It’s Important—

Listen Carefully, Make A Personal Connection

By Kendra Bobowick

The Bee series It’s Important includes a brief interview and video revealing — one person and one idea at a time — what is important to you. Be part of It’s Important. Contact Kendra at 426-3141 or reach her at Kendra@thebee.com

 

Who: Katherine Purchase, principal, Monarch Ventures, an event-based cause marketing company in Newtown.

What is important to her: Personal connections.

Do not be so quick to judge; listen carefully to the people you meet, stresses Ms Purchase. Do we really know one another? “I believe we, as individuals and a society, are all too determined to think what a person is or is not without making any effort to find out,” as Ms Purchase reveals through her own stories of discovery. “I spent three months at the age of 15 in central Mexico building an orphanage. The experience opened my eyes …” From this point she began to see the need to connect. Today, a career woman with a business based in Newtown, she said, “It is absolutely essential for people to make connections.” She worries that “We cast off people at a glance.” What if we need the people we “casually discard?” What does this say about each of us?

In Mexico, she said, “That’s really where it started.” She saw the need for sensitivity, prudence, and the “vigilant use of resources.” She recalls shopping for groceries in the impoverished community; dogs trampled produce people would buy to eat.

She admitted, “I had never seen poverty like that. It was another world to me.”

Her own experiences have taught her compassion, bringing with it the understanding that we may need one another. Walking side-by-side are two cancer survivors who would never have share a mutual support without taking time to listen to one another, form a friendship, and trust — another story she offers from experience.

Ms Purchase values other connections she has made. Through her volunteer work with seeing eye dogs, she had a taste of a blind person’s dependency on others. What has she discovered? “You don’t lead a blind person, you should let them walk with you. You walk together.”

Ms Purchase once had befriended a woman from Ethiopia. As a gift, the woman gave Ms Purchase a dress “from her own wardrobe.” She explained, “They’re not wealthy people.” Seeming too long and getting caught underfoot, Ms Purchase could not understand the dress’s design. “She taught me how to wear it,” she said. By bunching up the material, the woman showed her how to tuck some folds beneath her arm while on the move, dropping the hem back to the ground when she stopped walking. The dress would then cover feet and ankles. “It’s about preserving their modesty — I learned something,” she said.

She carries with her a number of stories that have left an impression. She recalls a young mother living on welfare. People had accused her of being lazy and “living off the system.” She recalls, “They thought she was irresponsible for getting pregnant. And so the rumors went ‘round and ‘round. But here’s the thing. Had the people made even the slightest effort … they would have learned that the young woman had been raped…” We should not make “snap decisions” about the people we see, Ms Purchase reminded. We should take the time to listen, rather than judge. She said, “We have got to get over our self-aggrandizing importance and instead make a sincere effort to connect with one another … who are any of us to look disparagingly upon one another?”

Through her personal volunteer work and her event-based cause marketing business where she fosters connections between the community and charitable organizations, Ms Purchase has learned, “There is tremendous potential for prosperity if we would accept ourselves and each other.” In life and in business, “We must embrace one another.”

Ms Purchase runs her business and devotes time to volunteering.