Encouraging Leadership Among Local Hispanic Youth

YFC San Antonio Provides a Safe Place to Make Positive Impacts among Hispanic youth

Our mission at YFC is simple. Reach young people everywhere. For our San Antonio YFC (SAYFC) chapter, this means reaching their local Hispanic youth.

San Antonio is heavily influenced by its Mexican roots. 54% of the population identifying as Hispanic and 91.3% of the Hispanic population tracing their ancestry back to Mexico. This is the focus of SAYFC’s many ministry outreaches. With reports of Black and Latino children disproportionately falling behind due to the lack of computer access, infrequent ability to use the internet, COVID-related health challenges, and other various struggles, SAYFC is more determined than ever before to connect with Hispanic youth in the community.

San Antonio YFC is more determined than ever before to connect with Hispanic youth in the community.

Ministries such as YFC Campus Life, YFC City Life, YFC Parent Life, Leadership in Training, and YFC Camp provide safe places for young people to feel connected and represented.

“The mission of Youth For Christ is to engage lost kids with authentic, Christ-sharing relationships with loving Christian adults. The youth in our area are in tougher places than they’ve ever been before. More and more studies are showing us that while it used to take one or two adults to impact the life of a student, now it’s six to seven adults that are needed to make a positive impact. And for the young people in San Antonio, we have engaged over a thousand kids in public school systems through mentorship relationships to make that positive impact.” -Gilbert Hernandez, San Antonio YFC Executive Director

Belonging is crucial

Youth need to feel a sense of belonging. One local youth named Leeandra stated, “I have a lot of struggles in my life right now. Through all of it, YFC Campus Life has helped me. I continue to go to YFC Campus Life because the energy is so positive; everyone is so unbelievably nice and sweet, and they just treat me like family.”

“They just treat me like family.” – YFC Student, Leeandra

Gilbert went on to say, “As we engage kids to become lifelong followers of Jesus Christ. Our hope is that they become not only lifelong followers of Jesus, but those disciples make more disciples. We want to direct them towards our leadership pathway so that they can find their calling and purpose in Christ Jesus. We at SAYFC see this as a great opportunity for them to grow, belong and serve—to not only start the journey, but go full circle and then come back, love and serve the very community God called them from.”

Jacob Bland, president and CEO of Youth For Christ USA, recently released YFC’s five-year vision for YFC. The goal is to continue fostering meaningful relationships with youth like Leeandra.

“This is our pivotal moment to serve the church by creatively re-imagining youth ministry yet again. I believe the cultural conditions are right for us to experience the greatest youth revival our generation has ever seen. God has given us the right team to do this—and His hand is clearly on our mission.” -Jacob Bland, YFC USA President & CEO