Description: This service project experience for young adults is designed to be manageable for the busy young adult’s schedule and meant to engage them in service opportunities in their community.
Get Ready
- Prep Time: Service agencies sometimes operate on unusual schedules and need lead time to prepare for volunteers. It’s a good idea to start communicating with agencies well in advance — anywhere from four-six weeks. (And this gets easier once a relationship is formed with the agency.) Once you have secured service locations, a couple of hours are needed to arrange publicity materials and coordinate transportation, if necessary.
Tip: Develop relationships with religious and non-religious organizations doing good in your community. Tell them your short-term goal (setting up a service project) and long-term goals of getting young adults more involved in their community.
- Volunteers Needed: This can be coordinated by one person, but it’s always better to have several people asking various organizations if they could use Saturday morning help. Just be sure to coordinate which organizations are being asked. Other volunteers can help with publicity and transportation.
- Ideal Group Size: This completely depends on the agency you’re working with and the task being completed. Be sure to ask if there is a specific number of volunteers needed, and the minimum and maximum that can volunteer. (Some locations are small and more hands actually makes more work!) If you have a large number of interested participants, consider having multiple volunteer sites.
- Ideal Time for this Event: Saturday morning — Consider volunteering on a Sunday morning or afternoon, before or after Mass.
- Who is this for? Any young adult can volunteer — but be clear if there are physical abilities required by the type of volunteer service. Try to include some opportunities where young adults can also serve with their children!
- Supplies Needed: Some organizations may request that you bring your own supplies. If this is the case, ask young adults to bring their own to use (gloves, tools, rakes, etc.), to donate items (cleaning supplies, paint, food items, etc.) or invite the parish to contribute the supplies in advance.
- Reserve the Space: Be sure to locate a space where your group can gather for some reflection after your service experience. This can be at your service location, back at the parish, or at a restaurant.
- Publicize the Program:
- Once one of these days is planned, tell other parishes and young adult groups about it! Young adults LOVE to plug into pre-olanned service opportunities, and other parishes’ pastors and young adults ministers often love the chance to offer those opportunities to their folks. This is one particular area where I have experienced the most collaborative spirit among parishes.
- Word of mouth and personal invitation is often the best publicity, but also use traditional methods like bulletin announcements, social media, and fliers. Be sure to include where the service project is happening, what the tasks will be, any special requirements (over 21, wear close-toed shoes, etc.), and if there is a required RSVP, either to guarantee enough volunteers or because there is limited space available.
Prayer for Program Planner: God of all Goodness, We thank you for inspiring and calling us together on this Saturday morning. You have placed in our hearts the desire to share the many gifts we have been given. Help us to see your face in those we meet and work alongside today, and transform our hearts so that we might become more aware of where you are working in them and in our world. Amen.
Community Building: Young adults have the opportunity to get to know one another during their time of service and also at the gathering after their service. If you are coordinating several service locations, you might assign folks who don’t know one another to work together in order to form new relationships and encourage young adults to get to know one another.
Make It Happen
- Contacting several different nonprofit, church-related, or service-based organizations in the local area to see if they could use some volunteers to help with their work on a Saturday morning (approximately 9 a.m. – 12/12:30 p.m.) in the coming months. Don’t forget to check with any parish-sponsored service ministries (e.g., your parish food pantry or clothing closet). See the Help section for additional recommendations for finding locations to serve.
- Once you begin conversations with organizations, work with them to find a date (at least a month in advance) when you could bring young adults to their site.
- If you or your parish already have a connection with one particular organization, contact them to schedule three or four Saturday mornings scattered (in different months) throughout the year.
- Publicize (through bulletin, e-mails, social media) at least two-three weeks in advance:
- Emphasize the type of organization young adults will be working with and that they will be finished by early afternoon.
- Include in all publicity whether you will plan to meet at the church/parish and carpool to the site together (recommended) or meet at the service site at the appropriate time.
- Include whether or not you would like them to let you know if they are coming (helpful for those projects that require specific amounts of materials, etc.).
- Include what type of work will be done and any particularly helpful skills or special requirements.
- Send reminders several days in advance, as many young adults will not want to commit to anything on a weekend morning until the last minute.
- Ask the partnering organization if they need you to bring/provide supplies (cleaning supplies, art supplies, etc.) or if they will have everything prepared for your work there.
- If the partnering organization often works with outside volunteers, your job (as young adult minister) will be fairly easy — you become simply the coordinator.
- If the partnering organization does NOT often work with outside volunteers, your job will require a bit more of a collaboration and conversation so as to plan just what kinds of work/service the young adults will be doing during their three-three and a half hours of service, what supplies will be needed, how to explain/lead the young adults in that work, etc.
Tip: Over time, the idea is to build up relationships with several (and several types of) organizations in your community so that your young adults build ongoing relationships with these organizations, and perhaps even “fall in love” with a particular type of outreach, thus inspiring them to take the initiative to become more deeply invested in that service-work outside of Service Saturday experiences. Other benefits to developing relationships with these organizations: other groups within the parish can connect with their work, you (as facilitator) will have an easier time planning Service Saturday or more involved events in the future.
- Make sure to take the opportunity at the end of the service work that afternoon to gather the group and do some simple reflection together. Ask questions like:
- Who has done something like this (worked with an organization like this) before?
- What surprised you, shocked you, concerned you, etc.?
- Was this experience what you expected?
- Where might you have encountered Grace (the presence of God/God’s love) this morning?
- If you have the resources/time, invite people to stay for an extra 30 minutes and order pizza or go to lunch together so that you can do this conversation/reflection piece over food!
Tip: Carpooling to and from the site allows for additional conversation and reflection about the service experience. Also, some locations have limited parking!
