Cargile retires, Farrar to take helm at Community Survival Center

Date: 4/4/2011

April 4, 2011

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

INDIAN ORCHARD — On a Thursday morning, the Community Survival Center on Main Street is buzzing with activity. The highly organized area in the rear of the center is where people drop off donations for the center's Bridge of Hope Thrift Shop, while volunteers sort through the clothing and household items.

The food pantry area's shelves are carefully stacked with boxes and cans of non-perishables. There is a hive-like feel to the center and the bee metaphor seems appropriate with all of the action taking place in the tight space.

Presiding over this activity since 1991 has been is Chris Cargile, the center's executive director. She has recently announced her retirement, which will be effective in June. Her replacement will be Holly Farrar, the former social services director of the Springfield Salvation Army.

When asked what the biggest change has been for the center since she started as a volunteer in 1988, Cargile replied, "When I first started what we did in a year [providing services] we now do in a month."

The center helped 45,000 individuals in 2010. Its food pantry specifically serves Wilbraham, Ludlow and Indian Orchard. It's Senior Outreach Program helps about 200 senior households throughout the area, with no geographic restrictions, Cargile explained.

The center is the only food assistance program in the greater Springfield area that is open five days a week. It also offers clothing and household items to people in need.

The center was founded in 1983 as an arm of the Open Pantry. It became its own agency in 1986. The center has relied on donations from the community and Cargile said that while there has been stabilization in the number of people looking for services, many of the people who used to donate are seeking help from the center.

She also explained the center is seeing more people who "are working, but can't make ends meet."

The 200 senior households receiving help is "the most upsetting number I have," she added.

The center was first located in Ludlow and moved to the former St. Aloysius School in Indian Orchard in 1997. Cargile oversaw the center's last move to its own building in 2005.

Farrar acknowledged that with a change of leadership "there is a great deal of trepidation." She has been visiting people in the center's service area to understand their needs and to assure them the center's work will go forward.

Farrar has worked more than 25 years in social services and she said, "The most important thing I've learned is that nobody wants to be in this situation. It's not a choice. It takes just one thing going wrong.

"Under this roof a rare thing happens," she continued. "People from all socio-economic backgrounds talk to each other."

Cargile added that Farrar is no stranger to the center as she was a Women Infants and Children community outreach coordinator who visited monthly for the past 10 years.

"She has all of my trust, all of my faith," Cargile said.

With her retirement, Cargile said she is planning to spend time with her four grandchildren and to assist her husband with his business. The desire to help others is strong, though, and she plans to become a volunteer at the Mary Walsh Elementary School near her home.