Dr. Kenneth Herrmann has been with Nicholas House from the beginning. He was an original member of the Steering Committee when St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church founded Nicholas House (then “St. Bartholomew’s Family Shelter”) in 1982 and served on the Nicholas House Board from 1994-2002, even serving as President of the Board for four years during that time. He saw the doors of our Boulevard shelter open in 1993. He has left an enduring legacy.
When asked about his and other St. Bartholomew parishioners’ experiences with the first homeless families Nicholas House served, Dr. Herrmann said: “We realized that these are families that are not a whole lot different from us. . . . It was a learning time, learning who composed the homeless population and how similar they were to us.”
Dr. Herrmann feels that the most rewarding part of his involvement of Nicholas House has been learning from the families we serve. He is proud to have watched Nicholas House grow over the years from a program that originally just helped meet homeless families’ immediate needs by providing shelter to one that “keeps [homeless] families together [and] restores self-sufficiency” for the rest of their lives.