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History of the New Century Trust Willing Hands Award

The New Century Trust created the Willing Hands Award in 2006 to carry on the tradition of the Willing Hands Committee that NCT founder Eliza Turner established in the 1880s.

A long time member of the Willing Hands Committee, Lillie du Puy Van Culin Harper bequeathed a generous gift to the Trust in 1932, the year before her death, to continue the work of this Committee.  With this award, the New Century Trust honors Eliza Turner's vision in creating the New Century Guild, the predecessor of the Trust, to help working women and girls in need.  It also honors the generosity of Lillie Harper who created the Harper Fund to be used in support of the economic, educational or social development of working women and girls.  The previous recipients of this award include Maternity Care Coalition, Career Wardrobe, the Nationalities Service Center, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Support Center for Child Advocates, and most recently, Women's Opportunities Resource Center.

After it founding in the 1880s, the Willing Hands Committee of the New Century Guild, later to become known as the New Century Trust, was composed of member of the Guild.  The Committee did its work without fanfare and often in secret.  Its efforts were focused on helping Guild members in need and the poor in general through donations of money and clothing.  The Willing Hands Committee worked closely with the Guild section of the Needlework Guild whose contributors made many of the clothing items the Committee distributed.  Before the generous bequest of Lillie Harper, the Willing Hands Committee raised funds for its work by asking members to contribute five cents a month, sixty cents a year.  During the Great Depression in the early 1930s, members were asked to pay the full sixty cents in advance which created the Sixty-Cent Club.

Today the New Century Trust continues its founders' philanthropic mission by making grants to non-profit organizations which enhance the economic, educational and social development of women and girls.  In addition, the Trust celebrates its unique history through preservation of its National Historic Landmark Building and education of the public about the historic role of the women who have carried out the NCT mission over the last century.