Milwaukee Teen Reach
Every year, abused teens are put into the foster care system or worse- end up on the streets as part of our homeless population.
At T.R.A.C. and T.R.A.C.life we provide hope through camping and mentoring programs designed especially for these youth.
Please take a look around to see how you can help.
A Journey Into Wholeness
For abused neglected and abandoned youth ages 12+, Milwaukee Teen Reach Adventure Camps/Life (MTRAC/MTRAClife) provides safe stable journeys toward physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wholeness. Through summer residential weekend camping and long-term monthly mentoring, MTRAC/MTRAClife strive to meet the unmet and underserved needs of a very vulnerable population. Love and caring motivates us to make a difference by investing in lives that are otherwise considered undesirable. This is who we are and what we are doing...changing lives one heart at a time! A strong pool of heroic volunteers alongside committed sponsors and donors make success happen. Research, intense training with applications of best practices in specialty camping with sustained mentoring, plus complete background checks, and program evaluations ensure positive outcomes and effective results.
Summer Residential Weekend Camping
Just "three" days? What difference can it make? MTRAC has discovered that youth need and want quality interactions with caring adults, and peers with similar out-of-home circumstances, regardless of time. Weekend summer residential camping with activities, events, instruction, fun, and great food with their unique needs in mind says, “You have value. We care about you. You are loved.” To abused, neglected, and abandoned youth, making positive memories that can help shape successful adulthood matters much more than hopeless hours with little or no value.
In just “three” days during each of the two single-gender (one girls, one guys) camps, MTRAC provides fishing, boating, canoeing, and crafting. Both camps have themed nature hiking, swimming, laser tag, tennis, live music before each interactive CrossTalk session, and more. CrossTalk uses lessons about ancient heroes, their struggles, and successes to help youth explore coping skills or consider overcoming adversities. Gutsy Conversations and a Challenge Course uniquely designed to help teens “tell their stories” in safe supportive environments follow each CrossTalk. MTRAC campers learn about teambuilding, personal accountability, plus leadership that serves others. All MTRAC happenings lay important foundations for MTRAClife to build upon.
MTRAClife helps teens explore age-appropriate special topics such as developing conflict resolution skills, properly building character with self-value, and their roles in positive relationships. Mentors help mentees learn about finances, career explorations, inner wellness (wholeness), and more. MTRAClife engages youth in discussions on special topic that threaten their reaching successful adulthood. Some of these areas include personal safety against enticement into human trafficking or illegal drug use, inadequate education, and more.
What Motivates Us?
Love motivates MTRAC/MTRAClife volunteers to take vacations from work and drop other important life issues to spend time with abused neglected and abandoned youth. Love for youth, families, communities, Wisconsin, Midwest region, America, and the world says get involved! Helping hurting youth grow into productive citizens makes for better life experiences for everyone. MTRAC/MTRAClife models the practical applications of love that Jesus Christ showed by feeding multitudes of hungry people and helping them understand life issues.
Calling All Heroic Volunteers
Working with MTRAC/MTRAClife campers and mentees will never be the easiest thing to do; but, will prove one of the most rewarding. Other camps and mentoring programs typically do not take abused neglected and abandoned youth because of behavioral issues and medications. The need for heroic volunteers cannot be understated. Everyone can volunteer at some level whether a couple of hours, one day at a camp, as a special speaker, or counselor/staff during the three days of one or both camps. Consider that hard times camp upon these youth through no fault of theirs.
Outcomes Based and Results Oriented
Best practices in community service ministry expect outcomes-based and results-oriented evaluation of efforts to help others in tangible ways that model biblical truths. Doing this ensures wiser use of limited resources. Assessing MTRAC/MTRAClife helps in knowing how and when to make necessary adjustments. As well, best practices inform “next action steps” that ensure even greater impact on helping abused neglected and abandoned youth reach adulthood with abundant rather than impoverished life. Continuation of services to youth across many years increases their chances of realizing victories. Mixed methods evaluation show the best information from which to draw conclusions about what to do now and next as a church within the greater community. Using quantitative data analyses and qualitative descriptive narratives together will bring out subtle nuances that numbers alone cannot explain.
Sponsorship, Funding, and Support
MTRAC/MTRAClife serving hurting youth, mostly in foster care, over many years (potentially ages 12 - 15) is and will cost increasingly more as joblessness, poverty, drug misuse, domestic violence, health issues, untimely deaths, and other factors continue to fracture families and displace youth from their birth homes. Every monetary, in-kind, and product donation, contribution, grant award and gift goes a long way toward helping to change the lives of abused neglected and abandoned youth. Contact us about your level of support or for more information about MTRAC/MTRAClife. Otherwise you can click HERE and select MTRAC-Teen Reach and donate there. Thank you for all types of support!