Episcopal Press and News

Volunteer Service Opportunities

Diocesan Press Service. March 6, 1964 [XIX-17]

How can college students and other young adults express their desire for service and adventure? Three National Council programs - the Voluntary Service Program, Volunteers for Mission and the Apprenticeship Program - have provided many with opportunities to serve, to engage in mission and to grow in their own faith.

This summer, for example, 18 American volunteers will work with fellow-Christians in Central Tanganyika on a work camp. According to the Rev. Alton H. Stivers, associate secretary in the College and Universities Division, "volunteers have experienced the breaking down of the barriers of language, culture, nationality and race and the building up of personal relationships among equals built on a new and deeper understanding."

Those applicants who are chosen for the Central Tanganyika project, and their American leader, the Rev. Ronald Maitland, Episcopal chaplain at the University of Minnesota, will cooperate in a construction project at the Theological School in Kongwa, Tanganyika. Participants will pay their own transportation and expenses (approximately $1, 000). Financial help is sometime available, however, from the participants' parish, Canterbury Association, or diocesan Episcopal Churchwomen or laymen's groups.

This summer's projects will also include work in "inner-city" parishes in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles and other urban centers including Mayaguez, Puerto Rico; at rural missions such as the Good Shepherd Mission, Fort Defiance, Ariz.; or with migrant workers in central New York. Volunteers conduct vacation bible schools, do parish visiting, work with children and youth and live as a group; sharing in work, worship, study and recreation.

Recent college graduates who want to serve for an extended period of time can enter the Volunteers for Mission Program. After an interview and orientation the volunteers will serve overseas, in the urban centers of America or at Indian missions. The volunteer's duties will depend upon his or her skills but they will generally be in educational, recreational, agricultural or community relations fields. Transportation and a small monthly allowance are provided.

The year-long Apprenticeship Program offers a third option to recent college graduates. This program is designed to give apprentices a year in which they may explore their field of major interest and come to a decision about future vocation and training. Placements are in three areas: parish work, social work, and college work. All who are accepted for the program will have a three-week orientation session before going to their placements, which are scattered throughout the United States. Apprentices receive a salary which, while less than those of professional workers, is adequate.

Students can also find opportunities in the ecumenical work camps of the Student Christian Federation, or through the Winant Volunteers. This latter program, begun after World War II, gives American students the chance to assist "inner-city" parishes in East London and other British cities with community service.

Further information on these programs can be obtained from the Committee on Voluntary Service, 815 Second Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10017.