Urban Youth Collaborative

Vision night fundraising banquet: in 2024, urban youth collaborative hosted a successful vision night fundraising banquet that raised over $100,000 for the ministrys continued outreach and evangelism work with generation z and generation alpha.

Project 25 community service challenge: each year, students from 30-50 middle and high school clubs perform over volunteer service to the communities of san diego, mexico, and atlanta. We challenge young leaders to read the parable of the talents in matthew 25. They prayerfully identify a need in their school, city, or world that they wanted to meet in the name of jesus. Then, they made a short video giving an account of how they put the funds to work on behalf of others. We hosted all clubs at city view church for a red carpet awards celebration. Community leaders present trophies to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place projects that made the most incredible impact with their resources. Over the years, students have been involved in such projects as purchasing the freedom of slaves in sudan, drilling fresh water wells in developing countries, designing an anti-bullying mural at a school where bullying caused a suicide, feeding the homeless, sharing the good news about jesus with friends, cleaning up beaches, and other meaningful outreach events for the community. Over the past fifteen years over 250,000 hours of community service has been generated by students leaders who raised over $250,000 toward kingdom causes (local and global) that jesus cares about.

Fca summer camp: each summer we take urban students to a sports camp put on by the fellowship of christian athletes (fca) at a southern california university. Thanks to a generous partnership with fca, each student received a $520 scholarship to eat in the cafeteria, sleep in the dorms, practice on the courts/fields, and experience life on a college campus. In the evening, campers attend a dynamic team chapel service with powerful worship and biblical teaching. Many students make commitments to christ or rededicate their lives. A week at college also plants the seed of pursuing higher education into the minds of students that may not think of themselves as college-bound otherwise. Fca provides over $75,000 in scholarships to make this camp possible for our kids. While these funds do not come through our books, they go directly to camp scholarships that benefit our kids. Over the past decade-and-a-half, uyc has sent between 100-150 students annually to this life-changing camp experience.

Localized late lunch learning labs: urban youth collaborative hosted the late lunch learning lab to inspire and train pastors to reach students by empowering their congregations for outreach on public school campuses throughout san diego county.

Weekly program: uyc supports student-initiated, student-led faith clubs, and public school campus meetings that take place at middle and high school campuses in san diego (ca), sacramento/grass valley (ca), columbia (sc), atlanta (ga), spokane (wa), tijuana (mx), and addis ababa (et). We provide physical food, spiritual food, spiritual guidance, and adolescent goal-setting training every week to 3,500 young people. This is made possible by our collaborative of 100 local churches that work alongside student leaders. We also offer mentoring, tutoring, discipleship, community service, and sports ministry opportunities.

School beautification day: throughout each school year, uyc hosts an annual series of school beatification days throughout san diego county. Altogether, a hundred or more volunteers work on school campuses from south bay, to inner-city san diego and up to north county san diego and oceanside. Depending on a churchs capacity and the schools needs, projects ranged from painting, weed removal, and trash pick-up to heavy equipment and construction.

Food for hungry families facing food insecurity: in addition to food for weekly faith clubs and sports teams, uyc provided restaurant and grocery cards for hungry students in san diego and mexico.

Discipleship: uyc took over 100 students through a personalized discipleship program designed to grow their relationship with god and teach them to become reproducing followers of jesus christ.

Online & in-person training: through live outdoor events and online gatherings, uyc developed training experiences that equipped youth workers to engage gen z and gen alpha effectively on campus, virtually, and in diverse communities in san diego and beyond. Our online presence continues to reach thousands of people year year.

In 2024,urban youth collaborative continued conversations with ministries in ethiopia about the potential of expanding our work into more countries.

In 2024, dr. Landis book god wants his kids back began translation into spanish and amharic. It is also being translated into spanish to impact the latin american world.

Successful relationship education program continues: urban youth collaborative received two federal grants for work in california and one state-based grant for work in south carolina. The initiative allows us to take 1,300 vulnerable youth through a curriculum that reduces dating violence and unwanted pregnancy. The program shares the benefits of voluntary abstinence prior to marriage as a best practice.