Ericka Kotab is set to open her own health and wellness business beginning this January, called Flourish and Fettle. She is looking to help residents of Wagner and the surrounding area be their best emotional, mental, and physical selves. She plans to start the business by first offering yoga classes once a week in the basement of the Wagner Community Memorial Hospital – Avera. Yoga classes will begin in January and Ericka wants to offer free yoga classes for the month of January to everyone who may be interested as her kind of 'grand opening.'

Balance and harmony are a big part of those whose birthdays fall between September 22nd and October 23rd, and Ericka is no exception. Balance and harmony within oneself definitely fit into the Flourish and Fettle brand. When asked how she came up with the businesses name, she said, Flourish was chosen as it means to healthily grow or develop and fettle as she was looking for an “f” word that would complete and compliment flourish. Fettle fit her business concept perfectly as it was not a commonly used word, therefore it elicits curiosity, and means to 'clean or trim the rough edges,' which in the case of Ericka’s business would mean to grow, while trimming from oneself what is not needed. Fettle is also a very fitting description of the type of services that Ericka plans to offer as it also refers to pottery. Just as a potter works with, molding and trimming the clay as he or she sculpts, Ericka hopes to be able to help her clients grow and mold themselves into being healthier and improving on their overall wellness.

In addition to offering yoga classes, Ericka plans to expand her business to include health coaching, mindfulness, and doula services. She is currently in the final stages of becoming a certified health coach and will become officially certified in January. Ericka anticipates that her mindfulness one-on-one sessions will start being offered in the summer of 2025. As this will currently be a part-time/spare time home based business, Ericka will continue to fine-tune her services as she continues to work full-time as the Wagner Community School Psychologist.

Ericka was born and raised in Wagner. She wants to bring a business that will better the community that has offered her so much over the years. She knows that the community is a good one made up of good people.

Ericka feels that as her business focuses on the mental, physical, and emotional health of individuals, that it will be a positive, flexible way for her to continue to give back to the Wagner community. Like every Wagner business, she feels that her business will also add to the vitality of the community. She is hoping that it will have an economic impact as well as physical and mental all of which when a person is happy compounds, spreading to areas of one’s life.

As of now, all that Ericka will be offering are services, but she dreams big. If the yoga classes take off, she would love the opportunity to partner with or bring in instructors who specialize in different types of yoga.

Ericka has been teaching yoga since 2000. After Wagner’s only yoga instructor retired, it left a void in the community. After trying to continue to practice yoga at home by herself and not enjoying it as much as a group setting, Ericka made the decision to get trained as an instructor. The type of yoga that Ericka practices is calm/relaxed, flowing like a reed in the waves. She wants to offer a type of yoga that anyone can do that has both physical and mental benefits.

Due to the high mortality birth rates in South Dakota, having a birthing doula is a Medicaid reimbursable service. The type of doula services that Ericka would like to start offering would be for those moms who have already given birth who may be struggling postpartum. She would like to work with moms one on one in order to talk about how they are feeling, what they are experiencing, and ways to deal with/overcome postpartum struggles. Eventually she would like to be able to offer birthing and postpartum doula packages as part of her services.

Ericka also dreams of one day having a store front where she can integrate other forms of health and wellness including a weekly cooking class and weekly healthy meal offered to the community. Until then, she will be working with Buche's as a Hometown Health Coach where she will highlight a product weekly and will incorporate the product into a recipe in order to aid people on their wellness journey. As a health coach, Ericka’s goal will be to help all people with her niche being overall family wellness, not just focusing on food.

If interested in Ericka’s services, the best ways to contact her would be on the Flourish and Fettle Facebook page or to email ericka@flourishfettle. com. Congratulations on your new business venture, Ericka. The Wagner community will look forward to seeing what services are to come.