As Senior Director at Episcopal Community Services, Rhena McClain oversees programs and services that have grown from serving 500 people annually to over 3,000, distributing 300,000 pounds of food this year alone while establishing ECS’ first community resource center. 

Beyond the impressive statistics, she’s raising two young adults who volunteer alongside their friends at her organization’s events, pursuing her bachelor’s degree at Peirce College this fall, and planning to launch a women’s support group—all while carrying forward the legacy of her late father who visited her daily during months in the NICU, encouraging her to “eat, eat, eat” to reach the required weight to go home, and now she consumes everything life has to offer.

Rhena McClain is a 2025 Philadelphia Family Women of Influence Award Winner

Philadelphia Family’s Women of Influence Awards celebrate exceptional women making significant impacts in our community. Rhena was nominated by her daughter, Danyelle McClain, and selected based on her achievements and dedication to creating positive change in her community. Each Women of Influence Award Winner has committed to support Family Focus Media’s core values. Together, we are committed to foster a sense of belonging and empowerment for all for all families. All backgrounds, races, genders, and sexual orientations are welcome and safe with us.

Beyond the awards, our Women of Influence Luncheons and Speed Networking Night attendees come together as our Women of Influence Network, a community fostering connections, collaboration, and mutual support. 

An Unconventional Path to Purpose

Rhena’s path to nonprofit leadership has been anything but  traditional . After working in healthcare for over a decade, including a role at Magellan Behavioral Health supporting people in mental health crises, she felt constrained by the system’s limitations. “The issues were connected to other real life challenges that individuals were facing that we really didn’t have the time to delve into,” she explains.

Then an entrepreneurial detour into culinary arts led to an invitation to apply for a position to an emergency housing program at Episcopal Community Services in 2014—in the kitchen, of all places. But it was exactly where she needed to be. What began as a job preparing meals quickly evolved into a calling, reigniting her passion for community work and setting her on the path to leadership within the organization.

“Even though I was responsible for meal service at the time, I got to see this wonderful organization of talented and committed individuals who had really been thoughtful about how they engaged participants,” Rhena recalls. “They were speaking my language. It was very inclusive and supportive and really leaned into supporting people with dignity, honoring their experience and expertise as it relates to their lives.”

From Kitchen to Leadership

What happened next shows how the right person in the right organization can spark extraordinary growth. Every role Rhena moved into at ECS was created specifically for her—from food services coordinator to residential services manager, assistant director, director, and finally senior director. Each role was newly designed to match the needs of the organization and the work Rhena cultivated and led.

“Each role I held was new to ECS,” she explains. Each position was an opportunity to learn and grow personally, professionally and to enhance programs and services to meet the needs of the people that we serve. “I was fortunate because the agency’s mission, vision, and values aligned with mine and I had the full support of my leadership team.”

Her organic rise reflects both Rhena’s capabilities and ECS’s willingness to evolve around talent—a partnership that would prove transformative for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable communities.

Building the First Community Resource Center

The pivot point came in 2020 while the city was shifting to a housing-first model, changing how ECS engaged with participants. Soon after, the pandemic hit, making congregate living unsafe. Rather than seeing these changes as setbacks, ECS saw this as an opportunity and began to reimagine what our West Philadelphia location could be with the community under Rhena’s leadership.

“ECS expanded its Rapid Re-housing program, transitioned families into stable housing and closed the Emergency Housing program, which gave us the opportunity to explore what services the community needed,” she explains. A 2021 community needs assessment in the Carroll Park and Haddington areas of West Philadelphia revealed that residents needed exactly what ECS had been providing in their housing programs—behavioral health care, food security programs, financial literacy, and employment services.

The transition wasn’t without challenges. When they moved from a bagged food model to allowing families to select items from shelves—restoring dignity to the process—demand immediately outpaced supply. “We had more people interested in receiving food or needing our service than we had food to provide,” Rhena admits.

But that initial shortfall became a breakthrough. The overwhelming response helped them develop partnerships with multiple food suppliers, incorporate a rescue food program for perishables, and work with various produce providers. The result? Food distribution grew from 100,000 pounds in the first year to over 200,000 the next, and 300,000 pounds this year.

The Ripple Effect of Authentic Engagement

What sets Rhena apart is her understanding that community transformation happens through relationships, not programs. She spends about half her day talking with community members—sometimes about services, often about life. Recently, she spent time with a neighbor discussing his experience caring for his grandchildren while his daughter started a nursing job.

“I never take my finger off the pulse of what we’re doing. It’s what keeps me connected,” she says.

This approach creates ripple effects beyond direct service recipients. Mr. G, a volunteer who’s supported ECS for over 25 years, embodies this principle. Like Rhena, he grew up surrounded by poverty and now advocates for families moving from poverty to stability – paying forward the support he once received.

Then there’s the Haverford School student who delivered 500 pounds of canned goods from his school. After learning about the realities of poverty during his visit, he and his family became ongoing supporters, purchasing over $3,000 worth of toys for families in subsequent years.

“Every single thing that we do is impactful not just on the individual level, but on a community level,” Rhena explains. “Our value is directly connected to the community—seeing the inherent worth in everyone who participates. Not just the staff, the community members that we serve, our participants. They all matter in building this sense of community.”

Family Values in Action

The proof of Rhena’s impact shows up in unexpected places. At their fourth annual block party in June, 28 volunteers helped with the event—more than half were Rhena’s family members, friends, and her children’s friends.

“They get to see the work that I do, we do collectively, and they believe in it so much that they don’t just volunteer, but they invite others to volunteer as well,” she says with obvious pride.

Her daughters, now 21 and 23, learned early that work should align with values. “I am fortunate to be able to make a living off of work that you do from the heart,” Rhena reflects. “My values align with my career, and what I’ve shared with my children and family is that this is important for our overall well-being.”

Looking Forward with Roots in the Past

Rhena’s drive connects directly to her late father, who visited her daily during those early months in the NICU, encouraging her to eat because she weighed less than one pound, and later in life he would joke that she hadn’t stopped “consuming everything around you” —referring to her ambition in supporting others. “A lot of what I do, I do because I want to continue to carry on his legacy. He was also very engaged and involved in the community, representing marginalized communities to make sure that their voices are heard. My father and mother understood, and instilled in me the value of service to others.”

This fall, she’ll begin her bachelor’s degree program at Peirce College, three years after completing her associate’s degree. She’s also planning to start a women’s support group with a friend while continuing to lead ECS’s ambitious neighborhood revitalization programs in partnership with DHCD, PCCD-VIP, and Glitter.

But her vision for change remains rooted in the same principle that guided her from the beginning: “The way that you move work forward in any community is to make sure that you have buy-in from all of the members of that group, that neighborhood, that community. I like to say that our community leads the change, I am just along for the ride, watching out for obstacles through providing encouragement and resources.”

Wisdom for Women Facing Adversity

For women confronting their own challenges, Rhena offers hard-earned wisdom: “There is strength in camaraderie and unity. We are more alike than we are different. It’s okay to make a mistake and you can’t do everything all the time. It’s important to set boundaries, time for healing and recovery and make space for the things that bring you joy. Those moments are where we gather strength and resilience so that we can face the numerous battles ahead of us that are required if we’re going to make the world a better place for ourselves and for those that come behind us.”

From a premature baby whose survival was uncertain to a community leader whose impact ripples through thousands of lives, Rhena McClain embodies the truth that our greatest challenges often prepare us for our most important work. Her story reminds us that sometimes the most powerful community leaders are those who’ve walked similar paths to the people they serve—and that authentic change happens one conversation, one family, one block at a time.

Connect with Rhena McClain on LinkedIn.

Help us honor Rhena by sharing what her contributions mean to you in the comments below.