Strategies for Children has a new office — and a long history in our original office

New year new space

As we kick off 2024, we’re happy to announce that Strategies for Children has moved to a new location. We’re renting space from MassINC, a nonprofit policy and research organization, at 11 Beacon Street in downtown Boston.

“We are so grateful to have been housed at Goulston & Storrs for the last two decades,” Amy O’Leary, the executive director of Strategies for Children, says. “Our partnership with Goulston goes far beyond renting office space and a beautiful view. So much of our history at Strategies for Children happened in the conference rooms at 400 Atlantic Street and 50 Rowes Wharf. We hosted meetings, developed legislation, spent many hours discussing policy options and ideas with flip charts and markers, and we welcomed guest speakers from across the country. Attorneys from Goulston & Storrs helped with amicus briefs and have served on our Board of Directors.”

“Our offices provided a front row seat where we watched I-93 come down and the Rose Kennedy Greenway take its place. The Seaport transformed from a space with many (affordable) parking lots to a thriving neighborhood.”

Our office roots

Back in the late 1990’s, Margaret Blood was running the United Way’s Success By 6 program, and she wanted to branch out.

“I decided that before I turned 40, I wanted to work on my own for children. And I just took a leap of faith. Fortunately, I had wonderful projects, and I realized that I needed an office. I would give a presentation in Seattle or in New York, and people would want a copy of what I had just said. And I’d be praying that the Xerox machine at the Store24 was working,” Blood recalls.

Blood thought she might find space, and like-minded colleagues, at an existing nonprofit organization. She was working on a project with Dr. Howard Hiatt, a Harvard Medical School professor, who ultimately sent Blood to see his brother Arnold.

Arnold Hiatt had been the CEO of Stride Rite, the shoe company, and in 1971 he’d overseen the launch of Stride Rite’s on-site child care program in Boston’s Roxbury community.

“In the beginning,” a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston article says, “Stride Rite did not see its center primarily as an employee benefit, but rather as a philanthropic mission that would serve Greater Boston. The company set aside one-quarter of its daycare slots for low-income families from the surrounding community.”

When Blood went to see him, Arnold Hiatt was running the Stride Rite Foundation, he heard her out, asked for a week to think about where she might find space, then called her and invited her to join him in his offices, which were located on the waterfront in the law offices of Goulston & Storrs.

Blood accepted. The space was beautiful. The partnership worked. And while Blood didn’t want to start a new nonprofit organization, she began to see the need for a new organization that could advocate for children not in any one sector such as health care or education, but across many sectors. She consulted with Hiatt and with Paul O’Brien, the former president and CEO of New England Telephone, who had encouraged her to work at Success By 6, and that led to the birth of Strategies for Children. 

It also led to a need for more office space, which Hiatt advocated for and Goulston & Storrs provided.

“Goulston & Storrs has had and continues to have a long history of pro bono work,” Kitt Sawitsky explains. Sawitsky served as the firm’s co-managing director for nine years. “Our pro bono work was primarily driven by partners doing it themselves, not just a practice for young lawyers.”

It was a rigorous entrepreneurial atmosphere, Sawitsky says, where lawyers also recognized their role in the community.

“We were proud to have an association with the Stride Rite Foundation. We particularly admire people who were able to link the corporate world with the interests of the community. We were looking to promote the connection that responsible capitalism included social responsibility.”

“Strategies staff were there, busily trying to get child care for kids. Our associates would ask, Who are these people? It was totally in keeping with the kind of atmosphere we wanted to have.”

Providing office space was only the beginning.

“Arnold called me into his office and said words to the effect of ‘There’s something you should do,’ ” Sawitsky recalls. “It was the kind of atmosphere where I already knew that a) my answer would be ‘yes,’ and b) it was something I was going to want to do. So, with no previous experience in early education and no previous advocacy on behalf of children, I joined the board of Strategies for Children.”

Moving forward

In April, Goulston & Storrs will be moving to a new location. We wish them great luck, and we particularly want to thank the firm’s managing Partners Marty Fantozzi and Bill Dillon. 

In our new space, Strategies will continue to expand our focus from early education to building an early childhood system through our work with The Early Childhood Agenda.

Welcoming us to our new offices, MassINC’s CEO Joe Kriesberg says, “We are thrilled to have Strategies for Children joining us at 11 Beacon Street.”

“It’s an honor to be associated with such an impactful and effective organization that aligns with our mission to make Massachusetts a more inclusive place where everyone can thrive — from the day they are born and every day thereafter. We look forward to not only sharing our office, but also sharing ideas, strategies, political insights, laughs, and yes, the occasional complaint about the weather or the commute.”

Amy O’Leary adds, “We are so excited to be in this new space with MassINC. It already feels like home. One of the things we want to be more intentional about is helping folks in early childhood become confident advocates who feel just as comfortable in the State House and City Hall as they are in the classroom. Our new location is symbolic of our continuing commitment to this work and there will be more opportunities to make these kinds of connections.”