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Date: 6/21/2023
SPRINGFIELD — Chile Salazar was leading a comfortable life, living in Longmeadow and running the Ludlow Boys and Girls Club as CEO. She was satisfied she had reached a new high in her career, then she started wondering if she was a bit too comfortable.
“I could have stayed there forever. I loved it. But it’s so important for me and others to be reminded there’s still so much work be done providing opportunities to our next generation. As leaders we can’t be comfortable. I can’t be satisfied I’ve got this title and done enough for young people and their families,” said Salazar who is the new associate director of the Hope for Youth & Families Foundation in Springfield.
The foundation was established in 2022 by businessman Bob Bolduc and his wife Roberta. With a staff of four and a website that is under construction, HYFF is very much a start-up operation. Salazar is in charge of strategy and development. She took the job thinking she and her peers won’t run into a bureaucratic brick wall when they come up with ideas.
“We’re a small, gritty team. If we all agree something is the right thing to do, it doesn’t take six months of talking and jumping through 12 hoops to get it done. We just do it and reach more young people,” says.
Salazar is a Chinese American, born a year after her parents immigrated to America from Hong Kong. They lived in West Hartford; her mom worked in finance at Travelers Insurance Company, her dad ran his own restaurant.
Inspired by her parents unrelenting work ethic, Salazar concentrated hard on her education through high school and then college where she graduated from Colby-Sawyer with a BS in child development and early education. She also earned a nonprofit management and leadership certificate from Boston University.
Salazar has taken on many roles since college, focusing first on childhood education and development then “dabbling” in the world of sales and marketing — going-to-door hawking everything from restaurants and a golf course to a hair salon and paper.
“I was getting doors slammed in my face 100 times a day. Then I had one of those moments where you wake up one day and realize I’ve been on this detour way too long. I need to go back to my calling, which was working with kids,” she said.
Salazar took a huge pay cut when she accepted a $9 an hour job in childcare just outside Boston. Then one day while hitting golf balls at a driving range, she met the president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Middlesex County, who helped her secure various executive level positions with the organization. She eventually landed at the Ludlow Boys and Girls Club.
Now happily at HYFF, Salazar and her colleagues are creating free youth programs that focus on sports, tutoring, the performing arts and career development. She shook up her world when she joined this fledgling foundation, but she said it’s worth taking the risk.
“We have innovative ideas, but nothing is concrete. Nothing is played out. There are so many questions, but that’s what it takes. That’s what our young people need — hungry adults willing to take chances to help them live better lives,” Salazar said.