The Pawling Resource Center Celebrates 50 Years of Service!
By Susan Stone
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Denzel Washington, the noted actor, director and producer, once said, “At the end of the day it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished…it’s about who you’ve lifted up…who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back.” ​​​​
A strong community like Pawling owes its success to many factors: excellent governance, a steady economy spurred on by a business community that meets the needs of its citizens, recreational and cultural resources, excellent schools committed to educating its children, opportunities to fully engage in the religious practice of one’s choosing, a local library, and a willing cadre of community volunteers.​
Strong communities are also caring communities, where neighbors help neighbors by offering a helping hand to those who have fallen on hard times. Perhaps they are having difficulty making ends meet and require access to a source for healthy food choices, or are recovering from a health issue, or need transportation to a doctor or a ride to the grocery store. Perhaps their children need warm clothing, a new backpack filled with school supplies, or a wrapped Christmas present.
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Throughout the last 50 years, the Pawling Resource Center has not only met but has far exceeded these challenges. The PRC has been a beacon of hope for those in need within the Pawling community and has provided a safety net for those who find themselves and their families struggling economically. This is the story about how ordinary citizens discovered the needs within our community and found ways to fill them.
Telling Our Story
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The Pawling Resource Center serves the town of Pawling’s and the Hamlet of Holmes’s 8,143 residents. In Pawling and Holmes there are 1,661 seniors. In the town of Pawling, 4.5% of the population are living at or below the poverty line. Poverty rates in the village are significantly higher.
Over the past fifty years, the Pawling Resource Center was established, developed, and nurtured by an active board of directors, competent and enthusiastic executive directors, a full-time program coordinator, and an army of volunteers that provide a buffer against hardship and hunger to everyone who lives, works, or attends school or religious services within its area of service. It has succeeded in its mission of helping local families who are struggling to survive challenging circumstances that often come with aging, loss of independence, health setbacks, or job loss.
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Today, the Center has several firmly established major programs that operate throughout the year, as well as several seasonal programs that benefit families around the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. ​​​​
First and foremost is the PRC’s Food Pantry, which serviced 297 households (comprising 903 individuals) in 2025. Clients visited us 2,297 times last year, and of those served, 55% were adults, nearly 30% were children, and 15% were seniors. The Center’s Transportation Program provided 298 rides to medical appointments and 506 trips to access food. Additionally, 677 items of Medical Equipment were accessed by those who needed them, including hospital beds that provided comfort to those whose medical needs were more urgent. Along with the major services mentioned above, the Center offers Compassionate Servicesthat include providing backpacks filled with grade-specific supplies for children who would otherwise not be able to afford them; Adopt a Family, which provides holiday gifts of clothing and small toys along with supermarket gift cards to needy children and their families at Christmas; senior holiday and “sunshine” gift baskets; and special distributions of food for holiday meals. The Center also makes referrals to county social services and offers copying services to not-for-profit organizations in town. Copying services, while not strategic, were among the original services offered when the Center was conceived and continue to be made available if the need arises.
The Pawling Resource Center…Then and Now
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The Pawling Resource Center has evolved throughout the years to meet growing and diverse needs. The Center began as the Community Resources and Service Center (CRSC), founded in 1976 by community members John Brown and Reverend Ralph Lankler. Its initial mission was to create a local place for service agencies in the county seat of Poughkeepsie, New York to meet with community members, and for local groups to hold meetings and have office space. It also offered copying and secretarial assistance to local churches. In the early years the Center explored a range of offerings, from rehabilitation services to the developmentally disabled to supporting the Red Cross Bloodmobile, eventually finding the most effective ways to serve the community with its current signature programs.
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With free office space made available in Town Hall by the Town Board, the first year of operation saw the Center conduct a health clinic with the services of a volunteer public health nurse, and partnerships with the Dutchess County Office for the Aging, the Salvation Army, Meals on Wheels, and local churches. The Center provided counseling and Social Security advice, had a volunteer motor corps, and maintained a telephone check-in for seniors, among other services.
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The founders took on all the organizational responsibility. Mr. Brown acted as the first volunteer executive director, and Rev. Lankler served as the first board chairman. Over time, the network of support grew, and the leadership team’s focus expanded. Subsequent volunteer directors ran programs, recruited additional board members consisting of the pastors and two laypersons from each Christian parish in Pawling, managed the growing volunteer base, promoted the Center, and compassionately ran the organization.
By 2010, the organization expanded the board to include representation from several local business leaders. Mario Mejorado currently serves as board chair. Additional board members include Liz Allen, Haliday Clark, Charles Daniels, Cynthia Flint, Rev. Stefan Gramenz, Jason Maxwell, John Rickert Susan Stone, Jennifer Taylor, and Keith Tucci. All board members are extremely active in governance and fundraising. All give their time and expertise in the areas needed to enable the Center’s mission including finance, marketing, special events, programming, technology, and grant writing.
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Today, the Center’s yearly revenue has grown to $342,857, raised though a twice-yearly community appeal, an annual fundraising walkathon developed by former board member Fayne Daniels and recently renamed in her memory, grants from regional and county funders, in-kind contributions, and corporate support. Expenditures in 2025 totaled $328,703.
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Volunteers are crucial to the PRC’s program delivery and sustainability. They answer phones, stock shelves, assist food pantry clients, help people with requests for medical equipment, and transport seniors to medical appointments, grocery shopping, or to shop at the food pantry. In 2025, 4480 volunteer office/pantry hours were logged by 20 volunteers, with an additional 1526 estimated hours logged by 40 volunteer drivers providing ride services.
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Community support of and involvement with the Resource Center is robust. Through in-kind offerings of goods and services from local businesses, such as pest control, plumbing repair, tech support and grounds maintenance, operational expenses are kept relatively low. The 3,000-square-foot, two-floor operating space, housed in the carriage house of the historic John Kane House, is rented to the PRC for a nominal fee by the Historical Society of Quaker Hill & Pawling. It is this humanitarian spirit that allows the Center to funnel more of its resources into programming.
The Center is open five days a week plus two Saturdays a month. In 2025, 808 bags of food and personal care items and 161 boxes of holiday food items were donated to the Center by residents and distributed to its clients. Almost 57,000 pounds of food were donated by local grocery stores, food drives, and local food pantries. The PRC was able to purchase nearly 52,000 pounds of food from the Regional Food Bank. 54 backpacks filled with school supplies were distributed to children. Furthermore, the 2025 holiday Adopt-a-Family program organized local community members and organizations to purchase gifts for 41 families, with more than 200 gifts added by the PRC.
In recent history, the Center responded quickly to those national and international emergencies that affected the ability of small towns like Pawling to respond to the needs of its citizens. Both the global pandemic of 2020 and the most recent federal government pause and reduction in the nation’s SNAP program have demanded critical problem solving and swift adjustments to the ways in which the PRC operates.
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With requisite pandemic safety protocols in place, the PRC extended its food pantry services to an outdoor location on the property, where pre-packaged food supplies were made available for client pickup. This significantly reduced the possibility of Covid transmission to clients, volunteers, and staff. Additionally, no-contact food delivery options were initiated, which also curtailed transmission.
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Throughout the pause of SNAP benefits, the PRC expanded food pantry access to client families. Food product delivery from various resources was increased and emergency funding was sought, allowing the PRC to purchase more food by ordering in bulk. Partnerships with local farms and community organizations provided additional assistance as well, and PRC volunteers helped with increased distribution efforts.
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Because of the generosity of local organizations, businesses, volunteers and contributors, coupled with innovative and steady leadership like that of current Executive Director, Michael Alexander and Program Coordinator, Brandon Dobraj, the PRC is positioned to provide services to Pawling’s neighbors in need well into the future. The community-wide, impactful support of Pawlingites has furthered the remarkable achievements and steady growth of purpose of this unique community asset over these last 50 years. With this kind of dedication by the citizens of Pawling to the PRC’s continued success, the Center is sure to remain a shining example of the decency and kindness of which the Pawling community is most proud.