Each of us being different makes all of us better. This means there are as many ways to “get involved” as there are ways to be ourselves.
What are your dreams? What are you good at? What do you enjoy? How do you want to make the world a better place?
Your answer to these questions could help you find your place here at L’Arche Northern Colorado.
You are valuable. You have gifts worth celebrating. You have needs that could be met through being part of our community. You can belong… together, with us. We look forward to getting to know you better!
WELCOME. CONNECT. BELONG.
- We WELCOME by valuing every person and celebrating their gifts.
- We CONNECT every person to resources and relationships that meet their needs.
- We BELONG by sharing life together and nuturing meaningful, mutual, relationships.
By valuing others and helping to meet each others’ needs we also receive back from what we give.
If you are willing to apply our “Theory of Change,” L’Arche Northern Colorado might be a great community for you.
WE CULTIVATE COMMUNITY
We have a community garden. It helps us to remember that when we work together to care for plants, and help them grow, that they can give us some of the food we need and we can share that food with others.
Cultivating a garden is a lot like cultivating community. By working together to care for meaningful relationships we can grow together. Investing our time and talents in each other will not only help us with our own needs, it will give us something to share.
There are as many opportunities to get involved here at L’Arche Northern Colorado as there are “tasks to be done” and “gifts to do them with”!
Where do we start?
Here are three ways that you can help us cultivate community:
- You can help us Launch L’Arche Northern Colorado. There are so many things that go into starting up a new community that this will get a whole section below. Before we can plant this garden, there are a lot of things we must do, together, to get ready.
- You can join our community and invite others to participate. What makes L’Arche so amazing is how we prioritize our relationships. You are more important than what you do… but what you do is important too.
- You can invest some of your time, your talents, your connections to existing relationships, or our resources… whatever they may be. We all have something of value to offer. And, together, we can cultivate a community that shows the world that there is a better way to live.
What does this look like practically?
LAUNCH
We are starting up a new community that will live, work and enjoy life together. To do this we will be creating places, spaces, partnerships, programs, activities and services.
To prepare for these things, we need to grow our capacity by growing our community and by growing our financial resources through fundraising. For more information about our End-of-Year Capacity Campaign please click on the “Launch 2023” link at the top or bottom of this page.
JOIN
Growing community is about finding and fostering mutual relationships. We are looking for people who want to belong in a community where differences are appreciated and celebrated. We prioritize bringing people with intellectual disabilities from the margins to the center, so that their voices are heard and their choices are honored. Through this we create a shared culture that values every life and all relationships.
And, in giving we receive, because addressing marginalization for anyone brings benefit to everyone.
We are looking for many different relational connections:
- people with intellectual disabilities who need help or have gifts to share
- friends and family of people with intellectual disabilities who want to see them thrive
- people without intellectual disabilities who want authentic relationships that celebrate differences rather than exclude them
- professionals, service providers and organizations that serve people with intellectual disabilities who want to work together for better outcomes
- community members and leaders who will champion our transformative potential and are willing to invest to bring this vision into reality
- philanthropic investors who are willing to provide financial leadership in order to create meaningful impact
Join Our Team
It is so awesome that you are interested!
Currently, all of our opportunities are “volunteer” positions. However, we will be expanding our capacity with paid part-time and full-time staff positions in 2024.
For more information about future paid positions, or opportunities to getting started with volunteering, please fill out this form.
Volunteer / More Info
INVEST
We all have value. We all have needs. We all want to belong. Investing in L’Arche Northern Colorado brings these three things together.
Time…
We are a “small but mighty” group of people, with and without disabilities, who have a vision for a better way to live.
There are many tasks that need to be completed to make our vision real, and the most precious gift that you can give is your time. We invite you to volunteer with us. Depending on your interests and experience, we could find a place for you to make a valuable contribution on a team that will appreciate you for who you are, not just what you do. This could include:
- being on an advisory board
- serving on a working committee (e.g. Finance, Governance, Community Building, Fundraising, Special Projects, etc.)
- helping with events
- networking and partnership development
- administrative support
- operational support
- providing other professional services on an ‘as needed’ basis
- hanging out, having fun and being a really great friend
Talent…
Everyone has a talent, a professional skill, an area of expertise. There are so many ways to engage!
TALENTS
Are you artistic and creative? Are you good with people? Are you good with numbers? Are you flexible? Are you organized? Can you whistle? Regardless of your talent, there is probably an expression for it with us.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
As a start-up that will quickly grow into a large operation. We will have use for all the professional disciplines required for managing a nonprofit, community organizing, development and health service provision. This means we will need professional skills like: legal, governance, finance, accounting, administration, construction, fundraising, volunteer coordination, outreach, event planning, leadership, social services, direct support, healthcare, safety, security, and much more. If you have a professional skill, we probably need it.
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Although this could overlap with professional skills, there are many valuable contributions to a community that don’t fit neatly into a box. Are you a parent or family member of a person with intellectual disabilities? Are you good at making people feel welcomed and valued? If you are an expert (or even just really good) at anything, we would love to hear more about it.
Relationships…
Most people maintain about 120 relationships, which means we all know a lot of people. All of the people that we know also know about as many people as we do. If we do the math, we find that the number of people who are included in each of our “I know somebody, who knows somebody” is about 14,400!
Do you know anyone who has a talent, a professional skill, an area of expertise or a resource that could help us launch this community? Chances are that you do!
Resources…
Our most precious gift is time.
In cultivating community, time is an indispensable ingredient. Every task, every relationship, every moment spent welcoming, connecting and including, requires a personal investment of time. In addition to the time we each invest to be part of this community, we also need financial investments.
Financial leadership releases the resource of time. Financial investments make it possible for hours that would be used in other ways to be focused on helping us to achieve our goals. Financial investments are an indispensable resource for meaningful impact.
We will be bold in presenting this opportunity to whomever is interested and has the capacity to make a financial investment, because welcoming, connecting and including people with intellectual disabilities in our community is deeply meaningful.
OUR INVITATION
We invite you to make a meaningful impact for people with intellectual disabilities by investing your time, your talents, your relationships and your resources.
Please click on one of the following buttons to learn more about our “Launch 2023” End-of Year Campaign, to request a meeting with our Community Leader to discuss opportunities to provide impactful financial leadership, or make a online donation today.
We want you to be part of L’Arche Northern Colorado.
