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But what happens next? Autumn Shadis grew up a Christian home and went to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, far from the tough inner city. She got involved with Campus Crusade, which affirmed her longing to go into full-time ministry. When she heard about Summer in the City, Here’s Life’s summer mission, something clicked. She headed out to L.A. that summer and quickly became a leader among the 35 college students interning there. Highlight of her summer? Working among the homeless on Skid Row – serving food to the hungry, helping addicts move toward recovery, getting involved with neighborhood kids. Autumn’s heart was stirred that summer. The following spring break, she led a team of 20 UW students to Detroit for Here’s Life’s Urban Immersion. Her mind was soon brimming with ideas for tackling urban issues. She’s started on a Master’s Degree in Global Urban Ministry. She’s interning in a church on the racially diverse south side of Madison and living in the neighborhood.
“The soup kitchen, the halfway house, the S.A.Y. Yes! Center,” she says — “every place we went, I connected with someone there. I was just brokenhearted by the poverty. I was out of my comfort zone — but somehow I also felt at home. I felt like I had found my niche.” After graduation, Amanda interned with Here’s Life in Washington, D.C., then wound up working at the Southeast White House, in a D.C. neighborhood where 97% of the children live in single-parent families. Amanda is a full-time mentor to seven girls, helping with schoolwork, relationships, and spiritual guidance. She’s seeing amazing transformation in her young friends. She’s also bought an apartment in the same inner-city neighborhood where most of “her girls” live.
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Click here to view all of our Summer in the City projects. More Stories of Connecting, Empowering, and Developing:
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When college students complete short-term missions experiences with Here’s Life, they go back to their campus, energized by all they have learned.
Amanda Giobbi had never come face-to-face with poverty until she traveled with a group of fellow Virginia Tech students to New York for Here’s Life’s spring break Urban Immersion.
This summer Christian college students will fan out across America for the sake of reaching inner-city children and families with the transformative Good News about God’s love.