MCC Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Program

Corporate body

MCC Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Program

1963-2019

MCC Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador Program began in 1963 when the MCC office based in Akron, Pennsylvania, began transferring responsibility for MCC work in Newfoundland (along with all other Voluntary Service programs in Canada) to the newly established MCC Canada. MCC had been sending Voluntary Service workers to Newfoundland as teachers and nurses since 1954. The Newfoundland Program continued to be administered from Akron until it was taken on by the MCC Canada Executive Office and run through its Voluntary Service program in the early 1970s.

In 1972, the Newfoundland Program was appointed its first resident director on a one-year Voluntary Service basis. The program director provided supervision and assistance to MCC Voluntary Service workers in Newfoundland and Labrador who were teachers and nurses. In 1975, the program began sending Voluntary Service workers to work with the Innu communities on the Labrador coast.

In 1982, when the Maritimes Program separated from the Newfoundland and Labrador Program, the Canadian Programs department took more control of MCC programs in Eastern Canada through the work of a regional director in the province. The program maintained its strong ties with the Voluntary Service department with Voluntary Service placements forming the foundation of programming in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Newfoundland and Labrador Program ended in 2019.

Newfoundland and Labrador

The Newfoundland and Labrador Program office invested resources into supporting people with disabilities, victims and offenders, disadvantaged youth, and promoting SELFHELP Crafts in the region. The office also focused on ministering to Indigenous communities in the region such as the Innu communities in Labrador.

The MCC Canada office in St. John’s, Newfoundland was the only regional office in Eastern Canada from 1963 until 1982, when the Maritimes Program office was established. The program was under the control of a regional director within MCC Canada’s Canadian Programs Department.

Draft

Created by Jared Warkentin, March 31, 2020