On May 1, 1870, Bishop William Bacon Stevens, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, founded the Protestant Episcopal City Mission, known as the City Mission. The City Mission pooled and coordinated resources throughout the Diocese of Pennsylvania to cope with the critical needs of the region's poor.
The City Mission provided material assistance, spiritual comfort and charitable relief to the sick and the poor. In the early days, institutional care facilities were set up, including the Church Home for Children, providing shelter for orphans; the Home for Consumptives, in Chestnut Hill, which treated tuberculosis sufferers; and Sick Diet Kitchens, which offered meals for the invalid poor. Many of these early programs were staffed by volunteers, ministers and untrained workers. The City Mission also provided spiritual comfort through chaplaincy in these institutions, and in prisons and hospitals-an area of service still in existence today.
The relationship between the Diocese and the City Mission changed over the years. Bishop Stevens handed the direction of the City Mission to an independent Board of Council that consisted of clergy and lay members of the Diocese. In the early 1900's, the Canon of the Diocese was amended to more explicitly define parishes role in the support of the City Mission. Instituted in what are now known as ECS Sundays, it was enacted that "every Rector and Minister-in-Charge of a Congregation in the Diocese shall annually, in some way, present the cause of the City Mission to his people and bespeak their support of its work."
In 1906 the City Mission gained its third and current home, Old St. Paul's Church, at 225 South Third Street. By then, nearby Christ Church and St. Peter's were suffcient to meet the needs of Episcopalians in Society Hill. Old St. Paul's was designed by John Palmer and Robert Smith, and when it was finished in 1761 it was the largest church building in Pennsylvania. In the 1980's, ECS undertook major exterior and interior renovations, modernizing the entire building.
The Great Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal marked a turning point in the evolution of services to families. In the 1930's, these events and the new social work profession forged a closer partnership between the public and private sector. Under this new model, the government provided a base level of support and relief to the poor, while contracted agencies became responsible for supplementing that support and expanding the range of services to meet client needs. In recognition of this new environment, in 1958, the City Mission was renamed Episcopal Community Services (ECS).
Throughout its history, ECS has adapted its services in response to changing community needs. When a cure for tuberculosis was found, the agency redirected its energies to serving persons with other long-term illnesses-the frail elderly and children with acute or chronic medical conditions. In the early years of the AIDS epidemic, ECS trained its social workers and home health aide staff to care for people with AIDS in their homes. ECS staff provided technical expertise and guidance as founding members of one of Philadelphia's first AIDS care agencies.
Many of the institutional services first established by the City Mission no longer exist; however, the mission of the human service agency remains largely unchanged. Today ECS remains committed to helping people overcome the impact of poverty. The welfare reform of the late 1990's required new models of service and new initiatives to help working families living in poverty. ECS continues to creatively respond to the needs of its clients, brightening futures and improving lives.
