**PLEASE NOTE** The links have been changed to the BFJYAV specific giving rather than the National YAV office. This new link will ensure 100% of your donation goes to the Boston site. Please transition your giving to the new giving page if you are able. Thank you!
The Young Adult Volunteer Program
The Young Adult Volunteer Program offers young adults the opportunity to find out how they are called to join with God in the building of God’s Kingdom. Through one year of service and living in Christian community, YAVs experience how God is transforming this world and learn their part as faithful and committed Christians. Young Adults join with our partners around this country and around the world to serve those in need as Christ’s hands and hearts, putting their own faith into action.
A Year of Service…
The YAV program has two primary elements: the first is a year of meaningful service with communities in need at sites around this country and around the world. All YAVs will connect to at least one of the Presbyterian World Mission’s three Critical Global Issues: addressing the root causes of poverty, particularly as it relates to women and children, working for reconciliation in cultures of violence, and bringing the whole gospel to the whole world. The second fundamental element of the YAV program is for each participant to explore through vocational discernment what God is calling them to be and do not only for that year, but with their entire life.
YAVs serve in sites around this country and around the world. All YAVs go to established sites and will participate in some form of intentional Christian community. Through these communities, faith is grown and celebrated, vocation is explored and discerned, and lifelong bonds are formed. While the experience of each YAV is wonderfully unique, all YAV sites strive towards the following core values: Intentional Christian Community, Cross-Cultural Mission, Simple Living, Leadership Development through Faith in Action, and Vocational Discernment.
…For a Lifetime of Change
The YAV program’s focus on vocational discernment means it has a profound lifelong impact. YAVs learn alongside Presbyterian partners the best of our Reformed missional heritage at a time when they are exploring their faith and calling in the world.
Through several long-term studies of YAV participants, we can see the lifelong impact of this pivotal year: 61% of YAVs said it strongly influenced their current vocation or intended vocation. Almost all YAVs continue in some form of service long term:
43% of YAVs will go on to ordained leadership in the church,
47% will continue in humanitarian or service work,
31% will serve in government, health and education.
79% now regularly attend worship
This program makes a difference in those who are served, and also a profound difference in those who are called to serve.
Investing in Young Adults
It is an exciting time for the YAV program. The YAV program continues to grow the size and depth of its ministry with young adults and the communities they serve. This is an important opportunity to expand the reach and accessibility of this program to new generations of young adults and leaders. However, young adults in service nationally and internationally require significant funds.
The YAV program is funded through several means: through the YAV’s own fundraising, local support, and our wider church’s investment in the program. It typically costs about $22,000 to send a YAV into a year of service; costs include training, travel, health care, development and discernment materials, student loan assistance, and simple living expenses.
In recent years, in order to make the YAV program more accessible to young adults, we cut the amount necessary to participate in the program in half, to $4,000 for service at national sites and $5,000 internationally. Support from local churches is more vital than ever before.
We ask you to intentionally consider investing in the leadership growth of young adults through one of the best ways our denomination can nurture emerging missional leaders. Your gift will impact the life of the Church as YAVs experience transformation and then return to be faithful change agents in their own context, our collective denomination, and our world.
Interested in Learning More?
For more information about the PCUSA’s YAV Program, contact:
Young Adult Volunteers Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) 100 Witherspoon Street Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396 www.pcusa.org/yav
Richard Williams,Coordinator Young Adult Volunteer Program (888) 728-7228, ext. 5539 [email protected]
For more information about the Boston Food Justice Young Adult Volunteer Program, or sign up for its monthly email newsletter, the BFJYAV Biome, contact:
To Invest in Young Adults, you can send a check to the address below or click on the link to give online: Checks: Made payable to: The Presbytery of Boston Memo: BFJYAV – (YAV name) Address: P.O. Box 760833 | Melrose, MA | 02176 Electronic giving:https://bostonfoodjusticeyavprogram.wordpress.com/donate/ You can also follow the "Donate" tab in the menu options above! The button leads you to the Boston site-specific donation page. You can specify which YAV you are giving to in the 'notes' section of the giving information.