With the exit of Milan Bhatt, the former of executive director of Mamaroneck’s Community Resource Center—a local nonprofit providing assistance to immigrant families in the area—a shift toward new faces and a more collaborative structure will begin.
While Bhatt’s decision to leave the center last month to take the helm as assistant deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor left a vacancy in the center’s leadership, according to Jirandy Martinez—now co-executive director of the local nonprofit—the vacancy could work to the group’s benefit.
“We have two executive directors and a deputy director, we’ve never done that before,” Martinez said. “It’s going to make our work more collaborative.”
The Community Resource Center, located on 134 Center Ave. in Mamaroneck, provides a myriad of services to primarily Hispanic and Latino immigrants navigating the job market in addition to providing social work to 3,500 adults and children in the region.
According to the last available U.S. Census information from 2014, Hispanics or Latinos comprise 18 percent of the village’s population, making it an outlier amongst most other municipalities in the Westchester County.
According to Martinez, between her and her colleagues Gail Vidales and Janet Rolon—co-executive director and deputy director, respectively—all three have worked with the center before, with a collective 20 years of experience between them.
This familiarity with both one another and the center, which was founded in 1998, will be a strength going forward, Martinez explained.
Faces aren’t the only thing new with the center, according to Rolon. With new leadership, she told the Review, also comes new possibilities.
“We need stronger advocacy for low-wage workers that are exploited,” said Rolon, who is transitioning from an administrative role to a more hands-on one in the worker’s center.
To advance that goal, Rolon explained, she plans to forge better relations with leaders—both religious and governmental—across Westchester County.
Despite the new dynamic, the goal of the center and its new leadership, according to Martinez, remains the same.
“Our mission is still ensuring that immigrants be treated with respect,” she told the Review. “While we have new leadership, those are the things that we advocate for every day.”
