Press Release October 12, 2006                           Contact: Cynthia Little

New Century Trust Awards First $18,000 "Willing Hands" Award to Maternity Care Coalition

Philadelphia--The New Century Trust today announced that the Maternity Care Coalition of Philadelphia is the 2006 recipient of the first $18,000 “Willing Hands” Award, given from the bequest of Lily Dupuy Harper.

“We are pleased to award this unrestricted grant to the Maternity Care Coalition, in the true spirit of the original Willing Hands Fund, begun in the 19th century by our forerunners in this organization,” said Cynthia Little, president of the New Century Trust. 

In addition, three grants of $5,000 each were awarded to Women’s Way; the Alice Paul Foundation; and the Philadelphia Theatre Company, for projects benefiting women and girls.

“We are looking to utilize our assets in ways that best accomplish the New Century Trust’s longstanding mission of advancing women and girls and helping them to achieve their potential,” Ms. Little said.  “While our goal has remained since this organization was founded more than a century ago, the means to achieve it have to change with the times.  With this grant, and the others announced today, we are striving to support the diverse and complex efforts of organizations serving women and girls today.”

The New Century Trust was founded in 1893 by a group of women led by Eliza Sproat Turner (1826-1903), a progressive thinker and an activist of means who lived in Philadelphia.  It was the incorporated body of the New Century Guild which had been founded by Turner in 1882. Activities in the organization’s early history included a wide range of activities that served the increasing numbers of women who were entering the work force: classes and lectures; the “Noon Rest,” a dining room where hundreds of working women came to eat a hot meal for reduced cost and rest for an hour during the work day; temporary lodging; and emergency financial support..

One of the earliest, largest and most successful of many organizations created in the nineteenth century to provide assistance to the increasing numbers of women who were entering the labor force, the New Century Trust is also one of the most long-lived.

The $18,000 Willing Hands Award was given from Lily Dupuy Harper’s bequest to the New Century Trust which specified that the money be used to help women in need, in the tradition of the organization’s Willing Hands Committee which was formed in 1888.  Originally the Willing Hands Committee organized distribution of donated toys, clothing and other items to hospitals and the needy. Later, it evolved to the Willing Hands Fund which made loans to members in need of support due to illness or unemployment. The award to the Maternity Care Coalition is the first lump sum grant of its kind given from the Harper bequest in the organization’s history.

Chosen as the recipient of the Willing Hands Award, the Maternity Care Coalition was founded in 1980 by professionals and lay people to address the conditions leading to a high rate of infant mortality and morbidity in Philadelphia. Since then, the Maternity Care Coalition has advocated for increased services for women and infants to health and welfare agencies and legislative bodies. Its MOMobile® program uses a "bottom-up" strategy of neighborhood outreach, case finding, and building trust with high-risk families to enable parents to access a range of services and programs that improve the quality of their lives. As the Pennsylvania affiliate of Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, the Maternity Care Coalition continues to advocate for families at local, state, and national levels.

With these grants, the New Century Trust continues its founders' philanthropic mission of enhancing the economic and social development of women and girls.

The New Century Trust is also dedicated to preserving and interpreting the historical significance of its landmark building, and its place in the women's movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It will celebrate the centennial of its ownership of the State Historic Landmark building at 1307 Locust Street in Philadelphia on Saturday, October 14 with a free Founder’s Day open house and one-woman show. This will be the first public open house held in many years at the magnificent four-story building where women’s history was made at the dawn of the 20th century.

For more information, call Cynthia Little at 215-735-7593 or visit: www.newcenturytrust.bravehost.com                 

“The purposes for which the corporation is formed are the social, industrial and educational cultivation and improvement of working women and girls, without any sectarian distinction.”

1893 Charter of The New Century Trust