Flatland Youth Fund: Standing in the Gap
Some of the most powerful acts of generosity come from someone noticing a need and then rushing to meet it. That is precisely what inspired Cade (’17) and Chastin (Jackson, ’16) Powell to start their own nonprofit, Flatland Youth Fund (FYF).
“My wife was the inspiration,” Cade recalled. “She was working in Brownfield ISD at the time. She overheard a conversation about a student who needed help paying for softball because they had some hard things going on at home, and Chastin thought, ‘Let’s just call the little league and pay for her.’ So, we called and made the payment.”
For Cade, this turned out to be a “lightbulb” moment. He explained that his family had done things like this while he was growing up, and he suspected these kinds of needs existed in more places than just the communities where he and Chastin worked. He realized there had to be a way to help people on a larger scale.
“I just wanted to create a platform where people could help other people, and where parents who need help could come and ask for help without the shame or guilt of not having the means. One in five families in Lubbock lives under the poverty line—and if they have to decide between $300 to play football and $300 to pay their light bill or buy groceries, it’s a no-brainer. We don’t want kids to miss out because of finances, whether that’s from a parent’s limitations, traumatic situations like foster care, having a single mom, or even family illnesses.”
So, in March 2025, Cade began researching what it would take to make his vision of helping families with the financial burden of youth sports a reality. After speaking with friends and investigating the process for forming a nonprofit organization, he decided to contact his congregation, Raintree Christian Church, for help.
“Our preacher told us, ‘That sounds great! Let me talk to the elders in two weeks when we have our elder meeting,’” Cade explained. “Within those two weeks, we had enough support and donations that we were able to hire a lawyer to file everything with the state—God lined it up perfectly.” Months later, in July, FYF made its first round of donations to help families pay for sports.
Since its inception in March of 2025, Flatland Youth Fund has gifted 123 scholarships totaling $22,663, all going to support families ensure their children can access sports and extracurricular activities.
“We’ve had so many applicants that are like, ‘Hey, we just need help because our car just broke down and we’re having to pay for our car and my husband’s out of work’;or, ‘We just both lost our jobs and we would like for our son to have a little bit of normalcy.’ Those are exactly the situations we want to step into with help.”
Of course, Cade doesn’t select who receives scholarships on his own. Instead, he relies on a committee of eight people with diverse backgrounds, education levels and connections throughout the local community. Each member weighs in on which families have the greatest need, and the funds are dispensed accordingly.
Cade shared the stories of several families FYF has been able to help. One case involved a single mother who was also a caregiver to her sick mother. Another involved a family with one breadwinner who unexpectedly lost their job and, in one month, lost 80% of their income, eventually having to surrender their car and their house.
“So many people just live in tough situations,” Cade emphasized. “I see so many single moms with two or three kids, or grandmothers who are taking care of grandchildren, and it really just tugs on your heartstrings. Honestly,” he added, “it’s helped me see that we’re really blessed and privileged to an extent that I didn’t realize—and it drives home the fact that everyone has something hard going on in their lives, even if they don’t talk about it.”
FYF doesn’t only offer scholarship assistance for sports, either. Cade shared that the organization has expanded to support more than a dozen different extracurricular activities.
“We’ve done baseball, t-ball, softball, flag football, football, soccer,” he listed, “but we’ve also helped kids with orchestra camp, theater camp, choir camp, ballet, cheerleading, and even church camps. And honestly, that’s how we want it to be,” he added, “because kids that enjoy things other than sports deserve to get help too, right?”
One of the most powerful ways the community has come together to help is through a partnership with LCU alumnus Brian Malakian (’03).
“Brian is really involved with LCU Baseball,” Cade explained, “and he reopened Play It Again Sports. They’ve stepped in to become one of our partners—they give us discounted rates on equipment, so if kids come to us and say, ‘Hey, I want to play basketball, but I also need basketball shoes,’ FYF will cover the registration, and then we pay Play It Again Sports for a gift card at a reduced price. That, in turn, helps our funds go further to help these families.”
FYF depends on donations and partnerships with other local organizations. Its website has more information on how to donate, ways to volunteer, and the application for families in need of assistance.
“Our social media also has those links,” Cade said. “And it also helps us share when we do different fundraisers with organizations in town that will do stuff with us. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, any donations are tax-deductible. Starting a nonprofit is hard, and running a nonprofit is hard,” he added. “You have to rely on the generosity of other people.”
Every dollar raised goes directly to scholarships for local families. Although Cade and Chastin run FYF alongside their full-time jobs, their dedication to helping others has fueled the organization’s remarkable growth in just its first year and a half. Through their commitment to serving families, they embody Lubbock Christian University’s mission of transforming hearts, minds and hands for lives of purpose and service.
In the end, Cade laid out what FYF stands for best: “We believe talent is everywhere—but opportunity is not. We believe cost should never be a barrier to growth. We believe in the power of a team, a stage, a coach, a moment. We believe every kid deserves a chance to thrive. We believe in showing up, standing in the gap, and saying yes—so no kid gets left out.”