Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Darby Wiekrykas with me. Welcome, Darby.
Darby Wiekrykas: Hi. Thank you for having me.
Toni: How are you today?
Darby: I’m great.
Toni: It’s a beautiful day, right?
Darby: It is.
Toni: So, take a moment and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Darby: Well, I’m born and raised in Berks County, and I attended Penn State Berks locally. I have actually worked in the nonprofit area in a variety of ways my entire career.
Toni: Oh, really? You’ve always been drawn to nonprofits?
Darby: I always have. I worked for the county court system for many years and a few agencies since then.
Toni: What is your current position?
Darby: My position currently is with United Way of Berks County as their Volunteer Engagement Manager for the past six years.
Toni: Fantastic. Shall we start the Project?
Darby: Sure.
Toni: Alright. So, what does inspiration mean to you?
Darby: I have thought about this, and I feel it is something that motivates someone to create and to do things, whether it’s looking at a person or an activity. I just feel that you get inspired and motivated to do something.
Toni: Do you know when it happens?
Darby: I don’t think always. I think sometimes you do immediately, but I think sometimes you look back on an incident, and you can see how that has affected you; or, you look back at a particular person you’ve encountered, and you realize later on that it really did do something. It really hit you inside. I think the activities that you do or how you live your life sometimes are affected by those experiences.
Toni: That’s an interesting way to put that, because sometimes when people describe inspiration, it moves them to action in an immediate way, but you may have been moved to action and not realized that you were inspired by a past action that caused you to do that. That’s kind of an interesting way to look at that. When you have been inspired, what have you done to put that into practice here in Berks County?
Darby: I’ve always been a people person, and I think a lot of the jobs I’ve been drawn to involve working with people and helping people. Even though it may sound cliché, “Oh, I want to help someone,” but I have done that my entire life and career, whether it was from volunteering early on, or the jobs I’ve chosen to do. I feel currently it’s probably the largest impact that I’ve been able to make. I just love doing it every day, every week. The people that I encounter and the people that I talk to on the phone and the events that I get to do with people just keeps me going.
Toni: Give me an example of doing that type of work, putting that inspiration into practice, how that inspires you back.
Darby: Well, I have a great opportunity to match people with volunteer opportunities in our community. Berks County is inspiring, because every day my phone rings with someone looking to help, and I get to match them with an agency that might not have enough volunteers. Then, the stories I hear are maybe a retiree is lonely. They lost a spouse, and they need to get out of the house. Or, I have someone who recently retired, and they thought, “Oh, I’m going to relax because it’s retirement,” but now they’re kind of bored, and they really want to give back. I get to help them. I get to match them. In turn, the agencies that I match them to are getting a lot of volunteer force that they may not originally have.
Toni: What a win-win for everybody.
Darby: It is.
Toni: It’s a win for you, it’s a win for the volunteer, it’s a win for the organization. That’s amazing. So, who in Berks County inspires you?
Darby: Well, I’ve always tried to practice what I preach. I do try to pass along to my kids all these years to do the same kind of drive. I really feel both of my children, my daughter and my son, have taken that on in their jobs. I’m proud of that, and that now continues to inspire me because of the work they do. I get to work a little bit in the education field, and my daughter’s a teacher. I just love the connection now that I’m part of an education initiative helping match tutors with students. My daughter teaches in Reading, and I’m helping those children too. That inspiration has really continued now, even though my children are adults and doing that.
I have also encountered a few professional people over the course of my career that I’ve looked back on and truly have wanted to emulate, and how they lived throughout their career. A few of them are retired now, and I get to do some of the same work that they did.
Toni: Any other shout-outs that you’d like to give specifically?
Darby: At this time, I would say there’s a gentleman. He was a judge. Judge Art Grimm. I worked with him many years ago. Always just carried himself and conducted himself, and continues to this day. Back when I started in the early years in the court system, he was very impressionable to me. He’s done a lot of great work, and he definitely is someone I’ve always looked up to and was inspired by.
Toni: Oh, that’s fantastic. There’s a common theme when people speak about those that inspire them. It sounds to me it’s almost a full circle thought with you, because you enjoy giving, you enjoy matching others to give, and you are inspired by those who give. That’s kind of cool.
Darby: Definitely.
Toni: Alright, Darby…what do you want your legacy to be?
Darby: Well, I have been, I think if I look back and forward, been proud of either ways that I’ve been able to raise dollars in the community in my early career, did a lot of development and touched a lot of people, and continue forward…the amount of children in our schools. I think looking back, I’m happy to say that I’ve touched thousands of people, either in the events that I’ve coordinated, or in the result of those events, and how it’s helped the community, whether it’s with the meal planning or tutoring or things that I’ve touched over the years.
Toni: I don’t know how you cannot be inspired by your own work. With all of the people you have touched and the work that you have done, what an amazing body of work that you’ve created. Congratulations to you, and thank you so much for doing what you do and showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Darby: Thank you.
