Long time MCC volunteer fired from her 4hr/week shift at MCC Thrift and Gift in Elmira, Ontario for speaking up for the silenced and vulnerable

MAST (MCC Abuse Survivors Together) is aware of 92 cases of “bad endings” with MCC that point to the involvement of all levels of MCC leadership in bullying, covering up financial fraud, responding inappropriately to reports of sexual harassment and assault, silencing whistleblowers, and neglecting workers’ health and well-being.

Since MAST began its Teal Ribbon Campaign, I have been wearing the ribbon and using it as a statement of solidarity with those who have been harmed while in service with MCC. It is a small gesture to express my deep longing for MCC, Mennonites’ largest humanitarian organization, to cease practices that harm or silence people. https://www.mccabusesurvivors.org/teal-ribbon

After a year of wearing the ribbon in my volunteer position as a cashier at MCC Thrift and Gift in Elmira and answering the question when a customer asked what my ribbon was for, I have been fired for speaking up. Over the 3 weeks that this firing process has taken, it has felt confrontational, corporate, demeaning and devoid of compassion or understanding.

Here I am – on the other side of the story. I am here because MCC does not want anyone to publicly question how they have treated their volunteers and how they are refusing to admit to any wrongdoing. I have personally heard, as well as read many accounts, from people who have shared with MAST their painful endings with MCC. Suddenly I am able to identify with what it feels like to be treated in ways I would not have imagined I could be treated. Silenced. Shame. Devastation. No recourse. Ghosted. Feeling like my intentions, words and questions have been construed to mean something other than what I meant.

For nearly 20 years I have spent Friday afternoons at the thrift store behind the till, cashing out happy customers. Meeting the public in this way has been so enjoyable and until 2023 I believed I was helping an amazing organization – an organization I strongly supported that allowed me to know that at least in some places in the world, relief and peace were being delivered.

I was fired by the MCC Ontario HR Manager. She cited policies to validate the reason for needing to fire me.

Policy 2.4 – Personal Convictions/Ideals and Promotion:

Volunteers may not promote personal convictions or perspectives in ways that conflict with MCC’s mission, values, or public witness.

I have been speaking out for what I understand to be the convictions of MCC’s core mandate and reason for being, that of doing what they do in the name of Christ. When I ponder the essence of Christ, I have to believe it is interacting and speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves because they have been downtrodden. I believe that speaking up for those that have been side lined by MCC’s leadership and policies is precisely at the heart of the essence of MCC’s values, mission and public witness. I hold this conviction personally as well and it does not conflict with MCC’s.

Policy 2.6 – Conflict of Interest:

Volunteers are expected to act in the best interest of the organization. Behaviour that undermines MCC’s relationships, staff, volunteers, or customers represents a clear conflict of interest.

My interest remains firmly in upholding the good that has carried MCC’s mission thus far, and when it has trouble maintaining that mission and treats people with a lack of respect, compassion and clear dignity they are failing in that. So if my interest is to call this out in an effort to help MCC find its way back to its core centre, I can only assume that when I am told I am representing a clear conflict of interest, the establishment of MCC, in their act of firing me, must have as its interest a shutting down of truth telling and a silencing of those who are willing to speak up when they can see that there is trouble at the core. It is clear that at all levels in the organization there is little room for listening to the calls for accountability, the calls to stop and pay attention to the stories of pain and abuse. This is troubling.

In an initial conversation with the store manager, where I was told for the first time that she would like me to stop speaking to customers and volunteers about why I wear the ribbon, I pushed back and said to silence me is to silence those who have been silenced all over again. The conversation was difficult and I left it wishing it could have been less tense but feeling glad I had held my ground. Several days later I emailed her asking if she would like to continue the conversation in a less tense atmosphere with an intention to hear each other, and to possibly finding a way to come to a place we could both be alright with. My email was responded to by the MCC Ontario Thrift Director, inviting me to an offsite meeting at Elmira Mennonite Church with her and the HR Manager. The store manager was no longer in the picture.

In my response to this email I invited the manager back into the conversation. I indicated I was unwilling to meet with the HR Manager present, as that felt scary to me given all the stories of cruel and unkind firings by HR personnel. This request was not met with compassion, understanding or a willingness to even meet me half way. The thrift director responded that if I did not agree to meet with her and the HR Manager, it was an indication that I was resigning from my volunteer role, when I had not mentioned resigning. I was beginning to feel the discord between MCC’s language of mission and their reason for being and this markedly different kind of communication in their responses to me. I noted that I was not resigning and in another email I was told that they will be assuming that my volunteering has been paused at this point.

Even with all the knowledge I have of people being fired, sidelined and silenced, I had hope that if we could talk face to face in a somewhat safe space we would be able to hear each other and that this could end differently. I responded with an email asking them to respond in a human relational way, calling on the broader picture of what MCC is and how it cannot be focused solely on HR and policies. I received what felt to be a somewhat hopeful response in the words, “we look forward to further conversation to resolve these issues,” which indicated a possible change of heart and a willingness to at least talk about this.

When another email came, alas, it held no sign of possible conversation or an ear to hear. I managed to skim through it when I received it but the harshness of it felt like too much. I did not look at it again for several days.

In this final firing email that I received, the HR Manager says, “As you have declined to participate in such a conversation, and given the seriousness of the concerns raised, we have no choice but to put this direction in writing.”

The truth is that I did not decline to participate in conversation. I invited, asking for a variance in the process to accommodate my fears. My concerns were not deemed worthy for consideration. I received, instead, an email I found too harsh to read for several days. I am grateful I can see through the words to see how the disciplinary tone is meant to shame me and make me feel small. What has become crystal clear is that there is no room for an honest conversation about allegations against MCC within the organization and in light of that I needed to be gone from the thrift store.

It is with admiration that I watch when brave, courageous individuals stand up for truth in the face of corrupt governments or in the face of damaging and hurtful laws. I am deeply encouraged that even being handcuffed and arrested does not deter their conviction to speak into situations. I believe that there is gratitude in more than just my heart when people stand with others who are marginalized or who have the least voice.

When I speak up for the people silenced by MCC, I am speaking about the rot in the heart of MCC that allows them to treat people with disregard, unkindness, cruelty and self-righteous honour. I am speaking about MCC not operating from its time-honoured mandate of serving “in the name of Christ.” I am speaking from a place of hope that MCC can find its way back to a humble moral centre.

For this speaking up and out I am not lauded or deemed a peace worker by MCC leadership. I am silenced and maligned and as quickly as possible I am ghosted out of the establishment. As of today I am one of 93 such experiences MAST is aware of. As my 92-year-old mother-in-law said, “Wow, they don’t stop!”

I stand up for what I have done in speaking about MCC abuse to customers and other volunteers. I am a committed volunteer who has been supporting MCC’s values of peace and justice for most of my life and most recently by speaking out against abuse in the organization and by insisting that MCC needs to follow its own values in the way it treats its workers. I have contributed to MCC and to the community through my volunteer work over decades. With one more firing in the line-up of many, MCC has again chosen not to recognize or appreciate the courage and commitment that one individual has lived out on their behalf. MCC’s narrative that I am breaking MCC policy and need discipline is a twisted false narrative.

My speaking up for the silenced comes from a deep commitment to and longing for justice. I recently read these words spoken by John Lewis(1940–2020), a civil rights leader, and knew them to be a guide that I have been attempting to follow.

Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don’t be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.