Age: 62
Resides: North Swanzey, but was born and raised Keene, NH
Likes: Gardening, her kids and grandkids, thrifting, being crafty, and the Y!
This week’s Staff Spotlight shines on Cindy Puza, the Y’s Business Manager.
Born and raised in Keene, and having grown up a Y kid, Cindy lives and breathes the Keene Family YMCA and wants people to know that this community is one for everybody.
“The community has something special to offer to begin with and it all comes together [at the Y] … I really feel we set the example here… Feel the community that’s inside these walls and enjoy the community outside of them,” she said.
Cindy had previously lived in different parts of the country, but she’s always felt that Keene and the Y were her home. Her kids and grandkids live here, and her dad still lives in the house that she grew up in. Her roots here led her to continue her passion of helping the Y be the community that she’s always known.
“I grew up a Y kid. My folks were part of the financial assistance program back then, so we were able to go to summer camp, get a membership, and I became a part of the Y leader core, got a new gymnastics team, and later became a coach,” she said. “[The Y] taught us how to swim, to continue with the sport that I love, mine happened to be gymnastics, and had many, many wonderful experiences at the Y.”
When Cindy isn’t spending every moment, she can with her grandkids Axel, Bentley, and Kennedy, you can catch her gardening, fishing, or thrifting. She has a flower garden at home that she likes to keep. She also upcycles greeting cards by taking bits and pieces of card’s she’s received to make new ones to give to loved ones.
Cindy’s official title may be Business Manager, but at the Y, she describes herself as a jack of all trades.
“They have that little, tiny thing at the bottom of your hire letter that says ‘We’ll do anything that’s asked of you and then some.’ I’m very lucky to work with a team that believes in that because we all do what we have to do to get the job done and to make the members happy and to continue to make the Y a special place to be,” she said.
Speaking to her utility here at the Y, Cindy said she also was recently licensed in childcare to support the childcare center here at the Y.
“I enjoy every minute of it,” she said. “I run the child watch program, so I get a big kick out of coming up with new and creative ways, especially for the staff that I have that I’m very lucky to have, to engage and bring about a little more creativity for the kiddos that come in and hang out with us for their 90 minutes.”
The child watch program at the Y provides a place for kids to go while the adult in their life gets their stuff done.
“It provides self-care for the family, whether it’s a single parent, it’s a guardian, it’s a grandparent,” she said. “There’s sometimes when people will come in and it’s just a matter of spending an hour out in the welcome center just going through their emails or maybe doing some work here instead of trying to make it happen at home.”
Cindy said that the programs started here are always an echo of what the community expresses they need.
“All it takes is for one person to have some type of thought that’s even kind of related to [a new program] and it just takes off,” she said.
The Teen program at the Y was a result of that echo, according to Cindy, who said that a teen program at the Y was something the community needed. She said that the teen program here could act as an outlet for teens to go and make independent choices.
“[Teen Director Samantha Hill] immediately gravitated to that and now they’re doing excursions and outings and even having open talk sessions they call ‘The Chill Room’ where these kids can really feel safe dealing with everything from A to Z that happens when you’re a teenager,” Cindy said.
In the new year, Cindy is looking forward to partnering with Keene Senior Center to bring in a new program that would involve the community’s seniors to be a part of programs at the Y.
“Hopefully after the first of the year we can have some seniors come in here and teach some kids how to knit, crochet, maybe read and mentor,” she said.
Cindy said that the building of the Y may seem daunting, but it’s when you step through the doors that you can really feel the community we have to offer.
“We want you to come in and want you to feel like you’re at one of you best buddy’s house or one of your family [member’s] homes,” she said.
“You have all this opportunity to explore and try all kinds of different things, and where we have the [financial] assistance there’s no reason not to give it a try,” she said. “Anything you feel you need I think you can find here one way or another.”