Kay and David Reynolds carried meatballs, spinach dip and crackers on small paper plates to the spacious active living space in Henniker’s Cornerstone Building.
The pair sat in the same space where Kay’s mother, grandmother and great-grandmother grew up.
Several generations of Kay’s family lived in the Hazen Homestead off Main Street until the 1950s; it was eventually sold and developed. Kay walked around the perimeter of the space the old house occupied, and gazed at all the additions: a kitchen, a foyer and a space where her mother now does crafts in a group called the Knit Wits.
“It’s kind of fun for her to come here and reminisce,” said Kay, who’s the eighth generation in her family to live in Henniker.
The old house had many lives, including being home to a quilt shop that closed in 2024. That opened the way for the White Birch Community Center to buy the building and expand its operations for childcare and for programs for seniors.
And the growing didn’t stop there. On Tuesday, the center held an open house where people could see the newly added food pantry and storage area, office spaces and repurposed rooms.
“They’re taking this whole building and filling it up with so many ideas,” Kay said. “It’s really great.”
The center broke ground last November on constructing the building’s west wing, providing a new space for the Henniker Food Pantry, which had operated out of the basement of the Grange Building, near the town library. The new space is more than twice the size of the basement area and is more accessible.
On Tuesday, the pantry was chock full of canned goods, cereal boxes, condiments and fresh fruits and vegetables. Tara McCarthy, who has been part of the food pantry for three years, explained that it serves the community through a free-choice setup that is based on a point system. Last year, the pantry distributed nearly 60,000 pounds of food.
“People feel that they’re really shopping at a grocery store,” McCarthy said. “… We kind of make it a whole experience. Volunteers are here and are very welcoming, and we all know each other — all our clients know us and we’re all neighbors.”
Just below the pantry is a large storage area that holds food that will soon be restocked on the shelves. Volunteers had problems at the old space, where it became difficult to carry pounds of food up and down concrete steps. Now, a mechanical lift has been added to transport food from storage to the pantry.
Building the pantry, as well as a new office for the town’s director of human services, gives White Birch the opportunity to inform more people about the services it makes available for people who need them, and strengthens the organization’s connection to the community as a whole, said Leanna Lorden, the center’s chief operations officer. The Cornerstone Building’s name perfectly encapsulates their mission.
“We really want to invite and also make sure the message is that we’re the cornerstone of the community,” Lorden said. “We’re not going to be meeting everyone’s needs, but we want it to be more of that warm handoff and navigation, so that if you come in with a need that we don’t know how to help or whatnot, hopefully we can do a warm pass up. We’re going to make sure you know who to connect with if it’s not already here within our programs.”
Other additions include new office spaces in the main building’s upper floor. Those sit right next to the center’s family resource center, which often hosts socialization programs for children not yet enrolled in school. Below the upper floor are the center’s active living programs for seniors in the area.
The expansion has allowed more programs to fit in the Cornerstone Building. The Youth Hub was launched this year beneath the building’s main floor, expanding the offerings for preteens and teens.
Bernadette Douzanis, the center’s community liaison, said that, by offering more of these kinds of programs, the organization helps narrow the gap for age groups — between the very young kids at their childcare center and the senior citizens in the active living programs. She also emphasized how much connectivity matters to White Birch.
“We always have to realize that we can’t do everything,” Douzanis said. “You shouldn’t try to do it all, and you want to do what you do really well. But the flip side of that is helping people navigate resources in a really connected way.”
The total costs of renovation came to $3 million, over $2 million of which has already been raised. Executive Director Marc McMurphy said he recognizes that many people are facing financial hardships, and he feels the White Birch Center gives back to the community in many different ways.
“The more people that know what we’re doing and the positive impact on the community, the more support we’ll get,” he said.
