Annunciation House

Address: 

Site Housing: 
Students live with other volunteers in the house of hospitality where they serve. Depending on space, volunteers may have their own room or may share with one other volunteer of the same gender. There is a shared volunteer living space and shared bathroom

Gender Requirement: 
Either Gender

Driver's License Required: 
License Not Required

Student Minimum Age: 
20

Language Requirement: 
Helpful but not Required

Transportation: 
The student will live on site or close enough to walk

Site Dates: 
May 25 - Aug 3

Social Issues: 
Immigration/Migration
Homelessness

Site URL: 
http://www.annunciationhouse.org

Annunciation House

Status: 
Open

Site Description: 

Annunciation House provides shelter to economically poor immigrants and refugees at several houses of hospitality in El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. We have traditionally provided hospitality to migrants who stay anywhere from a few weeks to a few months with us. For some periods in the last few years, while we have continued to provide longer-term hospitality to small numbers of people, the majority of our guests have been Central American refugees who have recently been released from detention and who stay with us for a day or two while they make plans to travel on to rejoin family elsewhere in the country. The work is constantly changing as both forces in Latin America and immigration policies here in the U.S. alter the flow of migrants and refugees across the border. We seek always to respond to the needs of the people we serve, and we change as the needs change.

The student volunteer must be able to handle continual turnover of guests and must accommodate the needs of people whose life stories may be difficult to hear. We constantly remind our volunteers that they must be willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of the poor. Please visit our website for more information about our history, mission, and philosophy at www.annunciationhouse.org. Apply early, as this site fills quickly!

Student Responsibilities:
Annunciation House is a volunteer organization that provides basic needs--shelter, clothing, food, accompaniment--to the poor in migration in El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. Our volunteers live and work at our houses of hospitality under the supervision of an experienced volunteer who serves as House Coordinator. The volunteer staff is responsible for the operation of the houses, attending to the needs of the guests, coordinating the meals, picking up food donations, assigning chores, helping guests make travel arrangements, doing laundry, doing house and car maintenance, and all the other things necessary to maintain houses of hospitality for an average of 50 long-term guests and as sometimes many as several hundred short-term guests each week.

Of all the works that the volunteers are asked to offer, none is more important than that of being a welcoming presence to those who come. This is the work of listening to the story that comes from the heart or playing with a lonely child, taking a walk with a runaway, or holding a baby for an overwhelmed mother. This is the work of living with those whom one must see as brother or sister, mother or father, son or daughter. It is the work of building community and creating family with those who hunger to belong and to hear someone say 'yes' to them. While offering hospitality is our primary work, there is other work that we do that volunteers might be asked to become involved in according to the house's needs at any given time. The areas of this work include education, advocacy, and administrative support.

Margaret McGreevy (mmcgreev@nd.edu )
Maximilian Chuma (mchuma@nd.edu )
Hattie Meehan (hmeehan@nd.edu )
Theresa Salazar (tsalazar@nd.edu )
Caroline Burton (cburton@nd.edu )