Community

Move-In gets the year started off right for incoming GCU students, but it has the same effect on the volunteers who help them. Whether they’re helping for the first time or are seniors and have done it every year, they treasure the excitement. “It’s my third year, and it’s always the same energy,” said one.

God’s love can be found anywhere, despite things like language barriers and difficult sites, that was the take away from multiple mission trips GCU students went on this summer. Students traveled all over the world to help serve and share their love for the lord with communities in need. “God is the same everywhere, and He doesn’t change whether you’re in the United States or in different countries,” junior Karli Burns said about her mission trip to Costa Rica. “It was worth it because it just showed me how much God’s love is universal.”

Just one builder constructing almost an entire university? It’s unheard of. But it’s something Pono Construction, under the leadership of owner Butch Glispie, has done, beginning with North Rim Apartments in 1986. For 33 years, Glispie and his team of subcontractors have helped carry out the vision of the University, raising and renovating more than 60 structures on campus.

The Milwaukee Brewers and Grand Canyon University are already teaming up for big wins. The GCU Learning Lounge that opened in April at the Brewers’ training complex in Maryvale created a unique partnership between a Major League Baseball team and university that garnered the Governor’s Tourism Award for an urban partnership last week in Tucson. “It’s such a unique and forward-thinking program, and it shows a commitment by both GCU and the Brewers to the neighborhood they share,” said Debbie Johnson, director of the Arizona Office of Tourism.

Through four different trips this summer, 79 Honors College students benefited from some eye-opening experiences in 13 different countries in Europe, Central America and Southeast Asia. “You can see that these students start to think on a global perspective,” Program Manager Dennis Williams said. “They start to think about the world as a whole and start to think about ways that, whatever it is that they do, how they can have an impact in their local community in whatever way, in our nation but even globally.”

An estimated 5,000 Title I elementary schoolchildren are weaving their way this week through the Lopes Performance Center, which has been turned into a unique department store. It’s where those kindergarten through sixth graders, all preselected and preregistered by their schools, are loading up on polo shirts, shoes, socks, belts, books, school supplies and more as part of the four-day Back to School Clothing Drive’s New Clothes, New Beginnings distribution event. GCU was there in full force on Monday for Lopes Day at the LPC. “We just love to be a part of these kinds of events,” said GCU Provost Dr. Hank Radda, “especially ones that focus on youth and K-12 education, because that’s very much a part of our Five-Point Plan.”

The first day of school: new clothes, new shoes, new backpack. But the same scenario doesn’t play out for every schoolchild, which is why the nonprofit Back to School Clothing Drive has made it its mission to provide new clothing, backpacks, school supplies and more to 5,000 students whose families live at or below the poverty level. Those students will be arriving on the Grand Canyon University campus Monday through July 25 for the Back to School Clothing Drive’s New Clothes, New Beginnings distribution event, and hundreds of volunteers are needed to help hand out shoes, clothing, backpacks and more. “It takes 300 volunteers to pull off one day, and I’d like to have 301,” Accomazzo said of Lopes volunteers.

GCU and GCE volunteers fanned out to two homes in the neighborhood on Friday, digging into painting and landscaping projects and defying the July heat. Homeowner Mira Nava recalled the first time Habitat visited her home eight years ago to fix the roof. Her mother was battling cancer at the time and told Nava: “This is a reminder that God is still here.” Andrea Northup, Habitat for Humanity Faith Relations Manager, told Nava: “That’s what GCU lives by — faith.”

Students are the top priority at GCU, of course, but that ideal is shown in many ways. One of them is web shows featuring students talking about their time at the University, and the latest one is “Living as Lopes,” which aims to give current and prospective students insights into the many activities on campus. “I feel like it’s a really cool opportunity because it shows our genuine lives, but it also shows that we’re all so different and unique and we all love such different things that it just shows from different perspectives what you can do, what the options are,” said Hailey-James Hines, one of several “Living as Lopes” cast members.

The new Learning Lounge at the Milwaukee Brewers’ training complex in Maryvale has created an interesting partnership between the employees who work there as well as the University and a Major League Baseball club. Shari Stagner, GCU’s Director of K12 Outreach, is teaming up with the Brewers’ Thad McGrew and Andrew Daugherty to come up with new ideas that will benefit local students.