90º Youth Impact: Matt’s Story

 90 Certification Graduate: Matt Anderson

Ministry: Solidarity, Fullerton, CA

Title: Garnet Initiative Director

Story of Youth Impact: 

Most kids who live in low-income communities are rarely exposed to new things and ideas and tend to easily give in to peer-pressure. At a Solidarity teen workshop, we introduced a rock climbing 10 week course where one rock climbing expert taught the kids in the neighborhood how to rock climb. Kevin is a teenager who had never rock climbed before, he learned how to rock climb and fell in love with the sport. The rock climbing workshops also gave us an opportunity to bring him closer to Jesus. He eventually became so good at rock climbing that he even became better than his instructor. Rock climbing kept Kevin away from the destructive path of drugs and gangs that many kids in his community give in to because of lack of mentors and idleness.

Kevin went on to graduate from high school and we empowered him to start leading and teaching the rock-climbing workshop to other kids. We are privileged to have the opportunity to empower young people to be dynamic followers of Christ whose lifestyles marked by love will impact communities towards holistic transformation.

Ministry Action Plan

The Ministry Action Plan that I was able to develop from the 90 Degrees Certification Program is focused on community development. The neighborhoods we reach out to are mostly low-income families, 90% Mexican. I plan to create and implement a holistic model for community transformation which will include family wellness, character and spiritual development and crime reduction. We’ll target kids from 0-24 years and implement models to connect with their parents.

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