I grew up in Winnipeg, where the ground is frozen solid for more than half the year. Nothing grows. Nothing moves. The earth just waits.
But then, comes spring. And by August, the fields explode in waves of yellow, purple, and deep prairie green. The transformation can catch you by surprise.
When my wife Sherri and I moved to BC, we rented a house with a yard full of beautiful trees, hedges and wild flowers. I’ll be honest, I was terrified. My track record with growing things was, at best, poor. But something remarkable happened: it all thrived. The soil knew what to do. The rain arrived. The sun did its work.
My role turned out to be surprisingly simple: create a little space, do some pruning, and trust the process. This is what I’ve come to understand about Youth Unlimited after 30 years of walking alongside vulnerable young people.
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.”
- 1 Corinthians 3:6
We don’t manufacture growth. We can’t force a life to flourish. What we can do is show up—consistently, faithfully, relationally—and cultivate the conditions where a young person can believe that growth is possible for them. That they are not frozen ground. This is our Three Story Relationship approach: listening deeply to the stories young people carry, sharing our own stories of resilience, and when the soil is ready, introducing them to God’s story of unconditional love and grace.
Consider Calvin, one of our staff, who noticed 15-year-olds openly discussing sports betting at Monday night basketball. He didn’t shut it down. He leaned in, and provided guidance; week after week, showing up. That’s the pruning, the tending, the patient work of a gardener who knows you can’t rush the season.
It’s the type of work we do at Youth Unlimited. It’s work that matters for vulnerable young people. As you’ll read in this report, it empowered a young woman to call the Mission Youth House “the first and only safe place I’ve ever been in my life” and a young refugee from Ukraine to find belonging amongst a community of peers.
The youth we serve carry more resilience than the world gives them credit for. Frozen ground, discovering it was made to grow all along.
Your partnership makes this patient, incarnational work possible.
Thank you for investing in the early stages of these journeys, trusting that God is at work even when transformation is still unfolding.
With deep gratitude,
Mark Koop
Executive Director
A MESSAGE FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
480
Youth Mentored
54
Community Outreach Programs
13,971
Meals Served
MY HOUSE: TEN YEARS OF SHOWING UP
For ten years, Mission Youth House (MY House) has been the place youth go when they have nowhere else.
The idea began in 2012, when social agencies in Mission asked a hard but necessary question: what happens to homeless youth in our community? As the community rallied together, the answer became clear — there needed to be a dedicated, safe space for marginalized young people. After two years of planning, MY House officially opened in 2015.
As word began to spread across the city, “youth started coming every day,” recalls Calvin Williams, YU’s Mission Area Director. “And it just grew from there.”
A COMMUNITY CONSTANT
Today, MY House is a trusted and consistent presence in Mission. Youth can access basic necessities like showers and meals while working toward long-term housing, employment, and stability. “The work we do is very youth-directed, while staying focused on their highest needs,” Calvin explains. One young woman navigating addiction and homelessness told long-time youth worker Barry McLeod that MY House was “the first and only safe place I’ve ever been in my life.”
Calvin describes the team’s approach as “professional parenting.” He recalls five youth who were camping in the forest behind a middle school last winter. “We worked with them daily — coordinating housing, social workers, and medical care. Today, all five are housed. Some are thriving, some are still vulnerable, but they’re in a much better place.”
AN ADAPTABLE PRESENCE
Today, MY House continues to adapt. It has formed new programs alongside community partners to offer comprehensive substance use care, partially staffed by youth with lived experience. This creates a safe, unconditional environment for those on the path to recovery.
The measure of success isn’t found only in numbers, but in the stories of youth being known, housed, and cared for. Ten years in, those values remain firm. As Barry puts it, “We’re going to love those kids the way they are — and we’re going to help them find ways to move forward.”
Hope from the Field
Over the past two years, YU’s frontline workers have revitalized overnight youth trips. Once a YU staple, trips were paused during the pandemic, but now, we’re traveling to the Okanagan, Vancouver Island, Oregon, California, and beyond. Veteran YU youth worker Arlene Friesen explains why these trips matter now more than ever:
“Kids don’t even have their own family vacations anymore. There’s not much time to disconnect and unwind from social media. To have no pressure, to go on a trip and have someone take care of them and love them? That’s important. One kid told me: ‘I haven’t touched my phone in three days. This is the best trip ever!’”
“I feel that I’ve built more genuine relationships with some of the dads I work with. I still don’t see many of them as often as I would like, but when we do connect, the moments are meaningful. They’ve begun trusting me with stories from their lives — both joyful and difficult. I’ve been able to speak guidance grounded in Biblical wisdom into their lives, and one dad even saw his son healed and returned home from the hospital after I prayed with them over the phone last Christmas.”
— Jeffrey Chaters, Young Dads Coordinator
CONVERSATIONS WITH YOUTH WORKERS
Across our region, 57 front line YU youth workers work daily to provide support to youth facing barriers to well-being who are exposed to greater risks and with access to fewer resources.
Hear stories directly from our staff about how we meet the challenges that youth face with Christ-led compassion, and hear Executive Director Mark Koop explain how and why our method of ministry changes outcomes of vulnerable youth.
A NEW RISK IN YOUTH CULTURE
“My parlay just hit!”
Last year, Abbotsford youth worker Calvin Wiens began noticing a worrying trend at his basketball drop-in. A group of students began talking openly about their sports betting habits, and sharing information and bragging about their “winnings.” Online sports betting had become a daily fixture in their lives.
The main issue? These youth are minors.
“The amount of betting going on would be really concerning for a 19-year-old,” says Calvin, “but it’s illegal for 15-year-olds.”
Over time, Calvin began to see how it was happening. Using parents’ or older siblings’ IDs, youth were signing up for online betting platforms. Money given for other purposes — such as allowances or school lunches — was being used to fund accounts, with some youth losing hundreds of dollars in the process.
For Calvin, the why is easy to understand. Sports betting generated over $4 billion USD in Canada in 2024, and research shows betting ads appear as often as every 13 seconds during major sporting events. Movie stars, pop icons, and online streamers frequently promote betting platforms. It’s everywhere many of these young men are looking.
Calvin explains the impact’s severity. “Many of these boys don’t have an accurate understanding of what money is,” he explains.
“Often, they’re not even using their own money. When you combine that access with the rush of winning, it lays a blueprint for addiction.”
That’s why programs like Calvin’s Monday-night basketball are vital. “Every week, these young men are mentored by adults who care about them and want to see them excel, both in athletics and as people,” he says. “We have the ability to notice what’s going on and challenge them: not in judgment, but in care. We’re intentional about explaining the future consequences. It’s slow progress, but it’s progress — and we’re going to keep showing up for these young men.”
Hope from the Field
In 2025, our Mountain Life program partnership with Mt Seymour logged over 250 skiing and snowboarding visits by youth from Vancouver, Surrey, and Abbotsford – by far a new YU record.
“Chairlifts are magic. You’re stuck together for a few minutes, and youth start opening up about family, relationships and things they’re carrying.”
— Graham Goertzen, Vancouver Area Manager
"We’ve seen a handful of youth take steps towards Jesus. I handed out 5 or so Bibles over the past year. Youth are praying and are interested. They’ve become more connected into youth group at church and are curious about faith."
— Amanda Ratzlaff, Vancouver Youth Worker
LIFETEAMS ALUMNI: IMPACT ACROSS CANADA
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF LIFETEAMS
Over the past 25 years, 212 graduates of the Lifeteams School of Youth Outreach have walked out of the Lifeteam House in Abbotsford full of learning, growth, and real-life experience. The school equips its students to create community impact wherever God might lead them - no matter what that calling is!
Lifeteams Resources is another fruit of these 25 years – a collection of training helpsheets, videos, and in-person learning opportunities for youth workers around the world. At the end of the day, it all leads back to the Lifeteams mission: Engaging the people of God with vulnerable youth in a way that will transform both in the process.
"Lifeteams taught me so much more than amazing youth work skills; it taught me how to love well, live with integrity, and lean into new opportunities. What I gained there continues to shape me daily, both professionally and personally."
— Ashley Reimer, 2014 Alumni
"Lifeteams has helped me truly see people and grow as a human by learning to live in nuance, where two things can exist at once. It has shown me the beauty of not needing to have it all together, but instead choosing to be fully present with others in both the good and the hard moments."
— Zach Hair, 2013 Alumni
A YEAR OF GROWTH
This year, we saw growth come to life in powerful ways:
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Through a partnership with the City of Vancouver, our Creative Life Vancouver team transformed the blank wall of our Vancouver location into a vibrant, purposeful mural, collaboratively designed and created by our youth. Visit the south-east wall of 1495 Venables Street anytime!
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In December 2024, our ICTC team hosted their first annual 3x3 basketball tournament fundraiser, bringing together over 70 athletes and raising much-needed funds to support youth programs in Abbotsford.
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Richmond youth worker Wayne led an eight-week summer cooking challenge. This gave youth hands-on culinary experience, mentorship from professional chef and YU volunteer Alex, and meaningful opportunities to build friendships.
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Our Maple Ridge breakfast program evolved into a credited course where students earn credits for cooking and serving free breakfast to their peers. Youth workers now serve alongside and mentor students as they grow in skills and work toward graduation.
CHALLENGES FROM THE FIELD
Alongside growth, our youth workers continue to navigate complex and often heavy realities in the lives of the young people they serve:
“Youth continue to experience strained relationships with their biological parents. Some parents are street-entrenched or caught up in the life, which makes those relationships especially difficult.”
— Amanda Ratzlaff, Vancouver Youth Worker
“Youth behaviour can be challenging at times — from boys fighting and vaping to girls bullying and being just plain mean. It can be hard.”
— Greg Sawatzky, Abbotsford Youth Worker
“Youth continue to be impacted by a range of mental health challenges, many of which appear to stem from pandemic years that might otherwise have been spent building healthy, in-person connections beyond screens.”
— Nate Wiebe, North Vancouver Youth Worker
FINANCES
Amount Raised from Sept 1, 2024 - Aug 31, 2025*
$5,524,259
Donations: $4,027,791
Grants: $626,617
Programs: $83,530
Other: $786,321
Expenses from Sept 1, 2024 - Aug 31, 2025*
$5,862,716
Programs: $5,168,773
Administration: $537,663
Fundraising/Donor Relations: $156,280
