Martin de St. Pierre was born at Langley Air Force Base between his father’s second and third tours in Vietnam. Throughout his father’s military career, the family lived in Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Germany. After his father retired from the Air Force, they settled here in Naples, where Martin would grow up surrounded by family.
How did growing up in a military family shape your childhood? Moving so much as a child was difficult, but it provides two choices for you: Embrace it and put yourself out there, or retreat. Having to deal with constant change prepared me well as an adult to be comfortable in just about any situation.
Why did you decide to leave Chicago? Chicago is such a great city, and we were set to become city parents, but the call to come back to Naples was strong and the right decision. It gave our kids the opportunity to have their grandparents in their lives which was not something I had. My father died in 2015 after dealing with Parkinson’s for many years. We buried him at Arlington, which was a very moving experience. My in-laws are wonderful and still very active. We see them almost weekly and they are involved in Olivia and Owen’s lives, which means so much.
Tell us about a typical weeknight in your home. Like many families, there is rarely a typical night because of baseball, marching band, a work event, etc. We try to sit down for a dinner together a few nights a week, and we value that time. When we get home we all go our separate ways to enjoy whatever it is we like to do. Owen loves to fish so he might be down the street at the boat dock. Olivia might be reading or painting in her room. Emily has been going to a boxing class for the last few months, and I like to walk. We reconvene for dinner, and then it’s homework, etc. Just knowing we are all in the same house and happy and healthy is comforting.
What does your family like to do together? We like to travel, and that could be just getting out of town for day or a longer trip. We might drive to Sanibel for lunch or Arcadia to shop the antique stores on Oak Street. Our best trips have been to Europe. We spent Christmas with family in Germany a few years ago. Then we went to England for some time in London and Hereford with friends. Germany at Christmas is almost indescribably beautiful. Some of our best times have been spent in Chicago and Michigan. We have taken the kids back to Chicago so many times they have become very familiar with the city and comfortable there. We try to get to Kalamazoo once a year, if not more. Especially in the fall. Emily is from there, and it’s a great city. I was fortunate to be able to travel extensively as a child, and we are fortunate now to be able to do the same with our children. For our children, we want them to see and truly understand that the color of your skin, the language you speak, who you choose to love, or what you believe are secondary characteristics to the one singular thing we all share, which is our humanity.
How did you become a volunteer with Collier County Public Schools? I got involved with the School Advisory Council (SAC) at Sea Gate Elementary School when our daughter was in third grade and served for five years. SAC deals with issues directly related to how the school functions. I was just elected for my second three-year term at Pine Ridge where I am SAC Chair. The upcoming school year will be my third on SAC at Barron where I am vice-chair. I get to work with involved parents and great staff and teachers whose only goal is providing the highest quality education to our kids.
Other community service? I have difficulty saying no, which has led to so many great community service opportunities. I have to say that my SAC involvement is the most rewarding.
Tell us about your role at Salvation Army. I was doing a lot of nonprofit volunteer work and started realizing I enjoyed that more than my day job. One night in June 2015, I told my wife I needed to go to the ER because I had chest pains. It turned out to be stress related, but lying in the cardiac unit at NCH at 4 a.m. thinking about my life was the last sign I needed that a change was necessary. I have a great staff, work with compassionate, dedicated people, and have yet to have a day I didn’t want to come to work. That’s not something I could say about my old career.
What would surprise us about the Salvation Army? I would say it’s the amount of services we provide. Locally, we have a great STEAM-focused after-school program at the Fran Cohen Youth Center with about 150 elementary and middle school kids attending daily. We also have a Child Development Center that serves about 70 children. The goal is to make sure 100% of the kids who leave the program are kindergarten ready. Our social services department serves approximately 300 indi-viduals monthly with food, rental, and energy assistance. We run the Toys for Tots program for Collier, so Christmas is big for us. Last year we provided food and toys for 2,600 families. In the eight weeks after Hurricane Irma, our field kitchen prepared 77,000 meals, and through our Disaster Assistance Center we are still helping families recover and rebuild. We have a very active program for seniors. They come to our campus twice a month for lunch and either an activity or speaker. These are seniors who are very economically challenged so getting out for a meal or social event may not be possible without us. Everyone deserves compassion. Our focus in Collier County is primarily on children, but the Salvation Army also operates many adult rehabilitation centers as well as medical and mental health clinics. We also are very active in addressing human trafficking. We have great programs such as Bridges Out of Poverty and Pathway of Hope, which are case management driven and offer participants the knowledge and skills needed to break what are often generational cycles of poverty.
What do you love about your current role there? I love everything about my job – the people I work with and those we help. The impact we make can be life changing and life saving sometimes. I am proud of everything we do, but one thing in particular comes to mind. The Latchkey League, which was started by Myra Daniels, supports our youth programs. They wanted to enlarge the book nook in the new youth center. I sent out a call for book donations, and within about three weeks had collected about a thousand books. Since I started the book nook last fall we have given out about 400 books.
What is your best parenting advice? Read All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kinder-garten by Robert Fulghum. Share. Play fair. Be nice. Say you’re sorry. Live a balanced life. Look. Listen. Feel. The list goes on. Literally every sentence in this book has meaning to me.Also, knowing when, and how, to step back from your children and let them be. Our instinct is to protect them, and it can be powerful and overwhelming to them and us. We will be there for them in whatever capacity they need us, but sometimes they need to walk the path they choose on their own.
What was your favorite Father’s Day gift? The best is a small pot they made in 2006. It has their handprints on it. Olivia was 3 and Owen was not quite 1. I look at it and remember what it was like holding those little hands and being so happy and terrified at the same time. The feeling of that little hand reaching up for yours and the intensity of the love you felt for them.
What are your plans for Father’s Day? Beer and pizza would be good. That’s the last day of a four game series with the Dodgers, so a Cubs sweep would be nice, too.