Young Social Entrpreneurs Will Speak at Newtown Quaker Meeting

Hilary Burgin and Christina Repoley

Young Quaker Social Entrpreneurs to Speak at Newtown Quaker Meetinghouse

Christina Repoley, Founder and Executive Director of Quaker Voluntary Service (QVS), and Hilary Burgin, incoming QVS Executive Director, will speak about the remarkable success of Quaker Voluntary Service at 9:45 a.m., Sunday, December 9 at the Newtown Quaker Meetinghouse, 219 Court Street. Following the presentation, there will be worship in the manner of Friends at 11:00 a.m., with people speaking out of the silence as they are moved to do so (http://www.newtownfriendsmeeting.org).

Christina Repoley founded Quaker Voluntary Service in 2009 shortly after completely her graduate studies because she felt a need for “a new, transformative, and deeply Quaker opportunity for service in the world for young people – a program passionately engaged in service and social justice, both helping to change the world and enabling young people to be transformed together through the experience.”

QVS now has thriving programs in five cities -- Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, Portland (Or) and Minneapolis. Hilary Burgin said, “We have seven or eight young people in each of the five cities who live together, have common meals and activities, and work with various service agencies in their cities for one year.”

There are now one hundred and thirty two QVS alumni, fifteen of whom are working full-time for Quaker organizations around the country.

Repoley says, “As work camps and other similar voluntary cooperative community-improvement experiences did for previous generations of Quakers, this yearlong experience offers the opportunity to orient participants to whole lives committed to service and justice, grounded and sustained by their Quaker faith – lives that speak.”

Christina Repoley is a member of the Atlanta Friends Meeting, a 2002 graduate of Guilford College and was a Woodruff Fellow at Emory University, Candler School of Theology where she received a Master of Divinity in 2011. She serves on the Board of Directors of Friends Fiduciary Corporation, has published articles in Friends Journal and Quaker Life and has been the featured speaker for the 2014 Philadelphia Yearly Meeting William Penn Lecture and the 2014 Commencement at Guilford College.

Hilary Burgin has been with Quaker Voluntary Service since January 2015, as director of the Boston QVS program. Hilary grew up in Acton Friends Meeting (MA) and now attends Beacon Hill Friends Meeting in Boston. She is a graduate of Oberlin College and has worked on farms, for environmental groups, and for New England Yearly Meeting (Quakers).

Newtown Friends Meeting co-founded by "Peaceable Kingdom" painter and Quaker minister, Edward Hicks, in 1815, is open to all who wish to attend. Regular First Day Education classes (Sunday School) for all ages begin at 9:45 a.m. and Meeting for Worship begins at 11 a.m. Childcare is provided.