Listen to the interview here!
Craig Poole
Toni Reece: Hi there. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I am with Mr. Craig Poole. Craig, welcome to the Get Inspired! Project.
Craig Poole: Thanks for having me here today.
Toni: So Craig, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Craig: Well, I’m not little. I’ve been in Berks County for two-and-a-half years. I run the Crowne Plaza Hotel. I live here in the hotel, and I try to make dreams come true for our guests, the people that work here, and the people that own it.
Toni: Let’s go into the first question. What does inspiration mean to you?
Craig: Inspiration to me is positive change, things that make people smile, things that are uplifting. Mostly people are inspirational, not things – I would say people. People doing extraordinary. People doing excellent. People that are out there that are making changes that have positive impacts on the poor, the broken, and the lost, particularly, and with children are inspirational to me. If I see that you’re connected to a child and you’re connected to the betterment of a community and how do you grow that community and that child in that community, you’ve inspired me immediately. I follow you, and I will help support you however I can do that.
Toni: How do you know when you see it? How do you know it’s real?
Craig: How do you know it’s real? Because you can't fake someone’s heart. You can't fake the joy. You can't fake it in their eyes and their movements. People are doing it … there’s all kind of inspiration. A lot of it is altruistic in my world, and it’s people that are just doing it because they want to. It’s selflessness – self-less-ness is the key to that, because people are doing it with vigor. They’re doing it with enthusiasm. They’re saying, “Here I am.” They’re doing things humbly, typically. You just see the motion. You don’t hear the scream. It’s not a noisy thing. It’s a beautiful thing.
Toni: When you see that and you’re inspired by that, how do you take that and put that into practice from your perspective, here in Berks County?
Craig: I’m a learner, so I will watch somebody inspiring. I might watch a teacher that has embraced a group of kids with autism, and I will say, “You know what? I might have a home for you. I might be able to help you. I might be able to seed this. How can I support you, because everybody needs support. Since we have a business, it’s a little bit easier for me to support it.”
But really what I want to do is say, even if you don’t have a business, you can support them somehow, because it’s a burden sometimes. It’s a burden for the parents sometimes. It’s a burden for the teacher. Not that the child is a burden, but a whole bunch of them together, it’s hard. A lot of it is with kids. It might be a burden with a gang in the city. How do you help that mother? How do you help that family? How do you help the brother that wants to get out of the family but can't? How do you do that, and how can we help that child get out and grow without being seeded into the prison system?
Toni: So you see someone else’s actions, you can tell by your own measuring stick whether or not that’s the real deal, and then you pay it forward by helping as well and by moving it forward. It almost sounds that way to me, that it’s being moved forward collectively.
Craig: You move it forward, but I’m just one person, so I’m always looking for how many people are inspired along with me that want to get on board of whatever this banner is I’m on that day.
Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?
Craig: Wow – lots and lots of people. The students that come here – we have a young boy whose name is Nick who comes to work every day who has some Down’s Syndrome, some mental challenges – he inspires me because he comes to work and he does the best he can. I have a girl named Cathy that has Down’s Syndrome that works in the laundry, and she can't wait to come to work. She walks in the door and she just bounces. She’s filled with joy for her two hours of contribution.
I have kids that come in from different schools that have Down’s Syndrome or autism, and when they see me, they raise their hands and they give me a nice side hug. Children inspire me. The teachers inspire me that come with them because they’re committing themselves to them, and they’re very good at what they do.
People in the area that inspire me – Mr. Boscov inspires all of us that live in this community. I like to mirror people that I see, and I try to be in my little small world philanthropic like him, and I try to help grow. I see what he does, but he can't do it all himself. With whatever money he gets, he still can't do it himself, so he needs us little minions out there to help him grow his venture. I try to get involved in different functions that he might have. Maybe I work with Habitat for Humanity. Tim Daley – he’s the Executive Director. He inspires me. He has gusto. He has a commitment. You inspire me, and that’s why we’re together, because I met you, and you inspired me.
Toni: Thank you.
Craig: John Gilmore – he inspires me, because he’s always out there making something happen. He has the enthusiasm, and he doesn’t have to, but he does. It’s not because you have to. Mr. Boscov doesn’t have to, but he does have to; and John Gilmore has to and I have to, because it’s in our DNA that we have to get this done. Tim Daley doesn’t have to.
A girl named Christine who works in Berks Community Counseling Center who just is so outstandingly great with working with the poor, the broken, the lost, the drug addicts, the mothers, and the families. She’s the one who goes back into a small alley to the house to make a call at life’s risk every day. She inspires me. I want to do things, because she does things, and I like it. I want to do things to support her programs, because I want her to be successful. She needs people like all of us to follow her, to pay it forward.
Toni: To move it forward and pay it forward. There’s two words that were screaming in my ear when you were talking about that with such passion – the two words were “commitment” and “contribution.” Whether it’s one of the children that are in here contributing, they inspire you, or the people in this community who are not only contributing, but their commitment to continue to contribute is what I’m hearing inspires you.
Craig: Right; and they’re passionate about it.
Toni: The passion. The “gusto,” as you said. I like that.
Craig: They have the game.
Toni: They have the game – what do you mean, “they have the game”?
Craig: They have it. I call it “it.” They get it. They get that it’s not about them. They get that the money they have, it’s just for short-term. It’s not about buying new cars and boats. It’s about going out there and making a difference. I was with a guy today named Denny Lorah with the Parrot Heads. There’s Denny Lorah – he lives a pretty good lifestyle, whatever he wants to do. He is working hard on trying to raise money for all kinds of different charities. I think he said he raised $300,000 already. One guy, always on a mission. I met him and I fell in love him – I said, “My gosh – you have passion! You’re raising money and having fun and you’re giving back to the poor, the broken, and the lost. It’s perfect!”
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Craig: I just want to make a difference for the poor, the broken, and lost. My legacy is children. How do I get somebody that was in prison out of prison? How do I get them a job, and how do they have a family, and how do they pass it along? My legacy isn’t about me, it’s really about how many people can I touch, and hopefully that they make a difference in their families and they grow, and their children grow up who I’ll probably never get to see. That will be my legacy. It’s a silent one, but it’s not a legacy – it’s more I want to make a difference, so I don’t know about the legacy part.
Toni: This comes up almost in every interview when I ask the question about, “What do you want your legacy to be?” People speak to what they’re currently doing, which means it’s not a legacy when you’re gone – you’re living that legacy right now, absolutely.
Craig: It’s what happens after you’re gone. I want my children to grow up in a safe neighborhood. When my grandchildren grow up, I hope God puts someone like me in their place, protects them, and protects their families. It’s what I want to do. It’s very simple.
Toni: Craig, thank you so much for what you do, and thank you so much for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Craig: You inspire me, every day.
Toni: Thank you.
