Scholarship Submission - Bethany Bouwman (she/her)
We’re so excited that right out the gate we can offer scholarships (aka free tickets!) to Camp Rover Conference 2024.
We’ll be sharing our scholarship submissions as they come in and are excited today to share with you Bethany of Wild and Rooted.
Tell us a little bit about yourself
A moment of pure serendipity happened when my now business partner and I met over 15 years ago, and we’ve held a very special bond ever since. We started at humble beginnings at Pineridge Hollow; a restaurant, retail store and wedding/event venue just outside of Winnipeg. Cyndy (my business partner) was the in-house florist and myself; Bethany, in the ice cream shop and we grew up from there; literally- I was 16 years old when I started at Pineridge Hollow. Together we worked and grew through all sorts of different areas of the business, florists, weddings and events, merchandisers and retail buyers for the store and ultimately both managed the retail store for 10+ years.
The mundane but necessary details, we're both born and raised in rural Manitoba and have a strong farming background. I spent my high school years as your typical band geek playing various instruments and starting my university journey pursuing a music degree. I quickly began to realize that music was more of a hobby and not my ideal career so I made a degree swap to Business. I attended University of Winnipeg for 6 years pursuing a Business Administration degree while also launching an unintentional career. I worked my way up and through all the nitty gritty parts of Pineridge Hollow and almost all of its various departments and stages of growth as a business and learned far more than I ever could have imagined.
Six years ago to the day, Cyndy’s world was shattered and torn apart as her husband had died in his sleep during the night. She woke up that morning only to find that she had become a widow overnight. The loss of her husband though tragic and sudden; noticeably strengthened our friendship.
Through the mentorship of Cyndy in my younger years at the beginnings of my career and as a designer she was always there. So when her grief journey began, it allowed me the opportunity to step up for her. About a year after losing her husband, a small seed was planted that Cyndy needed to return to her roots and start to do the things that brought her joy. She walked her dog Maggie every morning and in those walks she grieved while also discovering beauty in the things that were taken for granted as she hiked the area everyday. A tree branch, wild flowers, unusual weeds all began to help Cyndy grieve and also unleash the creative within as she began to forage on her walks. She began to discover who she was without the love of her life while also creating and designing in her new home.
Skip forward a few years, in the middle of the pandemic Cyndy was in a home decorating a Christmas tree for a client and felt the overwhelming nudge that we have been called for more and that we needed to “do” something about it. An afternoon coffee date followed and Wild & Rooted was born. Our business started out largely with in-home decorating and consultations. Now it’s focused on creating and building community through nature and design through mentorship, events and workshops.
Our passion for design, décor and guest experience is always at the forefront and we knew we needed to start something to share that on a deeper level. Wild & Rooted has become a business where we can share our hearts through nature, design and décor. We believe that within each of us lies a creative spirit that needs to be unleashed and nourished. There’s beauty all around us if we take the time to slow down and appreciate it.
Where can people find more of you?
Instagram: @wild.androoted, @itsbebow as well as my website: www.wildandrooted.ca (coming soon)
What does creativity look like to you?
Creativity is a word that scares so many, at least it’s what we’ve noticed and work to break that line of thinking and barrier. It’s a concept so simple that we make it complicated. To share what creativity means I’ll share our process and outlook on creativity as we share them with guests in our workshops. Our workshops often start(ed) with one guest in a group singling themselves out as “not the creative one”, and in turn a little scared and nervous about what they’ve walked into, that’s simply not true. We truly believe that within each of us lies a creative spirit that needs to be unleashed and nourished. Our workshops all start with what we’ve named “The Wall.” It's simply a collection/collage wall of anything that we have been inspired by and we tack it on the wall- we encourage guests to do this at home in a notebook if they don’t want to commit to a wall in their home. Collecting items such as a postcard, paint chip, magazine clipping, quote, piece of ribbon etc. one thing at a time and you’ll start to discover colours you’re drawn to, or a phrase that keeps coming up and from there your creative journey begins. This simple concept is how we designed our theme for floral workshops this year “start with the flower you can’t take your eyes of off.” Start with one thing, whatever it is and see where it takes you, but simply start.
What are you currently working on?
Winter is our rejuvenation time. We take time to rest/reset and plan out our year. We’re currently working on our workshop series for 2024. Building and designing a website with a goal to move into the ecommerce world but mostly just to have an online presence. Philanthropy and giving back to our community is a high value for us. We're working on launching a workshop series with a local community centre in Elmwood, Winnipeg; bringing what we do, and knowledge to a community that wouldn’t normally get to experience our workshops. We’ve also started creating and selling a few of our designs at House In The Oak Trees within the last year and are exhibiting at a few local maker markets for the first time this year to see what avenues and doors that might open.
What's one juicy nugget of knowledge you're itching to dive into—something you could use a bit of help unravelling and truly understanding?
We’re continually looking for new ways to expand and grow our business as well as ourselves creatively. We draw lots of our inspiration from European floral designers and just the slower and more sustainable lifestyle they live, but struggle to find inspiration and community amongst our circle.
What draws you to Camp Rover Conference? What is it about community - this flock - that beguiles you?
Attending this conference would be a dream as we’ve often been scolded, shut down and mostly put in a box by our seemingly “crazy and weird” ideas, the concept of this conference has been top of mind since we discovered and have been following your Instagram page in December. We were drawn to the stories that you shared on your page as lots of them are stories that we send back and forth to each other and we're overwhelmed with excitement when we discovered a page where they were sharing stories and reels we were sending to each other privately. There isn’t one thing in particular we’re seeking as we’re just always looking to engage with other like-minded people and grow in unexpected ways.
Any closing thoughts or advice for the Camp Rover Community?
Thank you for creating this event and community! Being bold enough to colour outside the lines and be authentically you is a concept that this world needs more of. We're so hoping to be able to take part in this event in whatever capacity unfolds.
Thanks Bethany for taking the time to share with us!
