Leonard “Lenny” Celluro, the new director of Recreation and Community Services in Plainsboro, has been on the job for a month, and is raving about it.
“The first month has gone really well,” he says. “The staff members have been really welcoming and helpful, and not just the rec department staff but everyone, which makes it so much easier for me. The facilities here are top-notch: the new recreation building, the library, the Plainsboro Preserve. Plainsboro has invested its resources wisely in terms of recreation facilities, open space, and the cultural aspect of its community programming. I am so glad to be working in Plainsboro. This is a town that ‘gets it’ when it comes to recreation and leisure activities.”
“The Plainsboro recreation department reaches everyone from 16 months old to seniors, and we have programs for the whole community, so it is very important for me to get to know our residents. While I may ‘reside’ in Bloomfield, I now ‘live’ in Plainsboro A successful recreation director needs to be visible in the community, become a face that residents are familiar with and comfortable with, and learn what the community wants in the way of programming.”
Celluro has 25 years of experience in providing municipal recreation services. Born and raised in Bloomfield, where his father was a shipping and receiving clerk and his mother worked for the board of education, he worked in the Bloomfield recreation department as a pre-teen and a teenager. “I worked under a wonderful man, Hank Barlow, who was the assistant director of the rec department for 35 years. I started out as a park counselor, served as an umpire, worked in maintenance, and then began running summer programs. When I was trying to decide what to do with my life, I sat down with my guidance counselor, who asked me what I enjoyed doing, and I realized it was working in recreation. Ironically, when I became the director of the Bloomfield rec department, Mr. Barlow was still the assistant director, and he worked for me for five years before he retired. I still called him Mr. Barlow, of course.”
Celluro was the first in his family to go to college. His mother died many years ago, but, he says, “both she and my father were very supportive of my career choice. We were always a very active family. We all played sports, and took advantage of all of the recreational facilities in town. In fact, my sister Michele was also a recreation major at the College of New Jersey and now works in the health club field.”
Celluro earned a bachelor’s degree in recreation and leisure studies from Fairleigh Dickinson University and is a certified recreation administrator.
Most recently, Celluro served as superintendent of the park district in Great Neck, New York. Celluro had had a two-year contract in Great Neck, and when it was time to renew his contract, he was asked to relocate there.
“That was basically a non-starter. Although it was a great experience working there, my family is everything, and I was not going to move them from Bloomfield.” Celluro’s wife, Mia, is a teacher in the Clifton school district; his son Austin will be a junior at Bloomfield High School; and his daughter Alexis will be a sophomore at Rutgers and is currently studying abroad in Peru. She plans to become a sports journalist and has an NFL football radio blog.
When he heard about the Plainsboro position, he immediately knew he wanted to apply for it. “I have been a member of the New Jersey Recreation and Parks Association for 20 years, and the Plainsboro position has an excellent reputation.”
He adds that “having a recreation facility is every recreation director’s dream. Also having jewels like the library and the Preserve were paramount to me.”
Celluro does not expect to just jump in and change things. “It takes a full year to get acclimated to a new recreation director job. Recreation is very cyclical. There are programs throughout the whole year, and each one is unique and needs to be planned one season or more in advance. For instance, although right now our major ongoing programs are our camps, we are already looking ahead to ‘Haunted Tonight’ which will be held in October.”
“To make major changes in programming without knowing what you are changing is just plain silly,” Celluro says. “While a new director can make subtle changes, it is more important to learn what is going on, what already works, and what the community is interested in.”
“My definition of recreation and leisure activities is quite broad: ‘anything that people do in their non-work and non-school time.’ That encompasses a lot of activity. And here in Plainsboro, we offer a wide variety of programs, all of which strive to meet residents’ needs. We have great programs already in place. I will use my personal creativity to consider additional programs, some of which are being offered in similar towns, and put a ‘twist’ on them to make them viable and exciting for our community,” says Celluro.
Some of the programs being offered this summer include the Lenape day camp, for children entering grades 1-6, at Community Middle School, daily from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and the pre-K summer fun camp, for four and five year olds, which is being held at Town Center School from 9:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Both camps have four two-week sessions, and each session has its own theme, trip, and events.
“The Lenape camp now has 120 children enrolled, up from 100; and the pre-school camp has between 30-40 children, up from 20. Also, for the first time this year, we are able to offer an additional week of camp at the end of the summer, which will be held in our new recreation building,” Celluro says.
In addition, there are senior fitness programs, drop-in special events, and art programs being offered at the recreation building.
The recreation department, in partnership with PNC Bank and Princeton Alliance Church, is again offering its Summer Blast program. In the event of rain, all entertainment will be located in the recreation and cultural center adjacent to the municipal building.
Upcoming Summer Blast events are: Brave, Friday, July 26, at the municipal complex lawn; and Oz the Great and Powerful, Friday, August 23, at Morris Davison Park. The entertainment, including a concert and refreshments, begins at 7:30 p.m., followed by the movie.
“For our first movie night, it was pouring. We were able to move everything inside to the recreation building and run the program, something else that would have been impossible a year ago. The recreation building lends itself to cultural and recreational events, and so creates a lot of opportunities for us. I want to continue to expand joint programming with the library, the schools, and the preserve,” says Celluro.
“One thing I have noticed is that people are way too overscheduled, and can’t always commit to 8 to 10-week programs. So I like to run ‘teaser’ programs: one-day program, such as a magic program, for example, for free or a nominal cost, and see how well it is attended. I’ve found that just by interviewing people at the end of programs, you get a real sense of how well the program was received.” Says Celluro: “Our programming will be based on what the community wants. We have very talented staff that can make this happen.”
“For right now, my primary objective is to learn as much as I can about what we do and how to take it to the next level, and to learn as much as I can about the community and its residents. I will have a spot on our website for residents to communicate with us, tell us about any special talents they might have and want to share with us, or any other ideas. Recreation and leisure is my passion, one that I want to share with the community,” he adds.
