HUNTINGTON – “We’re so excited!” said Mollie Hartford, Development and Outreach Director for It Takes a Village, which manages the Village Closet, a donation and distribution center that offers free maternity, baby, and kids clothing, diapers and supplies.

Hartford was talking about having just signed a three-year lease to move the Village Closet from Gateway Regional Middle School to the former St. Thomas Church, located at 8 E. Main Street in Huntington.  The move will take place the first week of August.

Hartford said the organization learned in June that they would not be able to reopen in Gateway.  She said the students in the building will need the room to spread out for social distancing, and the district can’t have the public coming in and out of the building, even after hours. “Safety is really everybody’s top priority,” she said.

The Village Closet only opened in Gateway on Feb. 13 and closed the following week due to school vacation. Hartford said they then reopened for two weeks before all the schools in Massachusetts were shut down.  “It was heartbreaking. We were so excited to be there,” she said, adding that the organization understands and completely agrees with the decision that was made.

Hartford said as they looked around for another location, they were given the name of Gerald Farrelly of Farrelly Family Realty Trust of Westfield, who bought the former St. Thomas Church in Huntington at auction in July 2017. “As we had been looking around before, we had gotten his name. It wasn’t a public for rent kind of building. We just called him, said this is our situation, and can we chat about it,” she said.

Farrelly told her he had been waiting for something like this to come along, something that would be good for the community. She said their mission really spoke to him and his own vision for the former Catholic church to open a safe center for women and children who were survivors of domestic abuse, in memory of his mother, Cissie.

It Takes a Village works closely with Safe Passage, the Southern Hilltown Domestic Violence Task Force, and other agencies to support families and neighbors in preventing and surviving domestic violence, in addition to their mission of providing free postpartum and early parenting support to families with babies and young children living in Western Massachusetts.

“It spoke to my heart to have someone say this is what’s good for our town right now,” Hartford said.

Hartford said the building, which has been renamed Cissie’s House, is basically made up of the big chapel room and the basement.  Farrelly took all the pews out, where they will be able to set up with racks, tables and shelving for their free clothing and baby supplies. In the altar area, there will be tables and chairs and couches and a play area for kids.  She said that can serve as a drop-in space, where folks can come in and have coffee.   

“We can set our own schedule, and have a playgroup there if we wanted to. We can have a speaker come right there in the big room. It’s awesome to have a drop-in space, which doesn’t exist in the Hilltowns,” Hartford said. The organization plans to call it “Cissie’s Corner.”

Meanwhile, with all of the inventory in one place, the Village Closet can offer curbside pickup for people when they request it, and not have them wait for a couple of weeks. Due to several moves in the past couple of years, a lot of their inventory is in storage in different locations.

“Turnaround is going to be so much faster,” Hartford said.

Since closing in March, the Village Closet has been functioning with a delivery-only model, taking requests online and having staff and volunteers – masked and gloved – deliver items to families all over Franklin, Hampshire, Hampden and Berkshire counties. “There are still babies being born every day who don’t have their very basic needs – diapers, clothing, and a safe place to sleep,” Hartford said. “The pandemic has made it even harder for families to get the supplies they need.”

It Takes a Village serves over 1,500 Western Mass families each year and distributed $133,000 in clothing, diapers and baby supplies in 2019. In June, they were awarded the prestigious honor of being accepted into the National Diaper Bank Network, and were recognized as a finalist for the 2019 Nonprofit Excellence Awards in Boston. It Takes a Village also runs a free Home Visit program for families in the Hilltowns, administers a Childcare Subsidy Voucher program, and hosts free parent support groups and an educational speaker series (which have moved online).

For more information about all their free programs and instructions for requesting essential newborn and children’s supplies, visit www.hilltownvillage.org or call 650-3640.