Blessing Barn Beacon Hill
Beacon Hill has to be one of my favorite locations in Boston. The cobblestone streets, brick stone townhouses, and quaint restaurants leaves a charm that you can’t find anywhere else. My favorite is the shops. If you are looking to support local businesses with rare finds, Charles Street is the place for you.
I found out about Blessing Barn through Instagram —I instantly was enamored because I love thrift stores! I love having the opportunity to find one of a kind items at a good price. I was planning on making a day trip to their Mendon location when I found out a few days later that they opened a location on Beacon Hill!
I was invited to their soft opening and I found out that they are WAY MORE than just a retail store, but a store with A PURPOSE, assisting our community with housing and personal needs.
What is the origin of Blessing Barn? How did it start?
The Blessing Barn started almost 16 years ago and originally was just in a small barn where a couple of ladies from our church, Bethany Community Church, selling used items to make some extra money to provide services to the community. These women probably had no idea just how big of an impact the organization would someday make.
Around the time of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the non-profit organization, Compassion New England, was officially formed to function as an umbrella organization and overseer over the ever-expanding services and programs we offered to the community. From there, we grew steadily each year. Flash forward to now, and we have three stores and a myriad of free services available to the community. We estimate we’ve given over $350,000 back to the community through our programs annually for the past 10 years.
Our stores continued to be the primary source of financial support for these programs, and we are grateful for the support of our community over the years.
Where and how do you receive your products?
The stores are all donation-based! Our community donates their items (mainly at our donation center in Mendon, MA) and we sort, clean, curate, research, and price these items everyday.
Our Beacon Hill location is slowly beginning to enter into the world of wholesale, specifically with local, women & minority run businesses! The store will still be 95% thrift though.
Where are the proceeds going?
In 2017 our Crisis Care Center in downtown Milford was established. It is a center staffed with CNE caregivers who ask each new friend “ tell me your story”. These stories range from extreme poverty and financial need to those whose lives have been changed overnight from a fire, or domestic abuse, or an unplanned pregnancy. This year we have served 632 individuals in our FILL IN program, served approximately 140 families in our FOOD PANTRY, provided free crisis care counseling, and gave approximately $161,000 in goods and services through this program.
For those struggling with addiction, we offer a weekly program as well as small group support called CELEBRATE RECOVERY, a Christ-based program to help people work through their hurts, habits, and hang-ups. CR helps us work through issues from anxiety to alcoholism, from drug abuse to depression, and from pornography use to co-dependency. This year we moved our meetings from the Milford Blessing Barn to BCC Mendon where we meet in the children's Sanctuary at 7:00 every Tuesday. We have grown to a regular attendance of about 20 people at our Tuesday night meetings. In addition, we have 3 step studies meeting on different days to allow us to work through the reasons why we are stuck in negative behaviors.
We are excited to offer support to those whose choice to have an abortion has left them with issues and struggles they did not anticipate. We meet weekly to provide love and hope as well as some tools to navigate towards a better tomorrow.
The CRISIS CENTER allows the family of BCC to be present in the storms of people’s lives.
THE BLESSING HOUSE provides a next step opportunity to females seeking to embark on a new journey, learning financial management, decision making, and vocational training. It is a mentoring live-in program.
Compassion New England continues to leave its mark daily in the lives of those with Special needs and their families. THE HAPPY PLACE has become a leader in producing a vocational program where students and adults from all over our region volunteer and help to make the world a better place. In addition, THE HAPPY PLACE CAMPS provides fun and fellowship as well as allowing families a much-needed respite from caregiving.
THE BLESSING BARN and THE BLESSING BARN HOME STORE continue to provide the financial support that makes all of this possible!
Why Boston?
“ROOM IN THE CITY” was a phrase planted in my heart during a time our family faced a medical crisis with my 7 month old grandson. We needed to remain close to him during his stay in the hospital, but trying to get rest in the chair in his room was already making an already horrific situation even worse. Eventually my daughter and her husband were connected to a non-profit that provided then with a beautiful room and full bath within walking distance of the hospital. It allowed the long days and nights to be broken up with short rests and refreshment. Throughout that week, I met countless families who weren’t so lucky. They were navigating an already difficult emotional battle with the added hardship of exhaustion and physical discomfort. I thought to myself ‘they need a room in the city'.’ a place to be able to prepare for whatever lies ahead. In conversations with hospital social workers it was revealed that although many programs were operating, their need always exceeded the availability. This was the seed for ‘Room in the City.’
Boston is the home of the best hospitals around.
We have a simple plan:
1. Open a store in Beacon Hill. -Done!
2. Rent a unit near the hospital. - Almost done!
3. Offer what we have and watch this community multiply it. -Cannot wait to see this happen.
How can we help?
Volunteer opportunities are endless!
You can also join us by giving in the following ways:
Offer to be a host home
Pay for a room in the city for one night
Purchase items in our store
Give a monetary donation
https://theblessingbarn.com/roominthecity/
