PEABODY — The Children’s Piazza, a nonprofit play-cafe in Peabody, recently celebrated its 10th year in business.
Charae D’Ambra founded The Children’s Piazza — known in short as ‘The Piazza — in February 2014 as a first-time mom with a background as a pediatric nurse practitioner.
D’Ambra, who is now the Director of Mission & Development, said she still works as a pediatric nurse practitioner
The Piazza began as a small play-cafe in Beverly before moving to its current location at 83 Pine St. in Peabody in February 2018. Since then, it has recently dropped its LLC title and became a nonprofit organization in 2023.
D’Ambra said Becky Abbott, who is now the Executive Director, joined the piazza six years ago when it moved to the Peabody location.
Although she isn’t a mother herself, Abbott said she had attended birthday parties for her friend’s children at the Piazza before joining the team.
D’Ambra and Abbott shared a mutual friend who dealt with postpartum depression and was also having trouble conceiving, D’Ambra said.
“She would call the Piazza her ‘safe haven,’ that she could go to with her toddler when she was having difficulty,” D’Ambra said.
She asked that friend if she knew any carpenters, which was Abbott’s profession at the time.
“Charae hired me to build some shelves. That’s literally how it started,” Abbott said.
“I was really looking for a partner. I needed someone to balance out my skills. There were a lot of skills I was missing, and Becky just seemed like the perfect compliment,” D’Ambra said.
Abbott has used her background as a carpenter to build many of the aspects of the play space.
“Everything we put out there has a very specific purpose into how it’s made, to help a child develop,” she said.
The Children’s Piazza has a play space suited for infants to kindergarten-aged children and a café that serves patrons of all ages.
Children must be accompanied and supervised by an adult when they are in the play space, which D’Ambra and Abbot said creates an environment to have parents, babysitters, and grandparents learning and interacting with each other.
This model connects people who are going through similar situations, whether they are grandparents or first-time parents, D’Ambra and Abbot said.
“It’s hard to kind of explain why this works,” Abbott said. “We let the parents parent, and we don’t get involved in that.”
“Part of what they come here for is to get out of the house, but part of it is also, I think, the kind of hospitality that we offer here,” D’Ambra added.
Abbott and D’Ambra estimate The Children’s Piazza sees more than 30,000 people a year, which combines regulars and first-time patrons, who eventually become regulars, they said.
“We weren’t going to be sustainable as a for-profit business unless we became more expensive. And I didn’t want to become more expensive,” Abbott said.
Part of their mission statement as a nonprofit is to support early childhood development and family health and mental health at an affordable cost.
Abbott and D’Ambra said as the Piazza continues to grow, they hope to reach more members of the community and continue to support development at all stages — from infancy to grandparents.
