Gaven Green (he/him) is a boricua, Eastern Pennsylvania native from the Lehigh Valley, and recent graduate of Swarthmore College. Gaven, class of 2024, graduated with a special major in Political Science and Educational Studies and minor in Film and Media Studies. He prides himself on leading the Swarthmore First-generation, Low Income (FLI) Council, being a FLI student, working with the Swarthmore Student Palestine Coalition, being an amateur filmmaker, and using his areas of study to tell stories of activism, politics, history, and, most importantly, underrepresented voices. His story, talents, and compassion will guide him through his year of service with the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia.

Lucas Meyer-Lee (he/they) is a Quaker with ties to Indiana, Atlanta and Philadelphia.  They enjoy art, reading, and repairing worn clothes.  After graduating from Swarthmore College in 2023, Lucas studied Arabic in Meknes, Morocco for a year as a CASA fellow. After returning to the States, they hope to explore Arabic translation and re-engage with their connections in prison abolition work and organizing for Palestine. With QVS, Lucas is looking forward to working at Pendle Hill.

Solange (she/her) is an actor, singer, dramaturge, and backyard-bird enthusiast. When she isn't preparing for a performance, she can be found knitting, or enjoying the local plants and wildlife. She was raised as a Quaker in Sandpoint Idaho, and has always felt strongly called to help create a more just, equitable, and connected world. Solange studied performance at the National Theater Institute, and became a part of the Miranda Family Fellowship’s inaugural class in 2017. She attended California State University Fullerton (CSUF), where she served on the Theater Arts Union for Equity and Diversity. Solange graduated from CSUF with her BFA in Acting in 2022. Some of her favorite acting credits include: Alma/Caitlyn in Under Ben Bulben- Jewel Theater, Brigid in The Humans- MCT, Lady Susan in Lady Susan- CSUF, and Patty Ann in Looking for Normal- Actor’s Theater Santa Cruz. She is thrilled to begin her next adventure working with ACHIEVEability!

Susan grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and Doylestown, PA. She recently graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory, having studied Neuroscience with a minor in Writing and Communication and an integrative concentration in Global Health. She is uniquely interested in increasing the accessibility of science and healthcare. Both in New York City and Bucks County, they were immersed in a vibrant Quaker community that profoundly influenced their outlook on public health. While at Oberlin, she worked as editor-in-chief of the Synapse magazine, an art and science magazine written by college students with the ethos of translating science for widespread understanding and appreciation. She has recently worked as a Practicum Fellow at Lorain County Public Health. They have attended and worked at Camp Onas, a Quaker camp in Ottsville, PA, for the better part of her life, and her home meeting is the Wrightstown Meeting. Susan loves Philadelphia and is excited to work with the Body Empowerment Project this year!

ACHIEVEability is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization working to permanently break the generational cycle of poverty for low income, single parent, and homeless families through higher education, affordable housing, supportive services, community and economic development, and accountability.

Founded in 1981, ACHIEVEability strives to permanently break the generational cycle of poverty for low-income, single-parent and homeless families. In our neighborhood the poverty rate is 37%. Focusing on the Haddington and Cobbs Creek neighborhoods of West Philadelphia, ACHIEVEability provides a continuum of anti-poverty services for vulnerable, low-income individuals and families through our three core programs: ACHIEVEability Connects, Family Self-Sufficiency Program and WorkSmart West Philly. ACHIEVEability is a midsized nonprofit with 17 staff members located in two offices. Our vision is to eradicate poverty in West Philadelphia. We use our core values to guide us and we are: fired up, transformative, accountable, community-driven, gritty and compassionate. Each year, we serve over 2,500 individuals and help them to achieve economic stability.

ACHIEVEability Fellow-
ACHIEVEability (ACHa), located in the Haddington/Cobbs Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia, is looking for an enthusiastic, community focused individual interested in helping us to achieve our mission of breaking the cycle of poverty and promoting economic mobility among our residents. Our community faces high poverty (37%) and various barriers to achieving economic mobility. ACHa is committed to addressing the systematic challenges faced by our community by providing direct services and advocating for policy change. We are looking for an energetic and creative problem solver eager to help ACHa support individuals and families of all ages and abilities in reaching their full potential.

The ACHa Fellow will support our core programs: ACHa Connects, Family Self-Sufficiency Program and WorkSmart West Philly. Reporting to the Executive Director, the fellow will have an opportunity to provide direct services, manage projects, implement volunteer projects and help build infrastructure for the organization. The fellow will also learn about nonprofit fundraising, leadership, stakeholder engagement, policy research and advocacy. Qualified candidates should be comfortable working in an urban and nonprofit environment that requires flexibility, good communication skills and the ability to work individually and as part of a team. General computer skills, including word processing, excel, internet and email are a plus.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social relations and systems.

South Region Quaker Engagement Fellow

Under the care of the Quaker Engagement staff in AFSC’s Central Office in Philadelphia and South Region staff in Atlanta, this QVS Fellow will be responsible for developing a model of engagement for Monthly and Yearly meetings through a set of activities which may include, but is not limited to:
· Recruiting AFSC liaisons with the goal of establishing at least one liaison in every monthly meeting in the South Region.
· Keeping contact information for Friends current and updated in AFSC’s systems.
· Sending regular communications to liaisons with AFSC activities, opportunities for Friends to take Action, and program updates for meetings located near an AFSC program.
· Sending physical materials like posters, handouts, stickers, and other promotional materials for AFSC programs and campaigns.
· Developing close relationships with Friends and help them find opportunities to become more engaged with AFSC.
· Through closer relationships with liaisons and the monitoring of monthly and yearly meeting newsletters, socials, and emails, lift up developing areas of concern within various Friends communities and share with the Quaker Engagement staff and the wider organization where appropriate.
· Engaging local meetings in signing on to key AFSC campaigns with an ask for local meetings like the Apartheid Free Communities campaign, the Think Twice Pledge, endorsements of North Star, and participation in Stop Cop City.
· Creating speaking and other engagement opportunities at local meetings for AFSC staff and other experts
· Soliciting an annual donation from Monthly Meetings and Yearly Meetings.

Body Empowerment Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 2021 to help empower youth to find body acceptance and self-worth. The organization works to prevent eating disorders in adolescents, specifically in populations that lack access to treatment and preventive care. Our primary goal is to reduce healthcare disparities and promote equitable access to a novel community health intervention. Our prevention program involves the delivery of our evidence-based curriculum which has been recently demonstrated to have clinically significant reductions in eating disorder risk in our participants. 

Body Empowerment Project was founded and incorporated in 2021 by two University of Pennsylvania alumni who had a passion for healthcare equity and lived experience with eating disorders and body image struggles. In 2022, they hired their first full-time employee, Clara Pritchett, to assume the role of Operations Director. In the last two years, BEP has expanded from 2 high schools to 16 middle and high schools across the School District of Philadelphia as well as 4 schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. BEP has served roughly 550 students since inception. Importantly, our program has been tailored to specifically serve our student population. Lessons are rooted in social justice and fat liberation practices and resources. In addition to our middle and high school programming, we facilitate professional development workshops for teachers, nurses, and other professionals. We also oversee programming on 7 college campuses all across the country.

The Program Manager will work alongside our Executive Director and other members of the leadership team with current operations and organizational reach and capacity. The main duties for this role fall into two categories: programming and fundraising. Programming duties will include volunteer management, forging and maintaining relationships with school contacts, gathering and providing feedback to participants and volunteers, and visiting school sites and providing feedback to volunteer facilitators. Fundraising duties will include: grant searching, grant writing, planning fundraising events, running virtual mass market campaigns, and networking with existing and prospective donors. Additionally, the program manager will partner with our board of directors and leadership team to gain nonprofit leadership skills. They will play a key role in strategic planning, budgeting, and organization-wide operations.

Mission Statement

Children develop most quickly and meaningfully in settings of cooperative play, imaginative learning, creative expression, and regular contact with the natural environment. This is the essence of the LFS experience: a progressive child-centered education surrounded by unsurpassed cultural diversity, gifted educators, and green play spaces.

Pendle Hill was established in 1930 as a Quaker study center designed to prepare its adult students for service both in the Religious Society of Friends and in the world. Pendle Hill was meant to be different from existing Quaker schools or colleges, which were mainly academic. Its mission was both educational and religious: Pendle Hill was to be a school, rooted in Quaker community life, where students and staff would live according to Quaker principles and practices and where learning would be experiential as well as intellectual.

The founders of Pendle Hill included well-known Quaker spiritual leaders, teachers, and business people such as Rufus Jones of Haverford, Henry Cadbury of Bryn Mawr, William and Hannah Clothier Hull of Swarthmore, George Walton of George School and his brother, J. Barnard Walton, Agnes Tierney of Coulter Street Meeting, Germantown, and D. Robert Yarnall, who was to clerk the Board for 24 years. The first director was Henry Hodgkin, a respected British Quaker who played a large role in naming Pendle Hill after the hill climbed by George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, in 1652, from which he saw “a great people to be gathered.” Henry Hodgkin wrote: “The name of Pendle Hill symbolizes the call to climb to spiritual heights through hard thinking and self-discipline…to see deeper into the meaning of life and farther out into the great world, and to come down, as did Fox from Pendle Hill, with a fresh zest for the service which reaches to ‘that of God’ in all…”

Central to the vision of the Pendle Hill community and the influence that it seeks to exert in the larger world are: peace, truth-speaking and integrity, equality, simplicity, and reaching out to that of God in every one. Further, Pendle Hill seeks to uphold education, sustainability, and social action and justice as key values and practices for and within our work.

At this moment our organization have a reduced staff of 19 people but we serve more that 5,000 people at year in our different programs and through our conference service. We are committed to radical hospitality as a testimony of simplicity and inclusion.

Education Program Assistant

Under supervision of the Director of Education, the QVS Fellow would focus on supporting Pendle Hill’s Friends Foundation for the Aging -funded online programming learning resources, bringing our outreach to older adults to the next level. This year, the QVS Fellow would intentionally reach out to other FFA grantees, building on resonances identified between FFA grantee programming.

The School of the Spirit Ministry (SotS) is dedicated to helping all who wish to be more faithful listeners and responders to the inward work of Christ.

Within the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the traditional meetings of ministers and elders were sometimes referred to as a “school of the Spirit.” In gathered worship Friends learned to discern the movement of the Inward Teacher and test their discernment with one another. This practiced listening–this unceasing prayer–extended into every aspect of their lives.

Administrator and Outreach Coordinator

Duties:

1. Proactively anticipate roadblocks and opportunities for the Ministry, and offer potential solutions, systems or tools to the board for managing them well. The 5-10 person Board of Directors meets monthly by video and 1-2 times/year in person.
2. Keep the ministry’s financial books in order, to the satisfaction of the treasurer. Specifically this includes ledgering daily transactions, monthly bank-to-checkbook reconciliation, and special analyses and tools as requested by the treasurer or finance committee. Track income/expense and cash flows from programs. Ensure that participants are informed about and invoiced for balances due and that the treasurer has current information about program income and expenses. Our annual budget is currently approximately $150K, and we hold $120K in reserves. Ledgering takes place in Excel and Google Sheets software. On average, the administrator processes 30-50 transactions monthly when 2-3 programs are operational. The Board is discerning a call to new ministry (see #4 below) which might increase this frequency.
3. Maintain the ministry’s donor database. Specifically, the database work includes daily recording of transactions, quarterly summary updates on contributions and analysis of significant patterns and trends for use in soliciting funding from donors and grantors.