Communities Empowering Youth

The Communities Empowering Youth (CEY) program is a FreshMinistries initiative targeted at helping the city's youth. The program is based around the Helping America's Youth Initiative, which was started by First Lady Laura Bush.

CEY’s mission is to “work with faith and community-based organizations that provide programs and services to reduce juvenile violence, child abuse and neglect,” said This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , director of the program. “You hear every day that crimes are being committed by youth and the violence is taking place in the inner-city, so whatever we can do to help turn that situation around – that’s what we want to do.”

The goal is to work with the local organizations in a capacity-building role to help them do what they do better. This is done through four specific areas:

1. organizational development
2. leadership development
3. community engagement
4. program development

"We work with our partners in those four areas to help build their organizations so they can become better and stronger in the services they supply to the community,” said Hughes.

As director of the program, Hughes is in charge of administering a grant from the Compassion Capital Fund, a $30 million fund created in 2002, soon to expand, to assist grassroots organizations like FreshMinistries. The grant was awarded to FreshMinistries in October 2007 to help assist smaller organizations operate and mange their programs effectively.

“I’m finding that a lot of our partners know what they want to do but don’t have all of the necessary tools to do what they need to do,” said Hughes. “So we’re here to provide the tools to help sustain their programs. I really like what I’m doing. I’m a helper by nature, so whatever I can do to help people be better, that’s what I want to do.”

CEY Partners

• El-Bethel Development Center
• East Jacksonville Neighborhood Resource Center
• Family Nurturing Center
• Jacksonville Hospitality Institute
• Police Athletic League
• Sanctuary on 8th Street
• Westside Church of Christ

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