Become an UrbanPlan Volunteer

Volunteers must commit to one ~7-hour training that requires ~3-4 hours of advance preparation. After completing the training, volunteers are eligible to participate as facilitators or “city council” members in at the participating schools. Trained volunteers can elect to participate in a facilitation, which typically lasts 45 minutes, or a “city council” day, which typically last between 90 minutes and 3 hours depending on the size of the class.

Interested in becoming a trained volunteer? Please contact Sofia Guerrero via e-mail at  sofia.guerrero@uli.org  or call 917.773.8834

Volunteers in the Classroom

The Students:

• High school seniors in economics and government classes.
• Graduate students whose focus is land use: city and regional planning, business, real estate, architecture, and law.

Volunteers’ Roles:

Facilitator: Facilitators engage in Socratic interaction twice with the student teams over the course of the 15 class-hour project and prior to the presentations of proposals. This process is transformative to the students’ insights and capacities.

City Council: The “City Council” hears the student proposals, challenges them as would a City Council, and awards the development contract to the winning “developer.”