“I’m sort of taking it easy,” Joanne McGunagle said Monday morning.

That seemed uncharacteristic for McGunagle, who started her journey with Comprehensive Community Action Program (CCAP) 35 years ago. Today she is the Chief Executive Officer of the agency that has a $43 million budget and 360 employees. Last week she announced her retirement effective Jan. 2, 2025.

McGunagle said the early announcement is intended to give the agency the chance to conduct a search for her replacement, and once a candidate has been selected, she’s willing to work hand-in-hand with her successor.

For the moment, however, McGunagle has slowed down a bit following a knee replacement, which as it turned out freed up some time for her to talk about her career spent running and building programs to help people.

It all started her junior year at Rhode Island College.

“My love for sociology led me into this,” she said. Her sister Brenda suggested an internship at the Thornton Center where she spent the summer as a camp counselor. After graduation, she became a paid employee at the Fiskeville Neighborhood Center that served about 60 families. She did a lot of youth programming.

52 Pick-Up

Her organizational skills were quickly recognized and she was moved to CCAP’s main office as a social services coordinator where she ran the fuel assistance program. Her next step was director of social services and then executive director. That jump came in 1985 and McGunagle remembers being interviewed for the post by the 52-member board.

Fifty-two directors?

“Yes,” says McGunagle, explaining that the intent was to engage the community and neighborhood councils that feeds into the board of directors.

“Not everyone asked a question,” she says with a laugh. “CCAP has given me boundless gifts and rewards I never imagined. Professionally, with my team, we have created a system of care designed to provide services while focusing on poverty and the alleviation of it. Personally, I met my husband when creating housing at St. Matthew’s Church with CCAP. All my life milestones have involved CCAP at some level. I could never begin to give back to CCAP what it has given me.”

The McGunagles are the parents of two daughters — Anne, a clinical social worker and Madlyn, an attorney.

On Monday she boiled down the goal of CCAP: “to address poverty.” To do that, she has weaved a network of services that offer a continuum, from addressing food insecurity to health issues, and helping residents pay heating and electric bills.

During her tenure she has found meeting the needs increasingly complex, noting in particular, behavioral health care. The development of technology has also added a layer of issues as well as benefits. Referring to social media she feels it can provide too much information, especially to children and young adults who will measure their self-identity by the number of cyber responses they get.

“Kids have too much information” that can lead to “a lot of pressure and false expectations,” she said. As for the benefit of heightened communication, she marvels at how easy it has become to inform clients of new programs and opportunities.

Paul Salera, who has served as the executive director of Warwick-based Westbay Community Action for 21 years, admires “all she has done” and the help she’s given him “to roll into the director I am.”

Asked what characteristic he would single out to describe McGunagle, Salera said “empathy … she believes in her work and truly makes a difference.”

Westbay is about half the size of CCAP. He said the state’s seven Community Action agencies provide services in all of the state’s 39 cities and towns collectively impacting 200,000 Rhode Islanders annually.

McGunagle, who has a master’s degree in public administration from URI, is gifted at pulling together people and entities in her fight for the disadvantaged and poor. Her work crosses political divides.

When it comes to politics, she says, “I always try to stay neutral.”

Nonetheless, she is not hesitant to praise the state congressional delegation which understands and supports her work.

“They have always been there for the community,” she said.