MV Community Services is honored to announce the naming and dedication of its Early
Childhood Center as the Paul & Sandra Pimentel Early Childhood Center at a joyful ceremony
and public announcement of an historic gift by Jim and Susan Swartz on the evening of June 26, 2024. The $2 million tribute gift is part of the MV Community Services “Space to THRIVE” campaign that is underway to rebuild its campus for the future.
In making this tribute gift in honor of the Pimentels, Jim Swartz said, “I have known Paul and Sandra since early days in college. Paul was my roommate and he and Sandra were high school sweethearts. They enjoyed their life together, lived it fully and never stopped giving back.” He went on to explain, “Martha’s Vineyard Community Services was always a priority project. They loved the Vineyard and loved helping this foundational organization.”
A nurse and engineer respectively, Sandra Pimentel and the late Paul Pimentel each served on the MVCS Board for three consecutive terms, spanning nearly two decades. Adds Jim, “It is a great privilege for Susan and I to honor them with the naming of this Paul & Sandra Pimentel Early Childhood Center as a core piece of the MVCS campus of the future.”
The newly-named Early Childhood Center opened in 2021, replacing the old childcare center with a newly-constructed facility as part of MVCS’s strategic plan to rebuild its aging campus. MVCS is continuing its campus transformation with plans to replace its maze of aging buildings with a comprehensive, two-story Main Community Service Center that provides a universally accessible, sustainable and flexible space for care. In the words of Board member and Campaign Chair Gary Foster, “As the need for our services increases, we owe our Island community a
modern, safe and environmentally sound place to seek treatment. This is a generational investment in all of our futures so that family and friends in need have access to care year round.”
MVCS CEO Beth Folcarelli also announced the recent, official designation of MV Community Services as one of 30 Community Behavioral Health Centers in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at a time of great need for mental health services, substance use recovery and other programs. Today, Dr. Folcarelli recalls the lessons provided by MV Community Services Founder Dr. Milton Mazer in his 1976 book, People and Predicaments : “To live in a community is to have a personal stake in its development, a common destiny with its members.” Says Dr. Folcarelli, “At this time of transformation at MV Community Services, how grateful we are to have the examples of the Pimentel and Swartz families as Island leaders invested in our common destiny.”