The Lakeside Church Youth Group came out in full force on March 11, to help make educational packets for The Victory Train children.
“It was an amazing day for our community,” Victory Train President and founder Theresa Kemp said. “To see so many young people working together and giving back to our community was a sight to behold.”
Founded in 2018 and becoming an officially approved non-profit charity in 2020, according to its website (victorytrain.org), The Victory Train “is an early childhood education program that empowers parents with skills and resources to provide essential learning experiences for their children from birth to kindergarten.”
Lakeside Church Student Pastor Nick Teal led more than 30 students as they helped make and assemble the weekly educational packets that are delivered to Victory Train families.
“This is the fourth year in a row that the Lakeside Youth Group has helped us make packets for our younger children. It’s always a joy to see them cheerfully working and helping our future rising stars,” Kemp said.
“We believe Victory Train belongs to the community and everyone has a part to play. These youth are a perfect example of the importance of working together to help strengthen our community and lead our young tots onto a successful pathway to high school graduation.”
Kemp thanked everyone at Lakeside Church (lakesidechurch.ws) for their continuing generosity and help with The Victory Train.
“Under the leadership of Pastors Kevin Magness and Jay Reber, Lakeside has been tremendously supportive of us. We run our operations out of their building and last year alone we had over 350 volunteers assist us at Lakeside in producing over 7,500 educational packets, providing over 5,000 books and thousands of crayons, puzzles and educational toys to our Victory Train families,” Kemp said. “The generosity of Lakeside Church makes our work possible. In addition to providing space in their building, Lakeside also provides volunteer and administrative support, as well as financial donations to The Victory Train. We are blessed to be surrounded by such a generous and giving group of people and are thankful for their continued support of our program.”
Victory Train is an IRS-approved 501(c)(3) non-profit organization started here in Greene County. Currently, over 300 children are “riding” on the Victory Train and the organization expects to be servicing the families of more than 350 kids by year’s end.
For more information and to find out ways how to contribute or participate, visit victorytrain.org.