'Everyone respects her so much': Deb Monahan retiring from TVCCA after 50 years

While it was a small and relatively new organization when Deb Monahan joined the Thames Valley Council for Community Action, she departs TVCCA having grown it into an important non-profit for the community.

After 50 years at the community action agency, Monahan will retire. She led the organization as CEO for 26 years. Her last official day will be on Nov. 10.

“TVCCA has been an integral part of my life for most of my life, so it’s surreal, but (retirement) is getting real,” she said.

Her retirement will be celebrated with a fundraiser dinner at The Spa at Norwich Inn on Sept. 28 at 5:30. The event costs $55 per person and the money will go toward the Client Support Fund, which lets TVCCA assist people when there isn’t a specific program to cover their need. For example, it may pay when a client needs money for a car repair inn order to get back to work or needs help paying for medication, Monahan said.

“It's unrestricted dollars that can help families with their unique needs,” she said.

Community service was something Monahan always wanted to do. After graduating from the University of Connecticut in 1973 with a degree in early childhood and family relations, she worked for an employment agency but didn’t like the job.

She was approached by TVCCA to work in case aid for its early childhood program, and she joined. In the 1970s, TVCCA didn’t have computers, and did its business by phone calls, paperwork, and face-to-face meetings, Monahan said.

Her first role involved recruiting children for childcare programs and helping families with transportation and aid, she said.

“Things were at a slower pace, so if something took a week, people expected it,” she said.

It was also a smaller agency in a smaller space. Monahan was based out of an office in an United Community & Family Services, then called United Workers, building overlooking the Norwichtown Green. Monahan helped with the Head Start preschool locations at the Norwichtown office, a location on Pearl Street, and at the long-since demolished SHYMA Club in Taftville.

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Over the years, Monahan was the first WIC Program Director for the area in conjunction with UCFS and Backus Hospital and held many roles in management. In 1997, she was an interim director when her predecessor was ill, and officially became director, now CEO, in 1998, she said.

While Monahan said TVCCA is a team effort, some of the organization’s biggest accomplishments during her time as CEO include expanding the range of services, expanding childcare facilities, getting a commissary, and getting a great deal on renting the Norwich office from the state for $8 a square foot, heat and utilities included. All of this helps stabilize services, and provides for the programs, she said.

“We don’t have to rely on someone else fixing our buildings or making sure our buildings have the equipment we need to do our services,” she said.

The Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments has worked with TVCCA plenty over the years. Monahan has served as co-chair of the council's human services committee, and a part of the Southeastern Connecticut Housing Alliance and regularly attends the council's meetings, encouraging the towns to send their residents to TVCCA for fuel assistance and other needs people may have, Southeastern Connecticut Council of Governments Executive Director Amanda Kennedy said.

“Everyone respects her so much and is willing to give her time because she does the same for them,” she said.

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As for United Community & Family Services, Monahan has been “a partner’s partner” in UCFS and TVCCA’s work together, and while working with other organizations, fostering a culture of collaboration between nonprofits in the area, President and CEO Jennifer Granger said.

“She really understands the unique role of each of our organizations, and she strived to make each of our missions come to fruition, in the service of the people in this community, not just her own,” she said.

In retirement, Monahan will miss all the people she’s worked with while trying to make the community a better place, she said.

Monahan will work with her replacement, Josh Kelly, for a few weeks as she gets to teach him the ins and outs of the organization. When she does leave, Monahan will spend more time with family, including her husband and her four grandchildren.

Monahan plans to stay involved in the community. She will remain on community boards, where she isn't representing TVCCA, like the Institutional Review Board for Eastern Connecticut State University, she said.

She may still help out TVCCA by advising Kelly from time to time, and perhaps driving for the Meals on Wheels program.

“I’ll be ok. I’ll figure out that adventure,” she said.

This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Non-profit TVCCA's long time CEO Deb Monahan to retire in November