Building a Brighter Future: My Love Letter to New Hampshire and Stay Work Play
By Kaitlyn G. Woods | December 13, 2024
After moving around quite a bit in my childhood, my family settled in New Hampshire when I was in eighth grade, and we put down strong roots. While I was born in Baltimore and raised in different parts of the country, I consider Manchester my hometown.
When I would fly home from college for visits, I remember the strong sense of connection and belonging that would wash over me when I saw the fiery quilt of foliage below as I made the descent to MHT. I was home. With its unmatched natural beauty and unique access to beach, lake, forest, and mountain life, New Hampshire is special. Working to advance Stay Work Play NH’s mission has been deeply personal for me. It has been my way of honoring the place that made me feel grounded at such a pivotal time in my life. My service to New Hampshire’s young people, our future, is my love letter to the state.
My first experience of Stay Work Play NH was the 2017 Rising Stars Awards, my favorite annual event because it’s where I feel most closely connected to our mission. Shoutout to this year’s Changemaker of the Year Cordan James Haveron, Artist of the Year Jozimar Matimano, Entrepreneur of the Year Michael Turcotte, Young Person of the Year Ophelia Burnett, High School Student of the Year Morgan Summerton, College Student of the Year Kathryn Langille, and Coolest Employer for Young People Dartmouth Health! Your contributions are having a meaningful impact on advancing our mission of continuing to build an even more vibrant and inclusive state where young people want to and can stay work and play.
2024 Rising Stars Awards at the Currier Museum of Art
When I joined Stay Work Play NH’s Board of Directors in 2019 after serving on its Board of Advisors as Eversource’s representative for a couple years, the organization was still relatively young in its journey. Still in the early years of my career, it was an incredibly valuable opportunity to learn from leading early board members like Kristyn Van Ostern, Gray Chynoweth, Mike Skelton, Travis York and Matt Toy, who took a charge born from the 55% Initiative to develop creative ways to retain more of the state’s young people into a successful nonprofit with a thriving network that continues to grow. I continue to deeply admire all the early Stay Work Play NH Board members who built the organization’s strong foundation, and their legacy has been a source of inspiration throughout my own service.
Shortly after joining the Board’s Executive Committee in early 2020 as co-chair with EJ Powers and mapping our best laid plans for the coming year—the world shut down as COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. As a nonprofit with a budget much smaller than our impact, primarily funded through in-person networking events, we knew we needed to innovate to survive and to be there for the young people and businesses who were depending on us. We acted quickly—under the leadership of our treasurer at the time Rachael Comstock, we secured a Paycheck Protection Program loan to help ensure that our staff could continue focusing on delivering the programming young people needed to stay connected while facing destabilizing challenges and uncertainty. We were agile and pivoted to the new remote world immediately, offering fun and creative programs like virtual trivia nights, with pints delivered to participants’ doors.
Every hurdle has presented Stay Work Play with an opportunity to better serve young people—and we’ve seized them all. In addition to transitioning to a more hybrid environment, Stay Work Play has evolved into advocacy, serving as a megaphone for the issues most important to young people and working to diversify the state’s representation in Concord. We also created the Rising Stars Leadership Program to nurture emerging talent and more strongly root our future leaders here in the Granite State. Last year, recognizing that our strategic plan didn’t reflect our new post-pandemic world, we reimagined the future and developed a roadmap forward that reflects extensive qualitative and quantitative data we’ve collected from young people across the state.
I’ve learned a lot over the past six years while serving on Stay Work Play NH’s Board of Directors because of the brilliant, dynamic, and dedicated leaders I’ve worked alongside. Each member of our Board has brought unique experiences, backgrounds, and talents to the table along with a deep connection to the state and passion for giving back. I’m incredibly grateful for the personal and professional growth they’ve inspired and nurtured in me.
Today, our leadership is more diverse than ever. I’m proud of that because I know it best positions Stay Work Play for continued innovation and success. A special thank you to Katie Geery as she joins Rich Parsons as our new co-chair. Both Rich and Katie’s contributions to Stay Work Play have been transformative, and I can’t wait to see all they’ll accomplish together with the rest of our talented Board.
2024 Stay Work Play Board of Directors and Board of Advisors Members at the Rising Stars Awards
I also want to extend a heartfelt thank you to Eversource and the company’s leadership for their above and beyond support of my service over the years. In addition to encouraging my commitment to Stay Work Play, Eversource has generously sponsored key strategic initiatives for the benefit of young people and the businesses eager to attract and retain them—like our first survey of young people commissioned in 2017, our annual Legislative Reception that brings young people together with the elected official who represent them, and our annual Rising Stars Awards.
As I closed out my six years of service to Stay Work Play, our Board selected a new generation of leadership for the organization. This leadership transition was truly an all-hands-on-deck effort—everyone, including members of our Board of Advisors, stepped up to help put the organization on the right path forward. Choosing Corinne Benfield as our next executive director, unanimously and enthusiastically, is the contribution to the organization that I’m most proud of. Corinne brings fearless, strategic leadership, enthusiasm and optimism, and an unmatched passion for New Hampshire that reminds me of the emotion I felt all those years back when I saw the foliage glowing bright below as I arrived home.
Our future is bright, New Hampshire!
Kaitlyn G. Woods