This week’s Staff Spotlight is Samantha Hill, our Youth and Teen Director.
Samantha Hill
Resides: Keene, NH
Age: 36
Likes: Her two dogs, roller derby, reading, gaming, The Y!
Samantha is the Keene Family YMCA Youth and Teen Director. She manages programs and activities for kids ages 5 to 18 in our YMCA community.
Samantha has lived in Keene since 2000 when she was in high school, but moved around a lot before that. She said she’s lived in Massachusetts, Vermont, North Carolina and Florida, to name a few, as well as New Hampshire.
At home Samantha has two dogs. A Corgi named Gatsby, and a Pit Bull named Maven. She loves to play video games and read books and said she’s read 33 books this year.
In her free time, Samantha plays roller derby with Monadnock Roller Derby.
“I absolutely love it. I started about a year ago… It’s an amazing community and it’s full of powerful women that empower each other, and I love that,” she said.
Although sports weren’t her favorite thing for a while, Samantha found herself with an urge to try new things as she got older.
“I heard about [roller derby] when I was in high school, but I was too nervous to ever start,” she said. “I got into my 30s and I started things that I never did when I was younger, and I wish I would’ve started sooner because I have more confidence now.”
Since becoming the Teen Director about a year ago, Samantha has found a passion for developing programs for The Y’s kids.
“I used to work here for 10 years, [from 2008 to 2018], as the After School Director, and when they need Teen Director I was totally excited. We’ve never had a Teen Director here. I was able to start from ground 0 to get to where I am.”
A now popular event from The Y, Teen Night Out, has grown greatly in attendance since Samantha became the Youth and Teen Director.
“We went from having 20 kids at our Teen Night Outs to 208 within two months of me taking on the position,” she said. “There is a lot of youth in our community that needs things to do that doesn’t involve spending a bunch of money or doing drugs or partying or getting into trouble, and I hope to be that outlet.”
Samantha’s favorite program to be apart of as Youth and Teen Director is the excursions she gets to organize for the kids.
“I take about 12 kiddos and we go paintballing, or we go to Six Flags or we go to the [New England] Aquarium,” she said. “I think I like that because it gives youth an opportunity to get outside of Keene and experience other cultures and have other experiences that they might not have been to experience.”
On top of organizing the teen excursions, academic help and support, and the other youth programs here at The Y, Samantha is working to become a teen mental health first aid instructor.
“About a year ago… I did a youth mental health training. A friend of mine was the instructor, and it was just a format that I thought was very helpful and so insightful. I got into some deep conversation with other people about mental health, talking about mental disorders and talking about suicide. [It was] really prevalent that it’s an issue in our community and everywhere and it needs to be addressed.”
An important part of Samantha’s job is making sure that the youth in the community she supports feel heard in what they need out of The Y.
“I would say when I first got this position, I thought I knew what [the kids] wanted, I thought I knew what was cool and what our community needed,” she said. “It was really important for me to sit back and take a moment and really listen and hear what they needed and do more of building relationships.”
Samantha knows that all the kids of our community have different needs, and she does her best to make sure that her kids know her office door is open, and the programs can be there for them when they need them.
“Just because they don’t want to come to Teen Night Out or Thursday Youth Group doesn’t mean that I’m not a role model or a positive adult in their life that they can come to…,” Samantha said. “Also, understanding that what we think the teens and youth need is not always what it appears to be. Asking them is more vital.”
Samantha is really excited to start seeing new faces come to The Y’s youth and teen events and is working hard to get kids to join in a community that is dedicated to their well-being.
“A vast majority of the people that work here are very passionate and dedicated to the mission. It’s not one of those jobs you go to just to get paid, it’s one of those jobs you go to because you really enjoy the work that you do, and it’s hard work.”