Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Tricia Williams with me. Welcome.
Tricia Williams: Hi. Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Toni: Great. So, Tricia, take a moment and tell us just a little bit about yourself.
Tricia: Well, I was brought here with Forever Cairn, which is a company that I just recently started. It’s basically a brand that was inspired by nature to provide quality products for customers that give back. For one purchase, every purchase made, a tree is planted. I was invited here to participate in the Get Inspired! Project.
Toni: Well, that’s fantastic. What an awesome opportunity to be able to buy something and have it do something like that.
Tricia: It’s very rewarding, absolutely, to put your energy into your passion. It’s pretty easy to do.
Toni: It is, isn't it? A lot of people need to realize that. Okay. Let’s go into the Project, okay? So, what does inspiration mean to you?
Tricia: Sure. I’ve thought about this. For me, I think inspiring is someone or something that creates an impulse that makes you want to participate or join, whether it be a movement or an initiative, or even a song to say, “I kind of feel that. It seems like a really neat thing to be a part of, and want to join.” It’s creating that thought or feeling that you want to participate as well.
Toni: Now, I just want to understand this. It’s a feeling for you.
Tricia: It is. It’s something inside. It connects with me. I say, “I think that’s a really good or neat thing to be a part of, and it makes me want to join in that effort.”
Toni: Okay, so it’s an actionable thing.
Tricia: Yes.
Toni: Do you remember the last time you were inspired?
Tricia: Yes, I do. I mean, I’m inspired daily by my children, but more recently there is a place called Berks Nature, which I’m sure many people are probably aware of. It’s a local venue right down in Angelica Park. They just opened a nature place. I was actually really inspired touring their new facility, because it’s a great resource that we have right here in Berks County that I think everybody needs to take advantage of.
Toni: So, you went there, and you knew you were inspired by this place.
Tricia: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s pretty neat. There’s a multitude of things. I think that you should just ultimately go down for yourself and see. There’s an outdoor play area for the kids, and what I found so cool is, aside from going down with my children, a friend of mine took her two kids down there. They are ages 5 and 2. They get down to the outdoor play area, and Autumn, her oldest daughter, she said, “What are we supposed to do?” Corey was like, “That’s a great question. Let’s go in and be creative.” I think kids are so…we’re so structured now. “It’s a slide. You use it as a slide. It’s a swing. Sit on it and swing.” To make this area for children to be creative is just such a neat opportunity.
Two-and-a-half hours later, she was pulling them out of this play area because they had gotten so immersed in the creative play that it stands for…you can make your own teepee. There’s a huge pterodactyl-sized bird’s nest there or dinosaur nest, so to speak. There’s a water pump station that kids can play with. There are natural building blocks, and what I mean by that is instead of having your blocks that you would play with that are plastic inside, there’s small pieces of wood that you can stack to create things. It’s just a really, really incredible area for families…for anybody who loves being in nature.
Toni: So, here you have described something that has inspired you, and you can describe it in wonderful detail with lots of passion.
Tricia: I love it. Yes.
Toni: How do you take that passion and that inspired thinking when it happens, that feeling, and put that into practice here in Berks County?
Tricia: Well, I mean, I would like to say that daily I hope to…through my business, with my children, inspire them to understand that if you see something that you can personally make a difference…one person can make a difference. I really hope that we’re teaching them that, for example, with the Forever Cairn business, that every item sold plants one tree. It inspires me to be able to teach them that, “Hey, if you have a great idea and you just put that out there, if you’re inspiring other people, people join on.” They really get involved, and they get enthusiastic about it, just as I’m speaking about the Nature Place. They just have such a neat facility there, so I talk about it and I try to let people know, “Get down there and see this.”
By putting it into practice daily, I try to do that with my kids as well. Teaching them that, “You can have an impact. Just take a good idea and roll with it. As long as you’re putting your passion into it and working hard, it’ll become something.”
Toni: It sounds as though it’s a bit of a pay it forward model.
Tricia: It is, yeah. For me personally, it’s like a one for one, although it’s not just one person or one thing involved. I do believe in the trickledown effect, that if you pay it forward, it’s going to snowball, and people will join in and it’ll become something really great before you know it.
Toni: That comes full circle for me, then. When you’re inspired and you are moved into action, is most of the action based upon that one to one or that paying it forward?
Tricia: Maybe, if I understand what you’re saying. If you’re just taking…
Toni: The way you are inspired. When you’re inspired to move to action, is it usually a pay it forward movement?
Tricia: Yes, it has been recently. I think for me personally having small children, what am I going to teach them? What am I going to show them that they can carry with them for the rest of their life and as they grow? What are those important tools that I’m giving them? I hope it is that pay it forward.
Toni: What a great way to describe being inspired and how far it can go.
Tricia: Well, it can. I think there’s a lot of great things happening in Berks County. Obviously, the Nature Place being one of them.
Toni: So, who in Berks County inspires you?
Tricia: Oh, wow. Personally, outside of the Nature Place, or?
Toni: Sure.
Tricia: Well, I think legacy is definitely very inspiring. A little bit about the people that I work for. It’s a fourth-generation family-owned business. It’s hard work being there through the generations since 1945. I work for Amy and Richard Gipprich, so it’s working hard every day, having their place in the community. They’re over at Gipprich Jewelers on Lancaster Avenue in Shillington. It is inspiring to see people just truly working hard, and just carrying on the legacy of what was started years and years ago in 1945. That inspires me, for sure, seeing that if you work hard, you can really make something out of it.
Toni: Anyone else from Berks County inspire you?
Tricia: Wow. There are a lot of people. I don’t know. I’m definitely inspired by my children for sure. That’s probably my biggest inspiration. Not that there’s not many people out there doing great things, but I think what drives me is knowing what I’m leaving behind. Being inspired to teach them right and do right by your children. Yeah. I would definitely have Emma, Connor and Maggie, throw them in there.
Toni: Fantastic.
Tricia: Yeah.
Toni: So, Tricia, what would you like your legacy to be?
Tricia: Definitely for what I’m leaving behind, my children, my kids to know that there’s such a pride that you get when you’re passing along the fact that one person can make that impact. You can inspire a group or a community to come together in an initiative, that it might start with one tree, but four months later you may see that you’ve planted 647 trees; just knowing that by doing one small thing, if it’s in the right direction or with the right heart behind it that it can really snowball. It can become something.
Toni: So, your passion and inspiration is literally driving your living legacy at this moment.
Tricia: It is.
Toni: That’s fantastic. Thank you so much for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Tricia: Thank you so much for having me. This was a nice opportunity. I appreciate it, Toni.
Toni: You’re quite welcome.
Tricia: Thank you.
