photos by Lara Herscovitch
One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our personal values. We identify our own top five values, writing one each on five index cards. Then we have to drop one, and another… until we are left holding the card with our number one, top value. What is your current One right now and why?
I think it would be family.
A lot has happened in the last two + years. I lost my grandson; I became my mother’s caregiver as she started to live with us. I had to seek out therapy, and I was on medication for my mental health, because of all that happening all at once — it really took a toll on me. So although I don’t think my family thinks that I’m available as much as they need me to, they are important to me.
And family’s not just my biological family. It’s the members that are in my space. It’s the children that come here. It’s the people that volunteer here. You know, it’s my community at large. So they are, in essence — because it’s all relational, it’s family.
Thank you for sharing; I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you.
I remember when we talked during COVID lockdown, how much you prioritized family. Do you think it has always been your top core value?
Yes. And it looked different, because my family has needed me in different ways. This is the second time that I’ve been a caregiver for my mother. Many, many, many, many years ago she had meningitis, and she was bedridden. So I would drive from Bridgeport to Stamford to give her a bath. She was married at the time, and I’m like, “Why is your husband not helping me?” But we step up and we do what we have to do.
My husband and I have been together almost 40 years. At one point, with our children we were five people all sharing one car. We just always figured out how to maneuver. Same in community.
So yes, it’s always been my core value. And “family,” to me, is loosely defined. My core family first, but then my community family. And I tell you, there’s been people that have been so good to me that they’re like family and there’s no blood relation. Those that love us meet us where we are.
There are some people in my life — as the saying goes, for a reason or a season or a lifetime. You know, I feel very comfortable with who I am — I just wish that there was more of me to go around. I wish I could do more for my family and for my community.
What is one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?
My leadership struggle is, how can I balance my family and my community.
Because to get things done in a community, it takes so many meetings and so many group dynamics. I want to be able to, through this work, help other businesses that help children and families.
We started this company as a commemorative product and service company, and it is named after my grandson that passed away: Victor Manuel Rodriguez. It’s the first two letters of his name — Vi for Victor, Ma for Manuel, and Ro for Rodriguez, so it’s ViMaRo and Co. He passed away in March of 2023. When we made our commemorative bench for him, my grandchildren and my girls made it, my husband made it. And we put it in my daughter’s house.
So this company is a legacy company for my grand-children. It’s not a nonprofit, although we are going to be adding that. We’re working with partners to make commemorative items, including benches, and now it’s also co-working space.
I tell people all the time, when we talk about grief and healing — grief is not always related to death. We were having an event here around diabetes; people’s whole life changes when they can’t see. Or when they can’t walk or when they’re in a wheelchair, there’s grief and loss there.
So how do we help families meet that? We make a conscious effort. One way is, we don’t allow any alcohol in our space. People asked us recently, “we want to have a fundraiser with drinks,” and I said, “it’s not here.” At our core, this was never about having “fun” — although we’ve made it fun, but it was always about how do we honor family. How do we honor each other.
It is always very intentional; even whose money we accept — we don’t take money if it’s not within our philosophy, if it doesn’t align. The challenge then, is how to pay the bills! This is always true for small businesses. They have good ideas, but it’s really hard to support them. So we need community.
I want to be a good servant to my family and to my community. Feel good about what I do, be there for the people I love, and be able to pay my bills. Those are my three aspirations right now.
Sitting here in the space, I can see the company’s focus has expanded. Can you tell me about that?
We founded the company in 2023 with commemorative products, and we’ve expanded to also be a co-working space a year ago. People and creatives and artists — we all need someplace to work, right? When we started the company, it was out of sheer passion. I was working out of my house, and I was comfortable here. But we found as we grew, we were too big to stay at home and too little to have our own space. We needed a place to work, to create, and to sell.
We found a place that we loved in downtown Bridgeport, thanks to my friend Amy Crisuolo who co-founded Things Matter on John Street where we are now. It was perfect, and also a little bigger than what we needed. So we took a leap of faith — and we still are taking that leap! — we’re running our own business and we opened up the space and opportunity for other businesses.
Everything fits into three buckets and they play off of one another: co-working, maker-spaces, and retail — whether someone’s just meeting with clients or teaching a class or taking a workshop. The co-working space is next door to the manufacturing and retail space, all of it on John Street. Members can use our equipment; we have two laser engravers, two heat presses, sewing machines, photography equipment, a 3D printer and a podcast studio, which is a satellite office for Sound View Community Media. Now I can record my Connecticut at Your Service TV show here at the office; we have had over 150 guests and shows so far (anyone who wants to watch any Soundview programming can visit Sound View’s YouTube channel).
We’re excited about the possibilities — other businesses can work in the space, use manufacturing and production things, and sell their products at the store. I will tell you that it’s empowering, to see other businesses here, doing a class, having a retreat. I love when we’re together, talking, building relationships, trying to collaborate to serve our community. I feel very humble that I can be a part of that. I love that maybe one day my grandkids may be running the company and helping others.
The maker spaces remind me in some ways of Make Haven in New Haven.
I was a member of Make Haven, matter of fact. I was taking carpentry, woodworking classes, starting in January of last year.
How did the commemorative bench and other products idea begin and evolve?
Originally, when I was working at The Workplace, students made inspiration benches. We were partners with Habitat for Humanity, so I already knew them.
They were closed on Sundays and Mondays, and I had approached them to see if my family could build a bench. They let us go in on a Sunday. I tie-dyed some shirts, ’cause I was trying to get unity for all of us working there that day — the tie dye was awful! But we all had shirts. And together, we made a commemorative bench for Victor Manuel. We cut everything in advance, because there were gonna be kids in the shop. So as a family, all we had to do was screw it all together, stand it up and paint a stain on it. The actual build was four hours, and we let it dry overnight. Victor’s aunt made a poem that we engraved on a plaque, and then we put the installation in my daughter’s house.
I went to an event at Housatonic Community College, at the Werth Entrepreneurial Center — for students, alumni, and community. They were having an event for small business pitches that would be competing. I went only to support. And when I got there, I saw some paperwork that said, “If you want to pitch, fill out this paper.” The paper said, “Talk about something that’s important to you.”
I started writing about the bench that we did, and how it was part of our grief and recovery process. It was a huge part of our healing. We wanted to create a place to remember him, sit and think, watch the kids play — like, butterflies mean that there’s the angel is here or whatever.
So I did the pitch thing really by accident, and I said I would like to name this commemorative bench company after my grandson, that we would like to make these experiences available to other families. It was not so far off from COVID — so many families lost people and weren’t able to be with them. So it would be so great to have somewhere to sit and grieve and remember.
So then we started doing surveys. You know, do you think that this is something that people would want? How much do you think is fair to pay for it? We started talking to funeral homes. We learned that it has to be for families, for their houses, because we can’t put them in public spaces. We spoke with Dawn Spearman who has a group called YANA — You are Not Alone, these are all moms that have lost their children in some type of tragic way, mostly gun violence.
They’re like, “Ms. Carmen, no lack of respect, but we’re not thinking commemorative. We’re thinking justice.” And they’re like, “Besides that, that bench, I couldn’t fit it in my little apartment, and they’re not gonna let you put nothing outside, either.” That’s when we started to think, how do we expand to make other things, like planter boxes and keepsake boxes, stuff like that.
So that’s the development stage that we are in right now. In our retail space, we stage and sell used furniture and the maker things, the co-working space, and a wood shop in the back. The mural on the outside of the building is part of the City’s Public Art project — the artist is Jason Naylor. We painted the windows to make the inside match the outside, and complement the mural.
I’m hopeful and ecstatic to see how we can use this space to help other businesses and creatives. I’m hopeful that this is something that people will love, support and respect. I always come up with ideas, to try and do things. I want to be inclusive, and make it sustainable so that we can thrive and serve the community together.
What inspires you, gives you hope these days?
Everything gives me hope; I see opportunity in everything. I’m like, “I can help you with that!” You know, I’ve always been a natural networker, very resourceful. I love connecting people, I love giving them opportunity. And it can be draining, the dynamic of the haves and the have-nots in our community, including small businesses that are struggling to thrive. I’m learning also that I need to slow down and rest sometimes. I’m always taking care of everything else, and I’m terrible at taking care of myself. You know what I mean?
Definitely; I’ve always known you to be like that, we’ve known each other probably 25 years now!
Yeah, that’s right! I was at Career Resources, and you were at the Bridgeport Foundation.
So I’d say what inspires me is my family. And my grandkids — two of them actually work here. One comes here after schooling on the weekends, and my grandson, who’s the brother of baby Victor, he has a little cart where he sells water and coffee on the weekends when we have the store open.
My family is my inspiration. As a parent and as a community leader, I want to be able to take care of my family. ‘Cause I think that they struggle sometimes. I can’t be home all the time and do the work that I need to do in my community. So I’d like to be able to balance that. My hope is that I can find balance, and pay my bills, and be a resource to my family and community.
They inspire me every day. My grandchildren, especially.
Like you’re saying, this work of community change is hard. Stepping in, stepping up, over time, can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. How do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?
So what rekindles my fire for sure is success stories. If I’ve helped you and I see you thriving, then that’s fuel for me, to be like, “Gee, we can help each other.” I think that that’s part of what gives me fuel.
I think spending time with my family, and I will tell you — getting sleep whenever I can. And just trying to be ahead of things. Like, when you’re just a solopreneur, everything is on you. It’s a lot. It’s a lot in balancing my family and my mom, who needs a lot of care. But thank God I’m not by myself.
The good things, like when my kids tell me how good my grandchildren are doing. When I see my mom doing ok, because also at that moment, it’s one less thing that I have to worry about.
My husband and I like reality TV — anything 90-day. We make time to watch movies. We can’t often do it, but we’ll go out and grab something to eat. My husband is very supportive — and I think that’s a big one. Because in our house, it’s not only me and him and my mother, there’s a total of five families. So if something happens, it’s not just us. So we’re very, very conscious of money and finances. If I have a little extra something, I feel good about that.
Going to workshops, learning new things to help my business and help other people too. That helps me — networking with people where I can call them to ask them advice or, you know, it’s just a good planning conversation and they bring me good energy.
Those are the kind of things that make me feel like I could keep going.
I saw on Facebook one time:
“Don’t think that everything that you see is the way it is.”
The quote was with a picture of an apple that looked perfect in a mirror. But then a picture of the other side of the apple was all bit and brown. It made me think — you really don’t know what people are going through, what’s happening with people.
I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life. You know, I was married, pregnant and a dropout at 17. That relationship lasted two years. And my life has changed so much. I started college when my daughter was 16. You can make it through anything if you just keep pushing forward. Today, I’m a homeowner, a business owner, I have two degrees. You can interpret your life any way you want. There’s a quote that I always turn to this quote:
“It doesn’t matter what you’re looking at, what matters is what you see.”
It’s by Henry David Thoreau. That has resonated in my whole life. It’s not what you’re looking at, it’s the potential that you see in it. I have applied that in my life; I always work to create good experiences for my kids. Like, I have a really bad highway anxiety, but I still will drive to take them someplace, it’s really important to me.
Would you please introduce us to someone you are/were close with personally (e.g., family, teacher, friend, mentor), who shaped (or shapes) you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?
I will tell you that is such a hard question. So many people have touched my life. But through my professional career, somebody who’s been in my corner, opened up opportunities for me, and even has offered to be a fiscal sponsor and things like that, is Deborah Caviness from OIC.
She finds room for me, always gives me good advice. We’re there for each other, always available when either one of us reaches out. My whole time that I’ve been in Bridgeport, I’ve known her. She creates opportunities for me and for so many other people.
How long ago did you meet?
It’s more than 20 years, as long as I’ve been in Bridgeport. I met her through my work at Career Resources and The Workplace. Matter of fact, she told me once something that really gave me a lot of food for thought. I had asked her, right around COVID time, if she had any contract work. And she said to me, “I’m surprised that you’re looking because I always saw you as a Workplace statue” — where I was working a the time.
I talked to her about it because — not that I felt offended, but she gave me some truth to look at. She meant it in a praise way; she told me that whenever she would see me, she would always associate me with my nonprofit. So she thought I’d always be there. I took it as — wow, nobody sees me as anything other than that. And that gave me food for thought, because I’ve built so many relationships — but it was true. When I left a year ago, it was all about reinventing myself through this work now.
She and I are friends. And she just supports me, even if she can’t come if I invite her to an event, she donates paper plates, or brings appetizers for people. She’s just… I just love her.
What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
- Reading – I’d say professional development type things that are shorter. I have tons and like quotes. And Reggie David, at the Connecticut Mirror. They have a website, and a text app that comes from him, he’s the community reporter in Bridgeport, he’s been doing a lot of community conversations.
- Listening – I love music. Music will put me in a different mood. My grandkids — my daughter is just so good — her kids like old-school music, she bought one of those little speakers with the lights. And she turns on old-school rap, old school freestyle, and they start dancing to it, side to side.
- Eating – Me and my daughters found this place kind of by accident, and then my husband and I always go there every time we get an opportunity, when we want to treat each other. It’s a restaurant called 744 West, in West Haven. It is just absolutely exceptional, the price is great, the food is great. We’ll go like 35 minutes to this place. We love it. So that’s our special treat.
- Watching – I would say what’s been most important to us is to watch the news. We watch News 12 Connecticut — it will tell you about programs that will help you towards buying your house, projects that are going on, politics, local news. I found out that people that I know were looking to do a ramp, because the husband got sick, so we could figure out how we could help them. So, start your day with what’s going on.
- Laughing – We laugh at shows, we love anything 90-day reality TV. We laugh at the little things that our grandkids do. I’m trying not to take life so serious; but when you carry a lot of weight, people see you as a serious person. I love to laugh. So I definitely would love to laugh more.
- Wildcard – your choice – We watch Pimple Popper. People are so grossed out by that. But it’s people who have cysts and things and then there’s this doctor, and she gets rid of whatever it is.
Interview with The Circle’s Creative Director & Editor, Lara Herscovitch (Cohort 10). To reach Lara directly: thecircle@clpnewhaven.org or Lara@LaraHerscovitch.com
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Get in touch with Carmen directly: carmen@vimaroandco.com