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| Last updated on March 27, 2008 |
The Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) provides men and women age 50 and over the opportunity to serve the needs of people who are poor, to work for a more just society, and to grow deeper in Christian faith by reflecting and praying in the Ignatian tradition.
Description:
Ignatian Volunteers commit to serve two days a week for 10 months a year. Many volunteers renew that commitment year after year. Volunteers spend their time in local Service Sites that are identified as IVC partners. These community organizations work directly with people who are materially poor or in organizations that address the structures that affect people who are poor. Care is taken in matching a volunteer's talents to an organization’s needs, but often volunteers discover and develop new skills when they choose to work at projects unrelated to their former job experience.
IVC works in partnership with hundreds of Service Sites. These nonprofit organizations provide Ignatian Volunteers with substantive work to serve individuals who have slipped through this country’s safety net. Hundreds of Service Sites are on waiting lists to get an Ignatian Volunteer.
Volunteers are supported in their Christian faith by IVC’s unique spiritual reflection program. Through their caring service and the relationships they build, Volunteers are creating a more just society.
The men and women who serve in the IVC are people who are eagerly moving to a new phase of their lives. Their backgrounds are broad. IVC volunteers have either retired from their primary careers or they have reduced the amount of time they work each week as they move toward full time retirement.
IVC volunteers commit to working two days a week in service to the poor, mid-September through June, for one year. Volunteers spend their time primarily in nonprofit charitable agencies, organizations that serve the needs of the poor or address the structures affecting the poor. The option to continue in the IVC beyond a year is possible for those who wish to do so.
Care is taken in matching a volunteer's talents to a service project meeting the agency's needs, but often volunteers discover and develop new skills when they choose to work at projects unrelated to their former job experience.
Although based in the Christian tradition, the Ignatian Volunteer Corps is open to people of all faiths.
History:
In September 1995, two Jesuit priests, Jim Conroy S.J. and Charlie Costello S.J., gathered a small group of retired men and women to form the Ignatian Volunteer Corps. Out of the IVC founders' experience came the realization of a shared vision: a program for retired women and men, age 50 and over, with two major components: ministry to the poor and reflection on that ministry.
Drawing on their Jesuit tradition, Conroy and Costello designed a unique process of spiritual reflection that includes keeping a journal, engaging in one-to-one spiritual conversations, participating in a group reflection process, and attending a series of short retreats each year. The reflection process, in effect, transforms a volunteer's activity from service into mission, thus setting the IVC apart from other volunteer programs.
Other parameters of the program specified that volunteers would remain in their present living situation, and that they would commit to the equivalent of two days' service each week with people who are materially poor or in organizations that address the structures affecting people who are poor. The volunteers would receive no stipend, and they could renew their commitment annually.
Contact person: Jim Kelley, Regional Director, (phone), (email)
Address:
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131 Great Falls St.
Falls Church, VA 22046
(See a map) |
Web Site: http://www.ivcusa.org
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