VOLUNTEER MISSIONARY MOVEMENT USA RECORDS, 1981-2015
Records of the United States office of "an international community of lay Christians who are catalysts for peace, social justice and human empowerment of the poor and marginalized,鈥� founded by Edwina Gately in 1969, including minutes and reports, newsletters, missioner and project partner files, and other records documenting the group's activities.
The Volunteer Missionary Movement was founded in 1969 by Edwina Gately to respond to a need for lay people to become more involved with the Church and with mission life. Gately spent three years in Uganda working as a teacher and opening a school. She later returned to England, her home country, to train more missionaries. The Volunteer Missionary Movement was limited to projects in eastern Africa at its start but soon expanded to send volunteers to the rest of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Volunteer Missionary Movement has sent over two thousand volunteers to serve throughout the world as teachers, health care workers, pastoral associates, and in other occupations.
A Volunteer Missionary Movement office was opened in 1982 in the Chicago area and relocated to Greendale, Wisconsin in 1990. It closed in 2017.
Gift of the Volunteer Missionary Movement USA, 2015.
Processed by Luke Frommelt, David Kenney, and Phil Runkel, 2016 and 2018.
| Series | Box | Folder | Folder Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, 1981-2009 |
| 1 | 1 | 2 | Direct Mail, 1992-1993 |
| 1 | 1 | 3-5 | Financial Statements, 1987-2015 |
| 1 | 1 | 6 | General Information, 1982-2015 |
| 1 | 1 | 7 | Genesis House, 1985-1986, 1992 |
| 1 | 1 | 8 | Health Insurance, 1993 |
| 1 | 1 | 9 | Home Mission Proposal, 1991-1992 |
| 1 | 1 | 10 | Interim Management Team, 1989-1990 |
| 1 | 1 | 11 | Meetings, 1988-1992 |
| 1 | 2 | 1 | Meetings, 1993-2001 |
| 1 | 3 | 1-3 | Meetings, 2002-2015 |
| 1 | 4 | 1-10 | Missioner Files (sample), A-M, 1987-2012 (includes Hillary and John Benish's allegations of abuse in Salvadoran orphanage) |
| 1 | 5 | 1-3 | Missioner Files (sample), Meyer, Sherry-Vian, Cindi, |
| 1 | 5 | 4 | Missioner Orientation, 2010 |
| 2 | 2-3 | Newsletters, 1982-1985, 2006-2014 | |
| 1 | 2 | 4 | Project Partners, 1990-1996 |
| 1 | 2 | 5 | Reports, 1981-2001 |
| 1 | 5 | 5-7 | Reports, 2002-2015 |
| 1 | 6 | 1-3 | Strategic Planning, 1991-1992, 2001-2015 |
| 1 | 6 | 4 | Training Evaluation, 1996 |
| 1 | 2 | 6 | Videocassette recording summarizing meeting in Milwaukee focused on improving cooperation between European and US groups, with Ellen Belle, Edwina Gately, and John Sexton, 18 October 1992 |
| 1 | 6 | 5 | VMM International., 1981-1987 |
| 1 | 7 | 1-5 | VMM International, 1988-2013, undated |
