Lili Toutounas was in charge of keeping everything organized and running while she was at the Cooney Center. And while people have confused her for a stern British lady while on the phone, she’s not nearly as old as she claims below.   I like to say that I have spanned three decades of my life at Sesame Workshop.  It all started in 2010. I had just returned from living abroad for several years and was looking for a job (e.g. sending in resumes from the neighborhood Starbucks). Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about Sesame Street, or the impact it had on my childhood in years, or maybe, ever.

But I grew up as an 80s kid who had three channels on our television, and PBS was one of them. Maria was my second mother. I didn’t know Elmo yet, but I did love Snuffleupogus. As I sipped my latte on that fateful day, I remember the gleam in my eye when I encountered a job posting for an Administrative Coordinator at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center. A smile washed over me, as if no time had gone by from the days I dialed the TV to PBS as a kid. Needless to say, I was thrilled when I got a call to interview. I remember walking into the office at 1900 Broadway into a sea of crayon-hued carpeting, with Muppets peering out from every corner. “Oh my gosh, I HAVE to work here.” I think it was Michael Levine who brought me into a now- replaced conference room to interview. The rest is history! I worked at the Center for most of my tenure at Sesame. I am now in Human Resources where I oversee employee engagement and alumni relations, a natural progression that working at the Cooney Center prepared me for. I don’t know if I can put into words how grateful I have been for this experience. To work under Joan’s legacy has been an honor. I continue to tell anyone who will listen that the smartest people I have ever met are my JGCC colleagues. They shaped me as a person and carried me into an amazing career at Sesame Workshop. Happy Birthday, Joan Ganz Cooney Center! It has been the best ride.