Andre Navarro is from San Ramon, California and is currently one of two Spiritual Advisors at Vincentians of the Arc Youth Conference. He was one of three founding members in 2024 for the Youth Conference and was the first Vice President. An active member of the Emerging Leaders Team, Andre’s dedication to the Society is commendable. Andre understands the significance of SVdP and expressed this, “St. Vincent de Paul is special in its own way, with SVdP I feel as though I can connect with the Neighbors I help out and the people I am serving alongside on a deeper relation because spirituality, friendship, and service are intertwined every time I serve.”
At his Youth Conference, Andre has been involved in a few service projects and expressed his appreciation for one service project in particular, making prayer shawls for Friends in Need. The prayer shawls are a nice way to remind people that they matter and that someone is thinking and praying for them. He believes it is vital to always serve with kindness and especially with love. He explained further about this wonderful service project, “You could just give it to them so that they know they are being prayed for and so that they can feel God’s warmth whenever they wear it.”
Andre has also started attending Adult Conference meetings to continue growing his Vincentian vocation and to continue nurturing the seed of being a lifelong Vincentian. He intends to start a University Conference at his college and has already made connections with adult Vincentians in his University’s county to ensure the success of this goal. He plans to document his progress and ways he is staying connected to the Society even as he takes this next step in life so that it can help others who are also trying to stay connected to St. Vincent de Paul all throughout their lives.
He also understands the importance of spiritual growth and the daily journey towards holiness, which is central to our Vincentian vocation. He wants to make sure he incorporates more emphasis on spirituality in his Youth Conference meetings and already has a plan to do so. With this in mind, his goal is to have each meeting integrate at least forty-five minutes of spirituality and then of course, leaving time for friendship and service.
Writing prayers for the Emerging Leaders Team, his dedication to growing his spiritual life is notable. He commented further on the significance of being a Spiritual Advisor, “As a Spiritual Advisor, I feel like it’s definitely pushed me a lot more to be all those virtues, especially because you know you are the Spiritual Advisor of the group and people look to you for spiritual advice and to be that strong pillar of spirituality within the Conference, so that has definitely pushed me to not only pray more, but ask myself, what would Jesus do?”
Andre has already done wonderful work for the Society and our Neighbors in Need. He has a bright future ahead within this network of friends inspired by Gospel values.