Simple acts of kindness hold a deeper significance when helping the homeless community, says Hastings College senior Vince Byrne, who was inspired to help his community and apply his missionary work and communications background by interning at Christ in the City this summer.
“It’s about building connections with our homeless community here in Denver. We want to be a support system for these people because the biggest illness that runs through the streets in Denver is loneliness,” said Byrne, a communications major from Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
Christ in the City is a Catholic, nonprofit organization based in Denver since 2010. It is committed to serving the poor and homeless in the metro area. Every day, missionaries walk the streets of downtown, offering physical assistance, such as food and water, as well as spiritual support through fellowship and connection. These routes are assigned to the same people every day to build relationships with the homeless people in the area.
In his internship, the communications major has been expanding on both his communication skills behind the scenes while also learning how missionary operates.
When Byrne isn’t directly helping those in need in his community, he works on creating content for the organization through videography and editing.
For example, he helps tell the story of Christ in the City by producing lunch in the park videos. Lunch in the park is a large, friendly gathering of homeless community members, volunteers, missionaries and other community members where they all enjoy lunch together. For Byrne, his task is to help come up with pictures and captions for the social media platforms to update followers and supporters.
“Creating content about what we do at Christ in the City is rewarding, but seeing it come to life in real-time is even more fulfilling,” he said. “Watching the posts on social media and spreading our mission to the community is truly gratifying work.”
A typical workday for him includes many personal and group prayer sessions, followed by training from the yearly missionaries. For Byrne, these sessions provide guidance on what it means to be a missionary, how to serve and what that looks like to the homeless community. After the team-leading sessions, they pack up the supplies to hand out during their walking routes for the day.
“It’s building these relationships with some of my homeless friends and seeing them open up and share their burden with us and trusting us is the most rewarding for doing this community work. It’s knowing I am making an active change to my community by showing spiritual companionship and kindness that makes me wake up daily,” Byrne said.
His ties to communication experience back to his time spent on the Hastings College media team.
Much of Byrne’s knowledge in editing and videography comes from assisting media professor Jarod Rogers in his media courses and media team.
Byrne’s plan for after graduation is to work in communications and as a missionary at a non-profit like Christ in the City. He said he looks forward to applying both his spiritual and communication experiences in the future as he looks to help community members feel seen.
By Cecilia Velarde, a senior marketing and communication studies double major from Loveland, Colorado
