On March 24, the Botetourt Resource Center Inc. Board of Directors and President Melissa Lucas gave a reception at Mill Creek Baptist Church honoring the 18 years of dedication and service by Robyn Dobyns, past director and president.
Approximately 19 years ago, the Council of Community Services, Total Action Against Poverty, Blue Ridge Independent Living Center, League of Older Americans, Botetourt Health Department, Botetourt Social Services, and the Town of Buchanan recognized the need to establish a local-based assistance center to address the psychological and physical barriers which prevented rural citizens from getting the human services they needed. Together they hired Robyn Dobyns with a United Way Venture Grant to be the first director and creator of the Botetourt Resource Center.
Almost single handedly for the last 18 years Robyn has run the Botetourt Resource Center as the only full-time staff. Through her talent of leveraging resources, Robyn worked with the Town of Buchanan to provide a rent-free building to use as the center of operations and partners with 25 active area churches to facilitate crisis response for them. She has worked tirelessly to raise the necessary funding to operate the program while providing much needed services to those most in need who often fell through the cracks of existing programs. Robyn’s knowledge of resources is encyclopedic and she is the person many contact when they don’t know where to go for services. Through partnerships she has established with churches, civic organizations, businesses, agencies and other resources she has built a reputation of going the extra mile to connect Botetourt residents with the information, advocacy, referral and programs most needed in the community.
She is most proud of the Senior programs (small home repair, co-prescription assistance, fuel assistance, basic needs, recreation) she created with funding from the Community Foundation Serving Western Virginia, the BRC Inc. Interfaith Crisis Fuel Fund with donations from churches and the County-Wide Recycling Program to get home supplies, clothes, etc. to those who need them.
Robyn’s efforts and those of her dedicated partners have made Botetourt a better place to live. She continues to be a volunteer consultant to the BRC, Inc.
