Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living magazine. Today I have a very special guest here with this big, beautiful smile, and her name is Sara Richter Cosentino. Sara, welcome to the Get Inspired! Project.
Sara Richter Cosentino: Thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
Toni: Good. Sara, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sara: I own a company called 3 O’Clock Snacks, which specializes in healthy baked goods. I make healthy muffins, bars, black bean brownies, and cookies. I started that when I was a stay at home mom who needed to lose some baby weight, and I started adapting recipes. Before long, I realized I wasn’t actually adapting recipes anymore; I was actually creating the recipes. I felt very passionate about doing it, and I turned it into a business about two years ago.
Toni: Fantastic. How do we find out more about your business?
Sara: I have a website. It’s www.3oclocksnacks.com. I have a very active Facebook page. You can search 3 O’Clock Snacks on Facebook.
Toni: Anything else you want to tell us before we get into the Project?
Sara: Yes. My two passions are feeding people and books, so 3 O’Clock Snacks satisfies the passion for feeding people, and then my other passion with books I have taken to a level with my friend from school. Amy Seiders Kline and I have started an organization called RSD Book Day, whose mission is to get books into the hands of students in the Reading School District who are considered light and non-readers in the hopes of turning them into lifelong readers.
Toni: Wow! That’s inspiring all on its own.
Sara: It is. There is a Go Fund Me page. All of our funds are done through that. You can search the Go Fund Me page for RSD Book Day. We were able to raise $2,000 so far. We have purchased 225 books to give to each level of school, and we hope to be able to continue it every year.
Toni: Fantastic! Let’s go into the Project. Sara, what does inspiration mean to you?
Sara: To me, inspiration means feeling passionate about something – passionate to the point where you feel like you have to act on it. I’m a little spontaneous in my passion. If I feel strongly about something, I have to act on it, and I have to act on it now.
Toni: I understand that!
Sara: With both of those, 3 O’Clock Snacks and RSD Book Day, I feel like I share. My passion is sharing. My passion is having people experience all the wonderful things that I get to experience, too.
Toni: So you experience it first.
Sara: Yes.
Toni: And something happens, and then you want others to have that something happen to them as well.
Sara: Yes. If I’ve just created a recipe, I will take the newfound experiment to the bus stop and say, “Oh my gosh, you guys have to try this! I just made this. I’m so excited!”
Toni: So they really are experiencing that.
Sara: Oh, yes!
Toni: Okay. Very cool! So really, you’re creating an experience for people.
Sara: I hope so. I hope that I am.
Toni: That’s awesome. So how do you take all of that passion and put that into practice here in Berks County?
Sara: I feed people in Berks County. Everything I make is baked to order. I don’t have a stockpile of things, so people can’t say, “Can I have a dozen of whatever you have on hand?” I only bake when you order it so that everything you get is fresh. When you order a dozen muffins for your breakfast meeting, you know that those were made specifically for you. That’s another thing I feel very passionately about, because it’s all created individually for the person who’s ordering it.
I like to feed the people, and then with RSD Book Day I’m hoping to pass on my passion for reading and books onto other people.
Toni: Sara, when you’ve experienced that passion even personally, not with your business so much, have you been moved to action that has created something else personally for you? For example, when was the last time you felt that way that was outside of the business?
Sara: I feel that way often. Whenever I experience something that moves me, I need to share it with other people, and I hope that they get the same reaction. If they don’t, that’s okay, too.
For example, going back to RSD Book Day, that was probably the biggest ignite of passion that I have felt. We were part of a much, much larger organization called World Book Night, which was a worldwide organization that put books into the hands of light and nonreaders, and it is now defunct. Amy and I thought, “We have to keep this going. We can't let this feeling of sharing these books with people go away.”
That was probably the last time I felt it to that extent; however, I will say I do feel a little of passion on something on a daily basis.
Toni: That is so cool, and that’s what people love to hear, because if you don’t – and people don’t even realize that that’s what they’re feeling, that they’re inspired – so you know when you’re inspired by something, don’t you?
Sara: Absolutely, yes.
Toni: You recognize it, you see it, you feel it, and then …
Sara: I go with it.
Toni: You go with it. Fantastic. Who in Berks County inspires you?
Sara: There are two people who inspire me. One is going to sound very cliché, but it is my mom, Ann Sheehan. She is a very well-known person in the community, and I grew up seeing her be incredibly involved in all sorts of community things, and I am very happy that she has passed that feeling on to me. I feel like I need to do good in the community, and I need to help people where I can and spread kindness and goodness.
Toni: She knows this already. I’m big, big Ann fan.
Sara: There’s lots of Ann fans out there. The second person is actually Kate Flowers, who would probably be shocked to hear that she inspires me, but she does. She is one of the kindest, most genuinely good people I know. She works with the Greater Reading Guerilla Goodness, and she is big on pay it forward and random acts of kindness, and that inspires me. She will send Valentine’s Day cards to my kids out of the blue. It’s those little, tiny things that she does, makes me want to do those little, tiny things for other people, too.
Toni: There’s a common theme with you, Sara, that is all about experiences. Whether they are people that inspire you that have created experiences for others, whether it’s community building or acts of kindness, and then you’re also taking that forward yourself by creating experiences, whether it’s in food or in books. That’s pretty cool how that comes full circle for you.
Sara: Thank you. It is.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Sara: I want my legacy to be that I was a kind and good person, and that I shared with people and that I gave people good experiences and made them feel good, whether through nourishment of food or through experiences or stories or good books that I’ve shared. I just want to be known as a kind and good person.
Toni: It’s one of those questions that people think legacy happens when you’re not here any longer. However, as you have demonstrated and as is many times demonstrated in the Get Inspired! Project, people are living their legacy as you are. Thank you, Sara, for showing up to the Get Inspired! Project.
Sara: Thank you.
