Ramsey County History – Spring 2013: “One History of Service: The Guild of Catholic Women and Guild Incorporated”

One History of Service: The Guild of Catholic Women and Guild Incorporated
Author: Hayla Drake

In 1906, out of concern for the welfare of new immigrants in their community, a group of thirty women from St. Luke’s Catholic Church began the Guild of Catholic Women (GCW), which helped meet the basic needs of these newcomers to St. Paul with distributed clothing and food baskets. GCW later formed the Travelers Aid Bureau in order to expand its range of services by providing temporary shelter and loans to new arrivals who did not yet speak English. Before long, the GCW had expanded yet again and became nationally known as a resource for women in the community in need of shelter and work. In 1974, Ramsey County Human Services asked GCW to assist men and women with mental illness, which it did. With the shift from a continuum model of residential treatment for those with mental illness to a supported housing model of service, in 1990, GCW formed Guild Incorporated, a nonprofit subsidiary to administer and expand this work. Today, Guild Incorporated provides a range of community-based services ranging from housing assistance to health care and mental health treatment to a wide spectrum of clientele in Ramsey County.
PDF of Drake article