This spring, the White House launched an exciting new program entitled "The President's Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge", with the goal of advancing interfaith cooperation and community service in higher education. As part of the interfaith network at Stanford University, my friends and I were eager to take advantage of the President's challenge and design a new and effective service initiative that will be implemented on campus over the coming year. Working through Stanford's Office for Religious Life and the Haas Center for Community Service, we were able to develop a service plan incorporating interreligious dialogue and the specific needs of our community.
The proposed plan is "Hospitality and Welcoming the Stranger: Immigration in the Bay Area through the Lens of Hunger and Homelessness". Our goal is to target societal problems in Stanford’s own backyard. The university already has an extensive network of community service programs and immigrant resources that we’re happy to take advantage of, including Challah for Hunger, Stanford Immigrants Rights Project, and Habla el Dia. Weekly service projects with these Stanford clubs, combined with classes, dorm meetings, and reflection times, will help us explore the role of religion and the necessity of interfaith cooperation in aiding our community’s immigrant and homeless populations.
Our ongoing initiative will also involve partnerships outside the Stanford bubble. These include the Day Worker Center in Mountain View, the Ecumenical Hunger Program, and Citizen Schools. The ultimate goal of the year-long program is to explore the theme of hospitality within different religions and belief systems. The idea of welcoming the “stranger” or the “other”, accepting those different from ourselves, is something we are constantly encountering in today’s multicultural and diverse society. We believe Emma Lazarus summed it up perfectly in The New Colossus when she said:
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
It reminds me why I love interfaith work…Wish us luck!
