Residential Stewardship Volunteer Program (RSVP)

A Labor of Love

The Mission of RSVP is to cultivate and promote a community-based model of mutual support and volunteer service that assists in the day-to-day operations of Shalom Mountain and contributes to its continued financial viability and spiritual well-being.

The RSVP is a natural manifestation of the Principles and Skills of Loving, it is good will in action and it is a loving response to need.

There are a variety of volunteer roles available at Shalom, with different duties and for varying lengths of time. Each volunteer role provides an opportunity for you to contribute to the well-being and sustainability of the Shalom community. The benefits of volunteering range from personal and spiritual growth and satisfaction to increased access to the programs offered here.

• Work for a day in the garden
• Come for a day before or stay a day after a retreat
• Participate in work weekends
• Become a volunteer in residence for one to six months

The Volunteer Engagement Process has been designed to ensure that there is a good fit between what you are looking for in a volunteer opportunity and what Shalom has to offer. It is essential that both Shalom’s needs and your needs are met in a mutually beneficial exchange of service and love. For more information or to complete a volunteer application form, please contact us at 845-482-5421or email@shalommountain.com

RSVP Guiding Principles

1) The program will be developed and delivered within a framework consistent with the Goals and Philosophies of SSMRC, “Calling people to be conscious, loving and fully alive”, the Principles and Skills of Loving and the Principles and Skills of Boundaries.

2) We are committed to building on the rich history and legacy of volunteerism within the Shalom community and will work side by side with existing volunteers, leaders, committees, teams and individuals to ensure continuity and cohesion within the community.

3) RSVP will hold at its center the values of intentional loving, wholism (consciously operating for the benefit of the Whole), putting principles before personalities, transparency, mutuality, collaboration, clear and consistent communication, integrity, ecological sustainability, commitment to loving communication and “carefrontation”, honoring our own and others’ boundaries, values, feelings and needs.

4) In keeping with Shalom’s call for all of us to become more conscious, loving and fully alive, RSVP commits to working with each individual to assist in defining her or his call to service, while at the same time ensuring that the needs of Shalom Mountain are responded to appropriately and effectively. We recognize that being in service to others is both an honor and a responsibility. We will seek balance in ourselves by committing to our own self care as well as care for our community. We are love bound to manage our personal needs appropriately and to live within established ethical guidelines.

5) We value all service equally and see each volunteer role as contributing equally to the larger picture/vision/mission of Shalom and its future development out into the world.

6) We honor and respect the mystery and power of the Divine Spirit and all spiritual paths and of Mother Earth. Our aim is to promote reverence for ourselves, our community and the earth and to seek balance and mutuality in our model of service.

Definitions What do we mean by?

Community Based: Refers to a philosophy and way of working that involves community members in the design, implementation, coordination and ongoing maintenance and stewardship of a program, process or initiative. Community members have influence and impact on the direction of a project and are involved and consulted in appropriate aspects, from inception through the life of a program or project.

Mutual Support: Recognizes the interdependence of all beings – and at Shalom Mountain in particular, acknowledges the mutual dependence we have on one another to continue existing as a hope structure and intentional loving community. Mutual support is about the giving and receiving of knowledge, experiences, wisdom and gifts and is a process that works toward a common goal.

Service: Goodwill in Action. To belong to and be a part of something greater than ourselves/the ego self. We see service at Shalom Mountain as the next evolution of growth after inner work. After receiving so much from the mountain, responding to a call to service is a way of paying back or paying it forward to ensure that others have access to the same transformative love and healing that we have each received.

Wholism: a term from Systems Ecology: A holistic community is one where the species within the community are interdependent on each other for keeping balance and stability of the system. These communities are oftentimes described as working like a superorganism, meaning that every species which is a member of the community plays an important part in the overall well being of the ecosystem which the community resides; much like the organelles within a cell, or even the cells making up one organism.

Sustainability: To be ecologically sustainable means to be conscious of our connection to the Whole and to build a life which loves and respects the Whole. At Shalom Mountain we are committed to investigating, designing and building structures, facilities and processes that will help Shalom become more connected to the land it lives in relationship with in order to become a more consciously ecologically-based community.

Carefrontation: In the course of our building and living in an intentional loving community, inevitable differences and struggles (opportunities for growth) will emerge. Recognizing that living in a spiritual community and fully within the skills and principles of loving (seeing, hearing, honoring, responding to needs and extending good will) is a challenge and opportunity for each of us, we commit to engaging in a process of loving and respectful “carefrontation” that acknowledges our humanness, personal needs, personal accountability and responsibility.