Posted on Wednesday, January 22nd, 2025
For someone who affirms that they are “really not an animal person,” zoos play a significant role in the story of Sarah’s family. As a young mom in Rochester, New York, she and her sons would visit the Seneca Park Zoo every Monday. She found herself learning a lot as she also watched her son’s interest in wildlife grow. That interest remains today, and Sarah credits zoos for nurturing it.
Favorite animal: “It has become the elephants. I find a lot of peace in watching our elephants - they're silent, calm and steady, but aware.”
Favorite spot at the Zoo: Rosebrough Tiger Passage
Dream wildlife travel destination: Alaska – she loves the mountains and the cold
Now, every time they travel as a family, the Crupis visit a zoo or aquarium, and sometimes both in the same city. Sarah’s dream is to take her husband and two teenage boys to Africa one day – a trip she was lucky enough to experience twice with the Zoo Society – to see wild habitats and animals and experience new cultures.
A journalist by trade, Sarah knew she wanted to be a newspaper reporter since sixth grade and followed her passion and curiosity through middle and high school newspapers, to Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, to a string of roles within Gannett Company’s newspapers in New York. She refers to working in a newsroom as “an indescribable feeling,” and credits this phase of her career for developing her sense of civic responsibility, teamwork and camaraderie, and honing her decision-making – all skills that help her lead the Zoo Society today.
In 2016, when she wanted to make a change and moved from New York to Ohio, her family’s history with zoos inspired her to apply for a job within the Zoo Society. She has found her journalism background to be highly transferrable to fundraising: “What you learn as a journalist is to talk to people and build relationships; to find all sides of a story and what’s interesting about it.”
Zoos and nature continue to bring joy to the Crupis. Sarah’s oldest son volunteers with the Zoo Crew program, and her younger son spends every free minute golfing, skiing or fishing in the Metroparks or Cuyahoga Valley National Park. “Being back home in Cleveland has been wonderful for my family – and living near Brecksville makes it so easy for us to get outside and take advantage of the parks, the golf courses and the ski resorts I learned on as a child.”
In her role as CEO, Sarah loves talking to people who want to support the Zoo because it made a difference in their lives, hearing their stories, fielding their tough questions – all of it. “It’s a pleasure to get to know people every day,” she said. “How lucky are we that we get to work in a place that brings so many people joy?”