EAST LONGMEADOW – Over the winter, the Norcross House sustained damage. While the board members planned to fix the buildings over the summer with the money they were supposed to make from rentals, now the Norcross House is in need of $30,000 to $35,000 for repairs as their rentals were cancelled due to COVID-19.

“It’s a slate roof [on the Norcross House], so there was some ice damage, and some of the tiles came down and water seeped in between the walls. In front of the door, the front door, it was warped and we had some wall damage,” Norcross House President Donna Martinez explained to Reminder Publishing.

Usually, the Norcross House, the Carriage House and the yard are often rented out for birthday parties, bridal and baby showers, weddings, quilt shows, art shows, and more. There are two bathrooms on site, a full kitchen, and in the carriage house there are refrigerators and two bars. However COVID-19 had other plans, leading to the cancellation of all of the events that were planned to be hosted at the location, and the loss of funds for the Norcross House.

Martinez explained that the Norcross House is still waiting to hear back from their insurance company to see how much of the damage is covered, however there is much maintenance to be done. She noted rot on the front porch, the carriage house needs a fresh coat of paint, and boards need to be fixed.

“We have maintenance that needs to be done. We were gonna do that this summer, we figured with donations and rentals, this year we were going to have a lot of graduations,” she explained.

This has left the Norcross House needing to fill in the gaps and find ways to raise money, however Martinez noted, this is a challenge, as there are restrictions on what types of fundraisers can take place during this time.

“We were looking to do some events, but we’re not sure exactly how we can go about doing that now. We always have our wreath sale and craft fair in November, we were talking about doing a beer tasting, but we don’t know how that would work right now. We have all of these plans of things we could possibly do, but it’s not going to be a very good fundraiser if you could only have so many people,” Martinez explained.

In recent years the Norcross House has been host to several unique fundraisers, most notably last year they hosted a paranormal-type program where people could pay to walk through the Norcross House with a paranormal investigator. They’ve also welcomed people to come to the House around Halloween and Christmas to do readings, and more.

Martinez shared that $30,000 to $35,000 is the overarching fundraising goal that the Norcross House would like to reach to be able to fix the damage and spruce up the space. She also explained that they would be putting money toward paying their bills as well, as they have to pay for electricity and insurance, even still while their revenue streams are not coming in.

Donations can be sent to Friends of Norcross, P.O. Box 532, East Longmeadow, MA 01028.