Bringing Young Life To Tampa

Tampa Boasts 50 Years While The Ministry Celebrates 70 Years Nationally

By KK Cooper

In February, 1972, Frank and I began to invite Tampa adults to monthlyparties held in our apartment living room for the purpose of hearing about a “new group in town,” Young Life.

Young Life had been a major part of my life since growing up as a teenager in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I could not imagine living in a city where Young Life was not a presence.My brother, Charlie Scott, who lived in Orlando and was Director of Florida Young Life, drove over once a month to meet with our living room group. Charlie would show the Young Life video, explain the ministry and then answer questions. It was a slow but necessary process.

I was brand new to Tampa and only knew a few people butFrank hadbusiness and family connectionsand those folks came to our living room meetings. After about six months we wereable to develop a Young Life Adult Committee of twenty people! I will be forever grateful to these folks for their belief in and commitment to Young Life.

By the fall of 1972 we had ourfirst TampaArea Director, John Smith, and we had our first Young Life club meeting for Plant High School kids at the home of Laura Cooper Brown. It was an exciting time and we even had kids who went to the winter Windy Gap ski trip in North Carolina. Parents began to support the organization as theysaw how God was touching the lives of their children.

We still had our struggles: how were we going to raise our $10,000 budget for that year? After Christmas, we hosted our first fundraising event at The University of Tampa and we met our financial goal!

As the organization grew, some very generous groups offered us office space and for the past 20 years Young Life has been located at Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church, right across from Plant High. Thank you PCPC!

God has touched the lives of hundreds of kids and adults through the Young Life ministry. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Windy Gap 2011

“Behind the debris of these self-styled, sullen supermen and imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still have hope. The person of Jesus Christ.”
-Malcolm Muggeridge

On the evening of December 18th, sixty teenagers from South Tampa arrived at Windy Gap Young Life Camp in Asheville, NC. They spent the next five days experiencing the excitement and adventure of riding horses, climbing walls, a ropes course, zip lines and jaw dropping swings. They also spent a day skiing/snow boarding at Beach Mountain.

The unique activities are designed to encourage teenagers to experience life to the full, smile from ear to ear, laugh, overcome challenges, and create memories for a lifetime.

Each night, campers got to take a look at the claims of the most famous, controversial, extraordinary person to ever walk the earth—Jesus of Nazareth.

The discussions during cabin times opened up a ton of questions: Does God even exist? What is unique about Jesus compared to other religions? Where is God when it hurts?

Teenagers began to understand that if Jesus’ claims are true, then what He had to say and who He is has everything to do with who we are, our lives, and how utterly overwhelming His love for us actually is.

The responses were all over the board. Some campers gave their lives to Him, some still had questions, and others walked away. For the teenagers who gave their lives to Jesus, the true life changing adventure now begins…