Our Delaware is a monthly series that will explore the history of communities and the institutions that serve them around the state. To suggest a potential topic for an upcoming feature, email Editor-In-Chief Jacob Owens.
Why Should Delaware Care?
The Neighborhood House is a nearly century-old cornerstone of Wilmington’s Southbridge community. It has provided childcare, food and housing assistance to those in need for several generations.
Pamela Salaam and Rick King looked at each other from across the table.
Heaps of wrinkled Polaroids, creased photographs and yellowing papers occupied the space between the two born-and-raised natives of Wilmington’s Southbridge neighborhood. Binfuls of leather photo albums and jumbled files flanked them on either side of the table at the Neighborhood House on a recent morning.
King’s granddaughter sat next to him as the documented history of the nearly century-old community center was being propped up by four table legs.
Salaam, 65, and King, 63, fervently swapped stories about growing up in one of Wilmington’s oldest and most historic neighborhoods. A tight-knit community where everyone knew each other and nothing was needed.
Groceries could be bought on credit at the local store, and parents would always have an open seat for any hungry kid at dinner. The pair spun tales of ding-dong-ditching, savoring the best ice pops in town and sneaking their first cigarettes at the local park.
King’s mother would race him down the street, claiming to be the fastest in the family, while Salaam would excitedly jump on top of cars to escape the neighborhood’s resident mean dog, Paco.
They wiped away tears of joy and nostalgia, all the same.
At the center of their memories was Neighborhood House, a United Methodist Church-affiliated nonprofit that was created to help low-income families in 1927. What began as a one-room operation expanded to two centers that offer childcare, food and housing assistance to the surrounding communities of Southbridge in Wilmington as well as Middletown.
The center offered before and after-school care, summer camps, a medley of activities and even operated a thrift store in the community. A network of Southbridge mothers ran Neighborhood House as an oasis where no one would be turned away and someone was always there.
“No matter how bad something got, you could always come to the Neighborhood House and get it taken care of,” King said. “They always had your back.”
The center has anchored Southbridge and its residents for decades, even as the community changed and time passed. Drugs eventually encroached into the community as the neighborhood lost its two schools and recreational spaces for kids dwindled.
“What happened,” Salaam asked around the table.
“Time went by,” King answered.
A house for generations
King first passed through Neighborhood House as a child. He attended daycare at the old church where the current building now stands.
From daycare, he transitioned into Bible school and then summer camp — all within the walls of the center.
Many years later, he would walk through the same halls to lead the Southbridge Civic Association meetings as president.
Today, he sits in a conference room and looks at old photos.
“(The center) gave the neighborhood confidence,” King said.
His children and grandchildren eventually followed and occupied the same storied halls.
Cynthia Williams began volunteering with the Neighborhood House daycare when she was 20 years old. Now 25 years later, she’s teaching her third generation of neighborhood kids — looking after the grandchildren of students she once cared for.
“Everybody was close, it was like family,” Williams said about the organization’s environment when she started.
The community center, formerly known as the Mary Todd Gambrill Neighborhood House, began as the mission of two Christian women to help the large immigrant population of Southbridge at the time. Many of the families were immigrants from Ireland, Italy and Poland who settled in the neighborhood to work at the docks and leather tannery nearby.
With parents working long hours, the missionaries recognized that children needed somewhere to go. The missionaries began helping the children with homework, giving them clothing and feeding them dinner before their parents clocked out.
“And guess what? 100 years later, we’re doing the same thing,” said Alison Windle, executive director of Neighborhood House.
History of Southbridge
Southbridge was coined the “cradle of African-American political leadership,” as the neighborhood was home to William J. Winchester, Herman M. Holloway Sr. and Henrietta Johnson.
Holloway Sr. was the first Black man to be elected to the State Senate while Johnson and Winchester were the first Black woman and man, respectively, to be elected to the Delaware House of Representatives.
The neighborhood’s connection to Black history stretches back to the late 18th century, when escaped slaves traversed Wilmington through the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman hid near Southbridge while helping escaped slaves reach Philadelphia when patrollers blocked their path across the Christina River, according to historians.
In November 1927, Neighborhood House missionaries rented a room to host kindergarten classes on South Claymont Street, before classes for older children were added and a bigger room was needed. The center eventually expanded to a vacant room that was given by a Russian owner for classes.
“Many kindnesses were shown by our Russian friend, not the least of these being that he would accept no rent,” read an archival document recounting the founding of Neighborhood House.
The organization’s work was later underscored as the country fell into the Great Depression two years later and Wilmington families struggled to get by. The organization moved into the Madeley Methodist Church in the 1960s, before the church was demolished to make way for the current building in the 1990s.
The old church had an indoor gym, an asset that’s missing from the current building. When the church was razed, the children used the Henrietta Johnson Medical Center gymnasium before that too was closed, leaving no indoor gyms in the neighborhood.
“We need a place that the whole neighborhood can depend on, once again,” King said.
Windle joined Neighborhood House as executive director in 2015, when the organization was at risk of closing its doors for good. The center was facing a budget deficit and Windle began her tenure making half salary, she recalled.
The center became a teaching site during the COVID-19 pandemic and had 30 kids spaced out in different rooms learning virtually. The organization operated with a slim “skeleton crew” that kept the place running while it was as busy as it’s ever been, Windle said.
“We learned from it, we grew, and we’re stronger than ever,” Windle said.
Windle has been leading the organization for a decade. She reckons she’s got another decade in her before she retires.
Before then, she hopes to convert the third floor into an indoor gym for the neighborhood youth — that’s her goal.
For now, King and Salaam start stashing the photos and documents back into their bins. They’ve taken in everything they can for the day.
King took his granddaughter’s hand and walked out of the room. There will be more Polaroids to shuffle and memories to recall soon.
But for now, he walks his granddaughter home.
Call to Action
Learn more about Neighborhood House by attending a Southbridge Civic Association meeting on the third Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m. at the nearly century-old center.