HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A Huntington non-profit that gives support to those struggling with substance use has plans to expand their services in a newly-acquired building from the Cabell County School District.

The Cabell County Board of Education voted to confer the property of the former Highlawn Elementary School in Huntington over to Lily’s Place.

Administrative Director of Lily’s Place Rhonda Edmunds said they have been looking for an extra building to expand their services in and house a first responder program as well as a program that assists grandparents who are raising grandchildren.

Rhonda Edmunds

She said they had received an around $1 million dollar grant to do the necessary renovations for that project in a building they had previously been acquiring, but that building had gotten vandalized to the point that it would take much extensive repairs in order to fix.

Edmunds said that’s when Cabell County Schools came to them about the former Highlawn Elementary building, and they agreed that it would be a beneficial asset to the organization.

“We talked about it and definitely felt like that would be a great place for us to be able to serve that community in the Highlawn area,” Edmunds said.

Deputy Superintendent of Operations and Support for Cabell County Schools Justin Boggs said per state code, there’s only three ways a school district can dispose of its unused properties– through holding a public auction, through a lease, or by conveying the property over to a municipality or an established 501 3C.

Boggs said they made the decision to give this location to the organization because they felt it would further help to benefit the lives of children.

“You know, our goal as Cabell County Schools is really to educate kids, so, you know, we’re not real estate agents, we just want to be able to educate and support children in the best way possible,” Boggs said.

He said they built a new Highlawn Elementary School building several years back and deemed the former as surplus property.

Justin Boggs

Boggs said they had several takers for the property who had explained their plans for the building at various board meetings, one of the groups being Lily’s Place.

He said they were able to best provide what they would do with the building to utilize it in the most appropriate manner under the school system’s guidelines.

“I think our goal as a district is to ensure that we’re good stewards of the taxpayer dollars, but we are also good stewards of the properties that we have vacated,” Boggs said. “And being that we vacated that, it was also very good to hear from Lily’s Place that they had worked with the Highlawn Alliance and Highlawn Community Group, and they had provided some support for this as well.”

Boggs said it’s very important these properties are utilized appropriately as they have had properties in the past that have gone out for auction and only brought about 15 to 20% of the appraised value.

He said once they auction that property off, they have no say so with what happens to it.

“We’ve had some properties around the Huntington area that were auctioned off several years ago and they’re still sitting vacant and not much is being done with them, so I believe that the board members really wanted to ensure that whatever we were going to do with this property, that it was going to be used for the good of the community,” Boggs said.

Lily’s Place supports those affected by substance use, offering a range of services from providing medical care for infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, to providing education and support for families.

Edmunds said they have been in operation for almost 11 years, and they have only been able to expand in their services since that time.

Lily’s Place

“We have grown from our NAS Center where we care for babies who have been affected by substances who their mom’s had used, and we’ve grown from that to, we now have a children’s counseling center ,we have adult counseling where we have case management and peer support as well,” she said.

Edmunds said their latest endeavor has been in opening a residential treatment facility for pregnant and parenting women who have substance use disorder, as well as for their children.

She said they have really been trying to make a difference in this way, and in a community that truly needs these kinds of services.

“We see a need and then we try and help meet that need, and we are here to help people and to help our community,” Edmunds said. “We want to build families and keep families together, and that’s what we feel like we’re here to do.”

There’s currently no timeline on when the new family resource center will be up and running, but Edmunds said renovation work will be starting very soon.