Long Island Teen Challenge
In 1990, we pioneered Long Island Teen Challenge through a coffeehouse outreach in a small VFW hall in Amityville, New York. Today, our outreach serves over 700 people weekly and we have established a thriving complex of homes where lives are being restored in Long Island, Albany NY and Santiago D.R..
Our residential care consists of 7 men’s homes, 2 ladies’ homes, 2 Churches and 5 vocational training programs which provide hope, healing and a future. Our home and foreign missions outreaches, Rock the Block and Teen Challenge World Outreach are dynamic tools for evangelism and intervention, rescuing and restoring hurting people from here in NY, throughout the United States and overseas.
In 2004, we established a Teen Challenge men’s home in Santiago, Dominican Republic through a crusade/concert in the city’s largest baseball stadium. In 2007, we held our Rock the Block 3-day outdoor concert in the heart of the city with an attendance of over 22,000 young people. This resulted in establishing a ladies’ home to provide a safe haven for wounded women. Today, in the Dominican Republic we have 4 men’s homes, 1 ladies home, a TC Beauty Salon and Blessingdales Thrift Shop which provides vocational training and funding for our residential programs.
In 2006, we established Albany Teen Challenge and Freedom Chapel North from a Church campus that was donated to us in Albany County, NY. We have renovated the parsonage into a 12-bed crisis home and the Church is an outreach for our students, their families and the community of Albany. In 2008, we opened a Blessingdales Thrift Shop and TC Security to provide vocational training and funding for our program.
As we increase in capacity, we are expanding our vocational division in Long Island Teen Challenge: Blessingdales Thrift Store, TC Auto Repair & Redemption Center, TC Remodeling, and TC Security and we just opened our 2nd thrift store, Blessingdales II in Brentwood, Long Island. These outreaches not only provide income for the ministry and value to the community, but especially job training skills for our students. Our students graduate our program “Redeemed, and with a resume!”
QUOTE FROM DAVID WILKERSON THE FOUNDER OF TEEN CHALLENGE
“I just want to let you know how pleased I am that you and your ministry have such a zeal for evangelism.
That’s how we started fifty years ago. And thankfully, you have kept the vision for lost souls.
I want you and your staff to know that’s been a great blessing to me personally.
Hopefully this summer you will be able to bring your whole team into Manhattan for outreaches in such places as Central Park or Harlem.
You will be very effective and draw crowds to hear the Gospel.”
Long Island Teen Challenge Mission