Shawn Fink
The Abundant Mama Project, York
Shawn Fink has been a reporter and had an “amazing and wonderful” job in politics, but it wasn’t feeding her creative side. She had a blog, though, filled with tips on savoring motherhood’s moments. A friend urged her to turn it into a business. She followed her passion, and “the passion led to a career.”
“Writing and creating things is a part of who I am,” she says. “I reach people best through my work.”
The name Abundant Mama imparts the sense that “I am enough. I have plenty. I do enough. For us as a community, it really is about enoughness.” Through home study and a virtual group-coaching Peace Circle, women learn the art of enjoying the moment (abundantmama.com).
“Motherhood is the most challenging job I’ve ever had,” she says. “I believe in being truthful about how hard it really is, so moms have a safe place, a safe container to share their stories of how difficult it is for them, and in the midst of that, trying to find the beauty of it. It does take a nice pair of eyes to be able to see the impact you’re making on your kids’ lives.”
She hopes she is teaching her twin 12-year-old daughters about “being your own person. Be grateful for who you are, the privilege that you have and using that to your highest good to help other people.” They like being on the cover of her book, Savoring Slow, which is about “finding pockets of slow in your busy life.” An early riser, Fink finds her pockets of slow in gratitude journaling and meditation.
Her husband, Daniel Fink, is “extremely proud of what I’ve created and isn’t afraid to tell people about it.” As a family, they enjoy “natural adventures,” hiking or going to the beach.
Through her church, she founded a peacemakers’ camp for young people, helping “develop a generation of kids who believe in respecting themselves and each other.” It’s all part of her mission “to create a more peaceful world, one family at a time.”
“Mothers in particular, but parents in general, have a great power toward contributing to a more peaceful world by how we teach our kids to take care of themselves, and making sure we’re not putting ourselves last so we end up frazzled. It really does make a difference in our world in how we’re showing up every day.”
Kim Lee Kenawell-Hoffecker
Founding partner and senior family wealth adviser, Avantra Family Wealth, Mechanicsburg
Kim Lee Kenawell-Hoffecker doesn’t see herself as an entrepreneur. She is a woman doing her best for family and clients.
“How do I take care of them, and how do I take care of others?” she says. “Yes, I’m an entrepreneur. Down deep in my brain, I know that, but in my heart, I’m helping people. In my heart, my team is making a difference, and that’s my motivation.”
Kenawell-Hoffecker left Merrill Lynch in 2017, co-founding Avantra for the independence to provide service at the highest levels possible. “If you don’t strive for personal growth,” she says, “then you’re dying on the vine.”
The innovations she’s pursuing include collaborative divorce, convening both parties to craft solutions with guidance from specialists in finance, mental health, and child well-being. “At the end of the day, if all we’re dissolving is a marriage, and we’re not dissolving a family, and we’re not putting the children in the middle, then we’re making a difference, and that’s what I wanted to do.”
As a lifelong firefighter and fire company administrator, she advocates for emergency services workers who devote “hours and hours” to training and duties, all while “putting their lives on the line.”
With the Southcentral Critical Incident Stress Team, she debriefs emergency services workers reeling from traumatic incidents, reminding them that “it’s okay to ask for help” managing the effects of PTSD.
Shanksville on and after 9/11 provided the “best worst” experience of her life—best for putting in sharp relief “what it was to be an American” and worst for supporting responders through the excruciating task of piecing together lost lives.
“You’re building relationships with these people in minutes, and you’re working with them for days, and then all of a sudden, these people you counted on for support, they’re gone.”
With her husband—retired mechanical engineer, scuba-diving enthusiast and assistant fire chief Tom Hoffecker—she has a daughter, Alyssa, and three stepchildren. She tries to teach Alyssa that “her opinions matter, but her listening matters more.”
If she and her Avantra team can help others “stand on their own two feet and launch forward, then I’m going to do that every day and twice on Sunday, because there is nothing that should stop anyone, especially a woman, from going and finding her true passion and finding her calling and lifting herself up to reach that height.”
Timbrel Chyatee
Lush Bazaar, Lancaster
Growing up in two cultures, Timbrel Chyatee didn’t always feel she fit in. Through the years, she has learned to “embrace who I am” by absorbing the best of both worlds.
“The Lancaster County community has become so open to people,” she says. “Our community is about forgiveness. With my Indian culture, I’ve been taught respect.” And from both, she has learned to be humble. “We’re all trying to get to the same place, to just be happy and help others.”
Chyatee came to the U.S. from India as an infant, moved there for two years at age 12, and returned there in her 20s “to be part of the community where my father was from and my mother was from.”
Finding an apartment in a culture skewed against unmarried women opened her eyes to “how blessed I was to be raised in America and all the opportunities I was given.” She taught English, worked with orphaned children, and helped care for leprosy patients.
While Chyatee was shopping for fabrics at a bazaar, a woman named Divya approached and offered to sew the garments Chyatee wanted. Chyatee was impressed—and not just by the workmanship of the kurta, a long dress shirt, that Divya created. She marveled at Divya’s boldness, asserting herself in a male-dominated setting.
That encounter inspired the launch of Lush Bazaar. Chyatee designs the accessories and clothing, including sustainable wedding gowns meant to be handed down or altered “for a night on the town.” Women and men in India sew them.
“They are able to send their children to college,” Chyatee said. “They want their kids to have a better life.”
This September, Chyatee achieved her dream of a boutique offering custom-made, special-event, and Indian wear at 50 Queen Street in downtown Lancaster. “I want to have a boutique that represents sustainable fashion in every way,” she says. “There won’t be five pieces the same.”
Growing the business means helping more people in India.
“We are all the same, in the way we have hearts, and we should use our hearts to help someone in some way, big or small,” she says. “Whatever it is, it’s in our hearts to help love others. The more love we give, the more things will become better.”
Patricia A. Husic
President & CEO, Centric Bank
Patti Husic is “motivated by challenges.” She was a CPA who became impassioned about community banking, knowing that behind the numbers are people and businesses ready to flourish.
Working with three others to raise $12 million in capital, acquire stock, and turn around the fortunes of Centric Bank, she knew that failure was not an option. Today, the community bank with $700 million in assets employs 114 passionate people and is a 2018 American Banker’s Best Banks to Work For.
“We’re the champions of small business owners, helping them realize their dreams,” she says. “That’s what our team does and does really well.”
Guiding women to success has been “a foundation,” Husic says. “We have talented people in our leadership throughout the organization, male and female. I am not only a cheerleader of hiring talented, bright women, but also empowering them and encouraging them.”
Her parents taught her about work ethic, integrity, and pursuing her dreams, and in memory of her mother, who died from heart disease, she has chaired the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women luncheon. She stocked the event with education, helping participants fight America’s number-one killer of women by knowing their blood pressure and BMI, and learning new heart-healthy recipes.
Women, she said at the event, are “not going to be any good to any of those people who mean the most to us if we don’t take time for ourselves.” Of course, her mother would tell her to practice what she preaches, so before the crowd, she made the commitment to exercise and eat better.
She spends time with family. Golfs and gardens when she can. At work, her passion for helping entrepreneurs is summed up in the story of the brilliant young restaurant manager she knew, the one she told to consider buying his own place. The thought had never crossed his mind. Today, with help from Centric Bank, that young dad owns two downtown Harrisburg restaurants. In his Christmas text to her, after that first purchase, he said, “We will never forget what you did for us. You helped make our dreams come true.”
“Where so many people see risk, entrepreneurs see opportunity,” she says. “That really stands out to me. When somebody comes back, it pulls on the heart strings. What you know is that you really were able to help somebody realize their dreams, and that, to me, is priceless.”
Michelle Kime & Aiyana Ehrman
Founders, ImagineGoods, Lancaster
Aiyana Ehrman and Michelle Kime barely knew each other when Ehrman asked Kime to join a Cambodian trip to support anti-trafficking efforts. Kime said yes. Then Ehrman left, and Kime said, “I don’t even know where Cambodia is.”
“I looked it up and saw it was the other side of the world, but I was a restless mom of four and needed a different space, a different place to look in life,” Kime says.
The anti-trafficking organizations they worked with kept saying the same thing: Nonprofits could provide education, health care, and psychological care, but they couldn’t provide jobs. So Ehrman and Kime created their for-profit to produce clothing, accessories, and décor. Popular wristlets bring customers back for seasonal updates. T-shirts proclaim “Love listens” or “Subversion of injustice is my thing.”
Imagine Goods doesn’t want “pity buys,” our one-off purchases to support a cause. They want repeat customers buying well-made, classic pieces that will last for years. Every purchase ripples through entire families, supporting not just the employees but grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews. Children attend school rather than go to work to support their families.
Both are mothers with day jobs. The partners have fun together. Kime says Ehrman offers a solid business sense and technological savvy. Ehrman says that Kime “keeps us on our toes. She has lists of dates and plans and goals, and she makes sure we hit those targets.”
Their new high-end line, Philomela, will wholesale directly to boutiques, for profit margins that accelerate growth and help more women. The name recalls the Greek mythology tale of a sexually assaulted woman who weaves her story into a tapestry and is turned into a bird. The Imagine Goods artisans are “survivors of assault who are free now,” says Ehrman. “They have been given their own agency. When you give them work, they have control over their lives.
At the beginning, they embraced a quote attributed to Mother Teresa: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
“We look at numbers because we have to, but not in terms of whether this is worth it,” explains Ehrman. “We look at the women we meet when we go, and that’s what drives us.”
Adds Kime, “When we’re in the employment center and see women laughing and enjoying their space, that’s when it’s worth it.”
Kelley Gibson
Director of Communications and Engagement, Cultural Alliance of York
Kelley Gibson doesn’t spell “the arts” with a capital A. They are catalysts for community change, infused in neighborhoods.
“What makes you uniquely you?” she asks. “What is it that pulls at your soul? What about that child who can’t do a math problem? We can all achieve.”
New Jersey native Gibson attended York College and “fell in love with York and fell in love with a Yorker,” a.k.a. her husband, Joel. Volunteering and working for arts organizations introduced her to “how deep and how big the arts community is.” Many York artists have pieces in major museums, “and you bump into them at Central Market.”
President Mary Anne Winkelman recruited Gibson in 2013 to weave the Cultural Alliance of York County into the region, not just as arts funder but as partner. The relationships are the best part. Knowing the region’s pockets of creativity opens doors to disbursing funds for real impact. Students don’t just read about Cuba but feel it come alive through music and dance. The elderly improve their cognitive abilities through theater. Artists are engaged in Yorktowne Hotel renovations not as afterthoughts, but as providers of “everything from light fixtures to large-scale installations.”
Gibson is helping lead the tedious but energizing work of reinventing the Cultural Alliance based on careful listening for community needs. She blends work and home life. Joel runs a test lab for architectural doors and windows and “lets me be my shiny self.” Daughters Kaelin, 8, and Madelyn, 10, dive enthusiastically into Cultural Alliance events. The day they chatted with Wayne White, set designer for Pee-wee’s Playhouse, about his giant cardboard sculptures depicting York’s surrender to Confederate invaders, she marveled at the exposure, thinking, “They have no idea how famous this guy is.”
The family hikes and bikes. Gibson and friends volunteer for special events. York is full of people who create events because they don’t exist, and “everybody pitches in and makes it happen.”
Community groups now tap into the arts as conduits for conversations, “everything from discussions about racial tensions to redevelopment projects.” People ask, “What can I do for the arts community?”
“That’s something I cherish,” Gibson says. “That’s something that will continue to build momentum. It can transcend a lot of other issues. The arts can communicate with no words. [They] can bring some clarity to hard conversations that words just can’t do.”
Rhonda Hostetter
Inspire Business Community, Lancaster
During a frustrating time, Rhonda Hostetter tried “sleepy writing,” journaling her dreams and reading the results after 14 days.
“And I kept reading about women coming down my basement steps,” she says now. Weird, yes, but she made it happen, inviting friends to come down her basement steps, lounge on throw pillows, and hear local businesswomen share their stories.
Those businesswomen told Hostetter, “We don’t have anything like this. We have no one to talk to. Please do this again.” That was the beginning of Inspire Business Community, convening women in Inspire gatherings and mastermind groups to support each other through business and life challenges (inspirebusinesscommunity.com).
Private coaching is Hostetter’s favorite part.
“I call the thing you’re supposed to be doing your ‘sweet spot,’” says Hostetter. “It’s what comes so easy to you that you almost mistake it and think it’s not the real thing.”
Her sweet spot? “I’m a questioner. So I ask questions. I love that lightbulb moment when they say, ‘Is that it? That’s so easy!’”
One Inspire gathering speaker shocked the group with news that the key well-being factor of kids, whether moms were working or at home, was the happiness of their mothers.
“Our kids don’t care who folds the laundry or who cooks the meals,” Hostetter has heard it said. “But they care who they sit down to dinner with.”
Hostetter and her high-school-sweetheart husband, Jeff, have five children, ages 5 to 15. They love the outdoors and their “Sunday adventures,” exploring new parks and biking trails.
She coaches women to delegate the things that aren’t their sweet spots—in her case, hiring a cleaning lady whose own sweet spot is cleaning. Her faith informs her work in a quiet way, not as “a Christian thing but part of what we do.”
“I definitely feel I’m being led,” she says. “On the hard days, when I don’t know what to do next, I don’t know where I’d be without my faith.”
Her husband has to remind her of the progress they’ve made, even as she strives toward the goals of creating co-working and retreat spaces. She remembers the Inspire speaker who marveled over the group’s congeniality.
“We genuinely care about each other. I don’t know how that happened, but when I sit back and look at it, I think that what we have is really, really special.”
Kelly Lick
Volunteer and Philanthropist, Harrisburg
With the death of her husband, ill for long stretches near the end of their 19 years together, Kelly Lick faced reinvention.
“Literally, my entire life revolved around Ted,” she says. “I realized after he passed that I was lost. Sometimes, things happen, and in essence, you have to reinvent yourself.”
Her husband was C. Ted Lick, respected businessman and civic leader. Kelly Lick’s reinvention pivoted on continuing his philanthropy and adding the heart of an ever-cheerful, hands-on super-volunteer.
Lick is a central Pennsylvania native with a background in art, design, and catering. In Enola, her grandmother would offer sandwiches to transient men coming along the railroad tracks. Her grandfather hired them to make intricate wooden puzzles.
Her creative skills go to work for the most basic of causes–Salvation Army, Central Pennsylvania Food Bank, Bethesda Mission. When one of them needs raffle baskets for a fundraiser, she rounds up the items and gets out the wrapping film. Nursing students at HACC, a school that Ted Lick helped found, benefit from facilities Lick funded and scholarships she established.
For Homeland Center, the venerable Harrisburg retirement community that provided care for Ted Lick, she has taught wreath-making and cooking classes, organized parties, and helped plan 150th anniversary events. When residents pined for hot French fries, Lick brought in a French fry truck.
“Do what you can,” she believes, a lesson she taught her niece and nephew by taking them along to shop for and deliver Salvation Army Christmas gifts. “If you can’t do it monetarily, do it with your time.”
Her heart for meeting basic needs extends to animals, “little defenseless creatures” whose overpopulation has become “such a huge problem.” She is helping her friend Lynn Stitt launch a new nonprofit, PennyFix, which strives to partner with pet food companies to add a penny to every can and use the funds for free spaying and neutering (pennyfix.org).
“I love animals. I love children. I love older folks, so that’s why I’ve gotten into the fields I’ve gotten into,” she says. She hopes she is shedding light on all those needs among us.
“If I can impart some of that knowledge, and get somebody else involved, and have a little bit of a wakeup, that is what’s important. All too often, I get more out of it than what I give because it makes you feel so good at the end of the day.”
