From Personal Passion to Community Impact | Talon and Travis Holleman of R.O.O.T.S

It's kind of the things that we are very interested in personally. And that was kind of like the conversation itself that we kept having over and over again, you know, by the fire. It was just like, if we optimize for joy, like, what can we do every single day? That. What would actually be that thing? You know, the conversation. People always say, like, it's not work if you love what you do. It's like, hey, let's fantasize about that. And what does that look like? And so we made a list, There was like 17 different things on there of like, you know, what could we do to earn an income and maintain, you know, the. What lifestyle that we have, Being able to be with our children while they're young. And nothing really came back to, like, yes, mentality until we got to this. And so, you know, it was. It was something that took a lot of reflection and, like, really thinking about what. What we were personally passionate about. And then, you know, my. My reservations were really like, it's kind of hard to prove the concept of a program like this where it's not like you could just say there's, you know, a precedent for this. And so that's where I was just like, how do we prove this before jumping on board and diving into it? And so the easiest way to do it was to do it.

Welcome to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here to inspire creative ideas and connections for entrepreneurs and advocates working to address our mental health crisis. As you listen, I hope you will experience new ideas and motivation to innovate in your business, your community, and in your life. Welcome, everyone, to the Mental Health Entrepreneur Podcast. We are here today to continue the discussion of creative ways to create mental wellness. With us are Talon and Travis Holloman, who are the program directors of roots. ROOTS is a youth development program promoting self sufficiency and community in some very creative ways. And I'm excited for us to dive into that. Welcome, Travis and Talon.

Thank you.

Thanks for having us.

So let's start by digging into what is roots. What kind of programming do you have? I'd just love to hear more about what you offer.

So ROOTS is actually a fold of youth development program, and it's an acronym. So ROOTS stands for Reaching Outside of Traditional Schooling. It's something that we have been super passionate about, is just trying to help bridge that gap in traditional schooling, public schooling, and bringing what is kind of lost or unable to have in the public schools to our community. So it really started out with just us looking from our values of learning or with knowledge, community and self sufficiency being our core values. And we have built this program based on the needs of our community and request of our community alongside our own values and our own mission and beliefs. So we offer. Right now we have after school programming and our core pillars that are after school programming. Our summer camps are off site and on site workshops. All revolve around are teaching homesteading, nature studies, regenerative farming, animal husbandry and bushcraft which are survival skills. So we're trying to bring any practical life skill essentially to build the foundation of these children and families as a whole. We wanted Roots to be a complete full youth development program. So when we first started, we just started with that after school program and that was just over two years ago. But since then it's just. It's grown tremendously from 30 students to over 500 students in less than two years across our programming. Wow.

Yes. That's worth pausing for a moment. That is tremendous growth which is exciting, but it creates its own challenges in the organizational level.

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. It was very fast growth that we weren't totally anticipating. I mean it was a lovely fast growth when we welcomed it. But it's been really cool about the fast growth aspect of it is it's just given so, so much to our community. And the growth really was based on the different surveys that we send out to our to kind of see what's lacking and what. There is no other programming around like it. There was no other after school programs. We tried to get our own kids into something like this before even creating Roots in the first place. We just wanted it for our children is kind of the way stemmed all of this. But that wasn't offered. So we just created it ourselves. And we just continue to just ask the needs of the community. And that's where all the expansion and growth keeps going is based on the needs of everyone around us.

I love how you, you did that community needs sort of poll. I think there's a lot of power there. Was there anything that surprised you that the community brought to you that was like something you hadn't thought of before?

Yeah, well, we, we weren't anticipating doing summer camp too. So we, we were never thinking about doing a full fledged summer camp. And that was a very dear friend of ours that also works with us is now our director of our summer camp. And she came to us with that idea of running a full fledged summ. There were people in the community saying you could be doing this instead of just an hour a week, you could be Doing what you're offering full day and getting a little bit Monday through Friday, a little bit closer, a little bit diving deeper into our core values and these pillars. So that's been really cool. That's something that we didn't anticipate at first doing until the community's kind of requested that. But it's cool because we really did just anticipate just doing this as an after school program. And since then, we've now launched into libraries. We bring all of our homestead workshops into the libraries and offer to the libraries and the community for free that way. And then we also, we decided, yes, it was a youth development program, but we wanted to make it like a full youth development program. And we thought that the mental health aspect wasn't super highlighted in Roots. I mean, yes, it's absolutely. There's nature based. There's a lot of benefits behind that that we do. But we wanted to take that a step further into the mental health world and offer brown and roots yoga, which is the children's yoga and adult yoga. We have ages 18 months all the way through, like 101 years old is what I tell people, which is really cool.

So I want to. I'm trying to get a picture of this. Can you paint me a picture kind of of your facility, of what it's like when kids or adults come to you, what some of these classes actually look like?

Sure. So we live on about a three acre homestead. It's a family homestead. And there are. We're surrounded by trees, but we're not. We're off the beaten path a little bit. So it feels like you've kind of escaped Delaware once you come to our homestead. So a lot of our families are always like, this is such a beautiful property. It's so serene. Like, how did you guys find this around here? And children never want to leave it. They usually cry when they have to leave. But it's. We live in a log cabin on the, on the acreage and then we have multiple outbuildings. And most of our programming takes place outdoors, unless it's severe inclement weather. We have a separate flexible room and a schoolhouse. And we do our programming there. What happens? We typically have 30 children that come into our after school programming once a week or twice a week. And they will come in. We get right to the lesson, we'll recap on what happened last week and then the lesson plan that we write ourselves, it's the curriculum that we write on our own is based off of whatever core pillar we're kind of diving into. But it's always a hands on component, like it's all hands on. So we jump right into planting or feeding the animals or I don't know, what else do we. A lot of stuff.

Yeah. I mean, this fall season has been kind of heavy on like homesteading. So a lot of like food preparation, trying to figure out where your food comes from. So we did a lesson where we actually made pickles. So the kids got to actually process the vegetables and, you know, pickle them. And we talked about food preservation and why that's important. And so the following week they came back. Their, their, you know, their food had been pickling for a week so that we came back and we had to dive into a taste test and see, you know, kind of get everybody's reaction on, which is really cool to be able to see, especially most of the kids who, you know, they're like, I don't like vegetables or I don't like pickles. And all of a sudden here they are like, you know, munching down on things. But yeah, a lot of our lessons tend to kind of build this experience that yeah, they're all kind of unique, but they're kind of intertwined and at the same time there's some progression to it so they can kind of keep checking on things. And spring was another big one where, you know, we spent the first class tilling up their garden beds for the children's gardens and adding compost and you know, we came back and add, added flowers. And then the final week we added some lettuce and other vegetables. And so they got to see over, you know, 12 weeks progression of, you know, their, their labor into that as well. So it's a cool experience and something

that we've done with our programming or at least the after school aspect of it and the community ones, everything essentially except summer camp. We have started to involve the entire family in the process. So at first it was mainly just the children, but then we opened it up and we encouraged the family like the parents or guardian or whomever to actually join in and participate in these workshops too, with their children. So that's kind of where we're trying to go more with roots and ground of roots yoga as more multi generational type of foundations of education, trying to like serve that entire family, foster that unified understanding of being able to practice these things, not just here, but at home. Like that's our end goal is going to be having these skills embedded into their own lifestyle. Right. So having like the family being able to do that. And strengthen that family bonding time and kind of also help educate and teach the parents how to kind of do these things with their children, too, at home. Because sometimes they come to us and like, oh, we didn't even think about explaining it that way to our kids, like, thank you. You know, so it gives them more empowerment to be able to do that themselves as well.

Well, and the piggyback off that in the original question, too, of, like, the parents being as engaged in our activities was something that was slightly unexpected at first because it was just, hey, we're here to, you know, to give this experience to the children. And then it started being that the parents were like, hey, this is a cool topic. And they would, you know, grab me afterwards and they would ask me questions or what have you, because I teach them this stuff. And then it was just like, oh, yeah, we want to hang out and see what's happening. And then so now it's just evolved into this really cool family experience. Like Kyle was saying, there's just like, they're in there, they're asking questions, they're working with the kids. They get an understanding of what they're learning. So we have, you know, a good amount of our families ended up going home and, like, recreating some of this stuff. We're like, hey, let's go try this. Or maybe we need to modify this and see how this works at our home. Like, let's start our own garden beds. We've had a couple families, actually. I just saw one yesterday that we had planted watermelons back in March in one of our workshops, and they just ate the watermelon last week. So it's like they've been sitting on this at home, and it was like a whole family escapade. It was cool to be able to see them all kind of laughing and coming together on that. So it's. That was kind of unexpected, but it's really nice to be able to see that.

Yeah, we get, like, constant feedback of appreciation of introducing it to the entire family, because people have started their own compost bins at their house. Like, you said, the garden beds. And then they just. Even with the yoga and things like that, they now have a yoga practice as a family at home. The meditation, mindfulness, like, all those things that kind of go in with that. And then we just. We hear a lot of very good positive feedback about the progression in their mental state of their child or. What I really like and love about our program is that it is all inclusive. So it's these. We're receiving and having a lot of children that typically have behavioral issues maybe at school or they just can't seem to learn in certain environments, like in a public school setting or in a desk setting, and they thrive here. So this is kind of the setting that we're making now and giving them the space to be able to be themselves and learn at their level and how they need to learn.

Right. I think offering that sort of hands on, sort of open air, like not at the desk kind of thing. And then with community, with family, with other kids, getting your hands in the dirt. I mean, from a mental wellness perspective, I'm hearing so many things. Right. We know that time with nature calms our nervous systems. We know that putting our hands in the dirt actually helps fight depression. Right. We know that time with family doing something fun is a huge indicator of growing attachment and bonding and feeling secure as a person for our children. So I'm hearing all of these things that while you're doing them on one level to teach these really cool skills, the side benefit of mental wellness seems really, really to me to be a big piece. And then of course the yoga and the meditation, we know the benefits of that as well.

Absolutely. And that's something that just, we've done a lot of research in our, on our own as well on that exact topic of the mental health component of what we're doing. And the, there's so much on reducing the stress and anxiety, improving mood, enhancing the connection with the environment and the family. So I think everything that we offer is we're diving deeper on how to, to even dive into the mental health a little bit the component a little bit more too.

We try to do this stuff for ourselves, for our own mental well being, our mental health. I've got adhd, you know, my, my son's got SPD sensory processing disorder. So a lot of these tools are things that we dove into. You know, reading the literature and trying to figure out what's working well for other families and trying to bring this stuff back for us and realizing the positive impact it's had. And so, you know, trying to take that type of material and really add it to our lessons and our teaching and what we have learned along the way to kind of help other families see that, you know, a, they're not alone in their, in their journey because we have a lot of families that deal with neurodivergency and things like that. But the other thing as well is, is, you know, emulating the behavior of just like, hey, we can't do this together. And together, you know, we can give our children these. These really, really cool places to be able to, you know, be their best selves as they continue to grow.

So something that we're in the process of too, is we actually receive nonprofit status. So we're going to be starting a component of a nonprofit as well, where we're going to introduce care farming, which is essentially having vulnerable populations is the definition, to be able to come onto the homestead and for job readiness type of programs and mentorship. Wow. Yeah. So we'll be partnering, or we're currently in the process of partnering with Autism Delaware through their Power program to be able to bring that type of therapy and job readiness type of skills here as well with the animals and with planting and all other things we have here.

That is phenomenal and such a needed thing. I know that places for neurodiverse kids or adults to thrive can be a challenge to find.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that's. That's exactly. I mean, the way that you just said that reminded me that's. That's another thing that we didn't really think of when we first started this, that the community was kind of suggesting that we open it up a little bit more and how we didn't think of, like, the amount of benefits that we could have from a care farming aspect of it. And I was like, wow, we really have this space and have the animals that have everything set up as far for doing a job readiness program, because we're basically doing it already just in our workshops. So let's expand that a little bit more to work with other type of outside organizations and partner with them to help bring other therapeutic services on our homestead.

Wow. That is just phenomenal. I wanted to take a minute to dive into your mission a little bit because it really struck me the mission that I read online and correct me if it's changed at all, but is to heal disconnection between people themselves and the earth. I think that's a really profound thing and in such a short statement. So I love your mission. Can you dive deeper into a little bit and tell me kind of where that came from?

That that really speaks a lot. You know, this really started with us diving down, understanding, or wanting to understand and learn more about the connection between our bodies and food, you know, where our food comes from, what goes into the whole journey from, you know, the time that the food is. Is grown to the time it gets to us and how, you know, can nurse us and. And how that just unravels the entire process. Of just, you know, our mental well being, how our body feels, how we can think, how we can react. And so the more we dove into kind of unpacking that, you know, there, there is this massive connection obviously between, you know, how we can impact the earth around us in so many different ways and how, you know, the earth also provides to us again, both mentally, physically. And so we wanted to use that philosophy. And that's where we've gotten a lot of our programming from. You know, being able to be outside and being able to be able to manipulates, you know, different things, whether it's, you know, the, the grounds of growth, food, or it's, you know, using animals as a part of our systems here to solve some of our problems on the farm. My saying is it's not mine originally, but it's just the better we can take care of the earth, the better it'll take care of us. And so I think that kind of bleeds through hopefully a lot of what we create.

Right. And I don't, I don't know that that is something that we always think about as a culture or, or that we even think about from a mental health perspective. But I hear your mission and I think of those two things as our relationship with the Earth and our relationship with other humans. And those really are two things that if that is going well, we're probably having some pretty good things in our lives. Right. We're probably having a good sense of mental wellness and all of that. So I just found that to be a really profound statement. And then you mentioned a lot about permaculture too. Online can talk a little bit about what that even means.

We want to be able to plant on the entire property here. So we want perennial based ecosystems that essentially work together, the nature works together. And we want to be able to teach different workshops as we implement this entire permaculture design. But as far as permaculture goes, Travis is the expert on the ecosystem with permaculture.

Yeah. So I mean, ideally, my thought is we're guests here. We live in nature with nature. And so to be what to thrive, I think we need to be able to support, you know, this, the ecosystem that we've basically plumped ourselves down into. And so with that permacultures mentality is really just kind of working with the entire system and adding to it more than we're taking from it. It's not verbatim of the definition, but that's my take on it. So as we build our systems here to be able to grow our own food and, you know, figure out the solutions that we need to survive. You know, we have to think about, you know, every, every time we dig a fall, every time we move grass or, you know, add animals, you know, change the pathway. We're impacting something that's been there for, for some time and has built its own system regardless of us. And so we try to think of the holistic setup that would allow us again, to add more than we're taking away. So one of the first things that we started, which is, I think it's kind of like 101, is setting up our own compost systems. And so, you know, ideally we're taking the system. So that way if we can grow food, you know, whatever we don't utilize, you know, we can give right back into the compost. That compost gets broken down, put right back into the garden. So we build this kind of loop in itself where eventually the inputs needed are minimal, if not self sustaining. And then we've also taken the same mentality as far as designing the property as we're adding, you know, systems that are working with what's already in place. So we're not trying to turn a garden into, in an area that's in the woods that it wouldn't technically work or, you know, when we have an area that's been flooding out. Our idea was to put, you know, a rain garden in there with, with some native pollinators as well.

So the chickens.

Yeah, yeah, the chickens are another one. We, we rotationally graze our animals, you know, so our, we moved here. Our soil sample was fairly bad. This is a property spinner since the 80s. And they, you know, cleared all the trees out, a good amount of trees. So. But most of it's just been grassland and, you know, so when we got the samplings back of the soil, the health was fairly lacking. And so, you know, we could come in and add fertilizers and, you know, less synthetic chemicals, but that just wasn't something that we found would, would help any, any of the land around us. And so we've started, you know, it's been what, a year and a half now? We've been rotationally grazing animals, so setting their pens up in the yard and moving them around systematically every single day. So that way, you know, not only are they eating the food that we, we don't eat, so instead of wasting our food scraps, you know, they get food from that, but they turn the food scraps into manure, which then breaks down and helps you know, build some of that soil health and supports the worms and the microbiome and things like that growing in the soil. And so when we finally get our food forest started, hopefully we've got, you know, two years of just soil health that's naturally been built versus again we could come, we could have did this, you know, two years ago. We could have came in and just blasted with fertilizer and had a, had some crops growing. But that's, that's not the system that we think is going to, you know, outlive us. And that's, that's kind of our intention.

I love that. So how did you get to the point where you could take this leap to start this? How did that all happen?

It was perfect timing, unfortunately around Covid and it was, it was literally we originally from Baltimore and we moved to Delaware to kind of refresh and have a nice new start. And that's where we really reflected on what our goals and values of life needed or what we wanted them to be. Then we basically started doing homeschooling and teaching these type of. We wanted to learn these type of skills ourselves. The self sufficiency skills, the gardening, the homesteading. And we were in a HOA property that did not allow it when we first moved to Delaware. And then we found our property now right before COVID hit. And we decided to move right before COVID hit. And I'm talking like not even a month before. Right. Like we got this property about a month before COVID hit. And then we just had so many projects and time at that point to be able to build what we wanted to build. So then we really just started doing it for ourselves and first and implementing into our homeschooling because we homeschool our children. And then once the community started getting worried about what we were doing here and what we were teaching our own children is when the community was like, well, come on, like what about us guys? Like, you should, you should open this up to the community. And that's kind of where. How it transpired through there.

Yeah, yeah. No, I wish to say there was a small portion of it where we had generated the idea and talked about it. And I remember my semi reluctancy to start it when we started it because I felt we were just like gross and prepared and I was like, yeah, now we're starting this now. And so it worked out really well. There was, you know, it's been a long trial and error for us and it's evolving, you know, the way we do things when we think and where we create our material, but at the same time, it was. It was the perfect time to do it. It just worked out well.

So.

So it was an idea that you'd had that. That community of curiosity asking for. It was what kind of launched you.

You did? Yes, yes. Like, we weren't totally, like. I mean, we had just moved in the property and we. We were starting that program not even a year later, and we were doing so much renovations and starting our own gardening here, and it was brand new to us, the property in general, plus the myths of COVID So, like, all of those changes with people, and then as Covid was kind of, you know, we were opening back up to the community a little bit. Things were opening back up is when we. We totally launched at that point.

Well, and a lot of it too was. I mean, we. We have a mildly unique business, at least stateside. I don't know about, you know, there might be versions of what we do in other countries, but I mean, nature based schooling is the thing. You know, obviously there's categories that are adjacent to us, but our platform is kind of unique. It's kind of the things that we are very interested in personally. And that was kind of like the conversation itself that we kept having over and over again, you know, by the fire. It was just like, if we optimize for joy, like, what could we do every single day that. What would actually be that thing? You know, the conversation. People always say, like, it's not work. You love what you do. It's like, hey, let's fantasize about that. And what does that look like? And so we made a list. There was like 17 different things on there of like, you know, what could we do to earn an income and maintain, you know, the lifestyle that we have, being able to be with our children while they're young. And nothing really came back to like a hell yes mentality until we got to this. And so, you know, it was. It was something that took a lot of reflection and like, really thinking about what we were personally passionate about. And then. Yeah, and the more we kind of like shared the thought with other people and friends and stuff like that, they're like, yeah, you should do this. You should do this. And, you know, my reservations were really like, it's kind of hard to prove the concept of a program like this where it's like, again, there's this. It's not like you could just say there's, you know, a precedent for this. And so that's where I was just like how the hell do we prove this before jumping on board and diving into it? And so the easiest way to do it was to do it.

I love that. I love that. That's the true entrepreneur spirit.

Right.

You just have to take that leap.

Yes. And I mean, I'm so glad that we did too because in, I mean regardless of just how much we love what we do, it's. We both, we did not come from this background like at all. We're both from Baltimore and Baltimore City basically. So we didn't have homesteading there like that. And I'm an RN by trade. He was the banker by trade. We did the normal, like let's climb the corporate ladder and career driven type of life. And we were working so much in Baltimore and then when we had kids, it's just our mindset shifted, our perspective shifted and we just realized how much we were missing out on with them and somebody else was raising our kids and we were also not totally loving what we were doing at work. So that's where we kicked it here to Delaware and started doing some digging and some growth here.

Literal digging.

Yeah, literally, no pun intended there.

So where do you see this going?

It's a great question. A lot of places, hopefully. Yeah. So I mean I foresee it. We're already in the talks of potentially next year. Right now we're only servicing Sussex county in Delaware. I would love. And we're in the brink of potentially bringing in a next year of going into Kent and Newcastle county for roots. So slowly but surely we're going to get there and we have the care farming aspect of it. That's kind of where we're going to go into the therapeutic versus my homestead. I would love to continue to partner with people like you guys and Altus in Delaware and whomever else. And child inspired is another one we work with right now. And just even offering therapeutic services beyond what we're doing, but opening up our homestead a little bit more to maybe doing community based ot, like occupational therapy here and so forth, like any of that type of therapeutic services wherever we can help because we have the beautiful space and resources to be able to give back to other organizations is where I would love to see this go. And then just being able to find that grant funding, something we know absolutely nothing about. But we're going to be learning just like we've learned thus far on how to do everything that we've done. But we would love to be able to offer these services or these workshops and family style retreats, family yoga, nature Based play therapy and just multi generational type of things to the community for free with funding so that it's an access tool.

Anything else that you want people to know about Roots or about the entrepreneurs, people that maybe are thinking of doing something, something kind of creative like you're doing. What would you, what, what would your inspiration be to other people?

My inspiration would be just to do it. That's my best advice is just to start and just to do it. If it's as my biggest thing would be, if it's something that you know you love to do, as long as you physically and wholeheartedly love and have so much passion towards that said thing that you're thinking about doing, then that passion is going to drive you to success alone even. And my second part of that would be make sure you have a great support system. So having that community to back you.

There was a quote that I heard recently that was. I'm going to butcher it. But it was, it was something along the lines is we don't always rise to our expectations but fall to our level of training. And so like for us, something that we've really worked on this journey that we've been doing since we've started Roots is our own self care as well. Talent's got a really good mentality with her self care routine is, is that it's non negotiable and so that's, that's something that's taken me a little bit to kind of, you know, catch up on. But knowing that like learning and experimenting with the things that make us our best selves, obviously we're not going to be perfect but setting ourselves up so that way when we have our bad days, we can still show up, have the discipline to execute even if it sucks. But again, yeah, establishing those routines and the habits, whatever that looks like. But obviously, you know, taking care of yourself needs to be a priority and that's one of the things I think a lot of people see is that the entrepreneur spirit is, you know, the Elon musks of the world who sleep underneath their desks, you know, because they've got two hours between, you know, meetings and stuff like that which you know, rightfully so can work for people. But I think in the world that we're in now with, with the mental health challenges. Yeah, crisis, you know, I, I think it's, yeah, I think it's very important, you know, if, for, for us to be able to impact our community and help be a part of the solution. I think we need to make sure we're at least able to, to manage this because, you know, burnout's real.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, to go off of that too. It's exactly that. Taking care of yourself first. So I had the mentality before, for a long time, even as early as six months ago, of I need to jump right into work as soon as the first thing that I wake up. I'm replying to emails, I'm making sure everyone's good. Like, then I'm like, oh, I'll get to my stuff in a little bit. Like, I'll go journal a little bit. Like, I'll meditate in a little bit. Well, that, that never happened when I did it that way. So my, my recent thing has been my regimen is essentially waking up first thing in the morning and taking two to three hours of total self care. And I have a specific regimen. So I already know what I'm doing when I wake up. And it's, it's all together. I make it easy. Right. So that I don't have an excuse at that point not to do it. The best part of that is later on then those emails or whatever work stuff that's pending still are on my to do list. We know that has to get done and it will. I will make sure that gets done. So we've kind of flipped it and just being really intentional about planning time. So planning time separate from business and personal is a, is a big thing when you're an entrepreneur. Having, especially with husband and wife, seeing the directors and founders of a business together, Amazing.

I love that sustainability piece for you too. As human beings. That's really important.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, that is about our time for today. I want to thank you both for being here and if people want to find out about your programming, summer camps, any of that, your website, is that the best place to go?

Yes, absolutely.

Roots302.com I just want to say thank

you so much for taking the leap and showing other people that there are other ways to do things that just come from your own creativity. So thank you for being here and thanks for what you do.

Yeah, thanks so much for having us.

Appreciate you.