![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/STT-L-HOBBIEST-2-0607.jpg\")
A look at the inside of the property at 129 N. Main St. in Pittston which will serve as the home of The Hobbiest \u2013 phone-free skills club for adults. (Courtesy Luzerne County Association of Realtors)<\/p>\nInspired by her own experience, Ashley Fitzgerald strives to help others find the same balance, peace and connection from unplugging and unwinding.<\/p>\n
A health issue earlier this year led the Clarks Summit native to step away from technology and into the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor two hours a day, my husband and I were swimming, and obviously you\u2019re not taking your phone in the pool,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cI realized, by unplugging, how much more balanced I felt, how much more peaceful I felt, and how much more connected I felt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald\u2019s new business \u2014 The Hobbiest, an adult, phone-free skills club set to open at 129 N. Main St. in Pittston next month \u2014 will help people find more purpose by gaining new skills in a variety of topics including knitting, calligraphy, meditation and home repair.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can go and learn all the things our grandparents used to know, and we don\u2019t really know anymore, and develop new passions you can do in your spare time instead of scrolling on TikTok,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
A look at the inside of the property at 129 N. Main St. in Pittston which will serve as the home of The Hobbiest \u2013 phone-free skills club for adults. (Courtesy Luzerne County Association of Realtors)<\/p>\n
Each course runs four sessions, once a week, for two hours each time. The costs for the initial six courses range from $99 to $150.<\/p>\n
The curriculum will change each month as it\u2019s designed to grow with the community, Fitzgerald said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re focused on helping people who never tried something before (advance) to intermediate,\u201d she said. \u201cThe whole goal is for everyone to get personalized instruction and improve in a way that is financially viable. Everything I\u2019m doing is trying to get more power back to the individual \u2014 how they spend their time and the connection they have with their community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking forward, Fitzgerald aims to introduce classes to cater to a variety of audiences, including basic car repair and survival skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re creating curriculum that speaks to everyone in the community,\u201d she said. \u201cGoing into 2027, we want to be able to create experiences outside the four walls.\u201d<\/p>\n
To cultivate a space where deep thoughts and personal connections can flourish, The Hobbiest won\u2019t resemble a typical social setting in today\u2019s exceedingly high-tech world.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no electronics, no food, no alcohol \u2014 nothing to distract you,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cWhen you actually go back to that clarity, and that solace, you very quickly realize that is so much more enjoyable than what you\u2019re doing online. Maybe the first time people go, they\u2019ll be like, \u2018this is crazy, I don\u2019t have my phone.\u2019 But, by the second week, they\u2019re going to be running to get inside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another part of the impetus for the new business developed through conversations between Fitzgerald, 37, and some of her longtime pals.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my friends are new moms and living in towns they didn\u2019t grow up in,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve been hearing, over and over again, from people feeling burnt out, feeling like it\u2019s really difficult to meet new people, and just kind of suffocating living 24\/7 in the digital world. I\u2019m not trying to go back to the past where everything was analog, I\u2019m just trying to help people rebalance their presence and maintain a more balanced future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Abington Heights graduate drew upon more than a decade of experience developing data systems when crafting business plans for The Hobbiest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started floating it around and the overall reaction was really positive,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cWe decided to move forward with it and the community has really leaned into the concept. My expertise comes in at the back end \u2014 the operational efficiency. This wouldn\u2019t have been possible three of four years ago or without my background. I would have needed to borrow money and hire marketers and website developers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fitzgerald credits her time working on the brand and content strategy team at Goldman Sachs for laying the foundation for launching her own marketing technology solution, DeliverAI, last September, as well as The Hobbiest.<\/p>\n
\u201c(At Goldman Sachs) I built out the technology infrastructure and brand new novel solutions that improved the way we were able to track and optimize our communication,\u201d she said. \u201cOver time, I started developing this niche: solving the unsolvable is kind of what I do. Because of my background, I\u2019m able to build and launch a lot of things very quickly. I use my expertise to create systems that are extraordinarily operationally efficient. Once I build them, they\u2019re self-sustaining and I can move from one thing to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Fitzgerald \u2014 who currently lives in the San Francisco area \u2014\u00a0landed on Pittston to establish the first location for a skills club due to the eagerness of the community and other personal factors, she hopes to expand the business model to other areas should the initiative gain traction.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are using Scranton and Northeastern Pennsylvania as the incubator for these ideas,\u201d she said. \u201cThe innovation is going to happen in this region because I know the people, I grew up here, my family\u2019s been here for literally hundreds of years. But the second I can prove it works, I will be heading to middle and small communities like Cleveland, Ohio, and (other) places very similar to Northeastern Pennsylvania because our focus is trying to rejuvenate the American town, the American city, and bring the community back together.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Fitzgerald competes against brands like TikTok, Facebook and Apple for consumers\u2019 attention, she hopes they choose to unwind and socialize instead of seeking social media stimulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to have people choosing me once a week and saying, \u2018I\u2019m going there, I\u2019m going to unplug, I\u2019m going to connect, I\u2019m going to empower myself, and I\u2019m going to enrich myself and fall in love with the offline world,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are making money based on your attention \u2026 so they\u2019re going to design systems that are meant to capture your attention. The overall vision is really two things: empowerment and enrichment. If you have someone who wants to spend less time online, you have to give people something to do instead. We\u2019re coming up with ideas, we\u2019re soliciting ideas from the community, and people are basically voting on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pittston Mayor Mike Lombardo feels The Hobbiest will bring a unique, needed outlet to the city\u2019s business landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the key to a strong, successful, thriving and perpetuating Main Street is having a good balance and dynamic in terms of the makeup, and who\u2019s there,\u201d he said. \u201cI think the more diversified in terms of what you offer, the better off you are in terms of sustainability and longevity, and it certainly isn\u2019t a stretch to call it congruent with our makers model that we have downtown in terms of the art, the galleries and the studios.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lombardo\u00a0believes Fitzgerald\u2019s mission to bring others together through interactive activities will make a positive difference in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing more important in terms of the growth of a human being than the interaction with other human beings,\u201d he said. \u201cFor me, as a psychologist, that\u2019s something really personal. I think there\u2019s a place in the world for virtual, I just don\u2019t think it should dominate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead of focusing on the downfalls of technology, Fitzgerald intends to harness the positive aspects of modern advancements to transform someone\u2019s day from ordinary to extraordinary.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all aimed at how we can leverage technology not to exploit people, not to exploit regions, but to empower them and up the standard of day-to-day living,\u201d she said. \u201cYou should be enriching your soul, your mind, and your body, and just because you live in a region like NEPA, and not New York City, doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t have access to those things. I\u2019m trying to make sure the type of life I had growing up is attainable for everybody and they can live a life of their dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inspired by her own experience, Ashley Fitzgerald strives to help others find the same balance, peace and connection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[60,1993,201,182,803,28,2485,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-218713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-business","tag-clarks-summit","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pittston","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}