For Him and Them by Dean Cowles, YPN President

A monthly message from YouthPartnersNET President Dean Cowles.

For Him and Them by Dean Cowles

November 2006

Are you thankful this wonderful season?

We sure are, as you'll see below. Most of all we are thankful for your support and God's provision as we "work together" to build His kingdom.

YouthPartnersNET is delighted to announce that at least two of our ministry partners were awarded federal faith-based grants in October from the Compassion Capital Fund. I wanted to share this good news with you that the fruits of our national networking efforts are paying off. Your donation helps support these efforts and the programs these ministries have that serve America's at-risk children and youth. Thanks for your friendship and support as we lift up these frontline ministries.

Shepherd Community Center in Indianapolis was awarded a $750,000 three-year grant. I am the founder of Shepherd and started the ministry in 1985. Shepherd has grown into a $1.5 million faith and community-based ministry and recently moved into a completely renovated $2.5 million facility under the leadership of Jay Height, whom I mentored to take my place. Cheryl and I were delighted to be invited to join them for the dedication of the new facility in July. Shepherd is a model ministry in the state of Indiana.

Sun Valley Youth Center in Denver was awarded a $50,000 demonstration grant to build internal capacity to further deliver services to at-risk youth in this high-risk community. With YPN's assistance, Sun Valley was also awarded an $180,000 three-year federal grant last year from the Latino Coalition to work with Latino youth in Denver.

We thought this month you would like hearing some recent comments and notes of appreciation from our network of ministry partners:

Dear YouthPartnersNET,

I wanted to provide YPN with a brief update highlighting our "Rock The Block" event last weekend. Again, thanks for the grant and the shirts, they were a big hit for the 130 volunteers that day!

"Rock the Block" was an outreach to the Englewood community and surrounding areas sponsored by Impact Community Church and Re-Creation Unlimited. Our goal was to intentionally bring families together for the purpose of fun, food and fellowship. At 7:00am, the 130 plus volunteers closed the street to all traffic (permit required) and set up 4 large inflatable toys, one over 30 feet tall! The street was filled with basketball courts, children's games and crafts, food to feed an army, ministry booths for haircuts, professional entertainment by national rap artists and bands. Free giveaways from local businesses and 8 free golf rounds to exclusive courses were raffled each hour. All this was free to the 1,000 people that attended. We had a special time of worship and a evangelistic message that challenged and inspired the community.

Again, on behalf of Re-Creation Unlimited and Impact, thanks for your prayers, encouragement and support as we continue to impact our youth!

In His Grip,
Jim Galanaugh
Re-Creation Unlimited Director
Denver, CO

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing to give a testimonial on the YouthPartnersNET Executive Director Leadership Training I attended in Washington, DC. I wanted to state that it was one of the best and most relevant trainings I have been to as an Executive Director.

I believe that the Executive Director position is often neglected in the non-profit and faith-based world and the YouthPartnersNET training really helped to fill a much needed void. Dean Cowles was an excellent trainer and aptly blended humor, inspiration, and pertinent information to provide a terrific training for the ED's. One of the best parts of the training was the building of community among the ED's and the quality of the networking among participants was tremendous.

I would recommend this training for any Executive Director of a starting and emerging non-profit organization and I have already spoken to several colleagues about the value of the training. If you have any questions, please feel free to call me at the number above or email me at littlelights@yahoo.com.

Sincerely,
Steven Park
Executive Director, Little Lights Urban Ministries
Washington, DC

Dear Dean & Shelley

I just wanted you to know that our youth ministry just recently partnered with YPN and we have been truly blessed for it. This past weekend (September 8-10, 2006) we held a Youth Retreat. We were blessed to be able to distribute the "My City My God" Bibles to 41 teenagers. Out of these 41 youths, only five of them actually live with their parents. The other 35 live with either a single parent, grandparent or foster parent.

It was wonderful to be able to look into an audience where everyone had a "unified" Bible to read and refer to and from. YouthPartnersNET made that possible and at no monetary expense to a financially frailing ministry. On Sunday afternoon, three teenagers "accepted Christ into their life" and will be baptized next month. I also observed during free time of the retreat, seeing a couple of kids reading the "bio clips" in the Bible. This was an indicator of interest.

We are hosting a "lock-in" on Friday September 22, 2006. We will be serving approximately 40 urban children (up to 5th grade). The remaining Bibles will be given to them at that time.

Veruynca Williams
Children/Youth Director, Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church
Grand Rapids, Michigan

For Him and Them,

Dean Cowles

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