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elping refugees learn English. Making sure struggling parents have Christmas
gifts for their children. Spending time with aging military veterans, reminding
them they are never forgotten.
Community service is part of the fabric of GCU. For years, University students and
staff have partnered with west Phoenix neighborhood leaders on the streets around
campus. That dedication will be amplified this fall with more students on campus than
ever before, and the results could be limitless.
A theme being introduced this fall is “Community: One Spirit, One Purpose.” The idea
is based on the second book of Philippians, which encourages selflessness and caring
for others. Dean of Students
Pastor Tim Griffin
said the theme is meant to focus
students on staying humble amid the accelerated growth of GCU’s campus – that as
the University sheds its image as a quiet little Christian college, it’s perhaps even more
important to give back.
The larger and more successful GCU becomes, the more resources will become available
for programs to help at-risk people who share west Phoenix with the University’s
students. Neighborhoods west of Interstate 17 within several miles of the campus have
long fought the stigma of being run-down and hopeless. But others, such as Griffin, see
west Phoenix as an area in transition.
“To me, I don’t think it’s something we should shy away from,” said Griffin, who oversees
the Campus and Spiritual Life offices at GCU.
“People who have a ministry heart, that are bent that way – that are bent on looking at
the world as a place to contribute, to invest, to make a difference – they don’t see it like
that,” Griffin said. “They see it as an opportunity.”
Expanding Serve the City
Earlier this year, nearly 300 students turned out for GCU’s traditional Serve the City
event, helping to paint walls and clear yard debris at the Dream Center Christian
recovery home. Serve the City also has aided a monastery, churches and low-income
housing complexes where families rebuild their lives.
Griffin and other campus spiritual life leaders believe Serve the City outreaches could
be spaced out with more precision over several weekends in a semester, rather than
sending out hundreds of students on a single Saturday.
The Dream Center, located south of GCU’s campus on Grand Avenue, is an old
Embassy Suites motel that has been converted into housing for people looking to
escape the dead-end lifestyles of drugs, prostitution and street violence. Residents
surrender to the Lord and submit to a structured rehab process to reclaim
their independence.
“I felt the presence of God with the people I worked with over there,” said
Kasper
Axtell
, 23, a recent GCU graduate who volunteered at the Dream Center. “Just the pure
hell they’ve been through. It’s amazing to see what God can do for someone who’s just
been so broken.”
Other GCU students have volunteered at the Dream Center by helping with media
projects and criminal justice research, playing to their academic strengths.
“If you allow GCU to just be a paradise where you don’t know what’s going on outside
its walls, you’ll miss out on learning about what people have gone through who haven’t
had that security,” Axtell said.
Changing children’s lives
Georgia Sepic
, who owns the Serrano Village apartments east of GCU on Camelback
Road, said students from the next-door University have changed the lives of many of
the children who live in the modest complex.
Serrano houses refugee families from more than 20 countries and helps them find basic
social services. GCU students have pitched in on everything from educational programs
to ice cream socials to minister to residents, many of whom have fled war-ravaged native
countries.
“The refugee students see this and they see they might be able to achieve the same thing
through Grand Canyon University,” Sepic said.
And they have. This fall, a few of Serrano’s own – including some from Myanmar and
Liberia – will begin or continue their college studies at GCU.
It’s one of the many reminders that GCU’s neighborhood is reciprocal, and that the
impact is lasting, if not permanent.
