Featured Charity: The Pacific Garden Mission - 1458 South Canal Street
Located in the Pilsen neighborhood at
1458 South Canal Street, the Pacific Garden Mission has been an
institution in Chicago, helping serve the city's homeless for
decades. Since its establishment in 1871, the Pacific Garden Mission
has given the unfortunate a message of Christian hope and a warm bed.
The Pilsen building is actually the Mission's fourth location; it
was first established on South State Street by Colonel Clark and his
wife, converting an old beer garden to what many would call “the
doorway to heaven” and “God's Flophouse”. The Pacific Garden
Mission's combination of evangelicalism and assistance proved to be a
popular idea, as many missions emulating its ethos and methods popped
up across the United States and Great Britain throughout the 1940s.
