What is Reach the City? Our annual, ten-day fundraising campaign to raise $10,000 which well help us connect with 400+ students during Welcome Weeks (also called Fall Startup).

The Story & Details via Blane Young:

Update (July 21, 2016 at 3:31pm): We are on Day 2 of 10 and we've already raised $1,400. Help us reach our goal, whether it's a small gift or a big one, it's going to take a team of people to make this a reality! (Give Now)

Let me tell you where that money goes. That money doesn't go to staff salaries or anything that. All of us, we raise our own funds through our personal support raising; donors, and churches, but this is a chance for you to invest directly into our ministry because between August through October we call it Welcome Weeks or Fall Startup.

We host almost two dozen events on two strategic campuses in Washington D.C., American University & Georgetown University, We're able to host those events and personally connect our current students and our staff with over 400 incoming students because of the funds raised from Reach the City that put on and allow us to host those events.

You have an opportunity to impact a freshman, an international student, a transfer student that you may never personally meet. A student like Greg. Have you met Greg yet? (r ead more )

And many others, like XY and Beatrice. And so many more.

Ways to Give:

On Razoo via: https://www.razoo.com/us/story/Reach-The-City-2016.

*** For other ways, especially for churches, please visit dcchialpha.com/invest

The first time a student asked me for advice I was terrified. Sitting at that park bench in the hot Florida sun I began to sweat more than usual. I'd been approved as a Campus Missionary in Training just a few weeks before, but in that moment my words failed and my title seemed irrelevant. Of course I'd talked through problems with friends before, but never with someone who sought me out as a minister. To this day I can't remember what I told them to do, but their life didn't enter a downward spiral so I suppose it couldn't have been that bad.

Now after 11 years of full time college ministry the advice they seek seems less daunting and more familiar. I also found some of the advice transcends the question and gets repeated in multiple contexts. Of all the things I've said to students, the thing I find myself repeating more often than not is simply that they are not alone. It's been articulated hundreds of different ways, but it means the same thing every time; you aren't alone in what you face. It's the greatest fear we have and the one thing Jesus guaranteed the disciples and all of us just before he slipped through the clouds.

Whether facing the darkest night of our soul or the best day of our life, we don't want to be alone. The knowledge that Jesus is with us in our extremes and still walks with us through our daily routine has a liberating effect. It helps remind us that it's not all up to us, we don't have to have all the answers or be perfect, and someone's with us who knows better than we do how we feel. It's comforting to think back to that moment on the bench and realize even then, in the midst of my fear, I was never alone.

Reach the City: Our Big Fundraiser

Advice I Keep on Giving