Anne Coyne retired once before. After 29 years in the U.S. Air Force, she had “maxed out” her career, she said. Now she’s ready to retire again after directing St. Martin de Porres Senior Center in Alexandria for five years.
Coyne grew up in New York and graduated from Rosary Academy. She earned a certificate in nursing and worked in an inner-city hospital in New York City for several years before joining the Air Force. In nearly three decades in the military, Coyne went from being a young nurse who worked in emergency rooms to a flight nurse on planes, progressed to administrator, and ended in Air Staff, an executive position at the Pentagon. Her assignments took her around the world. She was in Germany during the 9/11 attacks, and in the Philippines when the largest volcano eruption in decades occurred at Mount Pinatubo — just nine miles from the base where she was stationed. She had to evacuate a land covered in ash.
“I know what it feels like to be a refugee,” she said.
While in the Air Force, she married and started a family. She met her husband, also an Air Force service member, on her first assignment. The couple later married and had a daughter.
She spent nearly 12 years based in Virginia and grew roots in the diocese. After she retired from the Air Force in 2012, she began volunteering at her parish, Good Shepherd Church in Alexandria, but “Catholic Charities was always in the back of my mind,” she said.
A fellow parishioner suggested that Coyne check out Catholic Charities’ St. Martin de Porres Senior Center in Alexandria, where she could use her nursing skills. Coyne had heard of the center because her daughter, a student at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, volunteered there, serving meals and playing bingo with the clients.
Four years into her first retirement, she began volunteering at the center weekly, providing blood pressure checks, health screenings and education to the 50-60 clients who came on a typical day. She loved talking to the seniors.
“You were able to sit with them one on one and say, ‘tell me your story’ ” she said. “It was great, just wonderful.”
Toward the end of the year, the assistant director position opened up. Coyne applied and was accepted. The next year, 2017, she became program director.
As director, she has a staff of two and a team of volunteers. Every day is about serving the seniors who attend the center for meals, medical consultations, socializing, activities and fitness, and responding to whatever they need.
“Whatever I think I plan for (the day), it’s not necessarily that,” she joked. “It’s about the seniors and whatever comes to the door.”
The days are filled with fielding phone calls from people looking for assistance, setting up programs and planning excursions. But “no matter how tough the day is, I always felt like if I leave my office and sit down and talk with them, I stay connected and it’s always so refreshing,” she said.
Always looking for ways to improve services to the seniors, she started an ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) program for the center’s clients, who collectively speak nine languages. The program offers beginner, intermediate and more advanced language instruction. She also worked with The Catholic University of America in Washington to bring student nurses to the center to offer health screening and disease management classes.
As director, she’s guided the center through a lot of transitions and changes. In March 2020, the center closed due to the pandemic. Coyne quickly pivoted to calling seniors on the phone and delivering activity kits and meals.
“Being a senior center without walls, we went out to the community,” she said.
While the center was closed, she oversaw a nearly half-year renovation project that provided new painting and lighting, and soundproofed the facility.
During the next two years, the staff dealt with the disappointments of the pandemic. In August 2021, days before their planned reopening, the center was closed again. The center opened in November that year, only to close again in December due to another wave of COVID-19 cases. Finally in March 2022, the center opened and hasn’t closed since — although Coyne had to set up a satellite location for three weeks in May while the center’s bathrooms were renovated.
As she welcomed seniors back and transitioned the center back to normal operations, she initiated another project, one close to her heart. She planted a tree in memory of the 14 seniors who died during the pandemic.
In her second retirement, starting at the end of this month, she’s looking forward to some traveling with her husband, who retired in December. But she will miss the volunteers and staff at Catholic Charities and St. Martin’s, and of course the seniors.
“Anne’s dedication to the people she serves is remarkable, as is her witness to compassion in all things,” said Michael Horne, director of clinical services at Catholic Charities. “I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with her over the past five years and she will be greatly missed.”
“In so many ways, Anne represented the very best of Catholic Charities,” said Stephen Carratini, president of diocesan Catholic Charities. “She always carried out her responsibilities with great professional competence, a genuine compassion grounded in her love of God, and profound humility.”
Bartlett can be reached at [email protected].
