History
 Methodist Children's Home Society, originally named Methodist Child Care, was founded in 1917, a year in which Detroit factories were busy turning out war material for the conflict in Europe. Many families had moved into the metropolitan area from all over the country, leaving behind their extended families. When a disastrous epidemic of influenza hit the city, children whose parents died were often left without friends or relatives to care for them. Such was the plight of numerous children discovered by members of the Order of Deaconess of the Methodist Church when making their rounds in the residential sections of Detroit industrial areas.
Working with children at Metropolitan Methodist Church, Anna Kresge (wife of Sebastian Kresge, owner of S.S. Kresge stores) was also concerned with the needs of the larger community of children. Together with Sophie Sprague, Superintendent of the Deaconess Home, and members of the Women's Home Missionary Society, Mrs. Kresge persuaded Presiding Bishop Theodore Henderson of the need for a haven for children without families or for those receiving inadequate care in their own homes.
Mrs. Kresge and Mrs. Sprague were responsible for the purchase of a small house in the Highland Park neighborhood of Detroit and for arrangements necessary to care for 10 children. In 1922, a larger home was built on a farm in what is now downtown Farmington. Frances Knight was appointed its Director, and the agency became a charter member of the Child Welfare League of America. In 1926, the agency's name was officially changed to Methodist Children's Home Society, and the endowment was created.
 
Highland Park Home Farmington Home
Miss Knight envisioned a community designed especially to meet the social, emotional, academic, physical and spiritual needs of children. The basic concept of the director's plan called for small cottage units, each designed to house seven boys and girls ages 4-12, living with surrogate parents in family groups.
Miss Knight was successful in bringing her innovative concept to the attention of Sebastian Kresge, who approved both the idea and plans for its implementation. In 1927, Mr. Kresge authorized a substantial grant from the newly established Kresge Foundation for the purchase of 28 acres of land and the construction of the first buildings that would comprise Methodist Children's Home Society's "Children's Village." The Kresge grant was augmented by gifts from such prominent Detroiters as the Webber, Hudson and Edsel Ford families.
Children's Village received its first residents in June 1929. Designed by Detroit architect J. Ivan Dise in authentic 16th century English Tudor style, the new community on West Six Mile Road in Redford Township consisted of six cottage units, a residence for the Director, and an administrative building containing staff offices, as well as medical and dental clinics. In 1933, Miss Knight was honored by being the only woman invited to attend President Franklin D. Roosevelt's White House Conference on Children.
In 1938, Kresge Hall, a fully equipped elementary school, was added to the campus, and Camp Knight was opened on Douglas Lake in Northern Michigan. In 1947, MCHS purchased 50 acres of adjacent land and began construction on the Children's Chapel. With the dedication of the Chapel in 1951, the Children's Village was complete and engaged in fulfilling the founders' purpose of ministering to the comprehensive needs of the children living there.
In 1974, MCHS started a Day Treatment program in collaboration with Redford Union School District, and in 1989, the Foster Care Program began taking children as emergency intakes.
Recognizing the growing academic needs of our Children's Village residents, MCHS initiated a summer school program in 1990. In March 1993, we began BookPartners as a joint venture with a United Methodist Church in Jackson and a grade school in a disadvantaged neighborhood in the community. The goal of the program is to help end a continuing cycle of illiteracy by mentoring at-risk students in the second grade. The initial success of BookPartners led to the establishment of similar programs at a second elementary school in Jackson and in Shaftsburg and Howard City in 2003.
In the 1990s, MCHS decided to change the Children's Village from a co-ed campus to an all-boys campus because fewer facilities were available for boys in the area. From 1995-1997, MCHS underwent a capital campaign and constructed seven new residences for the children we serve. The old style cottages, while attractive, were not functional for the sexually and physically abused children we serve today. Each cottage now has space for 10 children and provides for improved supervision of troubled children, while still preserving their privacy with individual bedrooms. MCHS completed other construction as well, including major renovations to the campus infrastructure, updating old style cottages to make them suitable for current program use, making facilities handicapped accessible and adding new playing fields.
MCHS continues to grow, and in 2010, we launched a literacy program and a trauma/aggression treatment program in the Children's Village.
Originally, Methodist Children's Home Society was founded to care for orphans. Today, we fulfill a vital and challenging purpose within the state of Michigan by providing a broad range of services to children and families in crisis. Our goal is to help children overcome problems that have occurred as a result of abuse and neglect and, if possible, to reunite the children with their birth families. Until the day when children are free from the pain and confusion caused by abuse and neglect, MCHS will continue to exist and evolve to meet the needs of hurting children.
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