THE CHARLOTTE WHITE CENTER AND RICHARD BROWN CELEBRATE 30 YEARS

March 5 th of 2009 marks a significant benchmark for the Charlotte White Center and its CEO, Richard M. Brown. Both the agency and Mr. Brown will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of the Charlotte White Center and Mr. Brown’s role as its only CEO.

The agency, which provides residential, day treatment, and outpatient counseling and numerous community support services for adults and children with behavioral health issues or intellectual and cognitive disabilities, began thirty years ago as a single day program with four staff serving fifteen consumers. Now the agency provides services to over seven hundred people per month and over two thousand people per year in over thirty distinct services.

In the summer of 1978 Charlotte White, a devout Methodist and former state legislator, from Guilford Maine, became concerned over the closure of a day program which had operated for three years serving people with mental illness or mental retardation. Using her network of friends and supporters she started a movement to get funding for a new center based day treatment program. A small group of concerned citizens joined her in this effort. They hired Richard M Brown on February 14, 1979 to direct the opening of the center.

Mr. Brown and a group of volunteers worked all through the next few weeks to renovate and adapt the former florist shop located in the bottom floor of the Masonic Temple Building to provide a new day treatment center. At the opening ceremonies on March 5 th, Charlotte White and Richard Brown cut the ribbon opening up a new era of services for people facing serious life challenges that has grown remarkably over the past three decades. Charlotte remarked at that ceremony that she wanted to, “do something good up here in Piscataquis for people who were a little less fortunate than others.”

For the first year, Charlotte White served as the first chairperson of the Board of Directors. Since that time there have been a number of other prestigious board members which included two of Charlotte White’s daughters, Betsey Cousins and Mary Lo Shahawy who both served in the role of Board Chair.

The Charlotte White Center is a non-profit, “mission driven,” charitable agency dedicated to serving people with mental health and developmental needs throughout the central Maine area. The agency has grown from a small service agency to become a major contributor to social services and healthcare in a six county area including Piscataquis, Penobscot, Somerset, Hancock, Kennebec, and Waldo counties. The Charlotte White Center provides stable employment to over four hundred and fifty workers. The agency contributes over eight million dollars in payroll and another two million dollars in benefits into the surrounding communities.

Mr. Brown, who is the only person still remaining from the original staff, noted that the success of the Charlotte White Center began with the reputation Charlotte White’s name conveyed that gave us instant recognition statewide in the early days of the agency’s growth. The continued success, however, has relied on the incredible effort, dedication, and excellent teamwork of the staff, board members, and consumer groups working together through the years to remain focused on a mission to convey respect and empowerment to all people.

Mr. Brown went on to note that, “While the economic challenges we are facing nationally and statewide are negatively affecting non-profits across all domains the Charlotte White Center continues to thrive due to the creativity, adaptability, flexibility and hard work of all those involved in this amazing success story.”

In summary, Mr. Brown noted, “I have been given a great gift to have served this agency, and all these wonderful people, in this role for thirty years. I am confident as we face the troubled times of the near future that the resiliency we have consistently demonstrated time and again to meet difficult challenges will once again see us through. We have a great staff and a mission to serve others that remains unchanged from that first cold day in March of 1979 when we opened the door to a small day treatment center that has expanded to include so many, many more people in need.”