Power of 10 Pledge

Take the Power of 10 Pledge!

APEX and YOU - MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

Donate now and take the Power of 10 Pledge!

Power of 10 - Pledge to donate $10 or more each month and encourage 10 of your friends to do the same. Simply enter your donation amount and register with our FUNdraising partner - Click and Act. You will be taken to your very own page to promote. Register, donate and recruit right from the page. Track your progress, compete with friends, and raise funds for a great cause - we call it FUNdraising! If you need support or have questions, you can always call us at 504-358-APEX.

CLICK HERE to go to your own page to make your donation and to promote to your friends.

Partner Page

APEX Diamond, Gold and Platinum Parnters

APEX is only possible through the generous donations from our community.  We receive no federal, state or government funding. We rely solely on individual, corporate, church or private foundation funding. We are grateful for those organizations that help meet the need in the community by becoming an APEX Gold or Platinum Partner.

Diamond Partner

The following individuals or organizations have donated or pledged support of $20,000 or greater in grants and support.  Please patronize these businesses and let them know you appreciate their commitment to our kids.

Mr. and Mrs. Tom Huntsinger
LIberty Lumber
5383 Tchoupitoulas St
New Orleans,LA  70115
(504) 899-6341

Mike and Lynn Coatney Family Foundation Fund
Mr. and Mrs. Michael Coatney
Administered through the Greater New Orleans Foundation

BCP Engineers and Consultants
Mr. and Mrs. Ron Rowley
401 Whitney Avenue.  Suite 402
Gretna Louisiana 70056
Phone: 504.361.4236 Fax: 504.362.8601
www.bcpengineers.com 

LINCNewOrleans
6230 Paris Ave.
New Orleans, LA  70122
www.LINCNewOrleans.org

Platinum Partner

The following organizations or individuals have donated or pledged support between $10,000 and $20,000 per year: 

Broadmoor Improvement Association
3900 General Taylor Street
P.O Box 13369
New Orleans, LA 70185
(504) 309-2571
www.BroadmoorImprovement.com

Gold Partners

The following individuals or organizations have donated or pledged their annual support of between $5000.00 and $10,000.00 per year. 

Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church
3900 St. Charles Ave.
New Orleans, LA  70115
504-899-3431
www.RayneUMC.org

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Hebert
New Orleans, LA  70125

We thank all our partners and all our donors, for every dollar counts at APEX.  We appreciate your continued support and generosity.

Commitment to Sustainability

Our Philosophy of Sustainable Outcomes:

APEX is committed to working with existing community organizations and creating programs where needs exist. In order to accomplish this we are going to have to approach these organizations with a cohesive, synergistic message to their goals and objectives.

So, where do we find synergy and the intersection of the two circles?

 Apex researcg has found we do it through the commonality of working with the neighborhood associations and the community

rebuilding organizations. In order to have a strong community and have people want to move back in to a community devastated by poverty, and in the case of the Gulf South, Katrina, you need to start with Hope. Hope will never and can never stand alone. Upon that Hope you need to build action. Hope has to be sustained not only in one’s mind, but in ones very being. One can Hope all they want for rain to come, the lottery numbers to work in their favor, a hurricane to pass, however, all of those are only left to chance. This is NOT an accountable Hope. This is NOT an actionable Hope. This is NOT a tangible Hope. This is NOT a sustainable Hope. One that people feel empowered to make happen themselves. To quote an oft used cliché, a hand up, not a hand out. Or better yet, an even older saying – “Faith without works is dead”. This creates a personal value and ownership of the vision, of the Hope.

We then go further, we work together with community leaders to create the vision of Hope through Accountable Programs. Programs that have personal and comunity value based on sound guiedlines and curriculum. Programs that not only give to the children and teens involved in the program, but allow them to give back to the community themselves. Programs they can take ownership in. Programs that create responsible behaviors.

So, while we start with Hope through Accountable Programs to rebuild a community, we need an Actionable Objective. We need an objective to work from, as opposed to a task list to set our objective by. Our actionable objective is written in our name – APEX - Always Pursuing EXcellence. So, if Hope is our starting point, then Excellence is our jumping off point from which our actionable objective comes. Here is where we formulate our cohesive message into true guidelines. FROM the objective, not from the task. “Improving Young Lives Through Education, Technology and The Arts”. Now this is a great theory and a lofty goal. How do we bring that actionable objective to a tangible result?

Sound guidelines and a plan that produces Tangible Results. By using the Accountable Programs and Actionable Objectives to allow the participants of APEX to produce a variety of products for the community at large, i.e., visual and fine art pieces, community performances, art shows, websites, community education programs and literacy products through the publication of our newspaper.

This in turn will now produce our Sustainable Outcomes. A community with only houses and structures is a dead community. Look at the disaster of the suburbs. No sense of community at all. People can live and die without ever knowing their next door neighbor. New Orleans thrives on strong, close knit communities. It has been part of the very heritage of the place for hundreds of years. Other foundations and non-profit charities can start with houses, but in order to truly build the community, they will need to create sustainability, not just in the construction of the structures, but in the families that live in them. This not only means commerce, and jobs, but it also means education, enrichment, and community members who give back! Now we have our intersection of circles! Now we have sustainability. Many organizations have the synergy, means and financial backing to do wonderful things in their community. Let’s not compete with them, but partner with them.

So, we have a full circle:

First: Personal and Community Hope

Second: Through Accountable Programs

Third: Through an Actionable Objectives

Fourth: With Sound Guidelines to Produce Tangible Results

Fourth: To Produce Sustainable Outcomes with our results and by partnering with other community based organizations.

Every Child Matters

Every Child Matters

Did you know..

•Louisiana has one of the worst teenage pregnancy rates in the nation.  By and large, these pregnancies are by choice.  Overwhelming when asked why this was their choice: “I just wanted someone to love me” is the reply.

•Many teenage boys have fathered multiple children by the time they are 21.  When asked why, most of them say they just want to have their life mean something to someone.

•Murder is the number one cause of death in Louisiana for African-American teens, ages 15-24, the second leading cause of death for all teens and youth nationwide. In New Orleans, the majority of the shooters are younger than the victims, often doing the bidding of adults, in a kill or be killed scenario.

•Suicide is the third leading cause of death among all young people ages 10 to 24.  Many teens when spoken to about the future, tell counsellors they don’t expect to have a future. 

•Homicide and Suicide account for more deaths among young people than all other natural causes of death, such as disease and birth defects, COMBINED.

This Disease of Despair has reached epidemic proportions and it is killing our children, our future. But there is hope, for there is a light shining into the darkness of the urban night, at the very apex of our city.  APEX Youth Center offers teens a safe, positive, loving and structured place to learn, to dream and to grow.  APEX averages 40 to 80 kids every day, where they always receive a healthy snack and a hug.  We do a sit-down dinner on Thursday nights, feeding up to 60 hungry teens.  Every Saturday we do a community cook-out, feeding up to 100 family members. Teens come from all over the city to APEX to learn how to look at the world and their fellow human being in a different way. The over-riding theme is “Reconciliation, Never Retaliation”. This type of social learning through behaviour modelling has been shown to be one of the most effective means to develop high and long-term success in diverse demographics. That’s the clinical terminology.  We know it as being the hands and feet of Christ for the world.

One day I teased a carload of young men, as we were on our way to church, “So, why do you all want to come to church with this old lady?”.  “You are the first person to ever ask us.” was the reply.  One of the inspirations for APEX came a few years ago when a girl of 14 told me I was the first person to ever tell her she was precious, the first person to ever let her know that she mattered. I was completely struck. I vowed then that I would do everything in my power to never let another child in my community think they do not matter.  

Join us in making this possible. Join us in our goal of Every Child Matters, as we reach children in our community and give them the tools and resources they need to succeed.  Join us for our Grand Opening of our new APEX Youth Center this Saturday, Sept. 10 at noon.  Sign up to volunteer, cook a meal, or sponsor an activity.  To find out more about how you can help, please visit come by or visit our website at www.ApexYouthCenter.org. 

Lisa Fitzpatrick,

Executive Director, APEX Community Advancement, Inc.

What was the inspiration for APEX?

In March 2005 I was asked by a particular program from the Governor's Office of Louisiana to teach a 2 week course at our local Junior High School. Although I don't work at the school or in the school system, my background in health education led them to me as best qualified to teach the course. I went in with my best educator's face on, my "motivational" voice ready and a solid lesson plan. Piece of cake, right? WRONG!

I was blessed to grow in up a home with both my mother and father. While we weren't wealthy by any means, I don't recall ever worrying about food or whether I was going to have breakfast in the morning and supper at night. I certainly never had to worry about when my father was getting out of jail or if my mom was finally going to get out of rehab! Through out the course I realized I needed to be a little flexible with my "solid lesson plan" and listen to what this group of young girls (classes were segregated by boys and girls) were telling me. The program was about high-risk behaviors and how to avoid them. It was supposed to teach self-respect and give skills for relationship building. I told these girls how precious they were and I actually heard a couple of them say out loud "Yeah, right." Can you imagine? I went home most nights hugging my own children very tight and crying myself to sleep. But my biggest heartbreak was yet to come.

There was an exercise in the program where the children are to write down their dreams for the future. A full 75 % of them could not do the exercise. At an age where dreams are supposed to be boundless and opportunities and hopes are supposed to be without limits, these children not only had lost all their dreams, but seemed unable to dream again. It was hard for me to comprehend. I heard things like "Why should we bother to have any dreams, they're not going to come true anyway" and "My mom says it's stupid of me to think I can be anything better than this and makes fun of me when I say I want to go to college." and "My family says Who am I to want to be better than them". Now I thought the object of parenting was to always want the best for your child and to put all your efforts into insuring that your child has it "better" than you!?

A 14 year-old just recently told me that I was the very first person who had ever told her that she was precious, loved and that she mattered. I don't want another day to go by that a child in my community thinks that they don't matter! That is why I have created APEXC Community Advancement, Inc. We were getting the center started in the small town I lived, when the terrible storms of 2005 hit Louisiana, Katrina and Rita. This put plans on hold, but also allowed us the opportunity to move to New Orleans, where the need is greatest. We are now full-steam ahead on creating The APEX Youth Center.

Please help us reach our goal - Let every child feel they matter!