Lucy Goode Brooks (1818–1900) and members of the Ladies Sewing Circle for Charitable Work established the Friends Asylum for Colored Orphans in 1871. These formerly enslaved women enlisted the support of the Cedar Creek Meeting Society of Friends (Quakers) to found a home for orphaned and abandoned African-American children. Brooks’s activism came from her experience losing one of her children, who was sold before the Civil War.
The Friends Asylum opened an orphanage at St. Paul and Charity streets in Jackson Ward. Today, the organization is known as FRIENDS Association for Children. It provides childcare, enrichment programs, support and educational services to low-income families.