Shelter back on track, Sept. 22, 2005
Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 29, 2005
I like the way Karen Rogers took care of business at the Suffolk Shelter for the Homeless and is ready to hand the reins over to a permanent director.
Rogers assumed the interim helm of the then-beleaguered institution in midst of some chaos in the wake of the departure of the executive director.
Rodgers' accomplishments, detailed in her resignation letter to Board Chairman Cola Cobb, are astonishing for such a short period of time and should, if continued, redeem the shelter in the eyes of some benefactors who have reduced or eliminating fund.
One of those she mentioned was working with a newly-formed civic group called Suffolk 60 Care, which had its organizational meeting Wednesday evening at Cedar Point Country Club. The club has adopted the shelter as its "project" and will be working to raise money for it.
The club's motto is "60 women who care." It's almost scary what they will be able to accomplish. I joined the Rotary Club in Hopewell in 1988, not long after the club started allowing women to join. I think there were two in when I joined. Over the course of the next couple years, that number grew and grew and before you knew it, we were no longer a club that just met once a week, ate and told dirty jokes, but led by the new female members, got off our butts and did some real work.
Watch the News-Herald in the near future for more about the Suffolk 60 Care.
Anyway, the Suffolk Shelter for the Homeless' work is vital to our community and it appears the board and the community owes Rogers a round of applause for her work.