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Date: 10/28/2020
CHESTER – The Village Closet, located in the former St. Thomas Church in Huntington, will now have regular open hours on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., according to Program Director Lisa Goding.
Goding announced the new open hours at the Jacob’s Ladder Business Assoc. “Snack and Schmooze” on Oct. 23 at the Chester Railway Station, which was attended by a couple of dozen members of the Hilltown business community.
The Village Closet is run by It Takes a Village, a nonprofit organization which has been offering postpartum and parenting support to young families in the Hilltowns and beyond since 2009. The Village Closet offers free diapers, formula, newborn toys, and clothing from maternity and newborn, to children, teens and adults. They also have free car beds for preemies. “Whatever a family might need,” Goding said.
Since moving to the church in August, they have been open by appointment only and have been quite busy, according to Goding, giving out over $10,000 worth of supplies in the last month. They are also the only diaper bank in the Hilltowns, she said.
In addition to supplies for parents with young children, It Takes a Village runs a Home Visit Program for new parents, as well as many online parenting support classes.
Goding thanked several of the businesses at the JLBA event for their support and the community for being so welcoming in their move to Huntington over the past year. At first, they moved to Gateway Regional High School in February, but had to vacate that space due to the pandemic. In August, the organization announced that they had signed a three-year lease at the former church.
Goding said The Village Closet needs volunteers to help with sorting clothes, as well as donations for the program. She said they were able to obtain an Economic Disaster Injury Loan to help make the move from Gateway, but they continue to count on the communities they serve for support More information about these programs may be found at hilltownvillage.org, or by calling 650-3640.
At the start of the JLBA meeting, Dave Pierce, president of the Chester Railway Station Museum and the Friends of the Keystone Arches, welcomed the JLBA businesses to the station. Pierce also announced that both the railway station itself, one of only three remaining timber frame railway stations in the country, and two of the Keystone Arches have been unanimously nominated by a committee to be considered as National Historic Landmarks. The decision is now in the hands of a national committee, and would put Chester on the map alongside the Lincoln Memorial, he said.
The Jacob’s Ladder Business Association has been helping businesses succeed in the Hilltowns since 1992. Their mission is to provide opportunities for increased prosperity for existing businesses, as well as development and support for new and emerging businesses, through education, networking, events, and marketing, throughout the western Massachusetts Hilltown region. For more information, go to www.jlba.org, or follow on Facebook at Jacob’s Ladder Business Association.