Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC) connects full-time stipended volunteers nationwide with nonprofit organizations to work for peace and justice. This month, the Justice & Diversity Center (JDC) is pleased to spotlight Keeya Singer and Hannah Flanery, who work at JDC’s Homeless Advocacy Project (HAP) through LVC.

Keeya Singer is serving this year as the social services advocate for HAP. She is impressed with how HAP encourages a critical balance of compassion and professionalism in order to best work with the clients. She especially appreciates working to engage and relate to clients with compassion and understanding, and helping them move in positive directions.

Singer is applying for a doctoral degree program in Child Psychology, hoping to use her experiences with HAP and JDC to help children and families through court-mandated therapy.

Hannah Flanery is in her second LVC year with HAP, serving as the legal advocate. After being forced to leave Ukraine while volunteering for the Peace Corps, Flanery decided to continue her commitment to social justice with LVC and HAP. One of the lessons she has learned is how effective combining legal and social services resources can be for clients, saying, “For cases that require a dual effort in order for a client to succeed, it’s so great to see an attorney approaching the case from an angle of advocating for the client’s legal needs… while having a social services staff member there to support the client in other ways.”

Flanery is currently applying to law school, hoping to become more involved as an attorney in public interest law and advocating for social justice causes.