Programs

Listed below are all the programs that we offer here at UCF. If you have any questions about an activity or trip you can contact us here. Enjoy!

Direct Communtiy Service Programming

Community Enrichment and Educational Programming

  
 

After-School Program
The UCF After School Program serves the children of Bowling Green four days a week throughout the school year.  We work with parents and educators of both BG area schools and BGSU to provide the highest-quality mentoring environment.  A healthy snack, homework tutoring, Reading tutoring (with the “Reading A-Z” program) and large group activities are provided free of charge.

The ASP is offered M-Th from 3:30-5:30p.m. during the school year.  Please contact our office for more information about becoming a mentor or registering your child.

Community Clothing Closet
The UCF Community Clothing Closet offers gently used clothing to members of our community and those in the surrounding area.  This service is offered free of cost and no referral is needed.  Community volunteers and participants in the program maintain the Clothing Closet.  BGSU student organizations, such as the NAACP and Black Student Union, also donate their time gathering and organizing clothing donations from campus.

The Community Clothing Closet is offered during all regular UCF hours in the North Lounge

Community Garden
Summer 2008, the UCF and Peace Lutheran Church started a community garden located at Peace Lutheran Church on W. Wooster across the street from Stimmel's Market. Students, staff, and members of both churches teamed up to plant and maintain a garden where the food was entirely organic and free to the community. This summer, the UCF is teaming up with Peace Lutheran and First United Methodist to offer two community gardens, with the second garden opening at First United Methodist on E. Wooster St. behind Tim Hortons.

If you'd like to volunteer or be a part of the planning, planting, or maintenance of the garden, please contact Bill Thompson at wthomp@bgsu.edu. Visit the Community Gardens Website for more information.

for more information.

Garden Planning Meetings are at 5:15PM at the UCF through May 2009. Membership in the planning committee is open to all members of Bowling Green students and community members!

SmAP (Summer Arts Project)
SmAP is the summer extension of our After School Program and is offered as an intensive week long day camp. SmAP provides low-income area youth ages 5-12 with the opportunity to explore the arts. Each day a guest artist works with the children to explore the arts (yoga, meditation, gardening, story telling, tumbling, etc.), a healthy,vegitarian family style lunch is shared, and the visual arts are practiced in a creative, non-linear, and supportive mentoring environment.

The dates for SmAP are July 6th-10th 2009.
Please contact our office for more information about becoming a mentor or registering your child. Also, click here for more information about SmAP, sample lesson plans, and pictures!

Community Enrichment and Educational Programming

Community Bookshelf and Info Center
Community Bookshelf
The Community Bookshelf offers a wide variety of literature in the form of books, periodicals, and ‘zines.  Topics range from religious and spiritual texts, to information on relevant topics such as poverty, racism, sexuality, the environment, sustainable living, and community organizing.  A small selection of audio/visual materials is also available. Tables and chairs are available for exploration and study within the Bookshelf.  Individuals are also encouraged to sign out material to take home and enjoy at their leisure.

Info Center
The Info Center makes two computers with word processing software and Internet connections available to students and community members.  This is a great space to better your understanding of social issues that effect you and your community.  With this knowledge, UCF encourages students to take action in whatever form is most suitable for each individual.  Write a letter to a senator or the local news editor, create a ‘zine or informative flyer, develop a training or informative workshop…the possibilities are endless.

The Community Bookshelf and Info Center are offered during all regular UCF hours

Freedom
Freedom is a BGSU student organization affiliated with the UCF.  It is a community comprised of students who have participated in one or more of our cultural immersion trips, have been involved with our after school program, as well as other BGSU students interested in serving themselves and their community.

The purpose of Freedom is to free BGSU students from anxiety and negative thoughts and behavior.  This is done by teaching simple wellness practices that lead to healing, a sense of wholeness and feelings of peace. Freedom facilitates personal healing by providing students with projects that will help them learn to serve their community and create balance in their lives.  For it is in giving and receiving that one learns what it is to love and be loved.  This concept acts as a model for a lifelong process of acceptance, compassion, and learning from others. Freedom also uses workshops, teach-ins, retreats, and the creative arts to bring together a diverse but like minded population of individuals with the intent of empowering themselves with the skills, resources and support to do their own meaningful work in the world.

Freedom meets each Sunday evening from 8-11p.m. during the school year.  Membership is open to all BGSU students. For more information on Freedom click here!

Meditation
Offered as a 300 level philosophy course at BGSU.  This class integrates insight (mindfulness) meditation practice with theoretical reflection about a variety of meditation techniques and practices that have been developed in diverse meditation traditions.

Meditation class is offered Wednesdays 6-8p.m. (Spring Semester)

Open Art Studios
UCF’s Open Art Studio is a space dedicated to liberating the spirit through the expressive arts: including movement, visual art, creative writing, sound, and music.  An artist in residence and volunteers will staff the studio.  All materials will be provided and anyone is welcome to use the studio on a walk in basis.

The purpose of an open art studio is to encourage individuals to be creative.  By constructing art without training or structure, a person can be liberated.  Creating new images through art can motivate a person to imagine new images of what their life can be. 

The Open Art Studio is offered per student interest. Please contact Bill Thompson, wthomp@bgsu.edu, for details

Self Healing Space
The UCF Self Healing Space is a place designed to allow one to rejuvenate their inner self.  A space to focus on mental, emotional, and spiritual health while finding shelter from everyday hurry and stress.

We understand that you know yourself best and, if given the tools and the time, are your own greatest gift.  We hope that by providing this space, you will take the opportunity to re-connect with all that is beautiful within yourself.

The Self Healing Space is currently unavailable and will become available again on further notice.

Spiritual Direction and Counseling
What is Spiritual Direction?
Spiritual direction helps people tell their sacred stories or experiences of the spirit in everyday language.  This helps students learn how to live in peace, with compassion, promoting justice, as humble servants of that which lies beyond all names.
Spiritual direction is the contemplative practice of helping another person or group to awaken to the mystery (many call God) in all of life, and to respond to that discovery in a growing relationship of freedom and commitment.

Formal vs. Informal
Formal spiritual direction includes relationships that are explicitly defined as spiritual direction with a clear separation of roles between director and directee. Meetings are usually scheduled in advance on a regular basis, and a directee normally has only one formal director.
Informal spiritual companionship is characterized by a lack of structure and role definition. These relationships are not considered exclusive, and most people have several such companionships. Meetings tend to be irregular and spontaneous. There is nearly always some atmosphere of mutuality, and each person retains his or her own locus of discernment.

Spiritual Direction is offered at UCF on both a formal and informal basis.  Please contact our office for more information about spiritual direction.

Spiritual Support Group Bible Study
Spiritual Support Group for people who think progressively
Come and share your ideas, painting, drawings, short stories, poetry --- your story -

Every Wednesday at 7:00 PM at UCF