Social
Concerns
Summer Fellowship
Nazareth Farm
Volunteer Non US Citizen
Yes
Categories:
Language Preferences:
Location Details
Description
Nazareth Farm is a community of volunteers inspired by the Gospels and Catholic Social Teaching focused on prayer, community, simplicity, and service. We are devoted to developing relationships and addressing substandard housing by providing home repair in rural West Virginia. Fellowship students are asked to participate in leading service retreats, participate in staff meetings, assist with and lead Farm chores, coordinate work sites as assigned, and help maintain and repair buildings and farm grounds. We also take ministry of presence seriously as we build relationships between staff and members of our wider Appalachian community.
Student Role
Fellowship students will participate in the following: assist with leading service immersion trips for high school students; participate in staff meetings; assist with and lead chores as assigned, including work in the garden and house; coordinate construction worksites and help maintain and repair buildings and farm grounds; maintain professional boundaries; participate in and lead prayer and other activities; and live in an intentional Christian community with staff members and other sojourners (interns). Fellowship students will spend the majority of their time working with high school volunteers, the other staff and sojourners, and the Farm’s friends and neighbors, as well as the homeowners on the worksites. Sojourners spend group weeks either on a home repair site or at the Farm, working around the grounds or in the kitchen.
Work Schedule
Staff weeks: When it is just staff and sojourners on the Farm, we start each morning M-F with prayer at 7:30 and eat breakfast together after. We end the workday between 4:30 and 5:00 each evening. M-TH we eat dinner together at 6:00. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we have community events after dinner. After work on Friday, we do not have community dinner and staff and sojourners are free to do what they would like until the next time we’re working – whether that be Sunday afternoon to prepare for a group week or Monday morning to start a staff week. Group weeks: When we have high school volunteers, we gather as a community on Sunday afternoons to clean up the retreat facilities, eat dinner, and talk about the upcoming week. Volunteers arrive on Sunday evenings. M-F during group weeks, we start at 7:00 with prayer, chores, and breakfast, and lights out for volunteers is at 10:00. On Saturdays, we start prayer at 6:30, eat breakfast, do chores, and send off the volunteers by 10:00. We go out to worksites each day with the volunteers and eat dinner and pray together each evening. Sojourners get one night off per group week, meaning that after getting back from the worksite, sojourners are free to do whatever they would like with their time.
Orientation
Fellowship students will be given an orientation upon arrival about general guidelines when living at the farm by our sojourner coordinators, and those sojourner coordinators will also host information sessions for sojourners prior to the summer. The sojourner coordinators and the student’s prayer partner will serve as point people for each student as they navigate life at the Farm.
Housing Information
Sojourners – short-term volunteers – live on site in our staff house on our property. There are sojourner bunk rooms, one for men and one for women, but if a sojourner has particular needs that make a gendered bunk room impossible or uncomfortable, we can accommodate to the best of our ability and space availability. The women’s bunk room is up a set of stairs. Staff members – long-term volunteers – and sojourners live in community with one another and are expected to live by our four cornerstones: prayer, community, simplicity, and service. These can be expressed differently by different people. As sojourners share living space with one another, they are expected to be respectful of each other’s needs and space.
Spanish Language Proficiency
N/A
Other Language Proficiencies
N/A
Drivers License
If the student has a license and is willing.
Student Preferences
No age/gender preference. Sojourners are often asked to work/lead tasks independently with our volunteers and should be flexible with regards to schedule and tasks assigned, especially while we have high school volunteers. The most important things are a heart for service, an openness to learning and to trying new things, and a commitment to living in community with our staff and the other sojourners!
Start And End Dates
Any 8 consecutive weeks between May 17 and August 13, 2027.