Crossover Community Center

from IMPACT Magazine Capital Campaign Edition 2021

Crossover Development Company

by Philip Abode

Please join us in restoring our community through your gift to the Capital Campaign!

I still have a hard time believing that the dream to build a community center in north Tulsa began 15 years ago. Fifteen years later the dream still lives and is now closer to becoming a reality than it has ever been! “Why dream about a community center?” That’s a good question. It originally started with wanting to build a facility that did not sit empty most of the week and a desire to build a facility that would serve as the hub of our community. However, just three years later, I saw clearly that the dream for a community center was so much more.

It all started when I coached a third-grade youth football team. I had never coached before, and honestly, I was not really looking forward to coaching elementary-age kids. This experience changed my life and helped me see how Crossover could be a part of seeing a tangible change in our community through the power of the gospel. Because of the life struggles that our third graders faced, we started after-school tutoring on the days we had practice and started focusing on character development. I became more of a mentor than a coach. The relationships that I built through that experience set the foundation for what would later become Crossover Community Impact. In 2012, we started Crossover Community Impact to help us more comprehensively serve north Tulsa. We started it with a second-grade football team. Now Crossover Community Impact allows us to serve our community through youth sports (Crossover Sports Association), health care (Crossover Health Services), education (Crossover Kids After-School & Summer Programs, the StreetLeader Program, and Crossover Preparatory Academy), and housing and economic development (Crossover Development Company). I cannot say that 15 years ago I saw Crossover serving our community in all of these ways. We are so close to raising all of the funds for the Crossover Community Center, meaning for the first time in Crossover’s history, all of the elements of our comprehensive approach will be in one central location. Currently, we are spread out over four different locations.

Imagine with me what it will be like for an elementary student in the Crossover Kids Program to come to the Crossover Community Center each day after school to be tutored by one of our StreetLeaders. After the program, he hangs around for basketball practice in the gym. During practice, his parents attend our Faith and Finance class in preparation to buy a house that the Crossover Development Company just finished rehabbing. And even though the middle school years are usually when organizations start losing touch with the kids that they worked within elementary, that will not be the case for Crossover. For starters, this youngster and his family are patients at Crossover Health Services that is located next door. On top of that, he will have the opportunity to attend Crossover Prep in middle and high school. And this will all be in the same building! Who knows, his family might even choose to make Crossover Bible Church their church family and join us for worship at the community center each Sunday. And to top it all off, imagine if this young man, who started with us in elementary school, decides to return to north Tulsa after he finishes college and decides to make north Tulsa the place that he calls home and where he chooses to raise his family while working to restore our community. Hopefully, you can see the kind of IMPACT that a facility like this could have in north Tulsa. My prayer is that if you can see this, that you will help it become a reality by partnering with us to reach our $1 Million Challenge Grant Goal in time to have those funds matched in August. Even though this dream has been 15 years in the making, I truly believe that the Crossover Community Center will have an IMPACT on north Tulsa that will span decades and last for generations to come.