Cornerstone School hosts grand re-opening of ‘Hidden Gem’ shop

Posted 9/24/14

Hidden away in the Regan Building of Eleanor Slater Hospital in Cranston is a beautiful, new-again gift shop and penny candy store run in part by the students at Cranston’s Cornerstone …

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Cornerstone School hosts grand re-opening of ‘Hidden Gem’ shop

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Hidden away in the Regan Building of Eleanor Slater Hospital in Cranston is a beautiful, new-again gift shop and penny candy store run in part by the students at Cranston’s Cornerstone School.

As described on the school’s website, Cornerstone is a small, year-round, private special education school serving students in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut. It provides a “continuum of educational and therapeutic services” to students between the ages of 18 months and 21 years.

The gift shop at the Eleanor Slater Hospital has actually been in service for many, many years, according to Tammy McVay, transition specialist at Cornerstone. However, the space and its inventory were in need of a major overhaul on what was a very tiny budget.

“The gift shop used to be called Maureen’s Corner, and for a while it was just ‘the gift shop,’ but our students utilize this shop as a job site, and it really needed to be renovated. We asked Pat Murray, the director of people and partnerships, about the potential to change the name when the shop re-opened. She said yes, and we started putting a lot of thought into it,” McVay said.

McVay and her colleague, Lindsey Arsenault, both agreed that the name ultimately chosen represents the store itself, its inventory and the special students from Cornerstone who help to run it on a daily basis.

“The name ‘The Hidden Gem’ is symbolic, speaking to how we feel about those students we service,” Arsenault said.

At the grand re-opening last week, as the aroma of free, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies for shoppers and browsers filled the air, the name of the store spoke to the inventory on display as well.

“There was a lot of great inventory here that looked old and dingy and needed a new life,” McVay said. “We were very resourceful, we made a lot of old things new again and found a lot of ‘hidden gems’ in the inventory that we already had on hand.”

According to McVay, now that The Hidden Gem Gift Shop and Penny Candy is open for business, the students from Cornerstone will once again staff the store each day as a part of the services provided to them in their IEPs (Individualized Education Programs).

“The students are involved in all aspects of running the store, including purchasing supplies, stocking inventory, price stickering the inventory, conducting sales, assembling display baskets and engaging in customer service,” she said.

Store hours are currently Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., with the possibility of afternoon hours being added in the near future. Employees at the hospital and members of the community at large are welcome to stop in to shop. 

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