Meet the Team: Amy Kuchta, CEO
March is Women’s Month! Throughout the month, Big Brothers Big Sisters will be commemorating the achievements of women in leadership roles across our agency.
Meet Amy Kuchta, CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Michigan. Amy works with the local community to ensure BBBS has the support needed to serve local youth. You might recognize Amy from BBBS events or promotional materials, but you may not know just how long she has been part of the BBBS community, or that she is a Big Sister herself!
SIXTEEN YEARS OF SERVICE
Amy became involved with BBBS in 1993, when she volunteered as a Big Sister while living in Cleveland, OH. After moving to Kalamazoo in 2004, she found out BBBSMI was hiring and started her career in enrollment, registering mentors and youth to become Bigs and Littles.
Being a part of the BBBSMI community for so long means Amy finds it hard to choose just one favorite part of her job. One of the contenders, though, is her coworkers.
“Everyone here is pretty funny and quirky, and we all have the same passion for the mission. But at the same time, I’d say our community supporters. We’ve got so many people in the communities we serve who are excited to help us provide mentoring to as many kids who want and need it, and it’s energizing to connect with them to share their excitement.”
Amy doesn’t only focus on mentoring at work. She’s also been matched with her Little Sister, Chloe, for over 10 years. “She’s an adult now, but I still consider her my little sister,” Amy shares.
SELF-CARE AND UNIQUE INTERESTS
Despite her busy schedule, Amy finds time to practice self-care in multiple ways. To relieve stress, she exercises by road cycling and playing pickleball with friends. To relax, she loves to read and occasionally binge-watch TV shows.
Her outgoing personality hides a lifelong passion for post-apocalyptic fiction. One of her proudest moments, she shares, is when she presented a paper at an academic conference headlined by Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb.”
LEAVING A LEGACY
“I want to continue increasing our community support so the agency will continue to grow and flourish long after I’m gone,” Amy says. “If you have the time to [become a Big], do it. People think it’s way more complicated than it is, and it’s a lot of fun. I consistently hear that the volunteers get as much out of it as our youth do.”
