She sees needs and fills them; Meet Megan Quillinan, director of the Mechanicville Area Community Services Center

GETTING TO KNOW – See a need, fill a need; that’s what Megan Quillinan has been doing at the Mechanicville Area Community Services Center for the past two decades.

As executive director, she’s helped the non-profit become a point of connection in the community and provide an expanding list of services. MACSC offers child care, a food pantry and non-residential domestic violence services. It also partners with other organizations to bring in everything from mental health services to legal clinics. Located on South Main Street, MACSC serves around 6,000 people annually.

“We just keep adding as we see an opportunity and if it doesn’t work out, or the community doesn’t need it, then we move on to something else,” Quillinan said.

The Boston-area native attended Skidmore College, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in American Studies. After college, she and her husband moved around a bit before returning to the Capital Region, settling in Schaghticoke and raising four children.

She’s hands-on at MACSC and on any given day answers phones, helps in the food pantry, writes grants or coordinates new programming. She was recently awarded the 2022 state Senate Woman of Distinction for the 43rd Senate District by state Senator Daphne Jordan.

Earlier this week, The Gazette spoke with Quillinan about how she got her start and how MACSC has grown over the years.

Q: How did you get into this field?
A: I knew I’d do something with people. [After college] I worked at City Year which is a National AmeriCorps agency. I had done that when I got out of high school and I loved that job. Then, we moved back here and I just needed a job. I thought I’d be here six months.

I started out at the front desk — running the food pantry, and then, just by default, I moved up.

It’s really [about] the community, the untapped potential here. There’s just so much that gets missed here. It’s a great community but it’s a community that has some challenges that other places in Saratoga County don’t.

Q: It seems like you have a lot of different programs here. Can you tell me about how MACSC has grown over the years?
A: We started as a youth drop-in center by local parents in 1969. We were in the old YMCA building. Then they built this building in 1983 and we still have child care, summer camp and after-school drop, preschool and parenting groups. But we also have just grown into a place that meets the needs of the community. So we have a lot of food programs, which have been huge in the last two years.

We’ve had a nonresidential domestic violence program since 1997. We partner with the city and help plan and coordinate programs at the senior center.

Q: Are the programs open to anyone?
A: Everything we have is open to anybody. Child care currently is just school-aged. We’re on-site at the Mechanicville and Hoosic Valley schools.

We’re expanding. We’re [working to acquire] the buildings around us. So we’re hoping to see if there’s a way we could fit in child care for younger kids because there is very little for infants and toddlers [in the area].

Q: How have you worked to add programs with the limited space you have?
A: Senior [programs] are down at the senior center and child care is off-site at the two schools. We tried to just source out as much as we can.

Mechanicville is a great community. But there’s very little public transportation. We try to bring what we can here.

We’ve had legal clinics and free divorce and will clinics. Pre-COVID, [we did] WIC clinics, and facilitated health insurance enrollment. Mental health [services are] here once a week.

We bring what we can and partner with other community-based organizations. We’re not looking to duplicate, we’re just looking to add access and we’re not looking to do it alone. We’d like to get back into being able to do more like middle school-age kids, more workforce development, especially with teens. So we’re looking at how we can tie that into as we grow.

Q: What have been some of the most challenging aspects of your job?
A: Fundraising. We are largely funded through grants. We’re looking for ways to support programming that builds partnerships with companies and other agencies. But our budget is now over a million. When I started here, it was about $250,000 to $300,000. So we were doing it. We’re piecing it together.

Q: What have been the most rewarding aspects of the job?
A: The community. Being the first job for kids who used to come to child care [here]. Having been here long enough to watch the kids grow up and get to really know people.

It’s all about relationships — with staff and board and community. Watching people work together and watching everybody succeed. Watching people not need us anymore and be on the other side.

Q: Is there anything about the center that you feel people aren’t aware of or don’t understand?
A: People just don’t know we exist. Our other struggle is marketing and outreach. We’re small but we do a lot. We really try to be holistic about working with families and community.

Our motto is it takes a community. Nobody knows what’s coming. You don’t know if you’re going to need child care [or] if you’re going to need food [or] if something happens to your health and you need to figure out how to get health insurance and navigate new systems that you’ve never had to.

We view support as holistic resources for everybody, not just the completely down and out.

“Getting To Know …” is a weekly feature spotlighting people making a difference in the lives of others. If there’s someone you think we should feature, let us know by emailing us at [email protected]

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