By: Camrin Jeans

Campus Ventures at Casper College provides students with a community to be known, cared for, and encouraged to grow while also sharing the opportunity to show the same support to others.  

CV is a Christian nonprofit organization at CC focused on ministry, helping students grow in faith and build connections, and the relationships of students and faculty reflect that.  The organization hosts weekly meetings, and students continue interacting with one another outside of the organization’s established meeting schedule.

Caden Bright, an associate staff member CV, said his connection with the organization started when he was a student. Five years ago, Bright majored in business administration and dismissed attending CV events, brushing it off as a place that answered basic questions of faith and Jesus. His perspective shifted as he became more involved in the campus community and eventually started to learn more about discipleship when he joined as a student volunteer. 

“I’ve been a believer most of my life but then just fell in love with this idea of discipleship and not living out my faith just for me, but for others as well,” Bright said.  

Bright saw discipleship play out with a guy he met during a previous school year, Austin “Woody” Woodgreen. Bright said he had been inviting Woodgreen to come to CV for some time, but he always turned Bright down. After some time, another student then invited Woodgreen to Campus Ventures, and Bright connected with him when he attended. Woodgreen told Bright that CV answered a prayer in providing a community for a young believer such as himself. A month later, Bright baptized Woodgreen. Now, Woodgreen is part of the leadership staff, discipling and reaching out to other students.   

For Wyatt Dockendorf, a theater arts major, CV became important to him after his difficulties connecting to others his first visit. Dockendorf was dealing with a severe back injury at the time and left a meeting with a poor first impression of CV. Instead of having that decide his thoughts on CV, he went back to give it a second shot.  

“I heard a thing a few weeks before I first went,” Dockendorf said. “‘Just because you tried it once doesn’t mean you got the full picture.’”  

As Dockendorf became more involved with the CV community, he said the relationships he gained proved the most impactful part of his faith. Dockendorf spends much of his time off campus with the friends he made from the community, including hiking and camping trips, late night hangouts, and casual social meetups.  

Dockendorf said, “Before Campus Ventures, I really found it hard to make friends because I just didn’t really know how. Whereas with this, they’re kind of like, ‘Well, we want friends too, so let’s be friends together.’”  

Dockendorf described the support from his peers as selfless, with people going out of their way to take care of each other even with menial things. For example, Dockendorf shared that when he visits a house several girls from CV share, they feed him without a second thought.   

“I didn’t ask you to do that, but thank you,” Dockendorf said.   

While Bright shared how CV helped him discipline other students, Dockendorf described what it was like to receive that investment.  

For students hesitant to become involved with CV, Bright said to “come and see” and to give it some time before writing it off.   

“It’s a really sweet community of people loving each other,” Bright said, “Not perfectly, because we’re still human, but sweetly—the way Jesus intended.”   

Dockendorf believes the same thing, saying the best way to understand CV is to give it time. A single meeting, he said, may not show everything Campus Ventures offers.  

“Just because you’ve gone once or twice doesn’t mean you got to see everything there is to offer,” Dockendorf said. “Maybe you just got unlucky with timing, or everybody who wanted to talk to you got busy talking to other new people.”