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Life as an OVC Corps Member

Are you ready to serve?

At OVC, we invite you to join us for a 10-month journey of service, reflection & instruction, communal living, and immersion in the Church. We invite you to grow, to risk, to learn, to lead, to love, to lose your life … and find it.

Are you ready to serve? We are recruiting to fill two houses–one in Pittsburgh and one in Boston. Read on for more info.

Key Dates:

Application Deadlines for the 2024-25 program year are as follows

February 5, 2024 - EARLY Deadline - applicants who apply by the early deadline are given priority consideration
February 22, 2024 - Regular Deadline
***While the application deadline for Fall 2024 has passed, we will accept new applications on a rolling basis as slots sometimes open up. If you are interested in being considered for the Fall 2024 Cohort in Boston or Pittsburgh, please email info@orthodoxvolunteercorps.org or call 412-396-9620. Or, click the link below to begin an application.

The 2024-25 program runs August 26, 2024 - June 27, 2025 (breaks included).

Apply now interest form

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:

Here are examples of future potential placements in Boston:

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.

OVC Year

Life as an OVC Corps Member begins with a week-long opening retreat. Meet the other Corps Members. Reflect in community. Prepare for service at nonprofits. Pray together. Laugh and connect.

Then Corps Members travel to their separate locations, either Pittsburgh or Boston. Settle into your OVC house. Walk the neighborhood. Tour the city. Connect to a parish.

The rhythm of OVC life begins. Four days a week, you’ll work at a local nonprofit. One day a week, you’ll be in seminar. Evenings and weekends are for building community--with each other, with your neighborhood and city, and with the local parish.

We’ll break the rhythm midyear and at the end for retreats. Midyear, we’ll gather to reinforce learning, relax, reconnect with Corps Members in other cities, and rejuvenate. At the final retreat, we’ll again gather all Corps Members to reflect on our time together, envision next steps, and participate in a service of commissioning.

Going into the World: Life post-OVC

The end is the beginning. Why? Because we mean what we say: Serve for a year, prepare for a lifetime. During the program, we’ll help you think about how service can become a way of life, a core part of your vocation. We’ll help you to be strategic in your next steps. And we’ll foster an alumni network that, over time, will become a rich resource.