life as a corps member

Service Placements

• You’ll work 4 days per week, Monday to Friday, at a local nonprofit providing essential services to the community. 
• Corps Members have worked at homeless shelters, after-school programs, free medical clinics, and more.
• Here are a few examples of current placement partners in Pittsburgh:
• Neighborhood Resilience Project
• Oasis Project
• Light of Life Rescue Mission
• Here are examples of future potential placements in Boston:
  
• Habitat for Humanity Greater Boston
• Catholic Charities Boston - Refugee and Immigrant Services Department

• OVC staff will build relationships with nonprofits, looking for placement partners who share our framework of service, will provide good supervision to you, are respected in the community, and are attentive to the lives of the most vulnerable.
• We conduct a matching process—get a project description from the placement partner, learn more about your interests, and facilitate interviews whenever possible—to find a good fit for everyone involved.
• At placement, your supervisor from the nonprofit is your primary support day-to-day, but OVC continues to walk with you through weekly seminars and individual coaching to help you get the most from your service experience.
  

Seminar

• Every Friday, we meet for a full-day, interactive seminar
• We dig into your experience of service and help you make meaning of it all–by exploring the Orthodox faith, models of service within that, Liturgy & service, and more. 
• We also give you top-notch professional development – leadership training to hone hard and soft skills for effective engagement in Church and community.
• We invite local and national guest speakers to help us learn and expand your network.
• And we use the city as our classroom.

Live in Community

• Housing: We secure and furnish a house where you’ll live in community with 5-7 other Corps Members. We cover the housing costs.
• Community Commitments: Living with others is rewarding—and takes work. We’ll give support for your cohort to develop group norms and establish practices that will help you to live your faith day to day—serving other Corps Members in daily routines.
• Simple Living: OVC will provide a modest living stipend of $800/month to each Corps Member.
• Health Insurance: We’ll make sure that everyone is covered.

Local Engagement and Mentorship

• We’ll dig into the neighborhood and city in which you are located (Pittsburgh or Boston). Enjoy the life of the city. Study its contradictions. Envision possibilities. Know the place in order to serve it.
• We’ll also connect you to people—clergy and laity, Orthodox young adults, nonprofit professionals, grassroots leaders, leaders from Orthodox ministries around the country, and everyday folks in your neighborhood. There are a cloud of witnesses surrounding you; we’ll help connect you to them.

Are you ready for OVC?

• What you can give
  • Your head, heart, and hands for 10 months
  • Courage to serve and learn even—exactly—when it’s a struggle
• What you’ll receive
  • Deep friendships
  • Encounters to stretch and strengthen your faith
  • Unique professional development—hands-on service linked to robust leadership and formation—that will give you a leg up in your career
  • Serve for a year, Prepare for a lifetime. We mean it.