Del Rey Church: Playa Del Rey, CA

I was overjoyed this week to hear the news of a wonderful program for foster youth, specifically those who have been emancipated and desire to go to college.

Our good friends at Koinonia Family Services (www.kfh.org) brought this program to our attention. As many of you know, we have families in our church who foster kids through KFS and social workers from this great organization who regularly join us in worship on Sundays. We are thrilled about what they do and thrilled to pray for and promote this program they brought to our attention.

So what is this program we’ve been alluding to? It is the Guardian Scholars Program for Emancipated Foster Youth. This program was established by Pepperdine University, which as you know is a local university with a reputation for academic excellence. Like many universities in our country, Pepperdine was actually founded by Christians and has deep Christian roots. It is considered to be among the nation's finest universities with a commitment to serving the needs of others. This Guardian Scholars Program will definitely meet the needs of others. It affords high achieving foster youth the opportunity to attend PU with year-round housing, student-specific mentoring, and a paid internship experience while attending. Pepperdine will assess each Guardian Scholar applicant individually, taking into consideration gaps in academic achievement resulting from multiple school placements that often occur throughout the course of a foster child's youth.

Pepperdine has established a strong base of initial support from local donors, however, the expense of such a comprehensive program will prove to be quite demanding as foster youth become aware of this amazing opportunity to study among fellow Christians. Please help spread the word of the need for on-going financial support for this program.

Koinonia asked our church to “keep this program in prayer.” Dr. Tiffany Sickler, our district administrator at Koinonia Family Services, emailed us and said: “I would love to see our children graduate and move on to such an amazing opportunity! If any of you would like to become more involved in the support of this program or if you would like to hear more about this program, please contact me at Koinonia Family Services (310) 217-0930 /TSickler@kfh.org.” So, Del Rey Church, let’s keep this program in prayer and the foster kids in our city in prayer. Consider becoming a foster family and/or giving to the Guardian Scholars Program to help kids. If you would like to read more about the program, click on this link.