Jonathon “JD” DeLeon joined Abundant Life Ministries in June of 2021 through the Fellows program.
Growing up primarily in Lynchburg, VA, JD came to Charlottesville to attend UVA and graduated with a degree in Psychology. With his Psychology degree, he chose to focus on Social Justice. After graduating, he knew he wanted to focus on building relationships, ultimately transformative, but did not know that it would come from a community development ministry.
Since being at Abundant Life, he has moved from being a fellow to being on staff full-time as the Middle School Coordinator and 5/8 Co-Coordinator alongside Bruce Boling. His positions here at Abundant Life are meaningful to him as he is able to build connections and relationships with the children and families. His work and time at Abundant Life have heavily influenced his focused major for Grad School, which he will be entering in the next couple of years.
Tuesday and Thursday are my favorite days because of the excitement I see on [participant’s] face to tell me more about a different book, video game, or movie. He’s one of the many relationships I’ve built that have shown me what a mutually transformative relationship means.