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Alex Klein: In the Groove at the Grove School

It’s been an exciting few weeks for North Madison resident Alex Klein.

Alex, who has worked at The Grove School in Madison since 2005, was recently promoted to associate director. He’s also a volunteer at the North Madison Volunteer Fire Company, and is taking his Firefighter 1 course.

“I have an interesting relationship with Grove School,” he says. “I was a student there from 1997 to 1999. I lived there as a kid from age 16 to 18, which is definitely unique.”

Alex is from Rochester, New York and attended the University of Buffalo, but says Grove is a special place for him, as is the North Madison Fire Department.

“I’ve been at Grove as an employee since 2005,” Alex says. “I started as dorm staff. Slowly but surely, I kind of got more into the groove at Grove, and I quickly learned I didn’t want to be in a classroom. I’m not built for a classroom. The behavior management stuff I enjoyed, but I found myself distracting the kids, asking them, you know, ‘What are you doing? What’s going on?’ and they’d say, ‘Well, we’re doing the work you told us to do,’” Alex says with a chuckle.

He ended up becoming pretty passionate about outdoor adventure activities like rock climbing and kayaking, he says, and eventually took over the Grove School’s activities program. He went back for a master’s in recreational therapy at Southern Connecticut State University.

Then, the assistant director position opened up in The Grove School, so Alex took that position and continued to run the activities program.

He then went back to school for a second master’s, in clinical social work, which he completed in 2014.

Two weeks ago, Alex was promoted to associate director. He still runs the school’s activities program, and just returned from a trip with the students to Mont-Tremblant, an hour north of Montreal.

“You’re in French Canada, everybody speaks French,” Alex says. “We brought the kids for crêpes and fondue. It was fun, a good trip.”

Alex says The Grove School holds a special place in his heart.

“I think if it were not for the Grove School, I probably wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing today. It’s a special community. It’s only 130 kids, grades 7 through 12.”

Alex also met his wife, Rachel, there in 2009; they married in 2012. His in-laws own the landscaping company Madison Earth Care. Her father has been a volunteer at the North Madison Volunteer Fire Company for 40 years, which is how Alex came to be involved.

“We’d be sitting down to family meals, and all of a sudden he’d get up and go do something. I’d be like ‘What the hell’s he doing?’ and Rachel would be like ‘He’s going to fight a fire, or help with a motorcycle accident.’ And so, when I was done with my master’s, I began to volunteer and get involved. It’s a really good group of people. Having lived here for 11 years, I never knew that it was all volunteer. I never knew that they run a lot of fundraising for upkeep of the house and all the other stuff. I just had no idea the amount of time and commitment the volunteer firemen put in. It’s really neat.”

A year ago, Alex took over the department’s fundraising. When he completes his Firefighter 1 course at the Clinton Firefighter Academy, he will be an interior-certified firefighter.

“I’m not who you want on the scene right now,” he says with a laugh.

“It’s neat. It’s people of all ages, all stages in life, all walks of life. You have doctors, and lawyers, teachers, people working for the town, and police. It’s really neat, all these people who find a way to volunteer together.”

Alex is also quite enamored with Madison.

He says, “I think Madison is an awesome place. I was 24 when I moved out here. I can’t imagine living any place else. I love it, really wonderful people, a wonderful community. What I think is really neat is you’re a few hours from the mountains, a few hours from Boston, a few hours from New York, and you’re right on the shoreline. It’s like, you get that New England town with access to everything. I have yet to really bump into someone where I’m like, ‘I really don’t like you.’ I have no desire or intention to leave.”

In their spare time, Alex and Rachel like to spend time outside and visit Alex’s family cabin in Vermont. They also like to spend a lot of time with family.

“Her family has a lot of deep roots in Madison, both on her mom and father’s side,” Alex says. “My family’s still in upstate New York, in Rochester. My brother’s in Brooklyn.”

Alex has certainly planted roots here in Madison, and wants to get the word out about the fire department.

“I can’t stress enough the importance of fundraising and the importance of donating both to the downtown fire department and to North Madison. It’s so important it is to support people who are dedicating countless hours. If you don’t have money to donate, you can donate time if you have a skillset that you can contribute to help fix something, to become a member of the department, to help raise awareness. It really continues to take me aback, the amount of dedication.”

He adds, “There are 3,300 homes in North Madison, and only 16 percent donate, which to me is a little upsetting. These people have their own jobs and their own families. I think if everybody were to donate $50 a year to their fire department, they’d be taking really good care of them. That money goes back into the department, and goes back into the facilities. They have a wonderful fire explorers program. The people who run that are all volunteers. They’re doing it for the sake of helping kids become passionate and understand fire service.

“If I could send one message today, that would be the message. Awareness around both departments. For all the businesses up and down Main Street to support Madison Hose, and then downtown business north of Horse Pond to be supporting the North Madison Fire Department. The chief, everybody, is totally volunteer. The chief in North Madison’s a physician’s assistant at Yale. People need to be more aware of who their first responders are and how they can be supportive of them with donations and time, because they’re out there supporting you.”

The department is always fundraising, Alex says.

“People can always go on our website and just click on the donate button. We only ask for people to donate $50 once a year. It’s just really important. If it’s a money issue, contact the department and see if there’s another way that you can help.”

Visit www.nmvfc.org to learn more about the North Madison Volunteer Fire Company. Visit www.groveschool.org to learn more about The Grove School.

To nominate someone for Person of the Week, email Melissa Johnson at m.johnson@zip06.com.