Louisville Urban Corps

Louisville Urban Corps is a young adult service/learning program that especially values the Anabaptist faith emphases of peacemaking, community building and simplicity. Louisville Urban Corps creates work opportunities that support vocational exploration and practical faith formation in supportive community living.

Like it’s sister city programs, Louisville Urban Corps participants live in shared household and work in various business and agency settings developing strengths in their areas of vocational interest. The group meets weekly to explore the issues they face related to living and serving in an urban environment.

Core values:

Supportive Community characterized by respect, compassion, generosity and honesty. God-Centered Vitality as envisioned by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Inclusively that fosters learning, risk-taking and joy through our diversity.

Louisville

Located down river from our sister program in Pittsburgh, Louisville is a smaller urban center that has a reputation for having a small town heart with city size programs.

The unique location of Louisville has allowed it to develop as a center for both culture and services. Louisville has five professional arts; ballet, symphony, adult theater, children's theater and opera. Only the city of LA can boast this level of commitment to the arts. Louisville has also developed as a premier health center with the availability of cutting edge heart, hand and brain surgeries.

Our neighborhood

The Louisville Urban Corps household is located in South Louisville, an old working class neighborhood six miles from downtown. Over the past ten years the neighborhood has experienced an influx of people representing over 40 cultures and speaking over 20 languages. The immigrants and refugees coming to Louisville are supported by several agencies including our neighbor, the Americana Community Center. Participants live on the second floor of a building attached to the community center.

The word from our worksites

“Louisville Urban Corps is making a great contribution to the Community Center and the neighborhood. The young adults bring a vitality and new energy to the work and people they are serving.”
- Edgardo Mansilla, American Community Center.

"Louisville Urban Corps scores top rating in my book for providing Emily as a Kentucky Homefront staff person. She brings an informed perspective and specific skills that help strengthen our non-profit organization. The added dimension, for me, is the spiritual perspective in which the work (often mundane) becomes a sacred ritual that seeks to nurture the spirit of our constituents. Thanks, LUC!"
- John Gage, Kentucky Homefront.