changes at cgm going forward

We've got organizational news to share with you. We are changing how we approach what we do at Common Ground Montgomery. At the start of the 2023 Spring Semester, we joined up with Mercy House and the MAP Center—both under the direction of Pastor Ken Austin—to collaborate on a joint After School Program (ASP). We are continuing our collaboration with them, but they will be taking the lead. CGM will begin to phase out our direction of the ASP. The new program will be called the MAP Youth Navigation Program and it will still take place in our main building at 1516 Mobile Road. All of the families we currently serve in the ASP will also be in this new program. Our staff that worked the ASP will be transferring to this new program. Fundamentally, nothing will change for the families that we have been serving.

When we originally started here in 2006, it didn't seem like there were many other organizations that were doing the same thing as us. Now we look around and see several folks (including Pastor Austin) laboring to serve Montgomery's youth. With these organizations around, we wanted to spend our efforts focused on areas where we still see a deficit. We are glad to be handing the proverbial reigns over to fellow laborers to help these beautiful families in Washington Park and west Montgomery.

The CGM mission remains the same—we are changing the odds for youth in distressed communities by connecting them to developmental people, programs, and experiences—but how we accomplish that mission is shifting towards our campsite location, Camp Onawa & Retreat Center, outside Verbena, Alabama, just north of Montgomery.

There is a hopelessness, loneliness, and group-think that happens in neighborhoods when kids are isolated in communities of poverty and violence, especially apart from positive role models. Youth murders, generational poverty, chronic under-employment, teenage pregnancy, and lack of access to quality education is intensified in this type of isolation.

We want to help relight the eyes of our youth to yearn for adventure, deal with emotional trauma, and have hope for their future. We believe we can be a part of this by creating a dynamic camp retreat location that serves not only families in Washington Park, but also the other Common Ground locations (Troy and Shoals) as well as others in central Alabama and beyond.

Our camp will have 22 cabins, a gym, a swimming pool, a climbing park, horseback riding, and more. We want our youth to have a place to go and have developmental and paradigm changing experiences. Our goal is to make this type of experience a reality for kids who wouldn't normally have access to such an environment, and allow them to learn to enjoy, develop, and respect nature together while connecting with kids from different backgrounds.

In Montgomery, we will still have a Pre-K in our Annex building. An after school program will still take place in our main building. But after looking around and seeing the need for a more dynamic camp experience, we want to focus on providing that; and once fully operational, will be able to support groups year-round beyond just summertime.

We have a few asks that we would love for you to prayerfully consider.

• We're still doing camp sponsorships of $500 a child. This sponsorship will pay for them to come up weekly for the camp throughout the summer. Please consider giving towards this cost so we can provide a free camp experience.

• I would like to meet with any of you who are so inclined, to see how you can get involved in helping with volunteer work or giving to some of the very big projects we have at the camp site. We're renovating the entire site, so our projects range from small to quite large, and we can use both skilled and unskilled help. Use the contact form to let me know! 

• We're in need of donations of tools, lawn equipment, chainsaws, commercial paint sprayers, and a tractor. Let me know if you can help with any of this! 

Thank you for your time and consideration and continued support. We're excited for our next steps as an organization and we hope you'll continue on this journey with us.

Psalm 34:3,

Bryan Kelly