“What do you want to be when you grow up”?  A normal question to pose a young person, and for many, they have a ready answer or at least an idea.  When families are functional and access to harmful activities is restricted, young people can thrive. They prepare for adulthood with big dreams and the hope of making them a reality.

But for many young people in our communities, dreams die early. Their reality is an environment of drugs, violence, and other harmful influences. Their families are broken. Their future is bleak. Often the only hope they have is of survival.

Through our Dreams 2 Reality program, the South Sound Dream Center is on a mission to change the reality facing many youth in our area and help them bring their dreams back to life.  Dreams 2 Reality (“D2R”) is a nine-week program targeting at-risk youth in the South Sound, providing them with mentoring, life skills training, pro-social activities, and a greater connection to their community. D2R also helps youth gain access to education and employment services, housing resources, mental health services, drug and alcohol assistance, and case management services.

Restoring Dreams, Changing Reality

SSDC’s Youth Outreach Worker, Michael Passian, knows firsthand the cycle of violence and destruction youth can find themselves trapped in, but even more important is his understanding of what is needed to bring them out. At the age of 12, Michael (also known by his nickname “Swiss”) was selling hard drugs, owned weapons and was involved in gangs.  Not surprisingly, these activities escalated over the next number of years, and Michael was put into juvenile institutions and group homes. His future appeared to promise nothing but incarceration or—even worse—death. But in October of 2000, Michael was radically changed by an encounter with Jesus Christ and his life has never been the same since.

Michael and the Dreams 2 Reality program use a curriculum titled Alive & Free, a highly successful violence prevention prescription developed by the Omega Boys Club/Street Soldiers-in San Francisco. Alive & Free works to keep youth alive (unharmed by violence) and free (from incarceration) by changing the beliefs, attitudes, values and actions that promote violence. Combined with the Alive & Free prescription is SSDC’s approach of meeting both practical and spiritual needs of youth and their families and sharing the love and hope of Christ.

Dreams 2 Reality youth are also engaged in community outreach efforts with the SSDC, in which participants have an opportunity to “get outside themselves.”  D2R groups adopt a city block, then get to work meeting the needs of people living in that area.  Froilan, a D2R youth, said, “[D2R] made me change the way I think because I got to go around helping people and it made me feel good about myself.” By engaging youth in acts of service, D2R helps youth find a new value system and break the pattern of self-destruction.

Staying Alive and Free

Just how effective has Dreams 2 Reality been? Since the program started in March 2011, more than a dozen teens have been actively mentored and are experiencing change in their lives. One of D2R’s greatest success stories occurred just a month after the program started. One Saturday, D2R youth were delivering food to their Adopt-a-Block neighborhood when a group of local teens approached them.  These teens invited some of the D2R youth to a party that evening, but because the group had plans to go to a car show that evening with their outreach leader Michael, they decided not to go.

That night at the party, violence broke out and the same young man who invited them to the party ended up shooting and killing another teen in an argument over a girl. The D2R youth were shocked by the turn of events and saw how God had used this program to intervene in their lives. The experience gave them a clear object lesson of what it means to be alive and free.

Will You Help?

As our Dreams 2 Reality program continues to develop, we’re looking for supporters who will help us reach out to more youth in our community. The needs are great and many are waiting for a mentor who can help show them the way out of their situation into a new reality where their dreams can flourish. If you would like to find out more about how to support this program, please contact our Program Assistant atnatalie@ssdreamcenter.org or call our office at 253-288-1806.