By Kelcie Lee

When Jenna McAnulty was raising her child in the City, she felt the African proverb, “it takes a village,” rang true to her journey. Through her experience as a preschool teacher and postpartum doula, she knew she had to create a community third-space to provide support and resources for parents.

After thorough planning, McAnulty launched Outer Village in July of this year.

The community hub, as McAnulty described it, is an open playroom and secondhand consignment store that took its place at Eighth Avenue and Irving Street in the Inner Sunset, quickly becoming a space many parents have come to love.

“One of my favorite things is when a new mom or parent comes in with their baby, and they just need somewhere to be and take a breath,” McAnulty said. “They stumble in here, and just the relief that I see on their face – and being able to provide that – makes me so happy. I know how hard it is to find, and I know how it feels to be wandering around with a crying baby.”

The culmination of Outer Village was a long time coming for McAnulty, who long dreamed of having a storefront.

As a Sunset District resident for more than 20 years, McAnulty said she saw an increasing number of families who wanted to put down roots in the City, especially following the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s a real need here, because people want to stay in the City,” McAnulty said. “Whatever we can do to make it easier for families to stay, we should do, and community is a really big part of that. So, if you don’t have a village or family nearby, which a lot of people in the City don’t, then finding support for childcare and everything is difficult. It’s just so much easier and more fun if you have a community to navigate all of that with.”

With this vision, she began to work closely with families, initially organizing meetups and play groups for parents and children at playgrounds or other public spaces.

As a parent in a city, she said she felt that most places were not created with families as the “main client” in mind, but instead, more of an afterthought. McAnulty explained that, in her experience, common worries and inconveniences – such as a lack of places to sit, children touching unclean objects or accidentally hurting themselves – would often leave families with few options.

“A big part of why I did this is because I couldn’t find anything like this for myself,” McAnulty said. “I had a little baby in the City, and I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to hang out, besides a coffee shop or the playground. And neither of those places is necessarily the most comfortable to bring a kid.”

She saw a common need that both she and her community would benefit from, leading to the creation of Outer Village.

Within the interior of the space, the central playroom is commonly known as the living room. Filled with comfortable places to sit, parents and kids can play with toys and, McAnulty said, find peace in the fact that there’s nothing their kids can break or hurt, making it a place where parents can “take their shoes off and take a breath.”

In addition to the open playroom, Outer Village operates as a consignment store for basic baby gear, selling everything from books to feeding supplies. As families outgrow toys or clothes, they drop them off at the store and earn money once the item sells. McAnulty said there is a circularity at Open Village where families often drop off goods and pick up something else they need, such as a pair of shoes in the next size.

“It starts to feel like that living room feel that I am trying to create. It feels like I’m having people over to my house, or like I’m hosting more than I’m running a store,” McAnulty said. “I’ve never worked retail or run a store in my entire life, so that’s not my main personality. It’s more like, this is a community home, and I feel like I’m welcoming people into it.”

Recently, Outer Village launched a variety of classes for the purpose of supporting parent and child well-being.

From new mom’s group and fatherhood group to yoga and children’s music class, McAnulty said she uses parents’ feedback and conversations to inspire new programming.

“All of these classes offer very different things. They have different purposes,” said Outer Village teacher Grace Shaver. “All of them are really wonderful and necessary for building community, taking care of yourself and being a parent in a world that is often difficult to be a parent in.”

Shaver instructs both the prenatal and postpartum yoga classes. With her background in yoga teaching and dance, her postpartum yoga class hosts both parents and their infants, ensuring accommodation for mothers who need to feed their children and safe movements to prevent injury.

Shaver said there is built-in time at the end of classes where attendees can get to know other new moms, sharing tea and conversation. Shaver said she enjoys staying as long as she can after classes to connect with parents and the intimate setting that Outer Village fosters.

Outer Village also offers a variety of events, including a family happy hour and monthly children’s movie night, where parents can drop off their child while they enjoy a dinner in the neighborhood.

“Parenting (can be) really challenging. But, with support, you can hold joyous, celebratory moments close to your heart,” Shaver said. “Even when you are experiencing challenges or hardships, you know that you have people to lean on. Outer Village is that group of people.”

Outer Village is located at 1314 Eighth Ave. To see a full schedule of its programming and events, visit outervillagesf.com.