Issue Monday: What Works to Reduce Poverty?

The Centennial Institute, in partnership with Opportunity Lives, will explore what’s working to reduce poverty and improve opportunity in our communities. Speakers include John Hart, Paul Scudo, and Paul Grodell and Greg Bradford who are featured in this powerful video:

Opportunity Lives is a news organization dedicated to discovering and highlighting real life success stories and solutions across America.

Monday, December 5, 2016
7:00-8:30pm
Colorado Christian University: 180 S. Garrison St Lakewood, CO 80226

Speakers

John Hart, Editor in Chief, Opportunity Lives
John Hart, an award-winning writer and journalist, is the Editor in Chief of Opportunity Lives, a news site dedicated to highlighting conservative solutions. Previously, Hart served as U.S. Senator Tom Coburn’s longtime communications director. Hart co-authored two books with Coburn – Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders and The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington from Bankrupting America. Hart has also worked for then-U.S. Representatives Jim DeMint and Steve Largent. He is a frequent guest on Fox News, MSNBC and other cable outlets, and currently lives in Fairfax, VA with his wife, Kimberly, and four children.

Paul Scudo, Executive Director, Step 13
Scudo is a recognized recovery leader at the local, state and international level. Scudo is a board member of the Colorado Providers Association and is the co-chair of the Peer and Family Specialist Certification Board that credentials peer coaches in the areas of substance use disorder, mental health and family support. Scudo has also served as the Colorado state chair for a 12 Step Fellowship, and is currently a world delegate representative from the State of Colorado for the 12 Step Fellowship in which he participates. In addition, Scudo is active in his personal recovery and serves as a sponsor for other individuals through the 12 Step Fellowship.

Before joining Step 13 as the program director in 2014, Scudo served as a recovery care manager at University of Colorado’s CeDAR addiction recovery facility. Prior to CeDAR, Scudo had an extensive 27–year career in management, sales and marketing for internationally recognized hospitality companies such as Hilton Hotels and the Hyatt Hotel Corporation.

Paul Grodell, Pastor, Beyond the Walls Church
Pastors Paul and Cindy Grodell, founders of Beyond the Walls Church, are both graduates of Cross Study Center and are ordained ministers through the Assemblies of God International Fellowship. Born, raised and established in the Greater Cleveland area, Paul and Cindy have two God-fearing adult children, each with their own growing families.

Having, themselves, been rescued by Christ from destructive addictions, it is their passion to minister to those who are broken, hopeless and often times forgotten. Inner-city outreach is at the heart of their passion and God-ordained calling. It is their desire to see people bound in poverty and addiction set free by the power of Christ; going out, beyond the walls of the church, to seek those who are lost, in order to build the Kingdom of God from the streets to the church.

Greg Bradford, Beyond the Walls Church

A drug addiction that began when Greg Bradford was a kid ruined his life. He would disappear from his wife and kids for days, spending the little money that they had on drugs. He would rob his own mother. Bradford went through countless stints in rehab and then a much longer stint in prison. When he got out, he turned back to drugs.Then Paul Grodell gave Bradford a job and took him under his wing. “For the first time ever there was a man who didn’t want anything from me but to see me get healthy,” Bradford says. Grodell’s effort succeeded where government programs didn’t and transformed Bradford’s life.