VYP History
VYP was founded in 1967 as a one-off project for the church to support one or two young people who would like to volunteer to serve the community at home or abroad. The target was to raise £1,000 (a lot of money in 1967).
Various activities were undertaken to raise this money, including a Ladies Working Party making and selling items, a regular Saturday Morning Coffee Bar and Car Wash, a Babysitting Service, VYP Cookery Book, Old Time Music Hall, Festival of Flowers and the 25 mile May Walk. These are only a few of the activities undertaken and every organisation in the church was involved in supporting the project. Eventually the church raised £1,400, which was a magnificent achievement.
The first sponsored volunteer was Sally Overall, who worked at
Following this, when it became harder to make placements abroad, several group trips were sponsored including Tanzania and two to the Matthew Rusike Children’s Home in Zimbabwe (where two long term volunteers have also served). One year VYP also supported a young Romanian, met through the Workcamp, who worked in our circuit as a youth worker.
In the 1990’s we adopted the distribution system, dividing money raised between local and overseas children's charities as well as VYP. Between 1991 and 2009 we supported the annual Workcamp working on projects in the UK, Germany and Romania with teams from these countries. This proved a very successful enterprise which provided a unique experience for our young people, many of whom attended several workcamps and forged close ties with the young people from Germany and Romania. Since this work came to a natural end in 2009 we have organised two group events in the UK and South Africa.
We are very proud of our roll call of volunteers, both those who worked individually and those who participated in group trips. Over the years they have achieved so much, both personally and for others, and have been wonderful ambassadors around the world for our church and community.
Page last updated
30 July 2015