United Way Brick House Article

In the 1990s, Turner’s Falls suffered extensively from the rapid deindustrialization occurring locally as well as all over the country. In a town as geographically isolated by large rivers as Turner’s Falls, this was devastating. Four legendary women decided that they’d had enough, and set about to create safety nets along with a safe space where people could go when set upon by the difficulties of their new world order. That safe space would come to be known as The Brick House.

In our society, children are most often overlooked and underestimated. However, the Brick House seeks to upend that tendency, and treat children and teens as the growing individuals that they are. They do this by offering a place where children and their families are allowed to exist and participate in activities without having to spend money to do so. According to Megan Richardson, Youth Programs Director, the Brick House offers children a space to just be themselves and to participate in artistic and other social activities. In the public spaces at the Brick House youth are free to pursue a variety of artistic and social activities. They have a large open space filled with various art supplies, space for dungeons and dragons campaigns, and even an enclosed office that has been converted to a high quality music recording studio. There is also another space that is designated as a sensory room, where youth can get away from intense sensory experiences and just sit calmly in beanbags and cover up with blankets.

Thanks to a generous grant from the United Way of Franklin and Hampshire County, the Brick House is able to successfully fund its programs. The funding is used directly to pay for the wages of those facilitating the programs with about a third of the amount in the grant going to the parent and families programming and another third going to the youth programming.

The Brick House’s mission is “To support youth and family well-being by providing a place in Turners Falls for creativity and learning, growth and leadership, and strengthening community connection.” The biggest way that they do this is by creating a space where community members can exercise their creativity and individuality. Tom Taffe, the director, says that, “I’ve had an absolutely wonderful life because someone put art supplies in front of me and taught me that I was better than the fate I was headed for.” It is his and the Brick House’s philosophy that self worth can be discovered and built through creativity, and that this leads to well being for individuals, and ultimately for the community as a whole.