Our History

It was 1893. William and Elizabeth Sherrard founded Children’s Home Society, the first nonprofit social services organization in of South Dakota, which had joined the Union just four years earlier.

Responding to the issues of the day, the Sherrard opened an orphanage. It’s estimated that they cared for 400 children during the first two years. Some of the children they took in were truly orphans. Others were left by parents too poor to provide for them.

Here’s an example of children we helped in the mid-1890s, written by William Sherrard:

…The mother and children have lived for years in a little house of one room, without clothing. The children were never allowed out of doors, not even to attend to the demands of nature. With hair uncut and bodies unwashed, these children spent their years on the damp and dirty floor…The oldest child [who was eight] has suffered the most. He does not even know how to walk in the full sense of the word.”

And here’s an example of children we helped recently through residential treatment.

Child Protection took custody of a four-year-old and a six-year-old due to severe neglect. Both children were found in Pull-ups. They had brown teeth from bottle mouth, impetigo and such severe head lice that there was blood in their hair from scratching. Neither child was able to talk. The four-year-old would scream; the six-year-old mimicked language.

In 1928, leaders of Children’s Home Society reported caring for 2,928 children as legal wards and another 3,000 or more in temporary care, all with a budget that averaged less than $12,000 per year.

Fundraising also looked a little different. William Sherrard traveled to a church in a nearby community to give a fundraising speech. He wrote, “We had a full house, and the audience seemed in sympathy with our work. We estimated that the collection would amount to at least $25. Imagine our surprise and despair on going to our room at the hotel to find only 63 cents in the envelopes that had been distributed.”

Children's Home Society continued to serve as the state's primary orphanage and adoption agency for more than 70 years. Thousands of children throughout the state were rescued, cared for, and provided permanent families.  

In the late 1960s, the need for orphanages diminished across the country as foster care was introduced and became the preferred method of care for abused and abandoned children. The historic orphanage, which was located on 10th and Cliff in Sioux Falls, closed in 1968.

To address another growing need, we then focused our efforts on developing residential treatment and special education programs to serve children with emotional and behavioral needs.

As demand for this method of care continued to increase, Children’s Home Society leaders determined that a facility in western South Dakota was needed to better serve children who were from that area. In 1972, our board voted to purchase an 80-acre property in the Black Hills near Rapid City.

Over time we added many additional programs to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families in South Dakota. These include Therapeutic Foster Care and Adoption Services; Children’s Home Child Advocacy Center; Prevention; Training and Education and Bright Start Nurse Family Partnership. In 1998, we merged with Children’s Inn, a domestic violence center, which in 2022 became Children’s Home Shelter for Family Safety.

Through the years, Children’s Home Society has continued to expand our services to meet the evolving needs of South Dakota children and families. In all of our programs, we are ready to come alongside parents or guardians to strengthen their families and to help children get the care and services they need.