Student Leaders: Urban Involvement

Applications Now Available

Join Urban Involvement for the Refugee Project, Saturday, February 27.  Applications are available online and are due Friday, February 19.

Spring Break Urban Plunge is scheduled for March 18-22. Applications are available online and are due Tuesday, February 16.

Partnerships

Find out which Seattle-area organization Urban Involvement serves — and how you can connect, too.

Urban Involvement connects SPU students to a variety of community organizations — through weekly service teams and quarterly immersion experiences. Teams are facilitated by student leaders and funded by the Associated Students of Seattle Pacific (ASSP), under the mentorship of John Perkins Center staff.

• Empowering Youth and Families Outreach
• Mekong Kids Learning Center
• Neighborhood House - Tutoring
• Sacred Heart Shelter
• UGM Kids Club
• Union Gospel Mission: White Center
• UGM-YROC Tutoring
• White Center Dance Team

Interested in Urban Involvement? Contact the UI Core.

Student Videos

The Urban Involvement Experience

Urban Involvement connects SPU students to the Seattle community in exciting, meaningful ways. Students Marissa Ukosakul and Sarah Lindell share their experience with Mekong Kids Tutoring in this short video.

Additional Partners

Students interested in in-depth volunteer service are also encouraged to consider these trusted Urban Involvement partners:

New Horizons

Street Youth Ministries

Refugee Project

Experience the Life of a Refugee

In partnership with World Relief, Urban Involvement presents the Refugee Project, an immersion into the experiences and challenges faced by refugees as they enter America.

 

The event includes discussion of the Christian response to the refugee crisis, a hands-on simulation of the refugee's journey through the process of entering the United States, and dinner with a recently arrived refugee family. When you participate, you’ll

 

• Discuss the Christian response to the refugee crisis.
• Be part of a hands-on simulation of the refugee's journey through the process of entering the United States.
• Have dinner with a recently-arrived refugee family.

Support a Refugee Family

World Relief welcomes refugees escaping persecution from all over the world, including Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Burma and Burundi. Volunteers and Interns from SPU can join World Relief’s vision “to be the hands, feet and face of Christ to refugees” by mentoring refugee families, helping them learn English, and accompanying them on their journeys between cultures.

Sign Up!

Join us for the Refugee Project on Saturday, February 27.

For more information about the Refugee Project or to volunteer with World Relief, contact Lisa Sorey (soreyl@spu.edu).

The Refugee Project was recently featured in SPU's ETC magazine..

See a video (via iTunes) of the Refugee Project.

Read more about The Refugee Project at the SPU parents’ and families’ site, In the Loop.

 

Urban Plunge

Urban Plunge is a five-day immersion experience designed to give participants a taste of what it is like to be homeless and what resources are available to Seattle's homeless population.

• Nights are spent sleeping in a downtown church.
• Days are filled with explorations as participants walk the streets.
• Learn from representatives of local social service agencies.
• Experience some of the challenges the homeless face.
• Urban Plunge takes place during Christmas and Spring breaks.
  
  

Learn more about Urban Plunge at the Frequently Asked Questions page.

See a video (via iTunes) of Winter, 2008 Urban Plunge.

Spring, 2009 Urban Plungers shared their reflections in this video.

Spring 2009 Urban Plunge made the news in this Seattle Times article.

For more information on Urban Plunge, contact Michael Brown (mbrown25@spu.edu).

“I went in thinking that this was an opportunity for me to be Christ to these people. What I discovered was that they had become Christ to me." — Mike, sophomore

Find out what SPU students are saying about their time on the December 2008 Urban Plunge.