Nick Dorsey moved to Bowling Green two years ago with his wife and two sons to help form and become area director of a youth ministry called Young Life.

Young Life is a nondenominational Christian outreach to junior high, high school and college students.

It is a global organization with more than 50,000 volunteers and 5,000 staff members that has reached 100 countries. On the national level, the ministry has branches to help reach children and young adults of all backgrounds such as ministries for students with disabilities, teen moms or kids on military bases.

“We don’t have all of those here, but in general our goal is we want to reach every kind of kid,” Dorsey said. “One of the main things that we do is called club and that’s during the school year once a week and that’s really our outreach. Anybody can come, invite whoever you want, and we do songs and games and skits. It’s controlled chaos.”

In Bowling Green, the group offers Young Life College and High School Young Life, and there are plans to launch a junior high ministry in the fall called WyldLife. Dorsey is the only full-time employee for the Bowling Green program with almost 25 volunteer leaders, mostly from Western Kentucky University.

WKU senior Sarah Buckley of Louisville, one of the first volunteer leaders, found out about Young Life from some friends on campus.

“I really just wanted to be a part of a good community and the idea of getting to share life and the gospel with high school students kind of motivated me to want to stay in it,” Buckley said. “It’s a good opportunity for kids to experience friendship and experience a community of people who care about them and are there for like learning more about how God loves them.”

Young Life has been connecting with churches, adults and other outreach organizations and has formed partnerships with schools such as Bowling Green High School, South Warren High School and Warren Central High School.

“That’s really where we do the bulk of our outreach in what we call contact work,” Dorsey said. “Contact work is when the Young Life leaders go into the world of kids. We go to all types of games, we go to plays, we go to lunch at the schools. Obviously, we can’t talk about Christian faith, but it’s a great way for us to connect with kids right where they are.”

The ministry is funded by people in the community, and it all stays local to fund program and staff costs and to create the ability for the kids to go to camp and other activities, he said.

The group just got back from taking 24 students to a Young Life urban and multicultural camp in Lake City, Mich., where they were a small part of about 400 kids. The camp is like a resort for kids where students get to stay at $30 million properties and enjoy activities such as ziplining, mountain biking, disc golf courses and enjoy fellowship with other students and building a relationship with God.

South Warren senior Melanie Le has been involved with Young Life for two years and said this was her first year attending the camp. She said there were a lot of things she enjoyed about the camp, but building her faith was the highlight of her time there.

“There’s a lot of things, I can’t think of one thing specifically, but I think just spending time with all our friends and growing closer to God,” Le said.

This was BGHS junior Nash Hightower’s second time at the camp. He said he enjoys being involved in Young Life because of the closeness of the group and how everyone can relate to each other through God.

“I like how every year I think you get closer to God and I like the physical activities that you do, they’re really fun,” Hightower said about the camp.

Volunteer leader Stephanie Dorsey, who is Nick Dorsey’s wife, said Young Life is important for kids to get involved in because it’s a good environment that offers a fun, safe and positive message.

“Another reason I think it’s good to be involved in (Young Life) is because the leaders are all college-aged people that are living out their faith. So, (students) look up to them a lot and they see people who are actually having fun and care about their relationship with God,” she said.

— For more information, visit bgyounglife.com or call 270-883-0124.

— Follow faith/general assignments reporter Simone C. Payne on Twitter @_SimonePayne or visit bgdailynews.com.