History of Washington Quaker Workcamps

Quaker Workcamping

Quaker workcamps had their beginnings as a Quaker response to the devastation in Europe that resulted from World War I. In 1917, the American Friends Service Committee was created to organize Quaker relief efforts. The first workcamp was organized by Swiss Friend Pierre Ceresole near Verdun, France in 1920, helping clear debris and rebuild structures in villages. In 1947, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the American Friends Service Committee and the Friends Service Committee of London Yearly Meeting, in honor of their war relief work, which Nobel committee chairman Gunnar Jahn called “silent help from the nameless to the nameless.“

In 1934, the AFSC organized their first workcamp in the U.S., a summer project helping install a water system in a western Pennsylvania coal mining community. Soon workcamps were begun in urban and rural areas throughout the U.S. and around the world. Howard Brinton, in Friends for 300 Years, calls these workcamps “the most important recent innovation in [Friends‘ education].“ He describes their purpose as follows:

“While these work camps have other than educational objectives, such as giving help to those who need it and the removal of tensions in conflict areas, the effect of the work camps on the campers themselves, both young men and young women, is often highly educational, sometimes revolutionary. In these camps where the campers work along with persons who need help or who are engaged in the practice of their regular daily tasks, education through action and experience is carried as far as possible.“

In the 1960s, the AFSC laid down most of its workcamping programs to focus on other forms of service and activism, but the Quaker workcamp tradition is carried forward today by Washington Quaker Workcamps, the Friends‘ Peace Teams African Great Lakes Initiative, and the AFSC-Inter-Mountain Yearly Meeting Joint Service Project.

Washington Quaker Workcamps

Beginnings

Washington Quaker Workcamps was incorporated as a 501(c)3 nonprofit public charity under the laws of the District of Columbia and was supported by three Washington, DC area Friends meetings: Friends Meeting of Washington, Bethesda, and Adelphi. These three meetings provided support and direction for weekend workcamp projects, leadership, housing, and food supplies. In the early days, Washington Quaker Workcamps was housed at the Friends Meeting of Washington.

Growth

Our weekend workcamp program was developed to serve young Friends, students at Friends schools, and other DC-area youth who might benefit from the workcamp experience. For the first several years, Washington Quaker Workcamps offered three workcamps each year. In 1989, we created the Summer Workcamp Program which ran for four weeks and attracted volunteers from around the world. During subsequent summers, Washington Quaker Workcamps participants joined workcamps in Romania and Tanzania. Our growth continued with summer and spring workcamps for local students.

Ministry to Burned Churches

In 1996, Washington Quaker Workcamps responded to a rash of arson attacks on African-American churches across the southern U.S. with a program of church rebuilding workcamps. Working side-by-side with congregations at affected churches, we helped rebuild churches in Alabama and South Carolina, involving hundreds of workcampers from around the country and the world and creating deep and nourishing relationships with members of the affected churches.

The Ministry to Burned Churches that we began grew into a very large project involving a number of faith-based programs. In 1998, we transferred the ministry to the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, in order to keep our primary focus on our work in the Washington, DC area.

Building homes in Southern Maryland

In 1995, we began a partnership with the Southern Maryland Tri-County Coalition for Affordable Housing. Working together with future homeowners in a self-help housing program, we helped to build homes in La Plata, Md., for low-income families. Over the next 8 years, our workcampers contributed hundreds of volunteer hours in helping make the Brawner s Estates development a reality. We completed our work there in 2002, when the last of the homes was completed.

Partnership with William Penn House

In 2003, Washington Quaker Workcamps began our partnership with William Penn House. We moved our office into an available space at William Penn House, and the part-time WQW Director served as a part-time intern for William Penn House. In addition, the dormitory facilities at William Penn House proved an ideal location for workcamps, and workcamp groups have been a great use of the space at William Penn House and a new expression of the mission of the House.

After one year of this partnership, the Boards of Directors of the two programs decided that we could use our resources most effectively by combining efforts. In July, 2005, Washington Quaker Workcamps became a program of William Penn House. The former Board of Directors now serves as an oversight committee, guiding Washington Quaker Workcamps activities on behalf of the William Penn House Board. William Penn House tracks Washington Quaker Workcamps finances through a designated fund; your designated contributions for Washington Quaker Workcamps help keep our program growing and keep workcamp fees low.