St. Mark Youth Enrichment is and will always be much more than these buildings on the corner of 12th and Locust St.
Our mission is bigger than this space, so this organization is proceeding with the difficult choice to sell our original buildings. This decision will allow our mission to continue to grow in bigger ways and better serve the children and families of this amazing community.
As a cherished member of our St. Mark family, we want you to hear this news from us first.
This team and this organization owe so much to the former members of St. Mark Lutheran Church, who also made a difficult decision in the late 80s to disband their congregation, sell nearly all of their beloved stained glass windows, and use that seed money to grow the roots of what would become St. Mark Youth Enrichment.
More than 30 years later, that unimaginably difficult decision has long outgrown these walls to now annually impact the lives of hundreds of young people in our school year and summer programs and over 3,000 youth through our community outreach efforts like Apples for Students, which provides new supplies for kids at nearly every school in our immediate area.
Like those amazing congregation members before us, we are again making the right choice to sell something important to all of us so that we can continue to grow and provide more opportunities for our community’s kids. This includes expanding our existing after-school & summer programs as well as starting an early childhood center that will provide a space for children from birth to age five.
This next big step means we can direct more resources towards helping our kids and less towards holding on to this historic building. We can use more resources towards a future St. Mark that embraces our founding principles to help our children see and realize all of their potential.
This building is beautiful, but it comes with all the costs associated with maintaining a historic church building.
Every dollar we continue to spend holding on to these walls is another dollar we could use to help more kids. Every dollar spent on this space is another we could use to open more opportunities for working families who desperately need a reliable option for their kids after school and during the summer. Every dollar we spend on repairs, maintenance, heating, and more is another dollar we can use to create spaces that embrace nature and allow kids to feel grass beneath their tiny toes.
The journey ahead will not be immediate, but our existing afterschool & summer programs will continue in their current locations for the time being thanks to partnerships with the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Dubuque, St. John’s Episcopal Church, the Western Dubuque School District, & others.
As we move forward with selling our original buildings (now used only for administration), we will expand new partnerships with Sedona Staffing, which will serve as a base for our admin staff, and Area Residential Care, which will house our pilot early childhood center.
Our work is just starting as we continue planning for our future space. Along the way, we will still rely on support from incredible people like you.
Thank you for supporting our kids and providing love, safety, belonging, and learning to the kids and families of the Greater Dubuque area.
With Gratitude,
Dawn Cogan, Executive Director
P.S. If you want to learn more about the journey ahead or our next steps into early childhood, please fill out the form on this page www.stmarkyouthenrichment.org/build. Thanks!