Evening star., 1897-05-04
DOING GOOD WORK QUIETLY
Story of the Home for Friendless Oolored
Girls.
Testimony Before the Joint Congress
sfonal Committee ON Charities
Hope and Help.

It was a pitiful story to which the con-
gressional joint committee on charities lis
tened yesterday afternoon, when the officers
of the Home for Friendless COlored Girls
told of the work and needs Of that institu-
tion, and it brought out substantial express
sions of sympathy from the committee.
Away out on the northern edge of the
city. among the clay banks. perched at the
top of a cliff, which has been cut away in
the grading Of a street, is an old-fashioned.
rickety frame structure. 1t Is almost
coming to pieces; its sides are built up with
sheet iron; its roof is leaky. and the whole
place is about as miserable and forlorn-
looking as one could imagine. This is the
Home for Friendless Colored Girls. There
are twenty-six inmates and six helpless old
colored women, who are taken care of at
this place out of the slender means which
the institution commands.
AS testified to the committee yesterday
this home takes friendless colored children
from the cutters and provides for them. 1t
was claimed by Mrs. Sykes and Mrs. Tay-
lor. the ladies who told the committee
about the home, that If these children were
turned adrift there is no other institution in
the District in which they could be placed
as there are no accommodations elsewhere
for colored children of their age and class
The children are rescued from starvation
and from lives of crime in the slums, are
clothed, as best they can be. sent to the
public school. and the elder girls taught the
tomely duties of housework to fit them
for earning living in the world.
The way in which the home was started
Is typical Of the work which 1T does Mrs
sykes explained to the committee. She said
that a colored servant was going to her
work one morning, when she saw two little
colOred children eating out of slop barrel
In the alley They had slept in another bar
lei near by. They had no home or friends,
and there was no institution in this great
city, she said, teeming with noble charities
colored servant, with one or two of her
friends, rented room and put those two
little children In it, supplying them with
food as they could get 1t. That was the
beginning Of the Home for Friendless Col
cred Girls. 1t has grown, being maintained
largely by contributions from the colored
people of the city. A few white people
said that while she found 1t easy to get
money for charity to her own race, it was
very difficult to get anything for the COL
cred people. Mrs. Cleveland, she said, had
lent her cooperation last year, and had
assisted in raising money with which Mrs.
Sykes is now paying the rent of $40
month for the rickety old building occupied
by the home.
Mrs. Sykes said that the home is behind
In Its rent, that the agent is trying to dis
possess them, but that they are fighting
against getting out, because there is no
other place for the home. She testified that
the agent of the property refuses to put
the top OF the cliff to the bottom, and that
access to the home can be obtained only by
going down the hill in the rear and cross
ing the pasture. When coal is delivered it
has to be hoisted up in baskets
One day last winter, she said, when the