Saint Paul's Outreach is run by Catholic college students nationally. The ASU chapter of the national organization performs community service out of the All Saints Catholic Newman Center. (Photo by Dominic Valente)
An on-campus program is helping students learn to live with each other while practicing their beliefs.
Saint Paul’s Outreach, a Catholic organization, is a group of students who are willing to transform their college experience and commit to one another as Christians, program officials said.
Spanish senior Monica Butler has been involved with the group for three years.
“I mean it’s radical,” she said. “It’s kind of a serious commitment, which I think is atypical of so many college students.”
The program allows ASU students to connect with peers who share their goal of holiness and create a community based on their faith, Butler said. Saint Paul's Outreach has two separate apartments, one for male members and one for female students, with designated space for prayer.
“If I didn’t have Saint Paul’s Outreach, I would be totally lost,” Butler said. “ASU is so huge, I think I would just drown.”
The members go through an application process and sign a contract before they can be considered for the yearly commitment of living in the household, Butler said.
The contract requires them to follow a set of restrictions that coincide with their beliefs, including not dating anyone within the program, Butler said.
The club focuses on brotherhood and sisterhood and wants to keep the two living environments separate, Mission Leader Abe Gross said.
"The club has no official membership or invitation process," he said. "Members are those who regularly attends the events, as well as the 14 students who live in the club's apartments."
The club tries to keep a balance between reaching out to students on campus and maintaining its community, Gross said.
“You can get really really focused on getting people to your outreach, because it makes you look good,” Gross said.
When Gross arrived in 2013, the ASU chapter was focusing too much on communion and not enough on engaging other students, he said.
“I didn’t see a lot of people reaching out on campus,” Gross said. “It’s not just being closed off from the world in our own little nice bubble.”
The club promotes itself by giving out flyers and Otter Pops on the Tempe campus but still acquires the majority of its members through word of mouth.
“I think if people are looking for some sense of community and are interested in what we do, it works,” Butler said.
The apartment building that houses the 14 members is broken up into two identical parts, separating the men and women.
The two five-room apartments provide three bedrooms, a prayer room and a guest room for anyone who wants to stay the night and participate in morning prayer, Butler said.
Saint Paul’s Outreach began in Minnesota 25 years ago but didn’t start expanding until 2000.
The club has seven official chapters at college campuses nationwide but maintains a presence at 33 campuses.
The ASU chapter of Saint Paul’s Outreach has been around since 2007 but did not become an official mission center until 2012.
The club’s goal is to build a community that awakens and matures its members' faith, Mission Leader Rebecca Loomis said.
“SPO changed my life,” Loomis said. “It provided accountability, challenges, formation and encouragement, all within an amazing community.”
Reach the reporter at ldelato2@asu.edu
