KenCrest Branching Out 

From our beginning in the early 1900's, KenCrest has explored new services that have benefited tens of thousands of people and influenced society's response to people in need. KenCrest can claim a long list of "firsts":

In 1905 KenCrest opened one of the first community health clinics in the US for tuberculosis patients.

In 1908 KenCrest received the Silver Medal awarded by President Theodore Roosevelt on behalf of the International Congress on Tuberculosis for our pioneering training and prevention.

In 1955 KenCrest opened the first community-based educational programs in Pennsylvania for children with mental retardation.

In 1965 KenCrest offered people with mental retardation the first program in Philadelphia where they could live family-style in homes in their communities.

In 1975 KenCrest began treating infants who had handicaps when they were just one-month old, another first in Philadelphia.

In 1983 KenCrest opened the first family-style homes in Delaware so that people with mental retardation could return from institutions to their home communities.

In 1984 KenCrest participated in the first national research study on the treatment of low birth-weight babies.

In 1985 KenCrest opened the first successful program in the Philadelphia area in which preschool children with handicaps and with no handicaps were taught side-by-side in the same classrooms.

In 1988 KenCrest opened the first community-based programs in Philadelphia for preschool children whose lives depend on medical technology.

In 1991 KenCrest opened the first community-based residential program in the US for medically fragile infants who were abandoned in the hospitals.

In 1995 KenCrest convened the first national conference in the US on medically fragile, technology dependent children.

In 2005, KenCrest celebrated 100 years of service in the community with six major events, touching the lives of 20,000 people in southeastern Pennsylvania and the state of Delaware.