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Camille Annunziato Enjoys Her Town and Her Job

A longtime resident of North Haven and a longtime employee of Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES), Camille Annunziato shared stories of watching the organization grow, and how she and her family have been involved in the community over the years.

Camille’s first job out of high school was working at Yale University’s Sterling Memorial Library, where she did bookkeeping and office work. After working in the Human Resources department at Stop & Shop in North Haven, she took some time away from working once her oldest son was born.

“I never went back until I came to work [at ACES],” Camille says.

Starting as a bookkeeper, she has held that position for many years.

“Camille has been with ACES in our accounting office for 30 years,” says Chief of Marketing & Outreach Evelyn Rossetti-Ryan, “She keeps us running and is a backbone of the agency. We couldn’t do what we do without her.”

A typical day for Camille sees her coming in and checking her emails and then running checks for purchase orders. Camille says the agency runs about 15,000 checks per year, and has more than 16,000 different vendors in her files.

“This time of the year, we are very, very busy because we’re trying to close the year out,” Camille says.

One of the few original employees left, she has seen different directors come and go and watched the agency grow “immensely,” seeing more schools being added to ACES services and seeing the number of employees increase from about 400 to 945.

Asked what it was like for her seeing the agency grow, she replied, laughing, “more work.”

Camille says she enjoys both the work that she does, as well as the interactions with her fellow co-workers on a day-to-day basis. She has worked in tandem with her colleague in the accounting office, Mary Esposito, since the first day she came.

“I look forward to coming to work. I really do,” Camille says, “I enjoy my job.”

Rossetti-Ryan added that often times, Camille is one of the last employees to leave, and will stay late until six or seven o’clock at times to get the job done. Rossetti-Ryan also says that Camille is so customer service oriented that if she can, she will personally walk a check over to whoever is requesting it.

If Camille’s last name sounds familiar, it’s because she and her family have been very active in town. Her husband Frank, who passed away in 2009, was chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners and a member of the Republican Town Committee, among other things.

She has two sons and four granddaughters, all of whom went through the North Haven school system. One of her sons is a fireman in town, and one was a pharmacist at a local CVS until he recently took a “very big job” in Norwalk.

Her granddaughter Maia recently graduated from the high school, and was editor of the school newspaper and was captain of the cross country team. Her granddaughter Talia was a member of the middle school basketball team that went undefeated in the most recent season.

When Camille’s son who is a fireman and her daughter-in-law go to work, she will watch her youngest granddaughter Isabella.

“So for a while...I stay with Isabella, then I go home and get dressed and come to work,” Camille says.

One of her granddaughters, Sophia, is fulfilling her community service graduation requirement by helping her grandmother with filing.

“She comes in twice a week to get her hours so she can start towards her 40 hours,” Camille says.

As for her, Camille was part of the Pine Grove Association, which she says was a bunch of residents in that area who got together and formed a club, and says it was a “huge success for years.”

“We used to have dances and we would have picnics, and it was a nice organization,” Camille says.

She is also a member of the North Haven Sons and Daughters of Italy, where she participates in charity events and other activities. One event she enjoys is the fashion show, which last year raised money for the Doug Flutie, Jr., Foundation for Autism.

“We don’t raise a lot of money, but we raise money,” Camille says.

Another fashion show will take place in October, and the money raised this time will go to Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Besides her job and community groups, Camille thinks North Haven overall is a great town.

“Its been good to me, and my children, and my grandchildren,” she says.