Avery's Life

I'm Avery Cyr and here is why I'm running!

Throughout my life I’ve been through very difficult circumstances. From my parents’ divorce at a young age and my mother moving us to a new place at the time, Manchester. To coming out to my family as a gay man. To surviving a near death experience in an auto accident. To learning how to make it on my own in an unforgiving world right after high school. Despite all that I’ve navigated all those adversities and have managed to make a life for myself that I can call my own.

When I was in the 6th grade my mother moved me and my two sisters to Manchester so that she could have an easier time finding jobs close by to where we lived. There was a time when she struggled to put food on the table. She had to apply for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistances Program) benefits to make sure we got enough to eat. It’s because of programs like SNAP that we were able to get by while my mom went to school and waitressed at the same time. After she finished going to school to become a surgical technician she was able to provide more easily for me and my sisters. It’s because of her courage despite being harassed at work and the death of my grandmother that showed me that anyone can improve their circumstance in life with hard work and grit.

This especially was an important lesson for me when I finished high school. I’ve been working ever since I was a senior. I started working at TJ Maxx as a store associate and was promoted to the front-end supervisor position after a year there. I helped at least 1,000 customers a month there. I learn so much about helping people and working with irate customers. I continued to build upon these skills at my subsequent jobs. After 2 years at TJ Maxx I moved to Natick, MA where I lived for a year. I got a job working at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston working in customer service. There I got to experience being in a workers union and working through a high-tension negotiation with museum management, that eventually led to us workers going on strike. After I moved from Massachusetts to Deerfield, NH I did a lot of food deliver gigs with Instacart and Door dash. But soon I got a job working at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Manchester, working in guest services. There I worked with the public more and got the opportunity to help people in need of temporary housing. At the same time I learned how to manage a hotel’s room inventory. In addition they had me work the overnight shift, in those shifts I would be responsible for the whole hotel and ensured all the guests were safe while at the hotel.

After working at the hotel for about a year I got an opportunity to work in utilities. There I worked a lot with customers in need of energy public assistance. I enjoyed that part of my job there because I got the opportunity to help people get the assistance they needed and educated them on other ways to get caught up with their electric and gas bill. While I worked there though I learned how uncompassionate the management team can be towards low-income customers. And I also gained a better understanding of how utility companies set their rates. Because of all this I feel that private electric distributors shouldn’t be entrusted with a monopoly in the communities they serve. They answer to their investors not the communities. If the state or towns controlled the grid then any profits made could be put back into the system to bring down energy costs. And if the state as a whole buys electricity from suppliers then everyone in NH could get a much lower energy bill. Because the state could buy in a much bigger bulk size versus 3 separate electric companies buying electricity just for their customers within NH. Please check out my platform page to learn more.

As Alderman of ward 3 I can use all my 7 years of experience in customer service and working in a variety of industries to better craft legislation to help working families and individuals. I know the struggle of just trying to get by and provide for your family. While having to deal with adversity in the work place. If you want someone who will have the interests of working people and their families at heart on The Board of Aldermen, then please vote for me, Avery E. Cyr, and/or donate to my campaign. Please check out my LinkedIn at AveryCyr.com to learn more about my career.