There was a great turn out from the community in support of this effort to reach out to the children in Troy's North Central/South Lansingburgh community. Pastor Willie Bacote of Missing Link Street Ministry led the meeting. Rev. Cornelius Clark, pastor of Holy Serenity church was also present, along with several representatives from the neighborhood association.
We will be starting Monday, July 14th, at 6pm from the CORE Church ministry lot,located at 5th Ave & 101st. to serve the "Feed a Kid" meals. This will take place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 6pm. Food will be prepared in the CORE church kitchen, located across the street from the lot. Meals will be served inside of the church if it is raining. To start things off a simple menu of hot dogs, salads, watermelon and koolaid drinks was decided upon. Future menues are still being planned. Food and beverage donations are always welcome. Ideas for field trips and outings were also discussed.
Anyone is welcome to come and help anytime, as you are available.
I've been in contact with Pastor Charlie Muller, pastor of Victory Church of Albany, and he has pledged to do what he can to help us in this effort. I would like to have a regular place where kids can come and feel safe from the streets, get a meal, help with homework, etc. There is a commercial building located a block south of our church, at 3280 6th Ave, near Glen Ave. (directly across the street from Stewart's) that the city is getting ready to auction off on August 5th. This building has two floors and is about 2700 Sq. ft and would be ideal for a Troy version of Victory's JC Club. If you feel led by the Spirit to pray for anything, perhaps that God would make that property available to us, along with necessary resources to renovate it and convert it into a youth outreach center. This is my vision and it even has a name to go with it, TKO (Troy Kids Outreach) Center. TKO, as you know, is a boxing term which means Technical Knock Out. What we want to do is reach out to these great kids and knock the drug dealers, gang bangers, and other negative influences (we know that Satan is really behind all of this) out of there lives. We want to feed them, clothe them if they need it, and do whatever we can to let them know that God loves them and that they have choices in life that may not be obvious to them.
