The Man Who Chose To Help 14,000 Michigan Kids | Joe Savalle

Speaker A: Statistically, once they get to adulthood, if they did not reach. If they did not get placed in a family with permanency, they're one to two years. They're ending up in. In jail. X number of years.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: What's. What's the stats there that you know of?

Speaker C: You know, you never know the exact how.

Speaker A: Just. Just direction.

Speaker C: Michigan states that 81% of children who don't get adopted and spend their time in foster care the moment they turn 18 years old. 81% of children in foster care. Instantaneous homeless, meaning they will not have an apartment, they will not have a home, they will live in the streets, which then ultimately chooses drug usage, prostitution, gang violence. And because of that, Michigan has a pretty, uh, horrific stat that says that if a child becomes instantaneously homeless at 18, they might not live to see the age 30.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: So 18 years in foster care, 12 years of life after that, if they're lucky. Want me to start with that?

Speaker A: You got the mic, right?

Speaker C: I'm, uh, in it, brother. Any closer, I'm kissing it.

Speaker A: Okay. Well, do you know something I don't know?

Speaker C: I do.

Speaker A: What do you know?

Speaker C: One of us went to audio school. One of us didn't.

Speaker A: I did not.

Speaker C: They call it polarity. You know what polarity means?

Speaker A: I don't.

Speaker C: When atmospheric pressure hits a microphone, like the way my McConaughey voice is hitting this right now.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: That. If you had a universal polarity, you could speak to it from all angles. But he's probably hearing my voice cutting out right now.

Speaker A: Uh, I think he is, so. Yeah, I think everybody is.

Speaker C: You might want to look into a universal polarity.

Speaker A: We'll look into that. Yeah, you can, um.

Speaker C: I'll buy it, you'll send you an invoice.

Speaker A: That'd be fine. Just find us the next sponsor to, uh, cover it. That's fine.

Speaker C: Powered by Juniper.

Speaker A: Powered by Juniper and Auxium. All right, so, um, this is an interesting one. I don't know, have we had anybody quite like you do a podcast together?

Speaker C: I don't know what quite like you means, but I'm gonna take.

Speaker A: I don't know, the first guy to identify as having a McConaughey voice.

Speaker C: Charming Italian.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Looks younger than he is.

Speaker A: True, true. That's nice, actually. First guy to ever get the memo to wear the. To wear the right shade of blue.

Speaker C: I knew. I knew what I was doing, man.

Speaker A: Yeah. Cosmic. It's perfect. So, um, if somebody doesn't know who you are. Got Joe Savale here. Joe is the CEO, head cheese Whatever you want to call him over at Love, uh, for a Child, which is an amazing charity that, um. Man, I just love it. I love hearing about it. I love talking about it, sharing it. You want me to tell everybody? Want me to just brag? You just sit back or you want to do and talk about it?

Speaker C: I mean, you want me to just jump right into it?

Speaker A: I do. I do.

Speaker C: Well, first of all, founder and executive director. CEO. Probably sounds like I'm smarter than I actually am, so.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Like, what? The guy, the guy, the guy.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Yeah, man. Um, Love for a Child. It is a, uh. What started off as a passion project, um, in 2012, had the idea to help some children that, um, are severely overlooked in the foster care system, and joined up with my local pastor at the time to help just a couple young boys who were in severe need. Word of mouth hit. And in 2009. I'm sorry, 2012, we took 30 kids to a campground in the summer to have the best week of their lives. Didn't really know what we were doing. Put a small agenda together for five days, and here we are 19 years later. Um, we. We're. We're helping thousands of foster care children across the state of Michigan with the exact same notepad idea that we had in 2009.

Speaker A: So awesome.

Speaker C: Um, and I say passion project because it was nothing I was paid to do. It was something I did one week out of my summer. And then I would go back to my cubicle and work a marketing job, like a lot. A lot of professionals do. And I was miserable. Very miserable on the highest level.

Speaker A: Um, let's actually. Let's hit with what the real problem is, because, um, I think people hear the word foster care, and I think most people think, oh, it's such a sweet thing to be involved in foster care. A child who's displaced from their family's home or for whatever reason, doesn't have parents, um, to be able to raise, uh, them or care for them for a certain period of time. Um, I think everybody just always assumes it's just such a. It's a wonderful thing, foster care. It's a wonderful thing.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: Wonderful thing. I mean, obviously, it's a necessary evil, essentially, or necessary. A necessary, wonderful thing. Um, unfortunately. But, um, I think you and I both know that it's. It's not as rosy as what people like to like to think.

Speaker C: No, it's not. We've seen on news channels the idea of foster care in our state or in our nation. It's a pretty overlooked industry. It's not glamorous, it's not talked about because, um, even, even in the good stories, it's. It comes from bad places. M. So people tend to just shove it in a corner, which is the very reason that I got into it. But let's talk some stats. You know, Michigan historically has been a top five worst state in the country for how we develop the professionals in the industry who ultimately serve the families that sign up to be in foster care. So in layman's terms, it's like polishing a turd. It's like we, we've offered you this semi thing at, uh, semi best thing in itself. And there's no money behind it, there's no resources behind it. Hey, but would you like to be a part of it? Um, it's a hard sales pitch. And that's why I commend families who choose to be in foster care because you are truly signing up for some low hanging fruit.

Speaker A: How many kids, uh, out there right now in the state?

Speaker C: Yeah. At any given time, there's about. On the low end, 12,000. On the high end, 14 to 15,000. But that number is always changing because kids are leaving the system as quickly as kids are entering the system. Um, so today's number can be different than what the numbers would be 48 hours from now.

Speaker A: Gotcha. Um, um, you're familiar with the mayor website and things of that nature.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker A: Right. Um, I think people can see. Anybody can register and go on that site. Right. And see kids in the state of Michigan that are.

Speaker C: They have a magazine in foster care.

Speaker A: Yeah. And, um, what I think people don't understand is that, um, younger kids, especially younger kids without behavioral issues, they don't really have a problem kind of getting paired up with forever homes and things like that. But there's a whole constituency of kids that obviously you don't end up in foster care because everything was great. You end up there because there was trauma of some sort. You now are carrying that trauma, which then as a child you're acting out in some ways because you're trying to process that whole thing and maybe weren't even taught, you know, weren't taught correctly. Um, and so my understanding is that, um, and you told me this, uh, I don't remember what the stat is, you probably have it on the tip of your tongue is that there's a certain age that kind of like if a kid doesn't get into some permanent place of goodness, uh, by a certain age, they've got a real statistical challenge of having things Work out.

Speaker C: Well, naturally, a child becomes a teenager. You're taking on a different level of commitment, welcoming a teenager into your home. But, um, for people listening, the reason that love for a child is so strategically different than an average nonprofit is that not just because we help children of foster care, where there's 14,000 kids who identify as being in the foster care system. We specifically, to your point, look for children who have qualifiers that would make them statistically likely to not see an adoption before the age of 18. Oh, Joe, what does that mean? It's not that they're not up for adoption. It just means that they've had so much trauma in their life, so much of a backdrop profile, that the average family looking at their said profile goes, hey, who else do you have? This one is too much for us to handle. Well, what is too much to handle? Um, love for a child looks for kids that lived in, uh, 10 homes before the age of 10 years old. We look for reports and documentation that would indicate that child has been physically or sexually abused by, um, multiple accounts of adults before the age of 10. And so just those two categories alone would statistically make a child about 95% likely to never see adoption. Because what they have been through when they didn't deserve it. And so imagine being 8, 9, 10 years old and realizing, hey, nobody's ever going to want to adopt me because of what happened to me over the last few years. They get written off when they didn't even have a chance to have a story.

Speaker A: That's terrible. And then statistically, once they get to adulthood, if they did not reach. If they did not get placed in a family with permanency. Yeah. They're one to two years. They're ending up in. In jail. X number of years. What's. What's the stats there that you know of?

Speaker C: I heard, you know, you never know the exact how.

Speaker A: Just direct.

Speaker C: Michigan states that 81% of children who don't get adopted and spend their time in foster care, the moment they turn 18 years old, 81% of children in foster care will instantaneously be homeless, meaning they will not have an apartment, they will not have a home, they will live in the streets, which then ultimately chooses, um, drug usage, prostitution, um, gang violence. And because of that, Michigan has a pretty horrific stat that says that if a child become instantaneously homeless at 18, they might not live to see the age 30.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: So 18 years in foster care, 12 years of life after that, if they're lucky.

Speaker A: M. That's terrible. So what you Guys, work to do. Um, and what your mission, your mission in life here is to shrink those numbers. Better those, well, better those numbers, I should say. Um, and you're starting when they're how old? So kids, you've created a camp. You've created a whole program essentially that is, um, high level. It's one week camp, spoil the heck out of the kids. Huge amount of volunteers, uh, that are all trauma informed, uh, uh, trained to be there appropriately. Kids never left alone within a single adult. Um, every protocol put in place to make sure that they're safe, uh, in your care. Um, and then there's long term mentorship.

Speaker C: Yep.

Speaker A: And, and what's, and what's the, uh. And then some. Just how does that work?

Speaker C: So our program works like this. We, we have a trust based relationship model which in the form of a camp, allows a child to meet us in a safe setting where they come to an entire campground for an entire week treated like kings and queens. The royalty treatment. But that entire week is an up and down of their emotions. Strategic to build trust between child and adult. So one minute we're laughing with them, one minute we're conversational with them. Sometimes there's tears that are involved. All of it is very vulnerable opportunity. And then at the end of their camp experience, they are offered a mentorship program where they're either seen bi weekly or monthly, uh, minimally for the next year. But the average child is in our program two to four years. And the goal of that simple part of our model is to identify a child between the ages of 6 and 13 years old when they're at their most adolescent state of learning and understanding and reception, to create these childhood memories of safeness and good memories. And what we try to do at Love for a Child is stay in the child's life long enough that ultimately they would want to come back to our program as a young teenager to serve the very child that they once were. And we're starting to see a lot of that turnaround. Right. Since we've been doing this program for so long. And uh, it's pretty special when I'm meeting children for the first time, 20, 26, but I'm standing with kids that have been in their shoes 10 and five years ago who have grown up inside of our program. It's uh, to be honest, you know, when I wrote the mission in 2009, I couldn't have wrote that part of it. That just happened naturally. So it's one of our favorite parts.

Speaker A: The, the unplanned goodness of it all.

Speaker C: Yeah. And many of our volunteers are so moved by the program that maybe they choose to go become a foster parent or get involved at some type of licensing agency level.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And we have now, I was just at my friend's house recently, um, and he met a child in our program, became his foster dad, and now has been adopted by him. And um, I know as much about this young boy as my own children because I remember the day that his application hit my desk with nine years old, Rochester Hills, Michigan. 46 homes.

Speaker A: Jeez.

Speaker C: Not nine years. In three years, you can't do that math. 46 homes, three years. This boy had no chance. And, um, now he lives in a beautiful home in Grosse Pointe Shores.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, and he'll be a part of our program for years to come. He's a little bit young still, but in a couple years he'll become a camp counselor with us. And what a turnaround story that is.

Speaker A: I have a feeling that, uh, just like the up and down of emotions that goes through the camp, that that's how this conversation is going to keep going.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, there's going to be some, um, some highs and some lows here. Um, that was a high. Um, so let's follow it up with another high. Um, so I'm a kid.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: I get accepted into your program. First of all, how do they even, how does a kid end up there? Who, who looks at these files, who searches them, finds them, nominates them, all that sort of stuff.

Speaker C: Love Her Child has, um, strategic partnerships with child welfare agencies.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: We work directly with them. They put out an application process to the children of foster care and their families. They apply. Our team at Love for a Child reviews every application that comes in. And it's not a first come, first serve model. Reason for that is if we're really created to change children's lives, then we're strategically picking the ones that need to be there versus the first one through the door.

Speaker A: Got it, Got it.

Speaker C: But, uh, we, I mean, we'll get several hundred every summer.

Speaker A: Several hundred applications.

Speaker C: Correct.

Speaker A: To fit how many kids?

Speaker C: Uh, at the moment we can select 120 children, but we would expect that about double that amount will come in in application form. Okay. Yeah.

Speaker A: So, so they get selected. The agency or the person, whoever nominated them, you contact them somehow, there's some legalities or formalities that get the, get the kid to be able to get to you. How does, how does that, how does that work? Is there a sign off process or something?

Speaker C: Yeah. Once we select the child, the foster family has to agree. The agency has to be in the know and agree. And then in theory might not feel this way, but we, the child is in our, um, well being. They're in our. We're taking care of that child for one week. Okay. Essentially we're the child caretaker for the week.

Speaker A: Is this similar to. So like, um, I'm familiar with some of the terminology there. So like a respite care type of thing for the. So the family in foster care, there's kind of a process where, hey, I'm doing a lot of work here, I need a couple of days off. Might mean a vacation, might mean whatever, some sort of rest. But yeah, that gives the foster family.

Speaker C: It's a form of respite for the family. But, um, for anyone that would be listening to this, uh, the fact that we have so many volunteers who are receiving trauma informed training is the reason this exists. Because you might be a good person, you might have a church, you might have some type of institution with good practices, but you have to have very specific credentials and training to be able to work with a child of abuse and what Michigan calls a ward of this state. These, um, children's identities are not just released to the public. And so we have a very strong vetting process and training process to even be able to be a part of the program.

Speaker A: Got it. Okay, so now the fun part. So get accepted. Are they, you guys picking them up on a bus? Are they driving themselves to camp?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Where's the camp? How's this all work?

Speaker C: Um, they are dropped off to our offices and then we bus them to the campground. So we want the bus to be part of the experience.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Uh, we want those kids to be on a bus, enjoying the ride, pulling into those camp gates for the first time, seeing a lake in the distance and it truly feeling like they had an experience where they arrived somewhere together.

Speaker A: Just like a charter bus or like a school bus.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's a Greyhound bus.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: But you know, you know, for some kids, it's not always as glamorous. They have so much life of transition. They get on a bus even with a bunch of other kids and they're wearing our camp shirts. It's tie dye colored.

Speaker A: They think they know where they're going.

Speaker C: Essentially they know where they're going. But there might be one child on the bus that's going, oh, they're dropping me off at my new home for the week because that's all they know. A group of people are going to be watching me for the week, this is just another home. M. It's not vacation, it's not a camp. And it's not until they get there that they realize that this is a gift being given to them. M. So sometimes you see kind of fear and hesitation on the bus.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker C: Um, because that child is so aware that this is just something they're used to. Where am I going?

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And for viewers sake, we can allude to roughly where the camps are, but we legally can't express what camps they go to.

Speaker A: Okay, got it. Got, uh, it, um, suffice it to say that nice place, lakes, campgrounds to play.

Speaker C: Yeah. And we don't go cheap on the campgrounds. One of our commitments is that we spend top dollar to go to some of the nicest camps in the state of Michigan. Because, um, we don't want them to feel like we gave them a hand me down. They're used to used clothes and used toys and lack of. We want this to be abundance, royalty. And you can't have those two things. And, and take them to, uh, the, you know, the red roofing of hotels.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: You want to take them to the myriad of summer camps.

Speaker A: Got it. So, um, this is a big time experiential event.

Speaker C: Very much.

Speaker A: M. You know, um, the bus drives in. I've heard about banging on the bus and stuff like that. What's. Signs and.

Speaker C: Yeah, so I mean, celebration. The, the royal welcome is what you're referring to. It's. The bus pulls up, the lake's in the distance, the sun is at noon high, it's 90 degrees, it's summer. You got color smoke bombs going up off in the air. And you have a hundred adults sprinting to the bus. Um, they're excited, they're cheering. 50 of our counselors are holding signs with each individual name of the kids on the bus so that they truly are looking for their name. And one by one, each kid comes off the bus, we announce their name on a megaphone and hey, counselors, are you excited? We got little Joey coming off the bus. Give it up for Joey. And that little tiny kid comes off the bus and you got a hundred people cheering. Um, we're trying to win them over from the first second that their feet hit that gravel.

Speaker A: Wow, that's awesome.

Speaker C: It's exciting. I wish, I wish somebody would do that for me.

Speaker A: Well, so you did use the, the terminology little, Little Joey.

Speaker C: I did. It was a plug.

Speaker A: And, um, and it was a nice lead in. Made it easy for me. Um, you wrote a book, Little Joey. Goes to camp.

Speaker C: I did.

Speaker A: Grown Up Joe was a CEO or founder. Well, you told me a bunch of different names for your. For your time. Founder, Executive, Cheese executive. The guy. Okay, so little Joy goes to camp. Talk about that and how you've personified that to the. To the kids and how you meet them where they are.

Speaker C: My friend Nicole And I in 2009 said, hey, well, the kids are at camp. We need to teach the kids in, like, a fun setting. And we didn't know how to really, um, connect with them yet. So Nicole had an idea for a lesson plan that she was going to teach. I said, I don't know, this sounds boring. I said, why don't we do this? Why don't I just find some bizarre clothes at this campground? I'll put on a hat, a fanny pack, a whoopee cushion, whatever I needed. I'll run in in the middle of your teaching, and I'll interrupt the entire thing. I'm gonna pretend to be one of the children, though, and then you're going to teach that child on the stage to the children. Terrible idea. Until it worked. And the kids loved the character because he was rambunctious. And so I play this character, Matt. I was. I'll, uh, age myself. I was 20 years younger.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: So I'm a little bit fatter and older now. So that character was much easier to personify and play in 2009. And, um, here we are almost two decades later. I still play that same character for the children. I run in, I interrupt, I bring silly gifts, I prank people. And so the reason for the book was that the kids could relate to this character that we call Little Joey. And they loved him. He was their champion. And so I can't talk to every child for the year after camp. And so I wanted them to have a physical, authentic memory of what that camp experience was. And so we brought an illustrator to the camp. We identified real people and characterized them into animations, and we created a book that would bring them directly back to that place where those memories exist.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And can anybody else just buy this book, too? To, um. Yeah, to understand it.

Speaker C: Uh, you can buy it at Barnes and Noble on their digital platform, and you can also buy it on Amazon.

Speaker A: Oh, okay. Okay.

Speaker B: I've been hearing a lot lately about the knock. When an employee knocks on your office door and says, got a minute? And you immediately know it's some sort of IT incident. But oxium, it can help whether you're having a problem, need consulting, an upgrade, or A managed IT approach. They focus on preventing cyber attacks and proactive solutions that deliver results. My friend Matt Lauria and everyone at AUXIOM are ready to help. Before or after you get the knock, visit auxiom.com and let Auxiom IT help you outsmart chaos.

Speaker A: Let's talk about how you and I met. We met at a, um, business, uh, we've been at Vistage. Everybody knows that I'm involved in Vistage. And um, uh, you were there. And definitely one of the few people that I've ever met from a nonprofit, uh, there. Um, and I think that, you know, something that stands out to me with, with you is it's very rare to meet somebody. I mean you can meet somebody from the national, um, I don't even know if this is what is National Cancer association or whatever, the heart association, whatever. Um, and of course there's executives and a full structure, uh, there. But it was really important to you to build something that became bigger than yourself, um, that you were really trying to do this the right way. And you know, that was just one of the kind of indications that I would say, uh, where I saw that because not many people build what you've built to four locations. You know, 350 volunteers every year. I mean this is a legit going concern here that you've, that you've created.

Speaker C: Yeah. The reason for joining um, a group like Vistage to be sharing wisdom and knowledge in a room of CEOs and presidents and other directors across the state was to embedder myself, um, to be able to join a room that would create discomfort for me. Hey, you run a hundred million dollar a year company. You've got 200 employees and systems and processes that are so beyond my knowledge. But if I could grab 1% from him, 2% from this person, and all of a sudden a year later I had this new 10% that was so out of my comfort zone. How much better would my nonprofit be if I'm running a better nonprofit? I'm serving more children.

Speaker A: Sure.

Speaker C: And I have a problem with stagnancy. Once uh, you become stagnant, you plateau. So visage was a discomfort for me because I felt like a dolphin in a sea of sharks. I felt like the little guy that came in. Our annual budget being uh, 1/100th of what most people in the room probably have. Almost like why is Joe here? But at the same time I was hoping there'd be some people in the room that would pat me on the back and say what a better place for you to be than here. And that was my vision in joining that specific group. And so, um, in the spirit of nonprofits, most nonprofits in the state of Michigan alone don't last past their first year. Over like 50% of people who start a non profit organization, either from a program perspective or financially do not last past 12 months. And so this thing that we started, which was an idea on a notepad,

Speaker A: I thought folklore said it was a napkin at, uh, a Starbucks.

Speaker C: It was a law. Law pad, a yellow law pad at a Starbucks in Macomb County. And the bunny trail to that is, you know, I, there was a life insurance salesman that walked into that Starbucks and said, joe, hear it from me first. Do not waste your time starting a nonprofit. You know, they call them volunteers for a reason. Um, you serve on the weekend, you get your feel good opportunity. You get, and then you go back to work on Monday like the rest of the world. Well, the rest of the world job opportunity on Monday was the very thing that was sucking life and time and purpose out of my soul. And I declared that that day I would make this my thing. It took time, it took another decade to get to that point, but I, I did.

Speaker A: An overnight success. 10. After 10 years, right?

Speaker C: Yes. So 10 years of watering the seed,

Speaker A: man, and now you're about 20 years into it, so getting closer. You're into the, yeah, you're into the really rare air here of, uh, longevity in these things. So I think you've, I think you've, hopefully you've created a cruising altitude, you know, to only continue to climb from, but that you've, uh, really established yourself. So your background in, um, marketing communications though, so obviously didn't, from what, what I heard you say, you didn't really have a management experience of building and growing entities and things like that, but you did have this marketing communications background. And I would say that, um, anybody could try to find fault in you for a lot of things, but you're pretty darn clear when you communicate, I'll tell you that.

Speaker C: Yeah, we've all seen. Or if you, if you're older enough. You remember the TV commercials that were like Sarah McLachlan singing I Am your angel and like the humane Society.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you see like the black and white, specifically like animals laying in a puddle. And it was so depressing. I said, that's a unique marketing model that like, you want to empty my pockets or grab my attention to go change the world by giving me the saddest thing ever. And I don't know if people will agree with me. But I said, let's do the opposite. I'm a big Seinfeld fan. So George Costanza has an episode where he does the opposite. So I'm like, I'm just going to do the opposite, see what happens. And I said, let's take an industry.

Speaker A: Charlie Munger did that too. A lot. He always, he was a contrarian. He was very successful. Exactly.

Speaker C: So. Children in foster care. The most overlooked group of children in our state. The most underfunded industry in our state. It's a non glamorous thing. I'm going to show people the glamorous side of this. And we created a camp and videos and content where people started calling our phones, saying, I don't know what this is or what I just watched, but I'm moved by it and I want to be a part of it. And I said, I think we got something. I think we're doing it right.

Speaker A: How did you even know that there was a foster care problem, though? That? I don't think I really ever asked you that. I don't think I've ever asked you that question. I know that you had the idea for the concept, but prior to that, there had to be a seed that said, hey, there's this problem out here. You somehow it resonated with you. How'd you find out?

Speaker C: The impetus behind it was I was a musician with a failed career. And to make some extra money, I started teaching children guitar. Little would I know that the first couple students I would get would be children of foster care.

Speaker A: Oh.

Speaker C: And when I was driving to their home once a week to teach them an instrument, I realized they didn't want to learn the instrument. They liked having a young guy come over to just go in the backyard and you kid,

Speaker A: you're out throwing a football versus, uh, teaching instrument.

Speaker C: Grandma was paying me, um, to teach them a guitar lesson. And then I would go outside with them and kick a ball over the house and try to land it into a garbage can. And I just realized that these two 9 year old twin brothers wanted a childhood. So that was like the first thing. But that put me into a mindset of what is this whole thing? Foster care. How does it work? Oh, Michigan's the fifth worst state in the country. Oh, wow. We have 15,000 kids in the system. Oh, wow. We have no money. And all of the resources that are promised to these families, they're promises that never get fulfilled. That is where all of a sudden my fart in the wind idea was, well, what if I just Took these two boys to a weekend away at a camp where they can have the time of their life being brothers. Before you know it, a few of my friends were like, well, let's, let's try to find 10 kids. 10 sounds like a whole number. M&10 somehow turned into 31 kids. And nine months later we took 31 kids to a camp to do that. Very idea.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: Like, it wasn't like your parents were foster parents or anything like that.

Speaker C: This went from a Craigslist ad to creation.

Speaker A: Wow, that's cool. That's the holy spirit.

Speaker C: It was, it was special. And, and we were nervous, man. That's not like we were so nervous. What are we doing? Did we just make a mistake? And I'll be honest, the first year was hard. You have 31 children of trauma and like 25 volunteers. We got steamrolled.

Speaker A: I'll bet.

Speaker C: Like we, we didn't know how their behaviors were going to be because one minute that child of foster care can be the sweetest child in the world, but you don't know what's about to trigger them. And whether it's a night terror or their abuse or just the way that they're wired.

Speaker A: Mhm. And, and just like you said, even the bus ride. Right. You don't, I mean how that, how that affects somebody different.

Speaker C: And that's almost put it this way, long winded answer, a year of discovery to then realize what the problem really was. And then I became obsessed with the problem. And people always ask me, you know, Joe, if, if you were given a million bucks today, how many more kids? Joe, how many more kids? I've never really thought how many more. Sure you could. But we have a boy that's in our program, man, that is in our program, who came in in 2009 as a 10 year old boy. And do the math, he has been in our program every single month since 2009. Now he's, uh, a cop in Waterford. College graduate, owns his own home. Statistically shouldn't have seen, uh, the age of 30. He's almost 30. He's 27 years old and he's one of our head male counselors. From Craigslist ad to creation of the camp. When we got those applications, he was one of the first five applications we ever received. And he's one of my closest friends to this day. So is it how many more kids come in the program or is it how far you will take the kids? Because he still is in need of help and we're still at his side and it's been 17 years.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So that means more.

Speaker A: And I think that that says a lot to the difference of your program, your what you're out to do. So many well intentioned charitable organizations. Right. Uh, and those that pull at our heartstrings quite a bit, you know, get that 50 bucks or whatever it is, or the $5,000, whatever it is that you give. And it's really only for a moment in time or a bag of groceries one time.

Speaker C: Right, right.

Speaker A: And this is different than the, this goes back to the. You want to feed a man for a day, buy him a fish. Right. You want to feed him for life, teach them how to fish. And so that's really what the goal here is.

Speaker C: Yeah, right. We wanted to be like a life advancement mission where they come under our wings and we truly take them on a journey versus, and it's no offense to other organizations, I won't mention them. But, um, I heard somebody say to me like a year ago, like, oh, we impacted 4,000 kids this year. I said, 4,000 kids. Tell me all about your program. Oh, well, once a year for about one week, we open up a warehouse door and they can come in and they can grab a backpack. And inside the backpack is crayons and a coloring pad, maybe some socks. And families can drive 10 minutes or an hour to come pick up these backpacks. I said, okay, but where's the program? She kind of looked at me. I said, oh, I don't know if I agree that that's impact because a backpack isn't serving the problem. It's a nice gesture, it's a nice gift.

Speaker A: Um,

Speaker C: but when our mentors show up on a zero degree day in January when the holiday fun and festivities have come to an end and Santa Claus has gone away, and we show up on that door in, in sleet, rain, cold, to take that child out for an eight hour day and give the family a break and, and continue to pour into them with needs and genuinity. That's impact.

Speaker A: You've also mentioned to me and I've seen you talk in front of, uh, groups and you always say we're unapologetically a faith based organization.

Speaker C: Yes, sir.

Speaker A: Talk about that and talk about maybe where that's gotten you into roadblocks, um, or the opposite, um, uh, where, um, it's really helped to propel the organization.

Speaker C: We use the term faith focused.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Because sometimes you can get away with, hey, I'm faith based. And you're like, oh, that, that's nice. That's a Feel good thing. Faith focus means that is the heart of what we do. We are focused on teaching children about, um, the never ending love that is God and Jesus. And the camp teaches them that no matter where their journey goes, God is faithful to them and watching over them and, and they can whisper to him. And we want them to have that trust more than the relationship they have with Matt or Joe or whoever they meet at the camps. Because I can't make a promise to the child that I'll be in their life for the next four years, but God can. And so some of the roadblocks we've hit over the last two decades are, um, in this current world, not everyone's going to believe in the faith that I have or the Christianity that I support. And they've challenged me on. You're pigeonholing yourself into a, a dome, a bubble. And if you got rid of that dome or bubble, the universe could offer you this. I don't want that. I believe that, um, the Lord saved me from a mundane, purposeless job to give me this. And now my job is to make sure that we help one child get from point A to point Z, however long that takes. And, um, silly of me if I would to set aside my faith to pursue bigger finances, more attraction. Um, that's not, that is not what the Bible teaches. And that book is my truth.

Speaker A: Got it. Well, um, I know you live it out because, um, when you're not out having fun being little Joey, doing backflips and kicking soccer balls over roofs into garbage cans, which, that's impressive if you can do that.

Speaker C: Seventeen years ago, before video cameras were on, everything I was doing, it did

Speaker A: it all the time. Um, there are so many failings in the foster care system at so many different levels. And when I got exposed to understanding more and more about foster care, it was about 30 years ago, and then have had m many life experiences, um, to where I've been able to understand it deeper. And my very simple mind just said, this is going to take a billionaire to unscrew this pooch. Like, it is such a major problem on so many different levels. I don't know how somebody takes this on.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: So I was telling you that, uh, at one point and, um, and then you were telling me how, how you're going about it. And you didn't wait to become a billionaire, uh, to deal with it. And there's, there's some advocacy stuff that you've been doing and legal stuff and. Yeah, right into it, like talk, uh, about all these Failings. I know I'm kind of rambling here, but it just, it bothers me so much. But um, talk about the multiple levels of failure in the system, what that means. Mhm. And then tell us what you're, what are some of the things you're doing.

Speaker C: Yeah. If you go on our website, you're not going to see some of the stuff that we do behind the scenes. You'll see the camps, you'll see the mentorship, you'll see resources. But some of the things that have changed children's fate are. Michigan is the fifth worst state in the country for the development of caseworkers and social work. So with that said, sometimes the abuse is not just coming from children's families inside of foster care, it's coming from agency neglect, child stories and their well being being overlooked. And so the best way I could, I, I could share this as a, uh, you know, current story that I'm involved in. There was a little girl in our program with her three siblings years ago. She meant a lot to us, me specifically. The court systems would fail her and put her back living in a situation with her biological parent who had spent time incarcerated. Drug usage and, and the rap sheet is long. She didn't really know this person, but all of a sudden she was going back to live with them. Um, when in reality her rights from him should have been terminated completely. I knew it was bad when it happened. Five years has gone by of silence and this little girl who's now 14, is still living in traumatic abuse neglect in a house where drugs are prominent, parents are non existent, where domestic violence takes place. And so what I choose to do with my time is investigate, um, working, not, I don't want to say against the system, but to try to clean the system. Meaning I'm going to investigate Child protective services and agency neglect and workers neglect because there's been conversations I've had about this specific little girl where workers and child protective services have said, now Joe, could, couldn't it be worse? I said, no, she is living in a, uh, nightmare seven days a week. She is living what I would define as hell. And you guys have the authorities to get her out of that situation, but you're doing nothing. In fact, the reports that you're filing are suggesting that there's no problems. Um, but you have a 14 year old little girl running for her dire help in the middle of the night, ending up in a bar, a dive bar, crying on the floor, begging for someone to save her, that her father is hurting her mother her father is hurting her siblings, that he's filled with drugs. This is not okay. And CPS continues to put that child back in the same four walls and under the same roof every single night. And we've had situations where our investigations have succeeded. And the state has recognized that even at the highest level, there's abuse, there's neglect, there's lack of care. And what is our goal? To get that child back into the loving arms of a family that would treat her like the royalty she deserves. So our program is way more than camps and mentorship. It is fighting for the one that nobody knows exists.

Speaker A: Do you think that the same phenomenon, um, whether you're a prosecutor, that maybe finds out that somebody that they thought was guilty, um, was really innocent, but they're so far down the track, you know, uh, that they kind of bury a little bit of evidence here? Is there something along the lines with this, with. With the whole CPS thing? Like, are people really do. They're. They're not setting out. You don't get into CPS thinking, you know, hey, I want to. I want to make things worse for kids, but. But maybe you just also don't want to be wrong. Is that what happens in a lot of these cases where. Oh, uh, you know, because they're doubling down on a position that they've established, even maybe after they found out this other information, but they don't want to look stupid.

Speaker C: I think part of your answer is correct, and I think there's a part of it that says, if I find there's a problem and I need to do something about it, how much additional work am I going to have to do to make this happen? And like any other industry, um, you have, like, lackadaisical employees. Hey, I got more work to do. Oh, uh, I got plans tonight. Or I got all these emails to get to. What. What if I just put this off for another day or push it to the end of the week, and if it becomes a bigger problem, then, all right, then I'll handle it. Uh, but, like, I'm good for them. Well, it's not just 30 emails being ignored. You're sending a child back into a home where they're most likely going to get abused that night. That's my problem. But the workers have the same mentality as many, and they've expressed that. Agencies have expressed to me that, well, we could push your program out, but it's not really a part of our job description, so it's just more work for us to do. But it's benefiting the child. It's a gift. Yeah, I know, I know, but I, I mean, I've had workers look me square in my eyes and say, we're trying everything, but where are the children supposed to go? I'm going to, I think that's your job to figure out. But it creates more work for them. And I'm sure somebody watching this could probably be like calling me ignorant or thinking that I'm just trying to challenge something. To challenge it. But then why are we the fifth worst stake in the country for the last three decades? It starts somewhere at the top. And um, we know we can't change the whole system overnight, but if, if one investigation unravels one layer where a child can be saved from their situation, then quite honestly, love for a child could shut down tomorrow. And I'll feel like I was entrusted to do the right thing at love for a child and, and I would be okay with that.

Speaker A: Mhm. And sometimes that just means you got to be the fly on the ointment. Right. And just kind of keep bugging till you unstick something.

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, and if a salesman gave up after being told no one time, they're a bad salesman. If I'm fighting for the rights and the safety and the life of a child and I'm being pushed to the corner one time and I give up, I got that, uh, David and Goliath in me and you know, we're, we're ready to fight for the right reason.

Speaker A: You know, if you think about what you're, what you're talking about, you can almost go back and reflect it on yourself and say, like when you were working in those marketing jobs and not being fulfilled, you, you either you knew or you were being called to do something different. Um, what do you tell people? Whether they're a, ah, you know, an IT technician or a marketing person, or a CPS worker or an agency worker, you know, if, if you're not being filled up by what you do and you're not seeing, you know, the, the person behind that, that, that file, you know, what do you tell that person?

Speaker C: I think they're confused on what's work, what's work versus what's your job. A lot of people go to work and say, Yeah, I work 9 to 5 today, but at 5 o' clock I check out and I'm good and I just, I get my paycheck on Friday, which is your job. You don't think you're working. Your job is your purpose. Your job is people. Your job is changing the lives of the people around you. And I just look back at to that gray, brown and blue cubicle that I had for years where nobody knew my name, nobody knew what my passions in life were. And I would go to work every single day and I felt my life being sucked out from me. And it's not to say that, oh, love for a child or nonprofit, everyone should do it. Quit your job, state. No. But if you're showing up somewhere every single day and there's people around you, you really need to evaluate, do I know the people around me? What am I, you know, what am I doing with my time here on this earth that's short? And what are those things that scare me off? And so I've always. People call me an entrepreneur and I've never really called myself that to be honest. But, um, I think I just. I just chased purpose and passion more than anything and hoped that it would work out because what I was doing in my own path was just creating a mundane, life sucking timeline. And now for the last years, it is really hard for me to say like I feel like I go to work or that I have stress when it comes to a job. Because when I see those kids come off the bus and place their tennis shoes in the sand at a campground, I firmly believe that what we've created at love for a child, in that moment, new life has been breathed into the child. I see fear turn into freedom. I see hurts wiped away with hope. And then I see all of that loss that they carry in their heart be just kind of pricked away with new actions of love by our team. And that's when I realize this is the greatest job on earth.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, you're following your purpose. Um, I'm going to double click on this whole thing of your job. Um, got a few different statements about it. Um, all of us, there's a story of, um. My dad owned a boat store when we were growing up. And so we had thing we had a. We had house accounts so you could come in Jose Valley, could have a house account, buy whatever he needs, and then settle up once a month. Why we did that, I don't know. Because it just seemed to make sure make for a collections issue. Not with you. You were probably okay, but m couldn't afford the boat. Um, we had a guy who was a customer who owned a company. Uh, I don't remember what it was exactly called. I think it was called the Corvette shop. And I remember one day the guy comes in and he's talking to my dad, and he says, uh, hey, Andy, uh, I need to change out my account. Um, uh, I'm no longer the Corvette shop. And my dad said, what are you talking about? Like, that was your thing. Like, you. You own this shop. That all it worked on was Corvettes. Okay? And, um, he said, I sold it. And he says, why'd you sell it? And he says, you know, he says, I started to realize that guys would come in, you know, with their keys to their car, and they're handing me their. Their baby. This is something they saved up for, or, you know, whatever. You know, it was their special car, right? And to him, he's like, I was just writing up work orders. At a certain point, he's like, I used to be in there with him, you know, all excited. Joe Savalli just brought me his Corvette. Oh, it's a da da, da, da da and this and that. You know, talking about the engine and stuff and being all excited. And then he says, you know, it just became a work order, something I was writing up. And he said, so I knew it was time. Um, we've parlayed that here to say at auxiom, a ticket is not a ticket. You know how you call a support ticket a ticket?

Speaker C: Of course, we.

Speaker A: We say, that's a person with a problem that we're trying to fix.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: You know, if you think about doctors, you know, oh, the case I'm working on today, right? The surgery that they're going into the matter if you're a. If you're a lawyer, right? And we all kind of fall into this, right? And you have to remember that you're here to serve. Right. And, um, you know, when that. When that wears off, you got to get out of it. You got to do something else.

Speaker C: Yeah. Know.

Speaker A: And you had the courage to do that, so I applaud you for that.

Speaker C: Thank you for the applause. And it didn't come with any, like, clear as day. Understanding it. It took a leap of faith. In fact, it. It took me losing my job for it to be a leap of faith. It was, um, me getting laid off for the sixth time in, like, nine years.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker C: and I went home, and as I sat on Indeed.com and Monster.com looking for the perfect job role, my wife looked at me and was like, when are you just going to do love for a child full time? I was like, well, we don't have a bank account. How am I going to do that? She's like, figure it out. She's like, I think the Reason you're not seeing what you want to see is because you're treating this thing like a part time passion.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: If it's a hundred percent of your focus, then see what it's made of. And I'm very thankful for her pushing me to that, um, level of discomfort because the next six months I did not take a paycheck, newly married child on the way. And I poured everything that I knew into six months. And that six month period did just enough for it to happen. And I think the Lord entrusted me with that and said thank you for taking a leap of faith. And then he carried it. Still is.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Um, one last piece on that that I'm going to make sure we put in the, in the show notes. There's a. You a Jimmy Buffett fan? Um, there's only one right answer, but I'm gonna assume you said yes. Okay, good. Um, Mack McInalley. Do you know Mac McInalley? Yes. Good answer, Good answer. So Jimmy Buffett sings a song that Mack McInally wrote, um, called it's my Job.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker A: You know, and it's, it's my job if I'm, if I'm a janitor, it's my job to be cleaning up this mess, to be serving, to be working. And uh, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. And so, um, I think on that particular subject, you know, I can't stress it enough how important that is. And so, um, we'll put that in the show notes and maybe somebody will learn something. Um, the, um, the last thing I really want to talk about here with you, um, actually there's two things. Um, let's start with one that's a little more exciting, I think. Sure. You've got this really cool model. Right. And you've built something that's bigger than yourself. Right. And um, as soon as we can clone the Little Joeys, we're going to, you know, it's, we need that now. It's kind of scalable. Right. I mean, what you're building doesn't really totally require you. Is there any plans to expand this, but expand it with quality? Because I know for you it's not a, it's not a numbers game, it's a quality game. It's a, it's a pouring into.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: Whatever the amount of kids in is that you're pouring into, you're going to do it. You want to do it with the utmost of quality.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And the best outcomes. So.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: And do you want to scale this thing or grow this thing. And how are you going to do it if you do?

Speaker C: We definitely want to scale it. And we've peaked at that. We've had interest with that, uh, in the world of nonprofits, you don't really use the word franchise the model. You do use the word scalability. And we have built a model that is replicable. Uh, it has a curriculum, it has a timeline, it has system and processes that happen over 12 months like almost an operating for profit business. And now that we're looking at those package details, um, we're determining how to package it professionally and appropriately. That we could, uh, hand it off to the next person for a fee for a training cost where ultimately more kids would be impacted. But it doesn't necessarily have to happen under, uh, our four walls of our office. And so we've had calls from Florida, we've had calls from Nashville, from faith based organizations and other nonprofits that want to partner with us. And what it would look like for the Love for a Child Camp model to now go to a national model. And without losing the integrity and the authenticity of what we've created, we're trying to navigate what that would look like and even entertaining, uh, bringing on like a national director.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: Under Love for a Child that would oversee scalability as we, as we grow and growing is great. That is something that I never thought would happen with this outside of Michigan.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: I'm ready for it. But we're taking the baby steps towards doing it. Because I want to do it with purpose, not, not just to chase dollars, not just to chase growth. To chase growth. Because we all know as business owners, sometimes not, um, sometimes growth can bring pain as well. And so we want to mitigate what those growth pains could look like by having the appropriate plan before we do it. So we are right in that process right now of what, what that plan could look like to bring this, uh, this idea on the yellow law pad to a national concept.

Speaker A: That's awesome. I mean, and you're, you know, you're kind of going right into the fire too with what you're trying to do. Because if, you know, you look at whether it's the scouts or the Catholic Church or the whatever. Right. I mean every, every organization with great intentions, it can draw in some trouble.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, especially when you're serving the vulnerable. Right. And so, um, I give you so much credit for.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: You know, for taking on that challenge like that and trying to figure out, okay, what can we learn from all of that, what can we do to protect even further and grow, uh, appropriately?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean we, we try to grow in Michigan a little quicker. I would say the vision that we had for 10 years, our 10 year vision happened in about five years.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: And although most people would say that's amazing, uh, the growth pains that that brought on for an early organization were tough. And we made mistakes and we made judgment call errors. Uh, we brought on some of the wrong people. We, you know, all the things that you go through. So you know, as uh, we navigate something even larger than that, we're just um, we're not just taking our time to be lazy. We're taking our time to honor the very child that will come into our program. Because if they don't have something that's um, royalty and built with intention, then why do we, why do we rush to get there?

Speaker A: That's great.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker A: did I already say two last things? Because I now still have two last things.

Speaker C: Yeah, sounds like you have two more.

Speaker A: Two more. So you also tell a story when I've seen you talk to people, um, um, and explaining the problem, explaining the opportunity to help to save kids, uh, that are in these terrible situations. I think so many people assume they think foster care, they think inner city, they think Pontiac, they think whatever they think areas that have typically impoverished, um, um, populations and whatnot. And you tell the story about this being right under our noses and right in our own backyards and people just. I think it's an aha moment. So I would like you to share that story.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, and then I'm going to make sure that we do follow that up with the positive, which is all the practical ways that our audience can engage with helping to make this, make lives better.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Through what you're, what you're doing.

Speaker C: I mean oftentimes where there's wealth, there's war happening underneath the surface. And so the story you're referencing is that um, I grew up in kind of blue collar Macomb County. Not known for extreme wealth, but surely not known for poverty or um, you know, the uh, judgments that would come with like a Flint or an East Detroit. And so I lived in an all American suburb and I went to an all American high school that many viewers would know by name and go Reds.

Speaker A: That's all I'm going to say.

Speaker C: Well, they were our villains.

Speaker A: They were villains.

Speaker C: I thought that I went to Dakota High School.

Speaker A: Oh, okay.

Speaker C: So Dakota High School.

Speaker A: My aunt was a teacher there. Uh, so I gotta.

Speaker C: But yes, we were talking about chippewa valley high school in clinton township, Michigan. And the reason I say villains is because, um, I went to high school in the years where they didn't have a football field yet. It was brand new, so we had to borrow chippewa valley high school's facilities just to, uh, have athletics. And that's where the story comes into play, where, um, there was a child that came into our program who was living directly next to, uh, one of those prominent high schools in a rental property with her biological father and literally thousands and thousands of cars. I think one time we did the stats that, like, on this one road, 50,000 cars would pass their house on a daily basis. But where the system failed was this child was enrolled into a local school where she didn't show up for her first day of school. And nobody in the staff or the school system or administration blinked an eye. It wasn't until an entire year later went by that, uh, this child was enrolled the second time. And the school kind of blinked at it and was like, why is this child still on the enrollment? Uh, they weren't here last year. They're still not here. There must be a clerical issue. Fast forward another 12 months. So now we're at year three for the viewers. Finally, administration says, uh, this seems weird. I'm going to hand it to child protective services, cps, just to look into it professionally, because this doesn't normally happen. It was at that point in time that cps sent a patrol car to the child's address on file next to the high school and knocked on doors and different things. And people said that, yeah, nobody lives there. The house is a rental property. It's kind of in bad shape. Nobody takes care of it. And patrol officer wrote off. Hey, property is empty. Eight days later, a neighbor called and said, hey, I can hear some noises coming from that house. Screams. Patrol officer shows up, kicks the door down. Drug paraphernalia everywhere. Beer bottles everywhere, um, needles, syringes, you name it. And they walked into an unfinished basement. Cement floor, cement walls, where they would find this little girl chained by both ankles to a pole in the basement. And she, in a crawling distance, had crackers, water, um, cheez its and bread, all within distance of her that she was living off of. But the scars on her ankles would show that she had been down there for all three years. She knew time based on season. If snow built up in front of the window was wintertime. If Christmas lights turned on for a couple weeks, oh, it must be Christmas time.

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker C: if the concrete floor felt A little bit warmer. It must be summer months. The father was selling this little girl for 10 to $20 to over 75 different Macomb county adults who were taking the childhood out of that little girl's life. And she was only 9, 10, and 11 years old in those three years that she was in the basement when she was rescued by the authorities. She was placed into the hands of foster care in Michigan. And just a few months after being rescued, she showed up to our camp. And if you saw her on the exterior, you would never know that she had been through what she had been through. And it was sad, uh, and heartbreaking, but that little girl just wanted to be cherished and adorned by people, specifically women who would help her brush her hair and teach her how to brush her hair, how to dress her, how to show comfort. And she would stay in our program for several years. And in fact, she would be, um, mentored and eventually adopted by a woman that was in our program.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Uh, and so we share this story not to, like, suck the wind out of people's hearts, but to bring the reality that it isn't Flint and it's not Detroit, that a child can be living next door to you under your nose, and you be unaware of what could be happening behind the other wall. And it's taught me to have a head on a swivel, to try to always be looking and identifying for people in distress, children looking for help, beyond just a love for a child model. So, um, it's a success story, but with years of heartache, terrible.

Speaker A: An awesome, awesome ending to it. So if we're going to participate, um, volunteer donations, corporate partnerships, buy your book, host an event, talk about all those ways that we can.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: That we can engage and help the.

Speaker C: I mean, I'm a pretty good fight.

Speaker A: The good fight.

Speaker C: I'm a pretty bold guy. If there's a. An individual couple, a business watching this love for a child is supported by the people that want to give, families that give, businesses that partner with us to sponsor the camps, the children, and our big fundraisers throughout the year. That's how we survive. It's how we make this all happen. Um, you can learn more. You can watch our videos, our documentaries, all@loveforachild.org we encourage people to do that. You can make donations there. I'm, um, big on relationships, so I don't mind if, uh, in the podcast you put my email joeoveforachild.org or, gosh, put my cell phone number there. I would love to meet people that would want to be a listening ear and see how their intentionality can create generational impact.

Speaker A: Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll put all that, uh, out there. Are there any, um, are there any corporate sponsors that are making a big difference with you right now that you'd like to maybe even just take a minute to even acknowledge and thank?

Speaker C: Yeah, we have, we have a. We have several. I probably don't have time to cover all of them, but we're very thankful for the Cola Sante Group out of New Baltimore and Florida. They do some amazing things. They built the Hudson Building, the Jacksonville Jaguars football stadium. They're building the new JW Marriott downtown right now. And they have taken a huge heart to what we're doing and they support us. Um, Tri City Controls in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Um, their CEO and president, Chris Ritmuller, has been a massive part of what we're doing. He's on my board of directors. Uh, Rochester Hills, Michigan. We have Ellison Painting, Brad Ellison, their CEO, who has come on our board of directors, but has been running, um, a very large investment to what we're doing to grow Vanguard Cleaning across the state of Michigan. And their. Their president, Brett. Brett Winkle. Um, and. And a lot of this could not have happened without Common Sales Investment Group and, uh, one of their partners, John Fitzpatrick. Those are just a few to mention, but those have changed the trajectory of what we've been doing.

Speaker A: Fantastic. All right.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, Joe, thanks for everything that you do.

Speaker C: Yes, sir.

Speaker A: And, uh, keep up the great work and, uh, thank you. Glad we're friends.

Speaker C: That's the most important piece.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker C: Thanks, bro.

Speaker A: Thanks. This episode of the bltnt Podcast is sponsored by Axiom Business. IT and Cybersecurity, designed to outsmart chaos empowered by Juniper Networks. Automate your network with Juniper Networks and the Mist AI platform, the world's first AI driven wired and wireless network.