4 DESIGNED CAST HANDCRAFTED by us, for you.

Shoppes at Belmont 1575 Fruitville Pike * Lancaster, PA 17601 * 717.293.3333 REVELO (Latin) verb: Reveal; Disclose; Uncover #whatsyourstory

“Our fate lives within us; you only have to be brave enough to see it.” — From Disney’s Brave

Katerina Kuss Fate is a funny thing. It is not here in Lancaster County. Whether Editor something we are meant to they were born here or not, fate has understand, but instead, trust. Life brought them to our community and Todd Geiger takes us through so many ups and we are blessed to have met them. Account Manager downs, but it’s the depths of our Without our amazing sponsors, Chris Ruch darkest days that strengthen us Videographer and prepare us for our brightest advertisers, and story revealers, moments, making us the people Revelo would not exist. We thank Bianca Cordova who we are today. all of you from the bottom of our Photographer hearts for believing in the power Here in Lancaster, fate has brought of story telling and the positive Michael C. Upton Writer so many incredible people together impact it has on our incredibly for reasons greater than we can unique community. Brooke Carlock Miller possibly comprehend. We live in a Writer community filled with inspiration Please take the time to watch and people who have the desire to the video interviews at Business sponsorship reach out a helping hand to those in www.revelomag.com or listen opportunities: need. People who lift others out of to our Revelo magazine podcast to hear these beautiful people (717) 364-4344 or the trenches just to help get them [email protected] back on their feet to fight for a better tell their own stories. day. If that isn’t the definition of Story submissions: Thank you to our readers. Let’s “community,” then we don’t know Fill out a submission continue to make Lancaster an what is! form for consideration amazing place to live. at www.revelomag.com All you need to do is tune out the negativity and look around you. Fate shows you the light if you’re brave Subscribe to the Revelo magazine enough to open your eyes and see it. podcast at: In our fourth issue, we reveal the InPlease order for Revelo pass to generate this the biggestpublication impact on our community, on! we inspirational stories of 23 people encourage you to pass this issue on to someone else when you are finished. Not only is it cool to recycle, it also gives these stories a further reach.

Revelo is owned and published by Espial Design Group LLC. All rights reserved. No parts of this publication or online content including video interviews may be reproduced without the permission of Revelo/Espial Design Group LLC. Revelo/Espial Design Group LLC has taken reasonable care to ensure that the information contained in this publication and its website is accurate during the release of this publication. It is possible that the information may be out of date, incomplete, or the opinion of the author. It is advisable that you verify any information from this publication or its website before relying on it. Revelo/Espial Design Group LLC accepts no responsibility for the consequences of error or for any loss or damage suffered by users of any of the information and material contained in this publication or its website.

UNTITLED MARK

Great or small, with triumphant applause or shipped off to boarding school in Connecticut as sculptor widely regarded for his mobiles and public obscure anonymity, everyone wants to make their an effort to help with learning disabilities and sculptures—with four nearby in Philly and one mark on the world. was given several diagnosis throughout the years Swarthmore. Calder’s incorporation of movement “I never signed any of my stuff in art school and including A.D.H.D. He spent his high school years transcended abstract expressionism and gave the habit just stuck. Everything was untitled,” says struggling with bullying and his father nearly his art life. Mark’s art is a self-described visual the artist recognized as Untitled Mark. Apparently died of cancer. As a teenager, Mark viewed his contradiction between form and function, together the decision did not have any deep, secret meaning childhood as bad but now realizes his parents with unlikely textures, shapes, and materials. to him. “I just did it.” Or, moreover, he didn’t do had attempted to give him a great childhood. “I like to be able to use my hands and feel the it. What has become his nom de plume as a fine Nevertheless, he struggled with those perceived mediums. I love clay, but after clay probably artist, Untitled Mark’s absence of an artist’s mark demons and turned to drugs to cope, to find metal,” says Mark, who relishes the sense of became his signature and he embraced the name. his high. accomplishment at being able to manipulate “I’m an artist. I like to put my mark on everything. “I was living on rock bottom for quite some time,” the materials he works with. Much of his work It doesn’t matter if it is paint, pencil, wood; it says Mark, who celebrated ten years of sobriety on incorporates a distinct use of angles, raw metal doesn’t matter. I put my mark on everything no October 28, 2018. “I realized I couldn’t accomplish zigs and zags with perceived abandon and matter the medium or material,” says Mark in his anything being on rock bottom. A light switch direction. He aims to create visual contradictions Hazel Street workspace surrounded by well-used clicked, and I needed to do something with my life between form and function. Length is a fluid welding equipment, finished pieces of his early and art was what helped me get back.” concept. His subjects seem arbitrary, ranging art, and various fragments and shapes of metal Creating a better life for himself became his goal. from a heavy, pointed-nose skateboard made of and wood. In the center of the space there’s an At the age of 25 he started taking evening classes repurposed wood and rough metal resting in a old wheelchair, which he says is good for napping. at Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and corner of his shop to commercial work in some Human-sized model planes hang from the ceiling shortly after enrolled full-time. He took welding of the area’s most recognizable businesses, like that Mark rescued from his neighbor’s trash. classes at Harrisburg Area Community College. Spring House Brewing and American Bar and Grill. Size is dictated only by space and Mark’s will. “I He sees beauty in salvaged material; it is the While working as a scenic artist at Tait Towers, he was presented with an opportunity that paved don’t like anything having straight lines. I like to epicenter of his creativity. “New material is too have that offset. It’s just for my sanity I guess.” boring and plain,” he says. “You don’t have that his artistic course. Mark was asked to furbish Rock age—that soul that’s in old material that just Lititz. “It was the first time I ever made furniture. Art is what keeps him sane—his words. Art delivers pops out at you… and that’s what I look for.” It was a big leap,” he says. “I got thrown in to the the strength he needs never to return to the days Imperfections such as rust or dings are perfections wolves.” The series of furnishings outfitted the of substance abuse. to Mark. production rehearsal space for the entertainment “Art has been that one thing that has kept me industry’s largest design facility. His own imperfections moved him to become what strong, so I wouldn’t faulter or go back to hard he is today. Born in Washington State, Mark moved Mark found his connection to art when he drugs and alcohol,” says Mark, openly. “Everybody around the U.S. with his parents who were doctors, was young while building with LEGO blocks has their little happy place. Art is my happy place. landing in Lancaster at a young age. He was then and Erector Sets. He is inspired by the work of I can go there and everything else dissolves and Alexander Calder, the MoMA-collected, American there is nothing wrong in the world.”

To view and purchase Untitled Mark’s work, STORY SPONSOR: visit www.untitledmark.com. PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN 204 North Prince Street By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17608 (717) 396-7833 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 3 www. pcad.edu WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

KITTY BYK As Kitty Byk shares the stories of her harrowing And that’s where I spent the next two years.” Kitty nailed down and shipping it off to Russia,” Kitty experience during the Holocaust in Austria, she smiles as she remembers the other inhabitants of says. “We had no electricity, and food was almost laughs. She laughs as she describes lying in the yard the work camp where she spent ages 14 to 16. It was impossible to get.” The next few years involved both of a work camp, staring up at the sky and listening a “funny group of people,” she recalls, consisting of amusing and heartbreaking tales of survival, including to the whistles of bombs falling all around her. She French POWs, Czechoslovakian prisoners, a group of working for the Russians at a leather factory, hiding laughs as she recounts hacking a cow to pieces and nuns who had been caught harboring Jews, and a few from soldiers to avoid being assaulted, moonlighting eating the raw shreds because she hadn’t eaten meat of what the Nazis called “undesirables,” Kitty explains, as a magician’s assistant in an embarrassingly skimpy in ten years. Kitty’s ability to recall these traumatic “including me, but also prostitutes and homosexuals.” costume to earn money, and tumbling into a bomb events with laughter rather than tears or terror serves The motley crew was sheltered in a warehouse with a crater and badly wounding a knee on the way to the as a testament to her resilience. Hearing her speak is makeshift wall separating the men and women, some country to beg farmers for food. “War is terrible,” a moving, and also somewhat mystifying journey into uncomfortable bunks without mattresses, pillows, or Kitty muses, “but the aftermath for a conquered city the human spirit. blankets, and one toilet in a corner. is much, much worse. When I’m asked what we ate, I Kitty was 12 years old when Hitler’s Nazi party took “Every morning we were marched out and inspected… always say, ‘You don’t want to know, but this I can tell over her hometown of Vienna, Austria in 1938. Her and if we were found ready to work, you were ok. If you. There were no cats, dogs, squirrels, pigeons or father was Jewish, and lost his job when race laws not, you disappeared,” Kitty says matter-of-factly. Two even crows alive in the end.’” took effect and businesses were no longer allowed to years of grueling work manufacturing parts for V-2 In May of 1946, just after her 20th birthday, Kitty employ Jews. When Kitty’s uncle, a WWI veteran, was rockets passed by, during which Kitty survived on a received a letter from her father. He had remarried sent to a concentration camp and executed, Kitty’s daily ration of one piece of bread, a cup of hot water and wanted Kitty to join him in the United States. father realized he was in grave danger. Sponsored mixed with milk powder, and a small cup of “mush” Immigration laws allowed her to travel as a dependent by a cousin living in the United States, Kitty’s father made from boiled vegetable peels. On days when only as long as she was under the age of 21, so Kitty escaped from Austria in 1939, begrudgingly leaving fighting came close to the factory, the “undesirables” hastily made the decision to leave her mother in his family behind. Because she had Jewish blood, were not allowed to enter the air raid shelter, so Vienna and make the journey. She joined a transport Kitty was not allowed to attend school. She was Kitty often sat in the courtyard, watching the planes. of concentration camp survivors on a freight train to told to report for work at a place that sewed army “We would see the planes and we would make bets, Bremerhaven, encountering harsh winter conditions uniforms. Kitty was a hard worker, and did well, until because you can tell from the whistle of a bomb without food, heat, or toilet facilities. Crossing the one day when a large needle in her sewing machine whether it’s going to land close to you or not.” Atlantic on a freight ship, she endured storms and slipped and punctured her thumb. The wound became One morning in 1945, the prisoners lined up as usual, the violent seasickness of nearly all on board, before infected, and Jews were not allowed medical care, so but no one came to inspect them. The group emerged finally arriving at Ellis Island to meet her father. Kitty was forced to stay home. Because she was not from the barracks to find the camp deserted, the Kitty’s story is so vast and rich in detail, it is almost working, she lost her food ration benefits. German soldiers having fled due to the advance of the impossible to capture it in print. Whether time has Kitty explains, “Of course I hadn’t been getting Russian army. Kitty and a French POW friend decided softened the sting of her suffering, or circumstances any food on those days that I wasn’t working, so I to walk back to her hometown of Vienna—a trip that necessitated fortitude that not many of us cannot immediately went back to the Labor Department when took two days. She arrived at her old apartment to imagine, Kitty insists, “I must say that I wasn’t I was healed. The minute I got there, they took me and find her mother gone, but most of the buildings on scared at all… pretty much the whole time. I guess put me in one of their vehicles. They took me to the her street miraculously still intact. Russian soldiers I’m just lucky that way.” Siemens factory on the outskirts of Vienna. occupied the city, “taking almost anything that wasn’t

STORY SPONSOR: ZIG’S BAKERY & CAFE ZIG’S AT LANCASTER ZIG’S AT LEBANON 800 East Newport Road CENTRAL MARKET FARMERS MARKET By Brooke Carlock Miller Lititz, PA 17543 23 North Market Street 35 South 8th Street (717) 626-7981 Lancaster, PA 17603 Lebanon, PA 17042 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 5 www.zigsbakery.com (717) 735-6890 (717) 274-3663 WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

LIONEL ADRIANO “I was in my 20s when I received a phone call When I ask him if he ended up working out the He stayed at LUXE for six years and will always from my cousin,” starts Lionel Adriano. issue with the family member, the now 35-year- be grateful of the kindness he was shown there. His tale is tough to hear. It’s tougher to tell, I’m old Lionel answers resoundingly, “Yeah,” in a Now, he has moved on and opened a combination sure. He’s summoned the courage to share his positive and solid voice. “I said what I needed barbershop and beauty bar called Revolve Atelier. story on a dreary afternoon from a seat in the to say. I knew that the potential for that “This is kind of emotional… for good reasons,” salon he and his business partner will open in relationship to end was there and unfortunately, says Lionel, looking around the studio. Revolve only a few days. Starting a business may not have that’s how it went. For me, I knew I needed to Atelier is a venture between Lionel and barber been a stretch of the imagination for the Lionel say something.” Matthew Schreck. who majored in business and finance at the By his own admission, he had a hard time coping He really had no interest in working with skin University of Hawaii, but it was a world away in with the realization of his abuse. He started and beauty in the beginning. His apprenticeship the mind of the Lionel who was homeless on the running with a dangerous crowd. He was taking and work while in college was a way to pay some strange streets of Lancaster only a few years ago. any pills he could find. bills, but one of his clients kept offering him a “My cousin brought up some things in the past “I was doing whatever drug I could do to job in cosmetics. that had happened to the both of us by a relative. suppress the issue. I found myself contemplating “Finally she gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Some inappropriate things happened to her and suicide,” says Lionel, who eventually entered into says Lionel, who now finds the work therapeutic. I when we were little,” says Lionel, as his eyes a residential treatment program. His drug-filled “More and more, I fell in love with it. The begin to well up at the memory. The wounds are days left him with little support once he was ability to make people feel better is the most still fresh. His pain is real. released. He was homeless in Lancaster, a city he rewarding part.” knew little about. “This wasn’t the life I expected The cousin recalled a time when the two were He doesn’t want to look ahead, because seven young, no older than age eight. On multiple to live. And the only person who was going to be able to change that was me.” years was not that long ago, but he knows he is in occasions a relative showed the cousins a place to face new—positive—challenges. pornography and asked questions, which led to One morning something just clicked. He left the inappropriate physical activity. The acts were shelter and headed to McDonald’s to get a cup of “Being homeless and being able to make it something Lionel repressed. When he answered coffee and a newspaper. He was going to find a through, I see this as just another opportunity his cousin’s call he was living in California, job, start to turn things around. By chance, one to push myself.” Looking back at the hard times, struggling with a bad relationship. of the few people in Lancaster Lionel knew and he says, “I wish I had the voice to ask for help. could call a friend was driving by and saw him. With things like drug abuse or molestation, it “I came here because we were planning to becomes such a part of your identity and when approach our relative. That’s how I got here,” She picked him up, took him into LUXE Salon & Spa where she worked and cut his hair for free. you are hiding that, it becomes embarrassing, he says. “I got here with a duffle bag and that you become ashamed. Slowly, you back yourself is it. I wasn’t going to go back to Hawaii. “As I was in the chair getting ready to leave, into a corner and you don’t know how to reach California didn’t work out, so I didn’t want the owner, Ana Kitova, came over and offered out. Shed your ego. It’s okay to ask for help.” to go back there either.” me a job,” says Lionel, who had completed an esthetician apprenticeship while in college. Sage advice from someone who has lifted himself up.

STORY SPONSOR: ARGIRES MAROTTI 160 North Point Boulevard By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 358-0800 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 7 www.argiresmarotti.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

JEN NIELDS Jen Nields wanted to be a humane officer since County in their first year of operation. Jen plans to were outraged and realized something needed to high school. After graduating, a position opened continue the program for the foreseeable future, and be done.” up at a new animal shelter and Jen jumped at hopes to eventually include veterinary care. There are generally two types of cases Jen comes the opportunity. She started working as a kennel “Some people look at me and say, ‘I don’t know across in her work. Sometimes a case is “black and attendant, became an assistant technician to how you do your job!’ And I say, ‘I don’t know how white” and it is obvious an animal is in serious need veterinarians, and handled some office work. you don’t!’” of veterinary care or the owner is hoarding pets, like As her work experience grew, so did her Beyond being just a job, fate ended up pairing Jen the recent case of over 100 cats—most blind due to responsibilities. “At one point in time I was the with a very special dog. One day while working lack of care—in one home. operations manager, the educational coordinator, at a vet hospital, she received a call from a friend “Some involve very lengthy investigations, where I and the humane society police officer all in one regarding a 7-week-old puppy who was found on a really have to look into details,” she adds. “It’s not little ball for this shelter,” says Jen. Lancaster County farm. Barely breathing, emaciated, my job as a cruelty officer to just go out and take Then in June of 2017, Jen’s family suffered a horrible dehydrated, dangerously underweight, and infected everybody’s animals. That’s not what I want to do. If tragedy when her father passed away abruptly. He did with mange, his chances of survival were slim. I can improve the situation and keep that animal in not have life insurance, and since they were already “He was in really rough shape. I didn’t know if his their home, that is my goal, unless the animal is in financially struggling, the Nields took a huge hit. ride in my car was going to be his last ride,” Jen grave danger.” Three weeks after his passing, his garage caught on recalls. “I got some blankets and made him this Her job is not only removing endangered dogs fire and destroyed the items the family was planning little bed on my passenger seat just so he had some and cats from bad situations, but also handling on selling to make ends meet, leaving Jen to work comfort. I had seen a lot of dogs like him; not one mistreatment of farm animals. In Lancaster County, three jobs in order to pitch in while her mother time did I think he’s going to change the dog laws the ability to govern both urban and rural situations underwent heart surgery. in PA. Not one time did I think, ‘This dog’s going is a necessity. Growing up in Bird-in-Hand Realizing that her mom also had trouble financially to become famous and change everything in has provided Jen with a good understanding supporting her pets, Jen thought to herself, “How Lancaster County.’” of her neighbors. many other people go through this same situation The dog was later named Libre since he was rescued There are two routes of engagement if an animal or fall into a situation that is out of their control?” on Independence Day. Libre straddled life and death needs to be removed from an owner. First, and most With her mother’s circumstance in mind, Jen during his recovery and became a cause célèbre peacefully, an owner can voluntarily surrender the pitched Santa Claws and Paws to the shelter and with charges of animal cruelty being forced against animal. Otherwise, a search warrant is obtained the team took to the idea. Santa Claws and Paws is the previous owner. “Libre’s Law” was drafted less to remove an animal from an abusive situation, a program that donates pet toys, treats, and beds than a month later and was signed into law as the which can sometimes be traumatic and downright to individuals and families who are experiencing Animal Abuse Statute Overhaul bill in the summer dangerous. There’s a reason she wears a sidearm. hardships during the Christmas season. With help of 2017. “At the end of the day, you need the best outcome from the Lancaster City K-9 Unit, they were able “Although these laws are not perfect and still need for the animals,” says Jen, who uses her empathy and to provide for 27 families throughout Lancaster improvement, they gave recognition to suffering understanding of human circumstances to navigate that wasn’t there previously,” explains 24-year-old tough situations. “If you get angry or just react out of Jen, who now serves as a Humane Law Enforcement emotion, it isn’t going to help. I try really hard to not Officer with the Pennsylvania SPCA, “A lot of people let the situation I walk into harden me to the world STORY SPONSOR: around me.” GREG ORTH’S SANDLER TRAINING 1175 Manheim Pike, Suite B By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 459-3445 For more information or to donate WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS to the PSPCA, visit www.pspca.org. ENTIRETY AT 9 www.thincbox.sandler.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

SEAN HALL Sean Hall admits that being a private contacted by a concerned resident and, after a thriller. He gets off the plane in Tampa or Los investigator is only cool half of the time. meeting and long discussion, decided to take Angeles and makes his way out of the airport When not ditching members of the Church the case. only to spot a team of private investigators of Scientology, chasing down members of the “A lot of little stuff can look like it’s not a big waiting for him. He takes a seat and waits. Hours Amish Mafia, or helping the citizens of Lancaster, deal,” warns Sean. “There were other things that pass. After a long enough time, he knows who Sean spends a lot of time “sitting around.” were going on at the same time. But then the is there waiting for him. Who else would stand Honestly though, who wants to hear about lady’s dogs started dying.” around an airport exit for hours if they weren’t the boring bits? watching for someone in particular? Now Both he and the owner suspected someone was “When it is exciting, it can be just like it is on knowing who he needs to ditch, he picks up his poisoning the pooches. So, he did a lot of “sitting rental car and heads to a motel. The motel is a TV,” says Sean in the back room of his Duke around” and watching. He ended up catching the Street office. On the far wall, a collection of dummy location meant to throw anyone off his guy “doing something simple,” but enough to trail. He ditches the rental car, swapping it out gadgets sit on shelves in museum-like fashion: garner citations. He could never pin “the other fake street light covers for hiding cameras, for a vehicle set at a predetermined location. stuff on him” and a motive for the perp’s actions Next, he locates his mark. watches with built-in lenses, bolt-laden boxes was never revealed. meant to disguise tracking devices hidden “I was hired by a production company that was under cars. Creepy, yes, but stalking cases are the most filming a TV show reuniting families. My job common job in his line of work, like when Sean was to locate the person inside of Scientology. “I got into that for a while. If I had to dress up, caught a guy in Manor Township outside his I put a gold watch on,” says Sean, pulling a It was an adventure. It was a lot of fun, but client’s house, at night, wearing a ski-mask. also very stressful,” says Sean, who also worked piece from the shelf. A lot of the items are He was able to detain the subject until police custom made, like the Starbucks cup with the with Amish Mafia to track down “Lebanon” arrived and the stalker ultimately received a Levi Stoltzfus. pin-sized camera. prison sentence of one year. Before he opened Lancaster Detective Agency, In the Discovery channel show, Sean produces “He was breaking into their children’s room a footage of the star having multiple girlfriends. Sean served in the U.S. Air Force as a military little after midnight. There was a relationship police officer with top secret clearance. He The series about Scientology never aired, but he there. He had previously lit her porch on fire learned valuable lessons from the experience returned to his native Pennsylvania and was and put stuff in her gas tank,” says Sean. meeting up with a friend for lunch when he took and made worthwhile connections. a most fortunate wrong turn and ended up in the Catching criminals in the act is a rush, but Sean There’s more to being a licensed private parking lot of a detective agency. also investigates things like insurance fraud, investigator than preventing domestic violence child custody cases, and relationship matters “So, I went in and got a job,” he says. “I was kind and chasing down TV personalities, but Sean like alimony, cohabitation, and infidelity. While can’t let us in on all his secrets. However, once of in between… and I was always interested in local jobs are his bread-and-butter, Sean also the job, ever since I was a kid.” we finish this interview, he shows off has taken on some high-profile cases. His his collection of spy gear... or perhaps better His first case was a suspicion of stalking “with work investigating members of the Church of known as “tools of the trade.” It is a pretty cool a lot of harassment attached to it.” He was Scientology sounds like scenes from an action job indeed.

STORY SPONSOR: MANHEIM IMPORTS 712 Lancaster Road By Michael C. Upton Manheim, PA 17545 (717) 665-6611 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 11 www.manheimimports.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

TJ GRIFFIN “Basically, if you come from nothing, you wanna As years passed, however, TJ’s rap dreams started to entrepreneurship. Through MySpace, he found have everything you can get your hands on. The to take a backseat to the drug dealing and partying. his way into the music industry and became the only people you see that have those types of things His girlfriend kicked him out, unable to deal with manager of 90s-era hip-hop star Armageddon. He are basketball players, football players, rappers… the constant stream of drunk and high people started living the life he had always dreamed of, and drug dealers. And you identify with those coming in and out of their house. After seven going to California, getting invited to celebrity people because they look like you and they come months on his own, TJ confides, “I would look events, shooting music videos, and going on tour. from your surroundings.” around at everybody and I would just be disgusted. A few years into his management career, however, TJ Griffin grew up in the city of Lancaster, dealing I’d be like, ‘This is the life I’m living when I know TJ realized that his dream wasn’t all it cracked up with the same issues that many inner city kids I have this ex-girlfriend working two jobs and to be. deal with. His parents split up; his family lived on going to GED classes during the day?’ I would be Searching for more meaning in his life, TJ started welfare. He was lucky in that he had a stepfather disgusted with myself.” volunteering part-time with juveniles in a who provided for him, and his father was always “I ended up hitting my knees one day,” he residential drug treatment program: “I could see in in his life, but by the time he reached his teenage continues, “praying for a change. Praying for their eyes how they believed that every rap artist, years, his mother and stepfather separated and he something I could do that could change my life… everything they say and do is real. But it’s not. I’ve started hanging out in the streets. “What grabs a I cried for about 45 minutes, got up, and I knew seen the director say ‘cut’ and all of the rapper’s youth’s attention in that environment are flashy I was done with that lifestyle. I went back to my things leave. The guy from the hood comes and things like money,” TJ explains. “At a young age, I girlfriend’s house, pounded on her door… and I picks up the rapper and they go back to the hood. wanted the nice shoes, I wanted the nice clothes, got a job for $7.00 an hour.” One frustrating night, The cars leave, the watch leaves, the jewelry, the dreamed of the nice car, the nice house, the he wanted to buy a pair of sneakers and realized fake money that was shipped in from Amazon jewelry, and all that good stuff.” that even though he and his now-wife were both leaves. I’m like, ‘Guys, it’s not real.’” Even when he tried his hardest in school, TJ was working full-time jobs, he still couldn’t afford Feeling called to share his truths and experiences a ‘C’ student, and higher education seemed like a the shoes he wanted. His wife happened to be with inner-city youth, TJ formed The Vision pipe dream. “I wasn’t a good athlete, so I wasn’t watching an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show on Program: “It stands for Values Inspiring Students getting into college through that. And there was no television, and, inspired by Oprah’s guest, Robert in Overcoming Negativity,” he explains. “I have money from my parents to put me through college, Kiyosaki, she bought TJ a copy of Kiyosaki’s book, credibility with the kids now. I can go in front of so basically it was like, settle for a good job that Rich Dad, Poor Dad. youth, show them I was in the music video and was would pay some bills—maybe a factory job—and “I started reading the book and couldn’t put it around stars, and I know it’ll hook them.” Through that was basically it.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t down,” TJ laughs. “For the first time in my life, the program, TJ provides workshops, mentoring like that.” Deciding his best option out of the inner somebody that was successful was telling me that programs, and school assemblies offering guidance city after high school was to become a rapper, TJ even though you’re not academically sound, even to kids just like him. Now an accomplished went the same route as many of his friends, selling though you don’t have all these degrees, even motivational speaker, he also recently did a TED drugs to pay the bills while he worked on his rap though society told you this and that, you could Talk called “The Paper Plane Effect,” explaining career, all while trying to support his girlfriend actually be very successful. I had never heard that the impact of offering hope and belief to inner city and son. before. It was life-changing.” TJ started believing and incarcerated youth. in himself more, reading more books, and working “It’s amazing that you can go from being this his way through various jobs that eventually led C-average kid that has no belief in himself because his environment stole his belief away, to being able STORY SPONSOR: to influence kids. It’s such a blessing.” HINKLE INSURANCE AGENCY INC. 600 Olde Hickory Road, Suite 200 By Brooke Carlock Miller Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 560-9733 For more information on The Vision Program, WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS visit www.thevisionprogram.com. ENTIRETY AT 13 www.hinkleinsurance.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

ALAINA SALKS Sometimes Alaina Salks finds herself in an and integrate body, mind, spirit, and sex.” The an additional 11 months of training including awkward situation when the subject of work teachings date back over 2,600 years and are two retreats. pops up in a social conversation. She skirts “woven” into a holistic set of sexual and non- “It’s a growing interest. There aren’t programs a balance between being true to herself and sexual methods for healing and transformation. out there that have this scope,” says Alaina. “We respecting other people’s boundaries. “People define tantra as many different things. realized that the methods we are teaching are “I sometimes make people uncomfortable. I’ve The common definition is ‘weaving.’ You can highly transformational, specifically the ones gotten very good at changing the subject,” says think of it as a spiritual practice that incorporates rooted in Tibetan Buddhism.” Alaina, and laughs. She’s a certified Authentic sexuality instead of secluding it,” explains Alaina. One of the reasons why the institute desires Tantra practitioner and co-founder/director of The word tantra is Sanskrit and means to loom to be so comprehensive is the fact that tantra The Institute of Authentic Tantra Education. “I or weave; after 500 BC the word is also used as practitioners often deal with clients experiencing don’t want to make people uncomfortable, but a bibliographic category, as in a collection of sexual trauma. The trauma can range from rape at the same time I think its ridiculous we can’t teachings. or sexual assault to “any crossed boundary that talk about our own sexuality. When someone can manifest in the body,” says Alaina. “We found asks me what I do I tell them.” “When an action or a thing, once complete, becomes beneficial in several matters to one that a lot of people are coming to us because Her career began with a genuine interest in person, or to many people, that is known as they’ve had sexual trauma. It’s really, really human sexuality, something she saw as an area Tantra.” — 6th century Indian philosopher, common in our culture. We provide a somatic where people could not get a lot of help. She Sabara approach to healing.” found an article in Spirituality & Health magazine The institute also created a code of ethics for its on sacred sexuality and something clicked. In her private practice, Alaina introduces individual students and couples to ancient practitioners. The 19-part code, implemented “I was always a spiritual person and I have always tantric traditions, allowing them to be present, in 2016, calls on practitioners to exercise been interested in sexuality as well,” says Alaina, connected, and fulfilled in their sexual and professionalism in their practice. Misconceptions who went looking for an education program interpersonal relationships. She has no typical about tantra education and practice are prevalent in tantra practice. She found an extensive, type of clientele but sees more women than men. in society. three-month course via online video streaming “Where I am lacking clientele is in the LGBTQ+ “I get a lot of late-night emails,” says Alaina. platforms, which included a year of practice and a “I also get a lot of people who call and are just culminating retreat in Washington state. community. Tantra has historically been cisgender, heterosexual in its nature,” says Alaina. terrified of what the process will be like. That’s a “I have my certification as an Authentic Tantra hurdle, because we are not used to talking about practitioner, which is a specific sexual healing She’s been working with her colleagues on how our own sexuality and what we need. People modality that is rooted in Tibetan Buddhist to change some of the archaic nature of the have to be ready to do the work, but it’s not as practices,” explains Alaina, inside her private practice. As co-founder/director of The Institute scary as it seems. One of the things I excel at is Lancaster office. of Authentic Tantra Education, she trains tantra approaching the subject of sexuality in a calm teachers using a two-year program based on the and professional manner. Most of my clients relax Authentic Tantra is a trademarked holistic model she learned under—a 3-month program healing modality designed to “awaken, heal, very quickly. It becomes very easy for them to talk with almost a year of field practice—followed by about their lives and their sexuality.”

STORY SPONSOR: SPA LA VIE 3031 Columbia Avenue By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17603 (717) 295-4523 For more information or to sign up for an WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS Authentic Tantra course, visit www.alainasalks.com. ENTIRETY AT 15 www.spalavielancaster.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

ANDY STENDER It takes longer than normal to set up for the and a loss of peripheral vision eventually In 2000, he moved to Lancaster and the state interview with Andy Stender. Even though he leading to complete blindness. Office of Vocational Rehabilitation helped place is in a familiar place—the conference room at “When I was a small boy growing up, I could him in a job with Vision Corps. Vision Corps—he stands in a vast unknown. see. I loved sports, football, cross country, “I feel comfortable here. Lancaster has been a A pair of translators work with him, standing basketball…” and he goes on and on. great community for me,” says Andy. “(Public) close—in that area of personal space many may He grew up in Norristown and stays in touch transportation is so important for people who describe as uncomfortable—their hands, all six, are deaf and blind.” mix and meld in communication. Andy and the with friends from the area via adaptive translators make their way to a set of plastic technology. His grandparents owned a farm, Using Red Rose Transit, Andy travels to and seats; they are repositioned and positioned where he fondly remembers the barn and the from work at Vision Corps where he assembles again until Andy sits facing out toward me, huge line of trees and the stone wall around helmet liners. At home, he enjoys working on Ashley and Nicole aligned to his left acting as the property—the barn still stands, but the his display of O-scale model trains when he is speakers and microphones, eyes and ears, until rest is gone. not volunteering at Longwood Gardens. Andy is acclimated enough and everyone is “I can guess what that looks like. It’s hard “Right now it’s a mess, but I enjoy model trains,” comfortable. Every action we make—positioning for me to imagine that… I remember colors. I says Andy. cameras, moving items in the background— remember driving around in cars and knowing If you meet Andy on the street and want to say needs to be explained to Andy who waits where things are at,” says Andy. “Hi,” print on his palm. Trace the shapes of patiently for questions. He asks me to go slowly Andy spent eight months at the Helen Keller letters onto his palm to spell out your greeting. and be patient and then starts without a prompt. National Center for Deaf-Blind Youth and Adults Eager to make conversation, he may pull out a “My name is Andy. Andrew’s my full name, but I in New York. He was prepared to lose his sight, pen and a pad from his pocket and write to you. go by Andy,” he says, though the voice is not his. but he also spent a lot of his life just making Despite the obstacles in his life, Andy keeps a Speaking directly to Andy, my words go through ends meet by working a variety of jobs, like positive outlook, especially now with a good Nicole. Signing his own responses, Andy’s words one at a food processing center in Philadelphia job. Work has kept him from turning toward come to me through Ashley. Andy is deaf and packaging Slim Jims. substance abuse, something he dabbled with blind, or deafblind, and relies on interpreters “My vision was starting to decline... I started years ago. fluent in Pro-tactile American Sign Language the process of learning how to navigate the to communicate. “Depression is a real thing, especially with world as a deafblind person. It took time,” says people who have had vision loss. It’s kind of like “I was born deaf and I grew up deaf and by 37 I Andy, who says he still dreams in color. if your TV broke and the picture doesn’t work was totally blind. It was a 20-year progression,” Realizing a need to do something more, he anymore. That’s frustrating. And there’s no says Andy, now 55-years old. enrolled at Temple University and studied surgery to fix it,” says Andy. “I had to have Andy was born with Usher syndrome, a horticulture. As his eyesight worsened, he a new life after (losing my sight). The old life is hereditary condition affecting both hearing realized he would never be able to graduate in the past. I’ve had to make accommodations and vision. Type I Usher-afflicted are born with and withdrew from the program after four and move forward in the new life. I have to live profound hearing loss or deafness and slowly years of study. one day at a time, and I want to enjoy where I lose their sight starting with night-blindness am at.”

STORY SPONSOR: QUANTUM DYNAMIX 480 New Holland Ave, Suite 8201 By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17602 (717) 431-6681 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 17 www.quantumdynamix.net WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

SAMIA KREISER A shelf full of Baby-Sitters Club books sits in a cabinet When the family arrived in Jordan, there was a definite mother,” she remembers. He said, “You can send them in Samia Kreiser’s Safe Harbor home. She can’t bring culture shock, but it didn’t start off as overly negative. back, or I’ll kill you and I’ll kill them. So what’s the herself to part with them. When she was a young teen, Sam enjoyed time with her large extended family, call? Because the ball’s in your court.” the books were packed tightly and secretly into the and fondly remembers climbing peach trees, picking The sisters were forced back to Jordan, where their luggage she took with her as she escaped her father’s grapes, and immersing herself in the food and culture lives changed drastically. “We couldn’t leave the dominating control in Jordan, the small Middle- in Jordan. country without my dad’s approval,” Samia explains, Eastern country bordered by Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, “The issue was when I started to grow up,” Sam says. “I had to convince him to let us visit again. He had to and Israeli and Palestinian territories. “I refuse to get First, Sam was pulled out of her private school and sign off on that. He’s Jordanian, so once you entered rid of them,” she says, “because I had to work so hard sent to a local village school after being seen talking to the country, you had to have your father’s or male to make sure they got here, dang it!” a boy. Then, at a family wedding, Sam’s father saw her guardian’s permission to leave.” Samia, who goes by Sam, was born in Queens, New talking to a male cousin. “He came over and smacked It took two long, difficult years for Samia to convince York. Her father, a Jordanian Muslim, worked for my face—like a giant welted hand print on my face, her father to let them visit her mother again. By that the Saudia Arabian Embassy in New York, where he over talking to my male cousin. Things like that point he was a changed man, firmly convinced that met Sam’s mother, a Puerto Rican Catholic who had changed the dynamic of what our day-to-day could his daughters needed to adhere to his village’s culture grown up in Spanish Harlem. The family lived in Long look like. Things started shifting,” she explains. of subservience. Samia knew she only had one chance Island for five years, and then moved to Ohio to be Samia’s mother, who suffered from health issues, to escape her father’s domination. Preparing for her closer to Sam’s father’s family. “So I was born in the tried asking Muslim family members for help getting “visit,” to the states, Samia secretly packed as much of U.S., and that’s what I knew. I grew up here. I was in her and her three daughters out of Jordan, but no one her treasured possessions as she possibly could fit into dance; I was in pageants… We’d ride our bikes up and would assist them, fearing retribution from the family. their suitcases, including photos, stuffed animals, and down the streets, and I had friends, and sleepovers,” When she got to the point of spending her day in bed her beloved Baby-Sitter’s Club books. Sam explains. “I was raised predominantly around in tears, and trying to put on a brave face for the girls my father’s family,” she continues, “because he was When the girls arrived, Samia’s mother called their at night, Samia’s mother left Jordan and returned father and told him that the girls weren’t coming back. the male. It’s a Middle Eastern thing—his culture, to the U.S., eventually ending up in Lancaster. “She his religion, his language were the main focuses.” She hired a lawyer, sent him divorce papers, and told did what was right for her, and what was right for us, him not to bother trying to get the girls back. “And he But Sam’s life was “normal,” she insists. “We lived in because ultimately, I wouldn’t be here had she not middle-class suburbia in Ohio.” didn’t. At all, which is kind of amazing,” Samia laughs. had the courage and strength to leave us, in spite of Since that time, Samia’s father has completely cut off As she got older, however, Sam’s father became more herself,” Sam asserts. contact with his daughters. In that time, Samia has and more preoccupied with raising his daughters Over the course of a few years, Samia worked with her had three daughters of her own. When she tried calling as “good Muslim girls, back in Jordan,” Sam utters mom to figure out how to get her and her two sisters her dad to tell him that he was a grandfather, “He told cynically. Despite her mother’s protests, Sam’s out of Jordan. Eventually she convinced her father to me not to share that news with anyone, and not to call father liquidated all of the family’s assets and built a let them visit her mother in the U.S. When they arrived him again. Basically that I was dead to him, and that mansion in Jordan. “My mother didn’t feel like she had safely at their mother’s house, Samia called her father was that,” she shrugs. Despite her traumatic escape much of a choice, honestly,” recalls Sam. “She knew and said, “We’re staying.” “No, you’re not,” was his from Jordan, Samia insists that it is not a reflection of that if she didn’t come—well, she didn’t want to see response. “He was on the next flight out after he got the Muslim culture or Jordan itself: “I would go back the consequences of what that looked like. She came the news. He came over here, and sat down with my in a heartbeat. If you have the chance to go to Jordan, despite infidelity on his behalf, despite a lot of not- you have to go. The food is amazing. The people are great things that he’d done.” STORY SPONSOR: amazing. The country is beautiful… It was just him.”

ATKINS DECK TREATMENT SERVICE, INC 10 Trinity Drive By Brooke Carlock Miller Leola PA 17540 Atkins (717) 656-8928 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS Deck Treatment Service, INC ENTIRETY AT 19 www.atkinsdeck.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

JASON BERLET As we sit down in a booth at the American Bar Jason renacts a story regarding the Gettysburg “It got to the point in Chicago where I’d walk and Grill in the hours when coffee mixes with Address... “When it was my turn to get up, I was into places and they’d whisper, ‘There’s that guy.’ that well-loved bar smell, Jason wants to know nervous and was like... ‘What is it? Four scores It kinda gave me a complex until I realized they who else is in this edition of the magazine. “I’m and seven beers ago?’” says Jason. The teacher were talking about all these cartoon images that I trying to figure out where I fit in this thing. I feel sensed his nervousness, appreciated the laugh, would draw,” says Jason, who now works on take like I’m wedged in between Mother Theresa and and gave him a pass on having to memorize the out containers at ABG when he feels inspired. the guy who invented the Whoopee Cushion,” famous speech. “I’ve always been drawing or painting or puttin’ he says. It was during the younger years of his life popsicle sticks and glue together building that Jason’s a funny guy. And he’s an artist, too. Oh, that Jason developed an interest in drawing. fantastic birdhouse, ya know?” and a musician. But back to the funny stuff first. “Apparently I drew a Snoopy in my crib. Yet to Now he enjoys sitting down to draw with his “I watched a lot of Saturday Night Live growing this day, have I seen this fine Snoopy drawing. I young daughters and claims that they teach him up, a lot of stand-up comedians, and I thought do remember wanting to draw something once a lot about art. “Kids just draw and they don’t let what they did looked enjoyable. Somebody was and I asked for tracing paper. My mom said, ‘You anything stop them... I learn from them because like, ‘Hey, you should try and do that. You’re don’t need tracing paper to draw.’” they allow me not to be so stuck in my ways, kinda funny,’” Jason recalls. Here, Jason gives his mom some sort of robotic because they’re not. That’s what’s great about almost Orwellian voice as he recounts the tale, young minds. They’re not filled with years and So he started hopping the train to New York years of anxiety and fear.” City to attend improv classes sponsored by The which I’m sure is nowhere close to how she Second City, Chicago’s famed comedy club. “I actually sounds. Hi, Mrs. Berlet! (Dear reader, He went to school at Pennsylvania College of Art was working my bar job at the Chameleon, would Mrs. Berlet and I do not know each other.) & Design, but admits he spent most of his school finish up there, go home, shower, lay down for “My mom’s very creative. I was at that age money on records at BBC and Web of Sound. about fourty-five minutes, and then drive to New where I wasn’t rebellious yet and I listened to (Gotta be ‘old skool’ to remember those spots.) Jersey and hop the train into the city. Sometimes everything my parents said,” says Jason, who “I’ve been singing and writing music in a band I had to work as soon as I got home from the eventually took finality and truth in art one for 30 years. It’s amazing to think that you classes. The days were pretty crazy. A lot of Red step further. His medium of choice became the can do something for 30 years with someone Bulls.” (Or legal crack as Jason calls them.) Sharpie marker. So, when he moved away from who you are not married to,” says Jason, who This eventually took him out to the Windy City his childhood proclivity to create stone-headed is sporting a hat with the band’s name, Brom where he passed through the ranks of auditions self portraits, he began creating on whatever was Bones, across the front. He thinks the band has and did some stage shows. His comedy arises available with the most permanent of inks. Jason kept him around because he’s funny. Aside from from his insecurities. It’s a defense mechanism— always carried a Sharpie and he started sketching headlining drummer Dustin Huffman’s garage, or a Jedi mind trick as he puts it—rooted in on paper coffee cups in cafés in Chicago and Brom Bones—and their cult following of pop- childhood. Comedy even helped him avoid school NYC. Sometimes he’d leave messages on the punk devotees—can sometimes be seen at ABG or work as he grew up all around Lancaster. cups or small prizes inside such as gummy bears, at one of many benefit shows around southeast superballs, or parachute men. He gained a bit of PA. There’s a new album in the works, too. a following. “I like to think I am putting my all into everything that I am doing and it’s doing what it’s meant to do in a positive way,” says Jason. STORY SPONSOR: AMERICAN BAR & GRILL 1081 North Plum Street By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 394-8021 Check out Jason’s artwork on Instagram @jasonberlet WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS and follow Brom Bones on Facebook @brombonespa. ENTIRETY AT 21 www.abg-lancaster.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

SHAUN MURPHY Step into Shaun Murphy’s home in Lititz and you the best thing he could have done. He recognized more veterans as teachers,” announced Michelle cannot miss the large, framed photo of Shaun the positive influence the military was having on Obama, asking Shaun to stand and be recognized standing with Michelle Obama. The photo, signed his life, so he reenlisted and began to excel. He for his efforts during a press conference in 2013. by the former First Lady, hangs in prominent started taking leadership roles. “Then I got to meet her and Joe Biden,” says placement just inside the front door. “That was transformational for me,” says Shaun, who invited the VP to his classroom. But we need to back this story up to get the full Shaun. “I still live by the selfless service, the Shaun says Biden made a joke about the size of picture on how the Army veteran put himself in Army values.” Shaun’s arms—he’s a muscular dude—and later position to be invited to the White House. Shaun After his service, he joined up with Teach for that day his phone lit up with friends and family grew up in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn. America, a program formed in 1990 to recruit asking what he had said to the VP on national This is no hipster hangout; since the 1950s outstanding and diverse leaders to teach for TV to make him laugh. “The big take away for Brownsville holds the highest poverty and crime two years in a low-income community; after me was… I told my students in life you have rates of any New York City neighborhood. His dad two years, the teachers become part of the opportunities and you have to seize them. So, for was murdered when he was seven years old. TFA alumni network. While with TFA, Shaun them to see me on TV in this space was huge. It “I really didn’t know him. I’d see him passing by taught sixth through eighth grade special was a big picture thing.” on the street,” recalls Shaun. “But my mom was education in Wilmington, Delaware at an all- Around the same time as Shaun taking the reins strong. Strong enough to be both parents. What I boys middle school. of the TFA’s Military Veterans Initiative, he lacked of the male influence I found in the athletic “I’m a vet and I know what I bring to the moved to Lancaster to be closer to his soon-to- part of the streets, the guys that played ball. I classroom. Some of the skill sets are easily be wife, an F&M alum working at LGH. Quickly really didn’t go the negative route.” transferable,” says Shaun, who had an idea to putting down roots, Shaun started working with He owes this to his mother, he says, who hails recruit veterans into the classroom. At the time Habitat for Humanity and Leadership Lancaster. from Barbados. She has a strong respect for there was no veteran enterprise in TFA. A year Leadership Lancaster’s Core Class acclimated him education and its value. later he was asked to start the exact program to “all things Lancaster.” “I was a young grasshopper and I went to college he envisioned and fielded a call from the office “It’s a deep dive into who you are as a leader and a early and I partied. I was a social dude,” admits of Vice President Joe Biden requesting he come person,” says Shaun, who now teaches a freshman Shaun, who gained critical thinking skills and to Washington to brief staff and Obama on seminar at HACC focusing on motivation, time some important friendships from college, but the program. management, and direction. “That’s my part he dropped out after only two years. “I knew I “Our initiative went under the umbrella of in trying to create a pipeline of talent to our couldn’t go back to my neighborhood and my professionals changing careers,” explains Shaun. community and community leadership.” mother. That wasn’t an option.” “I was talking to lieutenant colonels, sergeant If every picture is worth a thousand words, He spotted the U.S. Army campaign: Be all you majors, and these are people who have led then the photo hanging in Shaun’s hall is just a can be. It resounded with him. He joined up and thousands of people.” preamble to the effect he has had and continues took on a job as a heavy vehicle mechanic and “Shaun Murphy … he has been promoted to lead to make on the world. did not like it, but he considers the experience Teach for America’s nationwide effort to hire

STORY SPONSOR: LANCO FEDERAL CREDIT UNION 349 West Roseville Road By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 569-7180 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 23 www.lancofcu.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

MONICA FORTE Sitting down for an interview with a mother who and just pulling something out. The remaining The Fortes also spent time together taking trips has lost a child is a daunting thing. The questions intestine was very, very sick. With the artificial to Tony’s favorite places, especially Gettysburg need to be delicate; the tone is typically and nutrition, he had to wear a backpack pretty much (he was a history lover) and Walt Disney World. understandably somber. Yet Monica Forte, who 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” By the age of In fact, the family remarkably visited Disney 60 lost her 12-year-old son Tony in February 2018, 11, Tony required a six-hour surgery resulting in times in eight years! sits down for her interview wearing a beaming the transplant of four organs—his stomach, small Although Tony’s transplants were successful, smile that immediately puts everyone around and large intestines, and his pancreas. complications from the immunosuppression her at ease. She is fun, and feisty, and her love of The story of the Forte family isn’t about the drugs required after his surgery eventually took her family and her mission to continue her son’s adversities they went through, however, as much his life. Since her son’s passing, Monica has legacy of helping others shine brighter than the as the fortitude and positivity with which they dedicated her time to helping other families hardships she’s endured throughout his illness. went through them. Monica fought tirelessly to in need, drawing from her own experiences Doctors diagnosed Anthony “Tony” Vesuvius make sure her husband and three children lived dealing with hassles from employers, mortgage Forte with Hirschsprung’s disease, a condition their lives to the fullest and allowed Tony to live companies, and insurance companies. that causes problems in the colon and digestive the best life possible. She remembers thinking, “How are we going to help these families?” she system, only six days after his birth. “They had “How are we going to survive this? Taking care of asks, passionately. “There are a lot of laws that to remove his entire colon,” Monica explains, the family and not falling apart? Because that’s need to be changed in our state. The red tape “so he had an ostomy bag and IV nutrition. For what happens.” needs to be cut from social programs that limit a mom to hear you can’t feed your baby… that is “We didn’t make him feel sick—that’s the thing,” these families, because some of them are denied. horrific.” While some cases of Hirschsprung’s are she says. “We never made him scared of the We were almost denied! We have a home, we have reversible with surgery, Tony’s case was so severe hospitals. We never left him alone. It was either our cars, we worked hard for everything— but that the only outcome was the eventual need for myself or my husband tag-teaming duties.” nobody’s planning to have a child that gets sick, an organ transplant. While in the hospital, the family spent time so what do you do?” Monica put her career on hold and became a helping others, often taking Tony’s lead. “Gosh, Monica has created a memorial fund, “In stay-at-home mother to Tony and his two older his spirit!” Monica laughs, “He was just such an Memory of Tony’s Footsteps,” to honor Tony’s brothers, Vincent and Dominic. “I basically inspiration to people. He was never a stranger— legacy of helping others. She also plans to start had to become a nurse for him,” she says. The he’d go up to somebody randomly and just ask a grieving mother’s group, as well as kickstart a central line and port where Tony’s artificial questions … and they’d end up becoming a pediatric transplant campground similar to the nutrition entered his body easily became infected, family friend.” Tony was selfless, often donating one that Tony stayed in during his transplant requiring frequent trips to the hospital. “For the his own gift money to other patients on the floor recovery—a project that was particularly close first four years of his life, we figured out about of his hospital. to Tony’s heart. She hopes to accomplish all of two, two and a half years we lived at Penn State When he was allowed out of the hospital, Tony these things while continuing her career as a Children’s Hospital. And that was living there served as a spokesperson for the Gift of Life travel agent specializing in—you guessed it— 24/7, never leaving,” Monica recalls. Donor Awareness Program and rode in the Make- Disney vacations, including Make-A-Wish trips As he grew older, Tony “was not able to go to A-Wish Mother’s Day Convoy, helping to raise for children like Tony. “That’s what Tony would school,” Monica continues, “and he was not money for families in similar situations. want… I’ve got a heck of a lot to do,” she laughs. able to eat freely, like going to the refrigerator “I don’t know if we’ve got a lot of time, but we’re STORY SPONSOR: gonna make the most of the time we have. I know LYNDA A. CHARLES, REALTOR we can do it.” CHARLES & ASSOCIATES REAL ESTATE, INC. By Brooke Carlock Miller 145 Oakridge Drive Mountville, PA 17554 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS (717) 299-2100 ENTIRETY AT WWW.REVELOMAG.COM 25 www.charles-associates.com

RON RAMBO WITH CHAD IBACH

Walking up the steps and entering the front Serendipitously, as Ron dreamed of a better his fingers as he sits by Ron’s side, “Just door of Ron Rambo’s Lancaster city apartment living situation, his mother suggested utilizing logistically, in every sense of the word, it automatically brings to mind the following the lot in the back of her house on East End makes total sense and makes a better situation questions: How does Ron get up the steps? Avenue to build an accessible home that would for everybody involved.” How does he get through the doorway? How does offer Ron the accommodations he would need Ron smiles and nods as his aide and friend he maneuver around the furniture in the tiny to live a more comfortable life. Knowing Ron’s describes Ramboland. He’s excited to get the front room that serves as a living room affinity for nature, one of his aides introduced project started and his home built. Ramboland and office workspace? him to Max Zahniser, an architect specializing in has garnered support from city planners, former You see, Ron has cerebral palsy. He’s been green building. Max immediately jumped on the Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray, and current Mayor confined to a wheelchair for his adult life. project, and assembled a team of professionals Danene Sorace, and is relying on donors to get He needs 24-hour care, and has difficulty devoted to designing Ron an accessible, self- the project out of the planning stages and into communicating. Housing has always been an sustaining, ecologically responsible home. Thus, construction. In the meantime, Ron continues issue for Ron. He lived with his parents, Donald “Ramboland” was born. to charm Lancaster residents as a fixture around and Joyce Killian, until he was 36 years old, and “Basically the entire idea is to make a living the city’s notable haunts. He’s a regular at Square then applied for Section 8 housing to live on his situation for people with disabilities that makes One Coffee, where he enjoys hanging out with own. “He wanted to move out and get his own sense in so many other ways, that doesn’t take his friends. He ventures to the Taproom every place, so he was going to go through the Section any extra effort, but actually decreases it,” Chad Tuesday night, where he orders a pork sandwich 8 voucher program,” his aide of nine years, says. According to the Ramboland website, the even though it’s Taco Tuesday. Chad Ibach, explains. “He had a pretty rough house will have “extra-wide doors, automated Two days a week Ron can be found at Central time finding this place,” Chad says, gesturing mechanical and electrical systems, a suspension Market, where he hangs out with his friends around Ron’s apartment, “which is the best that system between the bedroom and bathroom, that work at Mean Cup, buys vegetables and he’s found so far. The landlords took Section 8, adjustable height furniture, cooktop, sink and chats with Earl Groff, and visits the ladies at which is a requirement for him, and it’s on the appliances, and even wheelchair accessible Green Circle Organics. “Ron has many friends at first floor, which is very convenient if you’re in a planter beds, and a wheelchair accessible, Market,” Chad laughs, “so at every stand we shop wheelchair, and it was available.” ecologically restorative ‘yard’.” at, it’s more small talk than shopping.” “So he got it,” Chad continues, “but he still can’t “Ramboland snowballed into setting a precedent When asked if he has anything he wants people even get in the bathroom. He can’t get in the for what it can mean for somebody with a to know about Ramboland, Ron automatically laundry room. It’s hard to maneuver around here, disability or in a wheelchair and the burden on replies that he wants people to check out the with his lift system bumping into things, getting the taxpayers,” Chad says. “The effect on the website, Ramboland.com. He smiles and says he around the furniture.” Ron was able to have a planet, the quality of life within the home, the has a good friend that works on the website. ramp built in the back of the building extra income from selling the extra power, the to access his apartment, but the problems wastewater treatment savings, the rainwater “I do it,” Chad laughs. with daily living cause frustrations for Ron collection, the gardens in the backyard,” Chad With friends like Ron’s, Ramboland can’t be far and his aides. counts off the home’s eco-friendly features on from reality.

For more information on Ramboland, STORY SPONSOR: visit www.ramboland.com. BOMBERGER’S STORE 555 Furnace Hills Pike By Brooke Carlock Miller Lititz, PA 17543 (On route 501 just north of Lititz) (717) 626-3333 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 27 www.bombergers.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

BROOKE MAGNI

In 2018, Brooke Magni ran 26 miles in pouring “I ended up breaking my leg. I had two stress “You have to find something that gives rain and blistering winds from Hopkinton, fractures before going to school,” says Brooke, you worth. If that is knitting or running or Massachusetts to the Boston Public Library. who was dumped into the “crappy dorm” where whatever, you need to find that and stick with Before this, her first Boston Marathon, she had even smoking was still allowed. The entire it no matter what else is going on in your life,” completed a handful of other marathons and situation was just not good for Brooke and she she says. half marathons; prep for this race took about did not return for a second semester. She came While at Millersville, Brooke started working four months. back to Lancaster County, stopped running, and with Girls on the Run, a national initiative “Boston is the quintessential marathon. That’s soon found herself in a toxic relationship. inspiring girls to be joyful, healthy, and why every runner wants to do it,” says Brooke “I was dealing with a lot of adult issues that at confident through an experience-based less than a year after finishing the race. For 18 and 19 years old, I wasn’t ready to deal with,” curriculum centered on running. She had just Brooke, preparing herself for running has been she admits. “I really lost myself.” finished her undergrad thesis on the positive synonymous with preparing herself for life. She was directionless and without a path to effect sports can have on young women and “When you want to do something like run a achieve her goals. Sitting in Pod 2 of Rock Lititz, began work with the GotR 6th and 8th grade marathon or get a college degree you have to where she is now the director of Lititz recROC program (now called Heart & Sole) at Penn think, ‘What’s my plan and how do I get there?’ (and she admits she is not a good rock climber), Manor School District. Prepare, research, and put a road map in place. Brooke doesn’t really want to get into too many “It was interesting to see the perspective girls That’s how I got there. No matter what is going details about that rough patch in her life. have about running because it’s not typically on in your life. No matter what dumpster fire a girl’s sport,” says Brooke. It wasn’t until you are getting through today, just try to “Running was what pulled me out of that funk and depression. It gave me purpose. Seeing 1960 that women were allowed to participate develop an attitude where you know that you in running events at the Summer Olympics. can turn it around somehow.” accomplishments was a really big deal,” recalls Brooke. “When you go through crappy stuff, it is In 1967 the first woman (Kathrine Switzer) There was a time in her life when she needed to a hard time… especially when you are not ready “illegally” ran and finished the Boston “turn it around” and running got her there. to deal with adult issues.” Marathon; she was promptly banned from the The Warwick grad started running in junior Amateur Athletic Union. Runner Jackie Joyner- Rebounding, her life gained momentum. She Kersee became the first female athlete to appear high school as training for field hockey. Field met a man who became her husband, got hockey did not end up working out for her and on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1987. Brooke married, and had a baby. She went back to ran her first marathon in Philadelphia shortly she wound up lettering in cross country, almost school, a goal she always wanted to attain. by mistake. She enjoyed long distance running after the birth of her first child and she admits She grabbed some credits at HACC, enrolled she was completely unprepared for it. Coming even more than field hockey and eventually in Millersville as a Psychology major, and got attended Kutztown University to compete with across the finish line she was miserable, but that a master’s degree in Sports Management. It all did not stop her. There is no end in sight to her the collegiate team. But things didn’t go well started because she began running again. from the start. future running goals.

STORY SPONSOR: RESTORE HYPER WELLNESS + CRYOTHERAPY 100 Rohrerstown Road Building 6, Suite A By Michael C. Upton Lancaster, PA 17603 (717) 490-6211 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 29 www.restorecryotherapy.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

TYLER GOODLING It wasn’t the happiest of 15th birthdays. Tyler his cat, Lucy, decides to make an entrance into listen,” says the now 26-year-old Tyler, who Goodling was stranded in a town hundreds of the living room of his Gallery Row apartment many Lancastrians may recognize from his miles away from his Lancaster City home where where we are sitting today. She’s loud, curious, position at Passenger Coffee. Although he tends he grew up playing soccer and listening to music and pleasant. Her interruption is an apropos to keep to himself socially, he excels in the world like many other young teens. His parent’s car reminder of how uncomfortable this subject can of customer service. He’s grown passionate had broken down in Birmingham, Alabama on be. “I’m really fortunate because I was able to about coffee. “I love making people feel at home, the way to Mexico, the destination where his work through some things.” comfortable. If someone is choosing to go out family would soon live. Towed from an unsavory He found support from friends and family—and and spend money somewhere it should be a good part of town, the Goodlings got a crappy room at he is extremely grateful—but also latched onto a experience. I like the customer interactions and a motel and had a less-than-celebratory dinner movement just gaining momentum back in the the beauty of the product itself.” of hot wings at a local mall. It was a memorable late 2000s. To Write Love On Her Arms opened up When he returned to Lancaster from Mexico, he birthday for Tyler for all the wrong reasons. a new level of communication for Tyler. returned to his passions for soccer and music. In “My parents sold our house on College Avenue “It was help in the area of topics people don’t Mexico he had the opportunity to play soccer on and we moved to Mexico for two years,” says like to talk about, like self abuse, suicide, and a club team a few steps below professional level. Tyler, whose parents took positions at English depression which, unfortunately, are still sort Mexico presents an opportunity for everyone camps in Puebla City, a two-hour drive south of taboo topics. People shy away from them, but to play at a competitive level. In the U.S., that of Mexico City. “It is an amazing culture. They they are extremely real,” says Tyler. is not available and quality players must find have a beautiful respect for people’s time, competition in expensive traveling teams. something we will never achieve here as a Still functioning today, TWLOHA defines itself as a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting “In Mexico, it’s just a way of life,” Tyler says. society. There are a lot of things I learned. It was “Soccer was really my life for 16 or 17 years and awesome and awful at the same time.” hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self injury, and suicide. then I ended up tearing the ACL in my left knee.” Uprooting any 15-year-old kid from their The cause arose from Florida resident Jamie Musically, he returned to Lancaster in time to regular and comfortable routine is bound Tworkowski’s experience with a teenager named relish in the prime of the city’s metalcore scene. to create some friction. Tyler had to leave Renee Yohe, an addict who had scrawled words Bands like August Burns Red, Texas in July, and his friends. He started high school in a of self hate into her left forearm with a razor Circus Circus played regularly, and Tyler even foreign country in a bilingual school and blade. TWLOHA continues its efforts and answers took up playing the guitar. was homeschooled his sophomore year. thousands of calls for help, has raised more “I’m a firm believer that life can be and should be “My parents and I didn’t get along for a while, than $2 million for treatment and recovery, and beautiful,” Tyler says, with Lucy making his way but everything is cool now,” says Tyler. effected the lives of people in 98 countries. on and off his lap. “What makes life so beautiful But in Mexico, things went from bad to worse. “You are not alone, and this is not the end of your are the people and how different we are. I think “I was cutting myself for quite sometime and had story,” reads TWLOHA materials. simply understanding that we matter as people is some suicidal thoughts as well,” says Tyler, when “There’s always someone out there ready to the foundation of moving forward.”

STORY SPONSOR: INTULSE PO BOX 293 By Michael C. Upton Elizabethtown, PA 17022 (717) 839-5000 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 31 www.intulse.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

EDITH EARLY In today’s America, campaigns to inspire —which was ahead of its time,” Edith admits, And I thought that was a fairly decent thing to young women into the STEM fields—Science, “We were just lucky.” After graduating third do, so that’s what I did,” she laughs. Technology, Engineering, and Math—line in her class from high school, Edith attended Edith not only held her own with her male hallways of schools and colleges. Back in Randolph Macon Women’s College. During her coworkers, but helped develop groundbreaking Edith Early’s day, however, women were sophomore year, she had to make a decision new ways to mass-produce plastic flooring tiles. rarely welcome in the scientific fields. Edith about her major, and found herself torn between Her chemistry career came to an end when she broke boundaries as a pioneer in STEM Latin and Chemistry. Practically, she decided on met her husband while singing with her church without realizing it. She traded fancy skirts Chemistry because she thought it would offer choir. The pair married and had three children, for jeans and cooking sit-down dinners for her more chances to make a good living. and Edith left Armstrong to be a full-time experimenting with chemicals long before it In 1944, a recruiter from Armstrong World mother. “It was one of those love at first sight was acceptable to do so. She doesn’t see herself Industries came to Randolph Macon and, things,” she chuckles. “We became engaged as a pioneer, just as a woman who lived a life impressed with her abilities, offered Edith a about two weeks after we met!” The pair were she loved—which makes her accomplishments summer job working in the paint section of the married for 67 years before her husband’s all the more admirable. Armstrong laboratory. “I went in the summer death. Always a leader, however, Edith traveled Edith grew up with a father who defied gender of 1944,” Edith explains, “and I really loved Europe, served on the board of trustees for barriers. “My dad never really knew his father, Lancaster. Lancaster is just one of those ideal her church, and served as both a treasurer and who was killed when my dad was two years places to live, so I thought, ‘That’s where I want auditor for the League of Women Voters. Now old,” Edith explains. “He was literally raised to go.’” When her summer job was over, Edith a resident of Homestead Village, she loves to by his mother and an older sister. I don’t know was offered a full-time job working in the floor record people’s life stories and write letters: “I whether that influenced his attitude, but as a division of Armstrong. “It was at the time that have a very large and varied family, and I stay father of three girls, he never told us there was plastic flooring was just coming on the market, in touch with them. I’m the matriarch. I’m the something we couldn’t do because we were and they were still in the process of being oldest member… the oldest living member of my girls.” Edith continues, “He had a workshop in able to produce it in the factory,” Edith says. mother’s family,” she adds. the basement, and if we wanted to use any of “So, that’s what I did. I worked on the plastic, When asked if she has any advice for young his tools, we were allowed to go down there, as developing the formula and taking it up in the women interested in science or technology, long as we put them back where they belonged. factory to run on the big presses.” Edith replies, “Follow what you’re really In fact, one Christmas, all I wanted was a “It was an interesting thing to be the only interested in… and I guess the main thing is football, and I went down Christmas morning woman in the factory with all these guys when you start something new like that, not and there it was, and nobody ever said, ‘Why do around,” Edith continues. “The boss of the to be afraid to do it. Because when you try you want that?’” group that was working in the factory told anything new, it doesn’t work right away, and Edith’s great-grandfather, the founding one of the guys that knew me, ‘Tell Edith to you have to be forgiving of yourself if it doesn’t president of Clemson College, instilled a love of go down to the army/navy store and get some work. You have to overcome your fear.” education in his family members. “I come from jeans and a work shirt, and not to wear those a family where the women were all educated fancy skirts and sweaters to work at the factory.’

STORY SPONSOR: HOMESTEAD VILLAGE 1800 Marietta Avenue By Brooke Carlock Miller Lancaster, PA 17603 (717) 397-4831 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 33 www.homesteadvillage.org WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

JOHNNY SEMAGANIS In an era of parents and children being separated The Canadian government separated all of the following and introduced the world to the reality of at the Mexican-American border, the topic of children in Johnny’s family, and he ended up being the Sixties Scoop. immigration and assimilation graces newspapers sent to Lancaster County. He ran away from his first Through the podcast, Johnny and Christine got and television shows daily. It’s an issue that’s close adoptive family, where he said he was treated poorly, to meet in person for the first time in almost 40 to Johnny Semaganis’s heart, though he is hesitant but with luck ended up with a foster family called years. And, with the help of the CBC, they learned to talk about his own struggles overcoming an event the Henrys–whom he now considers his family. “If it that their sister Cleo had been sent to live with a of which very few Americans have heard, or can wasn’t for them, I’d be dead or in jail or something,” family in New Jersey, where she had taken her own even believe. he says. “They’re my parents, because they were life at age 13. “It’s good to know after not knowing Johnny grew up on the Little Pine First Nation there for me, unlike my mother. Nothing against for 39 years,” Johnny says, “… but it’s not closure. I reservation of Cree Indians in Saskatchewan, her–she had a lot of tough times that I didn’t know can’t say it’s closure. I’ve visited her gravesite twice Canada. The oldest of seven children, he often took about–but they were there for me, which was so already. It’s good to know where she’s at.” nice, because I had never had that in my life.” care of his younger siblings and lived a difficult life Johnny continues, “I’m glad that someone took on the desolate reservation. Johnny never knew Johnny was able to settle into a comfortable life here the time to find out about what happened.” That his father. His mother, who had experienced years in Lancaster, however, he always wondered what had sentiment recurs often when discussing the of abuse in Canada’s residential schools (boarding happened to his siblings. “We always wondered,” he events of Johnny’s past. Despite the traumatic schools designed to assimilate Indigenous peoples) sighs, “but nobody listened to us.” Then, in 2017, out things that have happened in his life, he seems often felt overwhelmed and unable to handle her of nowhere Johnny received a letter from his sister most appreciative of the fact that people are now children. When asked about his childhood memories Christine. She had an incredible story to tell. listening to a story that, up to this point, has rarely in Little Pine, Johnny shakes his head. “Most of Christine had been adopted out to a white family in been told. “I’ve told my story to other people, but… them were bad,” he says, “but you try not to… I try Saskatchewan. She didn’t know she had any siblings deaf ears, you know? So after a while you get tired of not to think about it.” until she turned 18, when her adoptive family kicked telling it.” When he was 13 years old, Johnny became part of her out of the house and told her about her history “I’m better off,” Johnny insists, as he lists his an event in Canadian history known as the “Sixties of being taken from the Little Pine reservation. friends, his job at Lancaster General Hospital, his Scoop,” where Canadian Indigenous children were When she discovered the truth about her past, adoptive family, and the Lancaster area as the things taken from their families and placed in foster care or Christine set out to find the rest of the family. She he’s most grateful for. “I still know my culture. I adopted out to mostly white, middle-class families contacted Connie Walker at CBC News in Canada know where I came from. I feel it right here,” he in an attempt to assimilate the children. Johnny and told her the story. And finally, someone listened. says, pointing to his heart. “People are reaching out, remembers the day he was taken, although he CBC News started a podcast that helped Christine because they’ve never heard about it. And I’m glad doesn’t like to talk about it. “I always thought my search for her missing family members–with a that people are getting a history lesson. It isn’t right mother was going to save me, but I didn’t realize focus on the one family member that couldn’t be to separate families. But it happened, and … I don’t they handcuffed her to a door,” he mutters. “Nobody traced–Johnny and Christine’s little sister Cleo. The really dwell on it. You can’t let it eat you up inside.” knows about it that much,” he continues. “Nobody podcast, called “Finding Cleo,” garnered a large really talks about it.”

STORY SPONSOR: HORSE INN 540 East Fulton Street By Brooke Carlock Miller Lancaster, PA 17602 (717) 392-5528 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 35 www.horseinnlancaster.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

SOREN WEST On the trail they called him “Sojo,” short for The AT Conservancy warns that in addition to spot and the weather was amazing. The clouds Sojourner. On February 21, 2016, retired attorney logistics, physical and mental preparations are were sweeping in and sweeping out. Something Soren West stepped onto the packed earth of important factors for a successful thru-hike. in me came uncorked and I howled back at that the Appalachian Trail; his temporary stay in the Some hikers plan out each stop, mailing ahead wind as loud as I possibly could.” wilderness would last eight months and six days. provisions to strategic towns along the trail. After New Hampshire he struggled to go more The AT runs roughly 2,190 miles through 14 Soren planned to meet each stop as it came; than nine miles each day. He pushed himself to states, starting northbound from Springer there he would replenish his stocks from local break double digits but tripped, slammed his face Mountain, GA to its terminus on Katahdin in grocers and spend zero days—days of non- on a root, and dislodged his tooth; he couldn’t Maine. At the age of 75, Soren—with his golden hiking—off the trail. close his mouth. Luckily, he found a dentist in the retriever Theo—hiked the whole thing. In that “I was very fortunate to have a dog with me,” says next town who popped the tooth back in place. year, he was the oldest to hike the trail in its Soren about his constant companion. “I didn’t That tumble, combined with injuries from an entirety. (The following year, Dale “Grey Beard” suffer the kind of mental fatigue some do. But I earlier fall when he tripped over some old barbed Sanders became the oldest person ever to did have times when I wondered if my body was wire, damaged his rotator cuff. thru-hike at age 82.) Theo was eight years old going to let me finish.” “When I got to Maine I was running on fumes. at the time. Approximately 3,000 people start a thru-hike I couldn’t use my right arm very much,” says “At first he liked to pretend he was protective,” each year, most travelling south to north from Soren. “When I got to Munson, Maine, which is says Soren about Theo, mentioning his “start to finish.” Only one in four complete their the last town before you finish, my shoulder was companion who now naps in the foyer of their goal. Soren came close to being one of the three hot and sore.” West End home facing Buchanan Park. “There’s in that statistic, but he had two things going for He spent three days in the hospital. The no bite behind the bark. A month in he didn’t him: a “litter mate” and a guaranteed desire to recommended surgery to clean out an infection bark anymore; he knew what was going on.” complete the hike. would have ended his hike. Spying a favorable Soren fell in love with hiking at the age of Virginia was exhausting, but he had devised weather forecast from the hospital bed, he twelve when he completed a 67-mile section of a plan to rest, regroup, and return to the trail, decided to push on. It was October and time the AT along the Franconia Ridge in the White which he did. Pennsylvania, nicknamed “the was running out. Days were getting shorter Mountains of New Hampshire. The five-day hike graveyard of paws and boots,” is the least and colder. stuck with him his whole life. favored state of the trail due to its craggy rock “Katahdin is 13 feet short of a mile high. That’s “It took me six years to get ready,” he says, formations; here, a boot change proved to be an a fitting end to a thru-hike,” says Soren, who, recalling how he calculated the miles he error and his feet suffered for 1,000 miles. In New after summiting the terminal peak, went back would need to trek each day to make it to the Hampshire he made it back to Franconia Ridge. to finish the Hundred-Mile Wilderness—the terminus before winter set in; trained by hiking “This place was the genesis of the whole thing,” wildest section of the Appalachian Trail—he smaller trails around the northeast; and tested says Soren, and when he got to that point in missed while in the hospital. “It was an amazing equipment, including footwear. “There’s an awful 2016, he was joined by his son Christopher and adventure that changed my life.” lot to plan and learn.” grandsons Thomas and Isaac. “We came to this

STORY SPONSOR: FESTOON BOUTIQUE AT THE SHOPS AT BRIGHTON By Michael C. Upton IN DOWNTOWN LANCATER 1183 Erbs Quarry Road Lititz, PA, 17543 202 North Duke Street WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS Lancaster, PA 17602 (717) 560-6509 ENTIRETY AT WWW.REVELOMAG.COM 37 (717) 299-2232 www.shopfestoon.com

KAT LUDLOW It’s often said that as people reach older age, they When she was 16, Kat ended up in foster care with The couple lived in Myanmar for a while, despite look back on their lives and wonder about risks a woman who pushed her to graduate from high the fact that it was a volatile time in that country. they didn’t take: What if I had taken that trip? school and, eventually, college. “She accepted When the situation became too dangerous, they What if I had gone after that relationship? What if no excuses and made me aware that I did have fled to Taiwan and stayed there for a year, teaching I had tried that job? One thing is for certain—Kat choices—that you aren’t defined by the choices that English to local school children. “Living in Taiwan Ludlow will never have to question whether her life people make for you.” After graduating with a degree was a great experience,” Kat remembers, “I was well lived. A free spirit through and through, in Anthropology and Women’s Studies, Kat started learned a lot from the kids about the difference in Kat turned an unfortunate childhood into a life of a series of adventures that spanned the globe. language. I learned a lot about myself, too. A lot of spontaneity and adventure, and compassion for her First, she followed the band Phish around the self-reflection happened there.” A year and a half fellow humans. country with her boyfriend, and ended up living later—“You couldn’t get any good cheese there. It Born in Indiana, Kat’s earliest memories are of living in Los Angeles working as a receptionist. When was really my breaking factor,” Kat chuckles—she with her grandmother, an avid bird enthusiast. Her that relationship ended, she moved with her next and her boyfriend ended up in Hanoi, Vietnam, parents divorced when she was young, and she boyfriend to Oregon. Unfortunately, she didn’t where Kat discovered she was pregnant. moved to Lancaster with her mother, who remarried realize that the boyfriend was already living with Kat again found a teaching job, where she met a a man who would change Kat’s life forever. “He was another woman. “So there I was,” she laughs, “and particularly feisty five year-old named Quynh Anh, an abusive alcoholic,” Kat explains. “My stepfather that’s when I learned to ask people for help, because who had been put up for adoption because he had was overzealously religious, and used religion to I was in the middle of Oregon and didn’t know two cowlicks in the front of his hair. The two formed justify gender roles and punishment. I had to copy anybody. Within a week I found a job, a place to live, an immediate bond. However, “I missed Turkey Hill bible verses—a thousand at a time, pages of bible and learned a lot about the kindness of strangers.” ice cream, and ketchup, and I wanted to give birth verses. I wasn’t allowed to wear pants. I could only Following a few years in Oregon, she took a rafting in the states,” Kat admits. When she gave birth to wear dresses,” she adds. When she was 13, Kat’s trip on the Salmon River in Idaho and “just never her daughter back in Pennsylvania, Kat named her stepfather caught her wearing pants and physically came back,” she says. “I packed everything up and I Quynn, after the little boy who captured her heart abused her so badly that she spent Christmas in the lived out of my car on the banks of the Salmon River in Vietnam. hospital with two cracked ribs. for a summer. I just loved every minute of it.” Now a single mother living in Marietta (the Kat ended up in foster care, moving around the When she met “the most beautiful man in the “most handsome man in the world” moved back country, living in seven homes in three years. world,” as she calls him, “I was done for.” The to Oregon), Kat runs a cleaning business called Looking back, she views her heartbreaking pair decided to leave the country when George Mother’s Green Cleaning, where she focuses on circumstances in a positive light: “I think it Bush was elected president. They first ended up in hiring women who are overcoming adversity and probably saved my life because I don’t know how Thailand—traveling, exploring, and meditating. In trying to support children. Her business allows much further the abuse would’ve gone on,” she Laos, the pair started an import/export business to mothers to work daytime hours for a living wage. admits. “You learn a lot when you have to grow up supplement their travels. “I loved Southeast Asia,” She also focuses on helping families with children immediately. I mean, I definitely missed out on a Kat beams, “It was a great place where the food who have autoimmune disorders, as her own childhood, but I’ve learned how to be resilient and was fantastic and the people were lovely. It’s daughter suffers from chronic asthma. “I think in bounce back.” wonderful to live in a culture where you don’t all those experiences, I’ve learned it’s important to really speak the language.” state the beauty and value in those around you, and especially in yourself. It’s important to find your strength within, and with every problem, there’s STORY SPONSOR: an opportunity.” TELLUS360 24 East King Street By Brooke Carlock Miller Lancaster, PA 17602 (717) 393-1660 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 39 www.tellus360.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

ARTIE VAN WHY Artie Van Why moved to New York City in 1977 secretary ran into the office, crying hysterically, Tower. I don’t know what I thought I was going with the goal of becoming a theater actor. For ten yelling that a plane had crashed into one of the to do, but I know my motivation. I was thinking, years he played parts here and there, but when towers. “My first thought was a tiny prop plane,” ‘What if someone was still alive?’ I didn’t want his career started looking bleak, he decided to get he recalls, “like a personal little plane, and the them to be alone. I don’t know. It was a pressing, a “real job,” as he says, working for a midsize law man had a heart attack and crashed in. That’s pressing obligation for me somehow.” firm. In 2001, after 11 years working for the firm, what I was envisioning, and so, to be honest, I As he ran under the large awning under one of they merged with another group and asked Artie wanted to mostly go down out of curiosity to see.” the buildings, with large chunks of debris now if he would like to move to their new location. “I Artie took the elevator downstairs to the lobby falling all around, Artie got caught up in a group thought, ‘Do I try to go back to theater, or what and walked out into the street. “The first thing of people being ushered away from the buildings should I do? Here’s a chance to change. I mean, that hit me as soon as I hit the street was that it by security guards. As he moved with the crowd, I’m still young,’” he remembers. He ultimately was covered with paper. Sheets of paper. Paper Artie heard another deafening sound. He looked decided to stay with the firm. “I often go back to was everywhere,” he says. “It looked like blankets up and witnessed the plane crashing into the that one decision… how that one decision must of snow and papers were coming down from the second tower. “Everyone just started running have altered the rest of my life,” Artie muses. sky, all the office papers from the tower.” literally for our lives. Metal was falling around The new location of the firm was across from the Without thinking, Artie started walking toward us. At one point, I fell to the ground and people World Trade Center. the Trade Center buildings, seeing chunks of started running on top of me, and I remember On the morning of September 11th, Artie went insulation and metal in the street. “Then I hit thinking, ‘I’m going to die,’” Artie says. But he about his normal daily routine. He woke up at his Church Street,” he stops. “I look up and see that was able to get up and keep running. Midtown apartment, got on the subway, got off, North Tower. And I can’t even begin to describe There is much more to Artie’s story of that day. bought a cup of coffee from a vendor and went to what that felt like, because it was just something Stories about helping injured people in the streets. a newsstand to buy a paper. “And then I’d go over that I had never even imagined.” Stories about the Towers collapsing and having into the plaza area of the World Trade Center and By that point the buildings were evacuating and to outrun a giant white wall of dust. Stories about just sit there and read the paper, drink coffee, Artie was swept up in a sea of onlookers gawking trying to find a phone, hiding in a restaurant, and watch people go into work,” he says. “The at the tower, trying to figure out what had walking in soundless streets until he reached his thing that strikes me the most is how beautiful happened. “Then, as we looked more and more,” own apartment. And stories that continue to this it was that day. Especially sitting outside there. I he continues, “I noticed there were people at day about Artie’s journey of recovery from the remember distinctly looking at the blue sky and the windows… people hanging out the windows trauma of that event in September that would thinking I’d never seen a color like that before. waving shirts, articles of clothing… and during change his life forever. It was just so beautiful.” this, there’s debris just falling down the side of the Using writing as therapy, Artie turned his emails Artie walked into work, took the elevator to the North Tower… and then I noticed people getting to friends into a one-man play, titled That Day in 23rd floor of his building, and was there for 15 up into the windows.” September, which he performed in Los Angeles and minutes before he heard the first explosion. A “I remember… when I saw the first person jump, a New York. He then turned the play into a memoir. woman behind me screamed. And my reaction He now speaks to schools, colleges, groups and —I just started screaming the word ‘NO’ over and other organizations across the country about his over again. I started running towards the North experiences on that day, as well as discussing his ongoing struggle with the PTSD that has affected STORY SPONSOR: his life ever since he witnessed one of America’s most tragic events firsthand. ALLSTATE: MOYER INSURANCE 2819 A. Willow Street Pike North By Brooke Carlock Miller Willow Street, PA 17584 (717) 464-1600 Visit www.artievanwhy.com for speaking inquiries, WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS to purchase his book, or to obtain rights to his play. www.allstate.com/frannmoyer ENTIRETY AT WWW.REVELOMAG.COM 41

PAM WILD Pam Wild has a difficult time sharing her story. husband to see that she was serious about saving Baltimore and her life was spared. Since that day, She’s naturally a private person; she likes to avoid their relationship. She immediately noticed a she has endured over 60 surgeries to reconstruct the spotlight. She curls up on the sofa as she talks, change in her behavior and mood, but not for the her face. She has also become a fierce advocate and mentions frequently that she’s nervous. But she better. “The medication seemed to take me out of for the responsible use of anxiety and depression fights through her anxiety because she believes her control,” she explains, “I couldn’t sleep, and my medications. “When I woke up in the hospital, experiences need to be shared. “The story needs to behavior became more and more bizarre. I just my head was completely clear. I had transfusions, be told,” she says. “The vast majority of people who absolutely couldn’t function.” She tried to talk to the medications were out of my system,” she commit suicide, I think, fall into the same place I her family and her doctor, but no one listened. asserts. Pam is convinced that she would not was, where they just can’t… it literally is a black She also started noticing strange things about her have had suicidal thoughts had it not been for the hole that has a hold on you, like a suction, and it husband’s behavior. Instead of supporting Pam and medications she was taking. “Everyone said my just keeps pulling you and pulling you deeper and her anxieties, he began suggesting that she was behavior was so unlike me,” she says, “I started deeper inside of it.” worthless—that their family would be better off checking into the medications and learned a lot Pam is a suicide survivor. However, she firmly without her. At one point, he cleaned out the drawer about the SSRIs and the suicidal thoughts they tend believes that the cause of her mental state at the of her nightstand, replacing Pam’s belongings so to cause.” While going through difficult divorce time of her suicide attempt is the medications she that when she opened the drawer she saw only one proceedings, Pam also spent time contacting was taking for depression and anxiety. Her story thing—the key to the family’s gun cabinet. lawyers about the side effects of her medications. She ended up going to Washington, D.C. to present begins with a rather difficult childhood growing On the night of September 9th, 2001, Pam received up the daughter of a coal miner in Western PA. She her experiences to the FDA in a large case against a phone call from her husband. “He informed me major pharmaceutical companies. went through three rough marriages before she about how I wasn’t a good mother, and wasn’t a met her fourth husband while working at a nuclear good daughter, and I had no friends, and nobody “All of the people there were families of people power plant in southern Maryland. The pair had could stand to be around me… and when I hung who had committed suicide. I was the only survivor two children, and things started out well. However, up the phone, it was like, ‘He’s absolutely right,’” there to speak,” she notes. Pam’s testimony after around seven years together, “our marriage Pam says sadly. Pam decided that she was going to helped prompt the FDA to require warning labels was failing,” Pam admits. The couple fell on hard end her own life. “I thought the best thing I could on anxiety and depression medications. Now times; “We lost our home, we lost our business, do for all of them was just remove myself from the living happily in Holtwood, Pam keeps herself we moved into a smaller house… we decided to picture,” she explains. She called her husband and occupied by creating art she sells at Parkhill declare bankruptcy, so I was very sad. I had a lot of told him about her plan, and asked him to pick up Jewelry, journaling, and writing a book based on her anxiety. The kids had to be moved from one county their youngest son so he wouldn’t find her. Instead, experiences. When asked what advice she would to the next, and their schools changed.” Not long her husband called the police. When they arrived, give to anyone considering medication or having after moving into a new fixer-upper home, Pam Pam was in the bathroom with a gun. When the anxious, depressed, or suicidal thoughts, Pam says discovered her husband was having an affair. police kicked the door in, the noise was so loud matter-of-factly, “Absolutely go to the doctor, but Her husband suggested trying to save the marriage, that Pam jumped and discharged the gun, shooting nobody knows our bodies like us. Even a black hole but insisted that Pam needed medication for her herself in the face. has another side, and it’s going to release you back in the light. There is hope, and for anybody who depression and anxiety. She didn’t really want to If it weren’t for the police being there and calling take pills, but agreed to try because she wanted her is there, if you can hold on for six months—give EMS services immediately, Pam would’ve died. yourself six moths of trying to claw at it and work at Instead, she was rushed to a shock trauma unit in it and struggle through it—I think at the end of that STORY SPONSOR: six-month period, you’ll find things have started to

GOOD’S INSURANCE AGENCY, INC. turn around.” 20 Trinity Drive #100 By Brooke Carlock Miller Leola, PA 17540 (717) 661-6100 WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 43 www.goodsinsuranceagency.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

RAY NEWLIN Sitting on the couch of Ray Newlin’s charming together, and that’s where it started for me. It In addition to Cornerstone, Ray also co-founded Akron home, surrounded by pictures of his wife was the early to mid-90s—it was a good time a scholarship to honor one of his two friends who and kids and his beloved Eagles paraphernalia, to be alive. It was a lot of fun back then, in the passed away, skateboard enthusiast Anthony it’s hard to associate the friendly family man with beginning, but it took off for me in a negative Craighead. “Craighead, as we called him—when the angry, troubled past he reveals during his way, eventually.” we were younger, he would always just give interview. Ray’s mother was a single mom with His alcohol and drug use led to addiction—“I was things away to people. He always had new five children before he was born. His father was a in and out of trouble for many years; I couldn’t products, so when he was done with them, he 55-year-old World War II veteran. The pair met, get it together. The court system, all that stuff,” would be pretty quick to kick it down and hand married, and had Ray soon after. “He was an old Ray admits. He managed to face his demons and it to the next guy and to keep everybody riding. head, to have a kid,” Ray laughs. recover with the help and support of others. We wanted to honor that and do something nice, Tragedy struck when Ray’s mother got sick with and try to make something positive out of his However, two of his friends weren’t so lucky. passing,” Ray explains. The Anthony Craighead breast cancer when he was only six years old. “It “They both died from the direct results of was pretty rapid,” he says. “We went to Florida Skateboard Scholarship gives away free substance abuse,” Ray shakes his head. “So these skateboards to children in Lancaster County to visit my sister, who had just had a baby. That two men died within about two months of each was July 1983. She found a lump in her breast, we who might not otherwise be able to afford them. other… and I set out to create something, I guess The fund takes donations of skateboards and flew back to Pennsylvania, and she passed away very selfishly, like, ‘I’m gonna make something that September. It was a three-month span of her money through its Facebook page and utilizes so great that my friends wouldn’t have died.’” As profits from t-shirt sales to distribute the boards being sick, and I was only six going on seven. My a result, Ray founded Cornerstone for Recovery, father was 63 years old at that point, and that set to children in need, including students at a network of homes for people transitioning out Lancaster City’s Price Elementary School. the stage for… well, I just got real angry—a real of inpatient facilities, rehabs, and prisons. “We ‘chip on my shoulder’ kind of thing—angry at the offer them safe and sober living so that they can From helping young skaters get a start to world,” he remembers. transition back into society, get support, get jobs, assisting addicts, Ray does all of his charitable Ray’s half siblings were all significantly older and and get back on their feet, and then walk out the work while also maintaining a full-time job at out of the house, so Ray lived with just his father, door and never have to look back,” he says. Paul Davis Restoration Company. When asked who turned to alcohol to cope with his problems. how he manages his time, he laughs, “I’m Cornerstone currently has four male residences blessed with a good wife and good support.” “He liked to drink a lot, but he was functioning. in Lancaster City and one female residence in He went to work every day. He worked at the Now, Ray hopes to be the support for others that Columbia, with the hopes of expanding and once helped him overcome his past: “Anybody same factory for 32 years, and when he retired, opening more houses. “The scales are always they retired the machine. That’s the kind of guy that’s ever shown me patience, kindness, and going to be tipped on the side of people that are forgiveness along the way… Thank you.” he was,” Ray says. in need,” Ray acknowledges. “The addict and Ray’s sadness and anger led to his own problems the alcoholic, the substance abuser, will never with substance abuse. “It started out with a go away. So we have to provide that service, and group of like-minded kids with similar home we’re going to continue to do so.” situations,” he explains. “We started partying

STORY SPONSOR: PAUL DAVIS 1816 Olde Homestead Lane By Brooke Carlock Miller Lancaster, PA 17601 (717) 291-6000 Follow the foundation on Facebook WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS @anthonycraigheadskateboards. ENTIRETY AT 45 www.PDR-PA.com WWW.REVELOMAG.COM

ABIGALE AND COLIN FORTNUM If laughter is contagious, then hanging out “We went for my 30th birthday, and now it’s been is in illustration and some of her work can be with Abigale and Colin Fortnum is a full-blown like three years in a row… ” says Colin as their spotted around town. She was described as epidemic of fun. story chimes together. the “artist in residence” by Jethro’s owner Bob “We have a whole bag full of prosthetics. It’s not “Yup, every birthday,” adds Abigale. Esbenshade, who still displays the Abigale-created pretty looking,” says Colin, which makes everyone portrait of him and his chef-wife, Jennifer, as the “Then there’s one year we went three times…” establishment’s Facebook profile pic. in the room laugh. The couple settles into a couch continues Colin. overloaded with handcrafted costume pieces from “I was able to illustrate some of the labels at Spring years of adventures at renaissance fairs, Halloween “For Food & Wine,” they say in unison, dressed House. That was really fun,” she says, mentioning parties, and trips to Disney World. in coordinated Mickey Mouse ensembles in their her current position as bartender at the brewery. unique East Side apartment. The Food & Wine Her art is unique; full of robust orientation and “It’s lots of hot glue!” says Abigale, and this too is Festival is an Epcot International event, held in funny. Both declarations would not otherwise be vivid color, it follows only the whims of her own Abigale’s favorite part of the park. Colin is a fan of creativity even if a commissioned piece. “I want to humorous, but taken in the context of being in the Animal Kingdom. She loves Splash Mountain. His same room as Abigale and Colin, the statements be free with my artwork and have fun with it…. I favorite ride is Expedition Everest. Then Abigale love the form. I love bodies. I love nudity. I’m into seem hilarious. Maybe it’s because we are drops the word Disneybounding... surrounded by a million-piece collection of bric-a- making forms weirder and more interesting. I’m brac ranging from wind-up adults in compromising “As adults you are not able to dress up at the more twisted. What I draw is what I like to look at.” positions to a massive collection of miniature parks,” explains Abigale. Per park rules, guests Inspired by pop artist R. Crumb (recognized mostly figurines of every Disney sort. There are dozens of over the age of 14 cannot dress as to interfere for his serial work Fritz the Cat) she is influenced Norwegian trolls posed at the ready, which Abigale with official cast members. Yeah, makes sense. by modern animation like Ren & Stimpy, The has collected from Epcot since she was a child. That does not stop creative people like Abigale Simpsons, and Futurama. She delves into subjects and Colin (and the thousands* of Disneybounders both benign—like the husband and wife bar Yeah, I think it’s safe to call their love of all around the world) from displaying their passion things Disney an obsession; even if Abigale and owners—and provocative—like her series Neon for certain characters by dressing in corresponding Nakedity, which ran at LSJ Studios in 2017. Colin were offended by the label, they’d politely color schemes and carefully considered accessories. laugh it off anyway. But, yeah, it’s obsessive… in a Lately, the couple has been exploring what good way. “You can nod your head to different characters. they call “Twisted Disney” as an expression of It’s really fun,” says Abigale, whose Mickey Mouse The two met and fell in love as students at PCA&D creativity. Abigale made herself a claw-scarred drop earrings sway about when she laughs her Belle and her companion was a much scarier Beast and eventually got engaged in Disney. They go infectious and beautiful laugh. back every year to celebrate the date—this May than presented in films. She dressed as a successful will mark their 5th anniversary. And their visits “It’s like color-blocking with accessories,” adds and slightly blood-stained Cruella De Vil while are now more than once a year. So much so, Colin. “We just did The Aristocats. I was Toulouse, Colin became a half-skinned, victimized dalmatian the bartender at La Cava del Tequila in Epcot so I wore all orange with a blue bowtie and beret.” for Tellus 360’s Halloween party last year. Surprisingly, it was the couple’s first costume win. recognizes them. Colin studied photography and now mixes colors with cuts at Salon 717. Abigale’s degree Surprising. Yeah. I’m sure it won’t be their last.

*When I wrote this, the Instagram account “thedisneybound” from trend originator Leslie Kay (@leslieakay) had 217k followers. STORY SPONSOR: ALL THINGS BUSINESS, LLC 2148 Embassy Drive By Michael C. Upton BUILD YOUR BRAND. Lancaster, PA 17603 Check out Abigale’s (717) 431-2023 art on Instagram WATCH THE VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ITS ENTIRETY AT 47 OPTIMIZE YOUR IMPACT. www.allthingsbusiness.biz @webigalefortnum. WWW.REVELOMAG.COM PA LIC# RB068730

IT’S WHERE YOU BELONG. 23 East Fulton Street » Lancaster, PA 17602 » 717.824.3090 » LancLiving.com » [email protected] PA LIC# RB068730

IT’S WHERE YOU BELONG. 23 East Fulton Street » Lancaster, PA 17602 » 717.824.3090 » LancLiving.com » [email protected] QUALITY CUSTOM RIDES LLC MEDIA BY MADISON SLUGGER’S PIZZERIA 717 TICKETS ANITA’S ON WALNUT 430 North Franklin Street www.mediabymadison.com 701 North Queen Street & ENTERTAINMENT 324 East Walnut Street www.qualitycustomrides.com www.sluggerspizza.com www.717tix.com www.anitasonwalnut.com

ITRAIN STUDIO GOOD SPIRITS MIESSE CANDIES BIG PLANET APPAREL GYPSY KITCHEN 315 West James Street www.goodspiritslancaster.com & ICE CREAM PARLOR 833 2nd Street 555 West James Street www.theitrainstudio.com 118 North Water Street www.bigplanetapparel.com www.eatgypsykitchen.com www.miessecandies.com

ALL THINGS BUSINESS, LLC ALPHA DOG ADVERTISING LUSK & ASSOCIATES MAE’S DUSTBUSTERS AIDEM MEDIA SOLUTIONS 2148 Embassy Drive 150 North Prince Street SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY www.maesdustbusters.net 231 North Shippen Street #24 www.allthingsbusiness.biz www.alphadogadv.com 100 Foxshire Drive www.aidemsolutions.com www.luskandassociates.com

The businesses of Lancaster County welcome you. LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE BUSINESSES AT REVELOMAG.COM/IMPACT