The LoCo Experience
The LoCo Experience is a long-form conversational podcast that dives deep into the journeys of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers in Northern Colorado. Hosted by Curt Bear, Founder of LoCo Think Tank, the show brings real, raw, and unfiltered conversations—where guests share their successes, struggles, and lessons learned along the way.
LoCo Think Tank is Colorado’s premier business peer advisory organization, founded in Fort Collins to help business owners gain perspective, accountability, and encouragement to grow both personally and professionally. LoCo chapters bring together business owners at all stages of the journey into professionally facilitated peer advisory chapters, led by experienced business veterans. These groups provide a trusted space to share challenges, seek advice, learn togethter, and support each other’s success.
The LoCo Experience Podcast extends this mission beyond the chapter meetings— bringing the wisdom, insights, and stories of local business leaders to a wider audience.
Our triad mission with this podcast is simple:
Inspire through real stories of resilience and success.
Educate by sharing valuable business insights.
Entertain with engaging, unfiltered conversations.
If you love “How I Built This” and the free-flowing style of Joe Rogan - but with a Northern Colorado focus - you’ll enjoy The LoCo Experience! Our closing segment, "The LoCo Experience," asks guests to share their craziest stories — and we get some doozies!
It’s a passion project with purpose, and we invite you to listen, follow, and share, and maybe consider sponsoring. Know someone with a great story? Nominate your favorite business leader for an episode!
The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 236 | Inspirational Compassion and Following God’s Call with Roxene (Roxy) Tines-Brewton, Founder of Safe Families for Children, Northern Colorado
I met Roxy Tines-Brewton back in 2021, when I emcee’d the “Ordinary Extraordinary Awards” organized by the amazing Ann Baron and her Northern Colorado Community organization for several years, recognizing the behind-the-scenes do-ers that make Northern Colorado such a special place. At the time, Roxy was less than a year into her journey with Safe Families for Children, NoCo Chapter. Still flying solo, and working full-time at her day job and “part-time” activating churches and community groups to volunteer their time to help families in crisis - and marching alongside them in doing so.
I remember being inspired by her story back then - and oooh baby - has it only become more inspiring since!
Roxy has now built a purpose-driven team of 5 mostly part-timers, and activates dozens of volunteers monthly to provide family coaching, short-term housing, a community network of support, or tangible needs for families navigating challenging times. It’s an inspiring journey involving a near-audible call from God and many stories of providence - and so I hope you’ll join me in getting to know and love, Roxy Tines-Brewton of Safe Families for Children.
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
I met Roxy Tines Brewton back in 2021 when I emceed the ordinary extraordinary awards organized by the amazing Anne Baron and her Northern Colorado Community Organization, recognizing the behind the scenes doers that make Northern Colorado such a special place. At the time, Roxy was less than a year into her journey with Safe Families for Children Northern Colorado chapter, still flying solo and working full time at her day job, and. Quote unquote part-time activating churches and community groups to volunteer their time to help families in crisis and marching alongside them and doing so. I remember being inspired by her story back then and, Ooh, baby has it only become more inspiring since. Roxy has now built a purpose-driven team of five mostly part-timers, and activates dozens of volunteers monthly to provide family coaching, short-term housing, a community network of support or tangible needs for families navigating challenging times. It's an inspiring journey involving a near audible call from God and many stories of Providence. And so I hope you'll join me in getting to know and love Roxy Tins Bruton of Safe Families for Children.
Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Roxy. Yes. Tines Brewton. Hi. And she is the founder of, um, the Northern Colorado Chapter of Safe Families for Children. Thanks for being here. Happy to be here. It's good to, good to sit down and have a nice conversation about, I guess, myself. I don't, mostly kinda, yeah. Well, and what you're up to, you know, some of the impacts you've making. Yeah. Um, you and I met at the Sun Sunrise Ranch when you were being celebrated as a ordinary extraordinary award winner. I was, that was what, 2021. That would be my guess. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. It was kind of edgy to be, you know, at an in-person event, uh, unmask even. Right. We wouldn't, we weren't even wearing masks there. Yeah, I think we even shook hands, which I think had dinner together. I think. Was it when the mask mandate went back on? I think we were Maybe, were we breaking rules? We might been, if people were kind of over it by then. A lot people were breaking rules. I don't people'll get arrested anyway. Yeah, whatever. Bite it. Stick to the band. That's Roxy. Hardly. I'm really a rebel. What kind of a rebel, um, against the trends of society to overlook. Kids and help struggling families in a better way. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Talk to me about it. Really passionate about that. So, um, I don't know how far you want me to go in, but I, um, started a career over a decade ago, um, in child protection. Um, so I'd gotten my degree in psychology. I was a bit of a late bloomer, um, finishing my college education. Um, but started in child protection here in Lermer County, um, and started that. So like working for the county? Yep. Yep. Worked. And you were hoping for just a cush job kind of thing. Actually, at first I was like, I just wanna get my feet wet. Okay. So see where I wanna be. I had been in sales for a long time before that, so. Okay. And then you went back to college for like, uh, social work or psychology? Psychology actually. Okay. Yep. And, uh, ended up, uh, landing a job with Lerer County and Child Protection and, um, had always wanted to make an impact in the lives of families and children, even since I was a little girl. My dad will tell you that I said I wanted to work with families back when I was really young. Hmm. Um, and so ended up there, um, spent eight years there when I finally kind of stepped away fully and did Safe Families and learned a lot there. Um, well, and you did it, you double timed it for a while, right? I did. Like you were working full-time for Safe Families and full-time for Larrick County. Yeah. It was give or take, it was part-time Safe families, technically in a part-time nonprofit world. Right. If you know what I mean. Right. Where every hour is Magnifi five by two. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I did about two years both. Okay. Um, and then I remember my husband and I were coming home from church when afternoon and he looked at me and he goes, uh, do you think God would grow safe families if you just trusted him and. Focused on just safe families. And I was like, yes, that's what he's been telling me. I'm like, I, I never quite wanted to listen'cause I'm still scared a little bit, but Well, and you, you know, the nonprofit world is lucrative pay. Oh yeah. So I was, it was juicy, you know, so, well, government work isn't all that great either. Uh, it is, it is a bit better than non-profits. Well, that just means you need to grow a little more. Yeah, exactly. And make a little more impact because, uh, basically your salary should be whatever it would take to pay somebody to replace you in that role that you've created for yourself. So like. I bet you're getting paid less than that. And if you are Yeah. You're not being a good steward. Yeah. That's true to the organization. Ultimately. That's true. If you wanna donate 20 grand back to the organization every year,'cause they're overpaying you by 20 grand. Be, but you can't leave'em in a place where they would have to increase the salary by 40,000 if they lost you. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well just that's a, that's a good, good thought. That's a good argument for your board anyway. Yeah. And you, I'll go ahead and chop that out for you people out there with money, right? If we could I would pay my more. If we could. If we could. That's, you know, I had a staff member tell me once, you know, you should increase your hours, be full-time in salary. And I was like, and that means I fundraise for that position. Right. I'm basically FCA or something. Yeah. Well, but you're always the fundraiser. Tell me about who is your staff? What is your team and what are you, who are you serving? What are you doing? Yeah, so when I, when we launched say families, um, and was. 2021, then how long has this been going around? That's an interesting story. So in 2019. Okay. Um, I brought, I actually sat down, we were on our team at the county, and our team at the county had talked about, dreamt about like this host home idea. Hmm. So I worked on the after hours team, so we would be nights and weekends. So a lot of times if we needed a safe place for a child to go and there was no family or support, you were bringing those critters home. That. Yeah. Well, or sleeping in an office. Oh, wow. Um, you know, that, that could look like, you know, making phone calls until we could find an appropriate place. Yeah. Um, and then also that just immediately meant foster care if there wasn't a safe alternative. Sure. Which, um, hard to get out of sometimes. Yeah. Once you go down that path, that's court involvement for a family that's already in crisis, that's a bunch of other added steps to go ahead and stabilize and reunify with their child. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So interesting enough that came up that we needed host homes. That would be a great stop gap for those families that didn't have really the best network. Yeah. Um, and so me and another gentleman got together. He actually works for Kingdom Way. His name's Greg Berger. Okay, sure. I know Greg. And he, I call him an in, he's either an inst inspirator or an instigator. Instigator. Yeah. Um, and, uh, we were like, what could we do? Like, do we wanna look at what it would look like to start, you know. Figuring out the next steps. A network kind of thing. Yeah. I did a Google search host homes near me just to see if there was anything out there like this, you know, that we were dreaming of and found safe families in Denver. Okay. And was really blown away. I am like, this resource is just down, you know, just down the interstate from us. Yeah. Um, Greg reached out to the state director and then I coordinated with Larimer County to bring the state director in. Um, and she came up, did a presentation for all of the powers that be in Larimer County and told them what we do and how we can host children. And we're the only one in the state that's allowed to do that outside of foster care. You know, shared all the, yeah. The good we could do for the county. Um, and COVID happened. Right. You know, and shut pretty much any, anything down. Um, yeah, and I want, can I back up for just a second? Yeah. Because Jill and I, my wife and I were along the route of kind of becoming a potential host home for the Matthews House at the time. Yeah. And it was gonna be for like, mostly for single moms and a kid or something. Mm-hmm. Or two kids. Mm-hmm. Or two kids or something like that. Mm-hmm. Did that program. Had fizzled or something and wasn't around, I never really quite understood. Like, I, I forget, I probably got too busy and got sidetracked, but, well, maybe it never continued. Hopefully I quote this the correct way. So, um, from my understanding,'cause it was before my time, safe Families was around and the Matthews house was around, there were programs the, the Matthews House was doing for hosting and they also did a program called Dash, which would host children. So they didn't set in detention facilities. Right. Um, and at the same time, and I believe it was 2019, um. Maybe a little earlier. Um, both those programs got a cease and desist by the state of Colorado. Oh. Um, you don't have the right license for this thing or something. Yeah. You need, you need to get the right licensing, so, perfect. Good job. State of Colorado. Killing it. Yeah. Yeah. So I was around, creates opportunity though, thankfully. Yeah. Our Northern Colorado chapter wasn't around, but we had a flourishing Colorado Springs chapter. Denver chapter had just set up. Um, so tho they all get the cease and desist letter. Oh dang. And we worked again before my time, so hopefully I'm not quoting facts the wrong way. Um, our director at the time worked with Rocky Mountain Children's Law to go ahead and then get some legislation PLA passed called The Safe Families Option for Children. Mm. Not named after us. Yeah.'cause the states like you're putting these kids in people's houses that aren't a approved foster parent. Yeah. You're not going through the right. Process or whatever, and you're like, well, that's kind of the point. We just want a little space. Yeah. We wanted to be a little grassroots and Yeah. You know, holistic. Um, so you went, they became a lobbyist, your Denver chapter person kind of bless their hearts. Yes. Um, glad it was before my time. Right. And so they, they got all that law passed. Um, so now we say families is considered a licensed CPA in the state of Colorado. Mm-hmm. So certified placement agency. Okay. So somewhat similar to Lutheran Family Services. Yep. Yep. You know, maple Star, things like that. Jill worked at Hope and Home in Oh yes. Colorado Springs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She, it's funny, we, they did cross paths. Yeah. Well next time we hang out, we'll, uh, you guys have a lot to talk about. Yeah, no kidding. Um, but so all that came about and we were able to start hosting and, and the beauty in that is we are audited by the state now, so the state has that oversight, um, to make sure we've got our i's dotted or t's crossed, you know, volunteers are fully checked. Um, Colorado, rightfully so, is very, very good about making sure that they're putting kids in safe spots. Yeah. Yeah. And that makes sense. And probably there's extra resources even for making sure people are mm-hmm. Vetted all the way and stuff.'cause yeah. Like one thing about bad people is sometimes they don't present that way. Yes. Yeah. You know, unfortunately some of'em are very smart. Yeah. Sneaky get in sneaky situations they shouldn't be. Yeah, exactly. Uhhuh. So, okay, so, and when did the Northern Colorado chapter officially launch? I, so Greg instigated you into this great instated. So we came up and toured and you're this just happy person working at the county. Well, you know, and when it dropped off in 2019, life as usual kind of went on for me. And if I'm being completely honest, kind of when I initially thought of it about bringing it here is I'll continue down my merry road with the county. Maybe I would get a raise and, and get it, you know. Oh, right. You know, a caseworker level three, because I started a new program, brought a new resource maybe on that. Um, I'm, I'm a firm believer in God sometimes. He has different plans. Right, right. So, uh, you know, after that didn't happen, um, well then COVID happened. You said COVID happened. You know, it slowed it down. Um, for me, what triggered me to bring it up again, um, was actually, uh, kind of a, a moving story for me. So I had, you know, being on the afters team, a lot of times the things we went out on couldn't wait till the next day. So they were pretty urgent. Yeah. Um, and so I had done a lot of. Removals, you know, where I had, uh, placed, had to place children in different spots for safety reasons, and I went out, um, oh, you had placed there and then you had to remove'em from there? Yeah, yeah. So I'd have to put kiddos in foster care, put'em with other safe family members, you know. Um, and I had done that. Uh, I mean, at that point I was with the county for six years, so I'd done it, uh, you know, a hand enough times to where, you know, it's still, it still moves you, it still, uh, impacts you. Yeah. Um, and probably for me, which I'm an empath a little bit more than some, you know, I will honestly say it was hard to sleep. Mm-hmm. Um, but I went out and, uh, had this mother, and it was during COVID, so you can't, you know, you are wearing a mask. Nobody can tell what you really think and feel, and they can't tell that you're. You know, there's a lot in a person's smile in their face. Right, right. And, and how they're feeling. And they, historically, people could always see that you were a safe person and now you got this mask covering you besides Yeah. Well, and I went out to meet this, meet this, um, parent and just could sense that. Life for her had been tough. And I can't go into a ton of details just because of confidentiality, but brand new baby. And always when you, when you do these things, you know that parents absolutely adore their children and children adore their parents. There's that mother, mother daughter bond. Um, there's actually research and statistics on all the bonding that happens between a mother and child. Um, Kurt, I don't know if you know, but if a mother and a child have been separated for years, if they come back in close contact, their hearts immediately sync up. Hmm. I mean, just this chemistry that they have. So, you know, just knowing that, that moved me. And then of course, COVID is going on and the riots are going on, and I went home that night and my husband, uh, you know, he's sleeping and I am praying and crying and upset and you know, why can't, why? You know, I prayed after every, every. Time I met a family that God would just, you know, guide that and take over. Um, and I heard God clearly tell me, I've saved you for this time. I need you to do more than just pray. And. So, uh, it led me to, to take a pause. Yeah. And, uh, call that state director back and ask her, what do I do? What do I gotta do? Um, and she basically said, well, if you find a church, I'll find some funding a little bit. Uh, what do they say? Cart in front of the horse, or a horse in front of the cart. Yeah. Yeah. I mess up that analogy way too often. But she, she said that, you know, that I could start there. And so while that option, and she also told me, were you part of church already? And did they say yes or were they the right ones to ask? You know, the hard part is I had just switched churches and I was, I, I had just started to go to foundations in Windsor. Okay. And we had participated mostly Windsor. Uh, yeah, I'm, I live in severance, so it was a little bit closer and, and then we were participating a lot online'cause a, our churches would closed. I always make a joke that the Denver director might've been thinking, haha, you go ahead and find a church. Good luck. Because a lot of our churches at that time were closed. Yeah. And here's a caseworker that's primarily spent all of her time working at the county. Um. That's, that's not heavily networked in the community. Probably not heavily networked within the community, although you were in sales, but probably a specific product or whatever too been. Yeah. While ago. That's just blindly reaching out to churches. Started with foundations since it was where I was going. Um, and started networking through email, you know, through email. Sure. Did some lot of, thankfully everybody had a lot of time in their hands in those days. I, I always say that the time was great because launching a chapter, I was able,'cause there's a lot that goes into that. Um, not just your church partners, but also your community partners. Yeah. And knowing what everybody else is doing in the community. And ironically working for Larimer County, I knew there were resources out there, but I didn't know like. What they, all of'em, who did what so much and stuff, you know, and I spent eight years with, you know, I laugh, but I didn't, I didn't shake hands with these people. I just would send people to the, you know, whatever resources that I had heard of. So, you know, making those connections. Yeah. How fun. Um, our first partner church was actually a really SAA small church that was located in the Loveland Life Center. Okay. Um, we had talked to h and s House of Neighborly Services. Oh yeah. Um, and Ben, Greg was in that building. Building, which was, yeah, I was gonna say I, yeah, yeah. He was a navigator there. So he was doing some, sending out the feelers and we went out on a Wednesday night and the state director at that time, uh, did about a 10 minute presentation and about 12 people signed up to volunteer. Wow. And I was like, job done. Right. We got 12 and, and I looked at the state director and I'm like, there you go. And she was like, and I'd like you to work for us, which, and I was like, I don't have a degree in nonprofit management. I don't have Right a leader. You know, I'm a glorified caseworker Christian, first and foremost. Um, but I trusted what God was doing and, uh, just followed it and still do. So this is like the summer of 2020 basically. It was actually we in the fall, we went out there in September and we started doing things. October, we had boots on the ground serving families in January. So tell me, what are you, how are you serving these families? What, what are you, what are you doing for them? These, these volunteers are hosting kids only. Yeah, we do. We, it's been, there's a little bit of feeding them, mentoring them. Yeah. Tell me a little bit. So, um, save families, our mission statement is to host vulnerable children temporarily and to create extended family-like relationships to families in crisis. Wow. Um, for our chapter especially, we are heavily focused on really the family friend and the family coach. Mm-hmm. So, I, I think I may have told you this when we initially talked Kurt, a lot of families don't come to us and say, here, take my kids. I'm in a crisis. Yeah. I don't know you. Yeah. Um, but they'll come to us and they'll. They'll say, I don't have anybody. And we'll connect them to a family friend volunteer, which is exactly the way it sounds. It's somebody they can call if they need to vent and have a cup of coffee they can give. We're we're one of few nonprofits, they can offer transportation. So as you know, a lot of senior, it's almost like a partners or a Boys and Girls club, but for adults that are struggling at a time Yeah. To some extent that program. Well, and we've done rides to school, we try to stay temporarily'cause we don't wanna be a cab driver service. Yeah. There's so short term to get to your next. Stability, whether that's fixing a car or Yeah. Getting a car, walk through a season, going through how to ride the bus, you know, whatever that looks like or whatever. It can get you to, um, daytime childcare. So a lot of that looks like one, we're not daycare, but yes, we will temporarily help with childcare. Will you figure out, um, unfortunately, CA and these are volunteers mostly through the church that have been trained by you guys and, and prepared to do this stuff? Yes. So that's your boots on the ground mostly? Yeah. All our volunteers except for a resource friend. So there's four different roles. So there's the host home. Okay. Then we'll host children temporarily while families get back on their feet. Usually average about six weeks, so, okay. So we're not trying to be foster care. Yep. Um, also we can only host up to six months per the bill that was passed. Okay. Um, unless there's extenuating circumstances, maybe we've got a family in the military and it went beyond six months. Um, and do these families get some, uh, money to help? Cover baby food or anything like that? Or it's fully volunteer, like hosting an exchange kid. It is fully volunteer. Okay. So our core values are radical hospitality, intentional compassion, and disruptive generosity. So they do it out of those core values. Um, and they're biblical values. Yeah. Um, we're faith-based. Um, and so they live by those. Okay. And we live by those. Okay. So this is the, that's the host homes host, volunteers. You the host home. And then we have, sorry, you make me cry. I'm sensitive sometimes. I am sorry. I used to the story I told you, you a baby. I used to ball like a baby. I've told it now a hundred times, so I get tough. It getting better. How did you geter? Okay, that's good. I'll just have you listen to it over and over again for You'll get better. I'll put it back. Yeah. Just play it back and forth and work myself out. Give you, you'll be tough as nails. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so host, the host, host family is able to host temporarily. We wrap everybody in this circle. We call it a circle of support. Okay. So, and then we go edit the family coach. Um, and they are going to connect the family to the resources they need. Yep. Go over needs and goals. They know all those resources that you didn't know. They're kind of like a volunteer case worker. Yep. Yep. Case manager. They'll do the placement checks just like happened in foster care Wow. To make sure children are safe. Yep. The host home looks safe and families are connected. Um, and then, um, cool. They. You know, develop needs and goals and work with the parents. The one thing that I always enjoyed about our FA family coaches and that I really wanted didn't steal is while we don't wanna, handhold always, sometimes families are in so much crisis that, and they're given so many resources, it's almost like an overload and they don't know where to start. Yeah. So if somebody can maybe start by, yeah. Making those phone calls with them. Yeah. Let's do these first two, three steps and then I'm gonna let you do it. Yeah. And then we're gonna check in, you know, somebody to just walk alongside. And then the family friend I kind of told you about their, you know, they can help with transportation for the host, act like family, like fake family, but, well, and, and the goal is of all that, Kurt, is that we'll connect them to this team of volunteers and safe families goes away after a few months. Longest we stay open is a year. Mm. Um, or try to, sometimes we're open a little longer. Right. But the hope is we close out and these families stay connected. Yeah. For, for a long term unified term. Remain unified. Yeah. Yeah. And we have, and so it's kind of a coaching through crisis with additional support. Kind of program. Well, and then, and a lot of times is it, is it like domestic abuse, flees and stuff like that? A lot? Or We've seen domestic violence. Um, we've seen, um, addiction. Sure. Um, families struggling with that or needing mm-hmm. To do some rehab. Mommies went through rehab. Yep. Can't take kids. Yeah. Yeah. Um, homelessness. Um, unfortunately we have a growing population of homelessness Sure. In Northern Colorado. So those families that don't wanna take young children into the shelter, but maybe would consider doing a host home mm-hmm. Um, respite. So, um, adopted families, even biological families that are doing it by themselves or worn out. Yep. That need a weekend off. Oh, really? So break. So it even, even can be 10 days Yeah. Or something. Sure. And here's another one that, can I put my exchange student with you guys Absolutely. For a week while Julie, I go on vacation. Yeah, for real. We could talk like, would I qualify? She's a, she's a joy. I mean, I'm sure any of your families would find it way easier than hosting a Well, and one really crazy thing that I don't think the average Joe knows is, uh, if a single mom, single dad needs a surgery. Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. And they have nobody And their family's in Boston. Yeah. Right. And they have nobody here or has to, you know, we had a mom, um, one year that was married and, and wanted to go have her baby and wanted her husband there, but they had nobody to watch their two other children. Wow. So those are the easier ones we step in for. Yeah, we got'em for three days, either or a week. Uhhuh, or two weeks even. You know, let you have a little time with them anymore. Well, we're hoping to get more advanced into more of a footprint in Weld County too. But we had a physician there at our info night in Weld County. Okay. At the Link Library. And he mentioned something I hadn't even thought about, but that refugee families that are here. Oh, seeking asylum. Sure. That have no family, no resources. They may be living in a car. No resources. Resources, cultural change. Take my kid for a few weeks or months. They, well, and he said that they'll come into to the ER to, to there at NCMC to the hospital and they'll leave, um, against medical advice because they have nobody to watch their children. Right. So, you know, I just, I Crazy. Things you don't think of. Yeah. So just having more people know that you guys exist is probably one of your biggest missions. Know that we exist both on the, both on the front of families knowing we're out there to call. Yeah. So they don't have to turn to somebody they don't trust or feel like they can't. They can't do the things they need to do for their own wellbeing. And then also the people that are called to do this work, right? Like the volunteers, uh, um, I always say that can do more stuff if you've got more people. Yeah. More volunteers. What's the, what's the quote about the light? If we all hold, maybe. Oh, I was gonna say, many hands make light work. Yes. But it's a different Yes. Same analogy, different, just different phrasing. Yeah. Many small lights together. Big a big glow or something. Yeah, something like that. Light up the night. Um, did, did we get four? I I re hosts friends. Coaches. The coaches. The last one is the only one we don't have. Go through background checks. And this might answer your one question about are they paid? How do they, you know, get they supplies? So resource friends, we have people sign on just to donate resources. And so like last night I was out, uh, helping facilitate a child being hosted. Um, and I actually didn't have time to navigate our resource friends, but I had to run out and grab, um, a car seat and a sippy cup and some diapers and Yeah. You know, so they can donate those things. If we have a little more leeway, I throw it out to all our resource friends. Okay. We've done, so they just kind of signed up, Hey, let me know when you need a resource. Yeah, maybe I got one. And we've done some, or I'll go get one really cool things with that. Uh, we had a mom, we've got her permission to share. So, um, here about a year, a little over a year ago, okay. Um, through her baby shower, seven different churches were involved. She never had one. Right. And they packed a picnic table full of gifts for her. Yeah. Yeah. It was just beautiful. Yeah. What a blessing. I don't know where kind of, yeah. Um, and so then you have a staff too, right? Oh, yeah. Like, and what do they do? Um, I was, and, and how many are there and stuff like that. I was singly staffed for a long time, for almost two years by myself. Part, part-time. Air quotes. Um, and then, uh, ran into somebody that I went out to coffee with and she, she, she has the coolest story. I wish she was here to tell it. She said, after talking to me, she went home and told her husband, I'm gonna work for Safe Families. And then she had asked me about that and I was like, if I had money, that would be great. Right, right. Um, and she apparently paying me, she went home and she prayed fervently. Um, and actually crazy time. That was a time where, say families, our chapter almost closed. Oh, wow. Um, because we were just, I mean, we were so new, nobody knew about us. I didn't know much about fundraising. Right. Um, and Oh, and'cause the, the Denver chapter kind of seeded you with a little bit of Yeah. Initially go, they started with the Tenon Center grant. Gotcha. And uh, and they're like, you're on your own now. A little, little, yeah. Basically my little bird. Right. Um, but she's praying fervently and I'm thinking, I, I just talked about this today. I'm thinking, oh no, we're gonna close. And I'm just kind of following, following what, wherever I need to go. And I went out and I did a presentation at Child Safe. Um, and when I did that, there just so happened to be somebody that heard it and they shared it with, uh, somebody they knew with a family foundation. Hmm. And they literally gifted us. We like foundations. They gifted us enough money for not only to keep us stable, but for me to hire my dear friend Katie, who was our second employee. Hi Katie. You'll probably listen to this. Yes, she probably will. She's, she's one of my dear, dear friends. Cool. She is, so, she's adopted from Uganda. Oh, wow. Um, she did a ministry similar to this one in Uganda. Oh, I'm not gonna butcher it by sharing too much about it. That's maybe her podcast. Um, and so she hired on, gosh, it's been. Oh, Katie, please forgive me. It's been, she's going on, this will be her second year, um, October-ish, I think. Yeah, sounds about right. Um, and she's part-time, she does church and community engagement here in Fort Collins. Okay. Um, and then after that, and so she's recruiting more churches. So you have more volunteers for these Yep. Three things, but also a bigger network for the. The, the, yep. The, the gifters. Yeah. So she goes out, she's, she helps us fundraise. She does things like that. She does, uh, connection with different people in the community so they know what we're doing. Yeah. You need to come to my rotary club. I do. I do. You can come visit any time. That would be great. It's every Thursday morning at seven. Just for anybody listening you can visit too. Yeah. But also we have programs regularly and you know, we kind of, you know, it can't be a nonprofit every week looking for money'cause we already. Give a lot through Rotary and whatever else. Mm-hmm. But it's such a fascinating program and different than most people have experienced. So I'll, I'll put in a good word for you again. That blessed. That would be really cool. Yeah. Anyway, sorry to detract. Where do we go? Where do we jump off? So we have Katie. Oh yeah, Katie. Yep. Then and then, uh, hi Katie. Uh, another blessing, uh, Andrea McFarland. So she is actually a dear, dear friend of mine. We work together at Larimer County on the AF hours team. Yeah. Okay. Um, and I just so happened when we were looking for somebody to be a family coach supervisor, so they do all our intakes. Oh, yep. And they vet all our volunteers. Yeah. These are your volunteer case workers. Mm-hmm. Effectively. Yeah. And she supervises all our family coaches. Yeah. Um, so she is our family coach supervisor. Awesome. And she's been a huge blessing'cause she comes to us with 15 years experience and a master's in social work. Very cool. Which is hard for her. And she's part-time too? Or? She's, she is part-time. Okay. Maybe I'll went over to full-time one of these years. Got it. Sorry. Larimer County. I'm gonna try. Awesome. I feel like I've met Andrea somewhere as well. So if Andrea, I seem. Like, you sound familiar. That's because it's true. Um, and so a small team. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you and two part-time there is more still. Well, when we, okay. When we got our footprint going in. Well, thanks to, well, community Foundation, um, last year I was able to hire a part-time community and church engagement and Marie Root. Okay. Um, she used to work for Real Hope so in the adoption side of things. Mm-hmm. Um, and then we've hired a contractor, Jill de Gentry Oh wow. Who's 35 years in Greeley Weld area Connect. So connect with children and families. Yes, I do. I I love to be, uh, that's one thing I do love is connecting connect. Yes. Connecting the dots. It's clear that you're good at it. Um, and so we've got a team of, uh, five with the contractor. Very cool. And do you go like, Larimer and Weld is there, there's probably no services like this in Eastern Colorado or whatever, but you wouldn't really? Yeah. So right now you can't go there, but. We're looking at, um, potentially we're in the talks of a hub, Boulder ish area. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We have a few sprinkled volunteers that way. So when we get a referral for families like Longmont Firestone, we try to help. Um, so we're in talks now. Yeah. Um, you need to find a U in Boulder is what you need. Yeah. We would get some staff for Boulder. I can't, I think my stretch is right.'cause I don't know if you knew this, Kurt. I'm also, uh, this work has called me into caring for. Three extra little boys in this season of life. So I missed No. Yeah. You're hosting them or you've adopted them, or you're in the middle of deciding Well, deciding. They, they, they were children that we worked with, with safe families. Okay. Um, and they kind of exited our program. And then things, things weren't, they didn't stay stable. They didn't stay stable. Um, and so when that happened, I had had the, the kids had gone to our church for eight months. Hmm. So there was this added relationship. I was actually the prayer partner for the oldest. Hmm. And so that was just really hard for me. I'm like, man, uh, so they're siblings? They are all brothers. All right. Uh, 10, nine, and, uh, seven. And how old are you? Do you have kids or your two? I have a lot of kids. You're crazy lady. I am a crazy lady. So we have six together, me and my husband. Okay. Um, and now nine. And now we we're working on quite a baseball team. Right. And how's the oldest? Uh, two youngest of your So Caitlyn, I'm sorry if I butchered this at 32. Okay. Um, and, uh, she's my stepdaughter and then it goes Camie and Calvin and Camie is 28, 26 for Calvin. And then my oldest is 26, and then my next is 21 and it's CSU. And then we have little Zoe who is ours together, me and my husband's together, and she is about to turn 12. Um, and how's she feel about having, uh, three fresh brothers? Oh, she adores them. Yeah, she adores them. That's cool. Um, the only thing that, that I worry for her is the, the ability to. Love and then let go. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean we, we are totally blessed'cause we've got to see a good season and we've got to But you don't know if you'll be able to keep'em? Kind of, or we don't know what God's doing with it. You know, it's been interesting because we, I could, I, being safe Families director, um, I can't host with safe families. That's just a state, state rule. Makes sense. Um, because I had been look overseeing the placement and really involved. So when that came about, I actually became a certified kinship provider. Oh. Since I had a relationship with the boys. Mm-hmm. Um, and it has been almost like an extended safe families thing for us. Yeah. Um, we have a very good relationship with the parent. Um, I think that's helped with the resiliency of the children for sure. Um, and we just kind of hope that we can always be there. We, we wanna, uh, be that family, that extended family for me, like I was a single mom for a while and I had support, but it's still, there were times where crisis came and I was like in panic. Yeah. And for single, single parents. That don't have support. Um, it's ingrained in me. I really want to be that support. You can't. Yeah. It's like tying your hands behind your back and trying to do the most important job in the world. Yeah. That's interesting. Well, bless you. That's quite a, uh, a set of obligations and opportunities you've said yes to Yeah. Over the last few years and, and great to see a team building around that. Can you tell me a story of like an anonymized story of tremendous success that really stands out to you? So again, this is one that I have permission to share. Um, the fir the, there's a mom that we worked with, she's near and dear to my heart. Um, uh, her name's Heather. Um, she spoke at our very first gala, um, in 2022. Um, and she struggled with homelessness, addiction. Um, she, um, we can be, we became involved. We have a really good partnership with ERT County. Okay. Um, probably because of my career there prior and Sure. And, and so that's been a blessing too. Um, but anyways, back to the topic. Uh, she became involved because she wanted support. Um, she had got a new home and it had been a while, 10 years I think. Okay. Um, and so we literally became involved to just connect her to family, friends that could come in, help her get everything moved in help decorate, help baby proof, you know. Be there when she needs to talk. Volunteers were texting, they were calling, they were hanging out and having dinners. Um, everything was going really well. And like we see with addiction, sometimes there's relapse. Yeah. Um, and there was a relapse. Um, mom had this, mama had, uh, already been through, um, some of the foster care adoption, lost adoption stories. So obviously for her that was. Immensely traumatizing to think of that route. Um, and we scrambled with her to find a host home. Um, and it was just beautiful Originally, it's the winter, it's we're going into winter, and the host home we utilized is in red feathers. Oh, perfect. I'm like, this could be tough. But they made it, I mean, it was just, they did the work. They, I, you know, I just got to be on the sidelines watching, watching what they and God did, because they just formed this beautiful relationship. Um, it was during the holidays, so we had to utilize other volunteers because our host home wanted to travel Florida, California. So we utilized a couple other Wow. Um, volunteer. It takes a village, right? Yes, it takes a village. When we closed out her, when we met with DHS to close out, which we closed out super fast. One be I wanna, I wanna really highlight the work she did. Mm-hmm. Because we have families that if they don't wanna change, we don't work. Yeah. Yeah.'cause you've gotta wanna do the work. Yep. Um, but she really did. And, uh. Put in a lot of that work, jumped through all the hoops she closed out. I wanna say we were only open to host for 90 days, which was quick. Wow. Yeah. Um, and when we went to her, the DHS has family meetings to talk about, like, let's make a plan for how we avoid this happening again. Yeah. She had a packed house of volunteers, I think at, at that time, I counted 10 safe families, volunteers that were putting down on paper what they would continue to do. Um, I have a really beautiful picture, Kurt. Um, that happened at our last run that we did, our fundraising run. Yeah. Of her. It's such a baby though. You make me cry. I'm sorry. He don't mean to make you cry. Slap me Ava, come in here and slap me. Um, but continue. But that's so beautiful just to have like, it, it speaks to her heart and dedication to improving, obviously. Mm-hmm. But also mm-hmm. Like to have that many people say yes. Mm-hmm. You know, 10 people say yes to, I'll help this person. You know? It's so cool. It is truly being make you cry too fall. I know. I see it. I can see it. You're pretty close. I You probably will get me to cry. Uh um. Trying my best. Yeah, you're doing good. Better than me. I'm. But all over the place here. This picture that they took at the fundraiser that we did, the lab, we, it's formally lapsed for Love. It was Footsteps for Family. Okay. It's, it's of her, her daughter, our host family who also recently adopted, which isn't usually the Safe Family story. That's not what we usually do. But they recently adopted. Yeah. Um, that hosted her daughter and then, uh, another Safe Families volunteer and all their kids and they're all sitting in the grass together. And I was like, that's what it's all about, is like you're extending your family that, um, that's, we call it Circle of Sport, like I said. Yeah. But it's like that Mother of Theresa like, like how do you make that bigger? Yeah. How do you, how many, um, hours a month does like a family coach typically volunteer for? It can really depend. So you can really volunteer and be really intense. Like you've got a lot to get done. You've got several cases going at the same time. You've got several cases we try right now to give them one to two. Okay. Um, our like policies and procedures. Say a part-time volunteer coach could do up to four and a like full-time. One that want, you know, maybe retired and wants to do Right. Right. This a lot can do up to 12. Okay. Um, really too, like we have traditionally too when it comes to placement checks, a lot of times staff do those just to make sure. Mm-hmm. At least the initial ones are really, you know, we're checking all the boxes, but how interesting. That's what they, my wife has uh, been doing Casa for a couple of years now. Oh, really? Really loves it. Um, but she would be super qualified for your Yes, she would. So anyway, I try, try to set her up with any more volunteer. We love casa. We have a, an amazing casa. Miss Shelly, so well, I'm gonna call for a break and try to get my composure back and stop crying. Uh, and we'll talk a little bit more about say families. We'll talk about this book and we'll jump in the time machine. Awesome. Sounds good. And so when we jumped off, we were, uh, kind of talking about a little bit of the vision for the future. It could be a bolder thing. So you think that could be just a, a branch of your organization for Northern Colorado? Yeah. Or. We're thinking it would go under the Northern Colorado chapter. Like I said earlier, we have three chapters across the state. Yeah. So we're farthest, farthest south we go is Colorado Springs. Right. Um, and then we have Denver Metro that covers five counties. Right. Colorado Springs is El Paso primarily. Tell are a little bit Right. Was big and far away. I mean, I think their future goal is probably Pueblo and a little bit further. Sure. Um, and then for us, it has started in Larimer was always intended to go into Weld. Um, and then now last year we've started going into Weld, partnering with agencies there, working out a relationship with the county team members, HS added team members teach us, add a team members, um, and then you're like an entrepreneur. Oh man, I didn't think so, but I guess God does. Very cool. Well, and I imagine there's some benefits of scale too. Yeah. Yeah. Right. When you're too small, you're just too small to be effective and you gotta run these, you know, outreach campaigns, getting gathering resources mm-hmm. And matching new clients with, with volunteers and what's the right volunteer. Mm-hmm. A lot of stuff to do. And we always joke that matching volunteers and families kind of feels like. Uh, matchmaking. Yeah. And here's your blind date. Hope your guys are good friends. Well, like I do this, you know, we, we haven't really talked much about what local Think Tank does, and I don't know if you've ever No, I'd love to hear that. Snoop us or what, but so we have these chapters of business owners, um, occasionally nonprofits. They get half price, half price. Mm-hmm. Um, but they, uh, they meet together for a half day, once a month and kind of take turns put in their challenges and opportunities on the table for a 10 person group of people to kind of process through. Oh, nice. So it's like your board of directors basically, but they're all invested in doing their own business, but they have a perspective and skills and talents to share into the sauce, if you will. Oh, yeah. Um, and like figuring out where a new prospect for local think tank chapter should go is a little bit of a, you know, okay, well, like maybe this one, you know, you gotta kinda have a sense for. Relationships. Uhhuh, who's gonna vibe with who? And it sounds like that's Yeah. Same for you. Yeah. Yeah. Can I get ice? We're probably more similar than, uh, we would imagine. Yes. Probably. We, we do a thing called hallow relational intelligence. Really? Okay. Yeah. And I'm full of ideas and I'm full of love for people. Basically. I'm the, the thinker and the social relational type. It sounds a lot like me. I like to, I joke that I kind of fly with the birds. I'm a visionary. I'm like, Ooh, I like that. I wanna do that. Right. You know? And you prefer other people do a lot of the things. Yeah. I try to get my people together so we can work on project. Like one thing that we've been trying to work on, uh, not to digress, is a transportation type ministry. Because biggest needs in Colorado is housing and transportation. Totally. When those things fall apart. Yep. Or just people that live. Off the bus route. Yeah, right. Wow. And getting kids to school and, and not having buses to take'em. And, um, so, you know, when that came about, I'm like, it can't be me. I've got a handful, but what, what do you guys, so we're still working on who that lucky winner might be. Tag it's you, Katie. Sorry, Katie's sitting at home going, no, no more Roxy. Um, so if in the future you're able to kind of expand in the Weld County Boulder, that would be kind of the, the northern front range. Mm-hmm. What would that look like? Then you would maybe have, uh, another four, five people mostly full-time and then a network of volunteers. How many volunteers Right now? So we have a 65 active that was active in our last fiscal year. Okay. That actually were, you know, uh, green on our list to go and match. There's probably more like a hundred when you consider our resource friends and things like that. Yep. That maybe, you know, that aren't lightening on actively engaged, but in different ways. Yeah. And then we've got quite a few in the, in the process now. Hmm. Um, so, so we're getting up there. It's my goal to be at least 150. Um, I would love that if we could be at that end of this time next year. Yeah. Um, especially now that we are trying, we're meeting needs in Weld County too. Yeah. Um, and then we served last year for our fiscal year, we were able to serve 35 families, 88 children. That's been our. Kind of where we sit at. Okay. And, and I'm kind of good with that because there's a lot of things percolating, like as we expand. I didn't realize that you've gotta train new workers and you've got to, you know, really replicate what you're doing in Larimer, in Wild Now and then maybe now in Boulder. And so, like as I was looking at too, at the grants that we did and kind of explaining things that, uh, yeah, well we wanna serve more families every year, that's fantastic. But we also need more volunteers. And that's a whole lot of work too. Yeah. Taking, yeah, just organizing that many volunteers is a huge job. Yeah, it is. It is. Who does that right now? Is that Um, so it is technically the way the process should work. I'm having a little hard time.'cause when I used to do everything now it's like okay. Right. You got the team leads kind of, because you got the coach lead and the stuff like that. Yeah. So we're really getting the processes down to where our church engagement goes out. They do the, what we call a launch at a church. Mm-hmm. Um, and then our volunteer organizations, we can work outside of that too, but, right. The Rotary Club could have a launch even potentially. Yes, they could. We've even talked about other nonprofits that may have volunteers that wanna also work with us. Then we can partner and Sure. Share. Um, but anyways, they go out, they do the launch, they take the volunteer all the way through the process, which looks like training. We now do live trainings, which is fantastic. Um, we have online training as well. Um, and then they do all the background checks. Um, they collect all the documents. We have like. Firearm safety, water safety, you know, the same documents that a foster family would almost go through. Sure. You know, we're a lot less, a lot less work than that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but still a lot of the same safety measures. Um, and then we hand it over to Andrea, our family coach supervisor, when we need to go out and do like the final interview and what we call, we call it a home screen. Yep. Yep. Um, so we make sure the home looks safe, if they're gonna have children there. If it's a family friend and they're not, we can meet in the community, do a hour and a half interview with them to know who they are and Yeah. What might trigger them or, or what they'd be excel at. The beauty, and what I did it by myself is I have God's gifted me with this ability to, when I hear what Kurt is all about and I hear a story and everything about him, that when I got a referral that would be perfect for Kurt, I'd be like. Just like that. I know the person, you know? Yeah. And it just would come so quickly, and now that I'm not so hands on, I'm like, Ooh, this is gonna be a good one. I hope so. Yeah. How do I match these up if I don't know'em so well, but Yeah. Ooh. Maybe. Well, I think to some extent, even if it didn't seem like the perfect person, you know, the person that says yes sometimes is the perfect person. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I don't always know that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I want to jump in the time machine and meet little Roxy. Okay. Were you Roxy Right from five years old? My dad called me Teen Teens. Don't ask me why. Interesting. And do you have a middle name? Um, Rochelle. Roxane, Rochelle. Mm-hmm. Interesting. Different name. Yeah, it is. Uh, where were you, when were you born? I was born in Mitchell, South Dakota. Oh, um, east The corn capital. Yes. Corn Palace. World's largest bird feeder. I've never heard it called that before, but that's pretty fun. Yeah. If you live there. And is that where you were grown up as well? That's where I grew up. Okay. Um, yeah, so, and, and I say some in my heart for, for this work comes from that. My parents were very, you know, my grandparents were really hard workers. My grandparents on one, my mom's side. Farmers. Farmers and, you know, really, really had a few cows. Yes. There were six children there. Wow. Um, and, uh. Just worked really good, strong work ethic worth, work ethic. Easy for you to say. Yeah, I was tongue twister for a minute. And then my dad's side's similar. Um, his mom was a teacher and his dad a veteran and, uh, diagnosed at mess. And so spent some, many years later, about years, years, um, in a wheelchair. Um, dad was a very hard worker. He was a welder his whole life. Um, he was also a veteran in the Navy. Um, and my mom and my dad, um, they had to be hard workers. So my mom, uh, her career was to be a nurse, but she ended up in home health. Mm-hmm. Um, she did struggle somewhat with some depression. So, you know, I've kind of seen that firsthand and what that feels like. Mm-hmm. You know, knowing that that's, you know, difficult as a parent. How, how did that. Translate to you? Was it kind of a separation of relationship kind of, or? I don't think as a kid I really understood. Okay. Alright. Um, probably the biggest impact on me as a child, and it was when my parents divorced. Okay. I always thought, you know, my parents. They kind of flew by in the middle of the night, kind of probably like a lot of parents have to now. Yeah.'cause they work. My dad worked days, my mom worked nights. Yep. You know, and I, he talks about he also struggled with alcohol until Right. He stopped drinking when he met my mother. It's a funny, not a funny story, but it's neat story. Yeah. He met my mother in his detox. Oh. So my mother was a detox counselor. Oh, wow. Um, and he never drank a drop of alcohol again. Hmm. Um, he has I think 50 some years sober and they still struggled in their relationship despite that kind of, or Well, he, when he did, he recently did a testimony at his church on his story, um, and he said, you know, when I talked to him about it afterwards, um, what probably caused their drift was getting so busy in life and so busy with work, um, and stepping away from their AA family. Mm-hmm. My mom was a mm-hmm. Went to Al-Anon and he went to a, had just kind an attachment from community. Solid group. Yeah. Yeah. The social isolation part. Yeah. Because you are busy and you're raising children and you're, and they didn't really have any friends. Hardly. Yeah. Looking in on em much, you know, mom and dad or whatever around, but. Well, the older dad's got ms. Yeah. Well, and we see this, you know, today. Yeah. You know, families are having to work really, really hard. I had somebody recently tell me that, Colorado, gosh, I just, it kind of shook me. Colorado is inhumane to families because of how expensive it is. Right. And how, how housing is and the resources and, um, she's like, it's a beautiful place to live. Yeah. But for a single mom or a single dad, it just is tough. Well, super tough. Even for a pair of$50,000 income earners, having two kids is like, holy crap, how are we gonna do that? You know? Yeah. What did they say? You have to have 160 or 170,000 to be middle class now. That sounds about right for a couple. Yeah, that sounds about right. That's just nuts. So I'm stuck in lower middle class. I've been in lower middle class for a long time. One minute. Good thing about my house when they were relatively affordable in oh nine. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was us for our first house too. So when did your folks split? So they split in my teen years. Okay. And I really struggled with that. And you have siblings too? Um, I had an older, um, half brother and, um, my sister is younger than me, four years younger than me. Okay. Um, and I kind of went, we, another really poignant thing about my family is both my, both my grandparents were very, very faith oriented. Yeah. Yeah. My one grandmother was Methodist, my other grandmother was Baptist. Okay. And for me, a naive young child, I was like, well, we don't do this. Like what? Right. It kind of put a divide in our family. Hmm. Like we had, you know, my parents divorced, nobody was talking. My grandparents are mad at each other, other, neither mom nor dad really had, I'm like, isn't in a faith thing. While you were growing up? My mom more my, my dad. Uh, somewhat. Um, he'll, he like now he'll tell me that it kind of shoot him away from the church when they kind of talk to him about his failures in the marriage and, you know, you know, kind of like the, the religious church sometimes dives in, okay, bye. Uh, yeah. Thanks asshole. Yeah. But, you know, uh, went through that, that was really a shook my foundation. Yeah. I, you know how we sometimes, you know, we have this strong faith foundation, but then something in life kinda shakes that up a little bit and you go the opposite direction. Were you like a. Connector and have a lot of friends in school and things like that, or was that something later to develop for you as a 12 or 14-year-old or whatever? Well, we moved around a lot. My sister would tell you I was really connected. I didn't see it. I didn't think so, but maybe I was. Yeah. You know, sometimes you're just like, eh, my sister more kept to herself. So you moved around a lot around the country, around Mitchell? Well, or just around the region kind of, or whatever. When, when I was younger, we moved out to Gillette, Wyoming. Oh. Um, we're out there for a little bit. Oh wow. My dad. And then we moved back to Mitchell, um, and, uh, bounced around. There's smaller communities there. Yep. Yep. So we kind of went to different schools. I went to a Christian school for a while. I think my parents were like, oh, she's probably gonna, we need to keep her. I, but, uh, ended up honestly, uh, leaving school after my junior year. I was like, I'm done. I Oh, wow. I was upset with my family. Okay. Um, I ended up, uh, going out to the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I started working. So, did you emancipate or you just took off? No, I just, my mom's, my mom was actually supportive of it. Okay. Uh, you know, and I ended up later on getting my GED and going back to college and getting a bachelor's. Okay. Um, but had a rocky few years there where I was, I think honestly, I would've told you I wasn't angry with my family or God, but I now looking back as an adult, I was, I was angry. Oh, and were you like, boozing it, clubbing it, drugging it, any of that kind of stuff? Or you were just like, you know, in my twenties, I, I, you know, I know children. I definitely partied and, and did what the 20 year olds do. Um, but you know, it's interesting because. Always knew what my foundation was. Yeah. My, I still remember one of my favorite memories as a child is my grandmother teaching me the Lord's Prayer on the porch. Um, and sitting out there with her, she was, she was one of my biggest advocates and my mom too. Yeah. Um, another thing, um, when I was a little bit older that kind of rocked me is I lost my mom instantly. Mm-hmm. Um, almost instantly from a brain aneurysm. Oh wow. Um, when I was six months pregnant with my son. Oh, wow. So. I always say that attributes to what I do now, because I know how that crisis Yeah. And loss of, I mean, your relationship, I mean the, your mom is like your, for me, that was my person. Yeah. Um, she helped me with my, my son was four years old at the time. Wow. Um, and I was six months pregnant with my second son. Um, little to No, she was like your main support. She was. She was. And now she was gone in a heartbeat. Um, yeah, she was gone quick. Who, who did anybody step in to fill your void in that time? Oh, my dad's. Pretty awesome in his own right. Um, he is not the like, oh, I'm gonna hold you while you cry, dad. But he's like, I'm gonna tell you to pull up your bootstraps and tough it out dad. Um, but he actually moved to Colorado for a short time and came out and helped support me'cause I didn't wanna go back home. I had settled here. Yeah. Um, so he actually did that for a while for me. That's cool. That's really neat. But some really good parents. Um, like I said, really that was probably the biggest thing that kind of shook me as a child. My grandmother was another rock for me, the women in my life. Yeah. Um, and she, my sister will tell me. Tell you that I was her favorite, but I think she loved everybody just the same seems more Jesus like. Um, um, but she also passed not too long after my mom. Wow. So that, those things are hard. Wow. So like I think that feeds into why I know, like the need for, for people to have Yeah. You know, these added supports because even you and I are one bank account, 401k, um, bad situation away. Oh yeah. From needing. Well and support, you know, having been on the board at Matthew's house and involved with that organization a long time and other nonprofits, I know that poverty is, yes, it's financial, but a lot of it is just poverty of social capital, of relationships of. Connections to resource and, and the belief that I can get outta this muck. Mm-hmm. You know, and just having a bunch of people surround you and pray for you and encourage you, you know, the, the, the belief could get a lot stronger through that. Well, and I don't know if you know this, but in August of 2024, kind of after COVID,'cause we were well aware of social isolation during, during COVID, the Surgeon General actually issued a warning about social isolation and the impact it has on parent and children mental health. Totally. Children's mental health. Um, and so that's just kind of what Safe Families is doing. We're trying to resource resource families in relationship. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, like a restoration of relationship, even for most cases or many cases, which goes back to the love your neighbor. Yeah. And, and dig it. Yeah. Um. Let's touch real quickly. You said you were in the break. You said you were a bang up sales girl back in the day, and so let's talk about this, right? Right. After the first college stretch, uh, early career mm-hmm. Season. And obviously you had two kids by a first marriage. I actually wasn't married. Her's not even married. Okay. Yeah. What'd grandma think about that? She probably didn't love it, but she, she still wasn't judged, but I was her favorite. That was the way she was. Um, no. So, and it, it, another thing, the, the sales career gave me the freedom to be able to, uh, be able to raise kids, go to school and figure out when your childcare was and work all sweat. Yeah. And I realized that early on, because I had a really good career. I was an event manager at a, they were business conferencing, uh, organization. Okay. Yeah. Um, premier Global Services and got fired from that job af and I was climbing the ladder, got fired from that job because I, my daycare fell through. I had a son that was sick and I was like, oh damn. I can't, what am I gonna do? Can't take this risk. Yeah. And so I kind of fell into a door to door sales. It was actually almost like swan's. Oh yeah. Um, steak, chicken, seafood, pork Now. Town and country foods. Yeah. Town and country's one of, I have, my freezer is still rocking. Yeah. That I bought, sold. You bought a town? Country. And my cookware set too. We did it in Colorado Springs. You weren't there. Yeah. But I knew town and Country. Yeah. Um, we were, the first uh, place I did it with was actually one of my good friend's, um, brother's business. It was called the Cut Above. Okay. And I started with him and was like, I'm gonna hate this. I, you know, going on somebody's door and knocking, hey, you know, maybe, but people like you. But I was good at it. And so then after a few years I was like, wow, I could do this on my own. Yeah. And so I really built a good business. I remember in oh eight when kind of the bottom fell out for people. That's when I realized kind of like my, my, I wanted to give back. Mm-hmm. Because I was watching all these families that struggling in different ways. Yeah. Supported my family that then, and I served a lot of families that were in the oil and gas industry. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, that, you know, that's kind of the area, the one that convenience function in different groups. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh. Was just basically given stuff to them for a while. Wow. You know, so I could, and that right there going through that made me realize, you know, this is how the world works. You know? So you got a lot of social capital in the bank too. I have a little bit, but a lot of, you know, me and my friend joke that God takes us through different types of suffering so we can help other people through theirs. Yeah. And he's taken me through a different, you know, different stories, different timelines. Yeah. That I've been able to not just sympathize, but empathize with some situations. Yeah. Single moms. Uh, kids that are, you know, watching parents struggle or, you know, maybe just have, you know, the divorce situation or Sure. They only have mom, they don't have dad. You know, and one thing people, couples don't always often realize is that when, when you divorce, unless you're like super rich, both people's standard of living is gonna drop. Mm-hmm. You know,'cause your housing costs, your grocery costs, your utilities, everything's gonna be higher priced and there ain't any more revenue. If anything, you had less revenue'cause you have been distracted by two years of. Trying not to get a divorce. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I digress. So you found love again though. Yeah. I, where was this in the journey and is that part of getting into case work stuff or? I always tease that I had a bad picker for a lot of years. I, I think it comes with my career too. I wanted to fix people. You fix em. Yeah. So, so I found the people that needed, needed me and I wanted to fix them. And I realized that that's not what, how that works. Yeah. Yeah. They have to fix themselves ultimately, you know, it usually ends up you having to fix what Yeah, yeah. What damage has been done. But I took, I took quite some time off and focused on finishing school and, you know, from the dating world and finishing school and focusing on myself, figure out what I want for me. Yeah. And my two boys, um, I got a dog, which would, you know, that'll keep you outta trouble. If you're a woman that wants to maybe just focus on herself and you need, you feel like you need a companion, get a good dog. Right. They snuggle better. Anyway. Sorry guys. But anyway, much more consistent temperatures. Yeah. They're very loyal and very loyal. Yeah. Um, but I got a dog and, you know, it was crazy. So I met my husband in Rollins, Wyoming. Oh, okay. Um, I door to door sales, he was out there. He is in the oil and gas industry. He. Uh, worker in the field at that time. Okay. Um, and, uh, we started, you know, when you have kids and you want to date, it's really hard. Anyway, so we started dating when he was in, in the field, and I could also be in the field and we would go out. We started with just cups of coffee and dinners and Yeah. Then it was a few months and we introduced, he had two children. I had two, well he had three with his older daughter that was away. Yeah. And you're living here? And he's living there. And so I was in Denver. Okay. He was actually, um, based outta Greeley, Colorado. Oh, okay. Um, and ironically at that time I was getting done with my associates and going to transfer, and I transferred to UNC for my bachelor's. Mm-hmm. Um, and we coincidentally, yeah, well, coincidentally ish. Um, and he was just amazing. I just remember watching how he was with his children and even though he was by himself and worked really hard, yeah. He still put his children first and foremost, and that was really important to me. Um, and he is my rock. Does he have a name? Yeah. Mr. Bruton. Steve. Hi, Mr. Bruton. Steve And he'll laugh at this. I call him a my IOA guy. You who? My IOA guy. I know a guy. Yeah. We, uh, often at say, families get asked to help do this or do that. And I said, for those that know, I usually say, ah, I might know a guy might, I know a guy is, uh, the guy that shares my bed. When I, when I first, uh, started Safe Families, there was probably a vehicle in our garage almost every single weekend that he was fixing. God bless you, Steve. He is. He is. He is very wonderful. And what's he do with his, uh, is he still in the oil and gas industry? He is. Okay. So he works in Denver now in sales. Oh, okay. So he works for Universal Fluids, which is also one of our donors. Thank you. Universal Fluids. Awesome. Um, they support the work that we do. Um, and so yeah, he's made a career of that. He's got kind of a family line of that. His uncle was in oil and gas. His dad was in oil and gas. Yeah. Um, and those networks are strong too. They're right. Like that's, he's got a lot of social capital just from the fact that his grandpa was in oil gas. Yes. In some ways. Yeah. So he was a good guy. Um, I wanted to touch on, before we leave, uh, this chapter of the conversation, the, the, the founder of this whole thing, when did Safe Families. Uh, originate. So Dave and, and who is this guy with the book? David Anderson. Yeah. Dr. David Anderson. He's got a PhD in psychology. Um, he founded Safe Families over 20 years ago in 2003 in Chicago. Okay. Um, I really, if we have a second Yeah. We can take, we can take, I love his story. Six minutes, something like that. His story was, um, and I'm sorry Dave if I butchered this, but his story was, he was working with children, um, and he, uh, uh, was a working for a child protection, I do believe. And he, um, had a child that he had, he ran across in his line of work that had been injured severely. Hmm. Um, and he, well, he was upset by that. He was moved by that, that how, how this child could have got injured like that. And when he sat down to talk to mom, it was one of those situations where mom was about to lose her job, which then, you know, the cascading effect of that and. Chose to call an ex-boyfriend, and the ex-boyfriend abused her child. Um, and he, he said, you know, I, he thought to himself, why wait until a child is abused before we do something? Hmm. Why not have something in place that if that mom needed to go to work, she would have somewhere to call and she could try, you know, those would be those vetted back check. So she called the ex-boyfriend for childcare, effectively for childcare. And how many single moms do that? Right. You know, I know as a single mom that there were some things that I was like, oh, just Lord, please, you know this. I want you watch over my children. I'm gonna have to you to go to work today. Yeah. You know, um, luckily, like I said, I had a great support network. I had lots of good friends. Right. I had my dad, you know, family far away, and you got fired. Yeah. And I got fired.'cause you didn't always have that network available at a moment's notice. Yeah. And that happens all too often as well. Yeah. But anyway, so he started Safe Families over 20 years ago. Um, he was told, you know, we can't even pay people to do this by, I think the Chicago Department of Human Services. Oh, you're gonna get into volunteer. Yeah. And so he worked to get this rolling and we are at 80,000 hostings. Wow. Um, that's, you know, our overnight arrangements. I think it's one, 2.2 million nights of overnight childcare Wow. For families. We, and all faith-based through that network across the country kind of thing. Started throughout the churches. Um, we have about a hundred chapters in the United States. Yeah. We're Hong Kong, uh, Canada, the uk we're working to move into the Philippines. Wow. Um, you know. Just I, if I think, you know, what I've grown is sub he, yeah. He sparked it. Uh, first he sparked and he'll call it a movement, you know? Yeah. We don't wanna be a program, we don't wanna be a service. We wanna wanna be a movement. So that, like for me, and resulting in safe families for children, I wanna see Fort Collins and Loveland in these areas change where our communities naturally just. Wrap around these families and there doesn't have to be a safe families to, to coordinate that. Yeah. Is there, like, I'd rather have families wrap around these kids than, than government agencies typically. Is there, is there federal dollars involved with your funding stream also, or it's kind of like a double-edged sword, right? You just, it's get it from the man, then the man can take it back away. Well, and I don't know when we first talked, if I even knew this Kurt, but, uh, so to do, to get federal funding is complicated. Mm-hmm. Um, but we are evidence-based. So we had a test done or study done that, that gave us evidence-based research that we are able to lower the number of children entering the foster care and child welfare system. Yeah. And we are a safe alternative. Um, and so in doing that, we also went through what's called the family first prevention. Okay. Um. System, the clearinghouse. Um, and we were just now, uh, able to have that stamp that we are eligible for family first funding. Oh. Um, and that, if you don't know, that's kind of for somebody in child welfare, that's actually what pushed me to do Safe Families. I'm like, safe Families is family first. When that came out, back in, uh, 2017, 18, I went to a conference at the Embassy Suites where they talked about how this, we were like, why would we recreate this? Yeah. Well, they talked about this. I was a caseworker at the time about how we were gonna do this switch of, and this. Of really working to put dollars to keep kids with families. Mm-hmm. Um, so it was kind of mo gonna move from putting dollars where foster care was to family first. Yep. Um, and, and that for me, I was like, oh, that's, that's amazing. That's a huge shift for uh, totally. You know, if you don't know there's 400,000 kids in foster care that's like. The population of Loveland, Greeley, Fort Collins. Right. It was all children. Right, right. On half of North Dakota. More than half of North Dakota. Yeah. Oh, that's a crazy, crazy. Yeah. I didn't even think of that one. But you know, if say families believes if we could impact that system, if we could take the kids out that just got their, they ended up in the foster care system because of neglect and poverty, we could help alleviate help.'cause we wanna help, we wanna partner with child welfare. Um, we could help alleviate that system by 70%. Wow. And it, and it's an overwhelming system. It, they, and then they could Well, and everybody existing, everybody that was left could do a really great job.'cause they're not so overwhelmed. Yeah. And the children that really need it, the children that, that and families that really need the system. Yeah.'cause there is a place, I, there's the most wonderful people I've ever met are the foster families that, that I've ran into at three and four o'clock in the morning that I go drop off kid off. Yeah. They're angels, I'm sure. So I wanna talk about, uh, your, your, your event rhythm. Yeah. It's possible that we'll have this podcast out in time for the duck race. What is that? Yeah, so the Rotary Club in Fort Collins is doing a duck race. Um, safe Families is signed up along with a bunch of other non-profits. Um, very well deserving everybody, but Safe Families is my favorite. Right. Um, and you can buy a dock for$25 or a quack pack for 125. And it's this fun race. I believe it's at City Park. Is it? Or it's second annual Fort Collins Duck Race for charity. Fort Collins City Park Pool. Yeah. And Lazy River. And look at the money. You can win. You win. Can win$5,000 for first place. Dang.$3,000 for second, is it? Yeah. And then one for third. Get your duck race tickets now. Yeah. Um, so probably can just Google or something, right? Yeah. Because the QR code, maybe if you can get close to the tv, you can scan that QR code. We'll put a link in the uh, description. Yeah, you can do. I Google search Safe Families, duck Race, Fort Collins'. They'll go, there's not that many duck races for safe families around. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you'll start a trend though. Yeah. Uh, although it's, it's already a Rotary Club thing, so they can own the Well, and, and thanks to the Rotary Club, it's nice to do a fundraiser where somebody else does. Yeah. We just get a advertise and then set up a booth. Yeah. Further don't work a little bit. Yeah. Um, and then you have a gala in the spring, early spring. So we're doing early a gala in February this year. We usually do it in November. Okay. Um, had to postpone. Do some, do some, uh. A couple other things going on for us personally and, uh, moving it to February. Okay. And so, we'll, that'll be February 27th, I think we've finalized plans for it to be at the Drake Center. Okay. Um, it's, is it on your website already too? Um, it will be soon. Mark, your calendar. We just, we just basically signed off on the center. Right. We signed the contract. It's still wet. Yeah. Um, so that's coming up. We have a very unique thing that people love and that we do grab baked. So, um, oh, at that event, yeah. You, it's not a silent auction, but you can like grab a rose for a hundred dollars, two 50, do 250 or 500. Okay. And it coordinates to a grab bag that you've been able to. Take peeks at as you socialize everything. Oh, there's different goodies in there or whatever. Different goodies and different prizes that we've gotten donated from a lot of wonderful, wonderful community, you know, businesses and Fort Collins. Yeah. Yeah. So we have fun doing that every year. We usually have, uh, last year we had one of our, uh, pastors speak that spoke from the church perspective and how that shaped his church to work with safe families. Mm-hmm. We had, um, somebody from Lerer County come and speak about how we partner and how that impacts the work that they do, which was really powerful. Yeah. Um, and then we had a family come share about how how she worked with volunteers. Yeah. Um, and what that did for her life. Um, and we had one of our host family speak, so we had a well-rounded Yeah. Sounds like it. I don't if we can top it this year. So. Have you connected with the, uh, St. SPI church down in Loveland by chance? I haven't. It's the Greek Orthodox Church down there, or is it Orthodox Church. And I've become a fan of the guy's podcast, father Evan. Okay. And his, he had a big segment, uh, recently on kind of faith and practice. And action. And how their churches are pretty good. I actually visited there once.'cause, uh, long story, my good friend's kid is dating the pastor's daughter. Oh, okay. And so I was like, I wanted to stick out with this Orthodox church thing is all, but it's beautiful. And the, and the experience, the smells and, uh, everything really fascinating. Oh, what was it? Spirit, Saint Spirit on church. Okay. I think is what it's called. When I was doing my, so I did briefly dabble in a master's degree from CCU and I had to go to different, a different church and write a paper like different from my core. Sure. And I Did you study Orthodox? I didn't. I went to a Catholic church just to see what the difference would be. That was like an easy one. I'm like, oh, there's all kinds of Catholic churches. Can't be that weird. Turns out it is tea. Shame. I made you laugh. Proper. Um, but, so anyway, where did we jump off? I guess just with that experience of the event? Oh, we did the event, the gala left. And, and tell me more, gimme a little nibble on how has it changed some of the churches that have wrapped around your families? Um, oh gosh. I'm not the best one, but we had, uh, you know, I would love for a church to say that, but for, for, um. For like our church specifically when we go out, we, we, we're heavy on the, we love to go out and do, like, we love to move a family or clean a house or do action oriented stuff, but I, I joke that I might be kicked out at some point for getting us involved in some of the things we do, but it's just so neat to go out there with your team from your church that you usually only see on Sunday morning. Maybe you talk a little bit in the hallway Sure. And do something for somebody else together. Um, and sometimes it's. Two or three churches. So you get to go out with the different, different folks and meet them and do something together to help somebody out. Um, we did have a church recently write a letter for us and she said that, you know, they were doing so much in the community. They do a popup life Springs Church is amazing over in Loveland. Um, they do a popup, they do a carnival. They really serve their community. But what she wrote was so wonderful and thank you so much, Lisa, but uh, she said that safe families filled the gap for them to be able to have a deeper connection with people in their community. So we were able, and that's what we wanna do. We wanna be the bridge to the church. It's not just a carnival, you know? Yeah. This is where we show what a church is actually supposed to look like and act like. Yeah. And so we give them the opportunity because a lot of families that we bring to the volunteers are gonna be a little skittish about walking through the front door of a church. Sure. Some of them. Yeah. They might not be when they're done. Right. You know, they might, might be. Hopefully not. That's part of it. Right. Might be part of the family. So, yeah. I love that. We have a game we play here. Oh, because we're we're run of time and before too long, but, uh, the great ping pong ball challenge. Oh, that's right. I thought you were gonna have me talk about my craziest time. Well, that's the closing segment, so that's still coming. But first, uh, here, let me hand this to you or just grab three of those out of there. You can just keep all three. Okay. And each of those questions, it's tied to, uh, introspective or silly or each of those numbers. Okay. So I got 18, Kurt. Okay. Are you ready? If you had to pick a smell to describe your personality, what would it be? Patchouli, not patchouli. Ah. Um, hmm. I was gonna say like a beach smell, but I'm not that relaxed. My husband wouldn't be like, no. Well, I think about fish without thinking about the beach. Like I'm thinking about like the airy, like yeah. Like, I don't know that that salt water smell. Okay. Yeah. But that's probably not me. I'm probably more like a hot chili pepper or something like, because my husband will tell you I can't sit still. I'm always wanting to do something. Be somewhere. I see. Yes. So like that, uh, when you, when you open that can of chilies or whatever, you smell it and you're like, oh, that's spicier than I thought. Yeah. I guess. Just kidding. Uh, go ahead with the next question. Number five. What's the most important lesson you've learned from a failure? Mm. I think recently I've learned. That that's okay. It's okay to have the failures because that's what's gonna teach you, teach you all what you need to know. Um, you know, I used to really, uh, you know, worry about beat yourself up or beat myself up, be scared to do things. Like I would've never started safe families, you know, I wouldn't have coined me for somebody like Yeah. That would do that. Um, but now I think it's, you know, I'm really trying to, that providence of getting that spun up has taken away a lot of your fear. Yeah. Yeah. And amazed me it wouldn't, yeah. It wasn't me. It was something, yeah. Something bigger than I. That's pretty cool. So that's pretty neat. We got number 16, 16 or 91. We don't have 91. Who has been the most significant individual influence on your life? Hmm. Man, that's tough. That's why I would put it on the list. Jesus. For sure. That's a good answer. Do you want, can we talk about your, your faith journey a little bit? Yeah. Because you mentioned kind of rambling a little bit and you know, single mom stuff. Yeah. But was it when the kids started getting older that you re engaged? Or how, how, what was that journey like for you? Probably in my twenties. Okay. Um, I really engaged, there was a church, if you know, Colorado Springs, I'm sure you remember New Life Church Sure. In Colorado Springs. Yeah. We live down there when, uh, when the big scandal happened. That's prostitute. Oh, I was too. And that was like, oh, was that right? No, right. We were going to that one. But, uh, yeah, that was tough. And, and, and we went to the youth night. So Pastor Aaron Stern, who is actually the Mill City pastor here. Oh yeah. I've met that before. He was, he was, he was. Down in, at New Life. So, um, we went there often, um, and really rebuilt my foundation. There was a couple times that I probably wasn't as solid, to be honest, right before, not too long before Safe Families, I really, really started to reconnect. Hmm. I, you know, and I don't know that everybody has these experiences, you know, but God has spoken to me several times. Hmm. Um, like into the head or you hear it almost audibly. I've seen, I've seen him work, like I've seen his actions. Yeah. Yeah. Um, probably the biggest one that also saved my dad and got him back on his. Faith back into faith and back in, uh, into church was my son when he struggled with his addiction. Oh. So I had a son that struggled with drug addiction throughout high school. Okay. Um, and I always tell this story, you know, hopefully he doesn't get mad at me, but because it is his story, but I didn't know what I was gonna do. And as a mom that is, can I ask addiction to, to what he, uh, drank, whatever. And he probably tell you his favorite was cocaine. Mm. Um, and, you know, as a mom watching your son do that, it just, I mean, uh, like it just rips your soul out. Yeah. Um, and I remember trying to do everything. I was a caseworker. I tried to support, plan him and get him to sign things. Right. Here's a personal improvement plan for you. Yeah. I'm trying to do all the things, you know, I'll bond you out, but you what? You need some new friends, uh, that don't do drugs well and what do he introduce you to? Susie's. Kurt, I got down on my knees one day on my back porch and I prayed to God like those guttural prayer where you're just, you're just sobbing. Sobbing and, and you know, you're just, and I remember saying to him, he's either gonna dead or in prison and I don't know what else to do. And it wasn't. Two weeks later that he came running up the stairs and he had, one of the things I wanted him to do was to find therapy. Hmm. And he came running up the stairs and he's like, mom, can I get your insurance card? And I was like, what? And he's like, well, these guys in Florida, I called this one 800 number. And they're, they're, they just need my insurance. They'll pay to fly me down, I'm gonna go to treatment. And I was like, being a caseworker. I'm like, no, you're gonna go get traffic. That's not what's gonna happen. Right. And I actually flew out there with him and all be darned. And, uh, he went out there and he was in a detox where he got acupuncture and massages and, and our insurance actually covered It was, which was also amazing because when we were looking for rehabs, they were like in the sixties and$70,000. And so I told my husband, I said, if this is not legit. It isn't, we're we're gonna do it, we're gonna pay whatever they said. It would just be our deductible. So we sent him out there, I went out there with him. Um, he, to this day, he'll celebrate seven years sober in December. Oh, awesome. He made it through, he was 19 years old. He made it through 21. Wow. Um, he, like I was just telling you on break, he makes more money than I do. Yeah. And, uh, you know, that to me, like those things. And we, and that was not long before you started Safe Family. It wasn't, it was, it wasn't, was one of the first things that helped to magnify your faith. Mm-hmm. And really, uh, refresh it, it sounds like. Well, and when you can see God move, and I'll just close on this, being able to be on the sidelines of what God does, um, with safe families is Yeah. Probably the most phenomenal thing ever. Uh, I mean, just even yesterday I was like, man, what, what just happened here in this conversation? I could have never. Done God's at work. And so just really blessed to, you know, even on the hard days, the work's hard sometimes, but to be able to see God in it and to glorify him. I actually remember we jumped off of your kind of event thing. We had the gala in the spring and there was one more. Yeah, we do an awesome 5K that we're growing. It was our first year this last year. Cool. And we do it with a concert with Blues Behind Bars. Oh yeah. So if you know them, they're amazing. So we're kind of partnered, I don't know if they, like, they signed on one year and we've just kind of hung on to'em. So you don't have a date for that yet, or, but that's gonna gonna be February, I think it's the third weekend. Or not third. It's not February. September. I was say the same month as your gala. That sounds crazy. No, next September. Next September. So almost like a year from now. Yes. And we did it this last year at the Windsor Boardwalk Park. So we did a, and we coined this last year, our hottest run. Speak in Colorado. It was like 90'cause it was, whew. It was a scorch, it was the hottest day in June. That's why we're doing it in September instead. Smart man. Hey, AI doesn't take me too many lessons before I move on. Yeah. Um, anything else on the safe families thing or We're gonna, we're gonna jump on the, uh, the local experience conversations shortly. Yeah. So, just, just kind of a pitch. We always need donors, so if you know something today, spoke to you in what we do, um, and you're listening, donors, volunteers, donors, volunteers, um, you know, advocacy. If you're a leader or a key stakeholder, we'd love to talk to you in the community and see how we can work to partner together to make sure that we're doing what's best for the families and children here, here in Lermer County, here in Weld County. Um. Oh, we do. We're doing kind of, we're gonna launch soon, a monthly donor campaign for stability. Yeah. Yeah. So even 10 bucks a month, if you wanna sign on to do 10 the bucks a month, that then ensures our chapter, then you can plan on it. Stability plan on, uh, you don't have to worry about if next one's we get some donations too. Yeah. And it's a Starbucks cup of coffee anymore. Yeah. You could even do 20. Yeah. Our Or a thousand. I don't know. I don't know the kind of people really. No, neither do I. That's why that's, that's why. But there's listeners out there. Yeah. Who knows what's listening. Um, I am, I'm suspicious that you have a pretty interesting local experience, uh, story, but I don't know what it is. We haven't stumbled across it yet. Oh man. I don't think wonder, I, so the, we see the craziest story that you're willing to share. Okay. Well maybe some of these ones are brushing against it already. I don't know. I think probably, you know, the first one I told you was, uh, the one where I. Got invited to jump out of an airplane and I thought it would be tandem. Skydiving. Oh yeah. And ended up in Penrose Canyon City at an air, air hanger. And let's, you can't just like give me like the outline of a story like that. Well, it was, it, it was many, many years ago. I was in my twenties and, and it was a date and it was like, let's go skydiving. Okay. And I, I, I still to this day have a fair heights. You can't catch me on the Ferris Will Shields. Okay. Um, and I was like, but skydiving, you know, I was impressionable. I was like, okay, I'll try it. Um, and so ended up going out there and. Found out I'm not tandem, I'm not strapped to anybody. I'm a static di dive out of this little plane. Okay. So that means like when you jump out of it, it like automatically triggers the automatically thing. Automat pulls. You're all by yourself. Okay. Uh, they have little headset in your ear. Oh, really? I remember sitting there and I'm like, I can't believe I'm doing this. And I'm talking to this other lady and she's like, we're together in this. I'm scared, you know, we're together. Uh, and we're talking about how we'll do it together. We're, you know, camaraderie and we're going to face our fears. And she jumps out of the plane before me and she pulls. I don't know if you know much about skydiving, but nothing. If you pull the brakes too soon, you can't continue to hold them. And so you have to let go because it's a lot of pressure to keep the brakes on. And she, the brakes being the the shoot. Oh, right. Yep, yep. To slow you down to land. Yeah. And she ended up letting go and that then. Slams you into the ground. Oh. And she ended up getting hurt. Oh, damn. I don't know how bad, because everybody's like, Nope. Yeah.'cause you let the brakes off and all of a sudden you're like, mm-hmm. Ah. So I was the next one up and they were like, you don't wanna go check on her? Nope. Get, you know, just get on in. And so I got into the plane and I'm up there and I'm petrified and I jump out of this plane. They want you to reach out and they watch. Oh, like you weren't in the plane with her. She went up first and then you were, were the next one. She went up first and then I was the next. You had to be on the ground watching her get her legs all crumpled and stuff. Watch that whole story come down. Okay. And so I go next and they're screaming in her ears, no, don't put the brakes on yet. You gotta let some slack out. Well, probably, yeah. I don't know what is going on. Whatever. She panicked between her, she panics and I'm like, I'm a gunner. Um, but you go up and, and at least this, this experience they have, you reach out and grab onto a metal bar, which I think is a joke because I'm like, is the minute I did that? It's like, woo, it sucked you right out. Sucked me out. And uh, I just had this thing in my ear. They said I had a perfect landing. They're like, you did beautiful. That was amazing. I'm like, I just listened to your voice and didn't look down. Really? I didn't look. I'm just Okay. Left your heights was the material. You just, I'm just like praying to God and listening. That outside of Safe Families.'cause you know, when Launch in Safe Families was, and, and every similar experience in a lot of ways to jumping out of place, kind of like you had a little grant basically from the Denver chapter. Mm-hmm. And would you like to, uh, credit the person that runs that as still the same? So is who got you into this mess? Marcy Klinger was the director at the time. Okay. Um, and she is amazing. She actually was also the one that helped with the So you don't hold a grudge or anything? Oh, no, no. I, she's, she became the lobbyist and everything got approved. She was a lobbyist officially. She got us approved. She, she's a cut them outta hot water obviously too or whatever. Tough start tough rates I'm sure. Yeah. It got us to where we needed to be. Yeah. And, and Ling you know, so she's amazing. Uh, she's not with us anymore, but she did a great job getting everything rolling, so. Yep. Yep. And who's the director now? Um, we have, uh, the Denver chapter director is also our state director, and her name is CTA Tami. Okay. Tobani. And then our, we have a new, uh, and you don't like her very much. Oh, I love her. I'm glad because it would've been Oxford if you didn't. I do. I, I, I adore her. I think, you know what's so cool about Safe Families is, you know, we all come from the same, same cloth almost. Right, right. Like I say, when you go to a safe family's event and you're nervous. Yeah.'cause you don't know, like we have a chapters all over. I haven't met everybody. Yeah, yeah. It's like you're at home because it's all people that just have the same heart. So what an interesting thing. My dad encouraged me a few years ago to get like a job or something like outside of Loco think Tank is like, this is pretty sweet gig. Well, it is, but he's like you, you just kind of hang around with successful business people and interesting podcast guests and you don't really have a normal, like what it's like in the real world kind of a perspective. And I was like, like, keep it that way, dad. I don't know. Anyway, I think it's a pretty stupid thing, but it is. It's kind of Well, and yours is. Different. You know, certainly, you know, businesses struggle and sometimes fail and things like that. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I'm good to see them. And, and sometimes you see amazing successes and your work is not remarkably different where mm-hmm. You know, and sometimes just like a family that can go through a hard time. Sometimes a business goes through a hard time. It has to make some changes. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you can do it if you try. Yeah. You can, you just gotta put your boots in the ground and heels down sometimes and, and sometimes be surrounded by community. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't do it. I will just shout out to Northern Colorado, we have the best community ever. True. I mean, we partner like none other to, to, to do this work. So do you have a, uh, a, a a Bible verse or a quote or anything that is meaningful that you would like to share as part of our closing? That's a good one too. Um, you know, today on the way here, and, and I think it's just fresh in my mind. Um, you know how you talk about the dish needs to be clean, the plate needs to be cleaned on both the inside and the outside. Mm. And that's just the Christian I wanna be. I want my, my bowl to be clean on the outside, on the inside first, and then the outside. Um, and you know, for me, um, I just wanna really, I know I could never ever be that, but I wanna strive to be just the hands and feet of Jesus and, and just to be more, more like him. Yeah. By what I do. I hope that my, I hope that I never, ever am a bad example of his work. I hope that everything that I can do will always glorify with, you know what's really cool about that too is, uh, like. I just was reading, uh, the feeding of the 5,000 parable mm-hmm. With my wife. Uh, and uh, that was really the first story where he was like, no, you feed them. He was empowering others. So that's kind of mm-hmm. The transition you've become a part of, whereas you were directly applying the, the, the service to so many, and, and you had a, I know a guy mm-hmm. Directly applying service to so many, and yes, you recruited volunteers and stuff, but you're in that space and time right now where you're equipping others to serve because. It's how you can magnify your impact. Well, and it's so interesting'cause in this world we get scared to do that sometimes. Yeah. We, you know, what if they don't do it as good as you? Or what if I put that kid in my car and something happens and, and I'm like, I, I so many memories of like, what if, but then the blessing that, that I get from being able to go out and help somebody Yeah. Uh, is just done. Did it again, we're we're designed to serve others. We are. That's what we're called to do. Thanks for sharing time. Yeah. Thanks for, it's been a joy.
