As economy booms, volunteers
drop
By TERESA MALCOLM NCR
Staff
A booming U.S. economy and increasing competition among lay
mission programs mean that the pool of Catholic volunteers is spread thin, say
experts in the field, who are looking for new recruits beyond the usual target
of Catholic college students.
The drop in prospective volunteers is definitely a
widespread trend, said Margaret Weeks, membership and recruitment
coordinator for the Catholic Network of Volunteer Services. Both small
and large programs across the board are experiencing really low
numbers.
The volunteer shortage became known in recent months when the
Jesuit Volunteer Corps announced it was closing houses in Oregon -- two of its
three Portland houses and one in Medford. Former communities in Boise, Idaho,
and Seattle also did not open this summer, and another in Yakima, Wash., closed
last year.
Volunteerism has traditionally risen with a weak economy. In a
yearlong volunteer program, recent college graduates are able to be hired for
work they wouldnt find in a tight job market and gain professional
experience, Weeks said. But with the current strong economy, people get
these jobs more easily and so are less apt to volunteer, she said.
Paul Cavanaugh, director of the Vincentian Service Corps East,
agreed. Theres a core group who have been involved in service a
long time, but theres another group that only starts to explore this
option as theyre leaving college, he said. But if jobs are
available, they dont get past that first idea.
Collecting hard data
A task force on the problem has been established by the Catholic
Network of Volunteer Services, an organization based in Washington that acts as
a clearinghouse for short- and long-term volunteer opportunities in the United
States and throughout the world. The network formed the task force in response
to reports from its member programs of a decline in volunteers.
Weeks, who is leading the task force, said they are in the process
of collecting hard data to back up the anecdotal accounts of unstaffed
programs.
Jim Lindsay, executive director of the network, said that the
organizations list of urgent needs illustrated the troubles programs have
encountered this year. Normally only two or three programs are on the
urgency list, he said. This past year, all throughout the summer at
least 20 programs were on the list seeking volunteers for the fall at that late
date.
One problem the task force has discussed is the competition among
faith-based programs and also with secular programs such as Americorps for the
limited pool of potential volunteers.
Cavanaugh, a member of the networks task force, said he does
not see a tremendous overlap between secular and faith-based
programs. He also noted the Vincentian Service Corps cooperates with
Americorps, allowing its volunteers to be eligible for Americorps
Education Only Award, in which the volunteer gets a grant of $4,750 to pay
tuition or an education loan.
Renée King, 23, considered serving in Americorps but was
drawn to the community life of the Vincentian Service Corps. Unlike many of the
Americorps programs she considered, you are not placed alone in the
Vincentian Service Corps, she said. They provide support, not only
through the Vincentian order, but also they give you support staff in the
community you live in.
When she graduated from the College of St. Elizabeth in
Morristown, N.J., King accepted a yearlong commitment with the Vincentians
working in Philadelphia at a womens shelter. She is the first person at
the college, run by the Sisters of Charity, to go into a Vincentian volunteer
program.
Cavanaugh also said that the numbers of Catholic lay volunteer
programs have surged in this decade. He said that the faith-based programs
share recruiting information so theres a lot of recruiting in the
same places. We need to reach out to a wider variety of people than weve
done before.
Traditionally the focus of recruiting has been students graduating
from Catholic colleges and universities, but the task force determined that
faith-based programs need to branch out to community colleges and state and
nonsectarian private schools, as well as looking beyond those who are 20 to 30
years old.
The Ignatian Lay Volunteer Corps is a program that has met success
focusing on retired adults instead of graduating students. Begun four years ago
by Jesuit Frs. Jim Conroy and Charles Costello in Baltimore, Washington and
Philadelphia, the program is open to men and women in their 50s to their 70s.
According to the programs codirector, Barbara Castellano, older adults
continue to live in their own homes but have the experience of a faith-based
community by meeting with other volunteers for reflection on the meaning
of their work, their joys, frustrations.
The program began with 11 volunteers in 1995 and now has 35. With
the number currently in the application process, Castellano said they expect to
have about 50 volunteers by the end of the year. The program has expanded to
New York City and Syracuse, N.Y., and may open in Reading, Pa. An advisory
board is looking into the possibility of taking the program nationwide.
We are absolutely delighted by the interest and
experience of the volunteers, Castellano said. They bring
professional work talents to agencies that couldnt afford to have someone
of that caliber come on board with them.
Advocacy for the poor
For instance, she said one volunteer was a senior vice president
with a Fortune 500 company and an attorney. He is now working with Catholic
Charities, arranging legal advocacy for the poor, especially in legislative
matters.
Costello, the programs 70-year-old cofounder, said they hope
to develop post-service spiritual programs for their volunteers, offering them
the opportunity to continue to reflect on their years service.
Id like to see volunteers develop their own Christian
life communities, he said, to continue their spiritual growth and also be
with other volunteers -- people of like mind and experience.
Recruiters stress the necessity of community support for those
considering going into service. In reaching out to new groups, an important
venue is the parish, Cavanaugh said. We need to really develop a sense of
this as one of many natural choices for a member of the parish
community.
Strong community support has proved effective on the college
level, most notably at Notre Dame, which has a strong tradition of
volunteerism, Weeks said. Notre Dame is such a breath of fresh air,
she said, where recruiters are likely to encounter students who are
stressed because they cant choose which program they want to go
into.
Andrea Smith Chappell, director of senior transition programs at
Notre Dames Center for Social Concerns, said that Notre Dame has shown no
decline in students pursuing volunteer work after college. Many students are
involved in service throughout their college years, and that whets their
appetite for the work, Chappell said. Notre Dame students have also been
able to arrange deferments with companies that hold a job for them while they
volunteer in a one- or two-year program.
Entering such a program is not as strange a thing to do as
it seems to a lot of people because at Notre Dame around 10 percent go on to
work in volunteer programs, said Eric Giovanni, a Notre Dame graduate who
is now with the Ursuline Companions in Mission.
Giovanni, 22, found volunteering to be a perfect outlet for his
interest in criminal justice. With my interest in working with people in
prisons, there werent hundreds of job opportunities presenting
themselves, he said. He works with children in juvenile detention centers
in St. Louis.
The call to serve the imprisoned runs deep in the Christian
faith, he said. I just dont know that there is as strong a
call for it in the secular world as in faith-based communities.
National Catholic Reporter, October 9,
1998
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