Lessons came to some while working with the homeless in Seattle. Others came while sharing tears with convicted and rehabilitated sex offenders, or knocking on the doors of those on parole.

About two dozen students from universities across the nation are spending four weeks in Seattle and Tacoma as part of the Here’s Life Inner City program, a project of the national Campus Crusade for Christ. Recently, they spent a day with Department of Corrections officers in Tacoma, seeing how the agency helps offenders adjust to life on the outside.

“We are learning about the walks of life that we don’t normally see,” said Diana Mason, a junior at James Madison University in Virginia. “Coming in and seeing them really teaches us a lot … When we came out here, we were out of our comfort zone.”

Campus Crusade is a national nondenominational Christian organization on college campuses. Students pay their own way for the summer program, hoping for insights that supplement not only their education but also their understanding of society. The program ends Saturday.

“We started doing this because we thought it would be good to give the students a good dose of wisdom before they went running into the streets helping every homeless person they came across,” said Chris Millheilser, field staff member for Here’s Life.

This wisdom comes through taking students to meet homeless residents in Seattle, as well as working with urban churches and spending time with corrections officers.

The students’ first event in Tacoma was a two-hour discussion with convicted sex offenders. The emotional conversation focused on the rehab program, and how the men have learned to face what they did and try to re-enter society.

“We learned a lot about how everyone is valuable in life, how everyone has worth,” said Kaitlin Brindley, a junior at High Point University in North Carolina. “We realized a lot of stereotypes are not really true.”

Corrections re-entry specialist Kelly Hubbard, who served as a ringleader for the day, said the department gets involved in this project because it wants to show a more positive face to the community, especially young people. The program serves as a learning experience and an introduction to corrections, she said.

“It’s amazing to see how much these kids have grown over the last couple days,” she said. “I’ve talked to a couple of them, they really got an inside view of what it’s like to work so closely with the people and I think it really humanized a lot of the offenders.”

Groups of students followed corrections officers as they checked on parolees and sex offenders. It was an eye-opener.

“It gave me more confidence in the way that our society is being worked and how people are getting back on their feet, cared about, respected and being held accountable for,” said Teresa Whitfield, a junior at Ohio University.

Brian Everstine: 253-597-8374 To see a video of the Here’s Life program students, go to the multimedia section of our Web site after 11 a.m. today.

thenews tribune.com