FULL HOUSE
A new nonprofit on Nantucket is giving teens a seat at the table.
Nantucket can be a hard place for teenagers to grow up, particularly during the offseason with its chilly temperatures, early sunsets and lack of social activity. Factor in the prevalent scourge of housing insecurity and the lack of space for a young person to call their own, and the island environment can be depressing, isolating and, worse, conducive to substance abuse.
Thankfully, there’s the new nonprofit Our House, a palatial Nantucket home turned hangout for teens where they can come after school to relax, work on a project and enjoy a communal dinner at the long dining table each and every night of the week. With its doors opening next month, Our House is a dream come true for one Nantucket family who spent years meditating on how they could best serve the island’s teenage population.
When Pauline Proch’s son Cody, now twenty-three, would have friends over for the night in high school, they all asked the same question: “Did your family eat together at the table only because I am here?” Cody explained that they had dinner as a family every night. His friends’ question made it alarmingly clear that most of them didn’t eat with their families, let alone sit at an actual table for dinner. Cody told his mother this, and together, they began dreaming about a place for teens to go where they could enjoy that communal family meal.
“OK, so it’s a house,” Proch recalls brainstorming with her other son, Michael, and her husband, Tom Proch, former head chef at the Club Car who now serves as the culinary arts teacher at Nantucket High School. They knew that a banquet hall or school building would be too formal. It needed to have a cozy, natural feel if it was going to work, like an extension of a teen’s own home.
Interestingly, they had all envisioned the property at 5 Wherowhero Lane, a uniquely designed large-scale home that also functioned as a private event space, as the perfect location for such a program but never discussed it. However, as fate would have it, Cody had the sudden urge to look at homes for sale on Nantucket, and there it was.
“I never questioned why my twenty-three-year-old was looking at real estate,” Proch laughs, recalling the text she received from her son with the listing. The next day, as she was finishing lunch with her friend Teckie Shackelford, Proch shared her dream for their program and the story about her son’s friends never having dinner with their families that inspired it, not to mention the sobering fact that the need for free and reduced lunches had risen from 10 percent to 40 percent in Nantucket’s public schools. After listening, Shackelford asked if Proch had a location in mind for such a program.
"You won’t believe this, Teckie,” Proch said, “but I just got this text yesterday.” After viewing the listing, Shackelford said, “Let’s go have a look.” Proch recalls how, as they strolled the property together, Shackelford, a lifelong philanthropist and founder of her own nonprofit organization, I Know I Can, said aloud, “I can buy this, and I should.”
“The passion in her voice is so palpable,” Shackelford says today of Proch. “She loves kids and loves kids who need help. And I am so grateful at this point in my life to believe that I have found a place on Nantucket to make a difference.”
“I just smile from ear to ear,” Proch says. “Having thought about something for so long and here I am, living it. This was all meant to be and I’m just part of the engine making it work. And it would never have been possible without Teckie.”
With a location now in place, Proch began setting up the infrastructure for Our House, recruiting the help of former superintendent Michael Cozort, who came out of retirement for the opportunity to serve as program director. “This community needs a place just for the teens,” says Cozort. “Sports are terrific and fill a big need for the island, but not everyone plays a sport. We need to connect kids to other kids and adults, and make healthy connections.” In addition to Proch’s foundation-laying responsibilities, she is tasked with the goal of fundraising $500,000 in 2022, and another $500,000 from new donors in 2023, in order to receive a generous matching donation of $500,000 from a special donor. “It does worry me,” Proch says, “although I know Nantucket is extremely generous.” Indeed, volunteers across the island have offered everything from home furnishings to professional services to help bring the dream of Our House to life. In fact, Proch reports a list of as many as seventy key individuals who assist her and Cozort on a consistent basis. Most important, however, Proch and Cozort are hearing from teens themselves, listening to what they want and need. “This is a space for you,” Proch says to them, “so tell us what you need and what would bring you here after school.”
With plans to open its doors the third week of September, Proch, Cozort and a plethora of volunteers the island over are busy at work, doing everything from painting walls to building a second fully accessible kitchen for those with disabilities or mobility issues. But once those doors open, Proch hopes the students themselves will contribute in making Our House sustainable, whether it’s preparing dinner, cooking or cleaning. “It is their house,” she says. “The name is intentional. It’s too big a gift to hold to one person.”
A virtual calendar will indicate the days in which students can come (with a max of approximately fifty teens at one time, depending on staff), and dinner will be served five nights a week, a key factor being that the meal will be free to every student, regardless of need. “We want to create a family,” Proch says. “Being able to connect students to one another and to adults that will have a healthy impact on their lives is why we are doing this. We truly want to benefit their lives.”
Our House is a refuge for teens to play, produce, connect, study and share a meal together.
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