New York City lifeguard is a winner of our union’s Never Quit Service Award

There are many aspects of her job that Rosa Peña loves.

“I’ve been a lifeguard for 25 years, and I love it,” she says. “I love to see people safe. I love to encourage people to swim. I love, you know, people just doing the exercise.”

To Peña, a lifeguard at the Asser Levy Recreation Center in New York City, what she does for her community is not just a job but a calling. She goes to work every day with a sense of purpose, determined to help others in the same way she was once helped as a child.

“I used to go to the beach, I used to go out and I would swim to shore with the waves and then go back and do it again,” she recalls. “And then one time I nearly drowned doing that and I grabbed my sister. She came with me, and then someone actually got us out. So I always said, ‘Oh, I’m going to swim so I can become a lifeguard, so that I can save people.’”

For her service to her community, Peña, a member of AFSCME District Council 37, is a winner of our union’s Never Quit Service Award. The award recognizes public service workers who go above and beyond the call of duty to make their communities better.

Watch Peña tell her story in her own words in the video below.