As a member of the LVC community, you likely spend at least some part of your week making the world a better, more just and equitable place. Your gift to LVC helps us launch 89 additional social justice activists like you into the world. Did you know that 91% of LVC alumni continue to participate in social justice activities throughout their life – most often by choosing careers in the field?

Alumni like Dan Swenson-Klatt (1984-85) who opened Butter Bakery Café in Minneapolis 10 years ago. Butter Bakery is located beneath a supportive housing community for young adults who have been homeless or are at risk of being homeless.

Dan has painstakingly crafted and nurtured an inclusive and sustainable community center informed by LVC values. He employs and mentors the young adults who live above him. He pays a living wage and advocates for socially responsible policy change across the city. From compostable cups, to the locally-made community table in the center of the café, to the boulevard community garden outside, Dan is modeling the commitment to community, social justice and sustainability we envision our volunteers will take with them into their lives.

In your own life, you know how small moments can have lasting impact.

While serving at his LVC placement in Baltimore, Dan opened a piece of mail from Our Saviour’s Lutheran church in Minneapolis. It was a book of music that had been mailed to churches across the country to promote its focus on urban ministry. After their LVC year, Dan and his fiancée Deb (also an LVC alum), sought out and joined Our Saviour’s and were instrumental in the efforts to start an LVC program in the Twin Cities.

How many people have been helped by the efforts of more than 380 LVC volunteers who have served in LVC’s Twin Cities program since that time? What impact are those LVC alumni having on the world today – all because of Dan’s chance encounter with an Our Saviour’s hymnal? Your gift to LVC today helps to ensure that a steady stream of faithful leaders, committed to radical hospitality, begin their careers each year.

Perhaps you are one of these Twin Cities alumni – or know them personally. You know from your own experience that the contributions made to the world by LVC alumni are significant. As with Dan and Deb, these contributions are informed by their experience of serving social justice while living in intentional community with their peers. This is why 75% of our alumni state that their year in LVC helped them to choose and have success in their career paths.

Our world will forever be changed by these young adults who, like you, are committed to working for social justice throughout their lifetimes. Now, more than ever, we need to continue to nurture these young leaders.

Your support makes it possible. Your support changes the people who change the world.

Thank you for making a gift to LVC this holiday season!

With gratitude,

 

 

Sam Collins
President

P.S. Thank you for your ongoing contributions that help make justice in the world, and thank you for your financial contribution to LVC so we can help others do the same.