Celebrating one of the best: Cindy Belt retires from Mashomack after 35 years

Among the hundreds of people who came to the Manor House on a perfect fall Saturday to celebrate Cindy Belt’s 35 years of service at Mashomack were her sisters, Sue, Martha, and Emily. 

The four women became known in their family as “the Eggs,” when they traveled together from Rhode Island to Rochester for the funeral of their Uncle Warren. Their mother, hearing that her adult daughters were traveling together in the same car, said unhappily, “All my eggs are in one basket.” From that day forward, she was known as Mother Hen. Cindy and her sisters embraced their new identity and began cracking (it’s catching) egg jokes at every family gathering. 

Cindy’s retirement party was one such gathering, and the Eggs were deployed to pass out the egg-shaped seed balls that were party favors for each guest. By all reports, Sue, Martha and Emily allowed no guest to depart without seeds, whether they wanted them or not.

Before Cindy took the conservation educator role at Mashomack, she held a number of teaching jobs, including a stint teaching health science to middle school students in Beverly, Mass. She says her class was known as “sex, drugs and rock and roll with Ms. Belt,” and the image of wholesome, down-to-earth Cindy teaching New England teenagers about sex is hard to conjure until you remember that she can find a teachable moment on the trail to Miss Annie’s Creek every time she encounters a fresh pile of scat.

Sept. 10, 1990, was Cindy’s first day of work at Mashomack. The Preserve had only been in the hands of The Nature Conservancy for 10 years, and many people on the Island still thought of it as a hunting club that employed many local people. Mike Laspia, who hired Cindy, had been a caretaker of the property during the decade or so that it was operated as a hunt club, and stayed on as director after The Nature Conservancy bought it.  

The purchase saved the property from a development plan, which had been approved by the Town Board, and was only thwarted when the community rose up against the developer’s vision for 1,100 homes, a golf club and a marina.

Cindy’s position was created to expand what Mashomack could offer to the Shelter Island community. The Summer Children’s Environmental Education program was started by Sharon Kast and Ed McDonald in 1989, and Cindy’s first charge was to grow it, which she did.

Environmental Explorers is now a get-your-hands-dirty, outdoor, education experience for 8–12-year-olds with two separate week-long sessions each summer. The enrollment has been as high as 100 and regularly enrolls the children of alumni. Cindy calls the program “a highlight of my time at Mashomack. Over 35 years, I’m seeing kids of kids I taught in the program, which is awesome. It’s really great to see that generational transfer of knowledge and love of the program has come through.”

Another thing that Cindy is proud of is the intern program, which she started in 2000. Hiring an intern to help with education programs during the summer allowed for expansion of the program because a Conservation Education Assistant was working in the background, getting the paperwork done and doing the things that volunteers can’t do. 

A typical day on the job for Cindy involved planning for the programs that day, making sure things had been cleaned up from events of the day before, and organizing new events for the future. Contrary to what most people think, she did not spend a lot of time outside. “No, everyone thinks I do,” she said. “Some days I’m inside all day.” 

Cindy’s guiding principle of successful teaching is to develop love. “You need to teach people to love something before they’re going to care enough to protect it. Everything we do is designed to try to engage someone and make those connections to that large world.”

Her decision to retire now is based on a solid and meticulous analysis of the pros and cons of continuing in a job she loves, versus taking on new challenges that she has long dreamed of.

“I just turned 65, so I now have Medicare. That’s something. You never know what’s around the corner. Everybody’s got plans. But wait too long, and somebody gets sick, and those big retirement plans never happen. Mark and I have three of our four parents still alive, all of them 90 or older. So we want to be around and flexible to spend more time with them.”

Many of the things that she would like to do in retirement are practically in the neighborhood. “If there’s a Saturday hike in Hither Hills with the Easthampton Trail Society, maybe I’d rather be doing that as opposed to be running a workshop at Mashomack.”

Her most ambitious post-retirement project is to walk the Camino de Santiago, the northern route of an ancient pilgrimage trail from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It’s more than 500 miles of mountains, farm fields, woods, towns, houses of worship and religious sites. 

“I’m a preacher’s kid. so, yeah, I like stopping at churches,” she said.

But why retire this year? Cindy said Mike Laspia, who retired years ago, is part of the reason. “Mike Laspia was the heart and soul of this place for so long. And he was here for 36 years,” she said. “He taught me so much about loving the land and giving back to the community. I really don’t want to be here 36 years. I’ll be here 35 years. I think I’ve done a good job. I think I’ve made a good impact.”