Introducing Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS)

By Christina Repoley

Several years ago I began to seriously consider the question of why so many Friends in my (young adult) age group who grew up in a Meeting are no longer active with Friends. Certainly that is a problem for many churches and faith communities, but it seemed a bigger issue for us. At the time, I was living in community with some Mennonites my age, and the situation was very different for them. Though they had many questions and concerns about their faith, they nevertheless remained committed to their faith community, were active in their local congregation, and were part of a large network of other young Mennonites who were at a similar point in their lives. I asked them lots of questions about why this was the case. Though there are many complicated historical and theological reasons that the sense of self identity for Mennonites and Quakers is different, I found that one reason kept coming up. For them, there were many opportunities to engage in meaningful work as young Mennonites, work that was firmly rooted in and explicitly part of the overall Mennonite faith and church structure. Examples they gave included the fact that Mennonite Voluntary Service (MVS), a program designed for young adults to live together in community and work in service related internships, as well as Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), facilitated these kinds of
experiences. Many of them and many in their families and friendship circles had done a year of service with MVS, or had spent time overseas with MCC. These experiences were well known and accessible, and, most importantly transformative. The served to firm up their identities as Mennonites, their commitment to the church, as well as their convictions about social justice and their role in the world.

Where was this kind of experience in my own Quaker community, I asked. I knew that in the past AFSC workcamps played that kind of role, but they had been laid down and noting had arisen to fill its place. For older generations of Quakers, when asked what was the most important event in their lives, or what had caused them to become or remain a Quaker, or what had given rise to their long standing work for justice, the answer was more often than not an AFSC workcamp. Nothing was filling this role for Quakers of my generation. At the time I myself was a recent
college graduate looking to be of service in the world and live in community. It was extremely challenging to find anything within the Quaker community that could support me in this. Those programs that did exist seemed to be small,
often not directly recruiting Quakers, and certainly were not connected to each other so that it would be easy to find them all at once. It was easier to find
programs like the Peace Corps, or other non-Quaker programs, like MVS. I became convinced that Quakers needed a program that would fill this need.

Continuing to carry this concern, in 2004 I participated in the FGC Consultation that led to the creation of the Youth Ministries Committee, on which I served from that time until early 2009. At the Consultation I was excited to connect with others who held similar visions and ideas, and the seeds were sewn for the creation of a community or more of young adults doing service, connected to a Monthly Meeting, and in an explicitly Quaker context. But the time was not yet right to try to implement this larger vision. I believe that the work the Youth Ministries Committee did over the ensuing years, as well as work happening in many corners of the Quaker world to revitalize our faith, engage, prophetic witness, and empower younger and older alike to articulate and live out our Quakervalues set the stage for the next phase of the work.In early 2008 this vision was again brought up, this time with the recognition that there was a real convergence of people and groups with the exact same idea. It was clear to me that what had always felt like a leading for me personally, was a much broader leading for our Religious Society of Friends. With so many people all over the country yearning for the same thing, it felt like the right time to propose another Consultation to specifically discern whether the creation of a national network would be beneficial. In many places, and in various ways, there was life and movement towards religious education and spiritual formation programming for young adult Friends (and others). Proposals, programs, projects, and calls-for-volunteers have emerged, all with the shared emphasis on volunteer service, faith-based residential community, and spiritual formation in a uniquely Quaker context. Of course, the idea for the creation of a national network is not new and there have been many Friends who have carried this vision throughout the years, many of whom have been consulted in this recent process. Yet this idea seems to have particular relevance and resonance at this time.

In 2008 the Friends General Conference Youth Ministries Committee, Pendle Hill and the Chace Fund united in providing support for a Consultation of representatives from current Quaker volunteer projects from around the country. In February 2009 the participants in the Consultation called for the creation of a national network for Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS). Consultation attendees envisioned a network which serves as an umbrella for existing Quaker volunteer service initiatives and provides
tangible support for new initiatives. We were particularly urged to encourage and support service houses under the care of monthly meetings, believing that experience in such service houses could help cultivate new membership and more
effective servant leadership in the Religious Society of Friends.

The consultation held in February 2009 was attended by thirty-six Friends from across the country, representing such organizations as Beacon
Hill Friends House, Guilford College, Haverford College—Haverford House, Powell House, William Penn House, AFSC-IMYM JSP Workcamps, 57th
Street Meeting (Chicago), New England Peace Builders Camps, the QUEST Program, Vine Street Meeting (Berkeley), FGC, and Pendle Hill. Friends united at the Consultation around the desire and need for a national network for Quaker Voluntary Service open to all branches of the Religious Society of Friends. Additionally, Friends were intrigued by the possibility of creating new “service houses” to be sponsored by Monthly Meetings or Quaker organizations. In fall of 2009, an advisory board was formed and shortly thereafter, Earlham School of Religion agreed to be the fiscal sponsor for QVS. We are now actively seeking funds to implement these goals.

The most immediate goal of Quaker Voluntary Service is to network existing Quaker volunteer and communal living projects and to support the creation of new projects, namely service-houses. Secondly, QVS strives to make visible on a national scale Quaker volunteer service, and to enable potential volunteers to easily access information about existing projects. QVS also intends to strengthen and nurture the Religious Society of Friends by providing transformational opportunities for individuals to live their Quakerism in an experience of direct service and faithful community. QVS strives to support the efforts of monthly
meetings by providing resources for the creation of service houses which will provide volunteer support and spiritual grounding for the meetings and their work. In the coming years, QVS hopes to offer resources such as: an umbrella volunteer network,
connecting and networking existing Quaker volunteer projects in North America; a
comprehensive website with access to information about all projects and providing the opportunity for volunteers to apply to projects in a centralized way; program development comprised of resources such as application and recruitment materials,  best practices, orientation and evaluation resources, and curriculum development; a service site manual intended for monthly meetings and Quaker organizations interested in launching service houses, comprised of the “nitty-gritty how-to” of launching a new program; site support at grassroots, including site visits by working group members, trainings and workshops on relevant issues, and support for inter-site visitation and sharing. The broader vision is to support service in
the world while providing transformational experiences in the context of the Religious Society of Friends. The QVS network seeks to facilitate and
strengthen efforts to do just that.

QVS is new and young and in formation. I have
never felt so clearly led in any endeavor I have been a part of. It is so exciting to see a vision being born, and it is a tender and delicate process that is being
midwived by many committed people. I give thanks for all of the many Friends carrying and tending to this vision for so many years and in so many ways, and I thank God that many of us were able to find each other and begin to work together. It feels a bit like we have all been walking on our own paths for a long time and that this is a point in time when the paths are converging. I also give thanks for the organizations that have seen and believed in this vision enough to give us financial and staff support at crucial steps along the way. We are looking forward to connecting with many others, to hearing your stories, to supporting new initiatives, and learning from long standing projects of this kind. Through my time in seminary I have the opportunity to connect with people in many different denominations who share similar commitments. Recently I spoke with someone who gives support to a wide range of Voluntary Service networks. He informed me that over the years he  has heard this question more than once, “where are the Quakers?” He was happy to hear that he can now respond, “they are coming!”

About the Author(s)

Christina RepoleyFor more information: Please send an email to quakervs@gmail.com or contact any of the working group members (Christina Repoley, Zachary Moon, Kristina Keefe- Perry). To make a tax deductible contribution to the work of QVS please send a check to Earlham School of Religion, designated for Quaker Voluntary Service.