The Kidz XL Staff | The Kidz XL Board of Directors | |
Nic Schrieber, Executive Director Marcus Bright, Program Director | Ken Schafer, Expert Medical Transcription Abner Reyes Eric Acosta Rollo Casiple, La Vina Community Church | |
The Kidz XL Story | ||
La Viña del Señor, the parent agency of Kidz XL, has been serving the youth and families of Miami since its inception in 1991. La Viña del Señor is affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA), a denomination of 1,300 churches throughout the United States. La Viña has been active in reaching out to families in the community. The youth ministry at La Viña Community Church provides opportunities for youth to improve their life skills, physical health and spiritual lives in an atmosphere that is fun, caring and inspiring. Currently, the youth program offers several weekly programs as well as volunteer service opportunities, camps and retreats throughout the year.
For the last three years, La Viña del Señor has been under the leadership of Pastor Rollo Casiple. In that time, La Viña del Señor began doing business as La Viña Community Church and founded Kidz XL, a continuation of Pastor Rollo’s 17 years of youth ministry. For the EFCA, Pastor Rollo organizes the national bi-annual youth conference of almost 6,000 students and has served for ten years on the national student ministry council that provides oversight for the youth ministries of the 1300 EFCA churches. Pastor Rollo has developed dynamic youth ministries in four different churches in California and Arizona and now serves on the board of Kidz XL and provides in-kind services along with Ken Schafer, currently an elder and President of the Corporation, who also works with the church’s youth.
Kidz XL began serving families in July 2005 as a result of the $25,000 District Response Grant for District 10 of Miami-Dade County. Kidz XL served over 61 unduplicated children in 6 week long sportsthemed reading and fitness camps from July 2005 through June 2006. We more than satisfied our character, reading and fitness outcomes for these camps and passed our administrative, fiscal operations, quality assurance and personnel reviews by Miami-Dade Department of Human Services (see attached). As a sub-contractor of Trinity Church, a Children’s Trust funded out-of-school program, we have continued our service to children with five additional summer camps and an after school academic enrichment program, serving a total of almost 100 unduplicated children. We have satisfied the outcomes and administrative criteria of our contract with Trinity and as a result, the Children’s Trust.
Abner Reyes is the current Executive Director of Kidz XL. He brings 15 years of experience in education in Florida. He has taught six different subjects in private schools ages 4-18. He also served as an Athletic Director and coach of various sports including basketball and soccer. In Miami-Dade Public Schools, he has taught Driver Education, 9th grade Intensive Reading, and assisted in Physical Education. In addition to serving as a school’s activity director, Abner has volunteered time with the school’s chapter of SADD (Student’s Against Destructive Decisions) working in close association with the Miami-Dade and the City of Miami Police Departments as well as Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
La Viña Community Church respects and appreciates the importance of all cultures. We value cultural diversity as best exemplified in our multi-cultural congregation and lay leaders. Our staff reflects the ethnicity of our local population, and is sensitive to the diverse cultural attitudes, beliefs and practices of the community. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation in any of our programs or activities. We are constantly evaluating our processes to assure delivery of programming in a culturally competent manner. Our activities include the development of skills through training, use of self-assessment systems, and implementation of objectives to ensure that governance, administrative policies and practices are responsive to the culture and diversity within the populations served.
