2024: Transformation

Dear Five Star Life Supporters, 

Thank you for taking a moment to read this letter - I hope it finds you and your family healthy and well. As many of you know, this is my favorite time of year. For years, I've used the end of the year as a time to take stock of my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual reality. I think about the relationships I cherish, the impact I've made, and what I want to focus on in the upcoming year. If you don't have a personal year-end process, I encourage you to start one. 

As I reflect on 2024, the word that comes to mind is TRANSFORMATION. Like a metamorphosis, where a tiny butterfly egg transforms into a caterpillar, then a chrysalis, and finally into a butterfly. That's what 2024 was for Five Star Life. A year ago, I shared with you all that, for the second time in our organization's history, we went backwards financially. It was a very frustrating and discouraging time for us all. On one hand, we were impacting more kids in more powerful ways than ever, and on the other, we were experiencing a financial shortfall. 

On top of that, our Five Star Life Basketball program was still HOMELESS. For the past 7 years, we have been like gypsies, renting gym after gym, trying to find a home. We kept looking for a facility with just a couple of courts. that we could call HOME. We came close a few times, but none of them seemed to work out. To say the least, 2023 was frustrating and discouraging, but we were determined that 2024 was going to be different and we set our minds and focus to start the new year strong. 

‍Just as we were getting excited for a great new year, I got a call on February 28 that I never expected and I'll never forget. One of the buildings that we had spent over a year working on at Summit was on fire. We had designed and nearly completed construction on a new facility we called the Life building. The name explains its unique purpose: to pour LIFE back into kids who have literally had the life sucked out of them. These kids have little to no identity, hope, or dreams to the point that they have given up. So, when this building caught on fire, it wasn't just the physical (and financial) damage to the building that hurt (which it did), it was the mental and emotional disappointment that the fire was robbing kids of opportunities to transform. 

I'm sure there are some of you that have experienced some of these types of disappointments and you know the feeling we felt that day. I know for sure that a majority of the kids we work with have to face those kinds of disappointments and devastations on a daily basis. It was a very dark moment for me personally and us as an organization, but we had to do exactly what we tell our kids to do at Five Star Life. We teach kids how to go through dark moments, dark seasons, and live by the Five Star value of Responsibility, which we define as "taking ownership of our past choices, current reality, and future dreams." We are NOT victims, we are OWNERS. We rallied. We decided to take ownership of our reality and put together a strategy to begin our transformation.

At the beginning of this year, many of you got involved to help us move into 2024 financially strong. Many of you responded and a positive shift began. I am excited to report that, as I’m writing this note to you, I’m watching workers that are busy rebuilding the Life building and we expect it to be finished and functioning this spring to transform kids’ lives! We’re not just rebuilding it, we have used the fire as an opportunity to expand our vision. We are committed to rebuilding it bigger and better, even though we have a ways to go financially to completely fund the Life building project. I took the enclosed photos today. 

The fire, in a strange way, actually forced us to come up with new ways to reach more kids than ever at Summit in 2024. We launched Five Star Life Innovative Learning, our newest program that partners with schools to transport kids to Summit for six weeks each semester. Our initial data is POWERFUL, proving that when you address a kid’s mindset, provide them with great Five Star Life Coaches, and work side-by-side with their teachers to develop real hands-on skills, it is transformative. The program impacted nearly 1,000 kids like Jorge, a disabled minority student, whose school was part of the six week program at Summit. I had a chance to connect with this sharp and outgoing kid toward the end of the program. His teacher told me that he was totally withdrawn at school and completely isolated from his peers before Five Star, but had begun to transform into the happy, engaged kid I met a couple weeks ago. The teacher raved that the Five Star Life Innovative Learning program had brought him back to life! Now, he is engaging in classwork and with his peers. That’s transformation! 

‍Finally, I’m happy to report that our Five Star Life Basketball program is no longer HOMELESS!! This is thanks to an exclusive partnership with Card & Associates, an Indianapolis based developer that built the new Mishawaka Fieldhouse. This past month has been surreal as we transitioned from being homeless to cutting the ribbon and moving into our new $50,000,000 state-of-the-art youth sports complex featuring, not two basketball courts that we were hoping for, but 10 FULL, BEAUTIFUL BASKETBALL COURTS! There isn’t a facility like this in the country. It’s a total game-changer that will allow us to expand our basketball programs, host our own tournaments, and grow into other sports! Talk about transformation!

‍Over the past year we’ve experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, but, one thing is certain, our impact has never been greater than it is right now and we’ve never been more poised to transform lives at scale. A year ago I wrote from a place of weakness. This year I’m writing to you from a place of incredible strength, opportunity, and optimism! I want to personally invite you to go with us on our year-end-journey. Over the next few weeks, you’ll receive a couple of additional notes from me that allow you to hear some powerful stories of student transformation. Thank you for being so faithful to us over the years and thanks in advance for taking time to read the next few personal notes from me to you. Please share them with your friends and consider helping us move into 2025 with the bandwidth to transform more kids like Jorge! 

President, Five Star Life