Lamp Lighters Hockey Ministry

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Vital Stats

Ashley M

Fort Wayne, IN
  • people helped120
  • People Doing It 2

The Problem

Lamp Lighters Hockey Ministry was created with the following statistics in mind: 1. The CDC sites that there are 12.5 million children who are obese, which does not count the number of children who are overweight. Having an unhealthy lifestyle for a child leads to complications, and most likely unhealthy children turn into unhealthy adults. 2. One third of children are considered to be latch-key kids at some point in the day. 76% of those children are left alone after-school which is the peak of juvenile crime and misbehavior. If a child has a productive place to spend their time after-school, they aren't creating problems. (http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Latch_Key_Children/?page=2) 3. A child between ages 8 and 12 typically spends an average of 6 hours a day in "screen time": TV's, video games, computers, and other technology. This feeds into the reason why our nation's youth are obese and inactive. (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/news-events/matte4.htm) 4. We believe in spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ without being pushy. We stand by our faith, but never want to force our faith onto anyone else. Rather, we'd like to show them by example how we can participate in a program together that may help them to make their own faith decision.

Plan of Action

Our strategy is based on what is called the "Hockey Mobile". This is a trailer packed with all of the equipment needed to play street hockey (balls, pucks, sticks, goals, and protective equipment). The "Hockey Mobile" then travels around to community locations (churches, neighborhoods, parks, etc) and unpacks all of the equipment. We invite the surrounding community to come play street (shoes only) hockey, do an optional Christian devotional, and then come back at the same time next week throughout the year. We believe in developing each person as a whole: mind, body, spirit, service, and leadership. We want everyone to be life-long learners, get children and their families active, help people to make their personal faith decision, and get everyone involved in serving their community by helping them become the leaders they can be. In order to do this, we have our "Lighting the Way Programs" which has three parts: a rewards program, a physical program, and a discipleship program. The "Lighting the Way Rewards Program" is an incentive based program where participants complete tasks in the five different areas (mind, body, spirit, service, and leadership) and then receive incentives for completing the tasks. The physical and discipleship programs are completed between our weekly playing time by the participants that help them to be physically and spiritually active every day. We use street hockey because most people find ice hockey to be too expensive to participate in or they do not wish to learn how to skate well enough to play. By only playing on their shoes and providing the equipment, anyone can participate in our program!

For More Info

Lamp Lighters Hockey Ministry - www.lamplightershockey.org
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Healthy Living

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