How We Do It
Focus on Children and Youth
Though we build strong relationships with entire families, we focus most of our efforts on children and youth because it gives us the best opportunity to break the cycle of poverty. Through programs such as our kids and youth clubs and summer projects we help kids and youth develop spiritually, socially, educationally and emotionally. These programs also give us an onramp into the lives of their parents and families.
Evangelism and Discipleship
In everything we do we seek to spread the word of God and develop Christian disciples.
Living Incarnationally
Rather than trying to bring change from outside the community, we live among the people we serve. This allows us to build authentic relationships with our neighbors and gives us an intimate knowledge of the challenges they face.
Mentoring and Modeling
Mentoring and modeling play a key role in our work. We want to model the kind of healthy spiritual life and responsible decision making that will help the families in our neighborhood succeed. In order to do that, we develop very intentional mentoring relationships with both young people and their families.
Promoting Education
We’re convinced that education holds the key to ending the cycle of poverty. We strongly emphasize education and make every effort to aid children and families through tutoring and through closely tracking young people’s progress through school.
Partnering for Progress
We know we won’t be successful without close partnerships with other people and institutions. We’ve forged strong collaborative partnerships with local churches, the local school district, social service organizations, and other local institutions like Westmont College with the resources to make a difference for the families in our neighborhood. Our effort is largely run by dedicated volunteers from the Santa Barbara region. We act as advocates for our neighbors among our partners and as coordinators of their efforts as we work to connect our neighbors to important resources available to them.
Leadership Development
We’re committed to developing effective leaders from among our neighbors who can then be role models and advocates for the neighborhood. We want to see many of the Latino youth we’ve influenced eventually become community leaders who make a difference for the entire neighborhood.
Community Development
Ultimately, we seek to empower our neighbors so they can increasingly take coordinated and effective action to bring positive change to our neighborhood. We do community organizing based on authentic relationships and on listening to the felt needs of our neighbors. By approaching community organizing that way, we ensure that solutions and actions aren’t imposed on the neighborhood from outside but rather spring up from within the community in a way that maintains and increases dignity.
