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KiDs Beach Club® is announcing staff changes including the promotion of Robin Cunningham to senior area director, the relocation of Kathleen “Kat” Akins as club relations director and the hiring of Ann Griffith as club relations director.

Cunningham joins the corporate staff and will serve alongside Jennifer Radabaugh as the ministry’s two senior area directors. Cunningham will be responsible for an area in Texas that begins in Tarrant County and west. She will continue to serve KBC Foundational Partner First Baptist Church in Euless. Radabaugh will continue to be responsible for Dallas County and areas to the east and south to the gulf coast.

Cunningham has been with KBC since January 2014, serving as an area director in north Tarrant County. Cunningham, who previously owned her own photography business, has worked with children in a church setting since her youth and has taught fourth grade in Southlake. A graduate of Hardin-Simmons, she and her husband Greg have two children, Gracie (13) and Wes (11). They reside in Grapevine and attend church in Southlake.

Akins, who joined KBC in June 2014, has served in West Texas, helping launch seven Beach Clubs in Odessa, Monahans, Andrews and Denver City. She initially served as a Beach Club volunteer at Donna Park Elementary in Bedford, Texas and quickly became a devotee of KBC after seeing the transformation in both children and servant leaders as they learned and celebrated the life that only Jesus can give.

Akins has relocated to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and will assume an area in Tarrant County. She will continue to be actively involved in West Texas to ensure a smooth transition until her replacement has been found.

Griffith joins the KBC club relations team and rounds out the DFW staff in the south-central region that includes Grand Prairie, Irving, East Arlington and Ellis County. Griffith has lived in the DFW area for 17 years, including the last 12 years in Plano. She was instrumental in bringing the first Beach Club to Plano ISD and served as the club leader at Hughston Elementary. She and her husband David have two children, Grace (14) and Josiah (11), and attend Hunters Glen Baptist Church.

KiDs Beach Club® is also looking to fill positions in Midland-Odessa, Texas, and an area near Beaumont, Texas that includes Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana. Click here for a full list of positions currently available.

KiDs Beach Club® has several volunteers who go above and beyond the call of duty and many deserve to be recognized for their efforts. One such volunteer is Susan Jiura and she was recently recognized with the First Rate Living Extra Mile Award, given annually to people who are impacting youth in Arlington, Texas. 

Jiura has led the Beach Club at Sherrod Elementary School in the Arlington ISD for 10 years. She has served an average of 60 students in Beach Club and leads a team of 16 adult volunteers who meet every Tuesday during the school year to worship, play games and guide children to experience Godly character qualities found in the Bible. 

“Susan is an amazing servant leader who goes the extra mile in her role as Beach Club Director at Sherrod Elementary School,” said Roger Sappington, the lead pastor for community and missions at Pantego Bible Church, which sponsors the club at the school as well as three others. “Susan has gone above and beyond as she has ministered to children and their families. In many ways, Susan is the unofficial chaplain and benevolence coordinator of Sherrod Elementary School. She has been there for children when they faced illness. She has mobilized others to help materially support families in the midst of financial crisis. Susan does whatever is takes to see students loved and cared for.”

An active member of Pantego Bible Church, Jiura volunteers in many other aspects at the school and coordinated with Perfect 10 Charities to provide backpacks of supplies to all the students at Sherrod.  

“I would like to thank the Beach Club of Sherrod Elementary, mainly Mrs. Susan for being a major encouraging factor in bringing me and my children nearer to the Lord,” Greg Williams, whose three grandsons attended the club, wrote in an email. “From the day she came into our lives she has been a true ambassador for Christ, and a great friend to my family even after we have moved on to another school. I pray that God continue to strengthen and bless her in her following of Christ. The Lord loves her. We thank God for her and love her.”

First Rate Living’s mission is to love, give, serve and enjoy. David Stone, CEO and Founder of First Rate, along with his wife Trina, started their company with the desire to honor God by giving back to the community, specifically the youth of Arlington, Texas. First Rate Living supports many organizations that are making a positive impact in the community.

Jiura was presented a keepsake plaque and a $1,500 check as part of the Extra Mile Award. She plans to donate the monetary prize to the benefit of KiDs Beach Club®. 

Jeff Williams, the mayor of Arlington, delivered the keynote address during the award ceremony. He highlighted ways youth are being positively impacted in the city of Arlington and challenged everyone that there is much more work still to be done.  

If you know of other KBC volunteers who are being publically recognized for their service and contributions related to their impact on children, we would love to hear their stories, too. Please email them to us at news@beachclubs.org.

Just like every Beach Club is different, every Beach Club also hands out Bibles differently. Some churches go the extra mile on Great Treasure Day, the day children receive their own KiDs Beach Club® Explorer’s Study Bible, and rightfully so since there is no greater treasure than God’s Word.

Churches might display all of their Bibles on a table on a stage with the names of each recipient already written in them and then call up each child to the stage individually.

Some churches might have their congregations pray over the Bibles during a church service on the Sunday before Great Treasure Day.

They might even ask members of their congregations to write personal notes to the Beach Club children on an inside cover of the Bible.

Some may do all of these things. Other churches have been known to downplay the gifting ceremony entirely in favor of diving right into the Bible to explore God’s Word.

Every KBC Explorer’s Study Bible comes individually wrapped in cellophane from the distributor so if a church elects to write in the Bibles, they have to unwrap each Bible. That may take some time with club sizes averaging around 80 kids.

The Beach Club sponsored by Christ Church at Farine Elementary in Irving used to take the time to unwrap each Bible, but not any more.

“One of things that caught us off guard when we gave the kids the Bible is that they wanted us to give them the Bible in the plastic wrap because they knew it was brand new,” said Molly Greenlee, the children’s director at Christ Church Irving. “It was only theirs and it was priceless.

“The first time we did it, we opened it and we thought it would be great if we would write their name inside, but they wanted to write their own name in it because it was theirs.”

Not many Beach Club kids have something to call their very own and take great pride in this gift.

“I cannot tell you how many kids told us, ‘I don’t get things that are brand new. I have never had a book, period, that was brand new,’” Greenlee said. “And they got these Bibles and they’re beaming and it is just amazing.

“These Bibles have become precious items to these kids that they hold onto.”

Have you considered becoming a monthly Bibles for Beach Club donor? KiDs Beach Club® could not give every child in every Beach Club a Bible without your continued support. We have placed an order for another 10,000 Bibles for the 2016-17 school year as a result of the generous support shown at last month’s Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner & Auction. We continue to add more Beach Clubs and more kids in our current clubs and everyone will continue to receive a brand new Bible to call their own.

KiDs Beach Club® is going to have a presence at both the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting and the SBC Pastors’ Conference in St. Louis in June. KBC is one of the sponsors for the Pastors’ Conference and will have a booth at the Annual Meeting to share its mission and vision with a national audience for the first time.

Churches who partner with KiDs Beach Club® have an immediate connection point for evangelism teams that accelerates open doors within a community and allows churches to focus on the people. Specifically, it helps churches connect people back to their church and into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

One of the people who caught that vision is Byron McWilliams, the lead pastor at First Baptist Church of Odessa.

“When I first heard the logic for utilizing KiDs Beach Club® as pre-evangelism for Can We Talk, I immediately saw it as a blend of two fantastic strategies with great Kingdom potential,” McWilliams said. “Both CWT and KBC are proven to powerfully impact ‘lostness’ as stand alone ministries, but the blessings magnify when they are used together.”

He saw this firsthand when he visited a Beach Club kid and his mother in 2014 with a Can We Talk team at First Euless. KBC opened the door to visit Felicia and Fabian in their Bedford, Texas home. God used CWT to open this young mother’s heart to the Gospel.

“In just minutes, Felicia prayed to receive Christ and plans were made to follow up with Fabian, McWilliams said. “After this visit, if I had any doubts about utilizing CWT and KBC as complimentary ministries they were long gone. If you are seeking qualified contacts for your CWT participants to visit, KBC is a proven source that will provide them. 

“It’s a key piece of what we do in our overall evangelism strategy at First Odessa because it works!”

It’s our understanding that he’s going to share portions of this story during his address at the SBC Pastors’ Conference, which leads up to the SBC Annual Meeting.

KiDs Beach Club®, which is headquartered in Texas, has 44 clubs in seven states outside of Texas. The ministry has recently been developing a national growth strategy while continuing to expand throughout Texas. 

A KBC donor who is passionate about the ministry’s national expansion has fully funded the efforts to put KiDs Beach Club® in front of a national audience at the SBC Annual Meeting and to be a sponsor of the SBC Pastors’ Conference.

The end of the year is approaching quickly and some Beach Clubs have already wrapped up for the year. We’re thankful that we’ve had the opportunity to minister to 11,754 children this year and for the 2,525 volunteers to make these moments possible.

Here is a look at how some Beach Club are celebrating their final meeting this year:


First Baptist Church Highlands, Highlands, Texas
Victoria Walker Elementary and Highlands Elementary
First Baptist Church Highlands invited the Beach Club kids and their families to attend a Sunday church service. The kids sang one of their KBC songs to lead the congregation in worship. KBC volunteers also were recognized. After church, KBC clubbers and their families joined the church family for a carnival complete with hot dogs and clowns.

Faith Baptist Church, Bartlett, Tenn.
Bon Lin Elementary
Fifth graders moving on to middle school received a 4x6-inch scripture frame and a 4x3-inch graduation sticker for the inside cover of their Bible. All students received a "the love of Jesus is so sweet!" card with candy.

First Baptist Church, Kemp, Texas
Kemp Intermediate
First Baptist Church in Kemp threw Beach Club kids a pizza party on the last week of club. They recognized kids who have been part of KBC for all three years the club has been meeting, awarding each kid with a KBC t-shirt.

Calvary Baptist Church, Clearwater, Fla.
Eisenhower Elementary
Special awards were given to kids who had perfect attendance since coming to KiDs Beach Club®. Seven children in the club had not missed a day since joining KBC. One child has been to every club meeting for two years!  Another eight clubbers have only missed a day or two. Praise to the Lord for these faithful children!

Chris Bridges, the pastor of children’s ministry at Calvary Baptist Church, came to club to answer questions the kids had submitted in previous weeks. He presented each child with a devotional book and announced the church would provide scholarships for any KBC kids who want to attend their church’s summer camp.

Brown Missionary Baptist, Southaven, Miss.
Southaven Intermediate
During a Saturday evening service, the church baptized nine students who had made Jesus their Forever Friend at Beach Club this year. It was a great time of worship and fellowship between the church families and these Beach Club families. Click the video below to hear pastor Jeffery Jackson tell the story about how he will baptize an entire family thanks to one girl's participation in KiDs Beach Club®.

Jeffery_Jackson_Brown_Missionary_Baptist from KiDs Beach Club on Vimeo.

For many kids and volunteers, KiDs Beach Club® is the highlight of their week. While it’s hard to say goodbye at the end of every school year, we trust that the seeds of faith that were planted will take root and that kids will continue to follow Jesus like they were taught in clubs.

“The KBC Study Bibles that were placed in kids’ hands are now in their homes and the ministry of KiDs Beach Club continues,” said Cindy Leach, the KBC executive director. “God’s Word has the power to change lives, even the lives of kids. We pray that through the summer kids will spend time reading their Bibles and listening to God.”

To our sixth graders and others who are leaving Beach Club for a final time, we’re grateful KiDs Beach Club® has been a part of your lives and pray those seeds of faith that were planted will help guide you as you head to your next school and beyond. To the rest of you, we are already looking forward to our first meeting next year. It’s hard to believe summer is just around the corner. Enjoy it! Be on the lookout for our Summer Reading Plan so you can keep reading and studying your KBC Explorer’s Study Bible.

It's not too late to share what your Beach Club is doing or has done to celebrate its final meeting of the year. Email your story to news@beachclubs.org or tag #KiDsBeachClub on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Fresh off an amazing show of support at the Bibles for Beach Club Benefit Dinner & Auction that saw KiDs Beach Club® raise enough money to purchase another 10,000 Bibles, the ministry is inviting you to become a monthly Bible donor.

Monthly funds are an important piece of the operational puzzle that helps put a Bible in the hands of every child in every one of our 170 Beach Clubs. KBC purchases Bibles in bulk and there is a one-time cost to accomplish that endeavor.

“We actually purchase in quantities of 10,000 in order to keep our costs down and be effective stewards of the resources that have come to us through God’s grace and the generous giving of our donors,” said Paul McCollum, the vice president for school relations and development at KiDs Beach Club®. “However, we do not distribute them as quickly as we receive them. Warehouse costs recur monthly, and like a dripping faucet, continue to erode the operational costs throughout the year.”

Monthly giving provides continued support to gird the budget against the recurring costs of warehousing. Many clubs are scattered across the state and country and require additional shipping costs to get the Bibles into the hands of the children. These costs also occur at varying times of the year depending on when clubs schedule their Great Treasure Day throughout the year. KBC tries to make these shipments in bulk to alleviate overages in shipping rates and fees, but as clubs grow, Bibles get sent as needed.

“All praise to God for this growth,” McCollum said. “There is nothing glamorous or exciting in operational costs. It’s kind of like putting in a water line for a fire hydrant. You spend the money and don’t really get to see the results – until a crisis gets averted.

"That is the same with the KBC Explorer’s Study Bibles. There’s nothing exciting about warehousing and shipping Bibles – until a child receives one and for the first time in his or her life understands that there is a God who loves them and wants desperately to be their Forever Friend!” 

Becoming a monthly Bibles donor is an incredibly simple process. Click here, enter an amount and then be sure to click the “Monthly” button under Frequency. You can even select what time of the month you want to have your payment processed. There are other ways to give, too, including weekly, semi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually.