Dear Partner,
The 2021-2022 school year is underway, and we are excited to see what this year brings! As I traveled around the state during our first three weeks, our students told me, “it is good to be with family again.” This year, our theme is Level Up #Growth. Our staff and students are focused on “Leveling Up” professionally and growing spiritually. The Bible passage that supports our theme this year is Mark 4:1-8. “Listen! A farmer went out to sow his seed.” Our incredible team will sow many seeds with our students this year at our 13 sites across Indiana. We ask for your support and prayers, so the following words of Jesus will be the result of our work. “Still other seeds fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop, some multiplying thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times.”
Our vision is not only to transform lives through education by focusing on the heart and the mind, but also to transform “alternative” education. This is accomplished by focusing on students operating businesses or being embedded within host businesses to develop the competencies that support academic, professional, and spiritual growth rather than simply pointing students toward a graduation finish line. In other words, what skills, dispositions, habits and behaviors lead to success after graduation, and how do we synchronize our people and systems to support such an ambitious goal?
To begin, we focus on developing business partnerships, school partnerships, church partnerships and community support networks. This ensures each student graduates from the Crossing with a church family to welcome them if they are ready, continuing education with industry certifications, and a high quality career plan. We have found that in order to launch students successfully out of our programs, we must focus on the competencies that empower students to be successful. Does a student know how to show up to work on time? Can a student deliver a quality product or service? Does a student know where to find the truth? Have we taught students how to pray for guidance and wisdom? This, friends, is the critical work we are committed to doing every day.
We cannot do this work without your support. Please consider providing support in the following ways:
- Pray for us
- Refer students to enroll
- Ensure your local school districts are contracted with the Crossing
- Connect us with business partners who share our workforce development goals
- Ensure local juvenile justice systems have an active referral process
- Actively involve your local church in our ministry
- Making an annual donation to our SGO program
Lastly, If you visit our site, please interact with our students and ask them what level they are on in their career pathway and how they are growing spiritually.
On mission, Ryan Hill
