CLU students to spend a night with the homeless

California Lutheran University students and staff will feed the homeless and spend the night at a shelter tomorrow, Fri., Feb. 1.

The volunteers will help serve dinner, clean up after the meal and distribute bedding to the men and women staying at First United Methodist Church in Thousand Oaks. The students and staff members will eat with and talk to the residents before spending the night in the shelter with them.

Lutheran Social Services coordinates the homeless program, through which seven local churches and a host of volunteers alternate providing nightly meals throughout the year and shelter in the winter.

Several CLU students participated in a winter shelter overnight for the first time last year, and the experience was so powerful that the program was organized again this year.

CLU's Community Service Center organizes several projects every year in keeping with university's mission to educate leaders committed to service and justice. About 40 students and staff members spent Jan. 10 through 18 in Biloxi, Miss., rebuilding homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina through Habitat for Humanity's Project REHAB.