Students Spend Summer Helping Inner-City Families

College Students Spend Summer in the City - Helping to Make Life Better for Struggling Inner-City Families

NEW YORK, June 16, 2009—Summer vacation doesn't always mean lounging by the pool and hanging out with friends.  This year 125 college kids will be trading traditional summertime fun for a chance to help and inspire inner-city families across the country.

The students are participating in a unique outreach effort called Summer in the City.  It's sponsored by urban ministry Here's Life Inner City and gives young people like Andrea Gooding, who participated in the Summer in the City program before her junior year in college, a chance to have a real impact on needy families.

"I was just a small-town girl at the University of South Carolina and had never had any real exposure to the poor when I signed up for Summer in the City in New York," said Andrea, who is now a full-time intern with Here's Life Inner City.  "It was an amazing experience, giving me a chance to tutor inner-city kids, serve in soup kitchens, minister to women at shelters and share God's love on the streets."

Here's Life Inner City National Director Ted Gandy says Andrea's experience isn't unique.

"These are wonderfully dedicated young people who are having a positive impact on the lives of inner-city kids and families, not just for the summer, but for a lifetime," said Gandy.

But while Summer in the City offers students many rewards, pay is not one of them.  The young volunteers not only forfeit their summer vacation, they also pay for their travel expenses, lodging, meals and supplies.

Right now Here's Life Inner City is trying to collect donations to help defray some of the student's expenses.  To find out more information about Summer in the City or to donate online, visit www.HLIC.org.

Here's Life Inner City, the urban ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, International, is dedicated to equipping churches to provide help and hope to the poverty-stricken in their communities.  Since 1983, Here's Life Inner City and more than a thousand partner churches and organizations have been responding to the growing epidemic of poverty and despair in the inner city.  The wide-ranging efforts have provided the poor with food and other basic necessities, life skills, career development and youth development programs.