The Martha’s Vineyard Commission voted unanimously Thursday to approve plans for Aquinnah Headwaters, the state’s first Native-run safe living and healing center for tribal women and children affected by domestic violence and sexual assault.
The Northeast Native Network of Kinship and Healing, Inc., a domestic violence prevention nonprofit also known as Kinship Heals, will now seek town permits for the project.
Plans for the 7.8-acre site, which Kinship Heals purchased in 2023 with grants from national nonprofits and more than 100 individual donations, were redesigned after neighboring homeowners said the proposed 1,780-square-foot food hub was too close to their properties.
Designers from South Mountain Company have reoriented the food pantry, which is expected to serve more than 70 families, and moved the building farther from the neighboring properties.
The approved plans also call for four one-bedroom residences, a 4,260-square foot therapy center, a children’s play area, open space and 25 parking spots.
Kinship Heals has committed to a 20-foot-wide “no cut” zone preserving trees along the neighbors’ property line, along with further plantings to screen the view. Lighting will comply with international “dark sky” standards limiting light pollution.
Other conditions of Thursday’s approval prohibit the use of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides or pesticides and require that all parking and driving areas be surfaced with pervious materials.
Commissioners expressed some concern about traffic from the food pantry, but approved the project with the understanding that distributions would take place one day a week.
To Kinship Heals executive director Jennifer Randolph, Aquinnah Headwaters represents more than a home for the first Native-run shelter to offer both crisis counseling and long-term support for tribal women and children.
It’s also a return of long-lost tribal land, Ms. Randolph told the Gazette when the purchase was announced more than three years ago.
“It’s stolen land,” she said.
In keeping with the Wampanoag history of matrilineal land management, Ms. Randolph uses the term “rematriation” instead of “repatriation,” but the meaning remains the same: Land lost to the tribe for centuries is now back with its ancestral owners.
“Today we still experience the impacts of colonization and state sanctioned assimilation efforts,” Ms. Randolph said in a statement after the approval. “Aquinnah Headwaters will be a place where we can address some of those impacts and use our cultural ways to heal and thrive. Presenting Aquinnah Headwaters to the MV Commission was truly an opportunity to see how far we have come as an Island community.”
Also Thursday, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission once again continued its deliberations on the controversial Katama Meadows project, after debating potential changes to the amount of open space and the number of income-restricted properties.
The Katama Meadows deliberations will continue at the commission’s Sept. 10 meeting.
A hearing on the proposed Jordan’s Nursery in Oak Bluffs was continued without testimony until Sept. 17.
This article appears in August 14, 2026.