Member Worker Profile:
Rebecca Hein

by Deborah Trupin

Rebecca Hein, the herb buyer for the Health and Body Aids (HaBA) department at Honest Weight, is in charge of buying and stocking the huge variety of bulk herbs and teas that HWFC carries. And — as happens to any HWFC staff member or member worker in the aisles at the store — she also is involved with customer service, responding to customers’ questions on the various herbs and their uses.

The customer service and educational aspects of her work are what Rebecca particularly enjoys. She feels the Co-op plays an important role in helping people to educate themselves about healthcare resources, and that it is important to have knowledgeable people around to do that. As a regular HaBA customer, I can vouch for how well HaBA staff works to help and to education customers. Rebecca and the rest of the HaBA staff are not resting on their laurels. Shortly after Rebecca and I talked for this article, we nearly collided at the bulk flax seed containers. She said she was buying some samples for that day’s session of an herbal home study course for HaBA staff, paid for by Honest Weight.

Rebecca likes the interactions with customers — she enjoys being able to share what she has learned and appreciates feedback from those who come back to say what worked. She notes, however, that it can be challenging to help customers in the store setting, as they often have complex, long-term health issues that may not have the quick answers they may be seeking. Rebecca has been working at Honest Weight since November, shortly after she moved to Albany. She has been pursuing herbalism seriously for about five years. She has worked in sustainable agriculture, including a two-year stint as caretaker and steward at the Nearing Homestead in Maine. There, she maintained the gardens and ran educational programs. She later worked as an apprentice at Heart Song Healing Herbs, an herb farm in New Hampshire. Rebecca’s long-term vision is to do accessible community healthcare work and urban agriculture. Her work at Honest Weight fits well into those goals.

Another of Rebecca’s goals is to make herbalism easier to access. She said that herbalism is “the people’s medicine and that it should be really accessible.” She and others have been disturbed by the elitism of natural healthcare and frustrated by the high cost of herbal study options, which determines who has access to the knowledge.

With her colleagues in the Community Herbal Convergence, Rebecca is working to change this. According to their mission statement, the Convergence is “an annual bioregional gathering co-created by herbalists and activists … committed to accessibility, diversity, and equality within the fields of Clinical and Community Herbalism, and Herbal Education.” Rebecca is working on the group’s second annual conference, to be held October 5–7 at Seven Arrows Herb Farm in Attleboro (Mass.). Details and registration info for the Convergence can be found at: http://sevenarrowsfarm.com/images/convergence.

Rebecca has found that Honest Weight is more diverse and comfortable than other health food stores at which she has worked. She has observed that shoppers in the HaBA section may be more diverse than in other sections of the store, because herbs and herbalism are part of so many different cultures. Immigrants in the Capital District come to Honest Weight to find the herbs they use.

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