The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘A commitment to help everybody’
New St. Vincent de Paul leader spearheads supportive services
MIDDLETOWN — The motto of St. Vincent de Paul Middletown is “meeting needs, offering hope” and it’s something new Executive Director Ethel Higgins is eager to continue.
Higgins, who joined the agency Nov. 5, grew up in the New Haven area. She moved from North Carolina, after leaving her job as regional director of the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Raleigh in Greenville, S.C. After working there for more than a year, and being in the South for nearly 13 years, Higgins sought a return to New England to be closer to family.
St. Vincent de Paul was founded in 1980 by the Sisters of Mercy and the Catholic Diocese of Norwich. Higgins’ charges include the soup kitchen, Amazing Grace Food Pantry and the community assistance and supportive housing programs.
Higgins spent a decade as director of disaster preparedness and case management for Catholic Charities Atlanta.
Higgins, a trained jazz singer, was a child health director for the Georgia state Department of Public Health in Macon, and regional director of the Merrimack Valley Catholic Charities in Lowell, Mass.
She spent a month shadowing former St. Vincent de Paul leader Ron Krom, who retired earlier this month after 12 years running the agency. “He fought for our clients, tooth and nail, which is why he stayed here, why he lives in the North End. This was him. And that piece — our philosophy is very very simple,” Higgins said.
“That’s never going away. The guests, the folks, the community, is the No. 1 priority. And that’s strong and that’s here,” Higgins said, from her office overlooking the north end of busy Main Street.
Higgins is also big on partnerships. “It’s not just about what we do, it’s collectively what can we do with others,” Higgins said.
“We use ‘guest’ because I think there’s still a perceived notion about the folks we serve. No matter how progressive we get, there’s still stigma attached to those with mental health and addiction issues. It’s not medical — they’re not ‘clients’ — and we treat them with the same respect and dignity you would treat you or I,” she added.
Many who use St. Vincent de Paul’s services have jobs, but sometimes find it difficult to make ends meet and feed their children, so they’ll stop in for a hot, hearty meal or nonperishable foods to fill their pantry. Some may simply be down on their luck or have unexpectedly lost a source of income.
“We have families come in here. We have strollers, we have toddlers and (elementary-age school children): These are folks who just need … they’re the working poor. There are a lot of folks who may be one paycheck away” from losing a basic need for survival,” she said.
Higgins has worked in social services her entire professional career, and spent 17 years in management roles at Catholic Charities in four different states. The two nonprofit agencies share a similar mission, said Lydia Brewster, assistant director of community services at St. Vincent de Paul.
“She has the same social justice lens as does SVDM, and she has a depth of knowledge relating to programs. She understands our mission of service both through her experience in other organizations, and, I think, intuitively. She regards both her staff and the guests and clients we serve in a very multidimensional way,” Brewster said.
In the future, Higgins said, she’d like to build on programs SVDM has brought to the needy for nearly 40 years. “It’s good to do what we have, but it’s also important to springboard off what we have,” she said. “The legacy Ron has left here is people deserve the basic needs of housing — and that’s what he did, at all costs,” she said.
“She’s a cheerful spirit: very personable, friendly, and very open to people. I think that’s important for that role. We help a lot of different folks and there’s a lot of diversity” of guests at St. Vincent de Paul, Krom said.
She’d like to see the agency eventually expand into offering programs on “job readiness, financial budgeting, and any kind of social enterprise where we can maybe try and train our guests to be productive, and get jobs, and get support that way in the community,” she said. A key to that would be moving into the former Green Street Arts Center building.
St. Vincent de Paul is among four groups that submitted a proposal to the city to occupy the 51 Green St. building, along with the Middletown Green Community Center, American Legion Post 75 and Community Health Center.
St. Vincent de Paul has outgrown its administrative offices to the point where taking on any additional projects would be prohibitive. “The reality is, we have outgrown this. We can’t even think about expanding or new initiatives,” Higgins said.
The plan is to occupy the entire building and even bring in city organizations that would support its mission, for instance, offering tax return help or medical services, such as those offered by the Community Health Center nearby.
“So it’s more of a onestop shop. People could bring their service there, and it would be more of a holistic approach,” Higgins said. “We have a commitment to help everybody — that’s what we’re about.”
Meanwhile, she is examining the way the agency is run.
“Already Ethel has used the benefit of a fresh perspective to look at our agency’s organization structure, and has begun to make clearer the distinctions and connections between programs and departments within St. Vincent de Paul. She has a very clear eye and a logical mind that I think will make our staff and the agency in general more effective,” Brewster said.
“We are rooted in ‘I was hungry, you fed me,’ ‘I needed a roof over me, you housed me,’ ‘You gave me hats and gloves to keep me warm,’ ” Higgins said.
Higgins said she enjoys getting to know people: staff, guests and volunteers. “Everyone has a story. There’s some lovely stories out there and some lovely people. There’s some caring people. And that’s what we’re about. Shouldn’t it be what everybody is about?”