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Before Fort Wayne had a charity it had a county obligation: in June 1853 Allen County bought land in Wayne Township for an asylum for the poor, paid 750 dollars for a house and 600 dollars a year to a keeper of paupers, and the poor farm stood as the city's first institution of relief for seventy years. Organized benevolence grew up beside it. The Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society, founded about 1861, kept minutes that survive from 1894 and marked its fiftieth year with a jubilee at the Anthony Hotel. The YMCA opened in 1858, among the city's earliest civic institutions. Catholic charity laid its foundations in sequence, the Sacred Heart Home in 1876, St. Vincent de Paul in 1879, St. Vincent Villa in 1886. And in 1888 the Ladies Relief Union organized to help the sick poor, becoming the visiting nurses and discovering, as the state's summary puts it, the link between poverty and disease.
The county poor farm: Allen County's first institution of relief
1853 — the line runs to today's Byron Wellness Community
Founding: Before Fort Wayne had a charity, it had a county obligation. In June 1853 Allen County bought land in Section 29, Wayne Township — the Waynedale area, near present-day Elmhurst — for an asylum for the poor, contracted…
The Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society and the benevolent-society era
c. 1861 — minutes survive 1894–1916
What it was: Fort Wayne's Jewish women organized benevolence early. The Ladies Hebrew Benevolent Society's minutes for 1894–1916 survive, and in 1911 the society celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a jubilee luncheon at the…
The YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne
1858 — the city's oldest surviving membership charity
Founding: The Young Men's Christian Association opened its first Fort Wayne location in 1858, fourteen years after the movement's London founding and seven after its first American associations — among the earliest civic…
Catholic charity's first institutions: Sacred Heart Home, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Vincent Villa
1876–1886 — the precursors of Catholic Charities in the diocese
The sequence: Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend traces its own prehistory, in its centennial history, to three Fort Wayne foundations of the diocese's first decades: the Sacred Heart Home for the aged in…
The Ladies Relief Union and the visiting nurses
1888 — organized nursing for "the sick poor of Ft Wayne"
Founding: In 1888 a group of Fort Wayne women organized the Ladies Relief Union with a stated mission: "to help the sick poor of Ft Wayne." Calling themselves the Visiting Nurse Committee, they discovered, in the Indiana…
YWCA Northeast Indiana
1894 — Indiana's earliest urban YWCA
Founding: The YWCA was founded in Fort Wayne in 1894 as a safe place for working women to meet — the earliest urban YWCA in Indiana, ahead of Indianapolis (1895) in the Discover Indiana account. In the early 1900s it served as…
The Rescue Mission
1903 — Fort Wayne's rescue mission, founded by Mennonites
Founding: The Fort Wayne Rescue Mission was founded and organized in 1903 by two Mennonites, Witmer and Stuckey, of the Berne Mennonite Church — the Anabaptist encyclopedia records that the Berne congregation largely supported…
The Salvation Army in Fort Wayne
Documented by 1913 — citadel and industrial home
The documented footing: The Salvation Army's Fort Wayne corps is in the city's record by the First World War era: the Griswold-Phelps Handbook of 1913–1914 lists a Salvation Army citadel, and the Polk directory of 1918 lists two…
The service clubs: Rotary and its company
Rotary, 9 January 1915 — the luncheon-club century
Rotary: The Rotary Club of Fort Wayne was established on 9 January 1915, when 35 local business professionals and community leaders held their first meeting at the former Commercial Club on Harrison Street. Its early works…
The American Red Cross in Allen County
Chartered 22 January 1917 — the war-work chapter
Founding: The Allen County chapter dates itself to the First World War: on 22 January 1917 a letter reached the Allen County Chapter House formally decreeing it a chapter of the American Red Cross — months before the United…
From federation to United Way of Allen County
Established 1922 — the federated era
Founding: United Way of Allen County was established in 1922. It belongs to the movement that, across industrial America, replaced agency-by-agency begging with one federated campaign — the Community Chest model: a single annual…
Turnstone: from the Society for Crippled Children
1943 — the Allen County Society for Crippled Children becomes Turnstone
Founding: Turnstone was founded in 1943 as the Allen County Society for Crippled Children, formed — in its own history's words — to continue the bedside-teaching programs then being eliminated by the Junior League, for children…
Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana
1944 — the Allen County Cancer Society's long line
Founding: In 1944, in the agency's own 75th-anniversary account, a Women's Field Army, the Fort Wayne Jaycees and a volunteer named Robert Punsky founded the Allen County Cancer Society as a branch of the American Cancer Society…
Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne
1955 — the united arts fund
Founding: Arts United was established in 1955 as the Fort Wayne Fine Arts Foundation. Its first member organizations were the Fort Wayne Art School and Museum, the Fort Wayne Civic Theatre, and the Fort Wayne Musical Society — an…
Anthony Wayne Services, Benchmark, and the AWS Foundation
1960 — the disability-services line, and the foundation it spun off
Founding: The line begins in 1960, when a community volunteer committee that had been studying work-related services for people with disabilities founded the Community Coordinating Center for Rehabilitation and Health Services.…
The Fort Wayne Zoological Society
1965–1966 — a zoo the public built, a society that runs it
In brief: The zoo's animals and grounds belong to the Current and Events sections; what belongs here is its civic structure. The Fort Wayne Children's Zoo opened 3 July 1965 in Franke Park — 500,000 dollars raised, 5.5 acres, 18…
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Indiana
Founded 8 February 1972 — from Big Brothers of Greater Fort Wayne
Founding: Big Brothers of Greater Fort Wayne was founded on 8 February 1972 — the date the agency's own 50th-anniversary history carries; a 2006 Congressional Record tribute gives August 1972, and the two dates are carried here…
Arena Dinner Theatre
January 1974 — born of a parks department cut
Lineage: Arena's roots lie in the Fort Wayne Theatre Workshop, which had produced theatre in the round since 1962 as part of the Fort Wayne Parks Department at the Jefferson Center. When the Parks Department eliminated its…
St. Mary's Soup Kitchen
1975 — soup from the rectory back porch
Founding: The soup kitchen at St. Mary Mother of God parish began in 1975, when the pastor, Father Tom O'Connor, started serving soup to the poor from the back porch of his rectory — the soup made on the pastor's own stove. It…
Community Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Indiana
1983 — born of the factory shutdowns
Founding: Community Harvest was incorporated in 1983, founded by leaders of the city's business, religious and government sectors in the wake of the factory closures that defined Fort Wayne's early-1980s — its own current…
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Fort Wayne
1986 — the first house, 1987
Founding: Habitat for Humanity of Greater Fort Wayne was established in 1986 as a grassroots affiliate of Habitat for Humanity International (founded nationally in 1976), spearheaded by local church leaders and community members.…
Boy Scouts: the Anthony Wayne Area Council
Council line from 1916 — Fort Wayne Council to Anthony Wayne Area Council
Lineage: Scouting's Fort Wayne council line runs, in the Boy Scouts of America's own council records, Fort Wayne Council (1916–1924), Allen County Council (1924–1925), then the Anthony Wayne Area Council, council number 157…
Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana
The modern council, from the 2006 realignment
Formation: Girl Scouting in Fort Wayne ran for most of the 20th century through the Limberlost Council — named for Gene Stratton-Porter's Limberlost country east of the city. On 26 August 2006 the Girl Scouts of the USA adopted a national realignment from 312 councils to 109, and the Fort Wayne council was merged into a new body: Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana, formed from the Indiana Lakeland, Limberlost and parts of the Singing Sands and Tribal Trails councils. The council serves 20 northern Indiana counties plus Berrien and Cass counties in Michigan, with Fort Wayne as a principal office; an older merged-council figure counted 18,240 Girl Scouts.
Sources:
- Girl Scouts of Northern Indiana-Michiana / council history summaries — the 26 August 2006 realignment vote; the four predecessor councils; the 22-county territory in two states.
Junior Achievement of Northern Indiana
The local chapter — BizTown, Finance Park, and 3DE
The documented record: Junior Achievement nationally dates to 1919, and its northern Indiana chapter is the region's classroom-economics charity: volunteers teaching work-readiness, entrepreneurship and financial literacy in…
Boys & Girls Clubs of Fort Wayne
1989 — from a three-room office on Minor Street
Founding: The Boys & Girls Clubs of Fort Wayne began in 1989 in a small three-room office on Minor Street, serving low-income children and youth with the national movement's program of academic success, character and leadership…
Study Connection
1989 — Don Wolf's second foundation
Founding: Study Connection was founded in 1989 by Don Wolf, the retired chief executive of Do it Best Corp. — the same man who had founded Big Brothers of Greater Fort Wayne seventeen years earlier (see that entry). Piloted for…
Vincent Village
Serving homeless families since December 1989
Founding: Vincent Village grew from Vincent House, a shelter opened in the former St. Hyacinth convent on the parish campus — the diocesan paper's 2025 account dates the organizing to 1988, when Bishop John M. D'Arcy allowed the…
Easterseals Northeast Indiana
The Fort Wayne line — Easterseals Arc from 1999, one regional body from 2025
The documented line: The Fort Wayne disability organization long known through Anthony Wayne Services' world took the Easterseals Arc of Northeast Indiana name in 1999 and kept an Allen County focus until 2020, by its own history…
Mustard Seed Furniture Bank
2002 — Indiana's first furniture bank
Founding: The Mustard Seed Furniture Bank was founded in 2002 by a group of Fort Wayne business friends and professionals — the first furniture bank in Indiana. Its model is referral-only: families rebuilding after fire, disaster…