A ground-breaking ceremony for the new building under construction at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services in Oak Bluffs drew close to 100 people Friday afternoon, including local officials, tribal leaders, MVCS staff and board members.
The $17.5 million, 12,700-square-foot building, to be named for major donor Jacqui Morby’s family, will house the William and Rose Styron Center for Wellness and Recovery, a dedicated hub for mental health and substance use disorder services.
“I’m just so proud,” said Ms. Styron, 97, who attended the ceremony with the couple’s daughters.
“It would have been my husband’s and my 72nd anniversary this weekend, and his 100th birthday coming up in June, and I’m sure somewhere he’s smiling and thinking this is absolutely wonderful,” she said.
Mr. Styron’s 1990 book Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness is widely considered to have broken a pervasive cultural silence on the subject of mental illness and how it can be treated.
Another new community services building will be home to the Paul and Sandra Pimentel Early Childhood Center, named in the couple’s honor by donors Jim and Susan Swartz, said board member Gary Foster, who chairs the capital campaign.
The Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation supported the building campaign with a $500,000 challenge grant that drew a matching donation, Mr. Foster told Friday’s audience, which included bank president James Anthony.
Martha’s Vineyard Community Services still has about $4 million to raise to complete the project, Mr. Foster said.
The new building replaces one that formerly housed the community services pre-school, which moved to its own facility in 2021.
The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School committee, which leases the land to MVCS, allowed the vacated pre-school to be used as an overnight homeless shelter over the past three winters. The nonprofit Harbor Homes of Martha’s Vineyard is actively searching for property to re-establish the winter shelter.
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