If you are looking for a deep and meaningful experience living and learning with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in a warm and supportive community located just outside of Burlington, Vermont, then Riverflow is the place for you.
“There is a knighthood of the 21st century whose riders do not ride through the darkness of physical forests, as of old, but through the forest of darkened minds. They are armed with spiritual armor, and an inner sun makes them radiant. Out of them shines healing, healing that flows from the knowledge of the human being as a spiritual being. They must create inner order, inner justice, peace, and conviction in the darkness of our time.”
-Karl König
Riverflow Community is ready to welcome its first volunteers. We are looking for individuals interested in an experience that will enrich life on all levels. Lifesharing in intentional community can be rewarding in unimaginable ways and have a lifetime impact. The challenges that will inevitably unfold in a volunteer year in a lifesharing community offer each individual the opportunity to grow empathy, self-awareness, and understanding of how we impact each other.
Riverflow recognizes the enormous importance of our founding volunteers! We know you will bring energy, enthusiasm, vibrancy, creative new ideas, and friendship. Volunteers will meet and connect with our committed long-term coworkers in a collaborative space of collective creativity. While the long-term coworkers bear primary responsibility for carrying of the mission of Riverflow, along with the Friends who call Riverflow home, volunteers will join them in shouldering the daily work and social rhythms that comprise community life.
In contrast to traditional programs for people with developmental disabilities, Riverflow does not divide community members into “clients” and “staff” or “care receivers” and “care providers”. Rather, Riverflow benefits from full-time coworkers who join the community to share their lives with individuals who have special care needs. Community life is holistic, not limited by the 9-5 model of work, but is a radical model where people with diverse talents and needs live and work together, celebrating the ups and downs that life brings and showing up for each other in such a way that healing and joy are abundant.
This is our opening year! Please consider joining us in this life changing moment of opening the Riverflow Community. If you want to join us, please contact our volunteer admissions at volunteer@riverflowcommunity.org.
