Part of the third annual National Day of Interfaith Youth Service will take place Saturday in the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area. Interfaith in Action, a student-run Registered Student Organization, is responsible for this event’s organization and facilitation.

The purpose of the event is to cultivate understanding among religious youths of different faiths and to encourage young people to reinforce their own religious identities through service to the local, national and global communities.

The day is a relatively new tradition first envisioned by University alumnus Eboo Patel, founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core.

Rozina Kanchwala, co-chair of Interfaith in Action and senior in LAS, is heavily involved in the event and said she is looking forward to this Saturday.

“It’s encouraging to see the number of enthusiastic people to come together and work toward a common goal,” Kanchwala said.

The event’s introductory remarks include speeches from Rev. Monsignor Stuart Swetland, chaplain and director of the St. John’s Catholic Chapel in Champaign and Gerald Schweighart, mayor of Champaign.

The base of the day’s activities center on a two-hour session in which volunteers participate in projects at one of eight sites around Champaign-Urbana. Each location is facilitated by one or two members of Interfaith in Action and consists of at least 10 volunteers.

After returning from the project site, the participants will arrive at the Siebel Center, 201 N. Goodwin Ave., where they will receive a free meal and then head to various settings on campus to eat and participate in religious discussions to promote interfaith dialogue. These conversations are to provide students with an opportunity to inform themselves of different beliefs that they would not otherwise understand, said Nick Price, co-chair of Interfaith in Action and senior in LAS.

“We’re overwhelmed by the amount of support we’ve gotten from classmates, religious leaders and the whole community,” said Anne Rubin, member of Interfaith in Action and senior in LAS.

“Events like this, programs like this, emphasize the fact that while prayer in churches, mosques and synagogues are important to different religions, we all share the community,” Price said. “We all share public places like streets, parks, schools and (the National Day of Interfaith Youth Service) shows us how interfaith dialogue is an essential method for achieving this goal of understanding.”