500 volunteers, one week: Serve the City gives a helping hand

Standing close to her mother outside a wind-swept Gare du Nord, five-year-old Ellie hands a weather-beaten middle-aged man a cheese sandwich and small carton of juice. He gives a slight bow and a coy smile.

Other volunteers pour coffee and hand out waffles. The men they serve - mainly refugees from the Maghreb and Syria - are clearly tired and hungry. Most have spent the past few weeks and months sleeping outside, or under the cover of an adjacent multi-storey car park. Without documentation, their prospects of gaining asylum in Belgium are slim.

The Food for Friends initiative is one of more than 20 schemes running across Brussels this week as part of the annual Big Volunteer Week organised by charity Serve the City. Some 500 volunteers from 25 countries have signed up to refurbish community centres, give homework help to children, provide meals to the elderly and isolated, and give training to low-income parents, among other projects. While most of the volunteers live in Brussels, some have flown in from as far as Texas and Virginia to lend their support.

Community action

Marina Mavridou, a Greek Master's student at KU Leuven, unfurls several big, black flags around the curved stairwell of central Brussels' Galerie Ravenstein shopping centre. A member of Serve the City's communications team, she is currently working to expand the charity's social media presence.

"I joined serve Serve the City because I wanted to do something practical and unrelated to my academic studies," she says. "It's a great way for a foreigner like me to get involved in the local community."

"I've worked for a number of non-profits, and what marks Serve the City out is that they focus on several groups at a time - the homeless, children, refugees, elderly people. We’re also very much a team - there's no rivalry or power play."

Living generously

Serve the City held its first Big Volunteer Week in July 2005. The initiative soon evolved into monthly events and weekly groups, which the annual volunteer weeks feed into. The charity operates by linking volunteers, businesses, schools, and churches to local charities already active in helping the homeless, elderly and disabled people, asylum seekers, children in need and victims of abuse.

"I started Serve the City because of a belief that our deepest needs are met as we live generously with each other," says founder Carlton Deal. "Our faith is enriched, our relationships improve, and our neighbourhoods are transformed."

The charity is always on the lookout for new volunteers, both for its monthly focus days and weekly projects. The main language is English, but knowledge of French is useful for some projects.

"We love to know what you can do or like to do," says Deal. "There is a way for everyone to serve."

With four more days of volunteering left, it is still possible to sign up for this week's Big Volunteer Week through Serve the City's website. The week ends with a community Party in the Park on Saturday 2 July at La Ferme du Parc Maximilien, Quai du Batelage 2 in Brussels, providing an opportunity to meet current volunteers and find out about projects on offer. Again, it is best to sign up online.

Branching out

Originating in Brussels, Serve the City is now active or starting in more than 100 locations around the world. Its greatest density is in Europe, with larger branches in Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon, Dublin, Madrid, and Tallinn.

The charity also wants to expand closer to home: "In addition to Brussels, we have teams in Leuven and St Truiden, but we would like to be in dozens of cities and towns," says Deal.

"Almost everyone in Serve the City is a volunteer, even at the highest levels of the movement. We would love to have more help on our STC International team so we can move further faster - but always in the context of growing relationships and authentic serving."

Photo courtesy David Taylor