PROFILE - Pat Lykins

Pat Lykins, our new Executive Director, brings a great deal of varied experience to the job. She has directed five other nonprofit human service organizations. For the last six years she has been the Director of Outreach at St. Francis United Methodist Church. She has done “helping” work all of her life.

“That is my love, trying to help people, trying to see ways we can assist and encourage them to have a better life,” she said.

She first heard about The Carying Place in a grocery store, soon after she moved to Cary to take the job at St. Francis in 2005. The lady behind her in line was enrolled in the Carying Place program at the time. “She went on and on about how it had turned her whole life around,” Pat said.

A few weeks later, she attended her first Cary Area Ministerial Association (CAMA) meeting, and the speaker was Mercedes Auger, speaking on her favorite topic, The Carying Place.

Through the years, in her work at St. Francis, she has referred people to The Carying Place, both those needing help and those who have things, time and money to donate. She believes The Carying Place is one of Cary’s hidden jewels.

“Coming to The Carying Place feels very much like the next step on my path”, she said. “Recently, part of my job has been working with the unemployed. They share similar needs with other families with whom I have worked who had limited income or education, families in transition due to battering or family breakups; life gets hard and hope is limited. I enjoy helping people who are in need and living in desperate situations to turn their lives around.” In The Carying Place, she looks forward to the opportunity to “intensively support the families and help to get them on a new path. I think it is going to be exciting.”

She knows that she will have a big learning curve. “I am going to need to learn how we are doing the whole process. I am going to have to ask a lot of questions,” she said. The first three areas of priority when she arrives on May 23 are fundraising, working with the staff and helping with the programs.

Lykins has her Master’s in Social Work (MSW) from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, with a concentration in administration. Her bachelors, also in Social Work and also from the University of Kentucky, is with a concentration on group work.

She also has two years of courses in Divinity School, which she took preparing for ordination as a Deacon in the United Methodist Church, received in 1997. “I am ordained to service as a Deacon, connecting the church to the world” she said.

“That is the kind of ministry I always wanted to do, the mission kind of thing--to get people out of the pew, and interested in the world and helping people in need,” she said. “I grew up as a poor kid, I know what poor feels like, I know when people are in need, how important it is to reach out to them and how much that sharing of love can help.”

Prior to the job at St. Francis, she was Executive Director for Robeson County Church and Community Center in Lumberton, supervising a staff of 15, providing services to people in need in North Carolina’s poorest county with the most cultural diversity. From 1999 to 2001 she served as a missionary in Argentina. She served in a villa (slum) and led worship in Spanish, ran a food pantry, and helped US work teams fund and build a new church. She also helped start a cottage industry for the women.

Other prior work experience includes Director of the YWCA of Wake County , Executive Director of Contact Durham, a 24 hour crisis line, Executive Director of the Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect Center in Dayton , Ohio and a clinical Social Worker in the area of child abuse and battered women in Battle Creek.

Coming to The Carying Place will continue her journey of helping others. “I am excited about what I can learn, and what I can share,” she said. “I came to the auction and was absolutely blown away at how wonderful it was, and how fantastic the organization was. I look forward to that already for next year.”

Lykins has two children, both daughters. The eldest, Jackee, is recruitment coordinator for the southeast for Bright Horizons, an international child care corporation. She lives in Raleigh with “my perfect grandchild, Jocelyn (Jo Jo) age 7, a first grader, an avid musician of all sorts, drums, keyboard, guitars, who says she is going to be the next Miley Cyrus.”

The younger daughter, Jessalyn, lives in Fayetteville and received her Masters in Social Work (MSW) at East Carolina University this May. Jessalyn does clinical social work with children and their families. She will be married in October to a career military man stationed at Fort Bragg, who is currently in Afghanistan.

Her husband, Dennis, is retired from the computer industry and real estate. Passionate about helping others and a background working with youth, he is excited about the Carying Place and its mission. He really enjoyed bidding at the auction, buying symphony tickets, wine, and other items.

In her spare time, Pat enjoys creating jewelry of all sorts and going craft fairs. Pat loves painting primarily in watercolor and is a fan of HGTV. She enjoys music and is an alto/contralto and initially went to college on a vocal music scholarship. “The first Social Work class changed everything”, she says. “What could be more fulfilling than helping others?”