Southern Frontenac Community Services Appoints New Executive Director

Jun 28, 2023

Heather Rogers has taken on the role of Executive Director (ED) at Southern Frontenac Community Services at a critical time for the agency.

Rogers has been doing the job on an interim basis when Ken Foster left the agency back in May, after coming on last September to replace David Townsend, who retired at that time.

She was formally named Executive Director at the agency's Annual General Meeting, at the Storrington Hall last week.

“Heather is the ideal candidate for SFCS’s next chapter of growth and success,” said Greg Fisher, SFCS board chair. “She has the proven skills and passion required for this role and we are excited for her to take the lead.

A long-time resident of South Frontenac, Rogers has been with SFCS since 2015. Since 2015, she has served in a number of roles within the agency, giving her a strong background in the various services provided by SFCS.

She was actually slated for the ED role last year when Townsend was preparing to retire. However, at that time she decided to remain in her role as Director of Operations, instead of taking on the extra responsibility..

“In the months before David retired, I realised that my family obligations were such that I would not be able to take on that kind of leadership role, so I remained in the job that I had already been doing,” she said in a phone interview this week.

Her circumstances have changed in the interim, and she is now ready for the new challenge at SFCS.

“I am proud to be a part of the SFCS team and honored to step into this role,” Rogers said. “The staff and volunteers are the most dedicated, compassionate, resilient people you'll ever meet. They give so much. I've seen firsthand why what we do here matters and how it benefits the people we serve. Bringing support to the people of this community and seeing that we can improve someone’s day—that’s why we do it.”

The agency is in the midst of a construction project, adding a much-needed addition to the Grace Centre to create a permanent home for the South Frontenac Food Bank and office space for agency staff. The food bank and offices have been located in portables for years.

While a lot of money has been raised for the project, the cost of construction has skyrocketed, and Rogers is wasting no time diving into her role, and navigating through the #BuildwithGrace capital campaign.

“The community, and the township, have been very generous already or we would not have been able to get this far and we are going to have to be creative to raise the rest,” she said. “It will be a significant challenge to get to the finish line of both the construction and the fundraising campaign, but it will bring a positive impact to us and to the community once it is done.”

Another aspect of the Executive Director job is to navigate the agency's relationship with its various funders and with other agencies in the region and the province as a whole.

“I am inheriting a good relationship with our funders, and maintaining that relationship, and our ongoing connections with a network of neighbouring agencies will be important as well.”

One thing that will be on the back burner, at least for a time, is finding a replacement for her role as operations manager.

“We will see how that develops. We are a team here, and we lean on each other a lot. Our board is very engaged as well.”