Stacy Morales

City Life KIX shares the love of Christ with youth and families while giving young people a safe place to learn and grow in the gospel. "Doing life" with kids and empowering them to change their community for Christ is at the heart of it, and the goal is a critical mass of indigenous leaders who stay in, give back to, and transform their own neighborhoods.

KIX began in West Homestead in 1993, offering help, hope and wholeness to at-risk children and youth. Today it serves more than 300 children and youth at three Miami-Dade sites: West Homestead/Florida City; North Miami, in partnership with Vive City Chapel; and Little Haiti, at the Brooke Church. These are neighborhoods marked by high crime and high levels of poverty, where 97% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, and the free after-school program offers literacy, homework assistance, health and nutrition classes, physical fitness and life skills development.

Stacy Morales directs City Life KIX for Youth for Christ Miami & Broward, which has been showing up for young people in schools, detention centers and neighborhoods across both counties since 1948 and now serves more than 5,000 youth a year at 25 or more ministry sites. The KIX leadership program prepares students for their future with training in professional development, personal empowerment, enrichment activities, employment and service opportunities, and a leadership coach for each student.

City Life KIX is funded in part by The Children's Trust, Miami-Dade's voter-approved source of revenue for improving the lives of children and families. Grants from the Ocean Reef Community Foundation are expanding the Teen Indigenous Leaders development and employment mentoring program to both the West Homestead and Goulds sites, adding leadership coaches for each indigenous leader and a new middle school leadership program.