One year ago, six interns from Dallas, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Boston, Baltimore and Jewett, Ohio, came to Cleveland to participate in the inaugural year of Trinity Urban Service Corps, a project of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Cleveland.

The goal of the program is to engage young people in nonprofit service work that improves the City of Cleveland. It also seeks to build community among members, stimulate faith development and help young people discern their career paths.

Adam Spencer, who organized the program for Trinity Cathedral, says it has been successful and is expanding to eight interns in its second year. A new crop of service corps members are scheduled to arrive in town next month.

"This program is all about working to make the city a better place," says Spencer, a Northeast Ohio native who loves playing the role of tour guide in his hometown. "The service corps members help to do the work we desperately need done in Cleveland. The program also gets young people interested in the city and its issues, and it shows them all the wonderful stuff that's going on here."

Trinity's service corps members live communally in a house in Detroit Shoreway. The program pays for their housing, transportation and health care and provides a modest stipend and shared allowance for groceries and utilities. Interns are encouraged to use public transportation as a way to navigate the city.

Some of the work sites included Detroit Shoreway Community Development Organization, West Creek Preservation Committee and Leadership Cleveland. Service corps members performed tasks ranging from community organizing to working with homeless men to organizing the Cleveland Mow Goats project.

The Trinity Urban Service Corps is part of a network of similar urban service corps that are organized by Episcopal congregations across the country.

Source: Adam Spencer
Writer: Lee Chilcote