Ending the violence and creating a safe place for children in the community that’s what the abundant faith word church is looking to do right here in kalamazoo the church wants to bring a positive change by creating a safe haven for teens and the church needs your help
To bring this idea for life to life joining us this morning to talk more about his plans and how you can help is pastor amir may pastor good morning good morning how are you we i’m very well thank you i know that you have been at
Your location now for about two years in the edison neighborhood and you say it’s one you’ve selected for a reason who are you trying to reach at your church well our church is for all mankind all ethnicity and cultural persuasions however there’s another component to our church abundantly church and
That’s the word impact center and we’re trying to reach troubled teens and teenagers that need a safe haven a place to go to after school and after the boys and girls clubs particularly to teach them life skills and literacy programs and possibly roller skating and midnight basketball
And i know as you mentioned some of your plans in the works include that skating rink and a midnight basketball league as well as literacy programs you actually have an incentive idea to get teens to uh take on reading is that right yes well a lot of the kids in the
Neighborhood we did a um survey a lot of the kids are so excited the parents are excited and uh but a lot of the um maybe here that we uh minister to is low income or neighborhood and therefore they can’t afford the opportunity for special literacy programs or gifted and
Talented school programs so we have made this an incentive if they can play basketball if they can roller skate ring before they can do any of those good social fun activities they must read for 45 minutes and they must give us a little essay of what they read about
Making them do their homework before getting out there to play and giving these kids a safe place to go after school in the evenings he said even a midnight basketball league what difference are you hoping to make in the area well we want to do some social collaboration because kalamazoo is a
Wonderful city and it’s full of philanthropists and we believe that if we get together we’re altruistic enough to come together to make a difference in the children’s life by partnership and coming together primarily if you notice if you get kps and statistics a lot of the shootings are from 12am to
4am if we can somehow come up with a strategic plan a component to get those kids in a safe environment a controlled environment like the skatering at midnight and midnight basketball that we can possibly save a child’s life a lot of kids that were out there going to
Parties and different things were not game get bangers they were not drug dealers but there was some of them were just in a wrong place at the wrong time i did two funerals already this year from a personal victim of gun violence simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time
And to create this safe haven for kids here in the kalamazoo community i know you’re hoping to raise some money to be able to build that skating rink how far along are you right now and how far do you need to go we have a long way to go but a short
Time we get there in this we’re approaching summer this wonderful weather um we have zion builders um have come out and partnered with us and uh we’re about 165 000 away from renovating from pouring the floor and renovating the cafeteria and we have a facility we’re just looking for those
Donors and those philanthropists that would like to make a difference in our lives and i know that you have a facebook page where people can go and learn more about donating we have that link posted on our website at wwmt.com for more information about how you can help this wonderful program
Pastor ramire thank you so much for being here with us this morning thank you it’s now time to take a look at what’s happening outside your window right
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