Cru members share faith stories through online campaign

Cru, a Christian religious organization with an affiliated group on campus, recently launched a media campaign called “My Story” that allowed its members to share personal stories with the world.

“It’s a group of students telling their stories, typing it and then sharing it with the world,” USD Cru President Jordan Hins said.

Those who participated in the project spoke about how they have been helped and inspired in their lives by God.

“Everyone has a story that is unique, and my story may be different than someone else’s, but I think that telling it is a great way to connect to each other through experiences of trials in our lives,” said Josh Hayes, a USD Cru member and strategic communications major.

The week-long campaign was not exclusive to the 35 to 40 USD students that participated, but also included students from other South Dakota universities. Overall, about 200 people had a role in the campaign.

South Dakota Cru leaders met in Sioux Falls for a day to plan the campaign. During that day, they decided to start the My Story webpage, which features stories and video content.

Hayes said the goal was to make viewers think about how their stories could impact others in a good way.

“I thought it was really cool,” said Meredith Jenkins, a sophomore and Cru leader who participated in the campaign. “I’ve shared it with friends on campus and a couple of friends at home.”

Hayes said that since posting their stories, Cru has received many emails and messages from people who related and connected to the campaign.

“Our campaign reached a lot of countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Russia, China and even North Korea for a bit,” she said.

While discussing the statistics after posting their stories, Hayes said the campaign was expected to be seen by 20,000 to 30,000 people on Facebook, but was seen by about 1.2 million people instead.

“I think that’s something that we didn’t realize, how big of an impact this would actually make,” Hayes said.

Those who participated had a get-together to celebrate the campaign once it was over. While celebrating, they were able to discuss the significance of the postings.

“It was cool to see the statistics at the end to see who had read your story and the impact that it had,” Jenkins said.