PAUL FEENEY:  

PAUL FEENEY Dracut High School '65 ⦁ "Subdeacon Paul Feeney: I was born in Lowell, MA on 01/25/1948. I Grew up in the Collinsville Section of Dracut, MA, at the corner of Elm St. and 1826 Lakeview Ave. I Attended Collinsville School, Parker Ave. School, the Old DHS in Dracut Center, & DHS. ⦁ I was VP & President of the DHS Student Council, Manager of the DHS Varsity Football Team, Basketball, Team & Baseball Team. (4 Varsity Letters!) Capt. of the Debating Team. Dracut Rep. to the Mass Boys State in 1964, Dracut Rep. to the State House Government Day in 1965. Treasurer of St Mary's CYO, and DJ for 6 years at our various school dances. ⦁ All this prepared me to become a worker, soldier, monk, hermit, a parish pastoral minister & director of religious education, husband of a saintly woman, father of two wonderful kids, grand dad, shelter director, outreach social worker, community organizer & founder of free medical & dental clinics, a low income community thrift store, a public access television station, an electronics recycling non-profit, a play ground rebuilding project, a family social services resource center, and a large federally funded wellness and prevention program. ⦁ During all of this I became an American Russian Orthodox Catholic Christian, started a campus ministry at Dartmouth College, collaborated with Dartmouth's Tucker Foundation to increase shelter space for homeless singles in our region, become ordained, and worked with a lot of foriegn students from Eastern Europe & the Mediteranean. ⦁ While in the U.S. Army, I lived in West Germany for two & a half years and travelled it and Western Europe extensively. So, London, Paris (7 trips), Chartes, Riems, Strassbourg, Amesterdam, Frankfurt, Cologne, Manheim, Heidleburg, Mainz, Baden-Baden, Saarbruken, and the wine producing river valleys of the Rhine, Mein, Saar, & Neckar Rivers were well known to me. Belgium, the Swiss Alps & Swiss Cities are no strangers to me. I've been all over Italy with two major trips to Rome, Crete, Athens, Glyphada, from Lille throughout France to Marseilles and Nice. I've had numerous visits to the Austrian Tyrol & Alps, Insbruck, & Salzburg, Barvaria, with Munich (Muchen), Garmish, Herren-Chimsee, Berchtesgarten and the Eagles Nest (Adlerhoff). I have visited Mad Ludwig"s Neuswanstein Castle in Fussen close to Austria, a half a dozen times. ⦁ For the better part of a year, I lived in a French Catholic Trappist-Cistercian Monastic Community at Abbaye Sainte Marie du Mont in Godesvelde, Nord, France, on the French Flanders side of the Belgian Boarder, close to the City of Poppering, Belgium. As a foreign monk I got various kinds of work assignments, working occasionally in their cheese & butter factory, helping the cook, bagging potatoes for market, reforesting te mountainside overlooking Dunkirk's propose superhighway and helping run the laundry for a community of 90+ monks & lots of visitors to their retreat house. I was really sad to leave to come back to the U.S.A., but that was the plan. ⦁ In the States, I've lived in Washington State, Colorado at Snowmass Abbey, in Missouri at Ava Abbey, S.C. at Mepkin Abbey, KC, MO as a pre-seminary student, 37 years in VT, a few years in N.H. I've also been to San Diego, Capistrano, LA, SF & Oakland as a tourist & to visit relatives. Chicago many times to visit relatives and see the sights. Up & down the East Coast I travelled with my family to NYC, N.J., Delaware, Maryland, N.C., & Georgia. I had to go to Washington, D.C. & NO, LA for week long work related conferences, and of course vacation visits to Canada, Montreal & Quebec City with the family. We've also vacationed in Orlando and surrounding environs for 9 days out of a 21 day road trip through the Blue Ridge, Colonial Williamsburg on July 4th, Yorktown, Jamestown, Amish Country, Strasburg, PA & Scranton, PA for the Railroad museums, and of course to Gettysburg, PA. to learn about the Civil War & pray for those beloved dead who rest there. We've spent a number of summer vacations at Wells, York & Kennebunkport, ME (Mother Mary is a beach comber) and at Lake George, NY. (I'm a mountain lake person). More recently we, as empty nesters, we have been going to Rangely Lake, ME, for relaxation, beauty, serenity, and the Narrow Gauge RR. museum in Phillips. Wherever we we went our kids had a ball, so it was all worth it. The Homeless Shelter we ran was in an 1820's farm house that got major repairs every July, so we had clear out for vacations at that time. After we built new buildings in 2003, we were no longer limited to just July. ⦁ FROM MY "LINKED IN" PROFILE: ⦁ CURRENTLY: RETIRED ORTHODOX CLERGY, WORCESTER, MA Currently Retired and enjoying time to pursue personal interests and family Prior to retirement my employment included: I. U.S.ARMY CHAPLAINS ASSISTANT,2ND GENERAL HOSPITAL, LANDSTHUL,GERMANY 1969-1971 II. CATHOLIC TRAPPIST MONK (4 years) & CARTHUSIAN HERMIT CLOISTER MONK & SEMINARIAN (7 years). During my last few years as a Carthusian Igot very sick, and after some surgeries had to leave the monastic life since is was beyond what my health could support. So, once out of the monastery I had to use my seminary education to support myself and get my bearings. III. PASTORAL MINISTER, HOSPITAL MINISTER, RELIGIOUS EDUCATION DIRECTOR & SPIRITUAL GROWTH DIRECTOR FOR THE NEWPORT, NH & SUNAPEE, NH ROMAN CATHOIC VERY RURAL PARISHES. I started this out trying to become a parish priest, and this was part of my pastoral intership to give that vocation a try, after a year of it I found it was hopelessly lonely and made me miserable. Having told the Bishop it wasn't for me, he asked me to stay on as a lay pastoral minister, with the understanding that I was pobably going to marry. During this period, I met my wife, Mary, we courted, became engaged and got married, and since both of us were in our mid to late 30's, tried to start a family. As best we can figure it, we conceived our Julia-Maria on Christmas Day of 1982. We got this bizzare note in the mail from our matron of honor at our wedding. In it she said she had a dream of us on Christmas Night holding our newborn baby girl! And so it was! Our son John-Paul, came a couple years later. Meanwhile we had beencalled by a group in White River Jct, VT, to become their social ministers at a homeless shelter they were starting, so off we went and began our life's work in Septembeer of 1983, Mary was 9 month pregnant and due at the end of the month. Fools rush in where angels dare to tread, but God was with us, watching over us, so we landed on our feet rather than our heads. The rest is history... IV. UPPER VALLEY HAVEN HOMELESS SHELTER, INC., an ecumenical interdenominational & interfaith social ministry founded by a local charismatic ecumenical prayergroup that included large numbers of my spirituality couse students. I serve at various times as Homeless Shelter Director & Associate Director, & finally, Consultant-Weekend Supervisor from September !, 1983-December 31, 2014 (31 years 4 months) The place grew from an old historical farmstead, to two ultra-modern architect designed facilities, one for samilies & one for singles. We got to live in a beautiful coustom built house our neighbors had built and occupied until old age overtook them. So, we ended up with a three building campus on one of the main drags of WRJ in old Taft Ave. neighborhood. We also ran the local emergency foodshelf & social service center. My wife, Mary, worked there every day for the entire time and we lived at the shelter in two diffent sets of digs for about 20 years of this time. For the first five years I was full time, but without any benefits for our family and kids, so I became part time, and took full time jobs outside the shelter but related to its work. V. SEVCA, HUMAN SERVICES SOCIAL WORKER SOUTHEAST VERMONT COMMUNITY ACTION, INC. September 1986-August 1996 (10 years) Outreach Social Worker 6 years & Outreach Services Director 2 years at SEVCA: aka SOUTH EASTERN VT COMMUNITY ACTION.inc a. . Professional Skill Sets: Crisis Case Management & Emergency Services, Comprehensive case Management, Advocacy, Assessment, & Referral to all Human Services, Family Development Services (trainer & supervisor) SOCIAL SECURITY DISABLITY & RETIREMENT, & SSI APPLICACTIONS DEVELOPMENT AND ADVOCACY, DISABILITY DETERMINATION CASE MANAGEMENT, DEVELOPMENT & ADVOCACY. b. Seven Years as Fuel Advocate, four years as Co-Chair of the Vermont Agency of Human Services LIHEAP Fuel Policy Advisory Board.. c. 15 years as Chair of the Training and Certification Committee of the VT Family Economic Development Council, INC., and Cheif Examiner for the VT Family Develoment Certifications. d. DIRECTOR, MT. ASCUTNEY HOSPITAL'S WINDSOR, VT COMMUNITY HEALTH INITIATIVE of Mt Ascutney Hospital & Health Center, 9 years, 1. SKILL SETS: 2. Community Organizing for wellness and prevention programs for four school districts, 3. Program Development & Implementation, 4. Established a Comprehensive Free Health Clinic, 5...Expand for more