Young Life Cleveland West

Young Life feels like a party every week as kids gather for clubs, fall weekend, and Campaigners.  Christmas time – that’s the time when December starts that is like a party every day!  In Young Life, we step up our celebrations and it’s amazing. This year 50+ leaders and committee packed into a house and had the "party to end all parties."  We ate together, prayed together, and of course opened gifts together.  Of course, we played our usual Christmas game…except we changed it up this year and made it even more fun!  We shortened the time and doubled the fun, and it was so great. All our volunteer leaders also got a great Christmas gift from the staff and committee to thank them for all they give to love kids from all around Cleveland.  We believe our volunteers are the greatest gifts to us and the kids... And to quote Cousin Eddy in Christmas Vacation- “and they're the gift that keeps on giving all year round.” Thanks and Merry Christmas to all ou

As we turn the calendar to December, we are keenly aware that Christmas is approaching rapidly and that yet another year is ending.  On Monday this week we had our 88 th Annual YL All-Area Club.  (88 th has been the number since YL started in Cleveland in 1970!).  We saw nearly 200 kids coming from six clubs around Cleveland pack out our club room this year and it was super exciting.  We sang Christmas songs, like Feliz Navidad and Rudolf to 12 Days to a song called How Many Kings .  Kids laughed as they saw kids eat spaghetti, chocolate, and syrup as fast as they could.  A girl from Bay won it!  They saw our special guests, Elf Nemo - two little elves - who showed us how they got into shape as elves for the Christmas season.  Finally, they got to hear from Alex Meyers, our Lakewood Young Life Staff guy, as he shared about life.  Alex asked what it is we put our hope in, realizing that there’s no one we could ever hope in who's like Jesus.  It’s been a great year

Coming up soon, Young Life Cleveland West is participating in Giving Tuesday — a national day of charitable  giving  at  the beginning of the Christmas season. Please consider Young Life Cleveland West as you give this  December 3rd,  and stay on the lookout for more information about  YL Camping opportunities in our area!   https://giving.younglife. org/ CleWestGivingTuesday

This past weekend we had our annual Lakeside Leader Overnight in Lakeside, OH. Over the course of 24 hours we had about 40 leaders and friends of Young Life in Cleveland and Lorain County come together for encouragement, community, and teaching. This is the gist of what we did.  We spent time together.  We opened the Bible together.  We played mini-golf together.  We ate too much pizza together. We prayed together.  We stayed up too late together. And we went back to our schools recharged and excited to be in the world of kids, together.  The fall semester is well underway and we are running hard after our middle school, high school, and college friends. Would you join us in praying for opportunities to be with kids, depth in relationships with kids we know, spiritual and emotional health for leaders and our community, and for the good news and love of Christ to be proclaimed— remembering always that “he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

We are finally catching up after our final camp trip of the summer! Our campers in Young Life Capernaum (our ministry for students with disabilities) experienced a week of God's unconditional love for them while enjoying everything the camp's beautiful property has to offer. Campers got to experience a taste of abundant life through camp activities each day, including a Disney themed day, pool party, talent show, and so many more fun events. Each morning the whole camp got to experience a club specifically catered to Capernaum students with songs, games and an incredible camp speaker. During the week, everyone at camp got the opportunity to memorize John 3: 16. It says, "F or God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Throughout the week, the leaders and buddies had time to process what this scripture meant to the campers. During one cabin time, the campers ha

Working alongside a local church to clean a neighborhood home This year, the local YL staff organized the first local discipleship trip in our region, the Cleveland Leadership Experience. Some of our goals in creating this were to: Serve local ministry partners in the city of Cleveland. Give students an opportunity to learn to lead and grow in Christ through service. Provide vision for students to stay local and make an impact in their city during and after their high school years. Create space for students to experience a different environment and to learn from leaders of diverse environmental and ethnic                                                                                    backgrounds. A text a leader received from a student two days later. All this was accomplished and more as we taught students the value of service and sacrifice and then put those values and our faith into action! Our friends grew immensely in this short overnight trip together and are

Bay and Rocky River H.S. on the way to Saranac Lake Fairview H.S. at Lake Champion Lakewood H.S. at Timber Wolf Lake Young Life camp can often feel like the finish line of a year of running hard after students. And, in a lot of ways, camp does demonstrate the results of months of showing up at the school, putting on weekly clubs, taking kids to get food, playing games, and having leaders feel like they're starting their own mulching business to get every last kid on that bus to camp. But, as is often true, things looks a lot different when viewed from a spiritual perspective. For example, camp trips begin to look a lot more like the starting line than the finish line. For many of the 90+ students we took to camp this summer, they unplugged from their phones for the first time in a long time (something parents often get excited about). They talked about very real things and about Jesus with their friends every day for an entire week for the first time. Some student

Young Life Cleveland Donut Dash WHEN: June 01, 2019 at 8:00 AM WHERE: Kopf Family Reservation 32649 Electric Blvd Avon Lake OH 44012 CLE West Runners! Young Life Cleveland Donut Dash 5K Run/Walk In Partnership With: Peace, Love and Little Donuts SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2019 RACE DAY REGISTRATION: OPENS AT 7:30 AM 5K RACE/WALK STARTS AT 8:00 AM REGISTRATION /RACE LOCATION/COURSE :  Race day registration will be held at the Kopf Family Reservation. 32649 Electric Blvd, Avon Lake, OH 44012. The run/walk starts behind Avon Lake Library, through the library parking lot, using surrounding trails with one water stop on course. Course is accurately measured. AWARDS: Awards will be presented for multiple age brackets in male and female divisions. SHIRTS, REFRESHMENTS, AND OTHER INFO: All pre-registered participants will receive a t-shirt. A limited number of shirts will be available on race day. Donuts, bananas, and water will be provid

Cleveland Young Life 19th Annual Golf Scramble WHEN: July 12, 2019 at 12:00 PM   WHERE: Valley of the Eagles 1100 Gulf Road Elyria OH 44035 Do you like golf, or like Young Life, or both? Then the Young Life Cleveland Golf Tournament is for you! On behalf of Young Life, please join us for the annual Young Life Golf Tournament.  The format will be a four-player scramble.  This event supports the work of Young Life. Young Life is a nondenominational, international Christian outreach for teenagers. Its purpose is to introduce adolescents to Jesus Christ.  So come and join us for a great day of golf, friendly competition, good food, and fun…  all while supporting a great cause!  Click here to register or to receive more information!

Come join the party! It's a "Party with a Purpose!" Sunday April 14, 2019 Double Tree Inn by Hilton 1100 Crocker Road Westlake, OH 44145 5:30-7:30 pm Attire: Snappy Casual Party Attire! No cost to attend. Donations cheerfully accepted! Silent Auction will be online before the event, and then bidding will continue at the event. So come early and bid a lot! Young Life has been in Cleveland for almost 50 years, reaching adolescents with the truth about Christ and helping them grow in their faith. Today, we are in 5 west shore communities, equipping and training 19 volunteers and employing 5 staff people. This event is the primary fundraiser for the $200k annual budget, raising over 30% of these much-needed funds. Money raised at the banquet goes entirely to local support. In the past, the silent auction raised up to $4,000 of that support. Click here to register! Can't come but want to contribute. Click here to contribute!

Campaigner Overnight. February 9-10, 2019 You would think we'd get tired of Sawmill Creek Resort in Huron, but somehow we don't. Just two weekends after our committee/ leader weekend there, we came right back, but this time with some of our high school friends. "Campaigners" is the name of the weekly bible study each community has, where students have a safe space to learn about their faith and ask questions. Students that attend campaigners range from go-getters who practically serve as volunteer leaders with us all the way to students who know almost nothing about the Christian faith but came because a friend invited them. At campaigner overnight, we had just that mix, and it was incredible to get them in a room with 150 other students from all over northern Ohio who are asking the same questions and dealing with the same challenges as them. One story: A freshman student (we'll call him Andrew) from Lakewood, who is very new to Young Life and wouldn't

Our leaders and committee gearing up for the next season of Young Life. The Sawmill Creek retreat is one of our three annual retreats with our volunteers. It is a great opportunity to get away and dream about what might be in store for the coming semester. This year we celebrated the commissioning of two new volunteers who will be serving in Rocky River (Liz) and Cleveland State University (Evan). What's exciting beyond thinking of the numerous lives that will be impacted by these new volunteers is our shared conviction, as they are joining our community centered around the common mission of sharing the love of Jesus with adolescents who don't know Him yet. Each of these volunteers, whether committee or leaders, are helping to do just that. It is a privilege to get to retreat with them for a short bit so we can head right back out, encouraged to reengage in the mission.

Metro Christmas celebration with our volunteer leaders and committee. What comes to mind as you reflect on the Year 2018? We recently sat down with our leaders and got to share many of the great victories, tough losses, and examples of faithfulness we've seen this year. One of the major highlights has been the growth of adult involvement and support for the Young Life ministry on the near west side of Cleveland. In case you're new to Young Life, one thing that makes it unique is that many of the local ministry leaders are volunteers who have been trained by the local staff. These volunteers sacrifice a lot of their free time after working full-time jobs to meet with and mentor students at their local school. Needless to say, we love opportunities to honor and encourage these volunteers. Our committee did an incredible job of doing so at our recent Christmas celebration. Our leaders were shocked as they left not just with some goofy "white elephant" presents,