New partnership between the PC(USA) and New Wilmington provides opportunities for young adults

Collaboration with Asheville YAV site could grow to other sites across the country

by Kathy Melvin | Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — A new partnership between the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer program (YAV) and the New Wilmington Mission Conference is expected to create ambassadors for both programs this summer.

In its more than 30-year history, the YAV program has provided the opportunity for young adults, ages 19–30, to experience a year of service and explore their own faith journey, both in the United States and around the world. For more than 60 years, New Wilmington’s Summer Service program has allowed a select group of individuals to experience a wide variety of itineraries and mission experiences.

“Every summer, as a part of the conference, we identify college-aged young people and we send them somewhere in the world to have a mission experience, usually at the beginning of June, and it concludes six weeks later with them interpreting their experience at the conference,” said New Wilmington’s director, the Rev. Virginia “Ginny” Teitt.

Her own children participated and traveled to Siberia, Malawi and Egypt.

“Just coming off a 100% virtual conference and then a limited hybrid conference, we were just not in a place to offer in-person participation, which the tradition has been. So, with all of those things stacking up, we ended up with two young women, and this was the perfect opportunity,” Teitt said.

YAV’s program coordinator Destini Hodges recently joined the New Wilmington Board of Managers, and since her job involves connecting people, she and Teitt began discussing the creation of a partnership between the two programs. Since international travel is still a bit unpredictable, they reached out to Selena Hilemon, site coordinator for the YAV program in Asheville, North Carolina, which is in its 10th year of operation.

Hilemon said Asheville is excited about hosting the two young women from New Wilmington this summer and that everything just sort of fell into place.

“We’re really excited about it. And it works out for us in a couple of different ways. I think we could potentially offer this in many of the U.S.-based YAV sites. Because of the pandemic, we had to shift our housing model, so this past year we moved our YAVs to the William Black Lodge, where they live on a mostly unused third floor. The director there said he could house these summer of service volunteers at the lodge as well.”

Hilemon said the two volunteers will arrive later this month and spend a few days doing local orientation, getting them familiar with Asheville and its contextual history of societal issues, before they go to their work sites. All of the agencies address homelessness, affordable housing and poverty in Asheville through direct social services and direct means, or food security and creating community through food. They will be working at some of the same agencies as YAVs, but time has also been built in for reflection connection, conversations and the broader context of their spiritual development.

“Asheville is the second-fastest gentrifying city in America right now,” said Hilemon. “And we have been for the last eight years. And what that means is that we are in a huge affordable housing crisis that has not gotten any better in the pandemic and it drives so many folks in our town and in our county into poverty that need more direct social services regionally. Asheville is a hub of services and social support structures for the neighboring 17 counties in Western North Carolina.”

Teitt said she believes the opportunity for the volunteers to share their experience at the New Wilmington Mission Conference, July 16–22, will be an impactful experience.

“It has far greater impact than just the people who participate,” said Teitt. “They come back, and from the littlest to the oldest, they talk about their experience, what they saw, what they learned, how it changed their lives, how it changed their perspective.”

Teitt said she believes it is important to find and deeply invest in ways to educate young people about what it means to live an engaged life in the world.

“I am always excited to partner with other like-minded folks who deeply believe in accompanying young people on this kind of journey in this kind of opportunity of education,” said Teitt. “I find it to be central in our work in the church and such a wonderful opportunity to affect the change that we really want to see.”

To learn more about the New Wilmington Summer Service program, go to nwmcmission.org/summer-service. In order to apply for 2023, participants must be at least one year out of high school and not yet 24 years old as of Aug. 1, 2022.

To learn more about the Presbyterian Young Adult Volunteer program, go to presbyterianmission.org/ministries/yav. The YAV program is an ecumenical, faith-based year of service for young people (ages 19–30) in sites across the United States and around the world.