Little Flower Children and Family Services Of New York Marks Nearly a Century of Service to Children, Families and Individuals

Since 1929, Little Flower Children and Family Services of New York has been at the center of child welfare and human services across New York City and Long Island. 

What began as the Little Flower House of Providence for Homeless Colored Children has evolved into a wide-reaching nonprofit that, in 2024 alone, served up to 1,400 people. It was founded by Catholic priest Bernard J. Quinn, who is currently recognized as a “Servant of God” by the Vatican and is a candidate for canonization – if successful, he would be the first saint from Brooklyn.

The beautiful, historic campus in Wading River provides enriching services for the children and youth it serves, including cottages, a school, a track, a playground, baseball fields, basketball courts, a culinary center, a church, a health center, and more.

“Little Flower has had a really wonderful, broad mission to help people in need and help them realize their own goals,” Corinne Hammons, president and CEO of Little Flower, said. “And we talk about it as transforming caring into action. Most noticeably, we have just under 50 youth who live here on campus with us, and they’re wonderful kids who have encountered obstacles in their life, and they’re here for residential treatment. That’s one piece of what we do. We also provide medical and mental health services, foster care services and services to adults with disabilities. So, when we see a need in the community, we step forward to meet it. And one of the things I love about working for our mission is that our mission evolves over time. The way we implement our mission evolves over time, as the need evolves.”

The organization’s history mirrors the development of New York’s child welfare system. In its early years, Little Flower focused on shelter and education, opening a school in the 1930s and 1940s. By the mid-20th century, it had expanded into foster care, group homes and education services.

In the 1970s, Little Flower established an adoption services program, launched its first intermediate care facility for developmentally disabled adults and welcomed to campus a new partner, the newly formed Little Flower Union Free School District, a independent Special Act school that provides education to the residents of Little Flower’s residential program.   

The following decades brought further expansion. Little Flower launched specialized foster care programs for adolescents at risk and created family day care initiatives in Queens and Long Island. The 1990s and 2000s marked another period of growth, with the opening of a children’s health center in Brooklyn, new respite care services in Wading River and contracts with the city to serve youth involved in the juvenile justice system.

“We’re right in the middle of a three-year strategic plan that we are very proud of and have on our website,” Hammons said. “Among the eight strategies outlined in our plan,  one I’m very excited about is expanding our medical and mental health services. We’re a leader in New York State in providing key mental health services to children in foster care, and we want to expand those services more broadly to the community.We know there’s a huge need, and rather than just serving the foster care population, we hope to serve the community more broadly. 

Little Flower has been at the forefront of several social crises in recent memory, most notably the Willowbrook scandal of the 1970s – when Geraldo Rivera uncovered abuse at the Willowbrook State School on Staten Island – and the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and the children orphaned by that crisis. Little Flower opened its doors to individuals affected by these crises, and gave better lives to those facing tragedy.

In recent years, Little Flower has adopted a care management model to connect children with critical health services, become nationally accredited and achieved certification as a Sanctuary organization, reflecting its commitment to trauma-informed care. In 2019, the nonprofit entered into an affiliation with St. John’s Residence for Boys in the Rockaways, an organization that serves older male youth in foster care and youth involved in the juvenile justice system.

“They [St. John’s] were succeeding from a mission standpoint. helping a lot of kids, but couldn’t sustain financially,” Hammons said. “Now they’re thriving, and I won’t take credit for that. I credit their leaders, but they’re growing and expanding, and they’re now serving girls too.”

But Hammons, in her ten-year tenure at Little Flower, has guided the center through things like the pandemic, and has become a true successor to Father Quinn and countless other figures who have contributed to Little Flower’s history.

“I see myself as a steward of Little Flower,” Hammons said. “I have been here a decade, but it’s still a tiny portion of the organization’s history and its future, and I have spent every day thinking, ‘How can we preserve and protect and expand this wonderful organization?’ 

The core message of Little Flower is elevating children in need and enabling them to thrive.

On the campus, children live in cottages with one another, and also go to school. A new playground is being built, in addition to a new track and basketball court that were recently installed. 

“This campus has been through a lot over the last nearly 100 years, and we are now in a position to advocate for additional state funding to invest in the programming for our residential youth,” Kerri Smith, Chief Operating Officer of Little Flower, said. “We’ve been making a lot of investments, both in staffing and recreational facilities, to improve the quality of therapeutic services we are able to provide. We are revitalizing our campus landscape, creating a more enriching place for our youth. Our new track creates a place where youth and staff can walk, run and bike. We are in the process of fundraising for a new playground, and we are building a healing reflection garden where youth can rest and recharge.”

Through good times and bad times, Little Flower has always been a cornerstone of the Wading River community, as noted by the local Historical Society.

“Little Flower gave people in the Wading River community the opportunity to show off their best,” president of the Wading River Historical Society, said. “I know of one family that, when they had the program for children whose parents had HIV, one of my neighbors took in a child who was a baby at the time into foster care and they adopted him. That’s a success story in the sense that he was well-loved and well-raised.”

Alcorn has been asked to be a part of Little Flower’s Historic Archive project as well, which will be revealed on campus next summer in anticipation of Little Flower’s 100 year anniversary.

“We have this rich history, and we have so many people in the community and at the organization who have bits and pieces of that history, and we want to preserve it,” Kerri Smith said. “So we have this committee that started to meet and is gathering all of that, and we’re unveiling it next summer, which is the United States 250th birthday. And so we’re looking forward to having an event on campus and opening it up to the community, and unveiling what the Historical committee has created for us.”

As for how the community can support or get involved with Little Flower?

“We have periodic community events, like our holiday tree lighting, and our 28th annual golf outing is coming up on September 29th at the Cold Spring Country Club ,” Hammons said. “We welcome community members to call us or go to the website to volunteer or get involved.”

As Little Flower moves into the future and toward its 100th anniversary, the organization looks forward to partnering with the community to continue meeting its needs and creating opportunity for another century to come.

For more information, visit littleflowerny.org.

PARTNER CONTENT