Jeremy Miller, Foothills Christian Church, Youth Venture director of operations and site manager said Youth Venture began in 1992 by Mark Hoffman, co-pastor of Foothills Church. Hoffman had a vision of helping kids in the community. Looking around, he saw how hard it is for kids these days to grow up. Even back in 92 there were so many problems, peer pressure, temptations and all the brokenness. Broken families, drug and alcohol addiction that so many kids were growing up with.
Jeremy Miller, Foothills Christian Church, Youth Venture director of operations and site manager said Youth Venture began in 1992 by Mark Hoffman, co-pastor of Foothills Church. Hoffman had a vision of helping kids in the community. Looking around, he saw how hard it is for kids these days to grow up. Even back in 92 there were so many problems, peer pressure, temptations and all the brokenness. Broken families, drug and alcohol addiction that so many kids were growing up with.
“He was heartbroken with all the brokenness he saw surrounding him,” said Miller. “So he began praying to see what we could do to help. His vision not far from his heart was to have teen centers for kids to go to.”
Miller said then, the church was much smaller with fewer resources, but began working to make it a reality with the first center opening on the corner of Graves and Bradley in El Cajon. Moderately accommodated with only a couple of pool tables, a ping-pong table and arcade games, it has grown to four locations. Youth Venture has two centers in El Cajon, one in Santee and the other in Lakeside.
Miller said they have as many as 200 kids coming through its doors every day, open seven days a week and 362 days a year. On weekdays, it opens at 3:00 p.m., when kids get out of school and closes at 8:00 p.m., and on weekends opens at 12:00 p.m. and closes at 6:00 p.m.
“The centers are free, all we need is a permission slip,” said Miller. “The idea is that before you can meet a kid’s real needs you need to meet their felt needs. What is it that kids think they need? They need a fun place to be. They want friends, fun and they also want food.”
Miller said Youth Venture is designed to be a fun place to be. It has the newest video games, a skate park (El Cajon), pool tables, ping-pong and it strives to make it as accessible to as many kids as possible. He said they try to make things as cheap as possible, most things are free, and the doors are wide open.
“Kids find out about Youth Venture from their friends, or by just walking by and looking in to see what’s going on,” he said. “And it is a safe environment for kids to develop friendships and beyond that a place for them to create meaningful relationships with adults. That is so important. Most of the kids that we work with are from a broken family, single-parent households and a majority of them live in a family well below the poverty level. Many of them do not have much meaningful adult interactions. Many times their dads are out of the picture, drugs or alcohol problems are in the household and single parents are out working very hard just to pay the bills.”
Miller said most are unsupervised after school and little adult interaction, but at Youth Venture, they get that. He said a good peer group and adults that really care about them surround them.
“What we see is that those relationships that they build can really be life changing relationships,” he said.
Youth Venture is volunteer ran, with the exception of a few paid staff. Each center has a paid director on site, one intern and one administrative assistant, so six people run the entire operation with the help of more than 100 to 150 volunteers that work to make it continuously run. Most of the volunteers come from Foothills, some come from other churches, and all go through a rigorous application process, background checks, and training. There are two or three volunteers on each shift, with 14 shifts per week
“It is really the committed, faithful volunteers that make Youth Venture what it is,” he said. “They not only make sure the doors are open, but they are the mentors for these kids. That way, when the kids are in there, these mentors will be building positive relationships. They are very involved, getting them involved in games and it is amazing. Most of these kids grow up distrusting adults. Hurt by adults in their lives, or subtly taught not to trust adults, many will come in the first time standoffish and distrustful, but over time the attention of the mentors attention wears off on them and they begin developing meaningful relationships. We have had so many kids say that Youth Venture is a second home and second family for them.”
Miller said many kids are there from the time they open until they close and it really does become a family for them to turn to and a safe home for them.
“It is pretty amazing and it is the volunteers that make it happen,” he said.
Youth Venture created a book “Kids Like Us: Real Lives, Real Stories. Kids from your Neighborhood” that Miller, said they are very proud of. It is a group of testimonies from kids that came through the program describing the impact it had on their lives.
“The testimonies in that book are absolutely thrilling,” he said. “Most of those kids are still around, shift workers at the centers and giving back what they gained from their time at Youth Venture. Our goal is to get this into the hands of kids in the community. We believe that when kids read these testimonies, they will see themselves in the stories. There are so many kids in our communities that are lost, feel hopeless and broken and they are looking for something in life. We have heard so many stories from kids that have read the book and identified with one of the testimonies saying, ‘That is me. I am that kid,’ and get hope from it.”
Miller said the mentor program is the most important aspect of Youth Venture. Mentors take time with each kid to go over life issues, like how to be successful, character, good choices and bad choices and how they affect your life.
“That is the heart of Youth Venture,” he said. “Getting involved with a mentor one-on-one impacts their lives, teaches them about their life and future, who they are and gives them some hope.”
To learn more about Youth Venture teen centers, or find the nearest location, go to www.yvcenters.com.
