Crisis management for transition - Volunteer Program of the 52nd International
Eucharistic Congress
Szilvia Perényi - Mariann Kalencsik
Abstract
The 52nd International Eucharistic Congress is the quadrennial world meeting of the Catholic Church, which was supposed to be hosted by Budapest in 2020. However, the Vatican decided to postpone the event until September 2021 due to the spread of the pandemic. The Congress Volunteer Program was then faced with a major challenge. A contingency plan had to be developed to keep together the nearly 2000 volunteer communities that had already pre-registered and to prevent mass cancellations. Elements of the plan included the involvement of volunteers in preparatory tasks and in relief efforts during the epidemic through the "Office Angels" Program, the development of a volunteer recognition scheme and the recruitment of volunteer messengers. The contingency plan seems to have been able to retain the majority of volunteers, so the re-launch could now start from a strong base.
Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic, IEC2020, volunteering, methodolody, practice,