The community has welcomed The Great Room, a haven for caregivers and children alike, warmly since it opened in the Columbia Street Water District in June 2018. The prenatal and parenting wellness space, co-owned by local mothers Susannah Gersten and Jessica Rich, is meant for kids and adults to explore, find solace and share joy.
“We’re both therapists, and we both have always had a bunch of families come to us that are really in crisis, so we wanted to provide a space that was more like supportive help for people,” Gersten said.
Gersten explained that she and Rich actually ‘met’ on a Facebook parenting group, before becoming friends over their shared love for community social work. She found that asking questions online could sometimes be hit-and-miss, as she would get non-expert advice with some answers and receive some critical responses with others.
“We’re really striving to create a place where we are here to support you in doing whatever is going to make your life better … as opposed to on the Internet where people feel very free to judge you,” Gersten said. “To me it’s really invaluable to have just a warm, beautiful, welcoming face that’s judgment-free.”
The Great Room offers community drop-in times for kids and parents, which allows them to congregate in a 1,000-square-foot living room and backyard (weather permitting). People have access to free coffee, tea, books, lists of local resources, a work space, a play space for kids and a rotating calendar of experts to consult with informally. Community drop-in rates are $10/daily at the door, $120/monthly membership ($60 for summer months), and $650/six-month membership. The duo also offer their room for free every Wednesday night — as a way to give back to the community, according to Gersten — for local organizations and non-profits who would like to host a meeting, workshop or event.
The space also offers a variety of support groups, classes and workshops that deal with birthing, breastfeeding, music, art and more.
Gersten says that a wellness collective just for grown-ups, featuring therapists, lactation consultants and doulas for example, is in the works for 2019.
“The whole point of starting this was to make it parent-centered, but we found that parents are less likely to spend money on themselves than they are on their kids,” she said. “So we’re trying to make this wellness collective so it’s sort of like a one-stop place for all different kinds of help for parents.”
The Great Room (194 Columbia Street) is open every day from 9 am to 8 pm. For more information, call 718-797-2469 or visit thegreatroom.org/.
Top photo from The Great Room’s website
