 | |
| |
  |
|
| |
| Mission
Episcopal Social Services (ESS), founded in 1831 as
the Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society, has a long history of
non-sectarian service in New York. Although the specific needs of the
disadvantaged have changed over the years, ESS has responded with an
unchanging mission to build community and help our most vulnerable neighbors
achieve self-sufficiency and independence so that they can fulfill all
their potential.
History Summary
Over the course of its 175-year history, ESS has worked
with people in need from all walks of life: unwed mothers, orphans,
the homeless, foster children, the developmentally disabled, the elderly,
the unskilled unemployed, high-school drop-outs, HIV/AIDS patients,
prison inmates and ex-offenders, and the generally impoverished. Our
programs continue to evolve in response to community needs.
Today ESS has an annual budget of $36 million and meaningfully
impacts over 5,000 lives every year throughout all of New York city,
with an emphasis on the South Bronx and Manhattan. ESS focuses on strengthening
children, families, and adults through programs in foster care and adoption,
early childhood education, after-school programs, group homes for developmentally
disabled adults, and community re-integration of the formerly-incarcerated.
Pairing private donations with public funding, ESS delivers enhanced
services that help people make new beginnings, not just weather crises.
|
| |
| |
|
 | | |
|  | | |
| |
|
ESS is known for quality programs, top-level outcomes,
high ethical standards, and the professionalism of over 300 staff members
who are remarkable in their ability to make connections with the people
we serve. ESS enjoys innovating new programs and novel approaches to
old problems. Organizations incubated by ESS and subsequently spun off
include St. Mary’s Residence for People with AIDS, Mothers of Children
with AIDS, Friends of Island Academy, and The Bronx Charter School for
Children. Each of ESS' programs involves a successful partnership or
collaboration with public schools, child welfare agencies, or local
community service providers to bring about change and improvement in
the lives of New York's City’s most vulnerable citizens.
Please see below for a more detailed look at the history of Episcopal Social Services (founded as Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society in 1831, shortened to Episcopal Mission Society in the 1960's, and incorporating the operating arm Episcopal Social Services in 1994). |
|
|  | |  | | |
| |
|
Back
to top
The Early Years: 1831-1860
The Protestant Episcopal City Mission Society (EMS) was founded in 1831 to "care for the helpless and help the needy find resources—within themselves and their communities—to lead full and abundant lives." In those days that meant building churches that would provide welfare services so desperately needed by the steadily arriving immigrants. Church of the Epiphany in Manhattan was the first of several churches created and encouraged by EMS.
However, the notion that only churches were prepared to provide
welfare services changed in the 1850’s due largely to the conviction
and hard work of Sarah Adams Richmond. The wife of an Episcopal priest,
Sarah Richmond founded two houses of refuge for “fallen women,”
House of Mercy on 86th Street and St. Barnabas House on Mulberry Street.
Back
to top
Expansion of Programs: 1860-1900 EMS began the 1860’s with a focus on helping “persons made wicked by circumstance” by providing shelters where homeless women and their very young children could find refuge and food. The Society’s trustees believed that “nothing can be done unless their temporal necessities are cared for.”
Services broadened. Apart from work in shelter-homes and the original interest in founding churches for the poor, the Society accepted children for daycare, sent buckets of coal and/or food to needy families, ran a sewing school, and organized an “industrial society” to teach skills to unemployed women. A physician donated his services. Children were sent to the country for day-excursions and longer summer camp vacations. A kindergarten was tried, as was a Thanksgiving Day dinner for 600. For a time the Society printed “meal tickets” and sold them to church folks (11 for $1.00) who could give them to people who asked for handouts; St. Barnabas House kept its dining room open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. to feed these hungry. In addition, the Society coordinated and encouraged parishes to send groups of volunteers to visit the city’s hospitals and jails. | |
|  | |  | | |
| |
|
And who knows what inspiration EMS gave Jacob Riis? As a police
reporter, his headquarters was right across the street from St. Barnabas
House.
Back
to top
Aspirations and Setbacks: 1900-1940 As the Society evolved, two priorities emerged: summer vacations for children and their in-home health care in winter. On top of these programs, the Society continued its commitment to emergency housing for women, an infant dormitory (orphanage), and daycare for children.
In the early 1900's EMS’ space needs multiplied
given its ever-broadening programmatic scope. A friend donated “God’s
Providence House” down the street from St. Barnabas House. An owner
offered Rethmore Home in Tenafly, NJ as a “fresh air summer facility.”
EMS virtually took over Church of San Salvatore on Mulberry Street and
actively used the Milford, CT-based Schermerhorn House for girls and
Camp Bleecker for boys. The Society’s officers began to plan more
buildings and services. . . until the Great Depression of the 1930’s
curtailed these hopes.
The Depression brought a severe decrease in contributions to
the Society. However, these hard times had one long-lasting effect on
America: new laws determined that care for the helpless—the “one-third”
FDR referred to as “unfed and unsheltered”—would thereafter
be a federal and state concern.
Back
to top
Adaptation to Government’s New Role: 1940-1970
Many volunteer organizations could not meet the sudden, high standards of new municipal oversight agencies. At EMS, safety regulations and building codes led to the closure of God’s Providence House and the infant (orphan) department. The City made clear that the Society’s facilities were sub-standard even as it asked EMS to provide for children waiting assignment to foster care. |
|
|  | | |
|  | | |
| |
|
When World War II ended, the Society built a new St. Barnabas House from the ground up. Although originally planned as a facility for resident children and unmarried pregnant women, the City asked EMS to specialize in childcare as the building neared completion. And so St. Barnabas House cared for up to 250 children at one time, most of them from troubled homes. Many spent part of the summer in the Society’s camps: Elko Lake, Edgewater Cresche, Rethmore Home.
Public money now provided substantial financial support
for EMS’ programs—and along with public money came demands
for specialized services, which EMS built capabilities to fill.
Back
to top
An Interactive Dynamic With The City’s Priorities: 1970-Today
ESS continues to innovate programs that meet both the priorities of New York and the needs of its citizens. Here is a look back at programmatic initiatives since 1970.
- Homes for developmentally disabled adults
- Occupational Training & Placement, an automotive
body and fender repair training program in the Bronx
- Murray Hill SRO Senior Center offering seniors
a place to meet new friends, socialize and have breakfast and lunch
- Foster teen Group Homes
- St. Mary’s Episcopal AIDS Center (in partnership
with St. Mary’s Church, Manhattanville)
- Collaboration with Praxis, which now owns five
hotels to care for the homeless
- Family Preservation Program
- Early Intervention and Early Head Start Programs
|
|
|  | | |
|
 | | |
| |
|
From a facilities perspective, ESS moved into a bigger
Manhattan office space in 1998 and in 1999 opened a Bronx office in
“The Hub” area of the South Bronx. In May of 2005 ESS proudly
renewed its 30-year commitment to the Bronx with a new Early Child Care
Center, Paul’s House. Named after former Episcopal Bishop Paul
Moore, Paul’s House offers under one roof Early Intervention, Early
Head Start, Medical, Dental, Mental Health, and Pre-school Child Care
services.
Back
to top
| |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
