By: | March 11, 2026 | Local |
Just off busy Route 33 in Freehold Township, two healthcare providers carry forward more than a century of public health progress in New Jersey. Families come for primary care, preventive services, counseling, and support programs designed to work together, not in isolation. As Women’s History Month invites reflection on the leaders whose ideas reshaped public life, the work happening in this building offers a living example of how one woman’s vision continues to guide care more than a century later.
That vision belongs to Geraldine Livingston Morgan Thompson, who in 1912 founded the Monmouth County Organization for Social Service with a belief that was radical for its time: that healthcare should be accessible, coordinated, and grounded in the realities of people’s lives. Through decades of growth and evolution, that organization became today’s VNA Health Group, New Jersey’s largest nonprofit provider of home- and community-based care.
“Geraldine Thompson understood something that still drives our work today—that access, dignity, and trust are foundational to good health,” said Christopher Rinn, President & CEO of VNA Health Group. “Her leadership laid the groundwork for an organization that continues to evolve, but never loses sight of why it exists.”
That philosophy is especially visible in Freehold. At 597 Park Avenue, the Children & Family Health Institute anchors a network of VNA Health Group programs designed to simplify what is often a fragmented healthcare system for families. Next door, the Freehold Family Health Center—operated by VNA Health Group affiliate VNACJ Community Health Center, in partnership with CentraState Healthcare System—provides primary and preventive care in a location accessible by foot and public transportation.
"Families don’t experience their needs one program at a time," said Sahai Cole, Vice President of the Children & Family Health Institute. "Our responsibility is to make care easier to access and easier to navigate, so people can focus on their health, not the system."
Today, the Children & Family Health Institute serves tens of thousands of parents and children each year through community programs such as maternal-child health, home visitation, HIV prevention, and cancer detection. While Freehold is one location within a much broader footprint, it functions as a symbolic hub where VNA Health Group’s coordinated model comes together under one roof.
That coordination extends to primary care. As a Federally Qualified Health Center, VNACJ Community Health Center ensures that cost is never a barrier to care, offering services on a sliding scale and serving patients regardless of insurance status. Across its four Monmouth County locations, including Freehold, the Health Center supports over 60,000 patient visits each year.
“Our role is to meet people where they are, whether that’s physically, financially, or emotionally,” said Sarina Brady, CEO of VNACJ Community Health Center. “In Freehold, that means being embedded in the community, accessible by bus or on foot, and deeply attuned to the diverse needs of the families we serve.”
While Monmouth County remains central to VNA Health Group’s history and is home to the largest number of local families, the organization now reaches 12 New Jersey counties through direct services and partnerships with leading healthcare networks. Each year, VNA Health Group touches more than 120,000 lives through nearly 1.4 million moments of care, including home health, hospice, palliative care, visiting physician services, and family health programs.
Still, the through-line from 1912 to today is unmistakable.
"Geraldine Thompson believed healthcare should respond to real lives, not rigid systems," Rinn said. "More than a century later, you can still see that belief at work in Freehold, in the way care is delivered and connected for families every day."
More than a century after Thompson hired the county’s first public health nurse, families continue to walk through doors built on her belief that health is a public good—and that communities thrive when care is within reach.
