WHEELING — People have asked Sean McCartney how he gets dozens of teenagers to attend Young Life every week and, even more of a feat, how he gets them to listen to a Gospel message. The answer, he said, centers on what Young Life has been doing for 75 years nationally and for 45 years in the Ohio Valley.

“We just go where kids are. For 75 years, we go where kids are, earning the right to be heard,” said McCartney, who moved to Wheeling in August from Pittsburgh to become the new Ohio Valley Young Life area director, replacing Kirk Wilson who relocated to start Young Life in Parkersburg. “Our goal is for them to be loved and welcomed and accepted.”

Young Life is an international Christian ministry that reaches nearly 2 million kids a year in 99 countries, primarily focusing on high school students but also reaching out to middle school students, kids with special needs, college students and teen parents. It is not affiliated with any particular church but is supported by the community. Staff members — who are paid through Young Life by personal and community supporters  — and volunteer leaders live and work in the communities they serve, sometimes volunteering to coach high school sports teams, attending practices and games, and reaching out to all kids, whatever their situation in life.

“It’s all about building relationships,” McCartney said. “Kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”

Over the last 45 years, Ohio Valley Young Life leaders have built relationships with and introduced thousands of kids to Jesus in Ohio County and Marshall County in West Virginia and Belmont County in Ohio. It will celebrate the milestone at the annual Young Life Banquet on Nov. 14 at Glessner Auditorium in Oglebay’s Wilson Lodge.

Join the ‘Club’

Young Life “club” meetings in Ohio County take place every Thursday at the Stone Room at Wheeling Park and include open gym time, organized games, funny skits, singing and a Gospel message.

The skits are designed to get the kids laughing as their friends and leaders make fools of themselves. The games get everyone involved.

“They give kids a chance to be cheered for because most kids, unless you play a sport, aren’t cheered for,” McCartney said.

Similar games are played at the middle school club meetings — called Wyldlife — and the meetings of YoungLives, which are geared to pregnant and parenting teens.

Leah Mick, local YoungLives staff member, said the games at her club meetings, which also take place on Thursday nights, are a great way of breaking the ice.

“People’s guards come down and they can be themselves,” Mick said. “They realize we’re all just moms that need to have fun.”

Chelsey Smith, who was one of the first teen moms to participate when YoungLives started three years ago, related the game in which she had to put a whole roll of bubble tape in her mouth and try to blow a bubble. It was impossible, and she still laughs about it.

Smith, who is now 21 and married, said YoungLives changed her life. She is now a YoungLives mentor.

“It gave me a sense of family, that I had people on my side,” Smith said.Another YoungLives mom, 19-year-old Navi Kelly, said she thought club was “weird” at first, but she kept going anyway. Now she loves it.

“I just like the fact that I can just go there and be myself, and I just feel like it’s a little family.”

Family Ties

For many involved in Ohio Valley Young Life, it’s not just “like” family, it is family.

After 45 years, “Young Life is kind of woven into the fabric here in the Ohio Valley,” McCartney said. And like an heirloom quilt, it has been passed down through the generations.

Some of the “first families” of Ohio Valley Young Life include the Aderholts, the Adamses, the Crewses, the Merediths, the Fraziers, the McCluskeys and the Bizanoviches, to name a few.

Danny Aderholt of Wheeling, for example, was one of the first Young Life area directors in the Ohio Valley in the 1970s. His son, John, attended Young Life at Wheeling Park High School and then was a volunteer leader while attending Grove City College, where he met his wife, Molly, also a volunteer leader. After graduating and getting married, the couple went on staff with Young Life, serving in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and continuing with Young Life while attending law school at West Virginia University. John Aderholt was instrumental in starting the Young Life College ministry at WVU before he, Molly and their three children returned to Wheeling in 2010.

Three years ago, when their oldest child entered Triadelphia Middle School, the Aderholts — both of whom are now working in the private sector — volunteered to start and lead Wyldlife in Wheeling. Now that their daughter is in high school, the couple is volunteering to help with Young Life meetings.

They also serve on the Ohio Valley Young Life committee, the group of local adults committed to growing, supporting and praying for Young Life.

Another longtime Young Life supporter is Judy McCoy Crews of Wheeling, who started as a volunteer in college in the early 1970s. After graduating, she went on staff and launched the Martins Ferry club in 1976, assisted by Mike Bizanovich. They also helped Danny Aderholt with the Wheeling Park High School club, which was brand new that year with the consolidation of three high schools. Crews’ parents were on the Young Life committee; her mother was chair in 1976.

Crews went on to become a Young Life leader for many years in Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma, alongside her husband, Darryl Crews, whom she met at Young Life seminary. Their three sons were involved in Young Life, and today their two daughters-in-law are YoungLives volunteers in Wheeling while the third is helping to start Young Life in Palm Springs, Fla.

Judy Crews serves on the Ohio Valley committee and has been involved with planning the 45th anniversary celebration.

“Anytime we talk about Young Life, we cry. It’s so emotional,” she said. “It’s where I met Christ and learned about him. It’s so special and has changed so many lives.”

Hollie Trenton Adams of Wheeling said she was one whose life was changed.

She met her husband, Chad, at the first club meeting of her freshman year at Wheeling Park High School.

Chad Adams’ grandfather, Dick Cress, was on the first Ohio Valley Young Life committee in 1971. Chad Adams’ parents, Jay and Chris Adams, have not served Young Life officially but have supported it through the years, and Chad and his brothers, Jamie and Jason, were involved heavily with Young Life while at The Linsly School.

“It was a ministry that really impacted both of us,” Hollie Adams said of her and her husband. “My life would be completely different if I hadn’t had Young Life.” She elaborated she had grown up in church but didn’t know Jesus. “I knew about religion, but I didn’t know about relationship,” she said.

They have served as Young Life volunteers through the years, and last year, Chad Adams became the committee chair.

Now their oldest child, son Ashton, is in middle school at Linsly, and they have taken the Wyldlife reins from the Aderholts. Ashton will be attending Wyldlife meetings on Fridays at Wheeling Country Day School gymnasium, making him the fourth generation of his family to be involved.

“Young Life is where I met Jesus, because somebody took the time to invest in me,” Hollie Adams said. “That’s why we feel it’s important to make sure it’s around for our kids and the future.”

Taylor McCluskey is another longtime Young Life supporter. He has been involved with Young Life for 28 years as a member and chairman of the committee. He became a Christian at age 43 and attended a Bible study led by Danny Aderholt in Wheeling. His daughters were “club kids” in high school, and all three are still involved in Young Life — his younger two as volunteers while his oldest daughter works at Young Life headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Nearly four years ago, McCluskey and his wife, Carolyn, attended a Young Life conference in Orlando, Fla., where they heard a presentation about Young Life Capernaum, a ministry to reach kids with special needs. Having served on the Easter Seals Rehabilitation Center board for 20 years, the WesBanco retiree was moved to start a club in Wheeling.

The couple now leads Young Life Capernaum with a group of adult volunteers who meet with about 10 kids once a month at the WCDS gym.

“They teach you an awful lot about unconditional love,” McCluskey said.

Looking Ahead

These are just a few local families who have been integral in growing Young Life in the Ohio Valley, but for each of them there are hundreds affected.

“There’s probably a lot of adults here that Young Life or Young Life leaders made a huge impact on their lives,” McCartney said.

In addition to the Young Life club in Wheeling, there is a Young Life club that has been meeting in Marshall County for 20 years under the leadership of volunteers Leslie and Allen Underdonk. Now for the first time, Marshall County has a paid Young Life staff member, Tierney Kearns, who recently came on board.

Ohio Valley Young Life also has a club in Martins Ferry and for many years had an active club in St. Clairsville, which is now combined with Martins Ferry. McCartney said he hopes to start up the St. Clairsville club again and expand Young Life farther into Belmont County, as well as in Brooke County.

McCartney said the goal is always to reach every kid but especially the “farthest out” kids — the ones who are least likely to encounter Christ anywhere else. He was one of those kids, a 15-year-old growing up outside Pittsburgh and headed down a dangerous path when he found himself switching directions after accepting Jesus as his savior at a Young Life camp.

McCartney said he doesn’t remember one Bible study or club talk from high school, but he remembers the way his Young Life leader treated his wife, how he loved him and his friends.

“I wanted that,” he said.

He became a Young Life volunteer in college and went on staff directly after graduating, serving high schools near his home for 10 years. He met his wife, Carrie, through Young Life (his high school leader officiated the wedding), and they are raising two children ages 2 and 6. He said Wheeling is their new home, and he hopes to settle here for good.

“We felt right at home here as soon as we got here,” he said. “I am standing on the shoulders of so many who came before me. It’s really a privilege to be able to be here and serve here.”