My name is Emili Dubar and I am a former Dominican Volunteer. Dominican Volunteers USA is an organization that places young men and women all over the country to serve disadvantaged communities. This is done in many different ways, from activism with an NGO at the United Nations to social work with a domestic violence agency in Illinois. This is a picture of the 2016-2017 Dominican Volunteers taken at our closing retreat in Louisiana. This year’s volunteers worked in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, and California.
I chose to apply to Dominican Volunteers because I wanted to be able to immerse myself in service, something I had never had time to do, before I began graduate school. Also, this program specifically offered all the things I felt I needed as a volunteer in addition to the opportunity to serve. I lived out the Dominican pillars of community, prayer, study and service through my year, and because of this, I felt a sense of support that I’m not sure I would have gotten from other service programs.
I lived with an amazing community of three and another volunteer, Kayla. We lived in a duplex in North Lawndale, very near Little Village on the West Side of Chicago. And we lived as a true community, cooking, praying, talking, watching movies, and playing games together nearly every night. Kayla and I were actually only asked to participate in what we called “community dinner” four nights a week, but we enjoyed it so much, that we almost never left the sisters until we went to bed. We went through a lot as a community. 
To start, nearly a month after arriving in Chicago, we were evicted from our first house. How can they evict Catholic nuns you ask? I don’t have an answer for you. We were lucky enough to be offered another duplex owned by our church, which we moved into a few weeks later. We pushed through as a community and were able to overcome the challenges. We even got to go on some adventures.
Another part of my year involved prayer or spirituality. As I mentioned, we prayed together after “community dinner.” Each week, we would volunteer for a night to lead prayer. Let me just note that I’m not Catholic or even particularly religious, but I really enjoyed prayer and the faith community we were part of was really amazing. Every Sunday we attended St. Agatha for services. Father Larry Dowling, our priest, is extremely devoted to racial and economic justice and it was inspiring the hear him speak.
Study in the Dominican tradition is more about contemplation and the sharing of truth than it is about study as we think of it in college. That being said, to fulfill study, the organization, DVUSA, gave us monthly topics to reflect on in our communities. We also read the New Jim Crow, and connected with the other DVs to give presentations about social justice issues, such as economic justice and human trafficking.
One of the biggest parts of my year involved service, which the program referred to as ministry. My ministry was at Visitation Catholic School on the South Side of Chicago. It was an hour-long commute from my home in North Lawndale to Englewood where I worked. It was and arduous journey, but I really did love my work. I was an assistant teacher to a fourth and fifth grade class of 27 kids. It was extremely tiring and very difficult work, but I’m so glad I did it. My jobs included tutoring, giving monthly reading benchmarks, grading weekly tests and essays, monitoring recess and library time, and pulling out several students struggling with reading for individual help. I also chaperoned field trips and oversaw two after-school activities, volleyball and a literary magazine club. Also, I decorated two bulletin boards every few months. 
However, that just goes to show how under resourced this school is. I had all of those jobs because the head teacher had only enough time to create and implement two curriculum for her split class.
It wasn’t all work, though. I had a lot of time on the weekends to explore Chicago, and I realized I couldn’t have been luckier in my placement. The downtown area was full of art, culture, music, and beauty, but nothing compares to my home in North Lawndale where I got to go to street festivals, participate in community dinners with our church, and see beautiful street art.
Being a Dominican Volunteer was one of the most exhausting, stressful, and sometimes frustrating things I have ever done, but I couldn’t imagine spending that year any other way. 
I learned so much and I am so grateful I was able to be in Chicago serving Visitation School. I feel like I left a piece of my heart there (as well as my blood, sweat, and tears). I cannot wait to go back some day to visit and, I hope see the 4th and 5th graders I worked with graduate from 8th grade. It was truly a life changing experience.
AUTHOR BIO: After graduating Albertus Magnus College in 2016, Emili Dubar spent a year in Chicago with the Dominican Volunteers USA. You can read more about her service with the Dominican Volunteers USA and other student service projects in the Fall From the Hill out November 15th.