The charitable vein has changed to meet different needs over the years. In the early decades of this century, social-services groups provided immigrants with the basics food, health care, public baths and education as well as opportunities such as camp for children, dancing lessons, games and clubs. The Godman Guild gave Bowman what her family could not, she said. Everybody was poor. As much as the times have changed in this era of prosperity, many needs have not.
Some people still struggle to feed themselves because they have no money.
And work is difficult to get without job skills. Those were people considered to be morally sound and worthy of assistance, such as a widow with children or a family whose father had lost his job, she said. Drunks or others who refused to help themselves were deemed undeserving. The Godman Guild operated the first supervised playground in Columbus. One hundred years later, some of the same attitudes are re-emerging, Czarnecki said.