be loud.  They run; they jump; they fall; they yell; they laugh and they grumble.  All the while they reveal more and more about the truth of who they are...their character shines through  and often inspires the staff.  For example:

• We have a Ride Team who put in public appearances to promote Joel's Place in exchange for free skating sessions.  They feel great ownership over this place and its programs.  They mentor younger riders who are learning.  They set an atmosphere of family and fun.  That would be enough.  But this team has decided that they want everyone to be able to skate/bike/scooter for free so they are going out into the community to raise money for their peers.
• We began an internship program this fall to see how it would work.  We have three youth who spend 10-20 hours per week learning about how to run a business or manage a skate park or operate a cafe.  They are learning money management and people managament and self management.  Again this would be enough by itself, but there is more.  The Joel's Place staff are coming alive with these opportunities to mentor teenagers.  They are becoming more creative and more engaging and more joyful because they are able to help shape the lives of youngsters who are eager to learn.  It has been amazing.
• We hosted our annual fundraiser in November.  One of the elements was a video narrated by the some of the young people of Joel's Place.  It is remarkable to watch them explain this place in their own words.  The video is posted at the Joel's Place website; the link appears below.  Their testimony helped us raise over $39,000 for Joel's Place, nearly doubling what we had ever raised before.

     These are gifts that we encounter every day at the youth center.  There are still a lot of people who look at Joel's Place with suspicion.  They talk about the needy kids that we have and worry that their cars will be stolen or they will be mugged.  I just shake my head.  True, the kids are loud.  True, the kids are rough around the edges.  But when their true character is allowed to shine, it is worth celebrating.

Thank you for all your support and encouragement this year.

Links:

• Joel's Place website
• Joel's Place: Live and Unplugged blog