This past week has been a whirlwind of exciting change for Youth Odyssey! Last fall, Youth Odyssey was fortunate enough to be selected as the Charity League of Corpus Christi’s designated recipient of funds for their 2017 season. This past Wednesday, they presented us with a check at our ropes course. Youth Odyssey is so thankful to the Charity League for all their hard work because it certainly paid off. They were able to collect $262,000 for our ropes course renovation project! That’s a serious chunk of change and we have wasted no time putting it to good use!
The day after the Charity League check presentation, we started the demolition of our old shelter. It’s an old building, and to be honest it’s definitely time for an upgrade. Part of us was sad to see it go because of all the memories made under that awning. On the other hand, we are super excited to get a new building that we can actually be inside of! The plans for the new building include garage doors on both sides for a breeze way, an office, space for indoor programing when weather is bad, a bouldering wall and most importantly air-conditioned restrooms. This indoor area will be a fantastic place for gathering groups for debriefing, lunches or indoor games!
Renovating our ropes course buildings and the course itself has been a project on Youth Odyssey’s radar for a good five years or so. Now that we have doubled our full time program staff and through the hard work of the Corpus Christi Charity League, we are finally able to renovate and staff a new ropes course! In addition to the new, fancy building we’ll have, we plan on adding several new elements to the course. Nothing has been definitively decided but some elements like a giants ladder, vertical playground, a whale watch and a new spider’s web have been proposed. With all these new elements and with more staff we will be able to host more corporate teams, college groups, youth groups, parties, churches and sports teams. These groups can schedule a time to come out and play with us on the course for a small fee. All proceeds go back into our after-school programing for at-risk youth in Corpus Christi. So not only does your group get a day a fun and growth, you get to contribute to the growth of at-risk youth here in the costal bend. Sounds like a win-win situation to me!
Our goal is to have the building completed and ready for use in September of this year! Needless to say, we are very much looking forward to our fall programs so we can break in our new home! As things continue to change with our growth here at Youth Odyssey we promise to keep you updated here and on our Facebook page!
