Jay Cory

All it took to make sure 70 kids in need got a bed to sleep in was a little hard work, love and the dedication of the GCU Honors College community Saturday morning. Volunteers gathered around the GCU CityServe HUB and teamed with the nonprofit organization Sleep in Heavenly Peace to build bunk beds that will be distributed to families in need. Sleep in Heavenly Peace founder and Executive Director Luke Mickelson said, “To see these college students see the joy that they feel when they know they’re giving back to something … it lasts with them the rest of their lives.”

At an open house Thursday, GCU officially debuted its CityServe HUB, a 35,000 square-foot warehouse that will be the distribution site for household goods from major retailers such as Amazon and Costco. Those in-kind goods — everything from small appliances to furniture, printers and diapers, to name a few — will be disbursed to community partners that will put them in the hands of families in need. “To be able to do it on a college campus so you can mentor college kids on getting into this mindset, this worldview of helping the less fortunate? It’s fantastic. Praise God,” said Barry Meguiar of Meguiar Wax, a major CityServe supporter..

It has been just three months since GCU and CityServe announced a major initiative — to deliver household, in-kind items from donors such as Costco, Home Depot and Lowe’s to families in need. The GCU CityServe HUB, a warehouse space being carved out in Building 66 on 27th Avenue, received is first three truckloads of merchandise last week, everything from furniture to camping equipment, and delivered those items to one of its community partners in a test run before the HUB’s planned official launch in September. New HUB Executive Director Jay Cory said he has never been more excited than now at what this initiative will mean in transforming the west Phoenix community GCU calls neighbors: “We’re going to change the world.”