Welcome to Youth Striving for Excellence!
The Mission of YSE is to reach boys and girls (ages 6-18) in North Memphis teaching them Biblical life-style principles, maturing them in Christ, and encouraging their desire to serve Him.
Through our programs we develop strong relationships with the youth, and give them Godly principles and examples for daily living, thereby breaking the cycles of teenage pregnancy, academic failure, addiction, and abuse.
"So that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure, blameless until the day of Christ." Philippians 1:10
History
In 1994 Tara Owens was working with a small group of teenage girls from the Douglas Community. JoeAnn Ballard contacted a few women in the Memphis Christian community to come along side of Tara to establish a board and birth what was then called Young Women Striving for Excellence (YWSE). Tara and her husband moved from Memphis and The Lord provided two leaders in Christie Borner and Pearl Lee. The growing ministry continued to work out of neighborhood churches, and moved its business office to the Leadership Memphis building on Poplar. Within a few years Christie left to start another ministry, and Pearl became the executive director in 2000. Pearl had grown up in the Douglass Community of Memphis and spent 10 years with her husband and family in Germany. She was employed by the U.S. Government while in Germany, and that training gave her the administrative skills she needed to run a successful ministry. That, coupled with Pearl's love for The Lord and love for working with youth, has made her a vibrant and tireless director of YWSE.
As the ministry began to grow the "young women" who were attending began to bring their brothers and cousins to the ministry. It became apparent we needed to encourage "young men" for The Lord as well. Through active girls in YWSE who attend Scenic Hills Baptist Church, Pearl met Pastor Tony Hodges who already had an established boy's ministry called Boys to Men. Pearl and Pastor Tony shared the same goal for the youth, and their ministries complemented one another. Pearl, with the blessing of her board, moved both the offices and the ministry of YWSE to Scenic Hills Baptist Church in the fall of 2008. Together they changed the name to Youth Striving for Excellence (YSE), which accurately represents the current ministry, and added men to the board from the Memphis Christian community.
Presently YSE ministers to boys and girls from over 20 different public schools in Memphis. It is our goal to reach as many children as possible, at an early age, in order to disciple them through their high school years.
Youth Striving for Excellence