Spend a year gaining experience and skills in direct support, homemaking, gardening, baking, food processing and preserving, fiber arts, healing plants, conflict resolution, and community building. The heart of your work involves assisting adults with developmental disabilities with personal care, offering physical and emotional support, accompanying their skill building in vocational settings, helping with medical needs, performing household tasks and building lasting and meaningful relationships within the community.
You will become a member of our first lifesharing home, living with other volunteers and interns from around the world, house leaders, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. There are four main areas of work in the intentional community setting - the land, craft work, festival life, and cultivating a sense of home. Joining Riverflow at its inception, you will be asked to take part in all aspects of community life.
Riverflow Community is situated on 30 acres of wooded land, gardens, and pastures in the Champlain Valley of Vermont. We are close to Burlington, a vibrant college town with access to a beautiful lake with lots of recreational activities, great food, and cultural events. Vermont is a winter sports destination, with something for everyone: resorts for skiing and snowboarding, trails for cross country skiing and snowshoeing, and plenty of hills for sledding. For long weekends, Montreal, Canada is a 2-hour drive and Boston is a 2.5-hour drive, or you can take the train directly from Burlington to New York City. As a founding volunteer, you will help Riverflow define itself as an intentional community inspired by Camphill and participate in building up new rhythms. You will have a formative impact on the future of this community.
Everyone living in Riverflow is asked and expected to do what they can to help with the needs of the community. You will be asked to help with household chores, dishwashing, cooking, laundry, and cleaning. The household routine is similar to any family household, with each member holding some level of responsibility. You will be asked to assist and support those that need help in performing their chores.
Volunteers help those that need support with their personal hygiene, such as supervising bathing, tooth brushing, or dressing. In the morning and afternoon, you will be participating in one of the studio spaces or home spaces of the community, supporting Friends in fully engaging and learning.
