When you think of mission trips, you probably think of traveling to another city, or even another country. Thanks to a new organization in Des Moines, Urban Plunge, groups can get immersed in mission work in their own backyard.
             
Urban Plunge takes participants to nine different partner organizations during the weekend and provides food and housing for participants. At each non-profit partner group, participants serve for two to three hours. Most partner groups, such as Children and Family Urban Ministries and Serve Our Youth, center on serving the poor and underprivileged in the Des Moines Metro.
             
Urban Plunge was started in Des Moines after a similar program was successfully launched two hours away in Omaha. Because of the multiple locations, participants can easily stay in their local city or, if wishing to visit a different city, they can partner with Urban Plunge in Omaha or a number of other cities.

According to Bill Clark, director of the Des Moines Urban Plunge program, most groups that participate are youth groups. But church staffers and others have participated, and the program is flexible enough that it can be tailored to a number of different groups. The partner groups that Urban Plunge primarily works with have needs that can benefit from volunteers helping for a short amount of time.

While the goal of an Urban Plunge weekend is to serve “the least of these,” Clark says the organization has other goals -- one of the biggest being to get people “open and out of their comfort zone.” Clark also sees the Urban Plunge weekend as a way for participants who live in Des Moines to see needs that are around them that they may not have known about before participating. Clark hopes that the experience will lead former participants to become more involved individually in their local community's needs and use the experience as a launching pad to take those needs back to their church communities.
 
There is a fee of $95 per person, plus $200 for the group to participate in Urban Plunge. Interested groups can check out the Urban Plunge website or contact Bill Clark at bill@cfci.org.