Volunteer Opportunities

Serve God and your neighbor by volunteering with us at St. John’s! There are many ways – both big and small – to contribute to our parish community and to get to know your fellow parishioners better. Teenagers are also welcome to earn their service hours here in their spiritual home.

Below is a list of service areas, each offering a variety of opportunities to help on a one-time or ongoing basis.

If you are interested in any of these areas, please contact us at volunteer@stjohndc.org.

Slavonic Lunch Teams: Volunteers help organize, cook, and serve Sunday lunches following the Slavonic Liturgy, supporting our parish tradition of sharing a meal together. Each lunch is prepared by a team of three or more volunteers, but individual help is also warmly welcomed. You may sign up using St. John's Slavonic Lunch Signup Link (signupgenius.com).
English Lunch Teams: Volunteers organize, cook, and serve Sunday lunches following the English Liturgy, helping sustain our parish tradition of sharing a meal together. You may join an existing team or form a new one with three or more volunteers.
Kiosk Team: Help greet visitors to St. John’s and support our parish community by serving at our kiosk in the church hall. Volunteers are invited to staff the kiosk on a periodic or regular basis after the Slavonic liturgy. Additional responsibilities may include ordering new items, conducting periodic inventory, and pricing items for sale.
Kiosk Children’s Corner: Our parish is blessed with many lively and curious young children, and we are glad to offer them paper and drawing supplies before and between services and meals. One or two volunteers are needed after each liturgy to monitor and replenish these supplies – sharpening pencils, providing paper, picking up scattered items, and keeping the area tidy. This task takes little time and is especially suitable for young parents.
Feeding the Local Needy: This team assists Matushka Maria in providing lunch every Saturday to 20-25 food-insecure individuals between 11:30 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Volunteers help maintain order, assemble snack bags, prepare the meal, and serve food and beverages.
Clothing for the Local Needy: Help Matushka Maria sort through and, if needed, send to the cleaners donated clothing or shop at Walmart for underwear, socks and shoes.
Church Adornment (Flower) Team: These volunteers help keep our cathedral beautifully decorated throughout the year, including creating flower arrangements for services. Support is needed to prepare and arrange flowers, remove and refrigerate them after services, return them before the next service, refresh water in vases during the week, and assist with light clean-up.
Church Cleanliness Team: These volunteers provide extra care to wipe down icons, clean hard to reach corners and shelves and remove candlewax. On a periodic basis, they gather to polish candlestands, vigil lamps and other silver objects.
Prosfora Baking Team: This team bakes over 2,000 prosfora each month! Baking sessions are scheduled on weekdays, most often Thursdays, two-three times per month.
Prayer Ministry: The Ministry seeks to pray daily for specific individuals in need, such as accident, severe illness or crisis, as well as for the recently deceased.
Outreach Ministry: The Ministry seeks to meet the needs of the elderly, homebound, and/or ill through special acts of attention and compassion. Volunteers are needed to, upon request, make phone calls to those who are homebound or hospitalized, deliver Christmas cards, blini meals and Easter baskets.
Vestment Team: This team maintains and repairs all the vestments used during services. If you’re good with a needle and thread and/or like to iron, this team could use your talent! Besides working on repairs, help with changing the analogion covers depending on feast days and wiping the icons is also needed.
Garden Team: The garden team maintains the landscaping, including weeding, pruning and planting annuals and perennials surrounding the church. Watering the several stone vases during summer months is particularly important. The work of this team is seasonal. Volunteers are invited for the spring, summer and fall seasons.
Household Inventory Team: This team keeps our household running, including ordering and purchasing soaps, disposables and food staples. Volunteers are needed to help put away supplies, stock shelves, conduct monthly inventory and periodic maintenance.
Lampada (Vigil Lamp) Care: Maintaining the many vigil lamps in the church is painstaking work that requires timeliness and dedication. Most wax inserts must be changed on a weekly basis, more often if there are weekday services. Additionally, colored vigil glasses are changed out several times a year depending on the holiday (i.e. red or blue or green).