What is YCP Portland’s Mission?
The mission of Young Catholic Professionals (YCP) is to challenge, train, and inspire young adults in various professions to Work in Witness for Christ. Our chapter mission is to foster community and fellowship in the young adults of the Portland area and Western Oregon at large. We are a faith based group dedicated to helping young adults grow in their spiritual and professional lives.
YCP Portland Events/Networking
We unify this age segment of the Portland Body of Christ in their 20’s and 30’s through monthly events such as speaker events, networking happy hours, and two annual retreats. The speaker events consist of either one keynote speaker or 3 speakers that participate in a panel discussion, followed by general Q and A and group discussions. Speakers are seasoned professionals, business owners, corporate executives, etc. for young adults to gain insights on how to live out their Faith in today’s business and cultural climate.
No matter where young adults are in their Faith life, they are welcomed into a community of several other young adult Catholics in various career fields to not only grow professionally, but also personally and spiritually.
What are YCP Portland’s current initiatives?
In a time when being a young adult Catholic is increasingly challenging, YCP Portland cultivates the young adult Catholic community to navigate these challenges and grow deep friendships. Our participants often meet their post-college best friends through YCP.
We are continuing to grow our chapter’s community. We especially want to focus on evangelization we want to be the low barrier of entry for people who have walked away from Catholicism and people who are interested in Catholicism. We want everyone to come and experience community and spiritual fellowship at YCP Portland.
We also have a mentorship program in which we pair young adults with mentors in their respective career fields that provide advise, feedback, and direction in whatever that young adult is seeking.
YCP Portland’s Director of Marketing, Dylan Encarnacion, is a UP Alum! What is he doing now?
From Dylan: “My time at UP was the catapult that lead me to strengthen my faith and professional life. The lessons, professors, and colleagues I had were instrumental to my success in my adult life. I still have some amazing friends from UP that I am connected with. I am grateful that the UP community has always had resources for me as a student and alumni.
Now a days I have a fun saying that marketing is my entire life. My full time job is marketing, my side job is marketing and my volunteer job is marketing. Right now I am the Marketing Manager at the Shutterbug Camera Stores. It’s the oldest Family Owned and Operated Camera Store in Oregon. I support business development, sales and marketing. A lot of my job is working with our vendors/manufacturer partners on building sales and marketing assets. I advertise our stores in-store services and manufacturer promotions to help get people in our stores. As for my side business I run a small social media agency that is geared towards small and medium size businesses win on social media, other services I provide is brand photography and videography.
Lastly I am the co-director of Marketing for YCP Portland where I use my skills to promote the groups mission and be a beacon to Catholic Professionals that there is a community for you.”
How can the UP community support YCP?
- Presence on Campus – In terms of support from the UP community, we want to have a great presence on campus so that the students finishing up college at UP know the value of getting involved with YCP and how to get involved. We imagine the business school at UP would also see the value in providing YCP exposure to the business students because those students will have a higher likelihood of staying in the Faith, coming back to the Faith, or joining the Faith, and as a result I imagine would continue to support UP as Catholics post-graduation.
- Board Members – We are also very much seeking board members right now. We have a few people rolling off and we want to fill those spots and add more. We always welcome prospective board members to attend our events so they can see what the group is all about. This is a very strong chapter amongst all the chapters across the country. These are important roles to help us create amazing events for the catholic community. We’re also always looking for speakers and panelist for our events.
- Follow Us! – For young adults please join our mailing list or follow our social media. That’s great way to learn about us and our events. Come to an event, most of them are free and there is always a spiritual and social element to it.
Connect with YCP Portland
Please visit YCP Portland’s website for more information at – https://www.youngcatholicprofessionals.org/chapter/portland
