Every year we are excited when November rolls around and we can prepare for our BIGGEST EVENTS OF THE YEAR!

Shoes that Fit!  This is a wonderful opportunity for our staff and our volunteers to connect with our families and provide practical, tangible items that our kids use everyday.   See the video from last year’s event:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AqWc5BZfCI

(For more information on how you can help us with the Event please contact us)

Thanksgiving Boxes of Love:  Along with shoes we give our families a box full of food for a nice Thanksgiving dinner.

Just so you know:   Our after school program is back to 5-days a week (after cutting back to 4 days a week over the summer).  We are trusting God for the financial support to keep this program strong.

Come on down to help us!

Yesterday started a little different than my regular Tuesday. It was the morning after a rainy day in the city, which generally results in a beautiful skyline as the smog clears. The streets are cleaned and the foliage is drunk with hydration. Tuesday is “early-outs,” so we pick up the kids at the bus at 1:30 instead of 2:30. I have to admit that picking up the kids every afternoon is definitely the highlight of my day. As the bus turns onto San Pedro from Fifth Street, you start seeing the little hands waving through the dark bus windows. Every now and then, the rebels manage to stick a hand or face out the window before being reminded to sit down. As the bus pulls to a stop, their little bright faces are smiling SO big and their hands are waving frantically to be acknowledged. Row by row, the bus driver lets the students off the bus. They carefully proceed down the stairs and run and jump into my arms. Some run and leap, others do a run and slam, and some wait their turn to be greeted with a hug and kiss on the head. Each child greets me in a way that coincides perfectly with their personality. As the hyper greetings wind down, the kids begin doing their inevitable “Miss, I gotta goooo” bathroom dances, so we head down the block to the big green doors that mark the portal to Central City Community Outreach.

On Tuesdays, the ‘event of the evening’ is Inner-City Arts. Inner-City Arts is dedicated to bringing the best of creative experiences to the thousands of children who live in the downtown area and attend public schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Working with LAUSD and community partners, Inner-City Arts offers programs during the instructional school day, as well as after school, serving over 8,000 children from fifty-five area elementary, middle and high schools. While Inner City Arts is relatively close to our program, walking the kids would take half an hour. Because of our need for motorized transportation, the volunteers and myself each load up our cars and drive the kids.

On this particular Tuesday, I had the pleasure of driving five of the 2nd graders in my little Honda Civic. We skipped, jumped over cracks and played the “guess which car is my car” game all the way to my car…very creative, I know . We all loaded in and headed off for our destination! As I pulled up to Inner City Arts, Duriel leaned over and smacked the cross hanging from my rear view mirror, asking, “Miss, is it true God lives on that cross?” What an innocent but beautiful question!

Duriel’s question sparked the greatest Q & A session I have ever experienced. They asked questions like ‘Why did God make the devil?’ – ‘Why did God send the devil to hell?’ – ‘How is God with us if He is in the sky?’ These are seven and eight year olds! I felt so blessed by the way the Lord granted me the second grade vocabulary to teach them the Gospel. Some of the final questions were ‘How do I go to heaven?’ and ‘Where do all the bad people go?’ I gave them a second grade variation of “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10).

After answering their questions (to God be the glory), I asked them if they believed in God and wanted to go to heaven to be with Him forever. I received a resounding ‘YES!’ So, naturally, I led them through a prayer to invite the Lord into their hearts, to ask the Lord to be with them, to grow with them the rest of their lives, and to proclaim their faith and desire to rely on the Lord. Not only was this moment beautiful, but it led to each one of the kids wanting to say a little prayer of their own! Their prayers included:

“Thank you, God, for my family, for the universe, for all the people, for my brother/sister/ mom/dad, for the mission, help all the homeless peoples to find homes, thank you for Say YES (CCCO), thank you for coming into our hearts, God, please help the good people go to heaven and the bad people to become good so they can go to heaven, too (I kid you not!), we want to be with you forever, we want to be with you in heaven so we can play with you and be happy forever,” etc.

Sweet Jesus, thank you thank you for these ten minutes! I will never forget this moment for as long as I live – the day that five of my 2nd graders prayed to accept Christ! Please be praying for them and all of us at Central City Community Outreach!!! GOD BLESS!

Posted by: Eugenia

“Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.” –Christian Morgenstern

Rapping the ABC’s with Jaylin is a unique (and desperately comical) experience that lets him know he is understood. Asking Joey to draw me a picture of one of his favorite human beings alive, John Cena (a famous wrestler), tells him that he is known and understood by me. Taylor needs a hug from me to keep on track. Leah loves pink and purple. Rebecca cannot eat some foods. Granted, letting these little people know that they are understood looks very differently than letting grown people know they are understood, but the principles are the same. People need to be reminded that the traits and needs that make them individuals are not forgotten in a sea of people and traits and needs.

Every child that comes into my classroom has their name written on construction paper of their choice and taped onto their special homework spot at a table in the room. I’ve had a few difficult moments with nametags so far this year. I peel the tape away as slowly as possible from those nametags that represent kids that have moved on from Central City.  Every nametag that has been removed finds a place on my bulletin board. It’s just a reminder that every child that comes through Central City is known and not forgotten. They are prayed for and loved.

As kids come and go quicker than the seasons (which can’t easily be distinguished around here, anyway), there is a treasured reward in remaining stationary. As families and crises and life whirl around the building with the green doors, Central City remains. Remaining stationary requires discipline, but because of it we get to be a place that sees a constant stream of beautiful people, big and small. We know that God takes account of the wanderings of all the people that have, for some reason or another, wandered through our doors. “You have taken account of my wanderings…” Psalm 56:8.

In this way, Central City becomes a kind of home where children and families are seen, known and understood for however long or brief they are present with us. However, it also becomes a kind of home for me. There is something in the quality of Damaje’s voice when he says my name, Ms. Danica, that causes me to know I am loved and understood. When Carola looks at me with her matter-of-factness of 5-year old innocence and says, “I love you,” I don’t doubt that I am understood. Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.

Posted by Danica

There are no repetitions at Central City. Every day is new because it is a living, breathing and growing facility. At our daily staff meetings I am always amazed at what is going on behind the scenes, in each other’s classrooms and in the hearts of those who support us. There are praise reports, prayer requests and stories that bring us to tears (sometimes in sadness but mostly in laughter). God has hand picked everything about this place and each day is a reminder of that. Whether staff member, child, parent, or volunteer, I truly believe that God has placed each of us there to learn and grow from one another. One word that comes to mind when I think of Central City is ‘learning.’ It is a place of complete education. Though we do traditionally educate our kids in the classroom, this kind of education is one that exists outside their textbooks. First of all, my students teach me so much on a daily basis: patience, learning to give up control, how to think simply, etc. Also, our staff has weekly devotionals where we teach and learn from one another and due to the diversity of people that come and go we learn so much from every conversation. Students, teachers, volunteers, parents and anyone else that walks in the big green door is learning how to interact with people of different backgrounds, ideas, cultures, etc. There is not a moment that my brain is stagnant.

For example, I recently had a conversation with one of my third grade students who has moved many times. He has changed schools, changed friends, changed states; everything has changed for him multiple times. I moved once…a mile away. For me, one thing changed and that was driving straight a little further down the road instead of making a left turn. I selfishly like to refer to the move as a dramatic time in 6^th grade when I had to leave my cul-de-sac of friends and take a new bus home, but after my pity party I realize it was nothing compared to the change he has seen in his life. Not only was his level of change so much greater but his reaction was so much more mature and selfless. Our conversation was simple and yet it taught me so much about being flexible in regards to where God puts us, how we can only find true security and comfort in Christ and how things can change at the drop of a hat. He is in the 3^rd grade and has already experienced that kind of drastic change. While this has been very difficult for him he is still smiling, still making new friends and still catching up in school despite his fear of uprooting and moving yet again. He taught me that we can’t live in fear of change, but rather cling to the constants in life. God is good, God is near to us, and God cares for us in the midst of our upheavals on earth. I am so blessed to work where there is so much knowledge to go around and so much learning to be done. Praise God for the gift of education.

Posted by Lisa

It’s increasingly amazing to me that so many people consider “what I do for the kids” so great, when what they do for me is the real ministry at CCCO. Only a child will objectively look at a situation or person and say exactly what they see; nothing more and nothing less. It is that gift that they possess which has caused my time here to be a time of ridiculous conviction and growth. So instead, I think I’ll rightfully thank the kids for babysitting me the past year and a half while I’ve gone through some much needed maturing.

Posted by Shaun

I could tell story after story of our kids’ funny comments and actions, but these are a couple of my favorites:

I was driving in the car one day with a second grader who was talking, talking, talking in the backseat, just chit chatting away.  She stopped, pondered for a moment (I assumed), and then said, “Ms. Rebekah…”

“Yes?” I replied. She proclaimed, “God is so awesome! He can change a bathing suit into a swimsuit!”

Another day, we were rehearsing Christmas carols before taking the kids to sing at a local nursing home.  We were practicing “O Come All Ye Faithful,” in which one of the lines says, “O come, let us adore him.” After the song, a staff member asked, “Does anyone know what the word ‘adore’ means?” A five-year old boy shot up his hand with excitement and declared with confidence: “Something you knock on!”

Posted by Rebekah