Today we’d like to introduce you to Live the Life Jacksonville .
Hi Live the Life Jacksonville, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Sure! Live the Life was started in 1998 by Richard & Elizabeth Albertson after a crisis in their own marriage. They realized that so many other couples were in the same boat they were – they wanted a good marriage but didn’t know how. They began a nonprofit to provide marriage programs that would combine practical skills, the most up-to-date research in the field of relationship education, and Biblical principles to help other couples who were struggling. For almost three decades, our services have expanded to include intensives for couples in crisis, premarital coaching, life skills courses for teenagers, and retreats for the whole family. As of this month, Live the Life currently has 5 offices across Florida and Texas, and has provided marriage enrichment programs to couples in 39 states and 15 countries. And we’re just getting started!
This April, we are launching a 5-year initiative to provide free marriage enrichment workshops to local military and first responder couples. Our military and first responders give so much in service to our community, often at a cost to their own marriages and families. We want to give back by helping them build stronger, healthier relationships at home.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been a great journey, but one that certainly went through its ups and downs. Starting in just their personal garage in Tallahassee, Florida, Richard and Elizabeth worked to build Live the Life from scratch. By 2011, Live the Life became a statewide organization, gradually expanding to almost every major city in the state.
One of our biggest wins happened right here in Jacksonville. Thanks to a grant that enabled us to greatly expand our reach in Northeast Florida, between 2015 and 2017, we were able to decrease the divorce rate in Duval County by 28% – and save an estimated 2,100 marriages! Shortly after the success, though, came difficult times with the pandemic and loss of a major grant, which reduced our staff and ability to conduct classes. Thankfully, since the Covid restrictions were lifted, we’ve been able to regrow and are working towards expanding to Michigan, Kansas, and Oklahoma!
However, as a nonprofit, funding can still be challenging. Thanks to grants, we can offer a few of our programs for free – but we want to do more! We would love to make programs like our Hope Weekend marriage intensive as affordable and accessible to as many people as possible. But we can’t do it alone. It takes support from donors and volunteers.
We would love to see more people come alongside us in this mission to strengthen marriages and families through not only donations, but also by teaching or volunteering at any of our programs for couples and teens.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Live the Life is a marriage and relationship education service that focuses on teaching others how to have the healthy relationship that they desire, and to save more couples from the pain of divorce. Our 3 main goals are to decrease the divorce rate, increase the marriage rate, and reduce the teen pregnancy rate. What sets our programs apart is that we don’t just provide information in a traditional classroom orientation; we also equip couples with practical, hands-on skills that can be used in everyday life to deepen their relationships. And not just their marriage; these skills can enhance all of your relationships – whether it’s with family, friends, or even coworkers!
Our proudest accomplishment here locally was what we’ve called the Jacksonville miracle. Jacksonville used to be considered the divorce capital of Florida, but thanks to a collaborative effort between Live the Life and several local churches, between 2015 and 2017, the divorce rate in Duval County dropped by 28%! We did this by offering marriage enrichment programs, as well as weekend marriage intensives, to couples in and around Jacksonville. During these three years, the number of divorces was at least 700 fewer than in previous years. At an average cost to the city of $30,000 per divorce, that would be a savings of $21 million each year. Since then, this event has been studied by several relationship professionals and has even been mentioned in three different books!
But we don’t just serve married couples. We believe healthy relationships can happen long before the wedding vows. The True North Project is our relationship program for middle and high school students, which utilizes the REAL Essentials curriculum from the Center for Relationship Education. By learning to recognize red flags, set healthy boundaries, and respect themselves and others, our students are equipped with a solid foundation for navigating relationships in middle school and beyond. We are also currently in the development stages of a program for single young adults, which we plan to roll out later this year. Our hope with both of these projects is that if more young people learn healthy relationship skills now, there will be fewer couples considering divorce in the future.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Honestly? Divine appointments. We never know what doors God will open, and we try to be good stewards of any opportunities or relationships He places in our path. We trust that He will set us in front of the right people at the right time. We’ve found that just by helping those in need and doing so to the best of our ability, we’ve been able to reach other organizations through the impressions we’ve made on their members at one of our programs. Many of the couples whose marriages have been saved or strengthened through Live the Life programs have come back to either work with us, teach our classes, or introduce us to other couples or organizations we can serve.
We believe if you’re doing what you’re called to do and if you’re doing it diligently every single day, the right people will come into your life to come alongside you in fulfilling that mission.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.livethelifejax.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livethelifejax/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiveTheLifeJacksonville
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/live-the-life-jacksonville/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@livethelifejacksonville
