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2009-06-16 issue:

Young adult interest in service spikes

Voluntary Service programs receive more applications in past several years.

by Anna Groff

Print Article

Mennonite mission agencies are watching the applications for voluntary service programs continue to grow this year.

Both executive director of Mennonite Mission Network Stanley Green and executive director of Virginia Mennonite Missions (VMM) Loren Horst say the increased interest of young adults in voluntary service began before the economic recession.

“We are musing that young adults, in addition to dealing with the economic woes,” Green says, “are interested in making a difference in the world.”


Voluntary Service: Chicago Mennonite Voluntary Service worker Jenny Fast (in the black shirt) working as a librarian in the San Miguel School. She is pictured here with Ariel Harris. Photo by Cara Rufenacht.

Applications for all Mennonite Mission Network programs have been on the rise since 2006, says Del Hershberger, director of Christian Service for Mennonite Mission Network.

But yearlong programs experienced a significant boost in applications for the 2009-2010 year.

Yearlong service programs include Radical Journey, Dwell, Mennonite Voluntary Service and Service Adventure.

Hershberger says he is pleased with the number of young adults committing a year or more of their life to service.

“In some programs we have quite a few more people … than we have space available,” he says.

One way Mennonite Mission Network responded to this increased interest was launching a new MVS unit in Madison, Wis.

An ongoing challenge is balancing the number of applicants with the number of host churches.

“It doesn’t serve anyone well to have houses that only have one or two volunteers in them,” Hershberger says.

VMM’s yearlong internship program for young adults, tranSend, received more applicants this year than ever before.

Perhaps people who have always wanted to do voluntary service see now as a good time, Horst says.

Retirees are driving the rise in another category of service works. While not directly correlated to the recession, Horst says he notices this trend.

“Everyone would have to acknowledge that war and the response to war was a motivating factor,” Horst says, adding that the context does not detract from the integrity of the service.

“There are more people than money. It’s a challenge, but an exciting one. … These economizing times can be good for us, too.”

Like VMM’s tranSend program, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) has received more applications for young adult programs than in previous years.

“When a nation faces economic hardship or war or other significant difficulties,” says Chris Landes, director of MCC’s young adult programs, “that is also an opportunity for both our nation and our churches to promote sacrifice, service and civic engagement.”

These MCC young adult programs include the Service and Learning Together (SALT) program, Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network (YAMEN!) and International Volunteer Exchange Program, as well as the new two-year Seed Program that brings together a global group of young adults for service, education and advocacy.

MCC received more than 140 applicants for the SALT program this year, and about half of those applicants came from constituent churches. 

“Budget cuts within MCC have made it difficult for us to provide all the placement assignments we would have liked,” he says.

Ryan Showalter, director of Eastern Mennonite Missions’ discipleship ministries department, says EMM no longer offers a voluntary service program. The YES program began in the early 1980s and steadily outgrew the VS program until VS closed in 1998.

Now EMM short-term workers raise their own support, and Showalter cited a decrease in numbers of applicants to these programs.

He says the economic climate could play a role in this decrease, as participants find raising money more challenging this year than in previous years.

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