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Donkeyball!

The Bridges Donkeyball event was a huge success. We gave a Durango to a Bridges family (thanks to Button Motors), received our "Youth Investment Award" along with a check for $5,000, saw some great entertainment, and enjoyed some basketball on the backs of Donkeys. The Fire Department beat Kokomo-Center Schools in the Championship. We raised around $6,000 at the game and had a blast watching players from the community fall off their donkeys. Thanks to everyone who helped and came out and supported Bridges!

Bridges Outreach wins "Youth Investment Award"

The Indiana Youth Institute is proud to recognize Bridges Outreach with an Indiana Youth Investment Award. These awards are intended to highlight extraordinary – but often unrecognized – efforts on behalf of children and youth.
IYI is proud to play a role in honoring these organizations for their exemplary youth work and hopes this recognition will encourage and inspire others to make a difference in the lives of Hoosier children. Bridges was selected in the top 10 out of 250 applications throughout Indiana.
Winners each receive a cash prize to be used for professional development to enhance their work with youth. They are also publicly acknowledged at a local celebration (Donkeyball) and receive free admission to IYI’s annual Kids Count Conference. This year the keynote speaker is Coach Ken Carter (From the movie Coach Carter).

Golfing for Bridges

Saturday, September 27th Rice's Golf Center hosted Bridges' 4th annual Golf-a-thon. We had a very successful day with 16 adults completing 100 holes of golf each and over 30 students and their families conquering 50 holes of putt-putt each. Everyone had a blast playing golf together and hitting some balls on the driving range. Thank you to all those who participated and went out and raised money to support Bridges Outreach. We greatly appreciate everyone's pledges!

New Full-Time Staff at Bridges

We have added our first full-time staff to our Bridges team. Michelle Chaddock was hired at the end of July to manage our "Bridges to College" & "Churches Bridging Schools" programs. She grew up in Wheaton, IL, graduated from Taylor University and has worked with youth in Texas and Pennsylvania. She has lots of experience in youth ministry, but we really hired her because she is a huge Cubs fan.

Joe Toren named Volunteer of the Year in Kokomo

Bridges nominated Joe Toren for his service to our ministry. He has been a board member, tutor, mentor, after-bridges-classes leader, hosted a Bridges spiritual retreat and has connected many of our students into his youth ministry. He has helped us fulfill our mission and vision for this community. He was recognized as the Howard County United Way "Volunteer of the Year." It is a tremendous honor and we are priveleged to have him involved with Bridges.

Bridging Communities

When some think about Bridges they often think about the work we do with schools and churches. However bridging our community is also extremely important to us and we have had a few chances in the past couple of months to do that. Here are a few examples:

• Casey presented the "Bridges Model" at a breakout session at the State Education Conference. Casey & Travis are on the INSAI community service committee that is working on improving our schools here in Kokomo.
• The Howard County Leadership Summit (a one day event that brings high schools students from all 5 schools in the county together) invited us to present for the thrid staright year. This year the theme was "Walking Wisely" and we talked about using athletics to help influence others.
• The YMCA has been extremely generous to us (a free room for our high school program, access to the pool and Hyve, and the value of "Huddle" that has poured into our lives). This year we are the chairs of the "Church Division" for the Partner with Youth Campaign that raises money for scholarship help for youth in our community. We hope that you would consider supporting the YMCA and their ministry of keeping youth in a positive environment.

Let us all continue to "Bridge Our Community Together!"