Summer Service Program

From Florida to California and New York to Texas, young people are making a difference in their home communities through the MCC Summer Service Program.

This program enables people of diverse ethnic backgrounds — such as African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino and Native American — to work with a church or service agency in their home communities for 10 weeks. MCC and local congregations support participants. More than 1,000 people have participated in the program since it began in the early 1980s.

Most Summer Service participants are young adults, often college students, who also develop leadership skills and build relationships through the summer program.

"Summer Service was very important for me," says Dionicio Acosta, a former Summer Service worker in Pennsylvania who now works with program applicants. "It helped me meet a whole network of people and was also a door to further service." Since completing his summer term, Acosta has served through MCC in Honduras and Colombia and now works with MCC East Coast.