A collection of around 50,000 items from 56 countries has come to tell, in a single place, the story of the Pathfinder movement around the world. The collection belongs to the International Pathfinder Museum and brings together photographs, uniforms, manuals and thousands of event patches, according to Adventist News. The institution is registered in União da Vitória, in Paraná.
According to the report, the highlight of the collection is a set of roughly 7,500 patches, which includes nearly all of the camporees ever held by the South American headquarters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The material was gathered over the years through trades and donations among Pathfinders from different countries.
The initiative came from two friends from Curitiba: administrator Carlos Araujo and businessman Nelson Pires, who collected patches and decided to formally organize the museum after taking part in the 2014 South American Camporee.
A collection of 50,000 items in a town in the interior of Paraná
The International Pathfinder Museum is in União da Vitória, a town in southern Paraná, on the border with Santa Catarina. It is from there that the effort to gather, catalog and preserve a collection that, according to Adventist News, reaches around 50,000 items from 56 countries is carried out.
Among the objects kept there are photographs, uniforms and manuals that document decades of the movement's activity across different continents. More than isolated pieces, the set works as a material record of how the Pathfinders organized themselves, dressed and communicated over time — in countries with very different cultures and languages from one another.
According to the division, much of this material was not bought: it arrived through trades and donations. It is a dynamic familiar to anyone who has attended a camp, where trading patches between clubs from different regions is almost a ritual apart from the official program.
7,500 patches: nearly all of South America's camporees
Within the collection, one set stands out: around 7,500 event patches. According to Adventist News, it includes nearly all of the camporees ever held by the South American headquarters of the Adventist Church, known as the South American Division (SAD).
For readers just getting started, an explanation is worth it: the camporee is the large camp that brings together Pathfinder clubs from a region, a country or an entire administrative division of the church. Each edition usually has its own patch — a small commemorative embroidery or pin, with its own date, theme and visual identity. Kept side by side, these patches form a kind of visual timeline of the movement.
That is why a collection that gathers nearly all of the SAD camporees carries historical weight: it makes it possible to follow, on a single panel, the evolution of the themes, the artwork and the reach of these gatherings over decades — something difficult to reconstruct from scattered records.
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The museum was born from a friendship and a hobby. According to the report, Curitiba natives Carlos Araujo, an administrator, and Nelson Pires, a businessman, already collected patches when they took part in the 2014 South American Camporee. It was from that event that the pair decided to turn the private collection into something organized and permanent.
The idea matured until it became an institution. Today the International Pathfinder Museum has its own headquarters, CNPJ and bylaws, with a board made up of members from different parts of Brazil — which gives the project a formal structure, able to receive donations and organize the growth of the collection in a more stable way than a personal collection would allow.
This passage from hobby to institution is what sets the museum apart from the many private collections that exist among Pathfinders. By formalizing the project, the founders created a structure that can outlive the collectors themselves and keep receiving pieces from anywhere in the world.
The goal of 10,000 patches and the Guinness dream
According to Adventist News, those responsible for the museum had a clear goal: to reach 10,000 patches and then seek a listing in the Guinness Book, the record book. Of the roughly 7,500 already gathered by the time of the report, a final push was therefore needed to complete the desired number.
Seeking a record is not just a matter of vanity. For a project that depends on donations, a public and verifiable goal works as an invitation: every Pathfinder who has an old patch at home now has a concrete reason to contribute and, in the process, see their piece become part of an internationally recognized collection.
Desbravai did not find, in the sources consulted, confirmation that the Guinness listing was actually achieved. What is documented is the stated goal at the time — and the size of the collection already gathered, which on its own places the museum among the largest of its kind linked to the movement.
Why preserving the Pathfinders' memory matters
The Pathfinder movement is a club for boys and girls, generally aged 10 to 15, run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church around the world. It combines outdoor activities, study, community service and spiritual formation, and has a strong presence in South America, one of the regions with the largest number of clubs.
A movement with this history accumulates, over the decades, a huge amount of material — from uniforms that changed in cut to manuals that were rewritten, along with patches that record each major gathering. Without a place to keep all of it, much is lost in garage boxes, in moves and to time.
This is where a museum like the one in União da Vitória fulfills a role that goes beyond curiosity. By gathering 50,000 items from 56 countries, it offers new generations of Pathfinders the chance to see, in concrete objects, where the movement they are part of comes from — and to realize that the patch collection they are starting today may, one day, become heritage.