City Life Center aims to help Gary students, families
As schools in the city of Gary continue to struggle, one organization has stepped into the gap for students and their families.
The City Life Center, within Bethel Church on Fifth Avenue, is connecting the community to opportunities and resources that help families thrive, according to its executive director Ken Barry. A Black Tie Gala fundraiser, which will be held Saturday at Innsbrook Country Club in Merrillville, will allow others to be part of that vision.
“This year we served more than 3,100 hot, nutritious meals to hungry kids and provided summer and after-school programming that gave 184 youth access to a safe place to be during out-of-school time,” he said.
The program included homework help and mentoring as well as dance instruction, piano lessons, martial arts training, athletics, recreation, and training on computer coding.
The CLC website cites research conducted by the Indiana Youth Institute which shows that “supportive connections with family, friends, and caring adults have a positive impact on children's lives, including better academic performance, school attendance, graduation rates, attitudes, behavior and overall well-being.”
Barry works with his wife, Nicole, and four others: Jalyse Holmes, Carlos Mays, Lindsey Quiros and Christopher Wesby.
As the site manager for the CLC City Kids after-school program, Nicole Barry said she was drawn to the organization because she simply loves kids.
“I've been working with kids, alongside my husband, most of my adult life — mostly through dance or youth ministry — but it's something that I've been very passionate about,” she said. “I love to talk to them, see their minds engaged, learning new things and becoming confident when they have overcome something they thought was an obstacle or fear — basically helping them to grow, mentally, spiritually and physically.
“I pray that I impact them, even if it's just a little bit; that later in life they remember something I've said or did that helped change them for the better. CLC provides that opportunity.”
Nicole Barry has seen the after-school program grow from just one child on the first day in October to having 20 enrolled and active children by the end of the first week. Her disappointments include a lack of volunteers, although she said she is grateful for the ones they do have, as well as a lack of transportation for parents who would like their children enrolled but have no way of getting them there.
“We pray that one day soon we can service these individuals by providing transportation to CLC and then home,” she said.
City Life Center got its start soon after Bethel Church established its Gary campus in the former Boys and Girls Clubs building about three years ago.
“Wanting to do more than ‘have church,' Bethel formed a separate 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization to serve the community in ways that the church could not, as a religious organization,” Ken Barry said.
“Because of my over 14 years of experience working with nonprofits, my education and my work as the director of Youth Services for the city of Gary, I was vetted by the leadership of Bethel and offered the position. I believe God called me to this work. It's the type of work I've been doing either as a volunteer or a professional since 1992,” Barry said.
Ken Barry has a master's degree in business administration with a concentration in management and also a master's in management in higher education administration.
After October's launch of the City Kids after-school program, several martial arts students have won trophies at various tournaments, dance and music enrichment has been added, and a full mentoring program called Men of Vision and Excellence is seeing success.
Grants received to date by CLC include $150,000 from Canadian National as seed money to start the organization, a $24,450 matching grant from the Legacy Foundation to create the City Life Cafe, and $6,000 from AT&T's Aspire program to buy 16 computers for use in teaching computer coding to youth.
“We envision a state-of-the-art facility where whole families have opportunities to engage in learning, the arts, mentoring, physical fitness, and service,” Ken Barry said.
The Black Tie Gala fundraiser for City Life Center will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at Innsbrook County Club. Tickets are for sale at the City Life Center or online at
For more information go to
PREVIOUS ARTICLE
