Interview with Coach Garfield Thompson

Established in 1821, the McKim Center of the McKim Community Association, Inc. is the oldest continuously active community center in the United States. The McKim Community Association, Inc. is also one of the oldest 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organizations in the United States. 

The McKim Center was a site of the Underground Railroad, the secret system of hideaways and safe places from the South to the North where enslaved Africans sought refuge and were guided to freedom. Harriet Tubman herself is likely to have passed through the center as one of the "conductors" of the Underground Railroad. Thus, McKim has long been a center of liberation, peace, and community uplift for generations of people.

For over two hundred years, McKim's "Free School" has enriched the lives of thousands of youth and families with athletics, academics, and neighborhood safety. Rather than offering daycare or after-care, McKim's "Free School" continues to teach neighborhood safety, peace, and wellness through physical education, science, the arts, and civic studies in its out-of-school time program. 

We approach community education and community healing in a holistic manner: we meet the physical, mental, and ethical needs of community members broadly and deeply. 

Coach Garfield Thompson now serves as the McKim Center's Executive Director. Coach Thompson succeeds Coach Dwight Warren who led McKim for over fifty years. 

McKim's community services uphold its pillars of structure, discipline, love, and respect. 

The McKim Center's "Temple Building" at 1120 E. Baltimore Street, 21202, and the Aisquith Street McKim Meeting House at 1201 E. Fayette Street, 21202 in the Jonestown downtown neighborhood of Baltimore City are both landmark historic preserved buildings in Maryland and in Baltimore City, according to the Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation.

While the McKim Center was founded in 1821, its "Free School" building—called the "Temple Building" was not completed until 12 years later.

In 1833, through a generous gift of John McKim (1742-1819), a Quaker business man, McKim's "Free School" building was completed. John McKim had made a fortune in Baltimore as a merchant in the early 1800s, and during the War of 1812, he donated $50,000 to the City of Baltimore for the city's defense. McKim served as a Maryland state senator and he was twice elected to Congress, representing Maryland. He attended the Aisquith Street Stony Run Friends Meeting House for Quaker services. 

John McKim and his son William McKim established the "McKim Free School" to help the city’s youth regardless of religion. They hired two notable architects for its design, William Howard, the son of Baltimore’s Revolutionary War Hero John Eager Howard, and William Small, who designed the Archbishop’s residence on Charles Street in Baltimore City among other buildings. The Greek Revival style of McKim's "Temple Building" is modeled after the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens, Greece.

The Old Quaker Meeting House predates the McKim building by over 50 years. Built in 1781, and steered for many years by the Stony Run Friends, it is the oldest religious building in Baltimore City. In its day, Quaker luminaries such as Elisha Tyson, Joseph Townsend, and Johns Hopkins (the philanthropist) worshipped at the McKim Meeting House, and the Friends School of Baltimore has its origins there. 

After the Civil War, and increasingly after the 1950s, both the Meeting House and Temple Building have been and still are used by the McKim Center for educational services for local low-income youth and families.