September 11, 2025 • 12 mins
We spoke with Executive Director, Amanda Meeson and Director of Development, John Chamberlain about Sterling Community Center an organization that creates impactful and inclusive programs and services that engage and cultivate a thriving community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. Thank you so much for listening to Community Access.
My guests this morning are Amanda Mason, she is executive
director from the Sterling Community Center, and also John Chamberlain,
he's development director from there. Good morning, Good morning. For
those who don't know about the Sterling Community Center, how
did it come about?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ooh deep question. We are a ninety three year old
community center that was gifted to the town of Stratford
in nineteen thirty two from the Sterling family, very popular
family in Connecticut. Sterling law firms. Sterling a lot of
buildings at Yale, so we're honored to be part of
that legacy. And it was gifted to be used as
(00:43):
a community center and to welcome all and to be
the house where the community can come together.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Beautiful and is that your mission?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, it has expanded obviously over this time. We are
everything from childcare to summercam to early childhood learning sports.
We have a really robust food pantry and social services support.
We have community groups that use our facilities and call
this place home. So there's really a little bit of
(01:12):
everything for all ages and stages of the residents who
live here.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Let's talk about some of those programs yeah, so we are.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Last Friday we shut down summer camp. I know, we're
all soaking up these last bits of summer. We had
over three hundred kids a day between the ages of
three and our teen leaders who are kind of counselors
in training. So it is an incredibly immerse experience where
the campers take over the entire house and our turf facility,
(01:42):
airing gym in the back, and all over the grounds,
and for anyone that drives by, it's just so vibrant
and exciting. Tomorrow, where we are housed, we serve Stratford
and the greater region as well, So tomorrow we will
welcome one hundred and ten kiddos off the bus for
after school programs. Soccer starts in just a few weeks,
(02:03):
where we'll see another six hundred youth athletes and coaches
out on the field. So we are both you know,
kind of closing down summer and gearing up for the
school year at this point.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And if you're following along and you'd like to hear
more about these programs and services, you can go to
their website at Sterlingcommunitycenter dot org. We were talking about
the food pantry. How many people do you serve.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, we serve upwards of four thousand community members a year,
and that is you know, both individuals and families with
food support. We also have a Food for Kids program
that does weekly backpacks on Fridays for children in our
school district that may struggle with food security on the
weekends and born out of COVID. We have a Senior
(02:49):
Delivery program for seniors in our community who are potentially
physically limited, or home bound or isolated in some way.
We do food delivery to them twice a month through
our Senior Services Department in our town. And in addition,
we do lots of celebratory resource sharing too. This is
just this last week, we gave away hundreds of backpacks
(03:12):
and notebooks and pens and pencils and all the things
to make sure our kiddos are ready for a successful
school year.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
One other piece of our picture that I think is
kind of the heartbeat of so much of the work
that we do is those food pantry programs. The deliveries
and opportunities like that where we give resources a way
to folks that need them are really fueled by a
ton of volunteerisms. And that's just one way that they
engage with the community and they're an essential piece to
(03:42):
us of getting all this work done.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
That's wonderful too. You mentioned athletics. Is that for just
the youth or for the adults.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, it's predominantly youth, but you know, as adults we
want to stay active. So pickleball has been very popular here.
We have karate and yoga that also serves adults. We
have an adult flag football league, and so we're working
to keep the grown ups active as well.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
We get a lot of a ton of volunteer coaches
out there on the sideline for the yeah, support we do.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, John's right to share that element. You know, we
talk about the people that we impact in these programs
and services, but there are hundreds of volunteers between the
programs and the pantry and the things we're talking about
that make it all possible, and they're having an experience too, right.
We're igniting that sense of community service and responsibility and
(04:39):
we're really proud of proud of that as well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
So there's a positive impact on the volunteers and the
people who participate in the programs.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
You also have scholarships, yes, you know, Strafford and a
good amount of our region is really rich in diversity,
both both culturally and.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Isshoe economically here and so as the Sterling family, you know, Envision,
we want to make sure that we can welcome all,
and so we privately fundrate. A lot of these fundraisers
that we do are fueling that engine to be able
to ensure that financial barriers are never a limitation. Sorry,
financial limitations are never a barrier to participating here, and
(05:24):
so we want to make sure that we can welcome all,
whether that's summer camp or on the soccer field, or
our early childhood learning with our preschool. We want to
be somewhere that everyone can be.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Are there any other programs or services you'd like to
mention that we haven't talked about.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I think the other thing that I always heel the
piece of this place is there's a real spirit of
innovation in response to the community. So, you know, we
do try out new things and some of those continue.
So we have a Dungeons and Dragons club and on
clubs that are both going strong a few years in
(06:03):
at this point that really came out of young people's
interests or you know, us finding the right volunteer to
give it a shot and this fall we're doing a
soap making course that one for kids and one for adults.
That's a new attempt for us. We'll see how that goes.
But I think we you know, in the pantry, food deliveries,
(06:26):
throughout the way that we work, we try to keep
a pulse on how we can continue to meet needs
and continue to work with the community. And so I
think that's that's an ongoing effort.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, and to be a place where we can bring
people together. You know, you think about this really increasingly
disconnected world that we're living in, where a good amount
of our time is behind a screen of some kind.
And so even the Dungeons and Dragons Club, you know,
you go to the third floor of this beautiful Victorian
mansion and there's kids middle school age, you know, living
(07:03):
their best life on a Thursday night, and their parents
are there too. And so we want to be a
place for people convene where we're building those community connections
and we can create a thriving community is part of
our vision and mission.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, community is everything. I recently interviewed a heart surgeon,
and as you know, heart disease is the number one
killer of people. But he said that loneliness is the
number one contributor, and I thought, wow, this is wonderful.
No matter what age you are, you can find community
and you won't feel lonely.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, and even the deliveries that John and I spoke about,
you know, when you think about some of those seniors,
how isolated they are. So even the phone call the
well check right to call a senior and say how's
it going? You know, Oh, you won't believe it, but
new oval Pasa donated some ravioli to us this week.
Would you like some in your bag?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I love you know, this this engine where we're able
to have a social lane for them and then and
then when we drop off the bag, in many cases
there's another interaction. And we hope to grow that program
to also include some shore service where let's say the
the woman that we're you know, serving her ac taken
(08:23):
out of her window in October or September, right, and
that we can go in and have a cup of
coffee and take care of that as well, so that
we're reducing the isolation with that vulnerable population. For sure.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You have a wonderful event that's coming up. It's the
twelfth annual down in dirty five k. Where's this taking place?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So it's out at Short Beach, which is a park
right along the waterline in Stratford if folks aren't familiar with.
It's a beautiful park, cut beach and sports fields and
a part three golf course and we set up this
five k run for the This is the twelve time
we're doing it all throughout the park. So the course
(09:03):
takes people around along the sand and over along the
outside fence, and as they're making their way through the course,
they'll encounter over eighteen different obstacles. So at one place
in the middle of sports fields, they might be flipping
big truck tires across the lawn, big kegs from Two
(09:28):
Roads Brewery. You know, we've got a wall for people
to climb and a giant velcrow soccer dart board where kids,
you know, runners can kick and try to see if
they can hit the bullseye. And we also because it
is a fundraiser for our programs, we use it as
an opportunity. So you know, one of the obstacles, they
(09:49):
go around a rotary in the park with a shopping
cart full of food and we call that the pantry scramble.
As a kind of a either a reminder or an
introduction if there are folks who don't know us well
to what we do all year round. So all in all,
it's just a really fun day and we welcome runners
(10:10):
ages eight and up. So my son who's ten is
going to be running it for the third year this.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Year, and my mom, who's seventy will also be running it.
Something for everybody.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
We crossed their fingers and hope for great weather because
that's the only thing we can't control. But it's a
fun day and a pretty unique experience. We'd like to say.
If you know of things like tough Mutter and Spartan runs,
it's a little bit like that, but definitely not as intense.
So there's no razor wire or nothing's on fire at
our race.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Well, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, But and it's dirty because of the beach.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Well, there's a mud pit at one point. There is
going to be some slime at this year's run, which
is a new thing we're trying out. There's usually some
foams somewhere in the course, so different things and the
o there are some of the obstacles that take place
on the beach. People do kind of have to get
into the sands to do what they're required to do
(11:09):
at that stop. So there's one that's called the Sandy
Crab Walk, and you can't do that one without coming
out with a fair amount of beach on you.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Oh, that is fantastic. I'm speaking with Amanda Meeson, executive
director of the Sterling Community Center and also John Chamberlain,
development director. The event is September sixth. It's the twelfth
annual Down in Dirty five k at Short Beach in Stratford.
If you'd like to sponsor, volunteer, make a donation, please
go to Sterlingcommunitycenter dot org.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, so, if folks are interested in coming out of
the down and Dirty, they can go online and register
all the way up until September fifth, which is the
day before the race, and they also can walk up
if they decided they don't want to do it at
the last minute.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I want to thank you both for being here and
for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Thank you. I fend
Good morning. Thank you so much for listening to Community Access.
My guests this morning are Amanda Mason, she is executive
director from the Sterling Community Center, and also John Chamberlain,
he's development director from there. Good morning, Good morning. For
those who don't know about the Sterling Community Center, how
did it come about?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ooh deep question. We are a ninety three year old
community center that was gifted to the town of Stratford
in nineteen thirty two from the Sterling family, very popular
family in Connecticut. Sterling law firms. Sterling a lot of
buildings at Yale, so we're honored to be part of
that legacy. And it was gifted to be used as
(00:43):
a community center and to welcome all and to be
the house where the community can come together.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Beautiful and is that your mission?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, it has expanded obviously over this time. We are
everything from childcare to summercam to early childhood learning sports.
We have a really robust food pantry and social services support.
We have community groups that use our facilities and call
this place home. So there's really a little bit of
(01:12):
everything for all ages and stages of the residents who
live here.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Let's talk about some of those programs yeah, so we are.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Last Friday we shut down summer camp. I know, we're
all soaking up these last bits of summer. We had
over three hundred kids a day between the ages of
three and our teen leaders who are kind of counselors
in training. So it is an incredibly immerse experience where
the campers take over the entire house and our turf facility,
(01:42):
airing gym in the back, and all over the grounds,
and for anyone that drives by, it's just so vibrant
and exciting. Tomorrow, where we are housed, we serve Stratford
and the greater region as well, So tomorrow we will
welcome one hundred and ten kiddos off the bus for
after school programs. Soccer starts in just a few weeks,
(02:03):
where we'll see another six hundred youth athletes and coaches
out on the field. So we are both you know,
kind of closing down summer and gearing up for the
school year at this point.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
And if you're following along and you'd like to hear
more about these programs and services, you can go to
their website at Sterlingcommunitycenter dot org. We were talking about
the food pantry. How many people do you serve.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, we serve upwards of four thousand community members a year,
and that is you know, both individuals and families with
food support. We also have a Food for Kids program
that does weekly backpacks on Fridays for children in our
school district that may struggle with food security on the
weekends and born out of COVID. We have a Senior
(02:49):
Delivery program for seniors in our community who are potentially
physically limited, or home bound or isolated in some way.
We do food delivery to them twice a month through
our Senior Services Department in our town. And in addition,
we do lots of celebratory resource sharing too. This is
just this last week, we gave away hundreds of backpacks
(03:12):
and notebooks and pens and pencils and all the things
to make sure our kiddos are ready for a successful
school year.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
One other piece of our picture that I think is
kind of the heartbeat of so much of the work
that we do is those food pantry programs. The deliveries
and opportunities like that where we give resources a way
to folks that need them are really fueled by a
ton of volunteerisms. And that's just one way that they
engage with the community and they're an essential piece to
(03:42):
us of getting all this work done.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
That's wonderful too. You mentioned athletics. Is that for just
the youth or for the adults.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, it's predominantly youth, but you know, as adults we
want to stay active. So pickleball has been very popular here.
We have karate and yoga that also serves adults. We
have an adult flag football league, and so we're working
to keep the grown ups active as well.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
We get a lot of a ton of volunteer coaches
out there on the sideline for the yeah, support we do.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, John's right to share that element. You know, we
talk about the people that we impact in these programs
and services, but there are hundreds of volunteers between the
programs and the pantry and the things we're talking about
that make it all possible, and they're having an experience too, right.
We're igniting that sense of community service and responsibility and
(04:39):
we're really proud of proud of that as well.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
So there's a positive impact on the volunteers and the
people who participate in the programs.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Absolutely.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
You also have scholarships, yes, you know, Strafford and a
good amount of our region is really rich in diversity,
both both culturally and.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Isshoe economically here and so as the Sterling family, you know, Envision,
we want to make sure that we can welcome all,
and so we privately fundrate. A lot of these fundraisers
that we do are fueling that engine to be able
to ensure that financial barriers are never a limitation. Sorry,
financial limitations are never a barrier to participating here, and
(05:24):
so we want to make sure that we can welcome all,
whether that's summer camp or on the soccer field, or
our early childhood learning with our preschool. We want to
be somewhere that everyone can be.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Are there any other programs or services you'd like to
mention that we haven't talked about.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I think the other thing that I always heel the
piece of this place is there's a real spirit of
innovation in response to the community. So, you know, we
do try out new things and some of those continue.
So we have a Dungeons and Dragons club and on
clubs that are both going strong a few years in
(06:03):
at this point that really came out of young people's
interests or you know, us finding the right volunteer to
give it a shot and this fall we're doing a
soap making course that one for kids and one for adults.
That's a new attempt for us. We'll see how that goes.
But I think we you know, in the pantry, food deliveries,
(06:26):
throughout the way that we work, we try to keep
a pulse on how we can continue to meet needs
and continue to work with the community. And so I
think that's that's an ongoing effort.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, and to be a place where we can bring
people together. You know, you think about this really increasingly
disconnected world that we're living in, where a good amount
of our time is behind a screen of some kind.
And so even the Dungeons and Dragons Club, you know,
you go to the third floor of this beautiful Victorian
mansion and there's kids middle school age, you know, living
(07:03):
their best life on a Thursday night, and their parents
are there too. And so we want to be a
place for people convene where we're building those community connections
and we can create a thriving community is part of
our vision and mission.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Well, community is everything. I recently interviewed a heart surgeon,
and as you know, heart disease is the number one
killer of people. But he said that loneliness is the
number one contributor, and I thought, wow, this is wonderful.
No matter what age you are, you can find community
and you won't feel lonely.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, and even the deliveries that John and I spoke about,
you know, when you think about some of those seniors,
how isolated they are. So even the phone call the
well check right to call a senior and say how's
it going? You know, Oh, you won't believe it, but
new oval Pasa donated some ravioli to us this week.
Would you like some in your bag?
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (07:59):
I love you know, this this engine where we're able
to have a social lane for them and then and
then when we drop off the bag, in many cases
there's another interaction. And we hope to grow that program
to also include some shore service where let's say the
the woman that we're you know, serving her ac taken
(08:23):
out of her window in October or September, right, and
that we can go in and have a cup of
coffee and take care of that as well, so that
we're reducing the isolation with that vulnerable population. For sure.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
You have a wonderful event that's coming up. It's the
twelfth annual down in dirty five k. Where's this taking place?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So it's out at Short Beach, which is a park
right along the waterline in Stratford if folks aren't familiar with.
It's a beautiful park, cut beach and sports fields and
a part three golf course and we set up this
five k run for the This is the twelve time
we're doing it all throughout the park. So the course
(09:03):
takes people around along the sand and over along the
outside fence, and as they're making their way through the course,
they'll encounter over eighteen different obstacles. So at one place
in the middle of sports fields, they might be flipping
big truck tires across the lawn, big kegs from Two
(09:28):
Roads Brewery. You know, we've got a wall for people
to climb and a giant velcrow soccer dart board where kids,
you know, runners can kick and try to see if
they can hit the bullseye. And we also because it
is a fundraiser for our programs, we use it as
an opportunity. So you know, one of the obstacles, they
(09:49):
go around a rotary in the park with a shopping
cart full of food and we call that the pantry scramble.
As a kind of a either a reminder or an
introduction if there are folks who don't know us well
to what we do all year round. So all in all,
it's just a really fun day and we welcome runners
(10:10):
ages eight and up. So my son who's ten is
going to be running it for the third year this.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Year, and my mom, who's seventy will also be running it.
Something for everybody.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
We crossed their fingers and hope for great weather because
that's the only thing we can't control. But it's a
fun day and a pretty unique experience. We'd like to say.
If you know of things like tough Mutter and Spartan runs,
it's a little bit like that, but definitely not as intense.
So there's no razor wire or nothing's on fire at
our race.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Well, thank goodness.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
It's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, But and it's dirty because of the beach.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Well, there's a mud pit at one point. There is
going to be some slime at this year's run, which
is a new thing we're trying out. There's usually some
foams somewhere in the course, so different things and the
o there are some of the obstacles that take place
on the beach. People do kind of have to get
into the sands to do what they're required to do
(11:09):
at that stop. So there's one that's called the Sandy
Crab Walk, and you can't do that one without coming
out with a fair amount of beach on you.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
Oh, that is fantastic. I'm speaking with Amanda Meeson, executive
director of the Sterling Community Center and also John Chamberlain,
development director. The event is September sixth. It's the twelfth
annual Down in Dirty five k at Short Beach in Stratford.
If you'd like to sponsor, volunteer, make a donation, please
go to Sterlingcommunitycenter dot org.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, so, if folks are interested in coming out of
the down and Dirty, they can go online and register
all the way up until September fifth, which is the
day before the race, and they also can walk up
if they decided they don't want to do it at
the last minute.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
I want to thank you both for being here and
for serving the community.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Thank you. I fend
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