Volunteers Of America
From Sawiki
When Maud and Ballington Booth came to the United States to assume command of The Salvation Army forces they discovered both reason for joy and concern. The joy came in the fine spirit of salvationism among the forces which had been bolstered the previous year with the first visit of General William Booth to America. The Army was growing at a pace that was so rapid that even at headquarters they were never quite sure where new corps were opening and others closing. The Army was reaching the working classes most effectively but was still widely maligned in the press and among the wealthy. Thomas Moore, who had led a split and formed a rival Army, was still active: not only confusing the public as to which organisation was which but in openly attacking the parent movement.
America was ready for leaders like the Booths. In New York City, where the Army was headquartered, they quickly established themselves as the darlings of the wealthy. Reporters delighted in interviewing them and with each good review the Booths received, the Army was more highly esteemed by the public, The Booths also loved their officers, resulting in more recruits for Officership and fewer resignations. The Army made forward advances in social work and in its spiritual warfare. Moore's rival movement withered from its own inner decay and in the shadow of the blossoming Worldwide Salvation Army. It seemed that the Army was destined to go on from victory to victory.
A combination of factors soon changed this bright picture. Ballington began to be in open conflict with his brother Bramwell who served as Chief of the Staff. Also at this time Great Britain was in a long-standing dispute with Venezuela so that the United States felt its own dominance in the Americas gave it the right to rattle its sabre against Britain. Under these conditions anything that was even remotely related to Britain was suspect, including the Army. Then General Booth came to America in 1894 and made a wide-ranging visit across the country. In public he was spectacular but in private he was cold and distant from his son and daughter-in-law. He was irritated by the nationalism in America that insisted on displaying and waving the American flag at every occasion. Speculation for the Founder-'s foul mood included his constant distress from a painful stomach ailment and the unwieldy schedule he kept on this swing through America. Perhaps it was the combination of a number of things that left Ballington and Maud Booth deeply offended and ripe for rebellion. Whatever built the resentment, the end finally came when the Ballington Booths were ordered to farewell from America for parts unknown.
What followed was confusion. First the Booths said they would accept the Army discipline and proceed to their new post. Then they decided to farewell but to resign rather than take another appointment. There was talk of them forming a church in the Bowery. Other speculation included plans of them allying themselves with other established groups. What happened instead was they quickly formed a group first known as God's American Volunteers. This was soon changed to Volunteers of America. During the turbulence of their resignation the Ballington Booths complained about the Army structure and its emphasis on social work. They then began to construct a near perfect copy of the Army they had abandoned.
When the Booths left they took with them many of the officers and soldiers of the Army as well as many of the wealthy supporters that had recently been won to the Army's cause. In fact, in the first year of operation two-thirds of the Volunteer forces were former salvationists. Many had replaced the 'S' on their collar with the American flags. Army songs were adopted with Volunteer words. Their insignia and flag loosely resembled the Army's.
But after this initial copying of Army ways the Volunteers of America sought to distance themselves from the parent movement. The drum, which had become a symbol of the Army's struggle to conduct open-air meetings freely, was forsaken. The Volunteers changed their uniforms from dark blue to grey. They extolled themselves as an 'American' organisation as opposed to a British one. (Indeed, for years individual Volunteer officers told of The Salvation Army in America shipping crates of cash to International Headquarters.) The Volunteers deserted the use of the term 'corps' and called their centres 'posts'. In their literature today the Volunteers do not acknowledge their Army roots. Instead they refer to Ballington and Maud Booth as missionaries who opened a small mission in the Bowery of New York.
For the first 10 years of their existence the Volunteers opened posts across America. Their relation with the Army was often adversarial. It was not unusual for the Volunteers to show up on the opposite street corner at the traditional time and place of Army open-airs to conduct their own. Salvationists found themselves vying for charitable dollars as they competed with the Volunteers who sold their Volunteer Gazette against the salvationists who sold The War Cry.
The progress of the Volunteers of America slowed considerably with the onset of the First World War. There were two primary reasons for this. Their emphasis on patriotism led hundreds of their officers to resign to join the military forces. In addition, when Ballington Booth offered the services of the Volunteers to President Wilson, Booth was politely turned down. Contrasting this the Army was allowed to send its personnel with the American Expeditionary Force. This service of the Army became legendary and catapulted the Army to national recognition and approval. The Volunteers of America were simply left behind.
The Volunteers of America never recovered from the loss of personnel or prestige following the First World War. They increasingly focused their attention on social work and less on the opening and maintenance of their Posts. The quality and number of their officer-force thinned. The posts began to close one at a time. When the Depression came, more personnel and Posts were lost. The Volunteers had an extensive network of industrial homes but these suffered through the lean times seen by the Army as well during this period.
When Ballington Booth died in 1940 he was replaced by his wife Maud as General. But Maud was admittedly no administrator. She had found fulfilment in working with the prisons and knew little about the day-to-day operations of the VOA. In fact, she seldom wore the uniform even in the office. The poor administration did not help the ailing organisation. After leading the Volunteers until 1948 she was replaced by her son Charles Brandon Booth. When he retired in 1958 there was no more of the Booth family associated with the Volunteers.
Today, the Volunteers of America is the largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing for the elderly, low-income families, and persons with mental or physical disabilities in the USA. More than 30,000 people live in Volunteers of America housing nationwide.
This special mission in housing dates to the organization's founding. Among the earliest programs were residences for single working men and women in the large cities. Development accelerated beginning in the 1960s with new federal housing programs undertaken in partnership with Volunteers of America. Since 1968, Volunteers of America has developed 138 affordable housing complexes in 28 states.
The health care mission also has a long history. Early in this century, the Volunteers operated full-service hospitals in New York and Baltimore. Medical services were provided at no charge to the poor. By the 1920s, rest homes were established for the elderly and infirm. In the 1970s, the organization emerged as a major provider of professional long-term nursing care. Today, Volunteers of America offer health care and related services, such as assisted living, in six states meeting the diverse needs of 2,500 people.
The present-day diversity of Volunteers of America services over 160 different programs and has its roots in a century-long focus on community. The organization's services are different in each community because each community's needs are different. In Chicago, for example, the emphasis has been on serving children. The Volunteers' first program there in 1896 was a huge picnic for city's newsboys and bootblacks. Today, Volunteers of America of Illinois is a leading provider of foster care for abused, neglected, and abandoned children.
In the mid-1980s, Volunteers of America adopted structural changes to enhance this community responsiveness. The military style of organization, a holdover from the Salvation Army, was changed to a corporate model. Local "posts" were chartered under the governance of local boards of directors, with responsibility for planning and accountability. Similarly, a national board was created to lead the entire organization.
These changes set the stage for a decade of dramatic growth. From 1985 to 1996, the organization's combined annual revenues more than doubled. Moreover, new services were added to meet new social needs such as the rise in homelessness, the de-institutionalization of people with mental illness and developmental disabilities, overcrowded prisons, and the spread of AIDS.
Preparing for the next century, Volunteers of America adopted a three-year Strategic Plan in 1996. Among other goals, it envisions a more active role in shaping national policies on human service issues and attracting ever larger numbers of Americans as partners in its mission of service.
