It was 1885 that Ida Eldredge, inspired by the late pastor of the First Church in Boston Dr. Rufus Ellis, opened her afternoon club for working class boys on the third floor of 241 Tremont Street, later incorporated as Ellis Memorial and Eldredge House.

140 years later the nonprofit, now named Ellis Early Learning (EEL), maintains Eldredge’s original efforts of enhancing the education of Boston’s youth, becoming a national model in early childhood education.

“It was a place where children were safe and could learn and play together after shining shoes and selling newspapers on the streets.” said EEL CEO Lauren Cook.

But in its many years Ellis has expanded and contracted with the pulse of the city.

In 1910 it became a settlement house providing services to immigrant families. Eight years later Eliot Wadsworth donated nearly 250 acres of land in Sharon, MA to Ellis, which for years was used as a summer camp for city dwellers. From 1978 until 2017, Ellis’s Adult Day Health Program provided the elderly and disabled with support and companionship.

It's moved locations, received accreditation, gone through renovations, expanded into other neighborhoods and made many friends and partners all in pursuit of a central ethos of “compassionate community care with an emphasis on children,” as Cook puts it. On November 6, at 6pm EEL will celebrate its 140th at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama.

Today, EEL is singularly focused on early childhood development, those ages 2 months to five years. It maintains two buildings side by side on Berkely Street in South End and on in Jamaica Plain along Amory Street.

That pivot came in 2022, says Cook, after an extensive assessment found that most schools already offered after school onsite programming, and was preferable for most parents. Today, it serves over 300 infants, toddlers and preschoolers a year in 22 classrooms across its three buildings. Cook says that EEL maintains a waitlist of over 1200 children.

“I tell all my young neighbors who are starting a family to get their names on the waitlist now!” Ellis South End Neighborhood Association Chair Julie Arnheiter said in an email. “EEL is also the place a lot of us in the community want to volunteer because we love the ethos at EEL and we love the vibe, the people, and being with the kids.”

“EEL is a welcoming place for everyone, not just kids and is part of our neighborhood family.”

Most recently Ellis has piloted the Family Child Care Network, which connects a network of ten in-home childcare providers with professional business development and connects them to homes with subsidies childcare vouchers. It’s also established the Center of Excellence, which has placed six partners into the classroom to continue professional development.

Bryan Morell says that when they went out looking for daycare for their now three-yearold daughter Flynn, their first priority was finding somewhere they could actually get into. After having been a part of Ellis and learning more about their culture, they feel like they’ve won the lottery.

“What we have found bigger than all of that is what they’ve done for the community. I think it’s the coolest thing, we’ll go across the street to Billy’s, the sub shop, in the morning and somehow my three-year-old knows everyone in town. Which speaks to the community.”

“I’m kind of sitting there going ‘alright, I’ve been in the city for 20 years, you’ve existed for three, how do you know more people than I do.”