Respond, Inc. was created in 1967 as the result of a joint venture with the Haddonfield Untied Methodist Church and residents of the North Camden community. The church assigned a minister of mission to meet with neighborhood residents. A survey of needs was taken, with day care for children of working parents and parents in school or training for employment becoming the highest priority among community residents.
The church’s minister of mission, the principal at Sewell Elementary School, a teacher at the school and other community residents formed the North Camden Day Care Project, which instituted the first child care center in the area, using space in the State Street United Methodist Church. In 1967, the program housed 30 children in a half-day program. The project was incorporated in 1968, with two programs in operation, the one at State Street and the newly opened Linden Day Care. Together they served 90 children.
In 1975, when administrative offices opened at 532 State Street, the agency changed its name to Respond, Inc. In the interim, Vine Street Day Care opened, and all child care programs were extended to a full day. The infant program began in 1972, along with Winslow Day Care, followed by the Merchantville center. East Camden and Bank Street centers were opened in the fall of 1999. Respond assumed operation of Virtua-Camden’s Leaps & Bounds Child Care Program in 2000 and three and four-year-old Abbott District preschool classrooms for the Camden Board of Education opened at scattered sites in the agency’s existing child development centers. Respond’s Abbott classrooms numbered 20 for the opening of school in 2001.
State Street Housing and the Community Elders were created in 1972 and 1974. Project CHORE, the Summer Youth Career Exploration Program, the Summer Enrichment Camp, the Teen Volunteer Program, Community Partners for Camden Youth (CPCY) and the Camden Earned Income Campaign round out programs directed to children, senior citizens, adults and families. In addition, the agency has led an economic development initiative for a major supermarket and retail center in the Linden Street corridor, with ground breaking to occur in the spring of 2002.
The PATH Homeless Day Center was developed in 1989 in response to the community’s need for a facility for homeless men during the day and with an emergency overnight capability. In 1993, Respond entered the world of welfare reform, selected by the State of New Jersey to operate a pilot services to new workers continued in 1998 with funding provided by the Department of Labor and Camden County’s Job Training Resource Center. In 1999, Respond was the lead agency for a grant under the newly-formed Employment Partnership of Camden County of the Community Planning and Advocacy Council to establish the New Worker Center on Washington Street in Lanning Square neighborhood near center city Camden. In 2001, a new employability program that targeting General Assistance recipients in the City and County and a program that is part of a national demonstration grant of the American Community Partnerships in Washington, D. C. began.
In the year 2002, the staff numbers more than 250, and Respond, Inc. has succeeded in building an outstanding example of people from all walks of life working together toward a common goal – that of an enriched community. The respect for a community to know its own needs, and the ability to direct that knowledge into viable programs, make Respond, Inc. the successful organization that it is today.