About Us
Marriage Resource Center has two primary strategies to accomplish its goals:
- Establish a Community Marriage Policy for Frederick County in which pastors, priests and rabbis join together to strengthen marriages. We are the 196th such community in 42 states and 3 countries. (Our Policy has been established, and over 97 pastors have joined in signing that policy.)
- Establish a network of trained mentor couples that are available to help other couples to prepare for a life-long marriage, strengthen existing ones, and restore troubled marriages. (Presently, over 60 couples have been trained.)
These Mentors will help the couples in need to:
- Avoid a bad marriage before it begins
- Prepare couples for a lifelong marriage
- Enrich all existing marriages
- Restore troubled marriages
- Reconcile separated couples
- Help step-families to succeed
Other strategies we will utilize to attain our goals will include:
- Partner with other community organizations such as Head Start, Care Net, and others to provide relationship training for underprivileged, unwed parents to make marriage a viable alternative for the relationship.
- Provide our local business community with marriage relationship education tools that will increase the strength of employee families, thus boosting employee productivity and satisfaction with their work and their life in general.
- Provide premarital education classes and mentoring to every couple considering marriage in Frederick County.
- Provide and promote periodic top-quality marriage enrichment events locally at reasonable rates so all may attend. These events will cover topics such as communication skills, conflict resolution skills and financial management skills.
Our Executive Director, Robert J. Donk, and his wife Cathy
Bob spent most of his early years in the small, central New York town of Savannah. At the age of 15 he unexpectedly was introduced to a very pretty girl named Cathy at a high school dance. A few dances and then a few months later he found himself going steady, which lasted for the next 7 years until graduation from college and their marriage on June 10, 1967.
Bob & Cathy are the proud parents of 2 grown sons, with a wonderful daughter-in-law and 3 precious grandsons. There were some difficult times for the high school sweethearts that nearly resulted in the destruction of their marriage. Then, just at the right time, when they needed God the most, He sent them a wonderful mentor couple who led them into the saving of their souls and the saving of their marriage as well.
Because of their own marital difficulties, Bob was very excited when the Evangelical Ministerial Fellowship here in Frederick asked him to lead a committee to begin what is now the Marriage Resource Center of Frederick County. Since the founding in April 2005, Bob has established a Board of Directors, received community consensus for our Community Marriage Policy in Frederick County, established a training team that has trained over 50 mentor couples, received 501(C)3 IRS status as well as a Federal Capital Building grant to grow this organization.
Click here to read Bob and Cathy's full testimony.
Here are some of Bob’s comments regarding the 3 main mentoring areas:
- “Having been a pastor who used a pre-marital inventory to prepare couples for a life-long marriage, I have seen its importance. Cathy & I had no preparation for our marriage other than seven years of dating and the issues we should have discussed and resolved, caused many relationship problems later on.”
- “Through our early years of marriage we never attended a marriage strengthening event and so our relationship deteriorated over time like so many others.”
- “We have experienced first-hand the benefits of being mentored through difficult times.”
Our Governing Board and Its Structure
The Board of Directors for the Marriage Resource Center of Frederick County has adopted the "Policy Governance Model for Non-profit Organizations" developed by John Carver and Miriam Carver, as our model of governance. We believe it provides an excellent structure for board/staff discipline, leadership and accountability. Other local organizations using this model include the YMCA and Frederick County Public Schools.
This structure designates the population of Frederick County, Maryland as the moral equivalent to its "ownership". As such, our governing board acts as the on-site voice of that ownership and exists to represent and to speak for the interests of the owners.
The following individuals serve on our Board of Directors:
Brett Hess, Board Chairman |
Rev. Jonathan Switzer, Board Vice-Chairman |
Rachel Haffey, M.S. |
Rev. Alexander Hardy |
Dr. Daniel Haffey |
Bob Miller |
Kay Dallavalle |
We are also advised and supported by a wonderful group of congregational leaders and mentor couples who provide a wealth of experience and wisdom. By sharing their advice, perceptions and ideas, they greatly enhance our ability to provide the best service to every citizen of Frederick County. They also serve as very effective "verbal ambassadors" for the organization in our community.
