Urban Service Corps

Click here to learn more about the 2011-2012 Service Corps class. To read intern reflections on the various components that make up a year in the program, click here.

In August 2011, Trinity launched the Trinity Cathedral Urban Service Corps (TCUSC), a year-long urban service immersion program for up to eight young adults who live together in Cleveland and serve at local nonprofits working to rebuild the city. Participants need not be Episcopalian, but their shared community is based on Christian values and practices.

The program is part of a federation of Episcopal Service Corps projects around the country supported by Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City and by partners and donors in each program city. A local board made up of community leaders drawn from many backgrounds and faith traditions oversees Cleveland’s program.

The program is designed to provide young adults the time, space and resources to discern one’s future and grow both spiritually and as a leader while living in simple, sustainable, Christian community and working in Cleveland’s local social-service agencies

Home sweet home for the interns while serving in the USC

Each participant serves full-time at a different social service site placement around Cleveland doing meaningful on-the-ground work. Participants live together in community in a house in the Gordon Square-Detroit Shorew

ay area, one of Cleveland’s urban neighborhoods, sharing meals, prayer, reflection and fellowship and exploring the city together. During the course of the year they participate in retreats, trainings, study, reflection and worship that explores the connections between their faith, their service and their life in community and its relation to a life-long commitment to faithful service in the world.

“This program helps young adults embark on a lifetime of faithful vocational service,” said Adam Spencer, Episcopal Service Corps program director at Trinity Cathedral. “Most college kids get asked, ‘What are you going to do next year?’ At Trinity, we are asking, ‘Who do you want to be for the rest of your life?’”

For more information about the TCUSC, contact the Rev. Sahra Harding at sharding@dohio.org or 216-774-0409.  To apply to the TCUSC or any Episcopal Service Corps program or to learn about the ESC as a whole, visit www.episcopalservicecorps.org. Cleveland nonprofit organizations interested in having a corps member serve with them can call or email Spencer. Photos from the interns’ house are below.