Jefferson Impact group members posing with a recent project they completed. The students passed out 500 candies with notes of kindness attached. Submitted photo

A local Christian club is celebrating 15 years since the first group met.

Impact Campus Fellowship, a student-led, interdenominational Christian club, has about 1,400 members across the southwestern New York and eastern Pennsylvania area. The Rev. Dan Soderberg, Impact executive director, said the group is adding five or six groups a year and has currently expanded to 35 schools across the area.

“Our purpose is to have a positive impact in our schools,” Soderberg said.

The group meets once a week in their respective schools at lunchtime, he said. Schools range from high schools to middle schools and even includes some college campuses. Impact has also expanded into 12 faculty groups that meet after school, Soderberg said.

While the entity itself was formed in 2001, the first group met in 2003 at Jamestown High School, he said. At the time, Soderberg said he was a youth pastor at a local church and his students approached him about starting a Christian club at their school, along with some other youth pastors from the area.

Soderberg said the group met with the superintendent of Jamestown Public Schools and they were invited to serve on a sub committee regarding policy. They were charged with forming a policy on religion in schools and one on character formation.

After the policy on religion was drafted, Soderberg said the club was approved by the Jamestown Board of Education.

The first group only had 12 students, but increased to 75-85 students by the end of the year. Soderberg said the meetings are a big part of what Impact does, but the group also focuses on character formation in schools.

The group provides 10 school assemblies each year at multiple schools which include speakers such as Reggie Dabbs, Jon Bogue and others.

Coming up on March 19, the group will host events featuring Chris Hollyfield at Jefferson, Washington and Persell middle schools, as well as Jamestown High School. The assemblies are not religious, but focus on love, forgiveness and loving yourself, Soderberg said.

Impact is a nonprofit organization and receives no funding from the school districts.

For more information on Impact, visit www.impactcf.club or call 969-0117.