At the end of last year, we knew that our role in the San Pedro community was shifting. For the first time in a long time something significant happened. The government officially assigned someone to oversee the community centers. They took our program, even bettered it in ways, backed it with government funding and ran with operations. They opened up classrooms, began teaching all sorts of classes, even down to the barber shop and gym. No longer were we needed to fund operations, but the local community stepped up which for us was the goal all along. We turned over our keys in February and blessed their work, releasing it back to the community.
We have seen the pride they have taking ownership for what was theirs all along.
But for us, the conversation didn’t stop there. We knew our strategy was to empower —> sustain —> transform, and that it was then we would initiate our exit plan to repeat in a new location. But we didn’t quite feel the full release. We knew there were still a few things that we wanted to see take place in this community before starting a new. And so that was were the conversation turned discussing with our staff.
Our goals before we fully released everything back to the community was that we wanted to confirm kids were being fed at home, that the community had a place to feel safe and encounter Jesus, and that we would see a 90% or higher rate of kids staying in school once they were enrolled.
We weren’t sure how we were going to do that, but God did.
The week we turned over our keys to the center, a few mama’s in the community found us a new home. The directors of the schools reached out and asked if we would be in partnership with them on bringing in school lunches to the children enrolled in school. (Something we had already been praying about). And the next step was history.
Casa MARKED was born.
(Continued next week!)