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What happens when you have an older teen mentor a younger teen? You'd think it would be a lot like the blind leading the blind, right? In this week's episode, Linda Rubingh from New City Kids joins Zach to discuss why this model actually works, how her organization empowers at-risk teens to be role models, and how you can empower your mentee to do the same.
Show Notes
What happens when you have an older teen mentor a younger teen? You'd think it would be a lot like the blind leading the blind, right? In this week's episode, Linda Rubingh from New City Kids joins Zach to discuss why this model actually works, how her organization empowers at-risk teens to be role models, and how you can empower your mentee to do the same.
Find out more about New City Kids:
https://newcitykids.org
Reach out to Linda:
linda@newcitykids.org
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Find out more about New City Kids:
https://newcitykids.org
Reach out to Linda:
linda@newcitykids.org
Purchase the You Can Mentor book:
You Can Mentor: How to Impact Your Community, Fulfill the Great Commission, and Break Generational Curses
youcanmentor.com
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the You Can Mentor podcast. This is your host, Zach, and we've got a great show for you today. With me is the reverend Linda Reubing. And Linda and her husband, Trevor, they co founded a nonprofit in New Jersey and Michigan called New City Kids. They both are Presbyterian USA pastors.
Speaker 2:Linda, she's a licensed social worker. And New City Kids is a faith based nonprofit providing music focused after school centers for elementary age students in typically underserved city neighborhoods. But this next part is what gets me. It's crazy, so pay attention. What New City does and what makes them unique is that their centers are primarily staffed with paid teen interns, and mentoring these teens is a key component of what they do.
Speaker 2:So their teenagers, the ones that they invest into, junior high, high school older teens, invest into the younger ones, and that's how they run their programs. Linda and Trevor started their first site in 1996 in Jersey City, New Jersey. And now New City Kids has 6 locations in both New Jersey and Michigan. They employ 200 teens serving over 500 students. And for the last 10 years, 98% of their teen alumni have graduated high school and gone off to college.
Speaker 2:One of Linda's passions at New City Kids is directing the brighter day program. Brighter day is a series of classes and small groups she developed that provide coping skills for children and teens as they face ACEs. New City Kids, just some things that I love about it. They have 50 church partnerships, extremely diverse. They provide jobs to teens.
Speaker 2:Six programs, 4 cities. They've been doing it for the long haul, 25 years. And, yeah. So I hope that you guys love my interview with Linda Rubin from New City Kids. Check them out, social media, Facebook, Instagram, visit their website.
Speaker 2:So, Linda, why don't you just tell us a tiny bit about yourself and where you live and and just kinda the story about New City Kids?
Speaker 3:Alright. Well, about me, like I said, we I'm an East Coast girl originally, born and raised in New Jersey. I'm one of those really big Bruce Springsteen fans. You need to know that about me. And, yeah, my a lot of my family is still there, but 7 years ago, we moved new city.
Speaker 3:We moved out here to Grand Rapids, Michigan, which is where I live now with my family. And as yeah. I just am blessed to be married to my my partner in crime and long time husband, Trevor.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're
Speaker 3:gonna be celebrating 30 years next year, so we're pretty excited about that. And then our our 2 children, Michael and Zach, and we have a really, really energetic Siberian husky that keeps keep us on our toes. Right? So but but the story of New City Kids, boy, that is also an integral part of of Trevor and I's story. Right?
Speaker 3:So we Trevor and I met in seminary on the East Coast, and god had called us independently of even knowing each other. We didn't know each other when we got to seminary. God had called us to urban ministry, and god had used Isaiah 61, the first four verses, which I'll maybe say in in a few minutes, but if I can, but God had used Isaiah 61 to to call us to urban ministry. And so we got we got to seminary, and we met each other, and and we just started to dream. We started to dream about, you know, we wanted to change the world.
Speaker 3:We wanted to live radically for Jesus, and we were young and impatient, and we we thought, you know what? The the traditional church is great, but it's it's actually too slow for us. Like, we were there was something going on in both of us. Like, we wanna do something new. There was a new thing that god was calling us to do.
Speaker 3:So long story short, we just we got commissioned. We got married because we really, really like liked each other. We got commissioned as church planters, and even though when we left New Jersey and we we did a stint in Grand Rapids here because Trevor had to do, like, an extra year of seminary, we we went back to New Jersey because that's where the call came from through a good friend of ours and a mentor of ours, and so we we didn't necessarily think we were gonna land back in New Jersey, but we did. And so we we started as church planters in Jersey City, and we gathered we worked really, really hard for two and a half years, gathered this small group of of people there, and tons of kids came with that small group of adults. And and then as as we asked you know, transitioned into people taking more ownership of the this new budding church, Everything fell apart, and boom.
Speaker 3:Almost everybody left, except we had, like, 3 adults and 25 kids. Kids we couldn't get rid of.
Speaker 2:Okay. Wait. So you guys go into seminary, fall in love, get married. You're like, I'm gonna be church. Like, we're gonna plant a church, and it's gonna go great.
Speaker 2:And then it just kinda unfortunately falls flat. So tell me what the conversation sound like between yourself and your husband during that time.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. You know, we're kinda scratching our heads going, what you know, this feels awful. What what are we supposed to do? And we we just did what we knew what we were supposed to do, which is get on our knees. We stopped everything we were trying to do.
Speaker 3:No bible study, no no Sunday worship, no no prayer groups during the week. We just stopped everything we were trying to do, and we prayed, we fasted, and we talked to trusted mentors and and people, you know, who were friends and and mothers and fathers to us in the faith, and we asked them to pray. We we already had a prayer group who was praying for the new church plant. And so for 2 weeks, we did this, and and then somebody came along and said, you know, you guys gotta check out this ministry to kids in Bushwick, Brooklyn. And we took a ride over there, crossed the river into Brooklyn, and we see this amazing thing happening.
Speaker 3:It's like this Nickelodeon on steroids thing happening for kids, and we looked at each other and we're like, this is what we're supposed to do. Just kids. Just kids. And so we went back to Isaiah 61, which I don't know if you remember this, but this is the scripture that Jesus uses when he starts his ministry, right? The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, if I could just say it for a minute, you know, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, set the captives free, and then there's all these glorious reversals, right?
Speaker 3:There's joy, crown of beauty instead of ashes, joy for mourning, garments of praise instead of the spirit of despair. You know, they will be called the oaks of righteousness. They will rebuild the ancient ruins. They will renew the ruined cities. What happened, Zach, in our conversations was we were asking ourselves, who is they?
Speaker 3:Because we thought initially it was mostly all about us. And in that moment, what happened was god the holy spirit just shown the spotlight on they will rebuild the ancient ruins and the place is long devastated, and it wasn't gonna be us, it was gonna be the kids. It was gonna be the teens because we had all these kids and we didn't know what to do with them, they wouldn't go away. And that was, like, a pivotal moment where the light bulb started to go on.
Speaker 2:So was it, like, a clear as day, like, this is what the Lord has for us, or did you guys have to, like, talk about it, or was it just like, oh, no. Like, I'm I'm certain that this is his call for us now.
Speaker 3:So what we had been clear on was we knew we the holy spirit confirmed in a couple of different interesting ways that we were in the right place doing doing almost the right thing, but our focus needed to be on the kids and the teens. And when we got to, we had this inkling, right, because we had these kids who wanna go away. And so we're like, god, what do you want us to do? We we we're pretty sure we're in the right place. And and and when we got to that ministry, it was that moment where we actually both looked at each other at the same time and said, this is what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 3:Now what's interesting about the new city story, right, is what happened after that was that for 8 years, we ran this one day a week, kids ministry program. It was we called it kids church, new city kids church. And we did this for 8 years. We we got school buses. He and I got our school bus driver's license, and we drove through the streets of Jersey City picking up swarms of kids and bringing them to the building and running this program.
Speaker 3:And at the top of what we were doing in those 8 years, we were running the program 3 times in one day because we had so many kids. So we were, like we had 300 kids coming every single week, and we were doing it on Saturdays to encourage the kids to do their their own churches on Sundays, but then we would visit. Every kid would get a visit during the week. So we were in neighborhoods and homes and meeting families and just learning so much. But here's the thing.
Speaker 3:We when you say, did you know exactly what to do? We knew that it was kids and teens. And then when we started to do this program, we we were, like, calling on everyone we could think of, volunteers, church the churches that were supporting us to please come and help, and no one no one was responding. Like, who was gonna come and give their whole Saturday? Right?
Speaker 3:And so we're like, well, what do we have? Just like the loaves and the fishes. Right? Jesus, you know, says to the disciples, feed them, and they're like, well, we don't how are we gonna do that? And Jesus said, what do you have?
Speaker 3:Right? And then they they brought what they did have. So we're like, what do you have? We have kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so we need a band. We're gonna teach the kids how to play the instruments, and they're gonna be the band. We need we need people to run the games. We need people to do the skits. We need, you know, we need all these things, and and that's how the first part of New City Kids happened.
Speaker 3:We were doing this once a week program, and kids were running the whole thing, but it was only once a week. So after 8 years, it became really clear to us that the lives of the kids and the surrounding community was not changing in the way we knew the power of the gospel could actually make an impact, just in terms of all those brilliant reversals, right, in Isaiah 61. So that is when once again, we we went back to Isaiah 61, and we and we're like, Lord, we know that we're we're on the right track, but what really is it? And then we made another key pivot, and that was the pivot that got us to eventually where we are today. And we know, we knew at that moment, about 6 months into it, we started an after school center model, right?
Speaker 3:We started to do after school programming, not just one day a week, but 5 days a week, and not just an hour, an hour and a half with the kids, but those 3 hours with kids every day. And then we have evening programming with the teens after work, after they're done working. So that's that's sort of Yeah.
Speaker 2:What I love about that, Linda, is I believe so often the best nonprofits are built little by little, inch by inch. And I think that that's pretty biblical, faithful with the little, master over much. So, like, I'm sitting here checking out the New City Kids website. You guys have been going now for 25 years. You've got 6 programs, 4 cities.
Speaker 2:Your financial, budget's over $4,000,000 You guys are having a lot of different success in a bunch of different areas, And you started out with a failed church plant, and you started out doing all volunteer for 8 years, one day a week on the weekend. But the Lord saw your faithfulness and just said, you know what? I think I'm gonna put my hand on this. And I just think that that's so cool, Linda. So my encouragement, if you're listening out there and if you're starting a nonprofit or if if you just have something with kids that's once a week or once a month or once every 3 months, just know that if you believe that there's fruit, if you believe that the Lord's doing something through that, if and if you feel called, keep on communing with the Holy Spirit and just see what happens.
Speaker 2:Yes. So cool. And what God
Speaker 3:God takes that. God takes it. God is faithful. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. He does take that.
Speaker 3:And and we didn't, you know, we we didn't know. We yeah. We didn't know, but we did we we just felt really it was really impressed on us to keep pressing on.
Speaker 2:Well and I think it's so important to continue to commune with the Lord and keep on asking God, is this what you want? Is this what you want? Because so often, after a season or after some time, he will create this, like, well, you were going this way, but now go this way. So kudos for actually, like, hearing his voice and having the courage to be like, this is working, but we're gonna go this way instead. So, so cool.
Speaker 2:Why don't you tell me about the 60%. You talked about how there's, a couple different types of kids, but you guys went after the 60 percenters.
Speaker 3:Yeah. At New City, we call it the middle 60. And, basically, it's an understanding that, you know, every of course, every child and and teen deserves all of our attention, but not everybody can do everything. And and so as we grew and and started to do more and more of what we do, we understood that there was if you think about a 100% of kids, that there were 20% of kids the end of the spectrum where these are kids who are really, really struggling and need intense individual attention, some kids who are have been maybe in and out of juvenile detention, or are really struggling with mental health issues that that don't necessarily allow them to be able to thrive in the kind of program that New City is in. And then there's these other kids on the other end of the spectrum who have tons of family support.
Speaker 3:They're killing it in school. They're doing, you know, they're doing great in every aspect of their life. And you know what? If they don't if they don't encounter New City, they're still gonna they're still gonna flourish. Right?
Speaker 3:They're still gonna go. And that New City is built for those kids who are in the middle 60%. Right? Not this 20, not that 20, but the middle 60. And we we actually sometimes pull from the the other the other 2 twenties.
Speaker 3:We do get kids, and we do manage to sneak them in there, right? But but then our focus is with these middle 60 who, if they don't encounter the kinds of things that they would encounter at New City in terms of the mentoring and all of the the great things that happen when you when you get to New City, that there's a good chance they're vulnerable to get to go on a trajectory that's gonna land them in in a high risk and unhappy category. Right? And and so we that's where that's where our sweet spot is, that's where we wanna intervene. Those kids who maybe don't have a ton of parental support, that are coming from neighborhoods that are, that are, have been just traditionally not invested in well, so there's some toxic poverty going on, kids where school systems are not really serving them that well, you know, all of these things.
Speaker 3:And when when they can get to a new city and get that kind of environment, that life giving environment, that support, that it can really be a trajectory to success and and living into that future and hope that God has for them.
Speaker 2:That's so great. And and that success doesn't just stop with them, but it, you know, it impacts their families. It impacts their friends. It impacts one day possibly their spouse or their own, you know, children, grandchildren, and things like that. And I always say that I wanna be investing into the kids that if they don't hear about Jesus from me or from what we're doing, then they're not gonna hear about him at all.
Speaker 2:And that kinda makes me think about the kids that are in that 60%. And so
Speaker 3:And and honestly yeah. And honestly, just to add to that too, just in terms of that is that is Trevor and I's, that has been our our passion from the very beginning. We're really both evangelists at heart, like sharing the gospel with people, especially with kids and teens who just, you know, haven't heard it. Like, that's the majority of the kids that come to us. Like there's kids, there's teens who come to us and they are faithful, they've already been raised in a in a community of faith, but the majority of them either don't, you know, have never heard, or because, you know, we're in America, and so the Christian culture, it's like you almost can't not hear a little bit about it.
Speaker 3:But what they have heard is is just completely mistaken and almost always negative. So that's what we love to do because we get to introduce them to the Jubilee Jesus of Isaiah 61. You know? And and, oh, I love that.
Speaker 2:That's so awesome. Do you think you could just kinda, like, paint a picture about what a typical day over at New City Kids looks like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure. So, well, of course, we're an after school center, so in the mornings, it's much quieter, and you know, all of our staff are are doing all the different things that they need to do to prep for the day. But it's it's around 2:30 in the afternoon where things start to to cook and teens start rolling in. The teens start rolling in from their classes, wherever they may be, and then we gather as a staff, both teens and adults. We pray together.
Speaker 3:The the teens who are in leadership over their peers, because we have tiers of leadership for the teens at New City, the teen leaders of the teens, they go over with the teens what they need to pay attention to and and do do for the day, kinda just prepping. And then this really cool thing happens. So depending on the different sites' needs and where the kids are coming from, we have these little groups of teens and adults that go out either on foot or in vans or on buses or whatever, and pick kids up from their schools. Or school buses, sometimes the school systems, will let a bus take the kids from the school and drop them off to new cities. So a bunch of people go out to collect kids, and then the rest of the teens are in their classrooms, you know, prepping their classrooms to get ready for the day, and then all of a sudden we get these waves and and hoards of kids just coming through the doors at around 3:30.
Speaker 3:Sometimes parents drop them off, kids just get to New City in a lot of different ways. But around 3:30, things become very noisy and very exciting. And and the sites, do it differently. You know, sometimes it's the same, but sometimes it it can be different depending on the different sites' needs, but we have pretty much three things that happen then from 3:30 to 6, community time, music lessons, and homework academic tutoring. So typically, we start with community time, which again is like praise and worship and games and game show a little bit, Nickelodeon on steroids.
Speaker 3:We try and keep it fun. Fun is one of New City Kids' core values, by the way. And so we try and make community time really fun. There's always snacks involved because anyone mentoring understands the importance of food with kids. Right?
Speaker 3:And after community time, then half the kids at the site will go to the music lessons, and the other half will go and do their homework. And then in an hour, everything flips so that every kid there has gotten community time, has gotten their music lessons, and has done their homework or gotten tutoring in the ways that they needed it. And then we gather up, we pray, we dismiss for the day, and then all the little kids, 1st through 8th grade, leave, and then teen programming starts for the evening. And and what we do for teens, this is this is where all the the mentoring comes in, even though they are being the teens are being mentored throughout the day. We have job coaches at New City Kids, and and all of our staff are really just speaking into the kids' lives as they're teaching, as they're doing their jobs.
Speaker 3:But evening programming can be you can be on the worship team, like worship team Monday nights, and our worship team goes out to our supporting churches and shares New City Kids, and there's there's lots of love and joy that happens there. We have college and career readiness, and and every junior teen employee goes through college and career readiness starting as a junior and their senior year. We have brighter day, which you talked about already. I run a brighter day teens group, and I also support that to make sure it's happening in our other sites. And then we have tutoring for the teens.
Speaker 3:Sometimes the leadership teen group meets in the evenings, and then trainings happen for the teens in the evenings too. So a lot going on, and that is kind of a day in the life of New City kids.
Speaker 2:That's a full day, Linda. For sure.
Speaker 3:It's not for the, it's not for the weary in heart.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, so you and your husband have been doing this for 25 years. How, how do you do it? How did, how do you not burn out? How do you not grow weary?
Speaker 2:How do you stay energized to keep on going?
Speaker 3:Well, wise female pastor, good friend of ours, in the very beginning when we were just sort of thinking about church planting, we were still in that kind of small few months of trying to discern where God was calling us, she said to us, you know, make sure whatever you wind up doing, you set healthy boundaries for work because you guys are a clergy couple, and that can be dangerous to your marriage. She said, set up healthy boundaries, and also make sure you go on retreat a couple times a year. And at first, we stunk at that, Zach. We really did. We were just we you know, when we were just starting out with the church planting, like, we put our nose to the grindstone and didn't look up, you know?
Speaker 3:But we quickly sort of got reminded of that by by good people in our lives. And and also, especially once we had our own children, it was it was a mutual thing that we understood. We you know, as new parents, you're like, oh my gosh. How do I keep this kid alive? And it takes so much to do.
Speaker 3:And, you know, you you you awaken to the realities of of family life, and how much energy and time that requires. And with everything, we just were like, you know what? We really have to take time to be together. And there's another, our friend, Dave Bielen, who's an an amazing pastor and mentor in both of our lives. He's here in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 3:He he preached a sermon many times, actually. It's a great sermon just about how to protect your marriage and and dating regularly, dating your spouse. And he he gave us this beautiful image of, you know, like your marriage is like this beautiful glass table, and you hold hands on the table, you look into each other's eyes, and you you don't let anybody else around, you know, when anyway, all of that to say that we have had great people sort of tell us the importance of those things, and and and just realizing that if God is calling you for the long haul, which we we didn't know how long it was gonna last because it it was hard to say yes to this call at first actually, because, you know, we didn't know what we were doing, and we were going to a strange place that didn't look very nice, but but that that we needed to really practice those healthy boundaries and care care for ourselves, care for our relationship, and and kind of the basics too, Zach, like staying in the word, staying in prayer, and taking taking time to rest
Speaker 2:too. Yeah. Well, and it's it's so hard for us who are in full time ministry. And for so many, not only are you in it, but so is your spouse. I mean, I don't think I'd say that my wife gets paid by my nonprofit, but she works her tail off because she cares about all of our kids and she cares about me and
Speaker 3:A lot of couples do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And so the enemy knows that if he can take out the marriage, then he can he can definitely mess up a whole lot of families because of that. And so
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, when we were dating, we talked about that a lot because we we knew the statistics on clergy couples. And I I was very intentional, and we talked through it before we did it, but I was very intentional about not working outside of the home in the ministry full time while our kids were teeny tiny, you know? It's just I didn't, I was able to stay at home with them, and then we did a lot of sharing too, which was really nice. But, but yeah, it's, you have to be really intentional and think carefully about that, because you're absolutely right, if, if the enemy can get to the marriage, then the whole thing can come crashing down.
Speaker 2:Well, Anne, just how to fight against that guilt of, okay, I can go home right now at 5 o'clock and be with my family, but there's all these kids who need me. And what happens if I leave, and then they're gonna fail math class, and they're gonna not graduate from high school, then they're gonna follow in and and da, da, da. And so just that that struggle of trusting God and be like, okay, Lord, like, you call me to love my neighbor. My very first neighbor is my family, my wife and kids, and I'm gonna trust that you're gonna take care of these kids. That's hard.
Speaker 3:Abs yeah. Absolutely. And the and the other thing is I think we we something went on like, what went on for us early on that, you know what? We actually aren't the saviors, Jesus is. And actually these these kids and these peep like these people that you're called to to be with, to partner with, and to serve, they were there without you before you got there.
Speaker 3:So it really is not that much about you, it's about God. And so that does mean because you know that God wants you to to be healthy and your family to be healthy, that you can go home at a decent hour.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right. Okay. Back to New City. So, this is, I mean, I can't tell you how mind blowing this is.
Speaker 2:Just the amount of empowering that you give your kids, it just, I just can't get over it. And so one of your core values is trusting teens with leadership. And it says on your website, while it would be easier and more efficient to do the job ourselves, at New City Kids, we not only give our teens opportunities to be leaders, we trust them with critical responsibilities and invest in their success in those areas. We literally hand them the mic, walk off stage, and let them lead. This kind of trust causes teens to take themselves seriously, taking ownership first of their work, then over their future.
Speaker 2:Man, just how did you overcome the fear of really giving teenagers, most of these kids from hard places, the keys to your program? How do you do that?
Speaker 3:You know what? It's interesting because I think partly what I said before was, in some ways, we didn't have a choice. Like, we we were in this moment where we needed to do something, and we didn't have grown ups to do it. It was just Trevor and I, a t an intern, a young woman, an amazing young woman, Lisa, who was an intern and then became a staff member, and then all these kids who who we who just kept hanging around. Right?
Speaker 3:And so in some ways, we there there was no time for fear, but in other ways, like, a couple things. So one is that I think God used Trevor and I's personalities. Like, both of our personalities in different ways, but both of us, like, really love to hang out with kids and love to let kids be kids. Like, we're really comfortable with letting kids be kids. So we're comfortable with mess.
Speaker 3:We're comfortable with dirt. We're comfortable with them, like, dropping the mic and denting it, the $500 microphone. Right? And
Speaker 2:That's hard.
Speaker 3:I know. Listen. This is the thing, though, that, like, part of our call was was, like, do whatever it takes to get this mission going. And what it took was trusting the kids with the leadership. And so there was this attitude, and maybe it's my generation.
Speaker 3:I don't know. There's this attitude, like, you know what? The carpet's nice, but if you're inviting a 100 kids into your space every day, the carpet's gonna get dirty. The microphone's nice, but if you want the kid to grow in leadership, you're gonna have to hand the kid the mic, and he's gonna drop it, and it's gonna get dented. Like, it's just stuff.
Speaker 3:You gotta write it into your budget. That's all. Because the leadership that happens, the self esteem that happens, the the somebody is trusting me with responsibility, like, what that does to especially to teenagers, because that's what they're looking for. Teens don't wanna be kids anymore. Right?
Speaker 3:They teens want to say, I got this. I know how to do this, at least my teenagers. You know? I I know it. I know it.
Speaker 3:I got it. Let me do it. Right? That's sort of like this developmental thing that kids need, and so we're actually sort of giving that to them. And we're all we're also doing tons of training and all of that to prep them and set them up for success, and we're gonna be there to encourage them and mentor them, like, after, if they totally botch it up, right?
Speaker 3:But there was not there wasn't a whole lot of fear, because it kind of was part of the call. And I think that I think that people who are called to mentor can can get there too. I think that God has already if you're if you're thinking about mentoring or if you're doing it right now, I can a 100% say that God's gonna God's gonna allow you to make that happen. Like, that fear is gonna go.
Speaker 2:That's so cool. So I wanna kinda zero in on the self esteem, self confidence, self value, how the kids see themselves. And one thing that you said whenever we were talking on the phone a couple weeks ago was the kids aren't they're not a deficit, but they're an asset. And can you just kinda tell me how you seeing them like that and you empowering them and trusting them. Tell me some personal stories of, like, how you've seen kids go from not seeing themselves as successful to having self confidence and so on.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh. How much time do we have? One
Speaker 2:One story.
Speaker 3:Oh, man. Alright. Well, I guess I'm gonna talk about Destiny.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:So Destiny is one of our teams that graduated last year from here in Grand Rapids. I mean, honestly, there are just like so many stories. And I do need space after Destiny if you will ask me again, just maybe about some of our alumni, some of our other alumni. But but yeah, Destiny was this beautiful, wonderful young kid who came to New City Kids as, like, I think a 5th grader, and she she was in the drum class, so she she had a really good time, but but then left after 2 years. I think she only spent 2 years as a kid.
Speaker 3:And then she came back as a teen, and she is she is like joyful and really open to learning, but really doesn't never believed that she could accomplish that much, and especially not be in front of a large group of people. Because deep down, she didn't think that she deserved to be in front of a large group of people or had anything to say to a large group of people. And for the last 3 years before she graduated, Destiny got up, and we have fundraisers and big events that we put on where the teens kind of showcase who they are and what they've learned at New City. It's a big musical, beautiful, telling your story kind of production. And Destiny has gotten up like 3 years in a row, we took a year off for COVID, of course, but and just gave her testimony, shared, you know, did a big piece where she had a big speaking part at New City, you know, in front of the whole and we're talking, Josh, like, I'm sorry, Zach, we're talking like 700 people that she was in front of doing this.
Speaker 3:And, you know, I was with her, I was the person that happened to be with her to help her breathe through the panic attack before she got up on stage, but she had experience, after experience, after experience, and of success, and of just being a leader in front of all these people, where there's nobody necessarily in her family that has ever done anything like this. And the fact that she's graduating, high school, and going to college, like, Zach, that is something that really is not happening much in her family, but she is now leading the rest of her younger siblings, especially her brother, in doing the same thing. So
Speaker 2:And that's such a great story because I I feel like the skills are important, right? Like learning how to speak on stage, that's important, and how to prepare and all of these things. But you can give them the skills all day. If they don't believe in themselves, then it's just not gonna work out. And so you guys go after the identity and the, hey, you are worth it.
Speaker 2:You have something to say. You can do this. And you're just encouraging and encouraging and encouraging. And and then you also come alongside them with, hey, let's practice together. Here are the skills.
Speaker 2:Here's how you do it. And the identity with the skills, that is that's a game changer. So Mhmm. Mhmm. That's great.
Speaker 2:Definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Super cool stuff. So I wanna talk just in the last couple in the last little bit of time that we have about expansion. So just kind of, if you could, just tell me why y'all chose to expand and what were some of the common obstacles that you guys had to overcome as y'all went from one side to 2 sides to 4 sides to 6 sides and then in a totally different city or 4 cities. So you could just kind of speak to that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I would say yeah. Sometimes I don't know where to begin with that question. But let's see. I think how, you know, how we how we decided to start to expand is that we had we had really special board members who were super invested in we had great we've always had really, really great board members, people just really ministry minded, and they're like, you guys, you are doing this amazing thing.
Speaker 3:There has to be a way to reach more kids. And and really, that is our heart, but when you are doing so much work to just fly the plane, right, and and, you know, just keep it going, it's sometimes hard to think about expansion. But we kept hearing, this is working, this is working, this is working, because once we once we figured out the after school model, and then got our teenagers on that college and career path, and and, you know, we're just seeing the fruit of that in the alumni, the board kept saying this is working, this is working, we gotta reach more kids with this, we just have to. So the the move to open another site in Jersey City, where we started the first one, was not too too hard. And again, that is that's just something that we we bathe in prayer, we ask God to, you know, send us to the right place, it gets confirmed through a number of different places, and the board says, let's do it.
Speaker 3:And then God has just been so faithful to provide for the finances, like, just to keep it all going, and, you know, that we have bread on the table and a roof over our head. You know, like, it's just God has just been amazingly faithful. But then the the the big moment came when, is this something that can actually be repeated outside of Jersey City? Right? Is this something that can actually expand?
Speaker 3:Can you actually grow this thing? And that's when we were praying about Trevor and I leaving once again to go to a new land. Right? Now Trevor actually grew up in Grand Rapids, that's one of the reasons why we knew the city in order to try it out here. One of the things that we look for, Zac, when we're thinking about expansion is we think about the place, is there a need, is there a high need?
Speaker 3:We think about the people, who could be supporters around this high need area? And then the staff, where would we get staff for it? And we thought about Grand Rapids because they have a lot of Christian colleges and and universities for in terms of for potential staff. Right? We have a huge giving community here, very philanthropic, generous, generous giving Christian people, and there was lots of pockets of high need in different parts of Grand Rapids, so it kind of fit the bill.
Speaker 3:And then, you know, we did it once, and we were like, this is gonna be a hard move, because this time we have kids with us, and and, you know, we were we were rooted, and our whole community was in Jersey City for 20 years, and and we that was not an easy move, honestly. That was that was pretty darn hard, but we knew God was calling us, you know, to do it, and so we set out to do it. And I'm not I'm not kidding you, like, when when I met the it was just a month or 2 later, and I met that first group of teens, and I was like, oh my gosh, God just had this whole new group of people for us to be in these great relationships with. And I love these teens, just like I love my Jersey City teens. And God was just saying, there are so many more kids that need this.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna I'm gonna do it over and over again. Like, it was just a confirmation. And 6 months after we started the we came out to Michigan, then we went to a different city in New Jersey, and Patterson started. So I'm I hope I answered your question just in terms of what what the whole expansion thing sort of required, and, yeah, it's been it's been quite a journey.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. There's so so many nonprofits out there who, whenever we talk, we're always kind of, we're having so much success or just feel like there's more and things like that. So anytime that we get to have a conversation with people who have actually expanded, it's always good to hear, you know, how it happened and kind of the why and the process. So thank you so much for sharing that.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah. And honestly too, I just have to add, like, it is not easy right now. We're in we're in this interesting sort of adolescence of being really awkward. Some of our new systems that we're building in to manage the growth, you know, don't quite work yet, and we're still all trying to figure out how not to say, well, we always used to do it this way, and you know, so it's definitely not easy. But I I don't know.
Speaker 3:I can't stress enough that if if the Lord builds the house, you know, does not build the house, the laborers labor in vain. If the Lord's building the house, then God is faithful, and it's come to be.
Speaker 2:He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it.
Speaker 3:That's right. Amen.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's awesome, Linda. Well, thank you so much for taking time out. If there's one thing that you would like to share as it's time to end, anything that we missed or that you had on your heart?
Speaker 3:I do wanna just share an another alumni story. And that, you know, like, if I started to call out all the names
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:But but this this this is, like, happening both at the same time. So last week, Trevor traveled to New Jersey for a new city work. We both do that, but not always together. And he went to church on Sunday. He went to a a church that he had never been to before, and he was he knew about it, but he'd never been there.
Speaker 3:And he was by himself, and he just went to church that Sunday. And 2 seconds after he walked through the door, Zach, he heard, PT, PT. So everybody calls us PL and PT, pastor Trevor, pastor Linda. PT, PT, over here. And it was an alumni, one of our original originals, like, one of the first.
Speaker 3:He's about 30 now, and and he was working as the the sound engineer for this big church in in Jersey City where where Trevor was at this morning, and Trevor hadn't seen him in, like, 10 years, and it was just this beautiful reunion. And then after the church service, this other kid comes up to Trevor and says, you don't know me, pastor Trevor, but I need to tell you how much New City Kids has changed my life. And he talked about Josh, one of our amazing staff members, and how Josh stuck with him during this complex, you know, journey from high school to college. And then when when Josh left to go do something else really cool in Jersey City, and this kid had gone, that Josh stuck with him and didn't give up on him. And, you know, so so this is what Trevor heard, like, in one church visit, on one day, just totally unexpected, alumni just coming up to him.
Speaker 3:And then the other thing is that there is a 5 year old when we first started, like the very first year of New City Kids. There is a 5 year old, his name is Greg. I have this great picture of him sitting on my lap. He is the cutest kid ever. And he grew up at New City, went on to college, got his master's degree, and Zach, he is now New City Kids' full time communications and marketing manager, and I get to work with him.
Speaker 3:And I am not kidding you, he is a beautiful man, he is a father, he is a husband, he is a man of faith. And it's just when you think about God's faithfulness and fruit, like, I almost cry every time we have a staff meeting and I talk to Greg, because look at what God has done. And and I got to be, like, a little part of that, and, you know, it's just such a gift to me. So, yeah, it's been New City has been a gift, a gift, a gift to do.
Speaker 2:So great, Linda. Thank you for sharing those. Man, he is good, isn't he? Just
Speaker 3:He's good. Yes.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for your time. If people wanna learn more about you or get in touch with you, tell me how they can do that.
Speaker 3:We have a website. So it's just new city kids dot org, and I am linda@newcitykids.org. So you can email me or go to the website.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And if you do reach out, ask her about the red guitar. That's all I'm gonna say. So, guys.
Speaker 3:It is a sad story.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Right. Thank you so much for tuning in to the You Can Mentor podcast. Check out New City Kids. They're doing amazing things in the name of Jesus and a lot of good stuff was shared today.
Speaker 2:But as we walk away, remember this, You Can Mentor.