Kicking off the 2023 12 Months of Caring calendar is our friends at CommQuest. CommQuest provides collaborative care and advocacy for people through three pillars of service mental health, addiction Recovery, and social support.

CommQuest has three locations in Stark County: Canton, Massillon, and Alliance.

Their History
In 1919, Grace McGowan, a graduate of the New York School of Social Work, worked with a group of Canton, Ohio community leaders to found an organization to help families impacted and children orphaned by both World War I and an influenza pandemic. Catholic Community League held a three-fold purpose: find homes for orphaned children, provide housing for widows and their children, and aid the flood of immigrants fleeing war-torn Europe. The organization grew its social support and mental health services under Grace’s leadership for 31 years. Her successor with a masters in social work from Western Reserve College, Margorie Saxton MacDonald, continued this work by expanding the organization beyond its religious origin to serve the entire community, which laid the groundwork for the breadth of people we serve today.

By the end of the 1960s, the League was serving the Stark community with a broad array of services. At the same time, a new pandemic of sorts was building in intensity with the mass production of drugs like morphine, cocaine, and heroin. Quest Recovery Services then formed to treat adult men who were struggling with addiction. The two organizations worked together in the early 1970s to provide addiction treatment services.

In the 1980’s, the League made a concerted effort to expand social services, both in its programs and geographic reach. First, the agency created Samaritan’s Table, a hot meal program operated almost entirely by dedicated volunteers, and then added the Family Living Center, a shelter for women and families experiencing homelessness. By the late 1990s, the organization had merged with a similar organization and marked its expanded mission to people of all faiths by becoming Community Services of Stark County. Quest also was expanded during that time as the opioid epidemic took hold and began offering residential addiction recovery services to women as well.

In 2001, Community Services expanded to include employment services with the acquisition of Pyramid Training Services. This provided clients with access to mental health, social services and job training all at one organization. Over the next 10 years, both Community Services and Quest continued to expand within their respective missions.

CommQuest infographic of three blocks with same day access written in one, quick access written in the second, and find out more written in the third.
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330.455.0374 | www.commquest.org

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