View this email in your browser

In two weeks our summer program starts and we have the chance to give over 100 kids and teens a safe and life changing experience. We need your help! We are still falling short in the funding needed to provide this program to the youth we impact.

Thanks to a generous matching grant, your gift is doubled these text two weeks as we seek to meet our goal.

We have another $25,000 to raise these next two weeks, that will be matched and allow us to accommodate the growth we have experienced this year as we expanded our programs to the Eastside of Atlanta. We need two new vehicles and to hire more summer staff if we are going to serve all the youth in our mentorship programs.

Growth is a good problem to have, but we don’t want to say “no” to any child who wants to be a part of this summer experience. There are so many kids these streets are after, and Operation Safe Summer is providing a life changing alternative for our youth. Please help us if you can! Any sponsorship amount adds up to make this possible each summer.

More than anything we need your prayers. We can’t pull this off without God’s strength, provision and protection. Every year we see His love for these kids shown in the sacrifice and love our staff and volunteers pour into these kids’ lives and the generosity of our supporters to invest in their futures and help them walk a path of life that many would not even know about without this program.

This summer experience provides a much needed space for our city’s most disinvested youth to have a safe and fun environment to grow in their relationship with God, develop life/job skills, and be a part of impacting the restoration happening in our communities through Restore Life.

A unique approach to Summer Programming.

This is a summer program for the kids in our city often forgotten... many living in poverty... some staying in extended stay hotels or shelters with their families or grandparents as they try to make their way in this post pandemic world where lower-income housing options continue to disappear and inflation drives prices higher and higher. We started our summer camp program 6 years ago because we were tired of seeing the streets claim our kids' attention and shape their lives toward destructive patterns... The last last two years we developed work programs to add to the impact. Our youth made some money, AND had fun doing it. This year we are doing it again Except we have doubled in size!

We partner with local owned businesses to offer a teen work experience and multiple weeks of fun camps for young people ages 7-18. It's a perfect Work Hard/Play Hard summer!

Our Bankhead Renaissance program provides a safe place where our youth will learn various career skills, work ethic, character, financial management, and a whole lot more... And they will work alongside local businesses. We will help supplement the pay for the businesses mentoring our youth to help them not take a loss and to show the value to them of their time taken to help train this next generation to be hard workers with innovativeness and integrity.

Details

When? June 6th - July 30th.

What? Through your generous gifts we are empowering local businesses owners in various fields and paying our youth to apprentice under these experts for 4 weeks, acquiring job skills while also being mentored by these strong, Godly leaders... and the youth get to make some honest money too! Some of the work our kids will be doing will be in a studio, hair salon, painting, performance venues, video shoots, sound engineering, lawn care, car wash, daycare, and helping with the food bank.

In the midst of the summer various youth will have a chance to break away to go to some of our favorite camps! Camp Highland, God's Farm, Camp Grace and of course Warrior Week. Work hard AND Play hard!

How does it work? We have kids and teens joining us this summer and we are putting everything we can into their spiritual, mental, emotional and vocational development. Through strategic partnerships with generous donors as well as business partners, we are attempting something that we believe will matter greatly to the futures of our youth. Help us help them!