Poverty: The Underserved Elephant in the Room

0:06 You're at Visionality's Building Forward
0:12 and our guest star today is Corey Pahanish and he is the executive
0:17 director of teddy bear cancer and we are here you know the drill right we cover a
0:24 big meaty Topic in 25 minutes or less ... we all have all the answers between
0:30 us and so if you've got lived experience or ... have a solution or have an answer
0:36 please like Hop On Hop on in the chat you could use the raise your hand feature and we'll bring you on camera
0:42 because we collectively have all the answers so Corey welcome as our guest
0:48 star and today what we're talking about is poverty and how poverty is the
0:57 underserved elephant in the room and how really no matter what your mission is no
1:04 matter what client base you're serving ... you must have an awareness that
1:10 poverty affects your mission and your clients and so Corey you're certainly one of the best people I can think of to
1:17 to share on this topic so so talk to me you know maybe generally or specifically
1:24 within teddy bear how you're seeing ... the way that poverty affects
1:31 ... your clientele differently well first thank you for having me
1:37 ... our mission here at teddy bears to advocate for families that are battling pediatric cancer on the Central Coast
1:42 and the way that we Advocate is through raising awareness and so anytime that we
1:48 have an opportunity to discuss this topic which impacts a lot of families
1:53 each year it's a blessing so thank you again and yeah teddy bear we serve
2:01 ... families from all different socioeconomic backgrounds
2:06 ... but for our for those that don't know the way that we do that is through our financial support
2:12 which we offer direct Financial Services Aid through our emotional support as
2:18 well as through our Educational Services and so for our financial support that's where we really do Target ... families
2:25 that are low to moderate income based on housing Urban Development guidelines
2:30 that lay out those numbers for us and the reason that we're very comfortable with targeting that
2:36 particular population with our direct financial assistance is because we know that there is a cancer disparity and
2:44 we're trying to close those gaps so for those families there's limited to no resources which
2:51 actually impacts the survival outcome of a child battling pediatric cancer when you look at it through a social
2:56 determinative health lens so for example we have not to give too many details away but we have a recently
3:04 widowed mother that we're providing services to that has three children and
3:12 ... she was displaced from her home shortly after immigrating here from Mexico because of the treatment options
3:20 that are offered here to save her child's life so widowed mother
3:25 immigrated here three children and was displaced was literally homeless and she
3:31 came to us ... when she found a small studio apartment that didn't have a stove that
3:38 didn't have a refrigerator and had no furniture including beds so that's when
3:43 that family was referred to us and didn't have next month's rent in
3:49 2023 there there's when we talk about there's limited to no resources there is no way that she can
3:57 sort of level down to to sort of free up some Capital to provide you know the the
4:02 kind of ... resources that her her child needs to survive this and so that's
4:07 where ted bear would come in yeah so what you what you were saying there just to clarify is you know she she's at what
4:15 many would consider like the minimum like like a baseline right she doesn't have a home that she could sell and
4:22 maybe move into a smaller home or an apartment or something right she doesn't have a downsize option that's right yeah
4:31 yeah and and the the there's so many different layers to this but just to stay on one
4:37 particular Topic in terms of the social determinant of Health what the research tells us is that and
4:45 while this might sound like Common Sense nevertheless it's it is an issue that is going unaddressed
4:53 without organizations like teddy bear which is it's really a part for a child to be able to recoup from some of these
5:01 treatments when they're sleeping on the floor the body needs a rest and the body
5:07 also needs nutritious food so for a food insecure family that's living off of canned goods
5:13 that actually impacts the healing process for a child makes it that much more complicated to be resilient when
5:18 they're receiving chemotherapy and for that particular family that they don't have the the
5:24 transportation option or even gas to get to treatment at UCLA
5:32 ... then they skip treatment so that's what we talk about when we're
5:37 looking at this through a social determinive health it's the medical interventions are wildly important but
5:44 the interventions that we're providing too also increases the survivalship of
5:50 the child and and that's why we target those particular families of those
5:55 socioeconomic backgrounds with our direct financial assistance well you have such an interesting perspective at
6:00 teddy bear because so many organizations Target poverty right they they may be
6:07 like a food bank or working with the unhoused population or the under house or you know they're they're specifically
6:13 targeting poverty and cancer doesn't discriminate right there are kids of all
6:19 kinds of socioeconomic backgrounds who have pediatric cancer and so it's just
6:25 such an interesting ... shift in the lens I mean kind of the
6:31 point is we are all we all need to address poverty within our missions whether it's specifically called out in
6:37 the mission or not because poverty does affect our outcomes
6:42 yeah it's much like ... pediatric cancer doesn't discriminate
6:48 ... you know it's it's one of those things even when you're looking at my research is for for
6:55 my ... PhD dissertation I studied the neurological psychological and behavioral consequences of financial
7:01 burden and even from a neurological perspective it's completely rewiring the
7:08 way that our brains operate and so we are in this constant fight or flight it's condition that's supposed to remain
7:14 dormant but when you're constantly conditioned to operate as if you're trying to anticipate threats
7:22 ... that actually has some some pretty negative impacts on a person's health
7:27 and then the psychology to this is now you're in this constant state of anxiety
7:32 you know there's a lot of correlations between that and ... vulnerability to
7:37 depression ... and so when you take into those factors and then you add in there now
7:45 you've got a child with pediatric cancer I mean it completely compounds a family's
7:50 ability to even survive quite literally survive yeah
7:56 well and just ... a colleague of ours ... Carey she and
8:02 I were ... talking and and she talked about how there's this sense of like not only
8:09 measuring your your own resources but like your communal resources too so like
8:16 what what is our Collective safety net right and and so that is such an
8:23 interesting additional contributing factor especially in the the example that you brought up like if if you're
8:32 newly widowed right you're losing the support of a partner you're you're
8:37 losing someone to share the financial burden the you know the emotion burden the work burden but also
8:44 you mentioned a new immigrant into our country so even that you know like
8:50 when I tore my MCL like my neighbor made me food right because I know my neighbor and so to can you talk to me a little
8:58 bit about what you see within your mission ... on how like the
9:03 one's own like Network affects the outcomes yeah ... and sticking with this
9:10 particular example we did not provide interventions to this family alone in
9:16 fact there's a new ish non-profit to
9:22 ... Santa Barbara called starfish connection that we brought in as a partner that was able to actually offer
9:29 ... rent support for this family as well and
9:35 I mean you don't have to get too creative to think about what their Journey would be like that particular
9:41 family without teddy bear or without starfish or without any of these other non-profits to your point it's not like
9:48 she came here with a built-in Community she was on her own
9:53 and so yeah this is like where
9:59 when I think about even the emotional support that we're able to provide her and the other families like we we bring
10:06 in an organization called ... FSA and that's family service agency
10:12 and they provide trauma-informed care to the families that are faced with this
10:18 chronic distress that is the Journey of pediatric cancer ... and we Outsource to our tutors that
10:27 are providing tutoring to the child who's not only in treatment but the the siblings who become a part of the sort
10:33 of the peripheral if you will because the the mother or the family is so hyper focused on the child in in treatment so
10:41 yeah I mean it's that sort of age-old takes a village but quite literally it's
10:47 taking a village I mean even the amount of financial aid that we're able to provide families that are initially
10:54 qualified between 5000 and 7 500 all the way up to seventeen thousand dollars while that is a transformational amount
11:02 for a family it is not enough I mean the the data
11:07 ... yeah I I was doing some research in preparation for this and I saw everywhere from half a million to eight
11:12 hundred thousand dollars for the cost of the Pediatric cancer Journey so I mean that that
11:19 it's not enough and even as grateful as our families are I will speak on behalf
11:25 of them and say that two things can co-exist at once we're grateful for your ... investment right now in our pediatric
11:31 cancer survivor Journey but it is not enough ... and so
11:37 yeah I mean it's it's ... we have a whole dream big philosophy here and don't
11:43 think we haven't had conversations around how do we how do we close that Gap how do we
11:50 potentially have an endowment that could provide 500 to 800 000 per family in
11:55 their Journey so that we can move them from surviving to thriving well that's such an interesting like
12:03 like such an interesting like big big big goal of like yeah our goal is not
12:08 for you to just survive this but could teddy bear and your partner agencies play a role in actually fundamentally
12:17 changing the makeup of a family and that and they actually end up you know better
12:23 at the end because they have discovered community
12:30 amen I love it so we have a question in the chat thank you please go ahead and
12:36 put questions in the chat or raise your hand if you want to come on camera so the question is when you are living in
12:42 poverty traumatized and not a native speaker it must be so difficult to advocate for yourself and your family so
12:49 I'm curious what kinds of examples you see ... within teddy bear and and how y'all
12:55 adjust your services to accommodate all the different needs that that you address
13:00 yeah and the evidence strongly supports the link between chronic stress-related
13:06 damage as a consequence of residing in low-income neighborhoods and what our families and this load of socioeconomic
13:13 status are dealing with daily so the residents that are in low-income neighborhoods in particular exposed to
13:18 Relentless hazards and they include a variety of risks
13:24 ... you know and so that's high population density ... noise crime pollution discrimination
13:33 poor access to resources ... you know and so these these hazards are
13:40 something that our families are already enduring on a daily basis so
13:46 yeah now you throw in there that someone is not English proficient
13:53 ... the navigation of the hospitals themselves I've had to do this and it
13:59 can be daunting ... we've had we've heard experiences where and this this goes out to all my
14:07 language Justice ... allies out there where
14:12 a hospital and a doctor is ... diagnosing
14:18 a child's being having pediatric cancer and and
14:24 the child is the only one that speaks English in the room so they're having to translate their diagnosis to their families
14:33 yeah I know and so
14:38 yeah it's it's the the trauma is relentless
14:43 it's Relentless and ... unimaginable and yeah
14:49 I'm I'm curious to you know there's this whole
14:54 incorrect belief ... in non-profit land where it's like
14:59 well for a dollar how many X can use fix right for one I want the
15:06 biggest bang for my dollar right so can one dollar I don't know save one puppy
15:12 ... taking not taking into account that the hardest to achieve missions cost
15:20 more right so as you add on these like complicating factors
15:26 they cost more and it is like the most important work to like do the hardest to
15:32 reach missions so I'm curious from an executive director perspective how do you communicate that to your donors or
15:40 to your board ... because it quote unquote looks bad on paper because we're you know the cost to
15:46 support one family might be higher but it's really the most critical work yeah I see what you're doing here you
15:52 get me all riled up this is I I share this passionately with you
15:59 ... you know I we we had the the opportunity to work with this great consulting firm
16:06 called Visionality on a number of ... projects including a feasibility study
16:11 in which ... our partner agencies and our our
16:16 families and donors have all identified our staff as being necessary to our mission and when you sit down and you
16:24 are really like investing yourself into inquiry with our families they're very
16:30 clear that the connection that they make with our staff accentuates the healing process you have an ally in this someone
16:36 that you trust it's exhausting and fatiguing to have to tell this story of
16:41 your child having cancer over and over again to a new staff member or supporter
16:47 ... on your journey I mentioned that as an introduction to your prompt because
16:55 ... it makes it that much more important for staff retention and that is extraordinarily clear make
17:03 no bones about it this is heart work it's also hard work and people need to do more than just survive the staff that
17:09 I have here and the reason that we're pursuing becoming a trauma-informed resilient and healing institution is
17:14 because our staff are exposed to Chronic and not just the subject matter but the distressing content within it on a daily
17:21 basis yeah and so imagine you're leaving your job and now you're going home
17:27 paycheck to paycheck and trying to exist survive on the Central Coast because
17:32 you're not making livable livable wages and so well that costs money and I
17:40 promise you and I know I've heard you beat this drum too and the data doesn't lie attrition is so costly so if you're if
17:49 you're investing in an organization you should probably you know pull back that curtain a little bit and see what their
17:55 retention rates are because what for me if you really want to stretch a dollar it's not that here's your dollar did you
18:01 turn it into a dollar and fifty this year it is a long-term investment so look at this from like a longitudinal
18:07 investment where you're just like okay here's my dollar is this really getting stretched over time and one way to look
18:13 at that a lens of looking at that is through a lens of retention it costs tens of thousands of dollars of
18:21 administrative overhead costs okay to have to rehire someone to train
18:28 them up and then just the kind of disruption that that creates of attrition of having to constantly be a
18:38 professional plate spinner amongst staff if you're trying to pull other absent now employees weights
18:46 I mean it just it has an absolute
18:51 ... cost at the I mean it impacts your bottom line it's not this is not a debate
18:58 what I'm hearing is in a measurable way it impacts your outcomes so
19:05 so it's just like such a lovely clear line to say that once again poverty
19:13 plays a role ... on how well teddy bear can achieve its Mission even from the staff
19:18 perspective because if the staff is existing in some level of poverty or
19:24 insecurity they will be forced to look at different opportunities or they may still show up
19:32 but what quality of work especially when it's really heart forward work can you
19:38 provide when your cup isn't full yourself when you're worried about
19:44 how you're going to fill your tank up with gas to get to work tomorrow like we
19:49 just that's just not a place where you can do the kind of work that you guys do every day
19:56 yeah we ... we've been very intentional in addressing attrition
20:03 which wasn't a problem here at one point losing a staff member every three months for six and a half years which did cost
20:09 a lot of money and now in my third year I feel very comfortable that with the
20:15 retention that we've managed to reclaim here at teddy bear and I I'm I'm
20:20 mentioning this not as an ego stroke or a humble brag I'm mentioning this because I can tell you very clearly that
20:26 there's a not a dot dot dot connection a very direct line between the financial
20:31 success that we've had in our fundraising which goes directly to our families we're able to offer something
20:38 that we're able to we are offering more financial aid than ever before we're
20:44 offering new Innovative programs that are family-centric ... and we're we're raising that much
20:51 more money because now we're in this where we've gotten and there's continuity here we're in a rhythm you
20:58 know and our donors are seeing familiar faces there's a trust there there's that moves management
21:04 theory of building trust with donors building relationships not looking at them as transactional but looking at
21:11 them through a transformational relationship well that takes time to build ... and a familiar face and the ability
21:18 to tell the story of our mission that takes time you don't just do that right out of the gate you got to spend time
21:24 with our families you got to draw that inspiration from them otherwise people will see right through that
21:31 ... so yeah no it's it's not a this is a this is not a debate anymore it is settled science that is critically
21:38 important to make sure that when we're looking at the pie chart of expenditures
21:43 ... at non-profits that we're not just looking at individual slice and saying like oh they're overhead
21:50 ... is x amount there's a story to that and and as a donor and I am myself I
21:56 want to know what that story is I don't want to just make assumptions that you know the staff
22:01 don't shouldn't be making livable wages ... I want to make an assumption that
22:07 is from dialogues with a non-profit and I want to hear them say we are invested in our staff in the long term we we
22:14 prioritize retention in in a healthy working culture and environment because I know that that is the ultimate
22:20 investment I want to make absolutely absolutely well and and
22:25 what like what do you mean you don't want to pay for overhead like you don't go to the grocery store and say like I
22:31 don't want to pay for the lights like I'm I'm buying this apple but like take out the lights like you can't buy the
22:36 Apple without the light so anyway you and I consult box on this forever
22:42 ... but I've I've got another question if you'll allow me from the chat ... teddy
22:47 bear and similar non-profits sit in the integral seat of addressing the stigma of poverty and saying this support is
22:54 not enough when families aren't empowered to say it themselves can you speak to that stigma and the advocacy
23:00 challenge that teddy bear faces sure yeah and this is something that
23:05 ... I apologize ahead of time I promise that my immediate making it about me is
23:10 just an introduction to my point which is this is something that ... I have a personal relationship with
23:15 is growing up widowed mother in and out of cars ... just south of Detroit you
23:22 know it was it had an absolute impact on my our quality of life and
23:29 you know I there's a also a direct correlation between having that kind of disequilibrium and Chaos in the home and
23:36 the fact that I graduated 361st out of 367 students with a 1.4 GPA
23:41 so becoming a first gen was not on my radar ... so I I can speak to this directly
23:47 and I also know in terms of having to exist
23:54 ... within communities that aren't experiencing poverty that there is a projection onto US there's all sorts of
24:01 micro and macro aggressions that we were ... experiencing and enduring they're my
24:07 mother cleaned Homes at times for added income and
24:12 yeah I mean I just remember seeing because my mom didn't have money for child care she would take me with her so
24:18 I saw the dynamic firsthand in being treated as less than as if we are as if
24:25 we're not equals because of our socioeconomic status I've seen my mom and my mom is not see God bless her I
24:32 mean I've hey ... you know we're we're missing you know some earrings I'm just curious have you know like I've
24:38 experienced that I have experienced being placed in special ed because I couldn't focus in class because I didn't
24:45 eat the night before and I've experienced what that's like to have to walk through a food line and give them essentially what's a food stamp to get
24:51 my food and to be made fun of and bullied so I know this firsthand the
24:57 difference between the threshold of my experience and the families that we're serving is we didn't have pediatric
25:03 cancer in our home and we're you know there's a lot of other variables to this my mother was
25:10 fluent in English and and and and and and we did have some extended families
25:15 and friends that we could lean on if need be so for our families
25:21 that we serve it's like all of those nuances it's their own unique Story by
25:27 the way I don't want to Rebrand their story as mine there's a lot of different nuances that our families are enduring
25:33 and experiencing that can be suffocating and then when you add in there the Pediatric cancer diagnosis because again
25:41 it's not as if there's a turn to page 35 in your how to do life so you can see how to navigate pediatric cancer no one
25:49 ever woke up in the morning thinking oh today is the day that my child is going to be diagnosed with cancer thank God we
25:54 prepped for this I mean it just takes a family out it takes them off their legs
26:00 it knocks them out and at the same time they don't have the luxury of then sleeping in the next day
26:07 they have to wake up that much earlier if they even get sleep to have to figure out now what the next
26:12 steps are so and and I I think it's the shock I think it's
26:18 just a sheer shock of it because on the other end of that shock is I could possibly lose my child
26:25 and if I don't and if I don't find a way to put gas in my car
26:31 I'm more likely to lose my child and that's my fault because I did an XYZ one two three and my goodness Corey
26:39 yikes yeah yeah there's there is too I mean I I don't want to pull back to the
26:45 curtain too far in some of the intimate conversations I've had with our families but I will tell you what you're alluding to now with respect to there is even a
26:53 level of guilt the sheer emotions there is a grieving process that happens ... that our families are experiencing
27:00 and just that it's that it's messy this is Humanity's stuff
27:07 ... this is also too why it's so important for us to provide those
27:12 emotional support and those ... trauma-informed therapeutic interventions into our families too
27:18 because it disrupts Partnerships and unions relationships between caretakers
27:24 and children ... and so on so forth It's just chronic dis distress
27:30 yeah well and teddy bear doesn't it teddy bear is about the
27:37 family right because pediatric cancer of course affects the individual who is
27:42 diagnosed but every member of the family is affected by that diagnosis and in a you know one of my favorite stories that
27:50 I hear about teddy bear is how sometimes you know the siblings would come to the
27:57 office to do homework and the staff would sit with this is not their job right the fundraising professional is
28:04 going to sit with a kiddo and help them do their math homework like that is not
28:09 in the job description and that is completely core to the mission of teddy bear to do these wraparound Family
28:16 Services yeah the ... I'd be doing a disservice if I didn't
28:21 give a a shout out to our founder and Community icon Nikki Katz because she this is why it's so important for us as
28:28 we grow to make sure that we do not forget our roots that we stay absolutely
28:33 connected to them acknowledge them they need to be involved and intertwined and our entire existence and everything that
28:40 we do because she did have this motto of whatever it takes because whatever it takes is needed for the child to survive
28:46 ... different for every family because every family has different resources available to them like y'all don't have
28:53 the luxury of a this is how we solve this problem because every challenge is different yeah well and I I see us
29:00 inching toward our time boundary here not to take us down a whole rabbit hole but once again encircling back to your
29:06 point earlier which is there's no cookie cutter approach this is this is not
29:11 something where it's like yeah this this family got diagnosed you know we'll we'll take it from here we
29:17 don't even need to hear from you this oftentimes what happens is when a family is referred to us to our programs team
29:24 that relationship is so critical because now that trust is being built that
29:30 vulnerability and actually really coming ... and being transparent and candid with
29:35 our programs team that's where you really start to see the nuances of what this family requires right now that is
29:41 not something that they just come out and say right up front oftentimes they don't even necessarily know what it is
29:47 that they need they just know that there's like the financial need they know that they're they don't want their
29:53 kids to fall behind academically ... they know that they're experiencing something extraordinarily emotionally
29:59 distressing and the other piece too before we close I I want to mention because oftentimes it gets overlooked
30:04 and it's unfortunate which is this is extraordinarily dispiriting too ... there's an existential crisis within
30:11 the family and so you know when we when if for anybody that looks at at teddy
30:17 bear and you see things like our holiday campaign so we're around the
30:22 holidays when we deliver gifts when I talk about dispiriting I I suppose the other side of that is there's this does
30:30 lift their spirits and when I say that I can even look at this through a scientific lens what I mean by Spirits
30:37 is they feel connected to a norm something bigger than themselves in that moment that gets them out of that
30:42 survival mode so that normalcy is something that they have an absolute appetite for but they
30:48 don't necessarily know how to address it so for us to come there and to deliver gifts not only to the kids but even to
30:54 the families as well has such a deep spiritual impact on that family that is
31:00 also critical to their Journey yeah I love that I love it ... I actually want
31:07 to invite one of my colleagues on she she put a A really lovely statement in
31:13 the chat so I'm gonna introduce ... my colleague Lynette we she's a
31:19 co-consultant of ours we've worked on lots of clients together so so Lynette why don't you recap what you put in the
31:25 chat because it was just so lovely oh thanks and Corey and I have had the opportunity to mute a few times and I
31:33 have to say I was starting to tear up a little because you some of the things you were saying brought me right back to
31:38 my childhood but I didn't grow up with pediatric cancer in a family I grew up with my dad having Ken disease due to a
31:45 workplace accident and overnight ... I don't remember a healthy dad that
31:51 so somewhere in my psyche things change and I don't remember a healthy dad but I do remember is spending many many many
31:56 many many days in the hospital while my dad went through two three kidney transplants
32:02 ... lost his life came back to life like all this stuff that went on and then my dad not being able to work
32:09 ... a lawsuit being filmed by lawyers to see if my dad really was healthy but he couldn't hold a job because he had to go
32:15 to dialysis every other day three days a week for the rest of his life who's going to hire a person like that so then
32:21 my mom with her 10 an hour bookkeeping job trying to help us survive and so we
32:27 had ... that you know I never want to ever smell dried milk again right we grew up
32:33 on the dried milk and we grew up with my dad figuring out how to pull a meal together with what we had
32:39 ... and with all of that said we still had lots of privilege right we had my parents owned a home
32:45 ... we were a white lower to middle class family and so we I had you know youth organizations
32:53 that helped us in 4-H was a big part of my life and normalcy was very important
32:59 ... but but it just resonates so much with what you with what you said personally how I grew up that way and
33:06 and what we had to do and I think you're right about the social consequences right like just I remember the Christmas
33:13 that that all of our friends were getting on all these gifts and my parents got us each one gift my brother and I each got one gift under the tree
33:20 that's what they could afford and we were those kids going oh darn it we don't understand we don't understand why
33:26 why our friends were getting the clothes and the sandals and the records and all of that and we were getting one gift and
33:32 it took my parents all year to save for that gift ... so that's the personal side and then
33:38 on the professional side it really resonated with me at coverley Pro we're a marketing and PR for her we work a lot
33:45 with Visionality and with others and I think about our Housing Trust Fund
33:51 client here in Ventura County I think about public transit or public transit we have a few public transit clients and
33:57 one of the things we talk about with housing affordability is really making sure we tell people's stories and making
34:04 sure that it's so much more than the making sure the audience the donors and
34:10 the community understands that it's so much more than putting a roof over someone's head it's the social services
34:17 I think about a development that is going up in in Ojai that you both may be
34:23 aware of Mesa Farm fascinating project where it's helping transitional age youth who find
34:29 themselves waking up one day as you're an adult and you've grown up in the foster care system and go on you know
34:36 now and I'm not saying that the the nonprofits that help transitional ages turn their backs on because they don't but how do they transition and so Mesa
34:44 Farm is helping with that right so and and with that kind teaching them
34:50 ... job skills right teaching Health right and making sure health is in order
34:55 sustainable growing in this case but I just think I I said in the chat that the
35:00 collective Prosperity is what enables a community to thrive so when we help and
35:06 then when you compound all of that with pediatric cancer I just can't even imagine
35:12 not having the resources or not as you said earlier how coming into a community
35:18 that you don't even speak the language and figuring out how to get to those resources what do I do we work with mini
35:24 mansions and we interviewed quite a few ... residents and one resident Rosa she
35:30 said that ... I now have a stable place where
35:36 my children can play safely in the playground there's a study group and I
35:43 can ... for my children to study and be helped with computers that I would not be able to afford and oh by the way
35:49 because of all of that I got a raise at my job that I walk to every day and now I am collectively prospering and helping
35:56 our community full circle completely full circle thank you so much yeah yeah thank you
36:04 for sharing that I didn't know that about your story thank you for sharing that Lynette appreciate that I'll have to send you the poem my dad wrote one
36:10 night when it was a rough night but yeah it's people and that's the thing you were talking about are stories like
36:17 I remember speaking in front of ... a a high school ... students who were on the
36:24 cusp of being in high school if you follow me and it was part of the chambers you know principal for a day
36:29 thing and when I spoke to them they really judged me because I showed up in a Camry and I was a white woman and a
36:35 and I I sat down I said let's collect ourselves let's all and they targeted me
36:42 where do you live how much do you make what and I had to be vulnerable and say
36:47 look let me tell you what I earned and let me also tell you the privilege I have in getting there but I think you have to be very authentic in who you are
36:54 and share your stories so that people know where you come from and why you do what you do yeah
37:01 yeah thank you my friend final thoughts
37:09 final thoughts ... I really appreciate this time this was really kind of you and
37:15 ... you know back to that hole takes a village originality has been instrumental in our success and
37:23 when I say our success I mean our our enabling us to give our families that
37:29 much more that they need in order to survive uh
37:34 this pediatric cancer during put them in a stronger position to thrive so when I say thank you I don't just mean for this
37:40 opportunity to raise awareness but also for everything else that you all have been doing behind the scenes with us it is a blessing really do appreciate you
37:46 well thank you I appreciate that and and I appreciate you you know we didn't really talk a lot about
37:54 ... the doctoral work that you do but I just wanna say I appreciate you for it's such an
38:01 interesting perspective to bring data and science into non-profit land that isn't really Our Roots but I think it's
38:08 our future and I think you're part of that future ah thanks yeah no it's it's it's important to make sure that we're
38:16 paying very close attention to the patterns and you know the best practices
38:21 and the core competencies and a lot of that stuff we can tease out from what the data is telling us data so like
38:27 there are answers it is measurable it's measurable start measuring it and be
38:33 more efficient amen all right my friend thank you thank you so much I appreciate you thank you so much take good care you too bye bye