Questions people ask about Project M:25

What does Project M:25 do?

Project M:25 helps vulnerable children heal from trauma, build resilience, and have the opportunity to thrive. We do this in two ways. Our own team cares for children and families every day at our campus in Quito, Ecuador, and we train pastors, churches, and caregivers to give the same care where they live.

Our mission: to help vulnerable children build resilience through mentoring, practical tools, and holistic care. Our vision: to create a world where every child is safe, cared for, and equipped to thrive.

The work falls under three headings. Provide Relief: urgent needs met with dignity, including clean water, food, medical care, and safety. Build Resilience: mentoring, education, emotional and spiritual support, and healthy relationships. Multiply Impact: practical tools and training so leaders, churches, and caregivers can bring this care to their own communities.

Where does Project M:25 work?

Our campus is in Quito, Ecuador, and our US office is in Anniston, Alabama. Through training, curriculum, and partner sites, our work reaches partners in 14 countries, mostly in Latin America.

The campus, called Agua Viva ("Living Water"), sits in San Fernando, in the Valle de los Chillos outside Quito, on 2.5 acres that rise to 9,042 feet (2,756 meters) at the high point. We have served in Ecuador since 2007 and founded Project M:25 in 2012.

Who does Project M:25 serve?

Vulnerable children and the parents or caregivers who raise them, in communities where poverty and trauma are part of daily life, and children living in safe homes run by our partners.

At our campus in Quito, about 130 children receive daily care while they continue to live at home with their families. When the campus opened in 2012, 80 percent of families in the surrounding community lived below the poverty line and 31 percent of children suffered from malnutrition. When we surveyed the children at our Quito campus in 2024, more than 6 in 10 had lived through four or more serious adversities, over four times the global rate. That survey covered 40 children.

Since 2012, 16,052 children have received specialized support through Project M:25 and its partners.

How does Project M:25 help children?

Through the THRIVE Model™, which is trauma-informed care applied to the whole child. It is delivered across four connected domains: Physical, Mental, Relational, and Spiritual.

In plain words, each domain means something a child can feel: a safe, healthy body; a calmer mind; people who stay; and knowing they are loved by God. We don't divide the child into four. We care for the whole child in four ways.

Trauma-informed care means we pay attention to what a child has lived through, and we make sure nothing we do adds to the hurt. In practice the order is safety first, connection second, conversation last. We connect before we correct. The THRIVE Model was shaped at our campus in Quito in partnership with Lee University's Holistic Child Development program.

What happens at the campus in Quito?

Children from the neighborhood come to Agua Viva, our campus in Quito, after school. They go home to their families each day.

Four program areas run on the campus: Nutrition & Health (healthy meals, clean water, medical care, and emergency support), Education (after-school enrichment, life skills, and discipleship curriculum), Healthy Relationships (teaching children and families their rights and worth, with mentoring), and Spiritual Development (weekly Bible studies and Vacation Bible School). Parents and caregivers take part in parent education. The campus also serves as a learning lab for holistic child development, and 80 or more seminary interns have trained there.

Amigos Sponsorship connects a sponsor with a child at the campus for $30 a month.

Is Project M:25 a religious organization?

No. Project M:25 is a 501(c)(3) public charity, organized for charitable purposes: trauma-informed services for vulnerable children and the people who care for them. It is not a church, and promoting a doctrine is not its purpose.

Faith is the reason. Our founders began this work out of their Christian faith, and our name comes from Matthew 25, where Jesus describes whole-person love: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick. We care for the whole child, body, mind, relationships, and spirit, and we partner with local churches and Christian safe homes to do it. Children and families have a place at our table whether or not they believe.

Is Project M:25 a registered nonprofit?

Yes. Project M:25 is a 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 84-4839652. Our US office is at PO Box 2106, Anniston, AL 36202.

Who leads Project M:25?

A leadership group of three, which we call the Directorio: Bobby Lynch, CEO and co-founder; Tamitha Lynch, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer and co-founder; and Sophie Moncayo, Chief Programs and Partnerships Officer. A board of directors governs the organization.

Bobby Lynch holds a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and an M.Div. from Pentecostal Theological Seminary, and teaches as adjunct faculty at Lee University. Tamitha Lynch holds an M.S. in Holistic Child Development from Lee University and designed the THRIVE Model.

How is my gift used?

Your gift pays for care, and the amounts below are the ones we publish on our giving pages.

• Every $40 can provide a child with the tools, resources, and care to build resilience.
• Monthly partners give $25, $50, or $100 a month toward daily care at our campus in Quito.
• Give Water: $150 installs a clean water filter in a family's home, with maintenance included, followed by a year of visits from our team and local church leaders.
• Give Christmas: $25 provides toys, clothing, and food for a child; $40 a family food basket; $140 a full holiday celebration for a family.
• Give Hope: $20 a month funds a share of a child's care in a safe home, and $25,000 funds one home's Give Hope system for a typical home. Several supporters share the cost of one child's care.

Every giving level prices care. No gift buys a child's freedom, and we never tell a donor that it did.

How can I give?

Online at projectm25.org through the Give Now button, as a one-time gift or a monthly gift. By check to PO Box 2106, Anniston, AL 36202. Make checks payable to Project M25.

For questions about a gift, write to info@projectm25.org or call (256) 223-3052.

How can I pray or serve, not only give?

Three ways to stand with the work: give, pray, or serve.

Pray for the children and families at our campus in Quito, for the caregivers in partner safe homes, and for the pastors and leaders in training. Serve by bringing a team on a Mission Trip to Ecuador, where teams help install Give Water filters, join home visits, and serve alongside Kids Club and the teen program Give Light. Paula Bristow, Director of Donor Engagement and Church Partnerships, is the contact for visiting teams. Churches can also host a Give Hope Sunday on any Sunday they choose, or teach our free Mission-Minded Kids & Teens curriculum.

How does Project M:25 equip churches and other partners?

Through Thrive Training, our certification work, and Thrive Tools, our curriculum.

Thrive Community Care (TCC) is a trauma-informed, faith-grounded certification for pastors, lay leaders, caregivers, chaplains, and NGO staff: 10 modules in 5-minute segments, on demand, in English and Spanish, with 2 academic credits through ALEAL seminaries. Donor-subsidized places make the course available at $25 in Latin America and field settings and $99 in the US, and some partners enroll at no cost. Everyone receives the same training and certificate. The six learning areas are Foundations of Holistic & Trauma-Informed Care, Spiritual Care & Pastoral Interventions, Physical & Mental Wellbeing, Emotional Regulation & Growth, Community Engagement & Ethics, and Practical Application & Self-Care. The training puts academic concepts into everyday language a frontline worker can use, without needing a clinical degree.

To date, 3,071 leaders have been equipped in the THRIVE Model's methods, and 471 churches, nonprofits, schools, ministries, and leaders have been trained.

What is Give Hope?

Give Hope is one complete system for helping children heal in a safe home, written so the caregivers who are already there can be certified to run it, even if they have no psychologist on staff.

Our partners run the homes. We fund part of the cost, equip the caregivers, and stay monthly. Project M:25 does not run or operate these homes. Give Hope currently works with eight homes in six countries, including Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Thailand, Ghana, and Zambia, and our training engagement with each home lasts two years or more. For security reasons, we cannot tell you where any one of these homes is, and for some we cannot name the country. Caregivers who complete the training are Certified Thrive Caregivers.

Worldwide, more than 3.3 million children are in forced labor on any given day. 1.7 million of them are in commercial sexual exploitation. (ILO, Walk Free, and IOM, Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, 2022.) A child who gets out of trafficking with no safe place to go is most often trafficked again, usually within two years.

What is Give Water?

Give Water puts a clean water filter in a family's home and then stays for a year. $150 covers the filter, its installation, and maintenance. Then our team and local church leaders return for twelve months of visits, checking the filter, teaching clean-water and hygiene habits, and sharing the love of Jesus. The local church leaders who make the visits are certified in Thrive Community Care.

From January to August 2026, Give Water installed 852 filters, made 1,290 follow-up visits, and brought clean water to 4,224 people. Of the families we surveyed after installation, about 95 percent reported improved health.

Is the work measured?

Yes, and we say plainly what has been measured and what has not. Lee University psychology faculty run outcomes research with us, and it is IRB approved.

Two results so far. In a 2021 to 2022 study of a smaller group at the campus, 64 percent of children showed measured growth in resilience after a year. In 56 children assessed two ways, teacher-rated and child-rated, difficulties and resilience moved together the way theory predicts. A longitudinal study is designed and not yet running.

Cumulative figures since 2012: 16,052 children receiving specialized support, 3,071 leaders equipped, 77 communities stabilized across Ecuador, 3,735 homes resourced with Scripture, 80 or more seminary interns trained at the campus, and 471 churches, nonprofits, schools, ministries, and leaders trained.

How does Project M:25 protect the children in its programs and stories?

We show every child with dignity, and the rules follow the setting.

In community programs where children live at home, such as our campus in Quito and Give Water communities, a child may appear in a photo or story with the family's consent and first name only, never a surname and never anything that locates the child. In safe homes and other rescue and recovery settings, faces are obscured or blurred, names are pseudonyms, and no identifying detail is shared. We share only what a home has approved for sharing.

Consent is handled at each site, where the Safeguarding Officer keeps a consent log: what the family permitted, when they signed, the yearly renewal date, and any withdrawal, which a family may make at any time with no effect on the services the child receives. Only designated staff photograph children and post their images, and only from official accounts. The Agua Viva campus runs under its own Child Safeguarding Manual.

Can I use Project M:25's curriculum in my church?

Yes. Thrive Tools is the curriculum store at projectm25.org/thrive-tools.

Emotional Explorers: I Belong is a trauma-informed children's curriculum that runs as a 5-day VBS or a 5-week series, in English and Spanish, pairing five Bible stories from the life of Moses with simple tools children can use to calm down and feel safe. It costs $99 at the founders price and $299 standard. Mission-Minded Kids & Teens, a 4-week series, and the Pastor Storytelling Kit are free.

How do I reach Project M:25?

Project M:25, PO Box 2106, Anniston, AL 36202. Email info@projectm25.org. Phone (256) 223-3052.