Four Jesuit volunteers are spending the year serving alongside Catholic Charities of Oregon staff and clients, bringing their talents to housing, homelessness services and immigration legal work. For these young adults, a year of service is also a year of listening, learning and discovering what it means to accompany others with dignity and care.
A year of service can take many forms.
For four young adults serving with Catholic Charities of Oregon through Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest, it means helping women experiencing homelessness find resources, building community with residents in permanent supportive housing, supporting immigrants navigating the legal system and simply taking time to listen.
This year, CCO welcomes Linnea Beckstrom at Kenton Women’s Village, Maura Lorden at the Housing Transitions Program and Shelby Oraskovich at Francis + Clare Place. Patty Robben is returning for a second year with Immigration Legal Services.
JVC Northwest places volunteers with organizations throughout the region for a year of full-time service rooted in community, simple living, social and ecological justice and spirituality and reflection.
While their assignments at CCO are very different, the four share a desire to better understand the people they serve and to contribute without assuming they already have all the answers.
Looking Beyond Needs
Linnea Beckstrom recently graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, where she studied political science, gender and women’s studies and peace studies.
She was particularly drawn to Kenton Women’s Village and its Housing First and trauma-informed approach. As the Village’s Donation and Volunteer Specialist, Linnea will help identify resources, cultivate donations and volunteer opportunities and learn directly from participants about what would be most useful to them.
“I don’t think it should just be needs,” Linnea said. “Growth goes beyond that.”
She hopes eventually to become a public defender, working with people caught in systems shaped by poverty and inequity. This year, she wants to better understand experiences very different from her own without viewing people through what she calls a “deficit lens.”
“I’m not above them,” she said. “I’m just in a position of care.”
She has already been struck by how openly Village participants have welcomed her into their community.
A Family Connection to Service
For Maura Lorden, joining JVC Northwest carries a special family connection. Her mother was a Jesuit Volunteer in Portland in 1994.
“I’ve seen the lasting impacts that a year of service can have on a person,” Maura said.
A special education teacher from Boulder, Colo., Maura joined CCO’s Housing Transitions Program earlier this month. She previously worked in Title I schools in the Denver area, where many students and families faced significant barriers.
“I chose CCO because I wanted to be part of a team that connects, uplifts and restores dignity to members of our community that are overlooked and undervalued,” she said.
Maura hopes her time at HTP will deepen her understanding of homelessness and how to best support people experiencing it — lessons she ultimately hopes to carry back into the classroom.
Building Community at Francis + Clare Place
Shelby Oraskovich brings a public health background to her role as Community Engagement Specialist at Francis + Clare Place, CCO’s permanent supportive housing community in Southeast Portland.
A Tulane University graduate, Shelby studied public health with a focus on HIV/AIDS, health among people with low incomes and people experiencing homelessness.
Her role at F+C gives her an opportunity to put some of that learning into practice while getting to know residents and discovering what kinds of activities and resources interest them.
Recently, Shelby joined residents on an outing to the Oregon Zoo. Beyond a fun day together, the trip gave residents an opportunity to practice navigating the city and public transportation, get some exercise and spend time together outside their building.
Those everyday interactions are also helping Shelby learn more about residents themselves, information that can help shape future activities that are both useful and enjoyable.
Coming Back for More
Patty Robben faced a different decision this year. Would she return for another year of service?
After spending her first JVC year as a Bilingual Legal Specialist with CCO’s Immigration Legal Services team, Patty decided she wasn’t finished.
“I thought, I have a good thing going, working with good people, doing good work,” she said. “It’s been a gift.”
Her days vary widely. She may help prepare appeal packets, organize documents, conduct research or spend hours helping an attorney and client prepare for a court hearing.
When Patty arrived last year, much of immigration law was unfamiliar. Now, she is more confident taking on assignments, researching questions and adapting to a legal landscape that continues to change.
But some of her most important lessons have come from clients.
“I learn so much about them, what their childhood was like, why they left home and family to seek safety,” Patty said. “I walk away with tremendous empathy.”
She has also witnessed how hard parents advocate for their families and how devastating an unfavorable immigration decision can feel.
But she has learned, “It’s not the end of the line. It’s a redirection.”
Finding a Calling Along the Way
Patty began her first JVC year interested in immigration, but not necessarily immigration law.
Now she is applying to law school with hopes of someday practicing it.
She has discovered how immigration law intersects with family, labor and criminal law, and how many different opportunities attorneys have to advocate for people navigating complex systems.
Her advice to the new Jesuit Volunteers beginning their year at CCO is simple.
“Appreciate the value of presence to whoever is in front of you,” Patty said.
Be patient with the learning curve. Stay curious. Ask questions. Dive in and contribute. And recognize that one decision or outcome does not have to determine what happens next.
Most of all, she said, “Remember to have hope.”