About Us
History
The agency traces its beginnings to 1844 when the Daughters of Charity first arrived on the streets of Detroit with only $8.50 in their pockets, with the intentions of opening a school. Within two years, they responded to community need by establishing the St. Vincent Orphan Asylum and a hospital. In 1869, the sisters opened a program to provide for the needs of unwed and/or deserted mothers and their children.
It is this spirit that began the Daughter’s 150 years of service to those in need in Southeastern Michigan. They had no idea that they would be responsible for founding the first hospital in Detroit, Providence Hospital in 1945, the first private psychiatric hospital in Michigan, three schools, an orphanage, and a home for unwed mothers and children in just over two decades.
In 1928, a fire destroyed a summer home located in Farmington Hills that housed children from the old St. Vincent Orphan Asylum in Detroit. Mr. and Mrs. Charles T. and Sarah Fisher of the Fisher Body Family read the news accounts of the fire. Because of their extreme gratitude to the Daughters of Charity and Providence Hospital for saving the life of their fifth son, Thomas Fisher, Charles Fisher took action by donating more than $700,000 to build a new structure at the corner of 12 Mile and Inkster Roads.
The formal opening took place one year after the date of the fire on November 25, 1929. The home reflected contemporary thinking in the institutional care of children. The Center’s Farmington Hills campus remained open as a residential facility for foster children until October 2005.
In 2006, the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center brought 150 years of family and child experience to the Brightmoor area and the surrounding community. The statistics for the area are daunting: A 40% poverty rate for children; a nearly 30% drop out rate; and unemployment levels that hover around 36%. Children are at risk, and families are failing under the crushing weight of poverty.
The Center is attacking these problems head-on by offering services that prepare families to move from poverty to self-sufficiency. Staff and volunteers are working with kindergarteners through third graders in the Children's Learning Experience Program – teaching children the basics, but more importantly, getting them excited about learning and opening their eyes to new possibilities for their future.
One of the Center’s most successful initiatives has been the Adult Learning Experience Program, a pre-GED prep class, which has doubled and redoubled in size since the Learning Center opened its doors. This program focuses on tutoring adults, who have mustered the courage to face their educational challenges, so they can begin to take the first rewarding steps toward earning a GED. It is difficult to imagine making up for years of inadequate schooling or for an education missed because of a childhood decision to drop out. But that’s what the Center’s clients are attempting, and they’re doing so in order to improve their lives and the lives of their children. The Center is giving them the tools they need to succeed.
In every area, the Center’s work is bringing positive change. In lives of the families served, hope is beginning to take root. The St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center is providing opportunities where none existed and continuing its mission to protect, nurture and strengthen children and families.
Timeline
1851 St. Vincent’s Home, located on the corner of Randolph and Larned Streets in downtown Detroit, is established by the Daughters of Charity.
1869 The House of Providence on W. Adams Street in Detroit is established to care for orphaned children. In order to accommodate the growing number of children, the home moves to 14th Street, across from St. Vincent’s church, and then to the northwest corner of Elizabeth and St. Antoine.
1871 St. Vincent’s Home is incorporated.
1872 – January The House of Providence is incorporated. From this corporation grows three different services, which are originally housed in the same facility. The functions include services for the unmarried mother, infants and young children, and a hospital, which is later separately incorporated as Providence Hospital.
1872 – September The cornerstone for a new St. Vincent’s Home on McDougall Avenue in Detroit is laid. Nearly 100 girls, ages 2 to 12 years, occupy the building by the end of the month.
1910 The House of Providence is converted into a general hospital and is renamed Providence Hospital. Apartments are built in the hospital to house unwed mothers and their children.
1920 The present site of the Center is deeded. To reduce overcrowding, in the Detroit facility, some of the pre-school children are moved to this new location.
1921 Facilitated by the generous donations of Mr. William Kennedy and Mrs. James Couzens, Lake Pickerel, located near Brighton, Michigan, is purchased as a summer outing destination for the children.
1923 Eighty acres of land, located on the northwest corner of 12 Mile Road and Inkster Road, is donated to the Daughters of Charity. Resting on one and a half acres in the southwest corner is a country house where children ages 2 to 6, enjoy their summer. The Daughters of Charity name this house Villa Marillac.
1926 Because the children who live in the hospital are too noisy for the sick patients, Villa Marillac is remodeled for year-round use. After completion all of the children older than two are sent from Providence Hospital to live at Villa Marillac. A Social Services department is set up in Providence Hospital to care for, place and follow-up with the children after adoption.
1928 Fire destroys Villa Marillac with 66 of 67 residents saved. News accounts of the fire report that all of the furnishings and clothing of the nuns, nurses and children are completely lost. As an incentive for the children to evacuate the building as quickly as possible, the nuns tell them that they are going to a party and cannot be late.
1929 – May Ground is broken on an innovative new facility for the orphans of Villa Marillac. A generous donation of more than $700,000 made by Fisher Body heir Mr. Charles T. Fisher earlier this year, makes the new facility possible. Mr. Fisher’s children, Thomas, 8, and Sarah Anne, 5, perform the ceremonial groundbreaking.
1929 – November The Sarah Fisher Children’s Home opens on the 80 acres at the northwest corner of 12 Mile and Inkster Road as a permanent residence for the orphans of St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum, toddler age and older.
1945 An innovative Child Development unit begins as a demonstration project by Providence Hospital. School of Nursing and Merrill Palmer School is moved to Farmington. Child development experts create family groups of children and adults who act as a unit.
1948 St. Vincent’s in Detroit is closed and the children are permanently moved to the new Sarah Fisher Children’s Home, thus creating The St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Home.
1950 A group of 40 Sisters and numerous volunteers from Providence Hospital board a bus, each with a baby in her arms, and travel to The St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Home. From this date forward, children will no longer reside at Providence Hospital. The St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Home now cares for children from infancy through the teen years.
1951 – January 16 The House of Providence changes its name to Marillac Villa and subsequently changes its mission to that of exclusively caring for unwed mothers.
1951 – January 22 The St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Home for Children is incorporated to care for the children of the residents of Marillac Villa.
1953 Marillac Villa relocates to the corner of Northwestern Highway and Inkster Road and changes its name to Marillac Hall.
1960 Seton Day Care opens on the grounds of the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Home.
1979 St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Home merges with Marillac Hall to create the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center. Unwed mothers, who wish to parent their children, move to the newly created Louise Hall residential program, which is located within the Center. It later becomes the Transitions Program.
1983 The Foster Care Program is established to provide family placements within private homes for children who do not require residential care at the Center.
1985-1992 With state funding the Community Group homes are established in Detroit, Oak Park and Ferndale serving 18-19 year olds with their children.
1993 Marillac Hall residential program for pregnant teen girls is discontinued and Marillac Outreach Services is established to serve a larger client population. This program provides counseling and referral services to young women within their homes.
1993 The Center begins offering adoption services for children with special needs.
1994 Post adoption support services are implemented for families adopting special needs children. These services are designed to offer assistance to families after the adoption has taken place.
1995 A collaboration of child placing agencies, with the resources from the United Way Community Services and the Detroit-Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency, form the Planned Family Respite Care Program. The purpose of this program is to support and maintain family stability by providing short-term planned respite care for children from infancy to 15 years of age who experience emotional, physical and developmental disabilities.
1996 In an effort to reduce the need for psychiatric hospitalizations, a Crisis Stabilization Unit opens in the St. Vincent and Sarah Fisher Center.
1997 An innovative new component of Marillac Outreach Services, the Young Fatherhood Program, opens to support teen dads in the metro-Detroit area.
1998 Jendayi House, a group home for young mothers ages 18-21, opens in Detroit.
1999 The renovation of 6 cottages is completed with funds raised in a successful capital campaign.
2001 To accommodate the growing needs of the community, the Young Fatherhood program expands and doubles the number of teen fathers served.
2006The Center moves to the Brightmoor area of Detroit and establishes a comprehensive, community-based educational program that engages parents, families and neighborhoods in the process of creating strong, healthy children and families.
