Jennie Adamczyk

Executive Director, Providence Ministries

She Hears the Cries of the Poor and Speaks Up for Them

Jennie Adamczyk
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging

They called it ‘Fashion for Compassion.’

This was a fundraiser staged by Holyoke-based Providence Ministries for the Needy (PMN). Area ‘celebrities’ would stroll down a runway modeling clothes from area stores, with proceeds from ticket sales benefiting the nonprofit, which provides services ranging from a soup kitchen to sober homes for men.

Jennie Adamczyk was working for Ross Insurance, handling sales and marketing, and, through her work to bolster the agency’s social-media profile, she had reached that ‘celebrity’ status and was asked, along with her boss at Ross, to become one of the models.

So she did, sporting some offerings from Old Navy, and, in the process, getting to know some of the leaders at PMN and learning much more about its multi-faceted mission. She became intrigued, and soon she would get far more involved.

Fast-forwarding quite a bit (we’ll go back in more detail later), she became its executive director five years ago and commenced what could be called a turnaround for the agency, greatly improving morale among staff members, creating an even sharper focus on its mission, and nurturing a culture of caring.

“I’ve always tried to lead by example here — ‘this is how I want you talk to people, this is how I want you to engage with people.’ Everyone gets treated with dignity and respect,” said Adamczyk, who firmly believes that she and her staff members embody the spirit of Sr. Margaret McCleary, SP, founder of PMN, an agency affiliated with and sponsored by the Sisters of Providence.

“We model ourselves after Sister Margaret: if you see a need, you meet that need to the best of your ability,” she said. “And there’s no judgment. It’s not our job to decide if someone is worthy of help; that’s not what we do. We make sure that they’re fed, their stomachs are full, and we send them on their way. That is the attitude we take across all our programs, and it comes from her.”

We talked with Sr. Margaret, who described Adamczyk as the right person in the right place at the right time.

“She’s a wonderful administrator, but more than that, she has a courageous spirit,” she said. “This is needed when advocating for the least among us. Jennie hears the cries of the poor and speaks up for them and embraces them always with respect and dignity.”

Sr. Mary Caritas, SP, who served on the board of PMN for many years before recently stepping aside, agreed.

“She was never trained for the job she’s in, but she’s a natural. She took over at a time when we needed a real turnaround, and I’m very proud of the way she’s done that. She came into her own very quickly, and she’s just a natural leader,” she said, citing, as one example, how Adamczyk stepped forward when the city of Holyoke needed a pop-up warming shelter and converted the chapel in the former convent that serves as home to many PMN programs for that purpose.

“She takes people off the street like that when it’s cold, and there’s discipline, there’s love, and respect, but people have to abide by the rules,” Sr. Caritas went on. “And, for the most part, people do that willingly because there’s so much love and concern for who they are.”

“We model ourselves after Sister Margaret: if you see a need, you meet that need to the best of your ability. And there’s no judgment. It’s not our job to decide if someone is worthy of help; that’s not what we do.”

Adamczyk described her work as “challenging, exhausting, and fulfilling,” essentially because of the constituencies being served and the circumstances under which they come to Providence Ministries for help.

“You’re working in an environment where you never, ever see anyone at their best,” she explained. “People are coming in, and they’re depressed, they’re hungry, they’re financially crippled, they have an abuse history … the list goes on and on.

“No one’s at their best, and that takes a toll,” she went on. “But if we can instill a little bit of hope, a little bit of joy into the people we serve, then it’s all worth it.”

This is the attitude she brings to her work, the attitude she has instilled in her staff, the attitude that permeates this agency. And for making it so prevalent, so ingrained in the fabric of PMN, Adamczyk is truly a Difference Maker.

A Perfect Match

As she talked about her not-so-subtle career change, going from insurance sales and marketing to being the program manager at Providence Ministries for the Needy, Adamczyk said that, on many levels, and to most people, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Jennie Adamczyk says she patterns her approach to managing Providence Ministries after its founder, Sr. Margaret McCleary (right).

Indeed, this was a lateral move. The salary wasn’t any higher, and the benefits were no better. But deep down, she knew this move was one she needed to make, personally and professionally.

“It felt right, like I was supposed to be here,” she told BusinessWest. “It felt like home — this is where I’m supposed to be — and that this mission is what I’m supposed to be doing. There was an overwhelming sense of peace being here; I felt that this is where God wanted me to be.”

Flashing back to her participation in Fashion for Compassion, Adamczyk said that, soon thereafter, the director at Providence Ministries asked her to join the agency’s fundraising committee, which she did, helping to create an enduring fundraiser called Retro Game Night, at which participants take part in old classics like the Match Game, Password, Name That Tune, and others.

Success in that realm led that same executive director to ask Adamczyk to become program director of PMN, an agency she knew about but had never visited. In fact, she practically had to ask for directions because she hadn’t been to that section of Holyoke, even though she lived in the city.

She was soon promoted to associate director when the director went out on maternity leave. And when that individual left, she became interim director, and then director when the candidate initially awarded that position did not pan out.

“She’s a wonderful administrator, but more than that, she has a courageous spirit. This is needed when advocating for the least among us. Jennie hears the cries of the poor and speaks up for them and embraces them always with respect and dignity.”

Today, Adamczyk leads the many programs at PMN, which fall into two categories — life-preserving and life-changing. The former includes Kate’s Kitchen, which served 74,000 people last year, and has seen demand of its services rise amid inflation and other economic woes; Margaret’s Pantry, which distributed 2.7 million pounds of food last year and has likewise seen demand for its services soar; St. Jude’s Clothing Center; and foodWorks@Kate’s Kitchen, a culinary training program that offers unemployed and underemployed individuals job training in the culinary field.

Meanwhile, the latter includes three sober houses for men, Loreto House, Broderick House, and McCleary Manor.

In addition, there is that pop-up warming shelter, a unique facility to say the least, and one of many programs in the former convent, which now, thanks to Adamczyk, also houses the agency’s administrative offices — before, they were at McCleary Manor, behind Providence Hospital — a move that speaks to her approach to this agency and its mission.

“When I first came here, I requested that my office be down here, because how can you run the programs if you’re not where the programs are?” she said, adding that all staff is at the Hamilton Street facility, and board meetings are staged there as well.

Warming to Her Caring Approach

Administering the agency’s programs is what Adamczyk does for a living. How she and her staff administer them is what makes her a Difference Maker.

As she talked about the ‘how’ element to her work, she started by saying, “I’m not corporate,” and returned to her thoughts about her approach and guiding philosophy, echoing that of Sr. Margaret McCleary.

“I tend to act when there’s a need, much like Sr. Margaret would have,” she said, adding that she doesn’t always follow all the policies and procedures when adding or amending a program. “That’s sometimes difficult to do in this kind of world; sometimes you just need to act and make a decision.”

Jennie Adamczyk with staff members, from left: Michael Clark, facilities manager; Stephanie Trombley, marketing coordinator; and Axel Fontanez, housing manager.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging

Such was the case when she decided that Kate’s Kitchen would serve dinner in addition to lunch — because the need was (and is) there, and so was the infrastructure.

“We were already serving lunch, we had the staff … it just seemed like a no-brainer to open the doors for dinner as well,” she said, adding that this mindset guides her in everything she does, and in every program within PMN.

The pop-up warming shelter — open when the temperature dips below 10 degrees or the wind chill falls below zero, and with a capacity for 25 beds and more if need arises, which it often does — is another example.

It’s not your typical shelter in most respects — everything from allowing married couples to stay together to providing hot showers; from making popcorn and hot chocolate for the guests and popping in a movie to providing fresh clothes and food.

“Our job with the pop-up shelter is not to rehabilitate anyone,” Adamczyk explained. “A lot of them are coming in and using; they will actively detox with us through the evening, but they’d rather be sick than be out in the cold.

“We had a mother and her autistic son stay with us this last stretch of open nights,” she went on. “They came to us in the morning and said, ‘we want to thank you for opening because we would have died in our tent last night, it was so cold; I’m afraid we wouldn’t have woken up.’

As for the movies, they’re part of larger efforts to provide those who need the shelter “a moment of feeling normal; it doesn’t feel like they’re not seen,” she explained.

“I’ve never myself experienced that, but I can only imagine that walking through a day and feeling as if no one sees you — and if they do, it’s a negative connotation — would be pretty heavy,” she continued. “So we try to be as loving and positive as we can those shelter nights.”

Meanwhile, operation and staffing of this shelter speaks to the way Adamczyk has improved morale at PMN and created a culture of not only giving back, but going perhaps above and beyond. Indeed, there isn’t a separate staff for the shelter, she explained, adding that regular staff who volunteer to work there do so knowing they go straight from that detail to their regular job.

“I have many staff that are going to work overnight and still have their day job in the morning,” she said. “They are giving of their time, energy, and resources to meet the needs of these people. They say they do it because I do it.”

Bottom Line

Adamczyk likes to say she’s a Protestant living in a Catholic world.

She recalled that, when she reminded of Sr. Caritas of this, she jokingly responded, “well, everyone is flawed in some way.”

She certainly doesn’t consider it a flaw that, on occasion, she may not follow all the rules or procedures when adding a program or a service. Like Sr. Margaret, when Adamczyk sees a need, she tries to meet it.

That makes her the right manager for PMN — and also a Difference Maker.