CHAPEL HILL – Chapel Hill and Carrboro’s Interfaith-Council for Social Service has said goodbye to their executive director of 17 years, Chris Moran.

The Inter-Faith Council has been around since 1963, and its goals are to provide shelter, food, direct services, advocacy and information to people in need.

Moran, who was with the IFC for a total of 29 years, made the decision to retire due to medical reasons.  We spoke with the interim executive director, John Dorward, about the lasting impact Moran left on the agency.

“Chris has been the driving force of the IFC since he got here, and it’s been wonderful.  He has grown the agency; he has done some magnificent things throughout the community, so he will be missed,” Dorward says.

Dorward and Moran have worked together for the last 10 years, and Dorward is confident that the transition between executive directors will be a smooth one, although Moran’s impact won’t easily be replaced.

“Hopefully I’m up to that task. Those are some big shoes to fill but I’ll do my best to be able to do that. We have an active board of directors, and I will step in for a period of time as the board figures out what they will do moving forward,” Dorward says.

“We’re in the middle of a so-far very successful capital campaign to build a new community house, and certainly Chris and I worked on that a lot together over the last few years, so we’re just taking care of business and moving forward,” he says.