On April 4, undergraduate students gathered in La Villita, a neighborhood in Chicago also known as Little Village, to serve and minister to the community. Co-sponsored by Moody’s Student Council (StuCo) and Puente, Moody’s Spanish-speaking cultural awareness group, the students worked closely with New Life Community Church in La Villita.

This is a second annual event for StuCo, but the first year for Puente’s involvement. According to Jamie-Lee McNeely, StuCo president, the goals of the work day are to “partner alongside an active church” and “mobilize Moody students to practically serve in the community.” 

This year’s partnership with Puente gave StuCo close access to New Life and a great resource for interacting with the Spanish-speaking community surrounding the church. In addition, the project fit in well with Puente’s theme for the year, Amor Real or “Real Love,” an aim to practically show Christ’s love to Chicago communities.

Sixty-five students, alongside volunteers from New Life, worked on several different projects.  Throughout the day, the church hosted a free lunch banquet for the area day laborers often seen lunching near the church. In addition to this location, another free lunch was served on the street alongside a free car wash. The car wash was conducted outside a church plant that opened the day after the project and encouraged people to visit the new church. There were also two cleaning groups. One stayed to clean the church’s nurseries and children’s areas, while the other went out to remove trash from the neighborhood’s streets.

Though several cars, rooms and streets ended the day much cleaner than they began, the focus of the day was community outreach. At the banquet, many of the day laborers had the opportunity to pray with students or church members. In addition, the car wash allowed for face-to-face interaction as the drivers waited while their cars were cleaned. One grateful man who had his car washed could not believe the outreach. “There is [now] a church at the corner where there used to be shootouts,” he said.

In addition to being a ministry to the community, the event was also an encouragement to both the students and the church. New Life’s pastor, Paco Amador, was very excited about all the contacts made during the day as a result of the students’ labor. This connection between church and student body also encouraged McNeely. “It was rewarding to see how excited the church was to have us and how excited the students were to be there.”

— Article by Daniel Harting, Freshman, Communications/Print Media major