Listen to the interview here!
Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Dan Clouser with me. Hi, Dan.
Dan Clouser: Hi, Toni. Thanks for having me.
Toni: You’re welcome. Dan, take a moment and tell us about yourself.
Dan: I’m Dan Clouser, and I’m the President of the Big Vision Foundation, which was formally Berkshire Baseball. We just went through a rebranding on January 24th, and we are now the Big Vision Foundation.
Toni: Congratulations on all the changes.
Dan: Thank you.
Toni: Let’s go into the first question of the Project. What does inspiration mean to you?
Dan: I think inspiration to me is just seeing someone who is doing good and because of them being motivated or being inspired to go out and make a difference as well.
Toni: So it’s being inspired by a mentor or someone that you’ve observed that inspires you to action?
Dan: Yes.
Toni: Can you give me an example of that?
Dan: A large part of my life, probably one of my biggest mentors was my mother. She probably inspired me to get involved in the community and make a difference, and do anything that I could do with what I had in order to make a difference. You didn’t need a million dollars in your bank account to make a difference. You didn’t need to be the President of the United States to make a difference, or a politician. You can make a difference in some really small ways that actually end up being incredibly big ways because of the ripple effect that’s created.
Through our organization, that’s been the MO. We’re originally what was a youth baseball organization. We use that organization to really make a much larger impact on the lives of the kids that came through our organization. That just blossomed to bigger and better things – getting involved in Cups Compassion by feeding the homeless on 5th and Penn, raising money for breast cancer, raising money for the Keystone Warriors. These are all things that on the surface seem relatively small, but to the people that we’re doing them for, are incredibly large. What we do with the John Paul II Center by just having them come out to our facility twice a year is incredibly huge for those kids.
Toni: I know that you serve, as you mentioned, and give back to a lot of organizations, but can you give me a specific story of how you take that inspired action and put that into practice?
Dan: A small story is what we do once a year out at 5th and Penn with our Cups Compassion project. It’s a project that we got involved with about two years ago where we just take a whole bunch of hamburgers and hot dogs out and grill them up about a week before Christmas and give them to needy people. That makes a huge impact for those people. The flip side of that is there’s so much more that we could do. That’s one day, but there’s a lot of other days that they need help. With that project, it’s looking to grow that even bigger to make a larger impact than what we’re doing.
I think on a grand scale, more of a general basis, is what we’re doing out at our facility that we talk about quite a bit in our own podcast at the Berks County Youth Recreation Facility. It’s to really create an atmosphere for everyone in Berks County to be able to feel comfortable at and come and gather. That can be whether you’re black, white, purple, or pink, or if you like sports or don’t like sports, or you just want to walk or watch a beautiful sunset.
We have this diamond in the rough, and our organization is in the process of shining that up and really making it a point where it’s somewhere where people want to go in Berks County. We already have people from New York and New Jersey who come there every weekend and just love the place, but yet right here locally in our own backyard so many people don’t know what is out there. To create a sanctuary for people to come and gather their thoughts, watch a game, walk their dog, whatever they want to do that is how they find peace; we can provide that out there.
Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?
Dan: My mom passed away back in 2005, and for quite a few years I don’t know that I really had a true mentor, so to speak. My dad and I have become very close over the past year, closer than we ever were, so he is an inspiration to me now. Again, very similar to my mom, they were divorced when I was pretty young, but they were both very giving individuals. My mom gave more of her time, and my dad, because he drove truck didn’t really have a whole lot of time to give, he was constantly giving money.
I know at one point he was an owner/operator for driving truck. He owned his own rig and everything. He had some issues with motors going bad and some things like that, and went through some pretty tough times financially. I remember him saying one time to me, “Here I am at 70 years old, and when I’m gone I’m not going to be able to give a whole lot to you guys.”
I said, “That’s crazy that you think that, because you’ve given us everything while you’re here. We don’t need to inherit a million dollars when you’re gone. You’re here, and you’ve given it to us here and been able to take part in giving that to us.”
It really changed my mode a little bit. I was never really motivated by money or anything like that. Again, I’ve become very giving because of seeing the way those two lived their lives. It made me start to think a lot whereas he and I had that conversation, just talking about the emptiness and leaving a lot of money to someone in your will. I know what I get the most out of in giving to people is seeing how it affects them. When I give a $30 or $35 baseball glove to a kid from John Paul II Center it’s as if I did just give them a million dollars; I can't do that in a casket. I can't see that reaction.
When my dad said that to me and I said, “Don’t even think that way, because you’ve given us everything you have while you’re here.” He actually made the comment, “And I get more out of it than what you guys do by doing that.”
I tell my kids and grandkids now, “You’re not getting anything when I die, so don’t expect some big inheritance. There will be a life insurance policy and whatever is there, but you’re not going to get rich, because I’m going to give you everything I have while I’m here so that we can share it together.” Since that time, my dad and I get together once a week for either breakfast or lunch, and over the past year that relationship has gotten really, really strong. He’s really my inspiration here in Berks County.
Another person who’s been very inspiring to me who helped us through our strategic planning process is Al Webber. He’s really taken our organization under his wing. A lot of times when you talk about people going through strategic plannings and things like that when you’re dealing with a consultant, it’s just a business for that guy. But with Al, it was more than the business. You could tell it was sincere. He bought into what we were doing with this organization, and that really inspired me to see a person who’s very, very successful in Berks County to really latch onto what we’re doing as an organization and believe in what we’re doing, and really want to see us go to the next level. That was very inspiring to me.
Toni: What would you like your legacy to be?
Dan: I guess my legacy would really have to be whatever I did for each person that I’ve come in contact with individually. I use a quote from Jackie Robinson quite a bit. It’s in the signature line of all my emails. “A life is not significant except for its effect on other lives.” I guess that’s really what I want my legacy to be. I don’t need some sort of crazy statue or anything like that, or a name carved in stone – just the people I’ve come in contact with, if I can leave a lasting mark on their life, that’s the legacy that I want.
Toni: Thank you for living your legacy, and thank you for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Dan: Thank you, Toni.
