How 2 Local Business Owners Fed 600 Families | Buying Local #84

00;00;00;00 – 00;00;18;24
Speaker 3
Welcome everyone to buying Local. I’m your host, Mike Nelson from Five Towers Media. Joined today to talk about a new venture that, I’m excited to learn about. I’m with, Chris from the car shop. He’s been on the show a couple times. Last time you were on talking about requalify 360, and now we’re.

00;00;19;01 – 00;00;27;00
Speaker 3
We’re here to talk about your your the new venture that you’re getting off the ground here with Ryan Holderman from 5.8, Jim. Right.

00;00;27;02 – 00;00;27;08
Speaker 1
Right.

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Speaker 2
Right. Yeah. The Jim. Yeah.

00;00;29;05 – 00;00;29;29
Speaker 1
Nice.

00;00;30;01 – 00;00;34;00
Speaker 3
And Chris, you’ll notice I didn’t try to say your last name because, you know I’m going to butcher it because I do.

00;00;34;03 – 00;00;43;28
Speaker 1
That’s okay. So let’s go Chris Mast we try to just make it really easy and normal career proof because, I still can’t pronounce it myself, so that works out well. Yeah. All right.

00;00;44;00 – 00;00;57;16
Speaker 3
You still can’t pronounce to yourself. All right, I don’t I don’t feel so bad then. So, guys, if you want real quick, before we get into talking about the the new venture, maybe we should just give the audience just a quick rundown of just kind of who you are and what you’re doing and what you do.

00;00;57;18 – 00;00;59;01
Speaker 2
Chris. You go first, Bud.

00;00;59;03 – 00;01;25;01
Speaker 1
Stewart. So I am, a local entrepreneur. I guess I own the car shop sales and service, now on requalify 360, which is a credit repair company. So, trying to trying to spread it out. 518 tow is another one that we just launched that’s going pretty well. From Long Island. Moved up here a little over 12 years ago.

00;01;25;01 – 00;01;52;01
Speaker 1
And, the community is really embraced me and my businesses and allowed me to, to have a life that I never really dreamed of. And I ran into this guy a couple of years back in his gym, and, he kind of he kind of showed me the ropes about some things that needed happening around here with, with helping families and stuff, and kind of put the bug in my ear about giving back.

00;01;52;03 – 00;02;01;24
Speaker 1
And, and so that brings us to here, but I’ll let Ryan give his his little Reader’s Digest version of himself.

00;02;01;26 – 00;02;18;10
Speaker 2
My little $0.02. Yeah. So Ryan Holderman, born and raised, basically Glens Falls in New York and a couple of stints down south, got into the training industry when I was in New York City. I was there for about four years. I’ve learned all the good, the bad, the ugly, and I took it home. My parents were entrepreneurs.

00;02;18;10 – 00;02;33;02
Speaker 2
They sit on the restaurant and talk of the town. So I grew up with pizza and chicken fingers. But as an athlete in high school and college, I was kind of like my thing. I didn’t know I was going to be a career. Put some roots back home. My first gym was in South Glens Falls.

00;02;33;02 – 00;02;57;28
Speaker 2
A little small, 20 700 square foot space. Let’s fast forward 12 years later. We have a 26,000 square foot space in the aviation mall right now. But like I said, I was always big into helping the community. We’ve done things from community hypnotists. We’ve done cornhole tournaments. But the thing that really kind of stuck out for Chris and I is that we realized how many people, you know, struggle on a day to day basis.

00;02;57;28 – 00;03;24;06
Speaker 2
And we saw that firsthand when, we tag team with Sale and Tyranny, Southern Adirondack Independent Living. And, you just gave us a list of people that were struggling that slipped through the cracks, didn’t get any assistance. And, you know, we sponsor 25 families my first year, that was probably six years ago. So, you know, our community of people at the gym, basically just donated, you know, turkeys, the the stuffing, the whole everything, the soaps, the containers.

00;03;24;13 – 00;03;32;14
Speaker 1
Yeah. So just to back up a little bit, Maggie’s talking about, Thanksgiving scenario. Yeah. And feeding families for Thanksgiving.

00;03;32;16 – 00;03;51;05
Speaker 2
And so when we did that, you know, then the next year was like, okay, 25 and I shared with Chris, and Chris is like, I’ll do 25 myself. So then we had 50 families and last year was really eye opening. We have 50 families in the first like 45 minutes, so. Oh, wow. I, I remember calling Chris and I was like, hey, man, what do you want to do?

00;03;51;05 – 00;04;10;05
Speaker 2
And he was like, let’s just keep it going, you know, let’s, let’s, let’s go in the next 24 hours, I think we had 75 more people. And then when it was said and done, we really had an army of people that really helped. And, we did over 600 families with 3000 people from Albany to mine, though, which is like a little bit past self, you know, all the New York.

00;04;10;05 – 00;04;19;14
Speaker 2
And we delivered, I think there’s 150 people came in and got them, but we delivered about 450, Thanksgiving meals last year.

00;04;19;16 – 00;04;32;10
Speaker 1
That’s wild. Yeah. Had and we’re talking like we’re talking turkey. We’re talking boxes with pans, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, yams, like the whole king little A to Z.

00;04;32;12 – 00;04;34;01
Speaker 2
Eyes and.

00;04;34;03 – 00;04;56;01
Speaker 1
And literally like, like cardboard boxes. And then putting it all together, his his 26,000 square foot gym looked like a food pantry or a Walmart or like some combination of it. It was like, like an assembly line of, of help. It was really cool. Really cool.

00;04;56;01 – 00;05;18;09
Speaker 2
It was nice because we had a lot of like, younger kids that we got like parents that donated their, their kids on teams. So they’re like, hey, myself, I was he wants to come in and help. So we had, you know, those guys, you know, helping hand out food one day, a little kids, you know, just making in the family things that they could see that they’re they’re making an impact as well.

00;05;18;11 – 00;05;24;20
Speaker 3
That’s amazing. I the logistics on that must have been insane. Like I.

00;05;24;22 – 00;05;27;29
Speaker 2
That’s my first was like, you got grain? Your beer. Yeah.

00;05;28;02 – 00;05;47;21
Speaker 1
It was it was it was challenging for sure. But, like, we were talking the other day and it’s, it’s like if you, if you, if you have people that are willing to help and you have a, half of a semblance of a plan and you just willing to get shit done, you can get a lot done really, really fast.

00;05;47;27 – 00;05;50;00
Speaker 1
And, that’s kind of what we proved.

00;05;50;03 – 00;05;59;09
Speaker 2
In my we didn’t have a plan. It was legitimately like, okay, you know, we we just gotta do it. I know on.

00;05;59;09 – 00;06;00;20
Speaker 1
The, the.

00;06;00;23 – 00;06;01;16
Speaker 2
Loading what.

00;06;01;16 – 00;06;03;20
Speaker 1
Happens full of,

00;06;03;22 – 00;06;10;07
Speaker 2
Canned goods and then, you know, everything that could have went wrong, probably what went wrong.

00;06;10;10 – 00;06;15;17
Speaker 1
And then we also didn’t Ryan wasn’t there. Didn’t we have a tractor trailer full of turkeys behind the turkeys?

00;06;15;22 – 00;06;38;25
Speaker 2
I tried to follow turkeys and pies, so I, I went to Walmart and I was like, hey, listen, we need to get the Walmart was super helpful. You know, they put things out their store. They they grabbed them from different locations to make sure that we had enough. And it kind of fast forwards us to where we are now because we ran into a lot of those problems because we were organized, we didn’t have a plan.

00;06;38;25 – 00;06;58;29
Speaker 2
So that’s why we decided, like, hey, let’s make this more official. Let’s actually like help more people, but do it the right way. We couldn’t get sponsorships from from bigger corporations. You know, we missed out on about $5,000 just from one, one vendor because we weren’t a, you know, 501 three.

00;06;59;02 – 00;07;13;10
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. Ryan. Joe, I just got a back up. It’s not gray in your beard. Those are called wisdom highlights. And so, you know, just hold on to that, man. Because, you know, though, the more there is, it just means that. Just wisdom.

00;07;13;10 – 00;07;13;21
Speaker 1
Just wait.

00;07;13;22 – 00;07;16;03
Speaker 2
He was the one that was giving me shit. I was like, are.

00;07;16;03 – 00;07;17;28
Speaker 1
You,

00;07;18;00 – 00;07;20;07
Speaker 2
Makes me look a little older than what I am.

00;07;20;09 – 00;07;22;05
Speaker 1
That’s it, that’s it.

00;07;22;08 – 00;07;31;28
Speaker 3
So you guys segue really nicely into, what you’re doing or what you’re launching. So, give it give us the rundown. What are we doing first?

00;07;31;28 – 00;07;32;24
Speaker 2
Go ahead.

00;07;32;26 – 00;07;51;20
Speaker 1
Okay, so, like you said last year, we kind of struggled with a little bit of, a little bit of community activism because people literally, they wanted to help and they couldn’t. Right? So we were like, how do we solve this problem? So solve this problem by creating a nonprofit. And so we created a nonprofit. It’s called 518.

00;07;51;20 – 00;08;20;25
Speaker 1
Great. And it’s literally going to be to just help everybody in need in the area as best we can, without necessarily having it, like, like Ryan was saying the other day, we’re having a conversation, and he was like, I don’t want it to just be. We’re like, there is a tragedy which happens all the time, and then everybody runs to the rescue, and it looks great because Fred Flintstone had an accident and all of a sudden I had a whole bunch of money.

00;08;20;27 – 00;08;43;21
Speaker 1
We’re looking to just help people that just need a little bit of help and a little bit of guidance and a little bit of hope. And like we were saying earlier, you know, the Thanksgiving thing really helped us last year. Well, really help them. We had no idea there was going to be a need for 3000, 3000 people that needed help.

00;08;43;24 – 00;09;05;11
Speaker 1
We were thinking 100, 150. And then it just kind of went crazy and we kind of shut it off sort of last year because we were just at a logistical standstill at the end, and then we still did another 100. We shut it off at 500 families, and we still wound up with six and change. But so we were thinking like, what if we don’t shut it off?

00;09;05;11 – 00;09;28;10
Speaker 1
What if we start earlier? What if we really plan it and we don’t run into these logistical hurdles? So. So that’s why we’re here now. And our first event is going to be from a fundraising perspective, is going to be a color run. That’s going to happen on August 15th at Morro Rock at 8 a.m.. It’s going to be a one mile and A5K run.

00;09;28;12 – 00;09;49;20
Speaker 1
It’s going to be a little carnival afterwards too. We’re going to have pony rides and DJ’s and bounce houses and lawn games and food trucks and ice cream and all that kind of fun stuff. The goal of that is to raise as much money as we can, because fast forward a little bit, end of August, early September date to be determined.

00;09;49;23 – 00;09;57;01
Speaker 1
We’re going to have a back to school day. And I’ll let Ryan tell you a little bit about what the back to school day is going to entail.

00;09;57;04 – 00;10;19;10
Speaker 2
Well, a lot of my demographic and clientele is in the education field, so we’ve seen that there’s a consistent struggle, not just from the school, but from the families as well, where, you know, the teachers are now having to come out from a pocket to, you know, outsource their classroom and not to mention kids with back to school, you know, having to have new clothes.

00;10;19;10 – 00;10;39;16
Speaker 2
Kids grow nonstop, their sneakers grow, their clothes grow. So we wanted to do a whole back to school day where we have local vendors that’s barbers, hairdressers, dentists, where we have a full bookbag for them, everything they’re going to need all year long. You know, the the nice thing to see is a kid open up new sneakers and oh my God, look at those things.

00;10;39;16 – 00;10;55;26
Speaker 2
Those ones like that. But I’ve never had a pair of Nike’s before. But just to be able to prepare them and like Chris said before, you know, to give a little bit of breath, of fresh air or a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, that, hey, that’s one last thing that I have to spend money on.

00;10;55;29 – 00;11;18;11
Speaker 2
And if we can, we can assist in that. Then I think it makes everybody’s jobs and lives a little bit easier. And I think that’s the goal of this organization is not to solve, but just to help in every little way that we can, to make everybody’s life, you know, just just to help people smile. And I think when we we’re delivering the food for everybody.

00;11;18;13 – 00;11;37;12
Speaker 2
And that’s one of the most gratifying things, is that, you know, you can help. And that’s our mission. That’s our goal. And, yeah, I think this is this is going to be a fun thing, you know, it’s going to be and we were talking about it yesterday. You’re not going to remember the five came what place that you came in, but you’re going to remember the color.

00;11;37;12 – 00;11;46;22
Speaker 2
You’re going. Remember the pictures. You remember the video that you could be able to pull up. And hey, you remember when you were, you know, six years old and you’re in that car right now, you’re 16 and you still do it. That good stuff?

00;11;46;25 – 00;11;48;16
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;11;48;19 – 00;11;58;26
Speaker 3
That’s amazing. You guys. I you know, you talk about the logistical nightmare of, doing that many meals. What is it? You know, like, I know.

00;11;58;28 – 00;12;02;18
Speaker 1
You know, the, you know.

00;12;02;21 – 00;12;09;28
Speaker 3
A little bit about setting up a nonprofit like this, right? Like, what is the that that nonprofit in?

00;12;10;00 – 00;12;12;06
Speaker 2
Chris? It was pretty easy.

00;12;12;08 – 00;12;38;13
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s it’s, it was, you know, there’s services that do that stuff and, you know, again, we’re blessed. So we were able to, to put up a little bit of money to kind of make it happen. But that’s really the easy part. That’s just, you know, paperwork and, and that sort of thing that happens to be something that, that when you’re experienced in that field, it’s not really a big deal.

00;12;38;15 – 00;12;55;17
Speaker 1
It’s everything that comes now that’s, that’s kind of the hard part. And, it’s funny, we, we knew we were going to do this, and of course, we were running out of time because that’s just who we are. We finally got the date the other day, approved that moral rat. And then I was like, oh, great.

00;12;55;17 – 00;13;11;17
Speaker 1
We’ve been waiting for this day for, you know, two weeks now. We know it locked in, and now we need to start running again. Right? So now it’s you have a million vendors that you have thoughts about that you’re going to reach out to, but you’re not going to reach out until you have a date. Right. And time and all that stuff.

00;13;11;20 – 00;13;32;14
Speaker 1
And so now that we have that now it’s like, all right, let’s run, let’s pivot, let’s put a into place and be into place. And this food trucks not happening okay. Let’s get this guy instead. And it’s just really cool though when we were talking the other day, it’s a week. We kind of operate at a different speed than most people, I think.

00;13;32;16 – 00;13;55;25
Speaker 1
So that’s what allowed us to serve 3000 people last year, and that’s what’s going to help us serve this. But yeah. And in three and a half weeks, we got a date for a for less than a week. Sorry about that. We’re going to put together an event that’s hopefully going to raise over $20,000. And, and I’m super confident that we’ll, we’ll we’ll smash that goal.

00;13;55;28 – 00;14;10;11
Speaker 1
And, the community is going to have a lot of fun. It’s going to definitely be the first annual. And I think back to school day is going to be going to be pretty badass. I think it’s going to be really, really a hit for the name of it.

00;14;10;13 – 00;14;10;26
Speaker 1
He said.

00;14;10;26 – 00;14;34;03
Speaker 3
You move at a different speed. That was one of the things I was thinking about as you guys were talking. I was like, man, I’m like, you know, Ryan, you’re running a gym full time business. You’re training clients. You know, any of us that are business owners know what it entails and what goes into every single day just to run a business, let alone to operate it and be in it and be performing some of it.

00;14;34;05 – 00;14;49;19
Speaker 3
And obviously, Chris, you’re running multiple businesses at this point. I know you got a great, great team behind you that helps you do the things that you do. But, how do you how do you make time for all this? Like. Like what? The speed you’re talking about that you guys move at? Is it, like, the speed of light?

00;14;49;19 – 00;14;54;23
Speaker 3
Like what? Like how do you how do you do all these things?

00;14;54;25 – 00;15;16;11
Speaker 1
For me, it’s definitely team related. For me, I have an incredible team, 98% of the time. And, you know, I curse them 2% of the time. That’s why I say 98. But, you know. Yeah, you you put really good people in good places, and it allows you to kind of kind of separate some stuff and get shit done.

00;15;16;14 – 00;15;17;25
Speaker 1
I love it.

00;15;17;28 – 00;15;39;21
Speaker 2
I, I think for me, it just utilizing all your 24 hours in a day, you know, like a lot of us streets, your phone’s going to tell you how much time you’re on social media. Yeah. So it’s not a matter of, like, if you have enough time, it’s just priority. But I also think that if you actually extend and it’s not an ego based thing, like, hey, pump your chest, look what we did.

00;15;39;23 – 00;16;04;08
Speaker 2
I think one one thing that I do really well is that connect the dots really well. So it’s, I know somebody who knows somebody that can do this to open up this door for us, but our intentions are very genuine. So I feel like people will always follow that. And we’re always asked to help. Like we just did a podcast yesterday on my my podcast, and it’s a Facebook Live thing and you wouldn’t believe how many people that I was like, hey, I can’t make it to the event, but how do I help?

00;16;04;11 – 00;16;26;00
Speaker 2
I want to be a part of this. How can I do this? I know somebody who can get you there. So, I think track record that knowing that, hey, we’re here for the community and we’ve been present and we’re homegrown, I think gives people the reassurance that, you know, it’s the right thing. And and like Chris said yesterday to me, is like, everybody wants to help.

00;16;26;03 – 00;16;40;24
Speaker 2
Everybody is ready to help. Some people just don’t have the avenue. Some people don’t want to be visible. Somebody’s going to be behind the scenes. But I think everybody’s heart is always in the right space, so it’s just allowing people to share their generosity like we do.

00;16;40;27 – 00;16;44;28
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well said, well said.

00;16;45;00 – 00;16;49;17
Speaker 3
So you’ve got the run coming up and you said it’s a color run. What does that mean.

00;16;49;18 – 00;16;50;26
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;16;50;28 – 00;17;01;11
Speaker 2
So when they’re running, there’s other color markers where they’re going to get a splash of the color. So they’re going to have white shirts when they come out. And like Chris said, is like, hey, you’re gonna look like like tie dye.

00;17;01;11 – 00;17;04;14
Speaker 1
Tag me when you when we.

00;17;04;16 – 00;17;21;29
Speaker 2
You know, so I mean, that’s the fun part and not just for kids now I’m like, that’s unlike the kid in all of us, you know? Let us do that. Let us hop in the dunk tank, you know, let us do fun, long games and, you know, just just creating memories. I think that’s what you’re always going to remember.

00;17;22;06 – 00;17;39;29
Speaker 2
You’re never going to run the. Remember the five kids? They ran around the circle with around the neighborhood? We remember those type of different things. Like, Chris and I did this, mountain race a couple years ago where we hiked up a mountain. You know, there was 1000ft of Asian up and down as many times as you can for 24 hours.

00;17;40;02 – 00;17;41;15
Speaker 2
I’ll never forget that.

00;17;41;18 – 00;17;50;11
Speaker 1
Never forget it. And it will be 24 hours either. But I’ll never forget that. Yeah, that was one of my well, that was one of the dumber things I’ve done, but I’ll do it.

00;17;50;13 – 00;17;59;07
Speaker 3
Yeah, that sounds pretty hardcore. So. So you got the run, you got the back to school. And then I think we’re going to do turkeys again for sure.

00;17;59;09 – 00;18;01;07
Speaker 1
You can do things. Yeah, absolutely.

00;18;01;08 – 00;18;09;27
Speaker 2
We talked about that number. You know not capping that number. So we’ll help whatever we can in that capacity to.

00;18;09;29 – 00;18;15;08
Speaker 3
I, I just got to ask on that front like where does all the food come from.

00;18;15;10 – 00;18;36;02
Speaker 2
So I had a client that was pretty high up in the Walmart and she really helped, you know, just put me in contact with the manager. They had to pull some stuff from one store to another store that, I mean, and we’re not allowed to have a tractor trailer truck from Walmart, but they had a tractor trailer truck.

00;18;36;04 – 00;18;48;28
Speaker 2
Rental company let us use it, just to bring it outside the gym. And then we would load up all of our trucks and cars for our turkeys in the pies. Wow. And our canned goods and all that. So Walmart was a big.

00;18;48;28 – 00;18;50;22
Speaker 1
This woman was huge.

00;18;50;25 – 00;18;54;00
Speaker 3
Did it have to be refrigerated?

00;18;54;02 – 00;19;05;05
Speaker 2
So it was cold, so it couldn’t be inside the gym. So outside it was freezing then. So yeah, it was it was all good, but it was only here for the day before.

00;19;05;11 – 00;19;08;29
Speaker 3
Well that’s. Yeah. Was it like a, it’s like loaded all in and then.

00;19;08;29 – 00;19;10;05
Speaker 1
Loaded our lucky.

00;19;10;05 – 00;19;22;22
Speaker 2
So we were lucky that we were almost going to have it all. We, we almost didn’t get all the supplies that we needed. Yeah. So I, I remember like the night before I’m like Chris man this sucks.

00;19;22;22 – 00;19;31;10
Speaker 1
Oh and we were the real we’re like going store to store to like get four boxes of stuffing like it was at the end. It was crunch for sure, kid.

00;19;31;10 – 00;19;43;07
Speaker 2
I went to high school where there was a manager at Hannaford and I was like, hey man, I need 50 turkeys. He’s like, okay, I’ll get them for you. So I had to go to the one and Glens Falls. Yeah. So we were pulling all resources and then.

00;19;43;07 – 00;20;10;08
Speaker 1
Lower and literally everybody pitched in. But like, like Ryan was just saying, like, people want to help, like. Yeah. And they a lot of times people don’t know how there’s no vehicle forward. But like because we’re so community based, like it’s just really, really nice. Everybody comes together locally. You know, my store is a mile from his gym and you know, my my team’s putting stuff together and his whole clientele.

00;20;10;08 – 00;20;12;13
Speaker 1
I mean, you got like.

00;20;12;13 – 00;20;13;21
Speaker 2
We should show you the video.

00;20;13;26 – 00;20;16;27
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s it’s really, you know.

00;20;16;29 – 00;20;38;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, we documented the entire thing. And, it was really, really, I wish I could say, like, gratifying because that doesn’t even do it justice, you know, really pulls the heartstrings when you can see so many people are just doing the right thing, which Chris mentioned yesterday. I mean, he was like, listen, you know, the news is just the news.

00;20;38;02 – 00;20;57;25
Speaker 2
It doesn’t it doesn’t sell. You know, positivity doesn’t sell. It’s all the negative stuff that we see on the news. And it’s this murder and this tragedy and this we don’t get a chance to listen. And I don’t even want to say anything, but, you know, our local news and even didn’t even know about this. And it’s not like like I said before, it wasn’t ego driven.

00;20;57;25 – 00;21;02;13
Speaker 2
It was just, you know, we we have an expression at the gym. It’s just you. Good human.

00;21;02;16 – 00;21;04;24
Speaker 1
Yeah, literally just.

00;21;04;27 – 00;21;05;21
Speaker 2
Human.

00;21;05;23 – 00;21;13;04
Speaker 3
I love what you guys are doing, man. Are you are you already thinking about other events that you might do after after Thanksgiving?

00;21;13;07 – 00;21;35;03
Speaker 2
I mean, we kind of, like, tossed around an idea last year, to kind of play off of what we were doing. We were talking about like a parade where my space is in a mall where, you know, we could do, like, a toy drive, but then you can come in and have an experience with carolers and firefighters and, you know, Santas and just take toys and hot chocolate, things like that.

00;21;35;03 – 00;21;41;26
Speaker 2
So we’ve dabbled with that idea. I, I’m, I’m part of the after.

00;21;41;26 – 00;21;57;05
Speaker 1
And the reality is make it all happen. All these little ideas, these little nuggets that, that, that, that fall into the dirt. Somehow they all wound up sprouting into something chaotic, like feeding 3000 people. Yeah. That’s a well, we’ll do something that is for sure.

00;21;57;08 – 00;22;19;29
Speaker 3
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you guys are off to an amazing start already with what you’re doing and what you have planned and what you’ve already accomplished. It’s, and and, Ryan, I like to your point, I think that the number of people that you guys are helping is astounding. And and, I mean, the work that you’re doing is very admirable.

00;22;19;29 – 00;22;39;20
Speaker 3
And it’s it’s no wonder people want to get involved and and want to help. So it’s, huge. I, you know, I hate to use the word kudos, but I’m like, huge kudos to you guys for doing what you’re doing. And and it’s a really sounds like it’s a very selfless act. So but we need more of that stuff out in the environment, especially locally here at home.

00;22;39;20 – 00;22;49;13
Speaker 3
So what’s guys, I know that we’re getting short on time, but if people want to learn more, they want to get involved. They want to jump in and help. What does that look like?

00;22;49;15 – 00;23;13;13
Speaker 1
518 great.org is the website. It’s kind of bare bones too, you know, we we got it up. Like I said, everything was kind of last minute. As per usual, it’ll be more, more intact as the days roll, but the Facebook page is the same. Five one eighth grade will be liking and sharing. The car shop and the gym pages will be will be bouncing off everything.

00;23;13;15 – 00;23;34;24
Speaker 1
And you may reach out. Reach out to me. Reach out to Ryan. Reach out to Michael Peel. Connect some dots here for sure. But I would say, we we definitely, definitely want to, you know, a thousand book bags would be really cool. And, you know, 5000 or more Thanksgiving meals. And then we’ll figure out Christmas when Christmas rolls around.

00;23;34;26 – 00;23;35;27
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;23;35;29 – 00;23;59;28
Speaker 2
The other thing, the thing too, that we talk about is, you know, those are two days, you know, where people struggle. If we could just implement ourselves to help people on the other 102 or 363 days where, you know, they they’re thinking about, what are we gonna eat today? You know, what’s that meal look like for our family?

00;23;59;28 – 00;24;19;23
Speaker 2
And I told the story yesterday and our podcast is, you know, I went into a family’s house and I said, where do you want me to put this box? And they’re like, I’m a floor. And they said, that’s where we eat in our church this house the year after. And it was the same thing. So, you know, it’s it’s hard to see that, you know, and not want change.

00;24;19;25 – 00;24;40;05
Speaker 2
So if we could just help and then it’s just a little bit I think that is the overall goal, not just to say like, hey, we’re going to do an event and it’s quarterly. I would love to be able to have somebody reach out and write a letter being like, hey, this family’s struggling. They’re too proud to ask for it.

00;24;40;08 – 00;24;56;23
Speaker 2
Hey, here’s groceries on us for a week. You know, we’re sponsored by Hannaford. They’re we’re giving us a Hannaford card. So I think that’s more of like, our mission rather than just to say, you know, let’s just do something for for Thanksgiving and make sure they have meal one time, you know?

00;24;56;26 – 00;25;02;03
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let’s let’s promote hope. Yeah.

00;25;02;03 – 00;25;21;13
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, any help that we can give, we’re obviously very happy to do it. You know, website wise, if you guys need any help. Sounds like you’re covered with need help free of charge. I got a whole team happy to, say I get happy to throw them your way and support you guys.

00;25;21;16 – 00;25;23;28
Speaker 3
I need more of that stuff in the world, so I love it.

00;25;24;00 – 00;25;27;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, I love it. I appreciate you and Mike. It was really nice to see you again.

00;25;27;28 – 00;25;32;21
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah. Appreciate you guys coming on. Thanks for coming on and talk about what you’re doing. And just all