Tacoma Community House, a nonprofit mission of the United Methodist Church, celebrated 100 years of serving immigrants and low-income youths Sunday afternoon.

The Hilltop organization, now located at 1314 S. L St., runs a wide range of social services, including programs in education, employment, translation and literacy.

Sunday’s centennial celebration, at Mason United Methodist Church, looked at the group’s rich history.

“We are guided by a vision of a society where justice matters,” executive director Liz Dunbar said at the church service.

Established in 1910 by Methodist deaconesses and originally named Tacoma Settlement House, it catered to the many Italian immigrant children who lived in the Hilltop area.

Three generations of Paula Salatino-White’s family have participated in Community House programs.

“My grandmother arrived from Italy in 1912 and immediately came to Tacoma Community House to learn English,” said Salatino-White, who lives in University Place. In her father’s time, “all the boys played there,” and her mother formed a “Gab Club” with 12 friends who kept in touch for the rest of their lives.

Salatino-White herself attended Tacoma Community House for nursery school in 1945 and regularly dropped by for Girl Scout meetings until junior high.

Amelia Tabet, 94, has fond memories of walking three blocks from her home to Community House in the 1920s to take cooking classes and to sing in the choir. “I loved the place.”

The mission director at the time became a surrogate mother to Tabet after her own mother died in 1919 of influenza. The director, a Mrs. Thompson, “was very dear, very sweet … she understood how lonesome I was.”

Tacoma Community House changed with the demographics of the Hilltop, extending its services to black families moving into the neighborhood in the 1950s. In the mid-1970s, the agency provided language and citizenship classes to refugees from Vietnam.

When staff member Candy Carbone started in 1975, one of her duties was driving the Japanese and Korean wives of U.S. military servicemen to English lessons at Pierce College.

“I’d take care of the children, while they were in class,” said Carbone, now director of employee programs. “During my time here, I’ve learned about so many other cultures.”

Joyce Chen: 253-597-8426

joyce.chen@thenewstribune.com