Joan Crawley

Story and photo
By DOUG HADDEN
Executive Editor

From riding the city’s “health van,” helping navigate the pitfalls of Medicare Part D or fighting the good bureaucratic fight in an era of shrinking resources, for more than two decades Joan Crawley has been on the battle lines when it comes helping seniors.

Now the longtime director of the Mathieu Senior Center says it’s time to pass the baton.

“I’m leaving,” Crawley acknowledged in an interview last month. “Aug. 8 is my last day. It will be 23 years in October. It’s my age and I’ve been here long enough,” she said. “It’s just time.”

Few would take the energetic, dynamic, trim, sharply-alert Crawley’s “age” as 69. And don’t expect her to just fade away.

“I’m going to be doing other things. I’m going to be able to pick and choose what I want to do,” with one goal to take on volunteer guardianships for seniors through R.I. Meals on Wheels.

“I’ve got 14 grandkids,” in Cumberland, Pawtucket and New York, noted Crawley, the wife of retired former Doyle administrative director Frank Crawley. “We already do a lot of things together and we’ll look forward to doing more.”

Crawley has been preparing for the transition at the Mathieu Center by mentoring her top assistant, Mary Lou Moran, who on June 9 was approved by city officials to succeed her as director, a job that pays in the upper-$50,000s range.

JOAN CRAWLEY, director of the Mathieu Senior

Center since 1991, will be leaving Aug. 8 after 23 years

working in elderly services for the city

“She’ll do a great job. She’s a great person,” Crawley praised Moran, with whom she has worked closely for several years. “I’ve been mentoring her for the last year so I’m really happy she’s going to get the position.”

It was in 1991 that Crawley came to head the agency, which provides seniors daily meals, van transportation, medical help, activities from line dancing to field trips, and advocates for their needs at the local, state and federal levels. After starting with the health van in 1985, Crawley also served as coordinator of city elderly services before becoming Mathieu director.

“It goes by so fast. The time has just flown. It was a hard decision to make. There’s never been a day where I didn’t want to come to work. You can really make a difference in people’s lives. You get more than you give. It’s very heartwarming,” she said.

When I first came here, it was me and a part time secretary. So I’ve been able to grow the senior center,” adding activities and programs. “And the biggest accomplishment is where we are today,” including the center’s recent five-year re-accreditation by the National Council on Aging through the National Institute for Senior Centers.

Among personal highlights, Crawley cited her 1995 selection, nominated by Gov. Bruce Sundlun, as a delegate to the White House Council on Aging. In 2005 she reprised that role when selected by Congressman Patrick Kennedy, and she was also his guest for the 2004 State of the Union address by President Bush. She also partnered the senior center with the University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy. In 2006, the R.I. Pharmacy Association granted her an award for her work with helping seniors implement the new Medicare Part D coverage.

She smiled that the award was the last thing she expected “because I was so vocal and critical and trying to assist clients” throughout the Part D implementation.

But that example of “persistence rewarded” could also be a motto for Crawley’s life. After finishing as a CPN from Our Lady of Fatima Nursing School, for several years she was a stay-at-home mom while raising her five children.

But getting a four-year degree remained an important goal, and in 2002 -- even while in the midst of the Mathieu Center’s first national accreditation process -- Crawley was awarded a bachelor of general studies degree from the Feinstein College of Continuing Education at Providence College.

“I graduated summa cum laude, which I was proud of,” she said. “That’s part of that Type A personality I have,” she laughed. “If I was going to do it, I had to put everything into it.”

Crawley said a lot of the senior center’s work in the community goes unnoticed by the general public, such as working with the police department as an advocate for seniors needing services for problems such as elderly abuse or self-neglect, or with fire and

ADVOCACY ROLE. Retiring Mathieu Senior Center Director

Joan Crawley confers with state Sen. Dan Issa during May

rally at the Statehouse by seniors protesting budget cuts

of their services.

rescue personnel who alert her to elderly people they find in need, such as having their home foreclosed on and nowhere to turn. She has also been called in by Housing and Code Enforcement officials for pet hoarding situations, which often indicate other problems.

“A large part of what we do is in the community and I don’t think people realize that,” she said.

Lately Crawley’s administative tasks have focused more on ways to make up for state budget cuts including elimination of the center’s shared community information specialist, an outreach worker linking seniors with needed services that she said is vital. Her temporary fix is to have that person straddle two jobs while seeking more funding.

“The over-85 group is the fastest growing group of people we have. We’re the focal point for all the senior service programs at the local, state and federal levels,” Crawley said. “Everything is different for every particular person,” with more than 6,000 people serviced last year.

“The thing that’s most disturbing to me is now they are de-institutionalizing the nursing homes when all the community-based programs to support them are being cut,” she said.

An increase in the cost to use the RIDE van, Crawley pointed out, can affect seniors’ ability to access adult day care, nutrition centers, and medical appointments from checkups to dialysis and cancer treatments.

“It’s not like they’re taking you out for a joy ride. Those are critical services,” Crawley said with her typical passion. “It’s just so disturbing. These people that require those services are just going to be so at risk. It’s just a really sad thing.”

Crawley said while there may be a good number of seniors who don’t require such intensity of services, “those aren’t the people we deal with, who can afford to pay for these things. Those are not the people I’m seeing. They’re digging into those savings to make ends meet every month. It’s very disheartening and everybody you talk to is feeling the same way.

“These are our poor people, our old people, our children. Don’t we have some kind of obligation to these people?”

Crawley’s family obligations, stemming from five grown children and the 14 grandchildren, will remain a constant focus, including their annual month-long summer beach house get-together. Also on the family agenda will be a three-week trip to the Canadian Rockies. “That’s what it’s all about, friends and family,” she said.

She and her husband are the parents of Kevin Crawley, a Pawtucket police officer; Michael Crawley, a retired Pawtucket firefighter; Marybeth Malley, a former physical education teacher now an at-home mom; Christopher Crawley, who works in the city recreation department; and Erin Cirello, a teacher in Providence. The 14 grandchildren range from 14 months to age 18.

“I have a lot of friends and a wonderful family. I’m sure I won’t be at a loss for a minute,” she said.

“I have a lot of faith. And I feel our lives are planned for us. You just have to be listening and I hope I’m listening. I’m not looking for another career of work. I just need something I can get my teeth into. I know I’ll enjoy it because I won’t do it if I don’t,” she said.