Geneva’s emphasis on service is not unique. Thanks in part to college students’ increased interest in social projects, both secular and Christian colleges have outreach programs to their surrounding communities. Students work in schools, serve meals at homeless shelters, help clean up urban neighborhoods and build houses for struggling families

During a recent after-school program at a church in Beaver Falls, Pa., college student Nate Mansor spent the better part of the afternoon with a 6-year-old girl wrapped around his ankle, impeding his efforts to prevent her 8-year-old playmate from trying to steal his hat. Despite their playful innocence, the energetic elementary school students have a higher than average chance of committing a crime by the time they’re adults, a statistic Mansor hopes to prevent from becoming a reality in their futures.

Beaver Falls, once a thriving steel mill town, fell on hard times when the Babcock and Wilcox Tubular plant closed in the late 1980s. The collapse of the town’s largest employer left 7,000 jobless, and more than half of the town’s 17,000 residents eventually left. Twenty-five years later, the unemployment rate is below the national average, at 7.2 percent, but work is still hard to find, and the job growth rate is decreasing. Without many prospects for their futures, the town’s youth often turn to crime.

Mansor, who spends one afternoon a week volunteering at one of the town’s after-school programs, is part of a team of about 50 students from nearby Geneva College who work with Beaver Falls’ youngest residents. Local officials hope the relationships the students build with their college neighbors will encourage them to stay in school and dream of a better future. But progress is slow. The most vulnerable students often refuse to participate in support programs, frustrating their elders and teaching the college volunteers that rebuilding a community after decades of decline is a long-term process.

Mansor, a senior at the small Christian college on the north side of Beaver Falls, started working with the town’s students last fall during an after-school Bible study program called the Frontier Club. He wanted to work with elementary school students because the success of the community’s future depends on its children: “We are called to redeem this creation; so where better to start than with the youth?”

As the oldest of seven siblings, Mansor is no stranger to working with children, but building relationships in Beaver Falls is a challenge, he said. One boy Mansor began working with last semester rebuffed every attempt to make friends. When Mansor finally began to connect with him over video games, the boy left the program. Mansor hasn’t seen him since.

The nearby middle school ha//s the town’s largest after-school program, Tiger Pause. More than 50 of the program’s volunteers come from Geneva. Although the program keeps about 200 kids busy throughout the afternoon, its main goal is to build relationships.

“Friendship with the college students opens the kids’ eyes to a different world outside their own circumstances,” said Matt Nance, Tiger Pause director.

Although the youth who participate in the program are more likely to stay in school and out of trouble, the ones who really need help don’t come, middle school Principle Thomas House said.

“The people who need the most help are the least likely to come forward and get that help,” he said. “We fail those kids because they have to commit a serious legal infraction before anyone will do anything.”

Despite the challenges in reaching the town’s most vulnerable youth, House encourages the Geneva students to spend more time in town, even when they’re not volunteering. The more the town’s youth see the college campus residents, the more likely they will be to view them as friends who have something valuable to share, House said.

More than 300 Geneva students – about 22 percent of the student body – volunteer in 11 community programs in Beaver Falls. Missy Davis, assistant director of Geneva’s Center for Faith and Practice hopes that students will see the neighboring community as both a gift and an obligation. Serving the town’s residents gives students a chance to take what they learn in the classroom and turn it into something tangible, she said.

“Our world is not centered around us but should be about other people,” Davis said.

Geneva’s emphasis on service is not unique. Thanks in part to college students’ increased interest in social projects, both secular and Christian colleges have outreach programs to their surrounding communities. Students work in schools, serve meals at homeless shelters, help clean up urban neighborhoods and build houses for struggling families. According to statistics released last month by the U.S. Department of Labor, 22.5 percent of students between 16 and 24 years old volunteered at least once in 2011, a slight increase over the number who volunteered in 2007. College graduates made up 42 percent of those who volunteered last year.

Despite the difficulties of engaging students in Beaver Falls, Mansor believes the effort is worth it. The children he does connect with will never forget the college student who valued them enough to spend one afternoon a week with them. And Mansor will never forget the benefits of working to restore healthy community, a calling he plans to pursue even after graduation.

“It’s something that I think God wants me to be active in for the rest of my life,” he said.

@Copyright 2012 WORLD Magazine – used with permission