Cheryl Pliskin
Jest Notes and Baskets
and Be Like Henry

In her own words:

Jest Notes began as a hand-crafted note card business. After 10 years (I’m a slow learner apparently), it became clear that I wasn’t going to make money in the consumer market. I admitted that what I had was on the accounting end of a hobby and nowhere near a self-sufficient business.

So it morphed into Jest Notes & Baskets, targeted corporate clients and has been going strong for 25 years. On May 1, 2021, I shall officially retire and the business is set to transition to someone who will take over my clients.

During all of this, I raised two children who are now grown (one is the dad to my adorable granddaughter), moved into a retail/warehouse location and then moved back home two years ago, had as many as eight employees and now have none, divorced, raised six Seeing Eye puppies, had one family dog and have rescued and/or fostered 35 other dogs so far.

In the gift basket heyday, I was an annual speaker at Cherie Reagor’s conventions addressing business issues. It was where many of my basket friendships began and developed over all these years. Joyce is a pioneer in demonstrating how to adjust to changing forums as she took in-person conventions and grew this on-line platform.

Those of you who change along with her will be FAR better for the experience!

I’ve been very grateful to have won a number of awards over the years. The one I am most proud of was being named the 16th Fastest Growing Company by Philadelphia Business Journal in 2006. The one that humors me the most is being named the Best Gift Basket Company in Lumberton, NJ for 17 consecutive years. (I was also the ONLY gift basket company in Lumberton, NJ.)

It was through the rescue world that I discovered the next chapter in my life. In 2018, I founded Be Like Henry, a non-profit dedicated to healing dogs and their people. You’ll hear a lot more about BLH in the coming months as I invite you to come along with me as we quite literally, go to the dogs!