Feeding Bodies and Souls—The Shepherd's Center Turns 25 Years Old
by Greg Johnson
The year was 1998 and Ann McClung had an idea. She was teaching an adult Sunday School class at the Lewisburg United Methodist Church, using a text called Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. The book mentioned the Shepherd’s Center of America, an interfaith program for older adults that fosters physical, mental and spiritual health, and promotes lifelong learning. At the time she was addressing her own mother’s health issues, and she wondered if the program would have something to offer the Greenbrier Valley.
Fast forward 26 years and the answer is a resounding yes. Today the Shepherd’s Center of the Greenbrier Valley delivers over 8500 meals a year to people at home, offers an impressive array of classes and activities, provides home visits, transportation and minor home repairs, and sponsors field trips and outings for seniors. Launched on a shoestring in 1999, the program has grown into a $200,000 annual operation with two full-time employees and an army of eager volunteers who insist they get as much out of it as the people they help.
In late June the local nonprofit celebrated 25 years of giving to the community with a picnic at Brad Paisley Park in White Sulphur Springs. Board President Alice Hollingsworth, former Executive Director Judy Long, and Ann did some reminiscing, tracing the Shepherd’s Center’s growth from an acorn into oak tree. In late September they will commemorate their Silver Anniversary more formally with a gala at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine’s Student Center.
Despite its name, the Shepherd’s Center isn’t a building. It’s best described as a collection of programs designed to help older adults live as independently as possible as long as possible, and continue participating in and contributing to their community. There’s no age requirement; current participants range from their 50’s to 100.
The local Shepherd’s Center came into being after a trip by Ann and Diann Hayes to the group’s National Conference in North Carolina, then a visit by Ann and Lewisburg United Methodist minister Julian Sulgit to its national headquarters in Kansas City, where they met the organization’s founder, Elbert Cole. After some discussion and planning with local pastors, seven churches agreed to chip in $1000 each to launch the program. The founding congregations were Lewisburg United Methodist Church, Old Stone Presbyterian Church, John Wesley United Methodist Church, St. James Episcopal Church, St. Louis Catholic Church, Edgewood Presbyterian Church and Emmanuel United Methodist Church.
In the early days Ann served as a volunteer Executive Director because there wasn’t money to hire staff. In 2000 an opportunity arose to apply for a $35,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Ann’s background as a physical therapist hadn’t prepared her to write grant applications, but she forged ahead and the Shepherd’s Center was awarded the grant. This enabled them to hire a full-time parish nurse. Administered by Wake Forest University, the grant came with the added benefit of tutorials and workshops on how to run a nonprofit.
Judy Long, a nurse with a master’s degree in Community Health, left her job working with children and young families to assume the role, which combined what she calls her two passions, nursing and her faith. She liked the fact that after assisting older people at home with their health issues, she could ask them if they wanted to have prayer with her.
(Although its name was inspired by the 23rd Psalm, Shepherd’s Center of America has always been interfaith. Its 55 affiliate chapters include some that are sponsored by synagogues and mosques. In an effort to clarify this, the parent organization, now 50 years old, recently changed its name to Aging Forward. Affiliates are free to continue calling themselves Shepherd’s Centers.)
After the grant money ran out and other funding sources appeared, Judy transitioned from parish nurse to become the Shepherd’s Center of the Greenbrier Valley’s first full-time Executive Director, a capacity she served in for over a decade. Today she’s still volunteering.
The Center’s programs are funded by grants from area foundations and the United Way, and fundraising. Their most important fundraiser is the annual Community Service Award, an idea the late Tom Bulla suggested after seeing it work for a Charleston organization. Each year an individual or couple are honored for their outstanding service to the community at a banquet, which features a short film about their lives by documentary filmmaker B. J. Gudmunsson. Attendees contribute by buying tickets and sponsorships. It’s a feel-good celebration of local heroes who personify service to others, and an effective way for the Shepherd’s Center to raise 20% of its annual budget.
One of the most well-received programs is Gwen’s Meals, a countywide operation with its own fascinating history. The late Gwen Clingman, who will live forever as one of the community’s patron saints, had a one-of-a-kind, wildly popular lunch spot for decades in the rear of her tiny grocery on Washington Street, where Stardust Cafe stands today. Gwen’s, as everyone called her eatery, wasn’t much to look at but it was beloved for three reasons - the homemade food, the unbelievably low prices, and Gwen herself, a small woman with a big heart. Stories about her still circulate. One involves a guest at The Greenbrier who read a brief piece about the restaurant in Southern Living and called, wanting to host a luncheon for some friends. Gwen patiently explained that her hole-in-the-wall with mismatched tables and chairs crammed in every nook and cranny wasn’t the kind of place anyone hosted a luncheon. The woman persisted until Gwen said in exasperation, “Honey, you don’t understand - this place is a dump!”
On Wednesdays Gwen sent free meals to 15 housebound residents. When age and infirmity led to her closing the restaurant in 2002, she was concerned about the people who had been getting these meals. Enter the Shepherd’s Center. A grant from the Hollowell Foundation enabled them to take over this personal ministry. Today a large collection of churches and individuals throughout the county take turns cooking the meals, which are delivered by volunteer drivers to an ever-growing list of recipients that currently stands at 170. The organization supplies containers and partial reimbursement for the food to the churches, and some chose to donate the money back to Shepherd’s Center. This complex, ongoing operation is overseen by Neal Roth, the Shepherd’s Center’s assistant director. Fittingly, 22 years after Gwen’s Meals started, her daughter Alice Hollinsworth is serving as the president of the Shepherd’s Center board of directors.
Another popular program is Adventures in Learning, 6-week classes offered every spring and fall. Classes range from physical activities, like Water Aerobics, Tai Chi and Adaptive Yoga, to Current Events, Creative Writing and a Book Group. There’s a small fee (scholarships are always available), and lunch is served. Adventures in Learning gave rise to a second program, Lunch & Learn, which bridges the gaps between spring and fall. Participants gather for a meal and listen to a speaker. Lunch & Learn has grown in popularity to the point that 60 or 70 participants have been showing up. This past February a rapt audience listened to former Greenbrier East Coach Marion Gordon talk about growing up as a young black boy and teenager when the community was racially divided. He included the story of the Boy Scout troop the late Phil McLaughlin, who had just graduated from William & Mary College, started for Marion and his friends because the regular troop was segregated.
Shepherd’s Center activities take place in Lewisburg, White Sulphur Springs and the Meadow River Valley. Some, like a discussion group called Coffee Talk in White Sulphur Springs, are specific to that community. Gwen’s Meals are prepared and delivered in Rupert, Rainelle, Charmco, Dawson, Smoot, Sam Black, Lewisburg, Fairlea, Ronceverte, White Sulphur Springs, Alderson, and Clintonville.
Occasionally groups go on travel adventures. Recently a group caravanned to the Cranberry Glades, where they listened to a ranger’s presentation, walked the glades boardwalk, took a ride on the Highland Scenic Highway, and had lunch at the Hillsboro Public House. Other outings have included a hayride at Hanna Farmstead in Monroe County, and an afternoon of board games at Across the Board in White Sulphur Springs. More ambitious trips have taken them to The Biltmore in Asheville and Amish country in Pennsylvania.
Shepherd’s Center services are possible because of the kindness of a large cadre of volunteers who cook meals, deliver them, do home repairs and home visits, provide transportation for medical appointments and outings, and a host of other services without any reimbursement except the gratitude of the people they are assisting. Most of the programs couldn’t exist without all these generous helpers.
Occasionally angels unexpectedly appear. A gentleman who lived by himself in a mobile home in Fairlea was a regular recipient of Gwen’s Meals. After his death a man appeared at the Shepherd’s Center’s office and, without fanfare, presented them with an envelope. It contained a check for $46,000 from his estate.
Over its 25-year history, the Shepherd’s Center has employed four Executive Directors: Judy Long, Joan Reed, Teresa Bostic and Sarah Moloney, who only recently stepped into the role. A 1995 Greenbrier East graduate, she left the area to attend Antioch College, then worked in the Midwest for nonprofit organizations and the City of Chicago. When city life lost its allure and she decided to return home, she looked for a job that would pay the bills and also be meaningful work.
“I want to feel that I’m contributing to the community,” Sarah notes. “I grew up that way. Our older population has welcomed Neal and me with open arms. They’re involved and generous. They want to get out and be sociable, and they’re up for adventures, but some of them don’t have a mechanism to do it. That’s what we try to provide.”
Neal’s background includes running The Greenbrier’s Orvis shop and outdoor activities, and working for Ducks Unlimited. “I’m basically a people person,” he says. “Working for the Shepherd’s Center fulfills that need in me.” Fortunately, he’s highly organized, a necessity when serving as field marshal for Gwen’s Meals, which involves coordinating logistics with two dozen churches, plus the Alderson Hospitality House and others, and juggling the schedules of the volunteers who fan out to deliver meals throughout the county.
The Alderson Hospitality House linked up with Gwen’s Meals during COVID, when they couldn’t provide services to family and friends visiting those incarcerated at the Alderson Federal Prison Camp and were looking for something else to do. Brian and Kathleen DeRouen, the Hospitality House directors, and their two sons, Micah and Vitale, began preparing and delivering 40 weekly meals to people in the Alderson area, which they’ve continued to do.
Many Gwen’s Meals drivers take time to visit with their regular customers. Some are lonely and housebound and look forward to these visits as much as the food. “It’s therapeutic for everybody,” Neal observes. Interestingly, two of the original drivers, the late Bob Caldwell and the late Jack Ewart, eventually transitioned into needing the services they delivered, learning to receive as graciously as they once gave.
The Shepherd’s Center also serves shut-ins with a program called Friendly Visitors - volunteers who regularly drop by and spend time with them. During COVID, Friendly Visitors became Friendly Callers, who replaced in-person visits with phone conversations.
The Center’s Handy Helpers are another volunteer corps, who provide minor home repairs at no cost. Assistance can range from changing ceiling light bulbs for people in their nineties who can no longer climb ladders, to building ramps for the mobility impaired.
The Shepherd’s Center’s first Community Service Award went to the very deserving, beloved Gwen Clingman. The 2024 Community Service Award is going to someone equally deserving - Ann McClung, its founding mother, who shepherded an idea into a quarter-century-long reality that continues to touch and transform lives. Tickets for the September 24th gala event are available by calling Sarah or Neal at 304-645-4196.
When you talk with the visionaries and movers who started, nurtured and sustain the Shepherd’s Center, you notice they like to give the programs names. Gwen’s Meals. Adventures in Learning. Lunch & Learn. Coffee Talk. Handy Helpers. Friendly Visitors. Pastor’s Favorite Book. Whatever you call it, all this effort represents people reaching out, connecting with others and offering to be of service. In the end, the Shepherd’s Center is all about community.
