Former HV church to house Teen Challenge

Sacramento Valley Teen Challenge is expanding and plans to build a $1 million dormitory and educational program facility in the Happy Valley area, announced Ron and Patty Plumb.

Associated with Teen Challenge International, which started in New York City in 1958, the organization currently operates 200 similar centers in the United States and another 800 centers outside the country, Ron Plumb said.

More than 60,000 teens and young adults have so far gone through the non-profit organization's faith-based recovery program with an 86 percent success rate of staying off drugs or alcohol and out of jail up to five years after graduating the 12-month to 15-month program, he said.

To help pay for the construction costs as well as its daily operations, the organization is sponsoring a 35th anniversay banquet at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 17, at the Holiday Inn, 1900 Hilltop Drive, Redding. The banquet's guest speaker is Nicky Cruz, a former Brooklyn gang member who turned his life around and is now a world-reknowned evangelist.

Cruz authored an autobiography, "Run, Baby, Run," and has crusaded for troubled youths and adults since leaving the Mau Maus gang in 1958.

Through the ministry of Teen Challenge founder, David Wilderson, Cruz squarely faced the dead-end direction of his life to that point and started on a spiritual quest that has led him to a new life of purpose and meaning.

Cruz was one of the characters in Wilkerson's book, "The Cross and the Switchblade," which was later made into a movie with the same name.

Tickets to the event are $35 per person or $280 for an entire table for eight.

For more information, call Sacramento Valley Teen Challenge at (800) 437-1919 or visit the organization's Web site at www.teenchallenge.ws