Residential Volunteer

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Innisfree Village is looking for motivated, passionate, and caring individuals who are interested in rural community living with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This is an exciting opportunity for individuals who are seeking a one-year service-oriented experience. Alongside our residents and staff, volunteers experience the daily joys and challenges of living, working, and playing in a close-knit environment, learning from each other and developing profound, lifelong relationships. As an intentional, lifesharing community, Innisfree Village values meaningful work and fosters creativity through artistic crafts, stewardship of the land, and daily community life.

Set in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, near Charlottesville, Virginia, Innisfree Village is a residential, lifesharing community with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Residents (whom we call coworkers) and residential volunteers work together on a 550-acre farm in a therapeutic environment
emphasizing empowerment, interdependence, and mutual respect of all community members. Residential Volunteers live together with coworkers in family-style homes throughout the village. During a one-month training and orientation period, volunteers learn house management skills that include cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping, and finances as well as caring for the personal needs of each coworker. Volunteers are
also engaged in therapeutic work in the art studio, bakery, community kitchen, farm, herb and vegetable gardens, free school activities like pottery, the weavery, and the woodshop. Fifteen to twenty people, all with various backgrounds and nationalities, are needed each year. Volunteers must be at least 18 years of age, able to make a one-year commitment and be patient, empathetic, flexible, and positive.