Volunteer
Volunteers are always welcome. Volunteering is a way to experience our community and help with our daily work and routine. Volunteers assist in a variety of ways from cemetery maintenance, gardening, weeding, and forestry care to helping with our weekly food pantry. We always have work to do and love having new people join us in our work and play.
If you are interested in volunteering, please email or call us to make plans for your visit. We are in particular need of a volunteer to help with our social media and website maintenance.
Apprenticeship
The Apprenticeship is an opportunity to study and practice a way of living based on the four “roots” of Jonah House: community, spirituality, stewardship, and activism. You will experience intentional community, interfaith spirituality and soul work that engages with suffering for the sake of personal and world healing, stewardship of the earth, and peacemaking through a variety of forms, with an emphasis on nonviolent resistance.
At Jonah House, you will: learn and be shaped by these roots; become intimate with West Baltimore, especially with our neighbors and those who visit our food pantry; know the land on which we live and learn to care for its particular needs; experience the challenges and joys of life in community; and encounter the value of a disciplined and shared spiritual practice.
By joining us we expect you to participate fully in our daily rituals and work, which include the following activities:
- Morning meditation and prayer
- Forest maintenance
- Care for the cemetery grounds
- Gardening/Farming
- Helping out with the food pantry
- Cleaning and tending to the needs of the house
- Preparing meals for the house community
- Hosting and facilitating our Sunday prayer service and brunch
- Attending local events such as talks, vigils, and social justice actions
We also welcome and want you to integrate into our daily life your own spiritual and contemplative practices. We’d like you to enrich us with your unique pursuits in justice and peacemaking and enrich our community life with your particular skill sets and wisdom. To these ends, in mutuality, we offer ourselves and our stories, too. We are educators, activists, and healers and will make every effort to facilitate a formative experience for you.
Because individual needs vary, we work out the details of each apprenticeship on a case by case basis. We do not offer a stipend, but you will have no expenses related to food and lodging. Your daily living needs are covered by our community’s resources.
If you’re interested in joining us, please email or call and we’ll begin a process of mutual discernment.
Adopt a Family Plot
St. Peter’s Cemetery has over twenty different family plots. Each one is unique in size and shape. As a way to honor the families buried in them, we work with volunteers who wish to adopt a plot. Volunteers design, plant, garden and even landscape the plot they’ve adopted and are responsible for its on-going care and maintenance. We have plots that volunteers have made into rock gardens, perennial beds, berry patches, etc. If you’re interested in adopting a plot, please contact us. We would love your help, vision and effort to care for this sacred space.
