McAuliffe set to retire from county post
By Steve Herring
Published in News on May 4, 2015 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
Eryn McAuliffe, right, Wayne County Services on Aging director, takes a break during her busy day to talk with Arthemise Keiffer about her retirement and move to Florida to help her father.
Eryn McAuliffe will retire this month as director of Wayne County Services on Aging in order to move to Cape Coral, Fla., to care for her elderly father.
Mrs. McAuliffe said she is "very conflicted" about the move because she loves the area, but that the community is supportive of her decision.
"It was a very difficult decision to leave, but in my heart I know I am doing the right thing," she said.
When the senior citizens tell her they understand or they did the same for their parents, "it really helps," she said.
"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve the seniors of Wayne County," she said. "They are some of the kindest and most giving people I have ever met. I feel very close to our seniors and will miss them terribly.
"There is absolutely no way our programs could have succeeded without the countless hours our volunteers have given to our program. They save the county over $160,000 a year by donating their time. I am eternally grateful for the gift of their support."
People have been asking her who will be the next director.
"I don't know, but I trust their judgment," she said. I feel like both (County Manager) Mr. (George) Wood and (Assistant County Manager) Mr. (Tommy) Burns are very concerned for the seniors. I think that they will do their homework. I think they will do their very best to get a replacement.
Wood said the job is being advertised, but that he did not know how quickly it could be filled.
Paula Edwards, the agency's in-home aide supervisor, has been named interim director until the position can be filled.
Mrs. McAuliffe called her staff "the best in the world."
"They have had my back so many times, and I can't begin to thank them," she said. "My staff has become my close friends. You can't work side by side for years without developing strong bonds. They are experienced and dedicated so I know our programs will continue with or without me."
A native of Massachusetts, Mrs. McAuliffe, 57, said that while growing up her family moved several times, and she had never considered herself to be from a specific place.
The moving continued after she married Larry McAuliffe, before they settled in Wayne County about a decade ago -- what she calls "10 wonderful years."
"I am very grateful to everyone," she said. "It has really been an honor. I moved a lot, and one thing that has really impressed me in this community is how giving everyone is.
"The whole community works together and takes care of each other. You don't find that everywhere you live. Wayne County is a special place in that way."
Mrs. McAuliffe will not move until after May 11 so that she can participate in the Silver Arts Follies.
Mrs. McAuliffe has a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in human development. When she moved to Goldsboro one of the first things she wanted to do was to learn about the services on aging.
"That was my field always," she said. "Since I was 16 I have worked with seniors."
She visited the former senior center site in the old bank building downtown where she talked with then-director Louise Phillips.
"I think just luck, or coincidence or fate, whatever you want to call it -- within a week or two they had an opening," she said. "She thought of me and she hired me. I have been in Wayne County ever since. It was just a couple of months after I moved here."
Mrs. McAuliffe said the new senior center has been both her biggest challenge and biggest accomplishment.
"Getting it built first of all, and then moving into it, I just had no clue of the response we would get from the community and the number of seniors," she said. "We have had over 2,000 seniors join. Our activity level I would say has about tripled. Yet our staffing hasn't tripled, and we are trying to meet demand without the budget growing. That has been the biggest challenge.
"It has also been the biggest reward. Also the changing the face of Services on Aging. You know people have an attitude about programs for seniors. When I talk to them a lot of them would think the senior center is a nursing home. People don't understand. Now I think the message has gotten out that it is a vibrant place -- it is more like a social club or recreational club along with the social services and human services that we supply."
However, the biggest change in the field is the growth of the senior citizen population, she said.
"They call it the silver tsunami," she said. "I don't think people understand yet what they are going to encounter with the numbers of people that are getting older and the demand for service. I don't know what we are going to do."
She recalls a presentation by the former head of the state's Division of Aging.
"He basically said that the numbers are such that the government is not going to be able to do it all," she said. "It is going to take communities and families and churches and everything. I think that is the biggest change, and it is just starting."