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Luke was an angry child because his mother was too sick to care for him and his little sisters. His father didn't know how, so he often locked him in his room. After his father abandoned the family, Luke's grandparents received custody of the children. In first grade the angry youngster was assigned a mentor from Kids Hope USA. By fifth grade, he was named the most improved student in his class.
“His mentor, a fireman named Mark, was able to do things for Luke that we couldn’t do,” says the thankful grandfather. “And the girls, who didn’t even talk to other kids, have lost their shyness and are fun to be around since having their own mentor.”
Stories like this could be told about practically all of the four thousand elementary school-aged children involved in Kids Hope USA. That’s the idea, according to Virgil Gulker, founder and director. There are roughly eight hundred thousand at-risk kids in America, he reports. If five thousand churches adopted the program, they could reach one hundred thousand of those kids by 2010. “If and when the church is willing, we can literally save a generation.”
Though churches from more than twenty denominations are involved with Kids Hope USA, no Catholic parishes are among them yet.…
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