Freedom for Youth Ministries

Freedom for Youth (ffym) - our after-school programs have attracted over 300 at-risk Youth, including our flagship campus in des moines. Elementary children, many refugees, are tutored on-site by volunteers. Our focus is on reading where we track reading levels of each student. Over 90% of our students enter our programs at least one year behind in reading levels. We have been successful in increasing the reading level of all of our students. Our teens are active in our programs which include art, pottery, cooking, computers, music, welding, woodworking and mechanics. Youth have an opportunity to sell items they have made in classes. Crime and drop-out rates have decreased among our population served. Programming occurs 4 days a week all year long and over 23,000 meals are served to the hungry children during program.

Freedom blend coffee employment training program - Freedom for Youth Ministries launched a employment training program through a company called Freedom blend coffee. Young people from our inner-city who have dropped out of school or graduated and have had trouble holding a job, are encouraged to participate in this program. Program participants will learn and develop soft skills, such as punctuality, respecting authority, communicating with co-workers and customers, in an environment that offers grace and encouragement. Over a one-year training period, participants will earn a competitive wage and gain the confidence to be successful in a full-time position. Our organization will work with outside employers to match them with graduates of our program. Our long-term goal is to break the generational poverty cycle in many families by preparing young people for long-term sustainable employment.

Freedom construction services employment training program- in 2020, the organization opened another employment training center, called Freedom construction services, llc. The purpose of the program is similar to Freedom blend coffee concerning learning soft-skills. In addition, participants are learning about various construction trades through class room presentations, hands-on training and working on jobs in the field