Good News FL

LIFEWORK LEADERSHIP 12 FEBRUARY 2018 Good News • South Florida Edition The kitchen is the heart of the home, but for Ar- mand and Susan Rocco that extends beyond enter- taining family and friends to being the focus of their business and service to the community. Susan Rocco founded the Kitchenworks alongside her husband,Ar- mand, in 1989 after searching unsuccessfully for a quality, customer-service oriented design company to remodel her own kitchen. Now a licensed interior de- signer, Susan combined her flare for design with her gift of hospitality while Armand brought his love for gourmet cooking and his technical expertise to de- velop a line of high-end appliances with excellent cus- tomer service. High school sweethearts, the Roccos were mar- ried at the age of 18 and have been faithful at their church for many years. But it wasn’t until the couple became involved in Lifework Leadership that their focus began to shift to looking at how they could also serve the community. Having completed the Lifework Leadership class together four years ago, they now sponsor the program, and Susan has volunteered as a Lifework coach. During a recent visit to their show- room on East Sunrise Boulevard, Armand and Susan shared how Lifework Leadership has impacted their business and their personal lives. Good News (GN) – First, tell me a little about what you do at Kitchenworks. Susan - We design custom kitchens and we sell high-end appliances – but not just kitchens. We do baths and bars and entertainment centers and all of that. Our ideal client is someone who is looking for quality materials, quality cabinetry, custom work, excellent design work, personal attention to detail and personalized service. That’s what we do. We do everything from the beginning. We meet the client. We come up with a plan. We do all the drawings and we execute it. We’re responsible to do the field measure- ments, the installation. We have carpenters who work for us. We supervise it till the very end. Sometimes there is already an interior designer on board with the project. When that happens, we sell the cabinetry and help guide the cabinet color, making sure that it’s cohesive with the flooring, the counter top material and whatever else the designer has in mind. Or maybe a certain style. For instance some designers re- ally want to do a very contemporary look, very sleek, very clean lines, and we steer them in that direction once we see whatever materials they have – what would like neat and be kind of unique. GN – Are there very many businesses like yours in South Florida that are that custom and high end? Susan – I wouldn’t say that there are many exactly like our store. We’re more of a boutique hands-on store. We work by appointment. We give a little more personal attention to each client that comes in, so we’re totally different from a Home Depot or a Lowes or even a larger firm that has 30 sales people and they all converge on you… Often our clients end up being friends and they keep calling us and stopping by after we’ve finished their job. And I love that because I love to have that connection with people.And what’s neat about our business is I really like to tailor it – not only to design functional kitchens, but kitchens that are fabulous for people – that are one-of-a-kind unique, a place that they are happy to be in, because a lot of us spend a lot of time in the kitchen. People are hanging out there because that’s where the food is; that’s where the conversation is happening. It’s kind of the heart of the home. It’s the hub. So, we like to make it really spectacular if we can. That’s what we strive to do. GN - You were telling me earlier that faith is a big part of your life. Do you and your husband attend a church? Susan - We do. We attend First Baptist Fort Lauderdale, right here downtown. We’ve been there sinceAnthony our son was five, and my son is 33 now, so it’s been a long time. Before that we were at Sheridan Hills down in Hollywood. We’ve been faithful at our church for many years. We love our church and we had always felt like we were pretty much being good Christians by giving to our local church being plugged in, you know Bible study and raising our kids in it. GN – So tell me about how your got introduced to Lifework. Susan – I think it was Pastor Larry Thompson who invited us to come and hear about it. We did it together and we loved it. That was the thing that was the catalyst to thinking how can we use the unique gifts that God has given us to benefit not only our church but how about our community. And it was really Armand. He came home one day and…you read these books and you can discuss and interact with the group at your table. Armand had been at a table with a woman who was working with a nonprofit, Heart2Heart…He got inspired and came home and said, “I think the Lord wants us to do a fundraiser for Heart2Heart.” It’s a whole ministry geared toward vis- iting the elderly – seniors who don’t have people to visit them and sharing love with themand hopefully your faith. My grandma was in an assisted living – a nursing home – before she passed away, and I had gone to visit her a lot. So we just decided to open up our showroom, and we did our first fundraiser for Heart2Heart. It was right after we finished Lifework. We had a friend , Jonas, who is a chef, and he andArmand and our daughter-in-law did all the cooking that night. And Jonas did a cooking demonstration. There was another session at Lifework that asked how has God uniquely equipped you and blessed you, and how can you use that to bless others? And I thought, we could do kitchens for people in need. The first year we were in Lifework we committed to a Habitat home, so we did the Habitat home and the next year we did a home for 4KIDS, and then it was Dillard High School. GN – What did you do for Dillard High School? Susan - For our class project, we all pulled our resources together to turn an Armand and Susan Rocco , owners of Kitchenworks Armand and Susan Rocco Share Their Gift of Hospitality Through Kitchenworks Shelly Pond Good News Editor (Continued on page 21)