My Nonprofit Reviews

One Saturday our church volunteered to clean up, spruce up, and make the Cross in the City building a brighter and more inviting place for the volunteers and clients. Some of the young people who had been helped by Cross in the City also came. I got a special surprise when a former student of mine was there to help. I had this young man in my first year of teaching, but he moved away in the spring semester. I had his younger brother several years later, but all he would tell me was that is brother was ok.

What I had not known was that this young man was in a gang while in high school. He left town to live with a relative in order to get away from the gangs. A few years later, he returned home and found he had difficulties living in the same place where he had once been a gang member. I was thrilled to see him and meet his wife and two children.

We talked quite a bit that day about his life. I told him that I had been unaware that he was in a gang. That's when I found out that just how deep he had been into the gangs. He stunned me. He didn't go in details, but I realized that he was with some really bad people. He then went on to tell me how much Cross in the City had done for him.

Before me stood a man who was no longer in a gang. He had a job and a family. He told me that he owed so much to Cross in the City that he volunteered his time to help mentor young people who were trying to get out of gangs.

I consider all my students my "kids". I will be forever grateful to James Leslie and Cross in the City for providing for one of my "kids" when he needed help. I thank God each day for the lives this organization continues to touch and change.

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