It’s hard to imagine what Nashua would be like if the Rev. Robert “Odie” Odierna had not come to the Church of the Good Shepherd 26 years ago.

“So much has changed in terms of the Episcopal Church and this community since the mid-1980s,” he said.

The most public of those changes happened in 2003 when the Rev. Gene Robinson, Odierna’s best friend from his seminary days, was consecrated bishop for the Diocese of New Hampshire, becoming the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop.

“I’m proud to
say my parish did
not blink an eye
when Gene became bishop,” said Odierna, 64, who’s known to everybody as “Rev. Odie.”

“When I first came here, we were the first Episcopal church to start an integrity group made up of homosexuals and non-homosexuals who supported gay people – especially when it came to them feeling welcome in our church.

“I’m happy to say it disbanded several years later because we simply didn’t need it anymore. Everyone is treated equally. I’m proud of that.”

He’s also proud that since he came to Nashua, the church membership has grown from 350 to 500 households.

What also changed since he arrived is the increase of poverty in the Nashua area.

In 1982, four years before Odierna came to the church, the number of those seeking financial help at the doors of the Church of the Good Shepherd was staggering, he said.

“The church was overwhelmed by the amount of people in financial crisis looking for help,” he said.

At the time, the church rector, the Rev. Robert Schenkel, and administrative staff member Carl Swenson established an emergency assistance program with 10 percent –
$20,000 – of the church’s annual budget. When Odierna took over as rector in 1986, he said, “There was still a revolving door, same people seeking help. The average person coming in was a single mother in her early 20s with two or three children, making $100 to $200 a week. They were the new poor in our society: the working poor. We were committed to breaking the chain of poverty. So our vision was to have a one-stop place where people in need could go to get help from all aspects of the community – religious organizations, as well as local business and government.”

In 1987, the Nashua Pastoral Care Center – now called the Front Door Agency – was established as a nonprofit, nondenominational agency. Its goal: helping people with basic needs “by providing direction and educational opportunities as they transition from crisis to self-sufficiency,” according to the agency’s literature.

It’s that education portion about which Odierna feels the strongest.

“One of my convictions is that this kind of change doesn’t happen without education,” he said.

Those in the agency’s transitional housing program live in the program’s apartments for two years, but are required to go through parenting classes and counseling and are challenged to achieve a higher level of education than when they entered the program.

The formula seems to have worked. While Pastoral Care started with a board of a few people, mostly clergy, it now has a board of directors made up of 25 members of the community. The budget has grown from $50,000 to more than $1 million, and it facilities have spread from four apartments to five transitional housing buildings able to house 27 families in transition at one time.

The agency also created an interest-free security deposit loan program for the needy, which now serves as a model for a similar state program.

“We’re just very lucky that the vision of what we had hit the public at a time when the community responded to it,” Odierna said. “We couldn’t have done any of this by ourselves. Frankly, I’m humbled and shocked how quickly and enthusiastically this church and this community responded to the needs of those in poverty. It’s amazing.”

In addition to his job as church rector, and founder of the Front Door Agency, Odierna has served as a president and treasurer of the Front Door board and currently sits on its finance, personnel, penny drive and long-range planning committees. He also has been a member of Rotary International since 1978.

Odierna was the recipient of the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce Volunteer of the Year Award in 2005 and recipient of the Greater Nashua United Way Community Service Award in 2011.

He is also a college and high school soccer coach, a high school baseball umpire, an overall sports enthusiast and a proud New York Yankees fan.

Odierna has been married to his wife, Heidi, for 12 years and has three grown children from a previous marriage.