A Brief History of Our Agency
In 1934, amidst the Great Depression, mothers, newborn babies and young children lived in shanties, tents, and abandoned rail cars in Dallas—in desperate need of nursing care. Nurses volunteered to visit the tent cities—indeed wherever poor mothers, babies and children lived—to offer hope and life-giving care. In its first year of operation, VNA nurses made 6,500 home visits. No calls were refused, no patients turned away for lack of resources or because of race or creed.
By 1940, VNA staff had gown to six full-time nurses, a part-time nurse, an executive director, and a secretary, who were employees of the agency. VNA services were also expanding to provide a comprehensive continuum of home care.
VNA Homemaker Service, later known as Home Health Aides, began in 1955 with the help of the Dallas Junior League. In 1973, VNA took over the Meals on Wheels program in Dallas County from the Women’s Council of Dallas. Since then, the number of home-delivered meals each weekday has grown from 125 to 4,000.
The first hospice program in Texas was created by VNA in 1978. Later, the Women’s Council of Dallas County transferred to VNA its Friendly Visitor’s Program, which has evolved into the VNA Eldercare program.
Throughout its history, alliances with women’s organizations— the Council of Jewish Women, the Dallas Bankers’ Wives, the Junior League, the Women’s Council of Dallas—organizations that piloted home care programs for the elderly, ill, and underserved in Dallas—have been the foundation of VNA’s expansion of services and its growth.
It wasn’t long before VNA care was being sought outside of Dallas County from surrounding communities. The demand was so great that branch offices in nearby counties were created. The VNA Kaufman office opened in 1974, followed by the Collin County location in 1979. A Tarrant County office was added in 1982. When Ann’s Haven in Denton joined VNA in 1995, the present-day network of five branch offices was completed.
Board members provided the leadership over the past seventy six years that established VNA as the leader in providing a wide range of home health care service—care whose hallmark is quality and compassion.
Home health care and VNA have become synonymous to thousands of patients in North Central Texas. VNA today is giving a full range of needed care to more than 10,000 frail, sick, disabled and dying individuals of all ages every day in thousands of homes across North Central Texas. Our employees provide quality and compassionate care and support services that are the hallmark of the community’s most trusted provider of home health care.
VNA is a non-profit community established and community supported home health agency.
See photos from our 75 year history
