We're participating in the 2023 Rocket Companies Community Challenge! Please make a donation today to support our mission and help us win prizes! Your support will be pivotal to the success of our campaign to move into our new home in 2024. We are turning away hundreds of youth every year because we don't have room to serve them.
About Developing K.I.D.S
Developing Kingdoms in Different Stages (Developing K.I.D.S.) is a non-profit organization that was founded by current CEO, Kim Johnson, with a mission to strengthen urban communities through inter-generational leadership, academic enrichment, and civic engagement. Developing K.I.D.S works hard to create stronger communities throughout metro-Detroit by building a vibrant and safe environment where individuals and families feel heard, valued, and have the opportunity to thrive. Developing K.I.D.S began in 2007 inside the Don Bosco Hall Community Resource Center in Detroit providing to elementary and middle school youth. With a successful youth program, the organization began providing services to high school students in 2010, which has had a continuous 99 – 100% high school graduation rate. In 2014, we were able to expand our support, providing services to 2 community locations and 5 neighborhood schools. We are now serving over 1,000 kids located in 2 community locations and 10 neighborhood schools. We provide a variety of services under our three program focuses of youth development and prevention, family management and community support, from basic needs support, afterschool programs, summer enrichment for youth 5 – 24 years of age, as well as college and career readiness programs. In partnership with the city of Detroit’s Grow Detroit’s Young Talent program, Developing K.I.D.S also offers workforce development and summer employment for youth 14 – 24 years old. All programs are offered at no cost to our youth participants and their families. With a high demand for our programs, Developing K.I.D.S has outgrown our current space. In order to address this issue, we purchased a 23,000 square foot facility in northwest Detroit in 2022. This building will be our permanent home allowing us to increase our impact and serve over 2,000 youth and their families through continuous programming under one roof and increase our support to the community via special events.
Since inception, Developing K.I.D.S has seen substantial growth, from supporting 35 youth in 2007, to over 1,000 youth in 2022. A great example of demand, in 2022 our summer program saw significant success; within 8 hours of opening registration the program was full, and we had to turn away over 100 youth who were on the waiting list. The continuous growth and interest of our programs by youth and the community is why we have committed to the purchase and renovation of our new building on the corner of West McNichols and Telegraph on Detroit’s west side.
Currently, Developing K.I.D.S is spending thousands of dollars to rent space for programming and storage units to house our supplies. In 2022, we were providing services to 1,058 youth and their families. The renovation of our new home will allow us to address the students’ needs regularly by expanding our services to reach over 2,000 students, and serve students on our current waitlist, eliminate the cost of renting storage space and multiple buildings for our programs, and also allow Developing K.I.D.S to be able to provide consistent meals to our students five days a week, instead of 2 days a week. With a strong youth and community presence and demand for our services, it is essential for Developing K.I.D.S to improve our infrastructure and complete our renovation by the end of April in 2024.
Please support our goal by making a contribution today, share this with your network and follow us on social media or sign up for our newsletter to stay abreast of our work. Here is a link to a short video to learn more about our work: Click HERE for Developing KIDS' Village Campaign Video
Thank you!