From Our RHK Executive Director: Seeing God

Happy New Year from RHK! I don’t know why, but January always takes me by surprise. The days, weeks, and months go so quickly. As they say, “time flies when you are having fun” and, at RHK, we have a lot of fun. In 2025, the kids enjoyed going to Midway Village, winter camp, 4th and 5th grade camp, Medieval Times, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Discovery Center, Alpine Pool, Sand Park Pool, Skateland, Starlight Theatre, Sapora Playworld, and Lockwood Park – just to name a few.

Countless people came and spoke to the kids on important subjects like self-esteem, sex trafficking, the effects of bullying, suicide, and making positive choices. Fifteen of our teens also are on a teen board for the Burpee Museum! What an opportunity!

RHK also showed our support for our community. RHK is not a stand-alone organization. The more we can collaborate with others, the more we can accomplish to help the community - which helps the kids we serve.

Each August, right before school starts, we host a Back-to-School Health Fair. We have many partners who join us to make this event a place where the community can come and receive vaccinations, school physicals, eye exams, back packs, and resources to help families for any needs they might have. 2025 was our second year and we served over 500 people! We are excited to see what 2026 will bring!

For our annual fundraiser in September, we decided it was time for a change. The event name was changed from “Streets and Sweets” to “RHK-Real.” We wanted to take our guests through a night of RHK. We took them through a pseudo program night with songs, a meal, program time, and game time (the live and silent auction). They even went home with an adult-friendly food bag at the end of the night.

As soon as we finished our fundraiser, we moved into Christmas preparations. This Christmas was bigger than ever. We had an amazing turn out of support from the community. Each year, I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of love. To everyone who helped make this Christmas extra special - THANK YOU!

I am also proud to say we are fully staffed. Plus, we added an additional program position. Instead of one overall Program Coordinator, we split our program team and now have a Teen Program Coordinator and a Kids Program Coordinator. Splitting the evening program this way has worked phenomenally. This has been a blessing with the 8% attendance increase from the previous year.

Along with the “ups,” we also had some “downs.”

We lost some of our RHK family to violence. Some of our kids made poor choices and landed themselves on the wrong side of the law. But, even through these poor choices, we’ve seen God show up.

God showed up at the funeral of one of our own, when RHK shutdown early, went to the funeral, and filled two rows to show support to the family.

We see God show up when a teen gets out of juvie and they show up at RHK. They walk in quiet, but the adults go up and tell them they are glad to see them, they were missed, and give them hugs. You see the teen loosen up and begin to smile.

We see God show up when one of the older kids calls from jail. They talk about their disciple group they are in behind bars and what God is teaching them. We see God when they tell you about their favorite memories of RHK.

For 2026, my hope and prayer are that we watch for when God shows up each day/week/month. I don’t want us to wait until January to reminisce about the past year. Let’s not miss the God winks throughout. He leaves His fingerprints all over. We just need to look for them.

Thank you for your support in 2025. I look forward to seeing what God is going to do through all of us to further His kingdom in 2026!

Blessings,

Dee Lacny, Executive Director, Rock House Kids