St. Stephen's Community House

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Celebrating a Century of Service

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In 1919, St. Stephen’s Community House first opened its doors in the south end of Columbus.

Almost 50 years later, in 1965, St. Stephen’s moved to Linden—a neighborhood only 4 miles away from Upper Arlington, the neighborhood where we both grew up, but light-years away in terms of the opportunity and support systems available to residents.

Much has changed in 100 years, but what has remained constant is the spirit of St. Stephen’s—the enduring belief in the power of community, the imperative to support each other during moments of need, and faith in people’s ability to overcome despite the odds.

St. Stephen’s works every day to support and brighten the futures of families and individuals in Linden and beyond.

Because of the tireless work of our dedicated staff and volunteers, St. Stephen’s continues to improve lives through community-based opportunities, allowing us to support more than 22,000 lives annually and earning the trust of the community and our partners.

St. Stephen’s has been in faithful service of the Columbus community for 100 years; in the coming years, we challenge ourselves to have an even greater impact. We will continue to

Marilyn J. Mehaffie CEO St. Stephen’s Community House

strengthen our partnerships and invest in more collaborations. We will engage with entities whose expertise complements our mission; together, we can be a catalyst for change.

In the next pages, you will read about the transformative St. Stephen’s programs leading to positive outcomes on numerous lives. We invite you to join us in these efforts!

To Brightening Lives,

Michael Kelley Chairman, Board of Trustees St. Stephen’s Community House

62 E. Broad St. P.O. Box 1289 Columbus, Ohio 43216 614-888-4567

1500 E. 17th Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43219 614-294-6347; saintstephensch.org

CEO Marilyn J. Mehaffie BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAIRMAN Michael Kelley DIRECTOR OF EXTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS Natalie Atkins

NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICES DIRECTOR Amy Kerns

PRESIDENT Bradley M. Harmon

PRODUCTION/DESIGN DIRECTOR Craig Rusnak

FAMILY SERVICES DIRECTOR LaTisha Addo

PUBLISHER Ray Paprocki PROJECT MANAGER Emma Frankart Henterly

CONTRIBUTOR Jackie Mantey

YOUTH SERVICES and CHILDCARE SERVICES DIRECTOR Kristin Dillard SENIOR SERVICES DIRECTOR Julie Wise

All photos are courtesy St. Stephen’s Community House unless otherwise noted.

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St. Stephen’s Community House

Century of Service

ART DIRECTOR Alyse Kordenbrock

St. Stephen’s Community House: A Century of Service is published by GateHouse Media, LLC. All contents of this magazine are copyrighted ©2019, all rights reserved. Reproduction or use, without written permission, of editorial or graphic content in any manner is prohibited.

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A History of Care

PAST

St. Stephen’s Community House has focused its service in Linden since 1965, but its story of service began decades earlier, with a singular vision that has sustained throughout its history.

In 1919, Bishop James Hartley and the Catholic Women’s War Relief established the Barthman Avenue Catholic Community Center in a two-story former theater. Located on the South Side of Columbus, the center was designed to help the surging wave of Italian, Hungarian and Yugoslavian immigrant laborers assimilate to their new life in the area known as “Steelton.”

The settlement house helped these fledgling citizens learn the language, understand the culture, acquire citizenship, participate in social activities and, most importantly, support themselves, their new neighbors and their new neighborhood.

“It was a gathering place to meet as a community and build that community,” says Mark Huddy, a St. Stephen’s board member and episcopal moderator for Catholic charities for the Diocese of Columbus.

The center’s name changed to St. Stephen’s Community House in 1924, but the vision of creating a space where community spirit and individual self-respect could thrive remains the guiding force for the agency today.

“This community has so many assets and so many strengths,” says CEO Marilyn Mehaffie, who began her tenure at St. Stephen’s in 1988 as a youth-group worker. “As the community evolves and changes, St. Stephen’s is right there, changing and evolving, too.”

Nearly each decade since its founding, the agency’s outreach has shifted. In the 1920s, the facility was expanded to include a gymnasium and showers. In the 1940s, the community house became a place “to support family life fractured by men sent off to war or women to work,” Huddy says. The post-war years saw an increase in supervised play for adolescents and a new focus on migrant workers coming to Columbus from Appalachia.

In the early 1960s, St. Stephen’s Community House moved to Linden, which was greatly underserved by social services. Over time, the organization established itself as a much-needed resource for the neighborhood and became a connection threaded across generations of families.

“Being able to nimbly respond to the changing needs is something St. Stephen’s has always been

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Above, St. Stephen’s Community House’s original building

“This community has so many assets and so many strengths.

As the community evolves and changes, St. Stephen’s is right there, changing and evolving, too.”

—MARILYN MEHAFFIE, CEO OF ST. STEPHEN’S COMMUNITY HOUSE

an example of,” Huddy says. “We’re always trying to serve the needs of the underserved while also being mindful of the partnership we have with the community—letting the community help define the resources they need and how that’s delivered. We try to keep the people we serve always at the forefront.”

When the community said it needed health support, St. Stephen’s opened a neighborhood health center in 1975. When the community needed a place for children to play, it built a new community center with a park, completed in 1983. When the community needed better childcare options, it worked with the city to create a daycare, afterschool programs and other educational services throughout the 1990s.

“We want to stay relevant,” Mehaffie says. “We want St. Stephen’s to be open and always transitioning.”

In the 21st century, St. Stephen’s has worked toward earning additional accreditations, increased its food pantry and nutrition center services and continually worked to prepare for whatever challenges the community faces. Each year the agency conducts a community survey to help define what the future looks like for everyone.

“I’m proud of the work we’ve done and will continue doing, so long as the community needs us,” Mehaffie says. “Linden has taught me that family doesn’t always mean parents, brothers, sisters, cousins. Family in Linden means people that love you and care about you.”

And they can be found at St. Stephen’s, she says— yesterday, today and tomorrow.

TIMELINE

1919

The Barthman Avenue Catholic Community House is founded in a former South Side theater to help immigrants build community by offering social activities and wholesome entertainment.

1924

COLUMBUS MONTHLY JANUARY 2019

The organization is renamed as St. Stephen’s Community House.

St. Stephen’s Community House

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Strong Families, Strong Community

PRESENT

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Take a look at some of the St. Stephen’s Community House programs that strengthen the Linden community.

Neighborhood Services

Food insecurity is a major issue in Linden, so it’s no surprise that the OhioHealth Food and Nutrition Center is one of St. Stephen’s longest-running programs. Eligibility is based on self-declared income; participants from eight Franklin County ZIP codes may shop the market-style pantry once per calendar month for fresh produce, boxed and canned goods, dairy, meat and bread. Open daily Monday through Friday, the Food and Nutrition Center is stocked by the Mid-Ohio Foodbank and donations from Target and Kroger. In addition, a seasonal Produce Market provides free fruits and vegetables twice per month from March through October, courtesy the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. The Food and Nutrition Center serves an average of 900 families per month, while the Produce Market sees around 200 participants per event.

Expectant mothers or families with a child under 1 year can enroll in the Brightening Little Lives Baby Nook program, created in 2010 to combat Linden’s high infant mortality rates.

Neighborhood Services director Amy Kerns says the approach is holistic. “If the parent is happy and safe and stable, then the baby has a much better chance of reaching their first birthday.”

Brightening Little Lives particpants can receive job coaching and résumé-writing assistance, hear from pediatricians and attend informational classes. Participation earns points that can be exchanged for new baby items like diapers, toys and more in the St. Stephen’s Baby Nook. Classes take place twice per month from February through October; in 2017, 70 families participated.

A major component of this division is CelebrateOne, created to combat the high rate of infants who die before their first birthdays. “Infant mortality in the Linden area is a crisis,” explains LaTisha Addo, director of Family Services. Columbus’ health department contracts St. Stephen’s to provide program services, including Community Connectors who meet with pregnant and new mothers face-to-face. “With those individuals, we’re increasing awareness directly,” Addo says. “We need to have healthy moms to have healthy babies.” Community Connectors have made more than 900 connections in the first six months of 2018.

St. Stephen’s also has an Advocate Program, which helps families recover public assistance benefits after being sanctioned

by Job and Family Services. “Whatever happened to cause the sanction, we try to make sure we get things in order,” says Addo.

“And if they’re not going to get their benefits back, we try to help them out with employment or education.” The program helped 39 sanctioned families in the first six months of 2018.

Youth Services

After-school programs at each of Linden’s four STEM feeder elementary schools address food insecurity and keep children safely supervised while parents are at work by providing a hot meal, homework assistance and academic and developmental activities to participating students in grades K-6. Lesson plans are connected to Common Core standards, ensuring that enrichment activities are both fun and educational.

In the summer, Project LINK—Learning Innovative New Knowledge—is an eight-week program serving students entering first through eighth grades. The STEM-focused program is divided into two-week units centered on science, technology, engineering and math and aligned to Common Core standards. There are also gym and art classes, as well as weekly workshops at Project AquaStar, the on-site urban farm. (See Page 6.) The free program attracts income-eligible families from all over the county, says Youth Services director Kristin Dillard; it typically enrolls 175 to 200 students each summer.

TIMELINE

1945 4

St. Stephen’s changes its focus to family services and social work.

St. Stephen’s Community House

Century of Service

1965

St. Stephen’s relocates the settlement to an underserved section of the city: Linden.

1977

Planning for a new community center with a 25-acre park begins.

PHOTO: ROB HARDIN

Family Services

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Senior Services

Childcare Services

For nearly 30 years, St. Stephen’s has operated an on-site childcare center. The Christ Child Early Learning Center— named for its benefactor, the Christ Child Society—serves children ages 6 weeks to 5 years, Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children and carrying a 5-Star rating in the Step Up To Quality statewide rating system, the center boasts low staff-to-child ratios, indoor and outdoor play spaces and quality programming.

“Our curriculum is probably one of my favorite things that we have,” says Childcare Services director Kristin Dillard.

“It’s an online-based curriculum, and it’s play-based. So let’s say, for example, the kids show an interest in the ocean. The teachers will then develop their lesson plans around the ocean. They can go to the online curriculum, plug in ‘ocean’ and it will pop up with tons of ideas.”

The center’s Project Starfish program helps parents who don’t qualify for Title XX publicly funded childcare by providing them with 80 percent tuition assistance for up to six months. “In return, the parents just do a few volunteer hours,” explains Dillard. ”I think it’s a great project for the families who really need the help.”

PRESENT

For Linden residents 60 and older, a variety of free programs provide stability and assistance. A grant-funded Case Management Program serves as a catch-all for seniors’ needs, from minor home maintenance requests to connections with housing and Medicaid resources, says Senior Services director Julie Wise. Approximately 500 seniors utilize case management services. For those who don’t drive, the Medical Transportation Program ensures that participants are able to attend their doctor’s appointments and visit the pharmacy; anywhere from 90 to 120 seniors take advantage of this service each year.

Similarly, the Grocery Program transports seniors at any of 26 Linden-area senior living facilities to the store each week; approximately 450 seniors use this service each year.

Finally, the Lunch Program, through a partnership with LifeCare Alliance, provides a free, hot meal for participants between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., Monday through Thursday, with lunch plus social activities on Fridays. Drivers can coordinate pickups for those who don’t have their own transportation, and many of the Friday activities are free or low-cost, says Wise. Recent trips have included the Ohio State Fair, the Velvet Ice Cream Factory and the Columbus Zoo; the program serves anywhere from 35 to 50 participants per day.

Family to Family Since November 1999, Franklin County Children’s Services has contracted St. Stephen’s to strengthen and support families with open cases. Through the Family to Family initiative, the agencies focus on keeping at-risk children in their own homes, when possible, or with a foster- or kinship-care family in the same neighborhood, all while providing services to help the family achieve self-sufficiency and resolve the problems that brought them to the attention of Children’s Services.

“We want to find out, what’s the issue?” explains

1983

St. Stephen’s breaks ground for its current building at 1500 E. 17th Ave.

1991

Family Services director LaTisha Addo. “What are the barriers to your success, and what can we do to eliminate those barriers, as a team?” The program focuses on educating parents and introducing them to available resources like food pantries, employment services, addiction treatment and more.

“We provide services for everyone in the house,” says Addo. “We want to make sure that our parents are healthy, and we’re helping our young ones become productive, successful citizens that contribute to society.”

The Christ Child Day Care Center opens.

1994

The agency begins a capital campaign; it results in two new wings, bringing all services under one roof.

COLUMBUS MONTHLY JANUARY 2019

St. Stephen’s Community House

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PRESENT

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St. Stephen’s launched Project AquaStar in 2014 as an extension of its mission to support families toward self-sufficiency. What began as a community garden to combat growing food insecurity in the Greater Linden area is now a shining example of the agency’s ability to stay relevant to modern concerns and changes.

Today, the project comprises just over an acre of land, which operates as a biointensive urban ecological farm and resource center.

“This project is like a big science and social experiment,” says Max Slater, Project AquaStar’s farm consultant. “By using regenerative agricultural products, we’re helping foster a productive ecosystem. It’s helping turn an urban environment into a productive, sustainable area.”

Parts of Linden experience one of the city’s highest rates of “very low food security,” according to a 2018 study conducted by Ohio State University, and Slater says the farm can help—by diminishing the community’s pressing need for food and simultaneously increasing its independence through education.

Project AquaStar has served more than 400 young people in the area with hands-on educational STEM activities. Community members of all ages visit the farm to learn how to use food for wellness and grow their own plants while implementing easy, ecofriendly growing techniques. Each summer, Project

Fifty kinds of fruits, vegetables and aquaponic plants are grown on the land and in its greenhouse.

A bevy of bees, chickens and even fish call the space home.

AquaStar hires a handful of Linden kids to tend the farm as they earn valuable work experience and nurturing mentorship from St. Stephen’s leaders.

The sustainability team at Land Grant Brewing Co. has tapped into that energy: The Franklinton brewery has diverted spent grain to feed Project AquaStar’s hungry hens and around 600 gallons of spent, nitrogen-rich yeast for a composting pilot program on the farm.

The pilot program’s testing and outcomes enabled Land Grant to expand the yeast diversion program to OSU’s Waterman Research Farm and its cancer care-focused Garden of Hope.

“Project AquaStar helped us jump-start our sustainability program and was essential in helping us figure out our diversion program to a T,” says Vincent Valentino, Land Grant’s sustainability manager.

Though still a budding young program, Project AquaStar has planted the seeds of food innovation and education in the community. Slater hopes to strengthen partnerships with area schools on STEM programs and continue expanding the farm’s capabilities to make a significant impact on Linden and the people who call it home.

“Linden is one of Columbus’ most diverse communities,” Slater says. “I’m lucky to get to work in a community I’ve come to love and with people I’ve developed a deep respect and admiration for.”

TIMELINE

1999 6

St. Stephen’s launches its Family to Family initiative in partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Franklin County Children Services.

St. Stephen’s Community House

Century of Service

2014

Work begins on infant mortality (through CelebrateOne), STEM education and summer programming for youth.

PHOTO: LEFT, TIM JOHNSON

Growing a Bright Future

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The Future of Families

2015

FUTURE

St. Stephen’s Community House CEO Marilyn Mehaffie has many goals for the agency’s future, but they could all be summed up by one basic objective: putting herself out of a job.

“I would love to make ourselves obsolete,” Mehaffie says. “Or maybe we stay, and evolve, and become a different St. Stephen’s than we are today. … We’ve been here in Linden since 1965; we’ve been around since 1919. We want to be here as long as the community needs us, so as the community evolves and transitions, St. Stephen’s should follow.”

Mehaffie has seen some of that evolution firsthand. She joined St. Stephen’s as a group worker in 1988, rising through the ranks to become CEO in 2017. That experience “has really given me a good base of information to take this agency forward, and it’s also given me the knowledge of the neighborhood and how we fit in,” she says.

In the short term, the agency aims to focus on increasing community engagement, both among its members and with the agency itself, Mehaffie says.

But that collaboration should extend further, to include partnerships between St. Stephen’s and other organizations. “We want to continue to be a catalyst for change in the community, but we know we can’t do it ourselves,” Mehaffie explains. “We want to be a partner. There are some things that other people do very well that we don’t do. So let’s collaborate with those people!”

Michael Kelley, chair of the St. Stephen’s board, notes that Mehaffie’s commitment to a collaborative culture is admirable—and somewhat rare.

“I think she is selfless in that respect; that for her, the biggest priority is the mission of St. Stephen’s,” he says.

Kelley’s involvement with the agency runs in the family. The six-year board member and first-year chair points to his father’s and grandfather’s board memberships as giving him a long memory of the agency’s services.

“St. Stephen’s has been very effective at focusing on the families and trying to strengthen the family unit,” he says. He points to the Family to Family initiative and the OhioHealth Food and Nutrition Center (see Pages 5 and 4, respectively) as two key safety-net programs that serve the agency’s mission of strengthening families and empowering the

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“I think the people in Linden are very interested in seeing their neighborhood improve, and they’re willing to roll up their sleeves and be part of the solution.”

—MICHAEL KELLEY, CHAIR OF THE ST. STEPHEN’S BOARD

OhioHealth partners with St. Stephen’s to support a renovation of the Food and Nutrition Center, which is renamed in recognition.

community. Because Linden is so large and among Columbus’ most impoverished neighborhoods, he explains, it can be difficult to move the needle on the community’s biggest problems.

Both Kelley and Mehaffie note, however, that despite Linden’s struggle—or perhaps because of it— community pride and dedication to improvement are high.

“I think the people in Linden are very interested in seeing their neighborhood improve, and they’re willing to roll up their sleeves and be part of the solution,” Kelley says. Empowering them to do so, by strengthening families, is what St. Stephen’s is all about, Mehaffie adds.

“I think the idea of being an organization that is at the community level, that is grassroots and is focused on listening to and truly understanding the needs of the residents, is an important aspect of our tradition,” says Kelley. “I think we need to hold onto that going forward in the next 100 years.”

2019 COLUMBUS MONTHLY JANUARY 2019

St. Stephen’s Community House celebrates its 100th birthday.

St. Stephen’s Community House

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To strengthen families and empower our community To donate or sign up to volunteer, visit saintstephensch.org

St. Stephen’s Community House 1500 E. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43219 614-294-6347 | facebook.com/SSCH1919