From the Board President
and Executive Director

An agency’s history is perhaps the most reliable and most important record of its accomplishments.

History defines not only what we have been, but, in significant ways, also predicts what we may dare to hope to become. As we look back on the 85 year history of Ada S. McKinley Community Services, Inc., we can discern the strong relationships between the Agency’s mission, its values, and its programs and services. It is upon this strong historical foundation that the Agency bases its existence today as one of Chicago’s ten largest and most dynamic human services providers. It is also upon this strong historical foundation that the Agency accepts the challenge of continuing to realize its tremendous potential as an empowering and community-conscious organization and of continuing to build upon its role as a molder and shaper of the destinies of Chicago’s future generations.

One of the important lessons we learn from our history is the strong relationship between the Agency’s mission and the needs of the clients and communities we serve. The Agency’s mission is tied to Ada S. McKinley’s commitment to service, perhaps as a means of translating her own personal sense of loss, sustained in the tragic deaths of her four children and her husband. Our mission is also rooted in Mrs. McKinley’s probable sense of outrage as she watched, from the vantage point of Southside Settlement House, African-American men and women on their way to and from the Bronzeville community’s nearby all Black 18^th Regiment Armory. To Mrs. McKinley and to many others, these veterans were victims of the absence of the public gratitude and social and economic support, especially considering the sacrifices these veterans had made on behalf of their country during World War I.

Mrs. McKinley also felt that the principles that supported the Agency’s earliest mission were meaningless unless translated into practical and useful action: serving the underserved; assisting clients in finding jobs; helping families to find affordable housing; and, removing educational barriers which thwarted the community’s sense of self-worth and prevented its attainment of self-sufficiency.

Historically, this relationship of Agency focus and client and community needs has been central to what Ada S. McKinley Community Services, Inc. is essentially about. It continues to be central to the Agency’s mission today, even as the Agency broadens its scope to include the needs of an ever widening pool of disadvantaged individuals, such as persons with disabilities, who now comprise nearly 40 percent of the Agency’s service recipients, senior citizens who comprise a larger part of our community than ever before, and children who are increasingly the victims of the rending of the once protective family structure.

Another important lesson to be learned from history is how the concept and implementation of change have been subtlety altered over the years. In the past, change came about as Mrs. McKinley came to recognize and respond to the needs of the clients and communities the Agency served. Although this was not an inexact process, it was a highly subjective one which required extreme sensitivity to community needs and an unerring ability to interpret accurately what services could best meet community needs. Through this process, the Agency took upon itself the implementation of programs in child care, education, services for children with special needs, basic education for children and adults, recreational services, infant welfare services, job skills training and placement, and community advocacy. Today the Agency continues to broaden the spectrum of services provided to clients and communities, but through a more systematic and strategic approach. Through the strategic planning process, the Agency is able to take a more accurate look into the future in terms of its resources, community needs, and Agency strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges. Through this process, McKinley is able to anticipate and position itself to meet the future needs of clients and communities.

At Ada S. McKinley Community Services, Inc. we are proud of our history; we are committed to maintaining and improving the services we provide today; and we are dedicated to continuing to empower individuals and communities in the future. Through this historical spectrum which originates in the past and stretches to the future, the one constant that we see is change. Change, moving along a common continuum of service, will continue to be the hallmark of the Agency’s growth. This, along with a continuing and ever more refined sensitivity to the emerging needs of the communities we serve, will continue to guide the destiny and the future of Ada S. McKinley Community Services, Inc., for years to come.