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Did you know that you are a KiDs Beach Club® brand ambassador? No, really. You are!

You have a distinct tie to our organization. Whether you are a parent of a child who attends Beach Club, a volunteer who gives your time, a donor who gives financially, a teacher or administrator who enjoys having Beach Club in your school or a staff member at a church that partners with KiDs Beach Club®, you have a KBC story to tell and we hope you are sharing it with others.

“An ambassador is a person who represents, speaks for or promotes a particular organization, group of people, activity or brand,” said Todd Lamb, the communications director at KiDs Beach Club®. “You know us. You are bought into what we do, so that makes you a brand ambassador. Why? You’re already on board. You’re passionate about our mission and our vision. You want to help us grow clubs and the number of kids attending each Beach Club. You want to help us grow our volunteer base and you’re connected in your community and at your church.”

Some of our volunteers do a fantastic job sharing the stories they experience in Beach Club with our communications team in the corporate office. That’s how we are able to pass them along to those who have a vested interested in our ministry. We share those stories in our newsletters like the Surf Report or the Bibles for Beach Club newsletter and on our social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so that you can see the difference you’re making in the ministry.

“We would love for you to share what we share with you to your friends on social media and in face-to-face conversations or by forwarding our newsletters to those in your personal network,” Lamb said. “It will just mean more coming from someone they already know rather than something that only comes from our organization. It gives you the chance to personalize your experience with KiDs Beach Club® to your personal network.”

Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon, says this about an organization’s brand, “Your brand is what others say about you when you’re not in the room.”

In 2019, word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most powerful tools we have as an organization and we want to better equip you to be able to share Beach Club stories with your friends and colleagues.

When someone asks you about KiDs Beach Club®, what do you tell them? You probably tell them we’re an after-school Bible club meeting in public schools; that we’re sharing the gospel with kids; that we teach character through the lens of scripture; that we give kids Bibles; and that we’re making Jesus cool at school!

Do you know our mission and our vision?

KiDs Beach Club® is an innovative ministry established to mobilize the church to go outside its walls in order to take the message of Jesus Christ into the heart of its community. Our vision is to provide every third- through sixth-grade boy and girl a Jesus experience within the culture of the public school! We are connecting kids to Christ and putting Bibles in their hands.

Those are the two most important things you can tell others about us, but do you know how the early story about how Beach Club started? Do you know why we’re called KiDs Beach Club® or why we capitalize the “D” in KiDs?

When your friends see why you’re so passionate about our ministry, they may want to support it, too. We have had a clear goal of 200 Beach Clubs and now that the goal is within reach, continued growth remains a priority.

By sharing your stories about KiDs Beach Club® within your realm of influence, it will help us to reach even more kids with the gospel of Jesus Christ in their public school and to impact these communities for God’s kingdom.

To share your KBC Story with us, visit kidsbeachclub.org/mykbcstory.

The Beach Clubs at E.K. Key, Frasch and Oak Park elementary schools in Louisiana were recently featured in an article in the Lake Charles American Press.

The article starts, “For students in three area elementary schools, learning about the good news is easier than ever. It gets delivered to them once a week.”

The American Press article was titled: “Local schools participate in Bible study after hours.”

E.K. Key also was featured in the Louisiana Baptist Message. That article begins, “Volunteers with an after-school outreach are finding Jesus saves in the halls of Sulphur’s E.K. Key Elementary School.”

The Louisiana Baptist Message article was titled: “Houston River ‘beach’ ministry is more than a kids’ club.”

That article likely prompted the American Press to expand the story for its local readers.

Suzanne Massey, the strategic growth director at KiDs Beach Club®, explained why being featured in the media is so important.

“It thrills my heart to see these Beach Clubs featured in the media,” she said. “When a community of families see first-hand the impact that activities like this can have on the hearts and minds of children today gives us all hope for the future. Because of the widespread areas these types of media reach, we have hope that others, too, will want to share Christ in the public school by Making Jesus Cool at School!”

If you are contacted by a media outlet to do a story about KiDs Beach Club® or see a story in your local media about our ministry, we encourage you let us know about the interview request by contacting our office at 817-510-5885. After the article has be published, please email it to us at news@kbcmail.org.

Tickets for the 2019 Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner are now on sale. The event, which raises money to give a Bible to every child in every Beach Club, returns to the Grand Ballroom at Texas Motor Speedway Saturday, April 13.

Your past support of the Bibles for Beach Club program has put a Bible in the hands of 38,988 children since Great Treasure Day began in 2015. That's nearly 65 percent of the more than 60,000 Bibles KiDs Beach Club® has handed out since the ministry began in 2003.

At our last Benefit Dinner in July 2017, you helped us raise money to buy 10,500 Bibles. The last of those Bibles will be handed out this spring, making your support at this year's Benefit Dinner crucial for our growing ministry. We anticipate our next order to be between 15,000 and 20,000 Bibles, but that number depends on you!

Join us for a night of great food, fun and fellowship as we celebrate people of influence, all for the benefit of connecting kids to Christ and putting Bibles in their hands.

Dr. David Vroonland, the superintendent of the Mesquite Independent School District, will be the keynote speaker. An educator of more than 30 years, Vroonland has been vocal about the benefits Beach Club brings to his district and continues to say that his desire is to have a Beach Club in all 33 Mesquite ISD elementary schools. Currently, there are Beach Clubs in 19 elementary schools in his district.

You will also hear from Dr. Jeff Thompson, the director of missions for the Concord Baptist Association, who was instrumental in our ministry's growth in Arkansas, our 11th state. In the 2017-18 school year, KiDs Beach Club® launched in Arkansas with one club in Fort Smith. With his vision, Thompson helped KiDs Beach Club® grow into seven schools this year.

In addition to a wonderful program, we'll again have the popular Pick & Play, Dine & Dash and Last Man Standing games throughout the night and feature a live auction after dinner. There will be many ways for you to support our Bibles for Beach Club program and to make an impact in the lives of thousands of kids in Beach Club.

We hope you will invite your friends so you can introduce them to a ministry that is so incredibly important to you and that is making a tremendous impact in the lives of the children it touches.

To join us, visit KiDsBeachClub.org/Dinner for more information and to buy a table. A full table seats 10 people. We also have options to buy a half table and single tickets. When you buy or sponsor a full table, it comes with one pace car ride before dinner. Additionally, we offer sponsorship packages if you, or someone you know, want help underwrite this event so that all money raised that night can make an even greater impact in the lives of kids and their families.

If you can't join us at the Benefit Dinner, you can still donate Bibles today at KiDsBeachClub.org/Bibles.

With the turn of the calendar, there are many of us who made New Year’s resolutions. Maybe it was to lose weight, eat more healthily, join a Bible study, set aside time to read the Bible in daily devotion and prayer, or perhaps your resolution was to become more active in your church.

We hope you haven’t already given up on your resolutions. We think the new year is a great time to become a volunteer. We have great volunteers in the KiDs Beach Club® organization, but we probably all know someone at our church who could join you at after school for one hour each week to share Christ’s love with elementary school children.

In a devotional earlier this month by Dr. Charles F. Stanley, the senior pastor at First Baptist Atlanta (Ga.) and founder of In Touch Ministries, he wrote that church is a place for participants, not spectators.

“Although we are each saved individually, the Lord doesn’t intend for us to live as if we’re on an island – set apart to ourselves,” Stanley wrote. “We are called the body of Christ, and as such, our lives are meant to touch, intersect and connect with other believers in a local church… God calls us to be devoted to one another through service, prayer and hospitality.”

It’s a similar idea that Glenna and Michael Hockensmith shared with their congregation on Beach Club Sunday last August at Peaks Mill Christian Church in Frankfort, Ky. Michael, the Bible Connection leader at the Beach Club at Peaks Mill Elementary School, one of two clubs the church sponsors, was trying to encourage more of his fellow church members to volunteer in Beach Club.

“I despise public speaking,” Michael said that morning. “But I’ll beg you to let me come up here and tell you about Jesus. Let me come here and ask you to come and serve and be a part of this. That is how much it changes you if you’ll let Him. I want you to experience it. That’s why I’m so passionate about this. That is why I’m so determined in this; it’s because I want you to taste that surrender and see what it’s like when you surrender to God and you just let Him use you.”

Michael, who is currently the interim director of the parks and recreation department for the City of Frankfort, recalled a story about one of his former summer interns, who was getting scholarship offers to play Division I college basketball.

“He didn’t have any really big offers, just some mid-major offers, and then, right at the end (of the recruiting process), a big school came, and they offered him a scholarship,” Michael said. “I asked him what he was going to do, and he said, ‘I’m going to go to that big school.’ And I said, ‘why are you going to do that?’ He looked at me like I was crazy and asked, ‘Why wouldn’t I go there?’ I said ‘you’re never going to play. You’re good, but you’re not that good. You’re never going to play.’

“He went to that big school and I think he had a great experience. He got a college education. I’m sure he has some good memories. I know one of the years he was there, that team went to the Final Four. But I remember thinking how sad I was for him because every day he went to practice and every day he prepared for that – two to three hours every day –and he never got to play.”

Michael continued his message by looking around the sanctuary.

“I look out here at some of you and I feel the same way. How sad that you would come in here week after week to train and that God would prepare you to go out into service for Him, but you’re content to sit on the sidelines; you’re content not playing.

“God doesn’t call His children to a playground,” Michael said. “He calls them to a battleground. There is a war going on around you every day. It is a spiritual war and it’s a war for lost souls. You’re either competing for them or you’re just sitting on the sidelines. That’s not who you are. You were meant for so much more and God has prepared you for this time.”

Stanley acknowledges that many Christians find involvement in others’ lives too invasive.

“So, they come on Sunday, stand to sing, sit to listen, and walk out to get back to their own lives,” he wrote. “The term ‘spectator Christian’ doesn’t apply only to those who deliberately avoid going to church. In fact, many churches are filled with observant attendees who sit in the pews each week but never touch a fellow believer’s life.”

What about you? Are you a spectator seeking what you can get or a participant looking for ways to give to someone else?

We would love to see you serving in Beach Club!

The Beach Club at Samuel Beck Elementary in Trophy Club, Texas, started in the 2015-16 school year with only 10 kids and has grown to 120 who consistently attend club this year. There is even a waitlist of kids who want to be a part of it.

When parent Emily Alexander, a pediatric nurse by trade, discovered what KiDs Beach Club® is and was at her children’s school, she was so excited because she had no idea something like this existed.

“When I heard that Beach Club was a Christian club held after school, I thought that was the coolest thing and wanted to get my daughter involved,” Alexander said.

But because of the waitlist, her daughter was not able to initially be a part of the after-school Bible club. This year, when Alexander offered to become a volunteer, her daughter was able to attend. Now, she and her daughter are in love with KiDs Beach Club®.

“I just love to talk to (kids) about the truth and who the Lord is,” she said. “I wanted to volunteer so I could speak life into these kids. It has been as much as a blessing for me as it has been fun for the kids.”

Alexander, who has a passion for working with kids, also points out that KiDs Beach Club® is foundational for kids in school.

We live in a culture that is difficult and hard and the more that we can speak the light of the Lord into these children so they can grow up in this school district being a light for the Lord,” she said. “We are planting many seeds of truth so that they can bear fruit later.”

Justin Turner, the youth pastor at Countryside Bible, the church which partners with KiDs Beach Club® to sponsor the club in Northwest ISD, also has kids who attend the Beach Club at Beck Elementary. It’s a great opportunity for Turner to meet his kids and their friends in their school to teach them about faith in Christ for salvation.

“We can open up the Bible and say this is what God is saying through His word,” Turner said. “The emphasis on the Bible through KiDs Beach Club® is fantastic because that is where it all starts.”

Turner says that when they’re talking to parents about Beach Club that many of them say that their kids are learning more in Beach Club than they do at their own church.

“When we ask some of the kids where their church is, they say it’s Beach Club,” Turner admitted. “What we want to do is show them the love of Christ, show them the word of God and show them how they can have a relationship with God through salvation of Jesus. Without Beach Club, without volunteers being here, we don’t have that opportunity.”

The waitlist at Beck Elementary exists because they do not have enough volunteers to maintain a ratio of one volunteer to 10 students.

Alexander, who attends another church in the area, urges other parents who might be on the fence about volunteering to come forward so more kids get the opportunity to attend Beach Club.

“I have to bring my other two kids with me as well,” Alexander said when asked about what challenges she faces as a volunteer. “It’s work, it’s late in the afternoon. Let’s be honest, there are times that I don’t want to come, but then I realize that it is not about me. It is about serving kids and future generations. You are loving on them and pouring into them.

“There is nothing but good that is going to come out of that. It’s a bit of a sacrifice, but one day a week isn’t bad. My kids love it. Even my little kids get into it, they have fun and they run around. I encourage you to come and volunteer. There is nothing but good that will come out of it.”

For more information about how to become a Beach Club volunteer, click here.

We are so excited to announce three new additions to the KBC family. Kerri Attaway and Susie Thompson joined KiDs Beach Club® as club relations specialists this past fall, while Stacy Stelzel has joined our corporate staff this month as our communications specialist.

Attaway is our club relations specialist in Florida. She has also served as a club leader at Palmetto Elementary for the past four years. She was born in New York, but raised in South Florida and presently lives in Orlando with Troy, her husband of 29 years. The couple has four children Jake, Carlyn, Chas and Kayleigh.

Attaway graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in physical education. She spent many years teaching physical education and health, and coaching basketball in the school system, before beginning the continual journey of homeschooling her own children. She believes that life is a ministry in every aspect, both full of joys and challenges on a daily basis and a perennial opportunity to grow and draw closer to Jesus. Attaway has served as youth director, VBS recreation director, and Sunday school teacher. She loves watching children grow and learn new things about the world they live in and the God that created them. She can be found in the great outdoors or with her nose in a good book.

Thompson is the club relations specialist in Arkansas. She has been married for 20 years to her husband Jeff, who is an association missionary for the Concord Baptist Association. The couple has two kids, Hunter and Tyler, who is married to Ashleigh. They are all currently serving at Cornerstone Church in Fort Smith, Ark. It’s a new church plant where their son, Hunter, is the pastor.

Her biggest joy comes from continually learning how to personally live on mission and helping Christ-followers find God’s purpose for their life. Thompson is the daughter of a worship minister and answered God’s call to ministry leadership after graduating with a business degree from Baylor University. She has previously served in church mission roles, collegiate ministry and as a pastor and missionary’s wife both in Oklahoma and in the Philippines. Thompson loves quiet times reading with a cup of coffee, spending time with family, and mentoring young leaders.

Stelzel is excited to join KiDs Beach Club® as the communications specialist. She was previously on staff at First Euless as the interactive media director and is still a member there. A Texas native, Stelzel grew up in Tyler and moved to the DFW Metroplex almost five years ago. She has a degree in film & digital media from Baylor University and has been on social media since Facebook first began.

While at Baylor, Stacy was a member of the Golden Wave Marching Band and Sing Alliance. Her true passion is photography and can be seen running around with her camera, capturing life. She loves growing succulents and cacti that she refers to as "her babies." Stelzel is an avid reader, loves color and all things Disney.