The history of the Valley Settlement House as a multi-service community agency is well over one hundred years old. We provide a wide range of programs targeted at general community support, and particularly, at assisting families in stability and growth services.
VSH is the oldest "settlement" in the state of New Jersey and the third oldest in the United States. A brochure written in the year 1900 about the Valley Settlement House made the following statement:
"A settlement is not a charity, a mission nor an institution;
it is a home, and as such seeks to respond to the needs
of a neighborhood through personal friendly relations
with its neighbors; it strives 'to express
the meaning of life in terms of life itself.'
Naturally, the estimate of its usefulness is not reckoned
in figures but in terms of understanding and love..."
This concept of neighborhood concern and outreach is as much a part of the VSH philosophy today as it was in the year 1900.
