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 Dave Emkey with me. Hi, Dave. How are you?
Dave Emkey: I’m good. How are you?
Toni: I am great. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Dave: My name is Dave Emkey. I grew up here in Wyomissing. I’m from a very large family. I’m the youngest of seven. I currently work for Fromuth Tennis in the Marketing Department in business development for about four years now. I’ve been a tennis player my whole life, so it’s a natural fit for me.
Toni: Thank you for being part of the Get Inspired! Project. What does inspiration mean to you?
Dave: Inspiration to me is all about your surroundings. It’s all about who and what you surround yourself with or who you are surrounded by. I think it’s something that comes naturally, and you don’t even know you’re being inspired when you’re inspired.
I believe in good inspiration and bad inspiration. Obviously, if you’re surrounded by good people and the right people, you’re inspired in the right way to make good decisions. Likewise, if you’re surrounded by the wrong people, you make the wrong decisions. I think that definitely it’s the surroundings that guide you down the right path in life.
Toni: So it’s really a matter of influence.
Dave: Yes. I think it’s important, because you don’t even really know. It’s a natural thing. Everything around you just takes you down your decision path. If you’re with the right people all the time you just tend to make the right choices. It’s very influential.
Toni: How have you put that type of inspiration, the decision-making, and the influence into practice here in Berks County?
Dave: As part of working at Fromuth Tennis, I’m actually extremely lucky. Pat Shields, who owns the company, is very involved in different organizations around Berks County like the City of Reading Tennis Program, all the Boys and Girls Clubs, and the United Way. As part of working at Fromuth, we’re also involved with those organizations if we want to be.
The culture that he’s inspired at Fromuth is that everyone is involved, and we all want to be involved. I’m surrounded by amazing people there that give back all the time, be it time, energy or money. Whatever it is, we’re giving to all these organizations everything we can.
The City of Reading Tennis Program is a great fit for me as a tennis player. I get to go and help some of the kids in the city who aren’t lucky and don’t have great lives at home. It ends up being a lot of inspiration going both ways there, because I’m helping kids on the tennis court through tennis, but really helping shape their lives, helping them as kids make right decisions, and helping them get through the hardships of life that they’re going through.
At the end of the day I like to look back and think that they’ve left our time on the tennis court inspired to play tennis, but also inspired just because of our time. I leave inspired by the kids. I learn something new every day from them. You end up feeling better about yourself when you’ve helped somebody. It just feels great.
Toni: Do you roll that over into your personal life? You give back based on the business and the culture that’s being fostered there – and I love the way you said that you inspire them as well as you’re being inspired – does that then translate into your personal life?
Dave: Absolutely. You appreciate more of everything you have, and everything you don’t have doesn’t matter. I have a beautiful wife and daughter, and we’re very happy. Coming home from those events, it just brings us closer together as a family.
Even though Fromuth has instilled that culture, it’s not a mandatory thing, and usually it is on our own time that we’re there, be it after work or on the weekends. There are days I’ve worked a long day, but at 6pm I’ll go and get with a kid and play some tennis, or go to a clinic and have fun with them, and make them smile. I’ll find the kids that had a bad day, and I make it my goal to make them laugh by the end of the day. Sometimes that smile feels better than the 13 hours you spent having your own rough day.
Toni: Absolutely. What a wonderful gift that you’re giving and getting. That is pretty cool. Who in Berks County inspires you?
Dave: I have to say everyone that works for these organizations in Reading like the Olivet Boys and Girls Club, the City of Reading Tennis Program, and the United Way. They’re all there to help, and they put in so much of their time and energy into helping not just the kids but the families of Reading. It’s special.
I think there’s two ways of looking at the City of Reading. In the news you hear about the poverty levels and the crime rates, and you can look at it that way, or you can look at it as we do, and that’s as an opportunity to help. We’re blessed with this city. It may not be the best city, but we can make a difference there and we can go help. They’ve made it their mission in life to do that, and I think it’s so important that they do.
I’m also inspired by the kids there that take to it. I think it’s something special when they’re going through so much adversity at home and at school that they can let themselves be inspired by you, and let them have a difference in their lives just because you were there for an hour to talk to them. Sometimes that’s all that they need. To me, it’s really special. They’re not there to collect anything other than time and an ear sometimes. It’s pretty special.
Toni: Do you become inspired by the choices that some of those kids have to make, or maybe to your point that Reading gets the bad rap and has the reputation that it does, isn’t it amazing when you see the choices that people are making and the sacrifices for doing good work in Berks County?
Dave: Absolutely. It’s very, very inspirational. It’s sometimes a thankless thing, but they still plug through it, they still do it, and they’re there every day with a smile on their face. It is truly inspirational.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Dave: I want my legacy to be what I go by and what I’ve talked about. Sometimes you just need to give someone a couple minutes of your time. That can be the most invaluable thing ever and means so much more to people than anything else that you’ve listened to someone or you’ve helped someone make a decision or get through a problem, or whatever it is, and that when you go home at night it’s not feeling good because, “We’re so blessed to have this and this person doesn’t.” It’s more of, “I made a difference in someone’s life today.” To me, that’s the most important thing, and that’s what I want my legacy to be.
Toni: Thank you so much for doing the work that you do, and thank you for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project.
Dave: Thank you.
