What is it?
The Grand Rapids United Methodist Community House is a major provider of family services, educational programs and basic needs for the residents of inner city Grand Rapids.
The Community House has an accredited Child Development Center for infants through pre-kindergarten children, they offer a wide range of parenting services and programs and the Shalom Senior Center offers senior citizens help with transportation, meals, advocacy, healthcare and more.
A lot of the programming the non-profit provides focuses around literacy within entire family units, to provide an essential skill needed in social settings and the workforce.
In 2009, the house served almost 3,000 participants, according to Director of Development Bev Crandall-Rice.
She said “more than 60 percent of the people in the inner city are living in poverty” and 90 percent of their clients fit that description.
How did it start?
In September 1902, a group of women from the Methodist Churches of the Grand Rapids District organized a club to do settlement work and initially the program included classes for kindergarten and early elementary girls.
Eventually classes were offered for boys as well, covering a breadth of different topics.
In the 1950s, summer camps became the norm and by the early 1980s the Community House was focused heavily on advocacy of child development issues and concerns, to the point they received a United Way Humanitarian Award.
In 1989 the project was given a jolt with a $2.6 million capital campaign that helped it become what it is today.
Crandall-Rice said UMW founded it on the principles of helping a diverse set of people in staying true to the specific needs of the community, something that hasn’t changed in 108 years.
“We’ve had tremendous success with those who have been a part of our services. We see children from our Child Development Center ready to succeed, ready for pre-school or ready for kindergarten. We see the literacy skills that come out of our program because all of our programs are literacy based and that’s just a foundation for success and so valuable and important.”
