Wanted: 40 employees to bolster the wafer-thin staff at Community Bridges, an organization that provides support of all kinds to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“And that is just us,” said Ann Potoczak, the CEO of Community Bridges. “That’s not counting other vendors.”

The shortage of employees in a profession with high stress and low pay has not stopped Potoczak from dedicating her life to an altruistic endeavor.

That’s why Bob Lethbridge nominated her for Hometown Hero status, writing, “She rose steadily through the ranks to her current position of executive director.”

Potoczak has been the CEO for four years, beginning seven months after she filled in on an interim basis. It’s a job she didn’t set out to do, but after working at Community Bridges for 37 years, it was her only world left to conquer.

“I had done pretty much everything but working in the business office here,” Potoczak said. “This is the type of place where you get your feet wet and your hands dirty and help out where you can, do what we can to help.”

The agency reaches out to individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities, instilling confidence and independence into their lives to help them integrate easier into the community.

And for years, Potoczak was in the field, creating close, trusting relationships as she tried to build the best possible living conditions for her clients.

That could mean finding a family willing to take an individual into their home, after the person’s own family no longer felt capable of doing the job. It’s called Enhanced Family Care, and it’s a giant obstacle.

“The biggest challenge is if they need a place to live, finding a match or the right type of family, and also hiring staff,” Potoczak said. “Someone would leave their family home and live with another family who would be willing to work with you on whatever you need to be part of the community.”

Potoczak said her agency offers help in areas that many take for granted. Activities like setting up and managing a bank account may need to be explained. Also, assistance searching for a job may also be needed.

“It could be for people who are not able to do complex math or read complex things,” Potoczak said. “They learn how to do their own thing. It runs the gamut of people’s disabilities.”

The need for a support system grew after the Laconia State School closed for good in 1990, leaving Potoczak with the task of moving patients there to Merrimack County, Community Bridges’ central jurisdiction.

“We worked with teams in getting them reintegrated back into the community,” Potoczak said. “We began working with families who had developmental disabilities to help them find services in the community, as well as longtime services and working directly with individuals.”

Potoczak’s work in the field created bonds that remain important to her. She mentioned a particular case, a woman who lived on her own in downtown Concord but still needed some guidance to navigate through life.

Potoczak had the woman over for dinner and worked with her for 10 years, before the woman died from cancer in 1995.

“She was very endearing and she lived in Concord downtown and she became well known there, living independently in the community,” Potoczak said. “I walked her right through what she needed until she had cancer and passed away.”

Demoulas supermarket, so touched by the woman’s life and death, paid for her urn. Potoczak drove the urn up north, to a cemetery in Franconia. She brought her two small children along.

“We looked for the person who runs the cemetery,” Potoczak said. “He opened up the plot where her parents were buried. That brought her full circle with her parents. Most needed help early in life and lived downtown, and most never thought they would get that far.”

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