Interim Leader for Shelter Programs
- April 18th 2025
- People
Barbara Crider
Photo: York County Community Action
By Lee Burnett
The longtime head of York County Community Action is taking over interim leadership of York County Shelter Programs.
Barbara Crider assumes leadership in the wake of the resignation of Megan Gean Gendron, who is leaving the agency after five-plus years as executive director. Gendron’s last day of work was Friday, April 18.
During Crider’s 12-year tenure at YCCAC, the anti-poverty agency mobilized to help people through the 2008 recession, opened Nasson Health, and mobilized again during Covid, delivering food and medicine, conducting vaccine clinics, and managing a testing site.
Prior to her tenure with YCCAC, Crider worked as a lawyer, representing primarily victims of domestic violence in court. She is the founder and first director of the Penquis Law Project and is the recipient of several awards, including the Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service and the Robert M. Howes Visionary Award.
Gendron said it was time for her to move on. “I did not make this decision lightly and would not leave if I did not feel as strongly as I do that it is the best thing for myself and my family,” she wrote in a post on the agency’s Facebook page. “It has been an honor of a lifetime to serve York County Shelter Programs as the executive director.”
The agency is a primary resource for Sanford’s unhoused population. It runs emergency shelters in Alfred and Sanford as well as programs in mental health, substance abuse, job skills, food distribution, and lunch service. It owns and manages 130 apartments in York County.
Funding services for unhoused people has long been a challenge. Last year, the agency lost a bid to staff a warming center in Sanford, one year after it was launched.
Gendron thanked supporters of YCSP. “Your support has been a bright spot during pretty dark times in homeless services. Please know that I will continue the fight to bring more funding into shelters, and perhaps I can be a little less careful about what is said now that I will be on the outside!” she wrote.
She added, “Please continue to do whatever is possible to ensure that folks in York County have access to these critical services.”
