Staff and Volunteers:
The Reverend Bernice Warren became Director/Pastor of Chester Eastside Ministries in 1995. Rev. Warren was born and raised in Chester and educated in its schools. She graduated from Kutztown University in 1974. After teaching in a G.E.D. program in Delaware County for two years, she earned her Master of Divinity degree at Johnson C. Smith Seminary in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 1980 she became the first African-American woman to be ordained as minister in the Philadelphia Presbytery. After serving four years as Assistant Pastor of Knox Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, she entered a chaplaincy training and residency program at the Delaware State Hospital, and became a certified chaplain. Rev. Warren served ten years as Pastor of the former First and Olivet Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1995 she was appointed by the Philadelphia Presbytery to serve as Pastor/Director of Chester Eastside Ministries.
In addition to doing ministry locally, Rev. Warren has a strong interest in serving globally. She is part of the Friends of Hope organization, which fosters health and education in the isolated mountains of Haiti. She has also traveled and done ministry in Guatemala, Ethiopia, Egypt, Jamaica, and Brazil.
Helen Brown (far right) has been staffing 'Helen's Boutique' for Chester Eastside Ministries' clothing closet for 24 years. Volunteers Dorothy Williams (far left), Thelma Whitsett (sitting) and Helen Ford (white top) have each been at Chester Eastside for over seven years. They are there three days a week sorting and distributing clothes to those in need in the Chester and the surrounding communities.