This Week’s I AM, YOU ARE, WE ARE Honoree: Tricia Keith
By Steve BrandyNov 2, 2021 | 12:35 PM
“She leaves a little sparkle wherever she goes!” This is the quote that comes to mind when meeting this week’s spotlight – Tricia Keith. Tricia is someone who wears many hats – and does it all to give back to a community who has given her so much. She was adopted at 1 month old and grew up in Fithian – or as some call it – the 548. “If you’re from Fithian, then you know,” Tricia says about her lifetime friends she grew up with. She graduated from Oakwood High School and went to Eastern Illinois University “which was perfect. I was close enough to home, yet far enough away and still maintained our core group from high school.
Tricia Keith is this week’s I AM, YOU ARE, WE ARE honoree.
After college, her first job was a teaching assistant at District 118. “That job triggered something in me. It let me see a whole different side of a culture I had never experienced.” The fire that was lit led to Tricia having several crucial roles in the community. She worked at the women’s shelter as a child advocate then moved to sexual assault. After working as a home-based counselor for inner city kids in Indianapolis for 6 months, she was ready to come back home. “Jim Trask and Mike Metzen at the Regional Office of Education took a shot on me in 1999 – I’ve been there ever since! It’s the best thing ever! There’s no place I’d rather be than right here in Vermilion County!” Tricia says traveling Vermilion County every day for the last 20 years has helped her to fall even further in love with her community. “Is every day good? No. But there is something good in every day – I can 100% wholeheartedly say that.”
Tricia has also spearheaded other programs such as the local shoe drive for kids who need shoes, and the Comet Power of Pink “which is very near and dear to me” after losing a classmate and friend, Amy Wise, who passed away from breast cancer. She also works part time at “one of the best locally family- owned businesses in our county” – Jocko’s.
As for her love of Vermilion County and her now hometown of Catlin, Tricia loves to visit local establishments along with her husband and her two dogs, Violet and Big Mac. They frequent different downtowns from Hoopeston to Danville to small shops in Catlin as well as Lake Vermilion in the summer months.
“This is all I know – you volunteer, you give back, you help people.”
