BY BRUNO MATARAZZO JR.
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
TORRINGTON — Deirdre DiCara is in her office on the second floor of the FISH shelter on South Main Street when she spots a former volunteer walking down the hallway past her door, which is wide open. The volunteer gives a quick wave when DiCara jumps up.
“I have to give him a hug,” DiCara says, as she walks over to the young man and hugs him.
DiCara is known by many for her warm, affectionate persona.She has a smile on her face even when you ask her what time it is. In her first year as executive director at FISH, or Friends in Service to Humanity, DiCara has kept her positive attitude even as she confronts the issues of homelessness and hunger.
REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
TORRINGTON — Deirdre DiCara is in her office on the second floor of the FISH shelter on South Main Street when she spots a former volunteer walking down the hallway past her door, which is wide open. The volunteer gives a quick wave when DiCara jumps up.
“I have to give him a hug,” DiCara says, as she walks over to the young man and hugs him.
DiCara is known by many for her warm, affectionate persona.She has a smile on her face even when you ask her what time it is. In her first year as executive director at FISH, or Friends in Service to Humanity, DiCara has kept her positive attitude even as she confronts the issues of homelessness and hunger.
“I had a lifetime of being defined as a Girl Scout but now I feel this career, working at FISH, is my calling,” said DiCara, 59, a former regional Girl Scout Council leader.
Her first year at FISH has brought changes to the organization. She’s applied for grants that have helped pay for a walk-in freezer, a gaspowered generator, Christmas toys for teenagers, new bedding and an emergency fund that she can dip into when quarterly payments from the state come later than expected.
A few times this year, she worried about making payroll when payments from the state Department of Housing arrived late.
It costs about $620,000 to operate FISH, with most of that money, $476,000, going toward the cost of operating the homeless shelter, according to the latest available IRS 990 forms from 2012. The shelter served about 141 individuals last year, including 32 children. Last year, the food pantry distributed 120,000 total meals to 568 families that included 2,696 individuals, DiCara said.
“When you think of the number of people under one roof that have been impacted by this modest little agency, it’s so impressive,” DiCara said.
FISH is in a home that is close to 100 years old and has always had a connection to providing people a warm place to stay.
It was the home of Charles W. Volkman, a member of prominent Torrington family whose relative owned the former Germania Hotel on East Main Street, now home to Bachi’s restaurant, said Mark McEachern of the Torrington Historical Society. In the 1940s and 1950s, the home was operated by Mrs. E.N. Ney who rented furnished rooms.
Now the home is packed with beds and tables and every square inch of space and closet has some purpose, or three. The rooms are set up like dormitories with men on the second floor and women and children on the first, with everyone sleeping on metal bunk beds. It has the feel of communal living at first glance but a sense of family quickly emerges. There are Bibles on most night stands and photographs decorate a mirror in one of the rooms.
DiCara walks around like a proud mother as she shows off the shelter, the food pantry and conference room.
She knows all of the clients in the shelter and their story.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful support group family feel here ... I always tell them: ‘This is a blip on your radar. We’re hoping you’ll be out there living independently in the future.’” DiCara didn’t expect to be in this position at FISH. She always thought she’d retire from the Girl Scouts, but when a massive restructuring merged all of the councils in the state as one, DiCara’s position was eliminated. She said she never thought about going after the top Girl Scouts job in the state, not only because of its size but because all of the unhappy people that would be left in the wake of the organization’s restructuring.
Steven Caruso, president of FISH’s board of directors, first asked her if she’d be interested in the position. She thought about it for a few months, until she ultimately decided she was ready for the challenge.
Along with the grants, DiCara is working to expand FISH’s revenue base, including its fundraising. She sent out a simple Christmas card to supporters and that brought in about $15,000, and she is planning a restaurant sampling in November at the Interlaken Inn in Salisbury.
Large fundraising events take a lot of work and one of the noticeable differences between FISH and the Girl Scouts is that DiCara doesn’t have more than 1,200 volunteers at her disposal.
She hopes that her efforts will help provide answers to her biggest challenges at FISH: building a rainy-day fund and being able to give employees raises, which they have gone without for years.
She’ll also try to make the shelter more of a family atmosphere. She has seen some success. There was an older gentlemen who had been a resident for months. He had been quiet and kept to himself. DiCara described him as a curmudgeon.
When the residents gathered for Thanksgiving dinner, the older man walked up to DiCara and hugged her.
“He said, ‘Thank you for having a staff that really cares about us,’” DiCara said. “It was a defining moment.”
ontact Bruno Matarazzo Jr. at bmatarazzo@repam. com or on Twitter @RA_BrunoJr.
Her first year at FISH has brought changes to the organization. She’s applied for grants that have helped pay for a walk-in freezer, a gaspowered generator, Christmas toys for teenagers, new bedding and an emergency fund that she can dip into when quarterly payments from the state come later than expected.
A few times this year, she worried about making payroll when payments from the state Department of Housing arrived late.
It costs about $620,000 to operate FISH, with most of that money, $476,000, going toward the cost of operating the homeless shelter, according to the latest available IRS 990 forms from 2012. The shelter served about 141 individuals last year, including 32 children. Last year, the food pantry distributed 120,000 total meals to 568 families that included 2,696 individuals, DiCara said.
“When you think of the number of people under one roof that have been impacted by this modest little agency, it’s so impressive,” DiCara said.
FISH is in a home that is close to 100 years old and has always had a connection to providing people a warm place to stay.
It was the home of Charles W. Volkman, a member of prominent Torrington family whose relative owned the former Germania Hotel on East Main Street, now home to Bachi’s restaurant, said Mark McEachern of the Torrington Historical Society. In the 1940s and 1950s, the home was operated by Mrs. E.N. Ney who rented furnished rooms.
Now the home is packed with beds and tables and every square inch of space and closet has some purpose, or three. The rooms are set up like dormitories with men on the second floor and women and children on the first, with everyone sleeping on metal bunk beds. It has the feel of communal living at first glance but a sense of family quickly emerges. There are Bibles on most night stands and photographs decorate a mirror in one of the rooms.
DiCara walks around like a proud mother as she shows off the shelter, the food pantry and conference room.
She knows all of the clients in the shelter and their story.
“It’s a wonderful, wonderful support group family feel here ... I always tell them: ‘This is a blip on your radar. We’re hoping you’ll be out there living independently in the future.’” DiCara didn’t expect to be in this position at FISH. She always thought she’d retire from the Girl Scouts, but when a massive restructuring merged all of the councils in the state as one, DiCara’s position was eliminated. She said she never thought about going after the top Girl Scouts job in the state, not only because of its size but because all of the unhappy people that would be left in the wake of the organization’s restructuring.
Steven Caruso, president of FISH’s board of directors, first asked her if she’d be interested in the position. She thought about it for a few months, until she ultimately decided she was ready for the challenge.
Along with the grants, DiCara is working to expand FISH’s revenue base, including its fundraising. She sent out a simple Christmas card to supporters and that brought in about $15,000, and she is planning a restaurant sampling in November at the Interlaken Inn in Salisbury.
Large fundraising events take a lot of work and one of the noticeable differences between FISH and the Girl Scouts is that DiCara doesn’t have more than 1,200 volunteers at her disposal.
She hopes that her efforts will help provide answers to her biggest challenges at FISH: building a rainy-day fund and being able to give employees raises, which they have gone without for years.
She’ll also try to make the shelter more of a family atmosphere. She has seen some success. There was an older gentlemen who had been a resident for months. He had been quiet and kept to himself. DiCara described him as a curmudgeon.
When the residents gathered for Thanksgiving dinner, the older man walked up to DiCara and hugged her.
“He said, ‘Thank you for having a staff that really cares about us,’” DiCara said. “It was a defining moment.”
ontact Bruno Matarazzo Jr. at bmatarazzo@repam. com or on Twitter @RA_BrunoJr.
