Tea (far right) with Food Justice Housemates! Teodora (Tea) Čakarmiš is an LVC17 Food Justice Volunteer serving at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tea, an extremely unbiased source, shared that she is from “the number one place to visit in Eastern Europe” – Belgrade, Serbia. As a Food Justice LVC-er, Tea is the most interested in “understanding the intersections of environmental racism, on a local, but also on a global scale.” Tea shared her belief that the “plight that the ‘Global South’ faces due to climate change is… the most important issue that the international community will have to tackle in the future. Preservation ofRead More →

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Lucas (left) at Trinity on their church work day Although the trail from Yucaipa, California to Omaha, Nebraska seems to be a long one, new Volunteer Lucas Shurson seems to have made the transition well (probably thanks to spending four years developing some Midwestern charm at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN). For his year with LVC, Lucas will be serving Trinity Lutheran Church in Omaha as a Community Connector. As the church’s Community Connector, Lucas’ role is assisting the church’s outreach programs – helping run a couple long-standing outreach programs like Trinity Reads, a partnership program with six different Omaha elementary schools that distributes books to schools,Read More →

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At the beginning of August, 86 volunteers, 10 staff, and 11 board members gathered in Chicago at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago for five days of celebration and challenges at our annual Nation Orientation. The theme of National Orientation this year was “Upholding Commitment to Our Internal Work for the Sake of Community.” The five day stay in Chicago was filled with presentations and trainings for the Volunteers – from conflict resolution training and anti-racism training to self-care conversations and preparation for journey conversations – each hour was carefully planned to prepare and challenge Volunteers before their LVC year began.     TheRead More →

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As a new year with LVC begins, a new set of Volunteers bring new LVC stories, new backgrounds, and new experiences in service, intentional community, and social justice. We’re excited to spotlight our #LVC17 Volunteers! We’ll start off Twin Cities Volunteer Monica Sieg, who is serving Neighborhood House (in The Wellstone Center) in St. Paul, MN this year as a basic needs specialist. Monica will be working in both the Food Market and the different family centers, and in the last couple of weeks has helped with mass produce distributions, a school supply distribution, doing intake interviews with participants, learning about crisis center days and some personalRead More →

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Washington, D.C. LVCer Katie Kovacovich is serving at Brainfood as one of their Program Associate. She is a lead teacher for after- school programming for D.C. high schoolers, where food and cooking are used as a tool for youth development. At her placement, Katie facilitates classes for about 50 students each week during the school year and manages teams of volunteers for each class. Considering how serving with Brainfood has challenged her preconceived notions and fostered personal growth, Katie said the following: “I feel that my most prominent points of growth have been in my understanding of race and culture. And not just in a textbookRead More →

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