Gift Card Donations

We had a donor who wanted to do something "tangible" to help our girls (not just send a check in monthly). They were wondering if they could buy things for the girls or donate baby items. Since we are already overflowing with baby donations, we suggested that they something for the mentors instead. So this donor blessed us with restaurant and movie gift cards that the mentors could use when they took their girls out. Now whenever people want to buy things for the girls/babies, we always recommend that they buy gift cards for the mentors to use with the girls instead. Shared by Rebecca Asper-East Hills, PA

Church Sponsorship Letters

We start sending letters out to all of our supporting churches during winter or very early spring asking for campership. We ask churches and/or small groups to consider sponsoring one girl and her baby to go to camp or to pay for seats on the bus. We estimate dollar amounts for each thing (taking one girl and her baby to camp - $600, a seat on the bus - $100, etc). We have found churches - and even individuals - to be very responsive to this kind of request. Some churches will offer to pay for two girls to go to camp, others will just send a $200 check for two seats on the bus, but it adds up quickly.

Shared by Rebecca Asper-East Hills, PA

Mentor of the Month

Mentor of the Month – Choose one mentor each month and recognize them at your mentor meeting. Share specifically what this woman has done that makes her a true servant and champion. Make sure to have a good prize – gift certificate to their favorite restaurant, bouquet of flowers, candle, etc. OR a gift card for something they can do with their girl (movie theater, restaurant, ice cream etc). Have them share at the next meeting how they used their gift card and about their time with their girl. This will not only bless them financially, but also encourage other mentors to plan one-on-one time and give them ideas of what they can do with their girls.

Shared by Lindsey Patchell-The Woodlands, TX

Christmas Club Blizzard

Collect newspapers from recycle bins. You will need newspapers and masking tape...love cheap ideas! The newspaper serves as “snow” for the blizzard that will hit your club!

1) Divide girls into two teams; divide newspapers evenly to both teams. When music starts (Christmas, of course), the first team lay down flat on their backs and cover themselves completely in newspaper (head to toe) wins. Everyone on the team must be covered, which means the last few people are trying hard to cover themselves. All girls and mentors play. The blizzard has come and the snow is freshly covering the ground.
And what do you do after a fresh snow??? Snow ball fight!!!

2) Have everyone stay in their teams. Draw a line down the middle of the room with tape. Each team must stay on their side of the tape. Again, divide newspapers evenly among both teams. When music starts, the teams must crumble up all their newspaper into snowballs and start throwing them onto the other team’s side. They cannot cross the line, but as snowballs come across to their side, they can pick them up and throw them back over. Stop the music after a few minutes. The team with the least amount of snow on their team wins!
Christmas candy is a great prize for the whole team.

Shared by Lindsey Patchell-The Woodlands, TX

Cooking Nights

Every week I host a cooking night at my home. Each girl gets a job and everyone learns the recipe. Some will chop, some will mix, some will wash, and some will set. They all help cook and we take turns watching the kiddos. Afterwards we sit down and eat dinner together around the table. We pray, we share our high and lows for the week, and we talk about things that we are looking forward to. It's great community time and the girls learn how to be a host, a cook, and a friend!

Shared by Erin (Ramos) Kennedy-Chicago, IL

Whip Cream Fairy!

Venita Ballard of PV Young Lives, AZ. had a great idea with the whipped cream fairy. A fella or a very outgoing lady dresses up in an outrageous fairy costume and constantly interrupts club by dancing around the girls saying in a high pitched voice "Whipped cream fairy, whipped cream fairy, whipped cream fairy!" all while squirting whipped cream straight from the can into different girls mouths! Fun and funny!

Shared by Erin (Ramos) Kennedy-Chicago, IL

Mentor Appreciation Day

Last spring we put on our very first mentor appreciation day. We started early with breakfast delivered to the YoungLives house. We ate, prayed, and socialized. Then we moved onto surprise pedicures with flip-flop gifts! After pedis we went to the park where we sat on picnic blankets, did a tiny bit of training and discussion, then had lunch delivered to us by a committee member. After lunch we sat in a circle and each mentor took a turn sitting in the middle... we all got to affirm the person in the middle and there was lots of laughter and tears! After our affirmation time we had our prayer team arrive to pray over and commission the women into the summer and the next school year. We got lots of feedback that this was the BEST day for them. They felt loved, appreciated, and pampered!

Shared by Erin (Ramos) Kennedy-Chicago, IL

Contact Work doesn't HAVE to be at School

Get creative when and where you do contact work! It doesn't HAVE to be at a school. When we first started YoungLives we weren't allowed onto the alternative high school campus, so we went to places that we WERE welcome. WIC (Women Infants and Children) had a young moms group and I volunteered to help teach cooking and even taught a dance class. We also went to the local farmers market. It was a free event each week, so our girls loved going to socialize. We literally met them in the streets! You just have to think... where are they? Where am I? And then merge the two!

Shared by Erin (Ramos) Kennedy-Chicago, IL

Camp Trip Skit

This was one of the most helpful things preparing for camp. We had each mentor bring a baby doll and set up a "bus" on stage. We had one mentor in charge of the trip. Each mentor had one trait they had to over-emphasize. One asked for help with her baby then fell into the deepest sleep ever and refused to wake up. Then the baby had multiple issues... One mentor put on her head phones and just let the baby lay in her lap while people around her were telling her - your baby just threw up... One mentor attempted to take care of everyone's baby and disciplined another one of the dolls. Another one kept talking and talking and talking and interrupting every time instruction was being given and when asked to be quieter or please sit down she got a huge attitude with the leader and started shaking the head, snapping the fingers and threatening to beat her down.... Then we pretended to arrive at the airport and the leader ran out screaming. We used this (oh yeah - one mentor only wore a sports bra and short shorts) to illustrate our expectations of camp - the dos and don'ts. The girls laughed, but they got it.

Shared by Dusty Linn-Conway, AR

Ear Infection-Sin Talk Analogy

We discussed sin as sickness in your child for instance if your child had an ear infection you would know because they'd be fussy, whiny and pull at their ear. You can give them tylenol and ear drops to numb the pain all day, but it will never cure the sickness because it's on the inside. This is just like sin - we can treat the symptoms, but the sickness remains. The girls really seemed to get this.

Shared by Dusty Linn-Conway, AR

Men's Panel

We have a "men's night" where our husbands sit on a panel. We have some prepared questions and ask the girls to submit questions. The girls really enjoy getting to ask them questions and I was surprised by some of them - they were really insightful. Then we had all of us mentors sit on a panel and had them ask us questions. It was really cool to open up a non-threatening dialogue about life and what they wanted to know about.

Shared by Dusty Linn-Conway, AR

Christmas Ornaments

Last year we had an interior design student come in and help us decorate Christmas ornaments during December. She brought all the supplies and it was really neat. The girls loved it.

Shared by Dusty Linn-Conway, AR

Mentor Retreat

We have a mentor retreat scheduled for next weekend. Last year we went to Hot Springs. This year we are going to piddly Clinton, AR. Both times the "cabin" was donated. The plus for Clinton this year is a family member volunteered use of her party barge. We have a rule: Friday night - no talk of YoungLives or girls or anything ministry related. Saturday morning I make a big breakfast casserole and we plan out the year. We go out for a late lunch on our own and have a blast! I think the Friday night rule is the best. It provides bonding time with no structure and releases all pressure from all of us - including me.

Shared by Dusty Linn-Conway, AR

Summer Club Ideas

Summer is a tough time of year for contact work - and for club! So how do you keep the ball rolling? Here are a few tried-and-true ideas!

1) Graduation Club
Held at the end of June, right before or after all high school graduations. This club not only celebrates the high school graduates and is an appropriate theme for the end of the school-year, but it also shows girls that we value their education and them moving on in life. It's easy to decoration for this with graduation balloons and a "Congrats Grad" cake. For a craft each girl gets to decorate and fill photo albums with graduation, summer or camp pics. There are plenty of graduation/education-themed games to choose from - think Jeopardy, graduation word searches, etc.

We even do a graduation skit: Play the graduation song (Pomp & Circumstance) and have a mentor come out dressed in a graduation cap and gown. As the music plays she asks all of the recent graduates to stand up and hands them a YoungLives "diploma" (the diploma is rolled up and tied, it is really a $5 gift certificate to the store at whatever camp you are going to that summer)

For a club talk, we focus on "Graduating in our walk with Christ" (talk about girls taking the next step in their faith- like the next step in life after high school- when they choose not to turn back to the old ways of their life and choose to allow God to give them new life (2 Cor. 5:17)) You could also have a one of the girls who is graduating give her testimony if appropriate.

2) Planned Playdates
We always seemed to be hit and miss with our clubs for the summer, so this year a mentor "team" picked a month and they hosted two events each month - one daytime group playdate, and one themed evening club. We could use the playdate as intentional contact work time - and as a face-to-face time when we could invite girls back to club! We were able to get free passes to "PlayWorld" and a huge discount to "JumpZone" with just a few phone calls. 


3) Cookout 
We also invited all our girls, their parents and their significant others for an outdoor cookout. It was the biggest hit ever!!! We had a small fireworks display at the end, but mostly just a lot of fun with bubbles, with blankets on the ground to keep it kid friendly. We all brought our lawn chairs and the mentors signed up for food to bring so we had plenty.

Thanks to Dusty Linn-Conway and Anneke Brown for these summer-y ideas!

Van Pile In

A very easy game for club is to have as many girls as possible pile into a van. We did it with a mini-van that we parked right in front of the church. You can introduce the game by having someone (it really is best if it's someone who is not even a part of YoungLives- like the pastor of the church, etc.) run in, interupting the leader up front and telling them they better get out to move the van asap before they are towed away. You can have all of the girls run out with you and have them all pile in. Girls will sit on top of each other, in the trunk, etc. Just don't close the doors once they're in!!

Shared by Anneke Brown-Norwalk, CT

Wonder Women-Awards Ceremony

At a recent County-wide Young Life event, we were able to invite the YoungLives mentors to join the rest of the Young Life "family" for the evening and celebrate them as leaders. The night was themed as an awards ceremony, complete with a red carpet, "paparazzi" and awards. Because the group of YoungLives leaders was so large, we could not give them individual awards, so instead we gave them a group award: "YoungLives Wonder-Women Award." They all came up front and received a gift bag with a YoungLives t-shirt while I took the microphone and went down the line saying one way each of the women had proven that they should receive this award. It was a lot of fun and the mentors all felt appreciated- especially in front of the larger Young Life community who isn't always familiar with YoungLives.

Even if there isn't an opportunity to celebrate your leaders with Young Life in your area, you could always hold a YoungLives-only awards night and give each woman individual awars. But definitely have them get dressed up for the occasion!

Shared by Anneke Brown-Norwalk, CT

Lick the Lifesaver-YoungLives Style

This is a Young Life game tweaked to fit YoungLives.

In the YL skit book...they have you have teams trying to lick and place lifesavers on another’s face. The team with the most lifesavers ‘pasted’ on wins.

We use this skit on our pregnant girls. Instead of the face...we ‘paste’ the lifesavers on their bellies.

Play Day Outings with Babies

We usually have a zoo day...we invite all the girls and their families to the Phoenix Zoo.

The zoo gives a good rate for youth field trips...$4 per person (our area has picked up this cost in the past). We meet at our club location and carpool to the zoo for the day (9am – 1 pm).

Everyone is told to pack their own lunch or bring money to purchase it (we have packed lunch for all the girls before). I usually have an ice chest of water bottles they can take in w/ them or for after).

We designate a meeting place and a time to leave...sometimes we stay as a big group or smaller groups...but they have freedom to enjoy the park as they wish.


Other play day events are...picnic in the park, water park, etc... Most of these events are minimal costs or free...and families are included.

shared by Debbie Griggs-Northwest Valley, AZ