We were lucky to catch up with Elizabeth Read recently and have shared our conversation below.
Elizabeth, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
In the Fall of 2015 my mother was diagnosed Pancreatic Cancer and given a year to live. In this moment my entire world collapsed. I was a mother of an almost two year old little girl and I lived about an hour away from my mom. My mom was so amazingly brave during her battle with cancer. She choose to only do chemotherapy but handled all of the ups and downs and side effects like a champ. My father who was still working rearraigned his schedule to be able to take her to her appointments and my parents were able to hire a house keeper and someone to mow the lawn. This meant that I was able to come down and truly spend time with my mom. Time spent watching her be a grandmother. Time spent laughing, hanging out and treasuring every moment we got together because we knew our time was limited. Fast forward to Summer of 2018 when my mom passed away. She defied the odds and made it almost two years longer than they initially gave her. I was devastated. I was now a mom of two a 5 year old and a 6 month old and I had to navigate this new world without my best friend. So many things changed in my perspective of the world. Work seemed meaningless and I began to, after navigating my grief, decide what I wanted to do for the remainder of my work life. I knew I wanted to explore the non profit sector. I had never worked in the non profit sector before but I knew my new career path needed to give back to people. Then my friends mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and she worked the entire time she was fighting retiring just six months before her passing. Between these two experiences I started to remember what my mom often said during her fight with cancer. How do people who still have to work or people who don’t have a support system navigate this hard difficult journey and still find the time and energy to do these everyday tasks that I am lucky enough to have done for me. This is when I decided to see what non profits were available in my area that lifts everyday burdens for cancer patients, not just once or twice but for the duration of their treatments. When I didn’t find what I was looking for the idea for TWIGS started to form. I wanted to concentrate on the very things my mom and dad were able to have people help them with that gave me time back, time to be with my mom. This is the beginnings of TWIGS- To Work In Grateful Service. TWIGS was my moms nickname in high school and is my way of honoring the woman whom taught me to give to others and to help where I can. TWIGS is now a little over two years 501c3 official and we have helped provide rides to appointments, errand runs, housekeeping and yard care to over 30 patients. I am most excited to create a legacy of helping people in honor of my mom. Each ride, house cleaning, errand run, and yard care session helps alleviate everyday burdens to these patients can concentrate on spending time with loved ones and healing. I am excited for TWIGS to continue to grow and help more and more cancer patients.
Elizabeth, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My name is Elizabeth Read I go by Beth. I am the founder/ executive director for TWIGS. I have two girls a dog, a cat and my husband Jessie at home. I started TWIGS a non profit working in the Ingham and Eaton Counties to help cancer patients with everyday tasks including housekeeping, rides to appointments, yard care and errand runs. I started TWIGS after losing my mom to Pancreatic Cancer. These services were things that my parents were able to pay for or had the support system to help them out with these things . We are different because our services help people throughout the duration of their treatment. I want people to know we are here that we are available to help, that we have amazing volunteers and are always looking for more and most importantly that when you donate your dollars are going back to your community helping people who battle cancer gain time back so that they can concentrate on healing and spending time with loved ones. We are working hard to grow and continue to help more families who are navigating the difficult path of a cancer diagnosis.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Right after we applied to be an official 501c3 Covid hit. I watched the IRS website waiting to see when our application would be up for review. After waiting a year our time for review was here but still no word from the IRS. When the lawyer that helped me file the paperwork called we found out that the IRS lost our application. Somewhere between the chaos of covid, the mail and the IRS changing to work remotely our file was misplaced. We had to refile. This time it was approved but it kept us from really getting out in the community for a full year and a half. While this was difficult it gave us time to really dive into what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. We didn’t give up we used the time wisely and we came out better prepared to start working in the community than we would have been right after filing.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Breaking out of my comfort zone and speaking at various networking groups, Kiwanis clubs, rotary clubs and other networking opportunities. I had to learn to tell my story over and over again. I had to learn how to tell people what we were doing and why it was important. I had to be vulnerable and allow myself and my story which is very personal to be heard. Because I allowed this and ventured out of my comfort zone I built a network of supporters who help me share my story, our mission and spread the word about TWIGS.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.twigsinc.org
- Instagram: twigs753
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/twigs753
- Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/beth-elizabeth-read-9214433b