A N I A
One Post BUILDING COMMUNITY AT A TIME
Keeping Up In Greenwood’s Maddie Sterba
Into The Unknown
Maddie Sterba, the driving force behind Keeping Up In Greenwood, has built a digital platform with a thriving community, transforming her unexpected career shift from a healthcare professional after the pandemic into a valuable resource for families in her new hometown.
Stefanie: Hi Maddie, so tell us a little bit about Keeping Up In Greenwood
Maddie: Keeping Up In Greenwood launched in June of 2023 The whole reason behind it was to help connect families to the community I'll feel help people feel confident and try new things and just really. Getting out of the house post COVID. I have two young kids and sometimes getting out there and trying new things can be a little bit intimidating.
So Keeping Up In Greenwood kind of gives insights to different family friendly activities or parks or local events So you feel a little bit more prepared before going
I call it a digital platform because I use both Instagram and I have a blog So, the blog includes a little bit more of my written insights as well as my weekly in lists so those are gonna be your local events happening around the southern suburbs and into downtown Indianapolis.
Most of them will be kid friendly, if not, they'll be labeled as 21 and older or adults only
Stefanie: So tell me a little bit about how this digital platform got started
Maddie: So my sister-in-law lives in Carmel. She started Keeping Up In Carmel in August of 2022. She saw a huge need up there. She started her platform, and as hers grew early into the next year, she noticed that she had a lot of people reaching out to her from the southside
So she reached out to me We both have backgrounds in marketing, photography and social media She asked me if I'd be interested I had already created my own in lists, I guess you could say, for my family
So at that point it was really just time, I guess, to start Keeping Up In Greenwood. We just took off running with it and we haven't stopped.
Stefanie: Let's take it back a little bit further
What were you
doing before you created this? I know that you were a photographer and then in healthcare Right?
Maddie: So when I graduated college, the 1st time in 2017 with my 1st associates I focused on medical assisting I worked in phlebotomy, ended up being a endoscopy technician, kind of like a version of a surgical technician for a local hospital. So even from high school, I knew, okay, I really want to be in the medical field.
That's what I see myself doing for years I stuck with that for a long time Then COVID hit I had my first son in January of 2020 So right before pretty much the world shut down, everything changed My unit closed because we were in an emergency area They sent everyone that worked on my floors to the COVID floors while I was on maternity leave
When I left work for maternity leave, I fully expected to go back to work and it be like nothing had changed. That changed for me. So I took a step back and told my boss, I think I need to be PRN. I won't come back until our unit opens up
"Maybe I'm being called in a differentdirection..."
I don't feel comfortable working with a newborn I feel like I'm being called home to take care of my family first. Immediately after that happened I was like maybe I don't want to work in the medical field Maybe I'm being called in a different direction
So I went back to school for marketing at that point Concentration on social media, as well, social media marketing I just found, this passion for social media I somehow got connected with a local business that was just starting in 2020 She had no experience with social media, whatsoever, and we jumped right in and started
She gave me a chance running her social media and being her event coordinator once events were okay in 2022 I then picked up three more businesses to run their social media pages that were local to at the time, the Fort Wayne area. Then my husband's career grew as well
He got an offer to grand open a store down here in Greenwood for where he works His family lives on the North side so we felt, you know, we'd really like to be closer to his family It's still not that far from Fort Wayne So that was our trip down to Greenwood in December of 2022, two days before Christmas was when we signed our paperwork and moved into our house
So you know after that my sister in law was running Keeping Up In Caramel and doing an amazing job with it A couple months later, I think it was March, she had reached out to me Do you think we can do this before June? I was like absolutely So I immediately started my research Started putting together a full park guide for everything down here Visiting everywhere that I could that I hadn't already Trying to get some insights to start sharing about and helping people feel confident in going out and trying new things
Stefanie: That was a lot So, 2020, you had a baby The world shut down. But Maddie didn't. She just started to keep going
Maddie: I didn't even think about 2021, I picked up a camera for the first time since high school I used to shoot photography in high school Loved it Took it for three years in high school Did a lot of sports photography back in high school cause that was the easiest thing to book at that time You know, you shoot for
the football games, shoot for the basketball games, um, which was kind of hard because I was also a cheerleader.
So I picked up a camera in 2021 and I was like, man, I want to get creative again and start taking pictures of my son and my husband and whenever my friends would ask me to take pictures So Moments by Madison Photography started I love it I have my pretty much my set clients
Um, yeah, started photography in 2021 I never stopped really. I just knew that after COVID happened I wanted to find a passion again
Stefanie: Sounds like it's sounding like you get to do a lot of things that just naturally come out of you creatively So I do want to talk a little bit about that, but I want to put a pin in it, and go back a little bit again It sounds like it was just very easy to just go one, two, three This happened, this happened, and then that happened, but we forget sometimes that in the moments, there's a lot of uncertainty. We don't know what's around the corner We don't know how it's going to turn out and it requires faith You were working healthcare for the longest time, wanting to help people, and then something else showed up for you Where did the courage to say yes to all those things come from and did you have those moments of uncertainty?
Maddie: Absolutely. I can remember sitting, in the last couple weeks of my maternity leave going... I don't know if I can go back.
My husband did not- he was going to be supportive if I wanted to go back, but he really wanted me to stay home as well At the time, due to his work, he was considered essential With a newborn it was at that time it was all about feeling safe
It was so uncertain because, we were going to lose that one stream of income if I go PRN. Who knows when I'll go back to work. So it was very uncertain and it was just kind of like, okay, at this time we need to sit down together and just put our faith in the fact that something's going to come along
A lot of late nights for me where I'm sitting there and I'm just thinking and I'm researching, okay, like what, Can I do now that's going to give me a little bit more freedom as mom, do I go back to school, go back to the corporate world- you probably are going to need a degree...
It was just a lot of uncertainty at that time It was a lot
of worry for a good couple of weeks and just like putting our faith in that something was going to happen. There's always going to be something that comes along and it may not be exactly what you thought it was going to be
My husband is very kind of go with it I'm the worrier I like to be very organized Have a plan You need to put your focus somewhere and you need to go with it If you just put your 110 percent into it something will happen. But put the research in before as well. Before you decide to do it.
Stefanie: It sounds like to me that you had a choice in that moment
You were either going to put your focus on the fear and the uncertainty or you're going to put your focus on what you were stepping into
Maddie: Yes, absolutely For a little while there, it was total anxiety and a couple mental breakdowns But I had a newborn, it was like, okay, we've got to figure this out and just got to go with it. We just got to hope for the best in this moment I feel like that was a lot of 2020 for us, was just hoping for the best
Stefanie: We were all just hoping that the best of something was going to come out of something So now you got out of high school and stepped into college and knew you wanted to help people and that led you into healthcare but there's a difference between being in healthcare and this creative field that you ended up going into. Do you feel that being a healthcare professional was a part of who you are? Or do you feel that the truer part of you is this creative side?
Maddie: That's hard because some days I still miss it I still miss working in the hospital Sometimes I miss working during the night Which is so weird My creative side, I love because it challenges me A lot of it comes easy but it's challenging sometimes You're constantly coming up with new things. I felt like with that other world, it was pretty consistent. I don't want to say you knew what you were coming into because that was not the case of every day but you kind of just knew what to expect With the creative side, it's a constant 'I take certain times every week and brainstorm the different ideas that I want to focus on and the different places I want to reach out to it's a lot more, I feel like, critical thinking
It brought out a different side of me that I hadn't seen in a long time. I just feel like it brought out a side of me that I had really missed . I love that side.
I absolutely just love shooting content coming up with all these ideas and problem solving to help other parents and other families around here find things to do Or at least feeling comfortable and trying something new
I loved working in Peds and I loved working labor and delivery. I loved working in the family areas the most when I worked in the hospital I miss working in the hospital sometimes I absolutely do But then I'm so blessed to be able to do something that I absolutely love and had no idea that it was in me.
Stefanie: Sounds like you had to rely on two parts of yourself, two different sides of yourself
When you're working in the medical field there's kind of a system, right? Not that you know what to expect because you can't do that in the medical field as much When it comes to creativity, there's not as much of a path you kind of have to figure it out as you go along
Maddie: And I feel like I'm constantly learning I was constantly learning working in the medical field I'm constantly learning here too. I may have a degree but I'm constantly learning new things all the time If you know anything about social media it's ever changing
Sometimes you feel like you might be chasing an algorithm I never want to feel that way, so you're just constantly trying to change things up, you're trying to come up with new ideas, and share new things So it's interesting and I love it
Stefanie: How have you had to rely on yourself when it comes to the unknown? Because you're creating something that doesn't really have a blueprint. Where did you find the strength to rely on you during this moment of uncertainty?
Maddie: My husband is my rock. We've just always been each other's rocks especially since we became parents You have to have that person that's going to stand by you and support you no matter what My husband, I love him, I call him a golden retriever I don't know how else other than that to explain it
He is the most supportive person He has sat there with me through the beginning and watched me, you know, question everything that I thought I had known about myself What I thought I wanted to do with my life and to see it completely change He's like, first of all, you're a lot happier now The burnout in the medical field is real
To read the rest of the interview please visit: www aniaphoto com/ania-magazine/the-house-chicks