Editor's note: In the print edition of the paper, we mistakenly said Klein went to "LaSalle" instead of "Lasell", the university. It has been fixed here.

In a single week, Sarah Klein’s life was turned upside down.

It started with simple neck pain that got bad enough to require an MRI. The scan revealed a large, rare type of tumor inside of her spinal cord. She was immediately scheduled for surgery, which would require a 14-hour operation to remove the mass. Thankfully, the surgery went by the book. Still, Klein was temporarily paralyzed from the neck down, and needed to undergo significant physical therapy to re-learn how to walk and move.

It was certainly not typical for Klein, Bristol’s Director of Parks and Recreation, to take such an extended break from work. In the more than 20 years since she joined the town’s ranks as the parks and recreation assistant director in 2001, Klein has dedicated countless hours to growing the recreational opportunities for residents and visitors of all ages throughout Bristol.

During her recovery at Spaulding, Klein realized the breadth of her impact on the people who had interacted with the town’s programming.
“I got so many cards from the wonderful community that we built at the recreation center and the town,” she said. “The staff [at Spaulding] was just like, ‘What are all these cards?’ And I just said, I live and work in the greatest town.”

Unbelievably, Klein actually went back to work after recovering from her ordeal. But the whole experience, coupled with the fact that her husband is now retired, shifted her perspective towards a need to go out and enjoy life for all it’s worth, in whatever way she wants to do so.

“I wasn’t expecting to come back to work, but the drive was there because I missed all the people so much,” she said. “But once my husband retired, it changed my whole perspective. I thought, ‘We need to do stuff.’”

Klein’s last day as recreation director will be April 30.

From a restaurant to recreation

Klein’s origins as a recreation director are not what you might expect. Although she got her degree from Lasell University in community recreation, she opted to open a restaurant in Warren with her brother when they were fresh out of college, and did so for 16 years.

But when she saw an ad in the newspaper for an assistant recreation director in Bristol, she felt it was the perfect fit.

“The Town really recognizes us as an important department. We’ve got a good thing going on in Bristol,” she said, adding that she has always felt supported from the Town Administrator, Town Council, fellow departments and the community itself. “We’ve had residents say to us they bought their house because they looked into the recreation department and looked at the parks…It’s hard work but it is so rewarding that it just makes it easy.”

Working alongside former director Walter Burke during her tenure as assistant director, Klein said that one of the things she is most proud to have helped accomplish was the acquisition of the Quinta Gamelin Army Reserve Center in 2012, which would become the Quinta Gamelin Community Center and the home of Bristol’s recreation programming — where Klein says as many as 1,800 people visit each week.

“I’m really proud of how that grew. Before we got the center, we were at the Harbor Master’s office. It was small and had one gym, we were limited,” she said. “So when we did get Quinta Gamelin, we moved all of our established programs over. With the size of the Quinta Gamelin, we were able to add even more programming.”

The list of activities supported by the Bristol recreation department is expansive, and includes everything from Zumba, yoga and hip hop dancing, to arts and crafts and music lessons, in addition to the wide array of sports programs that run throughout the year. The center organizes outings to hot spots like PPAC, The Big E, and Boston pro sports games. One particularly cool program involved inviting staff from Hasbro to beta test new toys with young summer camp participants.

“They were so impressed and it was such a hands-on for them,” Klein said. “These people designing toys, they have to consider a lot, but they don’t often get out into the field. So that was awesome.”

The summer camp is the another point of pride for Klein, which provides a recreational outlet for 500 kids throughout the summer months.

“It’s such a deep tradition in Bristol. It’s no accomplishment of mine other than I’m proud of how we’ve run it during my years there,” she said. “I’m proud that we were able to offer the camp throughout Covid without any incidents.”

Pivoting during Covid was essential for all municipal department heads during the pandemic, and Klein was as nimble as any. The summer camp season went from seven to four weeks and dropped the total number of participants to 200, but Klein said the reaction from the community was still one of great appreciation.

“We didn’t know what the response was going to be, but I'll tell you, families were great,” she said. “They were beeping their horns and giving thumbs up…it showed how much the kids needed to be outside and together. It was wonderful to see it all go off.”

Working alongside the community center’s director of programming, Nellie Guerriero, Klein was able to offer certain passive recreational activities through Zoom, including things like group meditation and one creative effort to deliver the materials for an arts and crafts workshop directly to participants so they could all work together online.

“Covid taught us a lot. We truly learned how important the connections are, and to push through with the programming, because the people really needed it. And we needed it,” she said. “When people signed on, people cried. People said ‘I finally have a sense of normalcy. Thank you.’”

In some ways, that effort captures the essence of why Klein has found the department to be such a special place to work for over two decades.

“That is something I’m really proud of,” she said. “We didn’t just build a building, we really built this community of people who truly care about each other.”

The hunt for a new director

Town Administrator Steven Contente said recently that he was putting together a panel of residents to assist in searching for the right candidate to replace Klein once applications start coming in. The position has already been advertised, and ideally someone will be hired before the summer camp season begins.

Contente said that he was sorry to learn Klein would be leaving, but wished her the best after the work she had done in building the department up to where it is today.

“We’re sorry to see her leave,” he said. “She helped build the department and get it to where it is today. From a wide range of activities for seniors to youth and maintaining the various parks. Between her and the [former] director, they really grew the program…We’re sorry she’s not staying longer.”

Klein made sure to emphasize that she considers none of the aforementioned accomplishments as “her” accomplishments. She maintained multiple times that the department has worked and grown only because of the dedicated employees that work alongside her, the support she’s received from town officials, and because of the many volunteers who help run programming.

Specifically, Klein wanted to thank Tim Shaw, her assistant director; Manny Pacheco, the maintenance supervisor who almost perfectly matched her own tenure (2001 to his recent retirement in March of 2022); Nellie Guerriero; Jane Viscolosi, yoga instructor; Michelle Martins, the department’s secretary; Mary Ann Quinn, coordinator of senior services and families; Jimmy DeLuca, a longtime volunteer of 25 years; and Walter Burke for his leadership throughout her tenure.

“I am honored to have worked with all these wonderful people,” she said. “It’s easy [work] when you love it, and the people that have supported us and the recreation department, they are amazing.”