We are hiring our founding team

EngAGE Beverly is a small community for older adults on Chicago's South Side, especially those navigating memory changes, and the care partners who walk alongside them. We gather in the Garth Room at Bethany Union Church, with no more than eight people at a time.

We open in October, and we are hiring the first two people who will help us do it.

These are founding roles. You will work alongside our Program Director to shape how EngAGE Beverly runs from the very first week. The hours are part-time and predictable, the responsibility is real from day one, and you will know every participant by name.

Adult Engagement Specialist

Part-time · Two five-hour shifts each week · Beginning October 2026

Starts at $25 per hour

The work

You are the warm, relational heart of the day. Working alongside our Program Director, who is in the room with you, you help run our gatherings, build a real relationship with each participant, and keep the room calm and memory-capable.

A day includes coffee and conversation, something interesting to turn over together, movement, music, making something, a shared meal, and time to linger. You will facilitate parts of it, sit alongside people for the rest of it, and guide volunteers in the moment.

What you would actually do

• Welcome participants as they arrive, and help them settle
• Lead and support activities, and follow the room as it goes
• Notice how each person is doing, and adjust the day to suit
• Work alongside our Program Director, and guide our Gathering Companions and Guest Facilitators, who are volunteers, so they know where to be
• Help set up, share the meal, and put the room back
• Keep simple notes on how each gathering went

Who we are looking for

Required

• CPR and First Aid certification before your first shift. If you are not currently certified, we will arrange the training and cover the cost.

All of this is welcome, but none of it is required

• CNA or RN certification, current or lapsed
• Experience with older adults, especially those navigating memory changes

What actually matters more

• The instinct to see the whole person. Not the diagnosis, and not the list of things someone can no longer do. Our approach is inspired by Elderwise in Seattle and their spirit-centered philosophy, and this is where it begins.
• Acceptance, and celebration, of who a person is in the moment you are with them. Not who they used to be, and not who they are becoming. The person in the room today is the whole person, and is met as one.
• Patience, and the steadiness to keep offering it
• Comfort with slowness, and with silence
• Real warmth, and genuine interest in who people are
• Good judgment in the moment, and the confidence to ask when you are unsure
• Reliability, because the same face each week is the whole point

We would rather have the right person than the right credential, and we mean that. Retired professionals, parents working school-day hours, career changers, and people returning to work after time away are all genuinely welcome.

Room to grow

We open two days a week in October, aim for four in November and December, and gatherings every weekday by January. As the week grows, so do the hours for anyone who wants them.

The person in this role will shape how our gatherings actually run, working directly with our Program Director, and will have first claim on the additional days as we add them.

Engagement Coordinator

Part-time · Two five-hour shifts each week · Beginning October 2026

Starts at $20 per hour

The work

You are the first voice a family hears, and the first person a volunteer meets. When someone finds us at two in the morning after a hard week, you are who writes back the next day. You work closely with our Program Director, who handles the enrollment side of every conversation you begin.

Your shifts run alongside our gatherings, and your time is split between the room and the desk. You are an extra pair of hands while people are here, and you step away to the office side of the work when the room is settled. We think that is the right way round: it is difficult to place a volunteer well, or to talk honestly with a family, if you have never watched a gathering happen.

What you would actually do

• Respond to inquiries from families and from prospective volunteers, warmly and quickly
• Arrange and follow up on first conversations
• Run our volunteer welcome process end to end: references, background checks, agreements, orientation, and first-day scheduling
• Coordinate our Welcome Gatherings, from invitation through follow-up
• Keep our records straight, including who is cleared, who is scheduled, and who is due for a re-check
• Build the schedule with our Program Director, so every gathering has the people it needs
• Be a second pair of hands during gatherings, welcoming people, helping with the meal, and sitting alongside participants when you are not at the desk

Who we are looking for

• Discretion, above everything else. You will learn things about families that they have told almost no one: a diagnosis, a marriage under strain, a worry about money, a daughter at the end of her rope. Keeping all of it private, including from your own household and including as a story with the names taken out, is not one duty among many in this role. It is the foundation the role sits on, and we will ask you to sign a confidentiality agreement that says so.
• Organized in a way that other people can rely on
• Genuinely warm on the phone and in writing, including on a first call with a stranger who is worried
• Comfortable with systems, spreadsheets, and following a process all the way through
• Experience in intake, admissions, care coordination, volunteer management, or scheduling is welcome, and none of it is required

Room to grow

This role sits at the center of everything as we grow. As EngAGE Beverly develops from gatherings into a fuller neighborhood hub, the person who has been running intake and volunteers from the beginning, alongside our Program Director, will have shaped how all of it works.

What we offer

• Work that fits around a life, in predictable blocks
• Paid holidays. If a holiday falls on a day you would have worked, you are paid for it. That includes our winter break in December, when we are closed and you are paid for your usual days, so your income is dependable
• A place on a founding team that helps shape and build what we become
• Training and mentorship through our affiliation with the national Old Friends Club network
• A founding role at a nonprofit in its first year, and the story that comes with it

We are a recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Both roles are based at Bethany Union Church, 1750 W. 103rd Street, Chicago, and are on site.

Before you start

Both roles begin in October, with paid orientation during the last week of September so that nobody's first day is also our first day.

Because our participants include older adults living with memory changes, every person who joins us, paid or volunteer, goes through references and a background check with no exceptions. We will always ask your permission in writing first.

How to apply

There is no formal application. Send a note to julie@engagebeverly.org telling us who you are, what draws you to this, and when you are free to talk. A resume is welcome if you have one to hand, and not required.

Julie Singler, Founder and Executive Director

Not looking for a job, but want to be part of this?

Plenty of people who read this page are not looking for work. They are looking for a way in. We welcome volunteers as gathering hosts, gathering companions, and guest facilitators, and a couple of hours a month makes a real difference.

See how to volunteer →