OAK GROVE, KY (CHRISTIAN COUNTY NOW) – Melissa Lynch has served as director of the Oak Grove Community Center since 2017. She moved from Memphis to the Oak Grove area for military reasons and has loved the community ever since.
Lynch started at the center as a customer service representative and an intern director. She and her team of two see about 2,500 people each month. “We usually have 60 to 80 people come in a day depending on what is going on,” she said.
With new and old people filtering in and out of the center, Lynch explains that it is a tight-knit community. “We kind of know people by name or by situations or whether we have helped them in the past or not.”
When she started, her plan was to make Oak Grove healthy. “Not your lungs and heart kind of healthy,” explains Lynch. “Healthy meaning getting people on the right track on going to work, taking care of your kids, and not having to depend on any assistance, what I really like to do is help people.”
Helping others
Lynch attributes her love of helping people to her faith and her mom. “My mom does so much charity work, its just charity, charity, charity,” she said. Over the years, Lynch has joined in several organizations that do charity work. “I like the part where we can help someone up instead of just beating them down.”
At the center, she comes across all walks of life. “You can help those that want to be helped but some are just going to do the wrong thing,” Lynch said. At the end of the day, she looks forward to knowing she helped someone who needed it. “I tell people all the time if I had a dime for every story I have listened to I wouldn’t have to work,” she says jokingly.
In 2021, Lynch won the Christian County Woman of the Year Award. “It was the first time the award had ever been given out in Oak Grove,” Lynch said. “At one point I felt amazing and then stunned.”
With her continued success at the center, she is constantly thinking of ways to help her community. A lot of the program are staff collaborations, but Lynch has created her own, like the 50-Plus Young at Heart, which is a lunch-in for seniors.
Plans at the center
Coming up, the center plans to have some holiday events like the Toy Store. The Toy Store allows for parents to come in and shop for their children. “I don’t want any kid to wake up and not have something for Christmas,” Lynch said. The center plans to host more challenge events like the dodgeball event they had in early November.
Oak Grove Community Center will also be participating in the Oak Grove Christmas Parade with a decorated car.
Outside of serving at the center, Lynch is a mom of her three kids. “All three of my kids have graduated college and I am so proud of them,” she said. She also works with a nursing home ministry and visits those who don’t have family.
For more
The Oak Grove Community Center is at 1705 Thompsonville Lane, Oak Grove, and they can be reached at 270-640-7575. They are open Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-7 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m.