In 1998, Judy Cockerton saw a newspaper article about a child who had been kidnapped while in foster care. She discussed the article with her husband and their two teenagers over dinner. It opened their eyes to the complex situations and disconnected lives that foster kids often face. They wanted to do something and decided to become foster parents.

“We went through that door not knowing anything about it, but wanting to help,” Cockerton says. What they were not expecting was how isolated they would feel. 

They encountered a world where they met birth parents, other foster parents, social workers, and children in foster care. But they rarely felt understood or supported by friends and neighbors outside the foster care system.

Cockerton suspected there were thousands of compassionate people in America who could be part of the lives of parents and children in foster care. For them, though, the only option was to be a foster parent or adopt, which was a high emotional and financial bar to jump over.

“I grew up in a family where cousins and grandparents were all invested in my life,” Cockerton says. “I wondered, ‘What if we could create an intentional community, where families with children in foster care lived next to older adults as neighbors, and all generations would be supportive and connected to one another?’”

So she started the Treehouse Community in Easthampton, MA, with 12 houses for families caring for or adopting children from foster care and 48 cottages for adults 55 and older who wanted to find connection and purpose in an intergenerational village.

The kids got a neighborhood full of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other kids with similarly disrupted childhoods, as well as fields, playgrounds, and a community center. Parents gained babysitters, understanding friends, and emotional support through the ups and downs of parenting. Older residents found belonging and purpose at a stage in life when many were feeling lonely. 

Pam Hanson moved to the Treehouse Community after retirement. She told a reporter, “This is the place I always want to be. I love children and need community. I don’t want to molder away in an old folks’ home and be warehoused until I die. Here you live a useful life.”

You can learn more about the Treehouse Community and hear from some of its residents in this video by the Boston Globe. As they celebrate their 17th anniversary at Treehouse Easthampton, Cockerton and her team are building a new Treehouse Community in Boston.