Walstein (Wally) Welch Snyder (b. 1923, Elkon, Virginia) is a minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC) and a long-time CEO of Elon Homes and Schools for Children in Elon, North Carolina. Snyder is a graduate of Elon College and Duke University Divinity School who was ordained as a UCC minister in 1943. Until 1960, he served as a pastor at churches throughout North Carolina and Virginia. From 1960 until 1990, he served as CEO of Elon Homes for Children, an organization serving the needs of underprivileged children in North Carolina. The programs that Snyder established at Elon Homes included foster care, daycare, therapeutic group home care, crisis care, and after-school programs. He has been credited with caring for residents of Elon Homes "as much as he did his own family" and as making residents feel loved and valued. He continued to serve Elon Homes as president emeritus until 2000. In 2007, The Elon Homes campus was renamed The Walstein W. Snyder Campus in his honor. Snyder received a number of awards for his work, including the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award from Elon College in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honor granted in North Carolina. In 2009, he was awarded Elon University's Service to Church and Society Award.
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