The Urban Challenge
The Urban Challenge Program is an urban, service-learning, immersion experience rooted in the Catholic faith tradition. The program offers a point of access to the lives and stories of the people of Camden, NJ and its surrounding communities.
We invite participants to enter into the mystery of the Preferential Option for the Poor and to encounter others through service. Many participants come prepared for what they will do for Camden, but are typically unprepared for what Camden will do for them.
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The Urban Challenge is a unique educational and retreat opportunity that helps its participants gain an understanding of urban poverty, its causes, and the many issues that people living in these communities confront every day of their lives. Camden offers a heart-wrenching study of urban decay and its effects: a failing educational system, a lack of affordable housing, an absence of employment opportunities, homelessness, hunger, violence, and environmental injustice.
The Urban Challenge invites participants to look at these issues through the lens of faith—challenging ideas of urban poverty with the purpose of growing in understanding, compassion, and willingness to act on behalf of the poor and vulnerable long after they have left the Romero Center.
Faith. Service. Community.
The Urban Challenge Program is comprised of three fundamental components:
Faith within the Urban Challenge Program is manifested through prayer, reflection, Catholic Social Teaching principles, and an opportunity to celebrate Mass with the community of St. Joseph Pro Cathedral. Faith allows participants a means to focus on their service and activities and sets a meaningful backdrop for their experience in Camden. Participants will engage in reflections related to themes of Catholic Social Teaching, as well as participate in simulations focused on social inequality. Participants are called to awaken to the intersection of their lives with the lives of those in need and Christ’s call to respond to the needs of others.
Service is arranged each day to provide participants with an opportunity to encounter others and to discover/rediscover their own gifts and talents. Service is presented as either a ministry of labor (sorting food, landscaping, preparing/serving food) or a ministry of presence (sharing stories with the very young and very old, playing games at a community center). Both types of service aim to expose participants to the benefits and challenges of urban communities and the various issues confronting the least of these living within those communities.
Community at the Romero Center is an extension of the idea that we are all part of one human family, and we belong together. During the Urban Challenge, community will be emphasized through community meals, activities, reflections, and shared spaces (community rooms, kitchen, and dining areas). Participants will be encouraged to support the Romero Center community by listening respectfully as others reflect, being present to those gathered, being discreet with cell phone use, and respecting other participants’ need for rest and space.
Romero Center Ministries’ Urban Challenge is one of the most comprehensive service-immersion programs in the United States. We offer:
Staff-facilitated discussions and activities
Service site placement in Camden, Philadelphia, and surrounding communities in need
Simple dinners; self-serve breakfast and lunch
Church and chapel on-site
Simple accommodations for 50 guests
