DePelchin Children's Center, founded in 1892 in Houston, Texas, is a nonprofit organization focused on supporting and sustaining children and the families who care for them. DePelchin provides a range of services for children and families — it is an accredited foster care and adoption agency, and it also provides residential treatment for youth in foster care, as well as serving youth who are about to age out of foster care or have recently aged out of foster care. DePelchin’s services also include counseling, parenting classes, and other services focused on protecting children and keeping families strong. The center continues to be recognized at the state and federal level for cutting-edge programs, including a federal grant as a leading child trauma expert in Texas. The former campus for DePelchin Children's Center at 2700 Albany Street is designated as a City of Houston Landmark and Texas Historic Landmark. It is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The institution, which was founded by Kezia Payne DePelchin primarily as an orphanage for young children, quickly grew to include other services. Since its inception in 1892, DePelchin Children's Center has expanded its facilities and operations in order to offer even more services to the families of Houston. History The organization today known as DePelchin Children's Center was founded by Kezia Payne DePelchin in 1892. DePelchin survived a yellow fever outbreak that swept through Galveston in 1839. With her acquired immunity to yellow fever, Kezia Payne DePelchin nursed the victims of the disease during the epidemics that struck Houston and also traveled to aid yellow fever victims in cities as far away as Memphis, Tennessee, and Senatobia, Mississippi, between 1878 and 1879. When DePelchin returned to Houston, she became the first female matron of Bayland Orphans’ Home for Boys, which cared for young boys between the ages of six and twelve. In 1892, when DePelchin was approached with three orphan boys too young to be taken in by Bayland, she asked her friend Agnes Perry to open up a room in her house to care for the three boys. This small act effectively created the organization today known as DePelchin Children's Center. The number of children being taken in by DePelchin grew, and the institution moved to larger buildings to accommodate the additional children. Within a year of founding her Faith Home, DePelchin died on January 13, 1893, at the age of