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2017 Year in Review2017 Year in Review

By Emily Hessney Lynch.

Published December 28, 2017.

2017 sure has been a wild ride! The world has been pretty crazy in politics and beyond. We hope our Instagram takeovers and interviews have offered you small slices of positivity and good vibes each week. This project brings us joy and we hope it’s brought a smile to your face or introduced you to a new place, activity, or person this year.

In 2017, we featured 66 people. We wrote 5 lists. We interviewed everyone from coffee shop owners to book cover designers, from librarians to Susan B. Anthony (yes, we’re serious). We did our interviews at 29 different locations, from Fuego to Hot Rosita’s, from a b-corp’s office to a local musician’s house. We are so excited for what 2018 holds!

So who are the ladies behind I Heart ROC, anyways? Our kick-ass team of two consists of Emily Hessney Lynch and Maria Gorre.

Emily handles our interviews IRL, over coffee, lunch, wine, or spro bombs. She also manages all our social media, so if you’ve been tweeting with us, followin’ on the ‘gram, or Facebooking, that’s all Emily! Emily got engaged and married this year, so 2017 was kind of a big deal. She also interviewed 62 people face-to-face for I Heart ROC and enjoyed every second of it!

Maria is the founder of I Heart ROC and continues to <3 ROC from afar. A Spencerport native, she lives in San Francisco now and works for TaskRabbit, a super cool startup that just got acquired by IKEA! Maria does all our graphic and web design work. She is continually amazed by how much her little project has grown since its inception in fall 2015.

Want to learn more about us? You can read more about Emily and Maria here. If you’re interested in being featured on the site, fill out our Contribute form.

Thanks for all your support in 2017! We are stoked to keep celebrating Rochester’s awesomeness in 2018.