Toni Reece: Hi there. I’m Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Jennifer Hetrick with me. Welcome, Jennifer.
Jennifer Hetrick: Thank you very much, Toni.
Toni: Jennifer, take a moment and tell us just a little bit about yourself.
Jennifer: Sure. I am a freelance writer in the county, so people often…sometimes people will read my articles and not know it’s me, and then figure it out later. They’re like, “Oh, that was you? I loved that article!” They often remember that they liked it, but they didn’t pay attention to the byline; but some people do pay attention to that. I’m a professional writer. I do editing, photography. I also teach poetry, and I do poetry readings for my three-year project on the manufacturing history of Berks County through older seniors that I’ve interviewed around the region.
One thing that I forgot to talk about, which has a big influence on my work, is that I managed a garden center for five years; my family’s garden center in New Hanover Township in Montgomery County, where I grew up. I might just seem like I’m out there professional in the sense of services, but I also used to load mulch, topsoil, and stone with a skid loader, a front-end loader. I like to remind people of that, because since I’m female, people probably wouldn’t expect that of me. I did have a more kind of rugged type of job for a while, but because of that, I worked with plants every day, and I managed landscaping and plant stock. That has a big influence on a lot of my work.
In what I do, I like to write about natural things, being outside. We’re just stuck in buildings too much. I definitely advocate going out and getting fresh air as often as possible. I love writing about topics related to food that is grown by farmers, and hiking, and anything where we get sunshine in a days’ time.
Toni: Oh, that’s fantastic. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Toni: What does inspiration mean to you?
Jennifer: I was thinking about this, and I think that when things are beautiful and useful, I tend to pay attention to them more, and like to create something from them. I think that especially in today’s busy, stressful world with too much going on, those are some really important aspects. It’s easy to not remember to pay attention and be aware, so when I do slow down and notice things that are beautiful and useful and that I can bring to the attention of others through my writing and photography, I notice there’s a huge impact. It seems to make people’s days, so that’s a big part of what I do in my work is just promoting the positives of what’s around us.
One quick example is, I took a wrong turn on the way here today, and I decided to just follow my GPS. I ended up finding these beautiful back roads with farmland and hills, and I didn’t know them. I was in rural Exeter Township, and it was just incredible. I love that there’s always more to discover. I love sharing that kind of aspect of life with people.
Toni: So really, you are inspired by…first I thought you said youthful, but it’s useful. Give me an example of something that’s useful that inspires you.
Jennifer: Also, I guess it’s in the emotional sense. I saw that farmland. Yeah, it’s beautiful, but I think a lot of times what’s really important to me is bringing attention to farmers, because think about, when you see the larger national news, how often do you hear anything about farmers? Yet, they are literally the people that work so hard and don’t have a typical schedule, and have to get work done. Don’t have time to be sick. Don’t have people to substitute for them. They keep us fed, and without them, we wouldn’t have food to eat. In that sense, it’s useful. It’s an efficiency sort of topic, in a way, because literally we wouldn’t have food to eat without them. I think they often just don’t get enough attention in our culture.
I do some farm blogging for Weaver’s Orchard in Morgantown, as well as Wolff’s Apple House in Media, Pennsylvania, in Delaware County. I love those jobs. That is one of the most fun things that I do, and I absolutely love that writing. My editors are very grateful for me. They always love working with me because they know I’m going to put so much into it for the good of everyone — the vendors that the farmers work with, say at Weaver’s Orchard. The people that are actually doing the farming. There’s so much to learn from the land and food and how we are fed that I think people take for granted because of grocery stores.
Farmers markets definitely help. Not just the family-owned ones, but the ones on the street corner. I think that helps to connect people back with what is keeping them alive. To me, that’s useful, because you wouldn’t be alive without food, but it’s also beautiful. I mean, there’s great visuals. I love photographing farm food and farm hills. It’s just the balance that we need away from the analytical and the too many busy things with concrete buildings. The things that take us away from what’s natural and meant for us.
Toni: You can tell that all of that inspires you. I think you’ve answered the second question a little bit with this answer, but can you give an example of when you are inspired by things that you see that are useful as the example you just gave, and beautiful, how do you put that then, that inspiration, into practice here in Berks County?
Jennifer: Sure. One example I have recently, it’s a little bit of a crossover outside of Berks County, but I don’t know if you’ve heard of Doorstep Dairy?
Toni: I have.
Jennifer: I just did some work for him. I had written about him several times before for articles on Daryl Mast. He has taken the old-fashioned milkman delivery service kind of thing and turned it into artisan and really healthy foods, old fashioned foods and drinks, and he delivers those door-to-door to people across Lancaster, Berks, Montgomery and Chester counties. He’s grown his business so much from the beginning, and to me, it’s just incredible. He’s tying all these people together that are doing really good things for the community food-wise, and he’s bringing them to people’s doorsteps, literally, with an icebox.
I did some writing work for him. I loved doing that. Every part of it was completely positive and good for everyone, and it felt really good to do work for someone that I had so much respect for, which, with my other work, I wouldn’t say freelancing, but my full-time work, it doesn’t always feel that way. It felt really, really good to be able to do that.
Reading Draft Soda, that company was recently bought out by a family, and they’ve been completely revamping it, making it more available in communities. I recently wrote an article about them as well for Lehigh Valley Business. I had done some photography of their sodas. They’re so classic and wonderful and nostalgic to see. I gave him some of those to go with the work that I had done for him for a few different pieces of writing he asked me to do. Again, it’s just all that wonderful nostalgia; people working hard, people meaning well. That business opened I think in 1921, and it’s had a few names since them. There’s history to that, there’s integrity of the family working together. It’s like a mother, father and two sons kind of business.
Toni: So, you like bringing attention in your writing to these people that inspire you, and it actually is far reaching. You’re able to bring that to the table. That’s amazing. Who in Berks County inspires you?
Jennifer: Well, all of those people. People that I just mentioned. People behind Doorstep Dairy as well as the Reading Draft Soda family. Largely, it does come back to farmers for me, because when I write articles about farmers, I feel like I’m doing something that is needed and is sometimes neglected. Farmers are often very grateful. They’re very humble people. They work so hard. You don’t blame them to just want a little bit of acknowledgement for taking care of us and making sure that we’re well nourished.
I mean, there’s a lot of other great people doing wonderful things in Berks County like Phoebe Canakis. Her food writing and just the evolution of our friendship has been wonderful. I met her through interviewing her in the early days of her business for Berks County Living magazine. I know her husband framed my article and has it in their kitchen. She’s one of my great friends to this day since I met her at that point. She does incredible things. I love everything about her and her energy, her intention, how she educates people, and how she teaches people that food can be healthy plus good tasting, which some people are still not quite sure of. Once you try her food, you know better and you’re like, “This is possible.”
Toni: Have you listened to her podcast?
Jennifer: I haven’t in a while, but I love…the other one she has too…what is it? Two Weird…
Toni: “Two Weird Hungry Girls.”
Jennifer: “Two Weird Hungry Girls.” I tell people about the title of that all the time, and they love it. I’m like, “That is just such a great program title.”
Toni: It’s them. Anybody else you want to mention that inspires you?
Jennifer: Oh, my goodness. There’s so many people. I don’t know if you know Marian Wolbers? She writes for Berks County Living magazine as well. Years ago, I had my own publication, which I just retired this year called News, Not Blues of positive-only local news. I met Marian I think at a poetry reading. She ended up becoming my main food writer for my publication for a little while. Then, Nikki Murry noticed her sharing an article that she wrote for me on Facebook, and then she asked Marian to start doing food writing, because I think she didn’t realize the value of her food writing, because she hadn’t seen it before, and she said that it is incredible.
Then, Nikki had also asked me to start doing food features, too, but Marian does the restaurant features. If you ever read her work, it’s just like you want to go right to the restaurant. She is so wonderful at details and picking out incredible aspects that really get through to people. There’s definitely more people than that who I find inspiring, but those are just some to mention.
Toni: Jennifer, what do you want your legacy to be?
Jennifer: When I considered this idea, I realized I’m so busy with all that I manage that I haven’t thought about that, because I feel like that’s something for people who have time to think about, and I don’t usually have time. I’m so on the run. I guess it comes back to just hoping that the things that I do where I mean well in the community stay with people.
When I do photography, I feel like that could hopefully be long-lasting. The other day I did a picture of — I had shoveled my sidewalk. I have a brick sidewalk. I just shoveled a path only as big as the shovel, so the rest was all snow on either side. I wrote this thing that was like, “Instead of follow the yellow brick road,” it’s something like…I’m not sure what it was exactly, but I had some poetic way of saying, “Follow this,” and it went with the colors of the bricks. I had a young tree of mine from my sidewalk in the background. It just looked so beautiful. I shared it to the www.visitboyertownpa.com Facebook page, which is a page that I manage in having co-created the Visit Boyertown PA website. I love seeing that matters to people away from the busy, stressful, business-oriented things that they have to handle in a day.
I guess visuals are a big part of it, but I don’t know. Obviously just wanting to contribute some good in the world when there’s so much bad to see, and we need to see the good more than we pay so much attention to the bad like in the regular news. The balance of helping people to understand the good that’s out there.
Toni: And that’s your contribution to the world. I know that you spoke about the fact that you don’t really think about your legacy because you’re always on the go.
Jennifer: Yes.
Toni: But here’s the really cool thing about legacy. Legacy isn’t just what happens when you are no longer here. Legacy is what you’re doing every day. So, as demonstrated in your interview, you’re living your legacy.
Jennifer: That’s a good angle. I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you, Toni.
Toni: There you go. Thank you so much for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Jennifer: Sure. Thank you very much, Toni.
Toni: Thank you.
