Learning Through Service
We’ve long heard that there are book smarts and street smarts. At Emmaus House, we prefer service smarts.
Service learning has been an important part of our impact model and our professional development from the beginning.
The Episcopal Service Corps empowers adults ages 21-32 to transform unjust structures through community building, local collaboration, prayer, and action. The Emmaus House chapter—called The Road—ran from 2012 - 2019 as a paid year-long fellowship helping young adults make the connection between their faith and social change.
Participants lived together in an intentional spiritual community and served 32 hours a week with agencies and individuals committed to social justice, advocacy, and compassionate care for vulnerable people.
A Year of Service = A Lifetime of Inspiration
Longtime Emmaus House supporter Sam Dimon served as an Emmaus House fellow beginning in the summer of 1975. There, he engaged with Emmaus House’s work and mission on multiple fronts: he taught youth during summer camp, delivered items from the food pantry, helped out in the Poverty Rights Office, identified and assisted neighbors being displaced by development, and much, much more.
"At Emmaus House, I learned the reward of really seeing each person I was serving,” says Sam. “That lesson has stayed with me ever since."
Following his fellowship, Sam continued to serve the community, working in a daycare center across the street for several months. He was so impacted by his service learning experience that he has continued to support Emmaus House ever since.
Never Stop Learning
Though our model has adapted over the years, we’re proud to continue the tradition of service learning today.
The current Emmaus House Fellowship seeks to develop the next generation of leaders who will help transform Atlanta into a more equitable city. This six-month, cohort-based model allows young adults to learn about community challenges and add their voice to community-driven opportunities.
We’re very excited to introduce our three fellows for 2024:
Laurel Wynn - Workforce Development & Employment
Emma Sullivan - Child and Youth Education
Marcus Cook - Safe and Affordable Housing & Community Safety
Over the next six months, we’ll be providing these fellows with professional development opportunities and connecting them with community leaders. They will attend neighborhood community meetings in Peoplestown and other neighborhoods as well as monthly Neighborhood Planning Unit V (NPU-V) meetings. On top of that, they’ll have weekly meetings with Emmaus House staff and, at the end of their fellowships, will submit reports summarizing their experiences and lessons learned.
We’re thrilled to have them and cannot wait to see how this experience transforms them and, ultimately, how they transform their communities.
Click below to learn more about the Emmaus House Fellowship.