An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision, and typically share responsibilities and property. This way of life is sometimes characterized as an "alternative lifestyle". Intentional communities can be seen as social experiments or communal experiments. The multitude of intentional communities includes collective households, cohousing communities, coliving, ecovillages, monasteries, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, hutterites, ashrams, and housing cooperatives.
National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), or AmeriCorps NCCC is an AmeriCorps program that engages 18- to 24-year-olds in team-based national and community service in the United States. Under the CARES act, however, the maximum age of entry is 26. National Civilian Community Corps teams complete about four different six- to eight-week-long projects during their 10-month term of service. Each team is made up of eight to twelve Corps Members and one Team Leader. Corps Members and Team Leaders are representative of all colors, creeds, states, and economic status.
Alberto Hurtado, popularly known in Chile as Padre Hurtado, was a Chilean Jesuit priest, lawyer, social worker, and writer, of Basque ancestry. He founded the Hogar de Cristo foundation in 1944. He was canonized on October 23, 2005, by Pope Benedict XVI, becoming his country's second saint.
City Year is an American education nonprofit organization founded in 1988. The organization partners with public schools in 29 high-need communities across the US and through international affiliates in the UK and Johannesburg, South Africa. City Year teams are made up of 18 to 24 year olds, who provide student, classroom, and whole school support, intended to help students stay in school and on track to graduate high school. City Year is a member of the AmeriCorps national service network, and is supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service, school district partnerships, and private philanthropy from corporations, foundations and individuals.
AmeriCorps is an independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in service through a variety of stipended volunteer work programs in many sectors. These programs include AmeriCorps VISTA, AmeriCorps NCCC, AmeriCorps State and National, AmeriCorps Seniors, the Volunteer Generation Fund, and other national service initiatives. The agency's mission is "to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through service and volunteering." It was created by the National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993. In September 2020, the agency rebranded itself as AmeriCorps, although its official name is unchanged.
Catholic spirituality includes the various ways in which Catholics live out their Baptismal promise through prayer and action. The primary prayer of all Catholics is the Eucharistic liturgy in which they celebrate and share their faith together, in accord with Jesus' instruction: "Do this in memory of me." The Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council decreed that "devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them." In accord with this, many additional forms of prayer have developed over the centuries as means of animating one's personal Christian life, at times in gatherings with others. Each of the religious orders and congregations of the Catholic church, as well as lay groupings, has specifics to its own spirituality – its way of approaching God in prayer to foster its way of living out the Gospel.
Magis is a Latin word that means "more" or "greater". It is related to ad majorem Dei gloriam, a Latin phrase meaning "for the greater glory of God", the motto of the Society of Jesus. Magis refers to the philosophy of doing more for Christ, and therefore doing more for others. It is an expression of an aspiration and inspiration. It relates to forming the ideal society centered on Jesus Christ.
AmeriCorps Seniors is a United States government program run by the agency Corporation for National and Community Service. The program engages volunteers aged 55 and older to serve their communities. There are over 200,000 volunteers nationwide.
The Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) is an organization of lay volunteers who volunteer one year or more to community service with poor communities. JVC works in inner city neighborhoods and rural communities in about 36 different cities throughout the U.S. JVC works with the homeless, abused women and children, immigrants and refugees, the mentally ill, people with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, the elderly, children, and on behalf of other marginalized groups. Jesuit Volunteers (JVs) in the international program that places volunteers in other countries.
CaliforniaVolunteers is the state agency charged with increasing the number and impact of Californians engaged in service and volunteering.
Karl Linn was an American landscape architect, psychologist, educator, and community activist, best known for inspiring and guiding the creation of "neighborhood commons" on vacant lots in East Coast inner cities during the 1960s through 1980s. Employing a strategy he called "urban barnraising," he engaged neighborhood residents, volunteer professionals, students, youth teams, social activists, and community gardeners in envisioning, designing, and constructing instant, temporary, and permanent gathering spaces in neighborhoods, on college campuses, and at sites of major conferences and events. "Linn is considered 'Father of American Participatory Architecture' by many academic colleagues and architectural and environmental experts of the National Endowment for the Arts."
An alternative break is a trip where a group of college students engage in volunteer service, typically for a week. Alternative break trips originated with college students in the early 1980s as a counter to "traditional" spring break trips. These trips are usually led by 2 "site leaders" who are students that have already participated in an alternative break and have gone through extensive leadership training.
The Ignatian Volunteer Corps (IVC) is an American-Catholic volunteer service which matches volunteers with charities and nonprofits. IVC supports members of its corps through monthly faith sharing meetings, occasional retreats, and opportunities for one on one spiritual reflection in the Ignatian tradition.
Literacy Volunteers of Illinois (LVI) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that promotes adult literacy throughout Illinois. It serves families, adults, and out-of-school teens.
The Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC) is a full-time, volunteer service and leadership program. It was founded in 1979 by Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, DC. Each year, LVC places approximately 100 volunteers in urban areas across the United States to work for social justice with various nonprofit organizations. The program lasts one to two years. The volunteers live together in the areas they serve and are encouraged to explore living simply and sustainably in intentional community.
The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act or Serve America Act was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on March 9, 2009, by Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York. Originally titled the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, the bill reauthorizes and expands the AmeriCorps program that was first established in 1993. It passed in the House of Representatives on March 18, 2009. The U.S. Senate debated and approved an amended version of the bill on March 26, 2009, renaming it the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, after Senator Ted Kennedy. The House of Representatives voted on the bill a second time, approving the amended version on March 31, 2009. It was signed by President Barack Obama on April 21, 2009.
AmeriCorps VISTA is a national service program designed to alleviate poverty. President John F. Kennedy originated the idea for VISTA, which was founded as Volunteers in Service to America in 1965, and incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs in 1993. VISTA is an acronym for Volunteers in Service to America.
Ignatian spirituality, also known as Jesuit spirituality, is a Catholic spirituality founded on the experiences of the 16th-century Spanish saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. The main idea of this form of spirituality comes from Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises, the aim of which is to help one "conquer oneself and to regulate one's life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment." The Exercises are intended to give the person undertaking them a greater degree of freedom from his or her own likes and dislikes, so that their choices are based solely on what they discern God's will is for them. Even in the composition of the exercises by Ignatius early in his career, one might find the apostolic thrust of his spirituality in his contemplation on "The Call of the Earthly King" and in his final contemplation with its focus on finding God in all things.
Post-graduate service is a range of commitments that people who have recently graduated with a college degree can make to volunteer in a community in need. Discussed within the setting of colleges and universities, post-graduate service is seen as an alternative to entering the workforce or going to a graduate or professional school.
Jesuit Social Services is a social change organisation working to build a just society where all people can live to their full potential. The organisation was established by the Australian Jesuits in 1977. Originally based in Melbourne, Australia, it has expanded to include outreach programs in New South Wales and the Northern Territory.
