VCS exec retires by year's end

NEW CITY — Deborah Cary Murnion, executive director at Volunteer Counseling Service of Rockland County, has announced her retirement as of Dec. 31. She has been with the organization for 15 years.

“We hate to lose Deborah,” Wylene Branton Wood, president of VCS Inc’s board of directors, said in the press release announcing Murnion’s retirememt, “but we are grateful for the time she has invested in the agency, and VCS is definitely stronger because of her excellent leadership.”

VCS, located in New City, is a family service agency that provides an array of services in Rockland County as well as in Orange and Westchester counties, including child abuse prevention programs, services to older adults and their families, counseling for victims of domestic violence and training and educational programs to address issues of racism and other forms of oppression. VCS recruits and trains lay volunteers to provide more than 85 percent of its services to the community.

In 2011 the VCS volunteer work force contributed approximately 75,000 hours of volunteer service.

Murnion, a resident of Bellvale, started her non-profit career in 1980 as the first employee of the Warwick Community Center, then known as Bandwagon. She started the counseling program at the center and in 1983 co-founded the Orange County Mediation Project.

In 1990, Murnion was appointed the director of the Orange County Youth Bureau by then County Executive Mary McPhillips.

The VCS Board of Directors is comprised of individuals who are dedicated to the agency’s mission of caring for families and individuals and who are committed to social justice.

For further information, visit www.vcs-inc.org.