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“For 375 years, Fairfield has been planning for Save the Children to come here,” Fairfield First Selectman Michael Tetreau said in welcoming the nonprofit to the town at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Monday morning.
“It is a fantastic building,” Save the Children President and CEO Carolyn Miles said at the rain-soaked event. The new offices take up the entire fourth floor and some of the third floor at 501 Kings Highway E., giving more space to the nearly 300 employees who work there.
The nonprofit has been headquartered in Fairfield County since 1957, Miles said. It moved out of New York City and into Norwalk, then to its Westport location in 1977 and now to Fairfield.
“Fairfield County is really important to us. It is our home, and we are so glad to have found a home right here in Fairfield,” Miles said.
The nonprofit that focuses on the needs of children worldwide exemplifies what the town of Fairfield is all about, Tetreau said: giving back to the community and volunteerism.
For Anne Mulcahy, a Fairfield resident and Save the Children Board of Trustees chairwoman, the move to Fairfield was smart.
“It’s been a long 18-month journey since Hurricane Sandy challenged the shores of the Saugatuck,” Mulchay said. “I’m so delighted that we found this home. I’m awed by just walking around, it feels like Save the Children.”
The new offices and town feed into the sense of community that the nonprofit prides its self on, she said.
“I suspect there is a little nostalgia for that great spot you had in Westport,” said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-4th District) during the ribbon cutting. But he said, “You’re going to have such fun getting to know" the town of Fairfield.
He added his congratulations that the nonprofit had found new space where “there is no danger that you will have to kayak to the copy room,” he said.
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