Food and a Few Volunteers Get Campus Outreach Going

When the First Universalist Church, Rochester, NY (196 members), was looking for ways to do outreach into its urban surroundings five years ago it didn't have to go far. Four blocks from the church was the campus of the 900-student Eastman School of Music.

The church started a campus ministry that now has attracted about a dozen students. The Rev. Elizabeth Banks does one church service a month on campus and the church sponsors social events off campus for students, including cross-country skiing excursions, Christmas caroling and socializing in members' homes.

Banks counsels students who are lonely and homesick. Church members send them encouraging e-mail at finals time and attend their recitals. Students come to church services and get involved in social service projects.

"They really yearn for that connection with all the generations, the grandparents they left behind at home and the young children. They like having that contact in our church," said Banks.

Starting a campus ministry can be as easy as putting up flyers on campus or putting an ad in the campus newspaper. "Don't start out asking where is this group of students I have to work with," said Mary Ann Macklin, campus and young adult minister for the First Unitarian Society, Madison, WI (1049). "Start with small things and the students will come."

Macklin, who also helped start a campus group for the UU Church of Bloomington, IN Inc. (288), wrote the UUA's campus ministry manual. She urges churches to:

• Put at least a small amount of money in the annual budget for campus ministry, to raise visibility in the congregation.
• Use food to help attract college students. Organize an occasional meal and invite students or take food to them on campus.
• When a student leaves your congregation for college, send their address to the UU church nearest the college.

A campus program requires three to five committed people to do the work, says the Rev. Kent Matthies, coordinator of CAMPUUS, the campus ministry program in the UUA's Joseph Priestley District. "It's not something that takes a huge infusion of energy, like the annual canvass. You just need a steady commitment for at least two to three years."

The goal of such programs is not to get students in church on Sundays, but to help them find like-minded people in their college communities, said Matthias.

The UU Church, Silver Spring, MD (277), organized a campus ministry for students at the University of Maryland at College Park, in partnership with the Paint Branch UU Church, Adelphi, MD (280).

Cathy Johnson, campus ministry liaison for the Silver Spring church, said, "It was one of the easiest things to get support for from the congregation. We have a lot of people whose kids are in college and it was mainly a matter of telling people what we wanted to do."

In this, the second year of the program, she put ads in the campus newspaper, did a holiday meal and collected old Worldmagazines and scattered them around student lounges and residence halls, after affixing a label with contact information. A worship service is held on campus twice a month.

Each fall Johnson sends her congregation's own high school graduates off with a list of e-mail addresses of all the graduates of the youth group so they can stay in touch with each other and the church.

Resources

Information on starting a campus or young adult group is available from the office of the Rev. Donna DiSciullo, Young Adult/Campus Ministry director, 20 Nassau St., Suites 510-511, Princeton, NJ 08542; (609) 252-1412.

Click here for campus ministry resources available on the UUA web site. They include:

• A Unitarian Universalist Campus Ministry Manual, $15 from the Campus Ministry office
• Campus Ministry Instant Start-up Kit, including a Host Homes Project, designed to connect a college student with a home away from home, and HUUGS - Hearty Unitarian Universalist Greetings, a guide to helping congregations reach out to college students and other young adults