The results of Charrow’s work with the village are impossible to miss. While serving as director of both programs, she also founded and organized RVC PRIDE, a group of residents dedicated to the beatification and maintenance of village properties. And her work at the Sandel Senior Center has garnered national recognition, receiving accreditation status for the first time in 2002 and, according to village authorities, is widely accepted as a “Gold Standard” for senior facilities throughout the United States.

Yet Charrow’s accomplishments do not end here. While heading two village departments, she maintained a private psychology practice, where she used her experience in the fields of positive psychology and life coaching to work with patients on such afflictions as depression, anxiety and mood disorders.

“The mind doesn’t understand — you just want consistency,” Charrow said, explaining some of the key tenets of positive psychology. “If you say you can’t do something, you’ll be right.”

In Florida, Charrow plans to continue with her private practice, but is most looking forward to spending time with her husband, who retired a few years earlier. And it seems that she will not be giving up Rockville Centre so easily.

“I’d love to stay on as a consultant to the village,” Charrow added eagerly. “If they’ll have me!”

At a Board of Trustees meeting on May 13, Mayor Francis X. Murray and his father, former mayor Eugene Murray, paid public tribute to Charrow, along with Deputy Mayor Nancy Howard and Trustees Kevin Glynn and Edward Oppenheimer. And with flowers in hand, she gave a glowing speech in the honor of the town — and people — that had become her own.

“Before this, I never had a job more than three years,” Charrow said. “This one was so ever-changing… that it kept my interest…. It wouldn’t have happened anywhere else — without the wonderful volunteers from the Sandel Center, without the fabulous staff I had.”