On A Mission From God

In 2009, on the sideline of a University of Illinois football game, I met a Catholic priest. He was the chaplain for the football team. He started telling me about his campus ministry, located just a few blocks away. Soon an invitation came and we were headed that direction. Now mind you, it was a late night on a college football Saturday. I made the assumption that students would be out on the town. I was wrong. Gathered in the common area of this Newman Center were hundreds of students. Some were playing games, some were studying and others were in what appeared to be a bible study. Having not gone to college myself, I was simply amazed. I asked the priest if these centers existed everywhere. To my surprise, he told me, with the student housing component, “No, we are the only one.” I looked at him and said, “Not for long.” The very next day I started Newman Student Housing Fund with the idea of bringing inspired living to every college campus in America.

Matthew Zerrusen

Co-Founder

FIVE

HALLS BUILT

FOUR

MANAGED

1,500+

RESIDENTS

Why Newman Student Housing?

We know the model, we created it.

One of the reasons we have been successful is because the first step we took was to sit down with the University of Illinois and figure out what they were doing. What do they like about their program? What do they dislike about it? What are the hurdles and what are the advantages?

We spent a few days with the Illinois team working through their operation. We looked at the numbers, the marketing, the messaging, the org chart, we analyzed everything. From this study came the business plan for Newman Student Housing Fund.

We have since taken this model and are scaling it on college campuses across this country. We’ve learned a lot along the way, making the model even stronger.

As we continue forward, it is our goal to build communities like these on every college campus so we can inspire students to live out their best life.

* Note: Our communities are open to students of all faiths or no faith.