To start off, I’ll say that I’m a recent college graduate who has dedicated the next year of her life to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (hereafter, the JVC). I’m mostly using this blog to keep in contact with people from home and college. In my shortest rendering of an explanation as to what the JVC is, I say “the Catholic version of the Peace Corps.” I’ll be spending the next year in the Northwest region, which includes Idaho (a brand-new addition to the region), Oregon, Washington, Montana, and Alaska. I will be serving in Seattle, in the Cherry Abbey community, which is in the Central district of the city, with six other volunteers (JVs). If you contact me, I can give you our mailing address and phone number. Specifically, I’ll be working in the Noah Seath L’Arche Center in Capitol Hill. I’ll be working with residents as a workshop assistant in the day program (or what would equivalently be the day program, given L’Arche’s community living arrangements). I leave on August 5th, so I’m in the final stages of preparation to head to Washington.

To answer some questions that have already been posed to me:

1. I will be taking my cell phone (largely due to my mother’s insistence).

2. I will be living on $80, but room, board, and transportation are provided by the JVC.

3. I receive two weeks of vacation for the year, but I’m not sure when exactly I’ll be home again.

4. I’m not becoming a nun (at least not yet ).

5. I am nervous.

6. I am excited.

7. I love mail and email, so PLEASE give me contact information.

8. I’ll be setting up a Flikr account to post pictures, so I’ll post that when I start getting pictures.

9. For more specific questions, here’s the link to the JVC Northwest Website.