After Discovering a Need for Emergency Childcare in Pittsburgh, Jeremiah's Place Was Formed
Since our opening in 2014, Jeremiah's Place remains the only crisis nursery in our community providing emergency childcare for families in need throughout Pittsburgh and surrounding areas
Physicians Lynne Williams and Tammy Murdock and Early Childhood Educator, Eileen Sharbaugh, pursued the founding of Jeremiah’s Place after a survey of families in the East End of Pittsburgh revealed a strong need for a short-term childcare facility in crisis situations. Results indicated that one in nine families left their young children in high-risk situations in times of crisis due to lack of options. Focus groups, as well as many discussions with numerous service providers throughout the city, confirmed the results.
Who is "Jeremiah"?
Results indicated one in nine families left their young children in high-risk situations in times of crisis due to lack of options.
(Pictured (left-to-right) are Jeremiah's Place founders Lynne Williams, M.D., Ph.D., Eileen Sharbaugh, and Tammy Murdock, M.D.)
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This survey was based on an earlier study on families' needs for a crisis nursery by Dr. Anna Marie White who continued to contribute to the development of Jeremiah's Place. With the need clearly identified, Dr. Williams, Dr. Murdock, and Ms. Sharbaugh brought together physicians from the prevention-focused, child-centered fields of pediatric and obstetric care. They established a voluntary committee of 25 passionate individuals from within the Pittsburgh community that included early childhood educators, pediatric nurses, social workers, family support providers, public health advocates, special education educators and infant mental healthcare workers. These zealous individuals volunteered countless hours of their time, energy and talents to make the crisis nursery a reality.
In March 2014, more than fifty volunteers came together to prepare the 3,500-square foot facility to accept children in need, and on April 21, 2014, Jeremiah’s Place opened its doors and served its first family.
Jeremiah’s Place has continued to provide 24-hour emergency childcare since opening in 2014, supporting families in Western Pennsylvania.
This year, Jeremiah's Place will be celebrating 9 years of serving Pittsburgh and its communities with emergency childcare services.
To date, Jeremiah's Place has provided services to over 1,400 unique children from 75 different ZIP codes and across over 9,000 childcare visits. (Learn more...)
As families continue to seek out our offerings our impact continues grow. Not only are we establishing close relationships with families already familiar with our services, we are also attracting new visitors and our social media presence continues to spread our messaging.
We are excited for what the future holds and we will always strive to achieve our mission of protecting children, strengthening families, and transforming communities.
Who is "Jeremiah"?
Learn the origins of our name and why we choose to be known as Jeremiah's Place
At the time that Jeremiah's Place was still forming and a name had to be chosen for application of non-profit status, one of the co-founders, Lynne Williams, sat down with her team of pediatric residents to finalize the name.
Dr. Williams was passionate about the name "Jeremiah" based on her faith background and for a personal reason. She, her sister and her parents were all participating as foster parents of multiple children during those days. One of the little boys being cared for by the parents of Dr. Williams had captured the heart of all the family was named Jeremiah.
Jeremiah had complex medical issues and foster placement allowed him to get his medical needs met while allowing his mother to address her own needs. Because a safe place for children while parents attend to other needs is the basis for a crisis nursery, Jeremiah was chosen as the namesake for Pittsburgh's first crisis nursery.