Pedro Arrupe Volunteers

The Pedro Arrupe Volunteers (PAV) is an intentional, multi-faith, student-led ministry within the auspices of the Office of Campus Ministry.  It seeks to provide opportunities for engagement between our students and Fordham’s neighbors and partners by means of short-term community service projects in the greater New York City area. 

Pedro Arrupe Volunteers is inspired by its namesake, the former Superior General of the Society of Jesus who championed “faith that does justice.” Through a variety of programs, PAV seeks to be a portal to the world of service and engagement with the marginalized and under-privileged in our NYC community.  It aims to raise awareness of the gritty reality of poverty, racism, and privilege woven into unjust social institutions. 

With our service programs, we can learn more about ourselves. Through action, we work with our community and discover our fears, biases, strengths and compassion. We help, not as superior to others, but as brothers or sisters. It is graceful to take time to see and even more so, to let our hearts be touched.

We provide opportunities for meaningful engagement with the community through direct service and exploration of current issues. Working with churches and other organizations in our Bronx and Lincoln Center communities, some of PAV's current projects and partners include:

• Midnight Run- meal preparation and distribution for people experiencing homelessness in Manhattan
• Latine Heritage Literacy day at Rose Hill campus and Lincoln Center Amsterdam Housing 
• Holiday market/party at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church
• Remote reading program Reading Buddies with StriveHigher
• On-campus Halloween and Spring Celebrations 
• Park restoration with Bronx is Blooming and others
• Supporting children in foster care at Abbott House
• Collaborating with the Ethical Society in New York City
• Engaging with retired Jesuits at Murray Weigel Hall

We build community with fellow project volunteers and our neighbors in the Bronx and Manhattan by immersing ourselves in service opportunities, prayer, reflection, and dialogue. Our volunteers are challenged to lean into discomfort--we encourage open minds in order to best feed their souls!

We are present in our own faith backgrounds, with an openness to meet our neighbors wherever they are. We seek to share in meaningful experience with all those we encounter and to acknowledge our shared human dignity.

Reflection and prayer are about journeying through life with some guides and maps; about letting God find a home in us. But prayer and reflection are also about our pain, our losses, and our failures...the human heart can soar but it can also break. Sometimes, too, prayer and reflection can lead us to outrage at the evil people inflict on one another—like racism, sexism, economic tyranny, and political oppression.  It can lead us to mourn or protest the contradiction between God's design and the kind of world in which we currently live.

On service programs, the idea of reflection is to bring the lived experience of the day into dialogue with something larger than the self. Reflection is the human ability to search for meaning in all life's events. Prayer is that same human reflection but done in the company of God.  

Prayer is an opportunity to disengage from the action of service and connect with the people we encounter.  We encourage you to reflect on your experiences allowing intentional thought as you are present in service.

We are people of many different faiths, in service with others.
 

"To be just, is not enough to refrain from injustice. One must go further and refuse to play its game, substituting love for self interest as the driving force of society." - Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Pedro Arrupe, S.J., served as Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983. He is remembered for his commitment to social justice and serving the needs of the poor. Our community emulates Fr. Arrupe's example of love for "the least of our neighbors" and his call to "proclaim the Gospel" that demands of us "a commitment to promote justice and enter into solidarity with the voiceless and the powerless."

During his time with the Jesuits, Fr. Arrupe was especially supportive of those who worked with the poor and marginalized in Central and South America. Fr. Arrupe was also a a great advocate for liberation theology which he taught as the suffering endured by the victims of war and poverty with Christ’s compassion and that alleviating the one through justice was honoring the other in faith. He was described by many as “a second Ignatius” and practiced Zen meditation daily as well as social justice advocacy.  

It is Fr. Arrupe's words that encourage us to become "Men and Women for others".

We dialogue with community partners to find areas of common interest with the potential for collaboration and the development of joint projects. Projects are opened about a month in advance and volunteers can sign up for whichever projects they choose and can fully commit to, as our partners rely on our volunteers.

To advance a faith that does justice, PAV will promote encounters and conversations that challenge the reduction of persons to abstractions where “there are no citizens, only votes; no poor, only thresholds of poverty; no migrants, only quotas; no workers, only economic markers” (Pope Francis) through our Common Grounds Conversation series.

Our programs are advertised though our weekly newsletter where you can sign up.