Urban Outreach trips serve surrounding communities
All photos courtesy of Riley Latham.
Urban Outreach is a service-learning opportunity offered by the Student Leadership Council (SLC) each semester, in which SLC partners with nonprofit organizations and churches in the surrounding area. Participating students have the chance to earn 10 service hours in a single weekend.
Each group of students travels to a different place, with group sizes ranging from 15 to 30 people. Previous trips have ventured as far as Huntsville, Alabama.
Matthew Smolen, a junior biology major and the current president of SLC, served as the secretary of community outreach last year and became familiar with Urban Outreach. This year, Smolen served with a group in Cleveland, partnering with The Andor Project.
“It’s a mentor program for boys who are at risk and haven’t necessarily had good role models,” said Smolen. “This nonprofit focuses on those male relationships, bonding and having mentors for those boys.”
An important part of Urban Outreach is to serve in communities and build relationships among peers.
“Even though [students] are only there for one weekend … they can build really close relationships with one another,” said Smolen.
Sophomore political science major Megan Gentry traveled to Nashville this semester to work with Feed the Children.
“The first night [our group] unpacked boxes and checked for damaged supplies … then we assembled I don’t even know how many boxes — a giant mountain of boxes — and filled those boxes [with food supplies] the next morning,” said Gentry. “They gave us a count at the end, and I think it came out to 640 boxes. Each box goes to a family in need.”
Junior pastoral ministries major Bianca Lintz traveled to City of Refuge in Dalton, Georgia. Students worked on cleaning out empty rooms and painting walls.
“I liked working with them because they didn’t just tell us what to do,” said Lintz. “They told us why we were doing it, and how we were actually helping.”
Sophomore intercultural studies major Khyeanna Hooke also worked with City of Refuge and emphasized the importance of completing volunteer work not simply for results but to exercise benevolence..
“In the devotion before meeting for the day, [our group] talked about the fact that we would work and may not see the results of it,” Hooke said. “But it was nice because we weren’t there to see how good we are. We were there to be helpful.”
While Urban Outreach is an opportunity to receive service hours in one weekend, some students see it as more than just fulfilling an academic requirement.
“People come into it thinking ‘Man, I need service hours and this is an easy way to do it.’ But when people come back, it’s never about that,” said Smolen. “Having a chance to step out of Cleveland and to be able to see that there is more than just our Lee bubble is really important,” said Smolen.
Students interested in serving at Urban Outreach have the opportunity to do so in January 2020. For more information, contact Matthew Smolen at msmole02@leeu.edu.
