About - Helping Them Succeed

About Us

In January 2001, Ken Hargrave enrolled at Christ For The Nations Bible School in Dallas, Texas. In February of that same year, one month later, Ken was brought to an after-school program in East Dallas, operated by a ministry called “Reconciliation Outreach,” where he would spend a total of four years helping inner-city children after school and throughout the summer. He lived at the homeless shelter for two summers with the intention of understanding the homeless and the poverty mentality associated with that way of life. After this Ken moved to a ranch for troubled teen boys in north Texas. These five years became his season of gaining valuable insight into at-risk children and troubled teens.

As a missionary traveling to eight countries and three continents, Ken was drawn to minister in and move to a foreign country, but even more intense was the urge to move back to Louisiana where he grew up, to minister to children who needed help as well. Realizing that the world had come to the United States and created a great melting pot of many cultures, he could do both—touch the world by ministering in Lafayette, Louisiana.

In October of 2006, “A Heart For Children” 501-C-3 nonprofit organization was formed to address the educational, spiritual, and life needs of children in the Acadiana area. In February of 2008, KidzClub After School Mentoring Program was started with ten children, with the goal of helping children from the Ile des Cannes apartment complex to succeed in life.

The ministry hopes to increase the student enrollment by 10-20 children each school year with additional volunteers and resources, to effectively help each child enrolled in the program. The goal is to walk with these children throughout their school years, into college, and ultimately become productive members of society.

Dear future Partner,

            My name is Kenneth Hargrave and I am the founder/director of the above 501-c-3 non-profit organization (EIN # 87-0769700). I started this organization in December 2006, with a desire to help children in the Ile des Cannes apartment complex with their educational, personal and spiritual growth through after school and summer programs. As we focused on children, it became apparent that we needed to help the whole family since the family dynamic affected the children directly.
            Throughout the last 15 years, we have partnered with various organizations throughout Lafayette to bring the residents various opportunities to strengthen and help families. Like parenting classes, nutrition classes, medical outreaches, Book Mobil, food distribution, adult ESL classes etc.
            Due to Covid-19 and a lack of volunteers, we had to postpone our after-school and summer programs. We are presently looking into partnering with a local governmental agency to be able to go into local schools to help students from 3^rd-8^th grade with life skills training. This agency provides all training, curriculum and accountability necessary to help children succeed in this program. Having and after-school program with volunteers is a blessing but limited. This partnership will allow us to fulfil the desire in our heart to help children, at the same time providing a residual income to resume or programs, but with Certified teachers who understand all the curriculum benefitting the students in a more wholistic educational aspect.
            Presently we are partnered with Smile Community Action which provide ESL classes so parents can at least help their children with homework and communicate in English. Also, Spanish classes to help people to communicate with the Latin community. We partnered with Second Harvest food Bank and also operate a food pantry, to help with food insecurities and because the apartment complex is considered a food dessert. We are presently helping 50-60 families per week, with an average of 10-15 new families weekly from the Lafayette parish area not just Ile des Cannes. As of October, 29^th we completed our first year at the food pantry. Even with a slow start, we helped 438 families with over 147,000 pounds of food and various items. Second Harvest has provided us food as well as helped us connect with local vendors like Walmart, Target, Costco, World Foods and Aldi’s to provide additional food to families. We project 600 families and 250,00 pounds of food in the upcoming year.
            We ask for your support to enlarge the amount of families served and the amount of food given. Monetary donations, both one time or continuous would be appreciated to help us with our continued and ever-growing cost to operate, as well as food drives to help us with filling our pantry so we can provide food to families. Thanks for your consideration in this matter and I hope we can partner together to help families in the Lafayette parish area!!

Sincerely,
Kenneth Hargrave