The late Right Rev. Bishop Hennemann spearheaded the initiative to care for these children by offering a vacant Presbytery at Philippi. The first Pallottine Missionary Sisters arrived on 23rd September 1935 and, just a few days later, the first patients were admitted - ten helpless suffering children. And so St Joseph's Home for Chronic Invalid Children came into being. Prominent diseases among these children were surgical Tuberculosis, Cerebral Diplegia and Little's disease.

The Home was constituted as a Charitable Institution and managed by the Pallottine Missionary Sisters. By 1941 the number of children had increased to 120. In the same year the Provincial Administration of the Cape effectively endorsed the project.

The Home was extended to accommodate 135 children. At this time formal schooling was firmly established and subsidised by the Department of Education.

The infamous Group Areas Act necessitated a move to our present site at Montana. This was because white and coloured children were then not allowed to be cared for in a designated Black residential area.