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Frankford Group Ministry records
Notifications
Held at: Historical Society of Frankford [Contact Us]1507 Orthodox St., Philadelphia, PA, 19124
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Historical Society of Frankford. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Active from the late 1970s to 2009, the Frankford Group Ministry (FGM) was a community-based urban ministry of four United Methodist Churches working cooperatively to improve the quality of life for the community of Frankford, a neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In the late 1970s, representatives from Central, Frankford Memorial, Rehoboth, and Saint Thomas United Methodist churches met to discuss the declining income and resources of families in their service areas, and how to respond to their changing needs through cooperative outreach ministries. The churches decided that they would remain distinct congregations, but that they could assist their entire community best by working together to provide spiritual, educational, economic, and environmental outreach programs to enhance the quality of life for families, regardless of age, race, class, or creed. This work began in 1979. FGM's primary service area was bordered by Frankford Creek to the south, Cheltenham Avenue to the north, Amtrak train lines to the east, and Roosevelt Boulevard to the west.
While active, Frankford Group Ministry provided inter-church programs geared toward children and youth and offered services to families and adults. In 1983, the group incorporated as an independent corporation, receiving tax exempt status. The following year, FGM started an emergency assistance program, and two years after that, in conjunction with the Frankford YMCA and Frankford Ministerium, organized the Frankford Human Relations Coalition to promote harmony and address racism and prejudice within the community. Among several other programs, FGM also established an in-home counseling advocacy program for abused and neglected children and addressed drug concerns within the community. In 1991, FGM was recognized as a national model for urban work.
Frankford Group Ministry was closed in 2009 after over thirty years of operation. Its home base of operation, the former Central United Methodist Church located at the corner of Orthodox and Griscom Streets, was demolished in 2012.
Bibliography:
Frankford Group Ministry. The Frankford Group Ministry Organizational Manual. 1992. Document viewed in the collection on June 18, 2015.
This collection consists of financial and administrative records, ephemera, photographs, and research materials produced by the Frankford Group Ministry dating from 1992 to 2009.
There are materials in the collection relating to projects and activities administered and supported by the Frankford Group Ministry, such as crime reduction initiatives, park revitalization projects, housing programs, youth programs, and the Tacony-Frankford River Conservation Plan. These materials include grant proposals, project plans, flyers, ephemera, published materials, research files, and photographs of events. Financial records include bank statements, invoices, and receipts related to the organization. There is also an organizational manual.
The records were acquired by Frankford Historical Society prior to the demolition of Frankford Ministry Group's building in 2012.
Summary descriptive information on this collection was compiled in 2014-2016 as part of a project conducted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to make better known and more accessible the largely hidden collections of small, primarily volunteer run repositories in the Philadelphia area. The Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories (HCI-PSAR) was funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
This is a preliminary finding aid. No physical processing, rehousing, reorganizing, or folder listing was accomplished during the HCI-PSAR project.
In some cases, more detailed inventories or finding aids may be available on-site at the repository where this collection is held; please contact Historical Society of Frankford directly for more information.
Organization
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Historical Society of Frankford
- Finding Aid Author
- Finding aid prepared by Sarah Leu and Anastasia Matijkiw through the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories
- Sponsor
- This preliminary finding aid was created as part of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania's Hidden Collections Initiative for Pennsylvania Small Archival Repositories. The HCI-PSAR project was made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Access Restrictions
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Contact Historical Society of Frankford for information about accessing this collection.