LVC FY14 Annual Report
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Lutheran Volunteer Corps Annual Report 2015 Building Communities of Peace with Justice If you have come here to help me, you are wasting our time. But if statement of Activities you have come because your liberation SEPTEMBER 1, 2013—AUGUST 31, 2014 is bound up with mine, Combined Financial Statements for Lutheran Volunteer Corps and then let us work together.” the Lutheran Service Corps OPERATING REVENUE FY14 FY13 Program Fees $795,122 $763,588 THIS QUOTATION, credited to Lilla Watson, has been on the Housing $820,595 $789,616 back of the LVC t-shirts given to our Volunteers at orientation Contributions $296,393 $389,084 for many years. Ms. Watson calls us to participate in the jus- Contributed Services $3,000 $3,066 tice movement in an entirely different modality. She asks us Other Revenue $154,149 $23,538 if we believe that we are bound to one another. TOTAL INCOME $2,069,259 $1,968,892 She asks us to stop seeing ourselves as helpers or those being helped; as oppressors or the oppressed; as a one per- OPERATING EXPENSES FY14 FY13 center or the 99 percent. Much like Martin Luther King, Jr. Program $1,772,338 $1,580,053 in a letter from a Birmingham jail in which he wrote, “a threat to justice anywhere is G&A $103,253 $104,629 a threat to justice everywhere,” she invites us to find and experience our common Fundraising $154,789 $154,789 humanity and the connection between us—for we have far more commonalities than Total Expense $2,030,380 $1,839,471 differences. Yet, for the most part we have divided ourselves according to these TOTAL GAIN/(LOSS) $38,879 $129,421 differences and this has kept us from the ‘mutuality’ that Ms. Watson and Dr. King ask us to explore. BALANCE SHEET FY14 FY13 Total Assets $1,065,673 $956,833 In our 2014 Annual Report, you will read about Kelly, an Illinois farm girl, who found Total Liabilities $775,619 $705,658 a new home in Milwaukee with those she was going to “help” as an LVC Volunteer, and TOTAL NET ASSETS $290,054 $251,175 Xavier, an enthusiastic fifth grade “client,” who has since become an LVC Volunteer. It is experiences like these that we hope to nurture through our program at LVC. In talking with many of you, I hear that this is your LVC story as well, whether you served in D.C. or in St. Paul; during the 1980s or at the turn of the century; or were parents who watched your children find their life’s mission during their year of ser- vice with LVC. I hope that you enjoy this 2014 LVC Annual Report and that you take some inspiration from it. I also hope that you will continue to support LVC’s efforts to create mutual relationships upon which we will build a just world. In Service, sam collins, President, LVC [email protected] supported by Our Community Thank You for Your Support $ LVC IS GRATEFUL FOR THE ABUNDANT SUPPORT of a strong 320 Alumni community. In FY2014, we received gifts from more than 1,000 churches, synods, businesses, foundations, and individuals. Your 66% DONATED donations bring vitality to our programming and sustainability to our organization. $1,932 money $64,670$ IN 2014–2015 To be better stewards of your donations and the earth, we have saved listed donor names, supporting congregations and placements only by publishing donor list in this online version of our FY2014 annual report. By posting this online only—not in print ALUMNI PERCENTAGE TOTAL information online instead of in print, we have saved 15,000 pages YEAR WHO GAVE DONATIONS 1980-81 33% $325 and $1,932 in printing and mailing costs. Click here for a complete 1981-82 26% $1,125 listing of FY14 donors, or scroll to page 6 of this document. 1982-83 41% $4,255 1983-84 12% $445 1984-85 26% $1,935 1985-86 15% $1,275 LVC Staff 1986-87 17% $1,995 = 1,000 printed pages saved A.J. Cabrera, Kate Ingersoll, 1987-88 21% $1,770 Program Manager—Admissions Administrative & Operations 1988-89 22% $6,800 yvonne charles, Associate, LVC Volunteer 1989-90 18% $1,495 LVC board of 1990-91 13% $1,280 Regional Director, Bay Area Deirdre Kanzer, 1991-92 13% $2,595 Sam Collins, President Regional Director, Twin Cities 1992-93 21% $2,900 directors: 1993-94 18% $7,565 Janelle Domeyer, Hannah Klaassen, Regional Director, 1994-95 10% $1,015 2014–15 LSC Executive Director & 1995-96 12% $1,746 Bruce Albright* Nathan Miller, Regional Director, Omaha Chicago & Milwaukee 1996-97 9% $1,990 Nancy Appel, Board Chair FY15* Monica Fisk, Judy Kuhagen, 1997-98 10% $1,936 Volunteer Staff 1998-99 15% $3,140 Board Chair FY14 Emily Moen Regional Director, Puget Sound 1999-00 9% $742 Carrie Carroll* Julie Nelson, Treasurer* Elizabeth Flomo, Elodie Lee, Development & 2000-01 15% $2,425 Recruitment & Outreach Manager Communications Associate 2001-02 8% $1,856 Sam Collins, Kristin Roberts 2002-03 8% $1,830 Kevin Mackiewicz, LVC President* Gwen Spencer* Rev. Sue Gaeta, 2003-04 11% $1,750 Regional Director, Doug Cutchins Regional Director, Washington DC 2004-05 10% $595 Bianca Vazquez* Baltimore & Wilmington 2005-06 13% $2,062 Gary George* Emily Garofalo, Emerson Williams-Mollett* Hierald Osorto, 2006-07 9% $1,240 Tacoma City Coordinator 2007-08 7% $700 David Merchant Jeffrey Yamada* National Program Director Julie Hamre, Comptroller, 2008-09 13% $540 * Current Board Member Volunteer Staff Deborah Shepard, 2009-10 10% $1,225 Operations Director 2010-11 16% $2,328 2011-12 7% $550 to receive a print copy of this annual report, Amy Sutter, 2012-13 11% $568 please email [email protected] Director of Development 2013-14 5% $672 Building Family in the Community KELLY SCHAER visited Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for the first time in 1998—the day All People’s Church as the staff youth director. she moved there to take a position in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC). She had Fifteen years later, she is still a member of the grown up on an Illinois farm, so even the urban environment was new. But Kelly be- church, where she was married and her chil- Lutheran Volunteer Corps lieved that service was the best way to create positive change in the world, and she dren were baptized. In fact, Xavier is godfather arrived feeling open to every experience. On that first day, she couldn’t have known to her son Devin. “LVC completely changed my offers Volunteers like Kelly and that she would form lifelong community, friendships, and family, in Milwaukee. life and trajectory,” Kelly says. “It was some- times hard to see the world differently, but I Xavier the opportunity to build Kelly’s placement was All People’s Church, where she ran Kids Working to Succeed, did and I’m a better person for it. Change is an urban gardening program for youth. It was there that she met Xavier Thomas and about finding out what social justice issues communities and transform his family. “They were hard to avoid,” she says, laughing. are meaningful to you and not sitting on the sidelines, but being a part of the change.” lives. If you know someone who At that time, three generations of Thomases were active in the church: Xavier’s grandfather was the custodian; his mother worked in the church office; and his older Lutheran Volunteer Corps also changed Xavi- would make a great volunteer, brother was attending the gardening program. And then there was Xavier: a bright er’s life. Today he is the LVC volunteer at All please encourage them to apply and energetic sixth grader, always moving at lightning speed. People’s—in the same position Kelly once held. “The impact of LVC on my life is that I know at lutheranvolunteercorps.org. Following on his brother’s heels, Xavier how to give back,” Xavier says. “It’s allowing joined the gardening program, where he me to have the impact on kids’ lives that all “I’m building all learned everything from how to grow let- the volunteers had on mine.” my communities tuce and find Bible passages to the im- portance of a strong work ethic, and even Xavier is also planning to be married in the church soon. “I’m building all my commu- into one.” earned a daily wage. Along the way, he and nities into one,” he says. “My family, my neighborhood, my work, my LVC community, Kelly formed a friendship that extended and my church, are all rolling as one community.” —Xavier Thomas beyond the walls of the church and into their families. “Kelly was like my real sister,” Xavier says. After he lost his house key several times, his family entrusted Kelly with a spare key. At the end of the school day, the bus driv- er would drop Xavier at All People’s, and Kelly would walk him home and let him into the house. Soon, she was an honorary member of the Thomas family, a family that Kelly Schaer, Alumna supported each other in times of celebration and need. The Thomases once spent a Xavier Thomas, at his lifelong church and still living and serving current LVC placement, All People’s Church in Milwaukee happy vacation in the pool at the Schaer’s home in rural Illinois. And when Kelly was robbed at a bus stop, the Thomases were the first people she called. Kelly remembers her LVC year as an intense experience, full of challenge and growth.