Markeshia Ricks Photo
Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut’s COO David Abrams and Gretchen Test.
Artist Lesley Roy’s Westville Village studio may also become the future home of the Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut.
Westville-West Hills neighbors learned that news during the monthly community management team meeting at Mauro-Sheridan School from organization Chief Operating Officer David Abrams.
The current Roy studio and future home to Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut.
Children’s Community Programs provides a number of services that support children and families particularly in the area of foster care, parent education and mentoring. The nonprofit currently has 45 to 50 employees scattered at sites all over the state. Its main office, which is home base for about half of those employees has been on Blake Street for the last 12 years.
“Nobody’s ever heard of us, but we’ve been here that whole time,” Abrams said Wednesday.
The agency is under contract with the Lesley Roy studio/gallery to eventually move into some of the space there.
Abrams said it will probably be a least a year before the organization can move into the former artist studio and hardware store. The studio is actually three buildings; a major renovation will transform it into usable space to accommodate the many services that the organization provides. Abrams said the purchase is still under negotiation; he hopes to come before the Board of Zoning Appeals this spring for needed relief.
Lesley Roy later told the Independent that she is still “very much in business” and has no current plans to change that, even if the deal with Children’s Community Programs eventually goes through. “We’re still exploring what will happen,” she said..
Gretchen Test, director of new program development for the children’s agency, said the Blake Street employees are excited to be in the heart of the village, where they can take advantage of restaurants and shops. At least four of the employees live in Westville and all are excited to become more involved in the community.
“They’re a diverse, young, vibrant staff,” she said.
Test said she also hopes that the move to the heart of the Village will make the agency much more visible and that more people will become volunteers and seek out foster care opportunities.
West Rock Alder Michelle Edmonds Sepulveda, who works in the school system, said she’s familiar with the agency’s work. She said it does a great job.
“I am glad to hear you’re going to purchase the building,” she said.
Lizzy Donius of the Westville Village Renaissance Alliance also praised the pending deal. She said it’s definitely worth thinking about the role of taxes, in case a purchase by the nonprofit Children’s Community Programs takes the building off the rolls. But having that building activated even by a nonprofit agency carries its own positive economic impact over time, she said. Donius also noted that the Village has in about a year’s time gone from a number of empty storefronts to having a near majority of them full, with projects to fill other empty spaces and lots in the works.
Westville/West Hills Co-Chair Marjorie Weiner echoed Donius, pointing out that employees will spend their money in the neighborhood.
“We could have 20 storefronts, but if nobody is going into those storefronts they won’t survive,” she said.
Abrams said that the agency is the recipient of a state grant to help nonprofits purchase and renovate property. The building will give his agency room to grow.
“This is a really big deal for us,” he said. “It’s the type of thing that carries forward 20 – 30 years.”