Meet the busiest woman in Wichita and the two new businesses she plans

Cindy Miles proves the adage that if you want something done, give it a busy person.

“I’m committed to making a difference in the community,” she says.

Still, even without counting the two new businesses she’s starting and the fact that she’s running for the Sedgwick County Commission next year, she is ridiculously busy by anyone’s standards.

Miles is executive director of the Nonprofit Chamber, an organization that she’s grown from 100 members to 170 since she took over three and a half years ago.

Miles also runs programs for the Incubator for Nonprofits of Kansas; she’s on the planning commission, where she just completed a term as chair; she serves on an advisory board for the City Council; and she has six grown children and 15 grandchildren, two of whom — ages 8 and 13 — she and her husband have adopted.

Then there’s all the nonprofits she’s involved with, which are probably too numerous to name.

“I look for gaps in the community and things that need to be done, and I commit to doing those things,” Miles says.

One of the latest gaps she’s noticed was inspired by her children and grandchildren.

Miles is opening the Slumber Party Place at 357 N. Hillside, just south of Wesley Medical Center.

It’s “a place that parents would be able to come and bring their child to have either a daytime party or an overnight party.”

The focus is more on overnight parties so parents don’t have to use hotels, which Miles says aren’t quite as conducive, or their own homes.

“This will give them a fun place to come.”

She’s remodeling the 1930s house now, which includes taking out some of its walls.

“We will have a huge room that will . . . feature little forts,” Miles says. “It’ll be like camping kind of indoors.”

There will be stars on the ceilings and lights made to look like stars. There will be activities, games and a living room with a big screen TV for movies.

There will be a bedroom for parents to sleep.

Miles says talking to other parents and learning their needs is part of her inspiration as well. She says they’ve told her they’d like more options.

“So I thought, well I’ll try to create something like that.”

Slumber Party Place likely will open in February.

Miles actually had planned another business before this one. She and her husband, Mark, purchased 29 acres at 5020 S. West St. where they plan a retreat center called Hidden Acres. When the Slumber Party Place house became available, they shifted their focus. Once it’s open and settled, they’ll focus on the retreat center.

The idea is to build a place for retreats and family reunions. There will be an outdoor pavilion that Miles says she hopes to start building by late next year. After that, she’ll build a lodge for corporate retreats and other meetings.

Miles says she’s already built a gazebo and is going to begin working on getting proper zoning for the center.

Of course, Miles also is simultaneously running as a Republican for the 2nd District, so timing on Hidden Acres will depend on her commission campaigning.

“I have to do that, too.”

But why? What about just relaxing?

“Actually, I’m a big Words with Friends player.”

Miles notes she spends a lot of time with her kids and grandkids, too. Her family has a 12-passenger van, and they’re planning a 10-day trip to the West Coast the day after Christmas.

“We travel hard.”

Do you not require sleep?

“I’ve heard that more than once,” says Miles, who claims she gets eight hours a night.

Something doesn’t seem to be adding up, though . . .

“I try to keep everything really organized,” Miles says.

She says she schedules tasks as meetings, so it’s sometimes hard to get a meeting with her.

“It’s just a way to keep things all in order.”

Miles says she’s careful not to commit if she can’t follow through.

“If I find myself in over my head, I’ll graciously back away.”

Miles says that she “grew up in poverty and had a pretty rough childhood. I’ve worked hard to prove to myself and others that despite the challenges I, or others, have faced, you can do most anything they want to do if they commit to doing it.”

She says she hopes others “will get out and get involved in making a difference in the community. There’s lots of things to be done.”

Yes, but the rest of us seem to have only 24 hours in the day.

“That’s all I have,” Miles claims.

Do you make your own bed, too?

“I do make my bed.”

Is that the key to it all?

“Making my bed? No, the key to it all is the man that I’m married to that supports me in the things that I want to do.”

Miles says that she’s making it all work.

“If I can do what I’m passionate about every day, why not?”

This story was originally published December 5, 2019 at 11:06 AM.