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101: The Sparrow’s Nest - Empowering Young Families
66 Plays3 months ago
Every December at Messiah St. Charles, we have a Christmas Mission offering. The offering benefits local organizations chosen by staff and congregants. One of the previous recipients was The Sparrow’s Nest; More than childcare. We seek to come alongside young families with the love of Christ to educate, equip, and empower both the parent and the child. Through our innovative childcare cooperative families enrolled in our program will receive free childcare, mentorship, and case management to reach their family goals.
Katie Lyczak is the Executive Director at The Sparrow’s Nest and she joined Jill Devine to talk about the mission of The Sparrow’s Nest, as well as how they used the offering from Messiah.
One way you can support The Sparrow’s Nest is through their annual fundraising dinner on Friday, September 27, 2024. VIP tickets include open bar, appetizers, and a meet-and-greet with our featured guest, Jennifer Maggio.
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Normal Goes A Long Way is brought to you by Messiah St. Charles: https://messiahstcharles.org/
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Two Kids and A Career: https://www.jilldevine.com/podcast
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
00:00:00
Speaker
The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production. Christianity has become known for judgy people, strange words, ancient stories, confusing rules, and a members-only mindset. This is why I stayed away from the church for so long, but it's not supposed to be that way. I'm Jill Devine, a former radio personality with three tattoos, a love for a good tequila, and who's never read the entire Bible. Yet here I am hosting a podcast about faith. The normal goes a long way podcast is your home for real conversations with real people using real language about how faith and real life intersect. Welcome to the conversation.
00:00:39
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of Normal Goes a Long Way. I'm here with Katie, and we were joking around Katie about your last name. We won't go into what Siri calls call what's your last name, but it is kind of funny. Katie Lysack, welcome to the podcast.
Community Engagement and Sparrow's Nest Overview
00:00:57
Speaker
I am so excited to talk to you and get more information about what you're doing. um You are the executive director at the Sparrows Nest. How we got connected, our church, Messiah St. Charles, has a vision to be for St. Charles. And what does that mean? Well, that means that we want to be here for our community. We want to be in the community. We want to help others. We want to spread the word to our congregation about what is happening around us. And I know a lot of churches
00:01:29
Speaker
have different ways of putting that. It may not be their vision, but it's part of their DNA is to be in the community, which is so important. I mean, it's exactly what scripture tells us to do. And one of the things that our church does around Christmas time, we have a Christmas offering. And so,
00:01:50
Speaker
We collect money and then as a staff, we usually decide together, we pick anywhere from two to three organizations. And one of the recipients was the Sparrow's nest. And that was the first time that I had even heard about the Sparrow's nest. And so then now you're in front of the congregation and then those people here, they tell others. And so that's what we're going to do today. We are going to talk about what the Sparrow's Nest does, even if you are not local
Katie's Background and Community Work
00:02:21
Speaker
to St. Charles, this is helpful information that will, you know, get
00:02:27
Speaker
you're thinking too, whether or not it's your church or your organization, how to get involved. So let's first talk about Katie as Katie. Katie, you're married. Do you have children? I do. I have two, Hope and Blaine. And how old are they? 12 and 10. And are you from this area? Not originally. My husband and I have lived here 20 years, okay this year. ah We moved from central Illinois.
00:02:54
Speaker
Okay. I'm from Springfield. He's from Wheaton. We met in the middle and flew me to normal. We both went to Illinois State University. And then we moved here in 2004. Okay. For his work. All right. Well, it probably feels a little bit like you've been here. Not that far off. We've lived in the same house the whole 20 years. North Winceville. Yep. We've watched Winceville grow.
00:03:16
Speaker
Winceville is a suburb outside of St. Charles that has definitely grown and grown and grown. It's crazy. At one point, especially the north part where we lived was the fastest growing part of the country, the state for sure. But we had, we were in that country category for a while too. Let's fast forward. How long have you been with the Sparrows nest? I was hired as the executive director in September of last year.
00:03:41
Speaker
Okay. So this is new. Yeah. yeah Kind of fairly new. yeah um What did you do before this? I was the executive director at Oasis resource center, which is the only pregnancy resource center in Lincoln County. I was there for three years. Okay. So grew that organization substantially. It was a wonderful place. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I just really felt a calling to work in my community. I like coming home. That's,
00:04:08
Speaker
One of those things too, you sometimes don't get to see what you're doing with your work, but in other, like as far as it impacting your community and in other situations, you do get to see it. And there's just something really beautiful about having your hands and your feet right where you live. And that's definitely something that we talk a lot about here at Messiah. I have noticed that in one of my roles here,
00:04:35
Speaker
with being in charge of our community groups, so many people want to serve. And it's not wrong to want basically a menu of, hey, here's this organization, here's what you can do. But we've learned that what people when they start to realize what their unique gifts are and how they can help where it's not just in the city.
Sparrow's Nest Mission and Challenges
00:05:01
Speaker
I'm doing quotes here because not there are problems and situations everywhere. And so when you really start to challenge people to look right in their neighborhood, that's when you start to see some light bulbs go off and you start to see passion.
00:05:20
Speaker
So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the jump to the sparrow's nest and what the sparrow's nest does. Sure. A lot of the county in the community may recognize the name. We are formerly a maternity home, 14. So Chrisa Figgins is our founder. And in 2010 was when she really got things going to find the organization, it get sparrow's nest off the ground at that time.
00:05:48
Speaker
if you were a pregnant woman, not a minor, there were places for you to go. If you were homeless, if you were a minor and not pregnant, there were places for you to go. If you were homeless, if you were a pregnant teen, there was nowhere for you to go. Which seems backwards, but okay. It's the minor. It's because being a minor and the whole kind of custody guardianship type of thing really, but so she just,
00:06:15
Speaker
took it and ran with it and created just this beautiful thing with the sparrow's nest and fundraised and was eventually able to buy the house that we are still in. It's on the south end of K, kind of tucked away. It's unincorporated St. Charles County. It's like a little piece of the country.
00:06:30
Speaker
right on highway K bread Co is at the end of our driveway, which is absolutely amazing. We all have, we're in the Sips club and you know, we'll walk down there and get our tea or our coffee or whatever. It's fantastic. That's nice. Yes. Very nice. Um, but yeah, so we still are in the building, but now we're no longer maternity home. That programming essentially ended in 2020. Uh, there were some things that happened or, you know, kind of across the world in that year. Uh, but staffing became a huge,
00:06:58
Speaker
problem for us. We just couldn't keep the staff and with maternity housing, there are state requirements. And so they ended the programming for a little bit, trying to get it going again in 2022 and face the same issue with staffing. Just could not staff that in the house to ah be able to bring in women and their children to live there. So the board really saw that as an opportunity to step back. Maybe the Lord was leading them in a different direction for the organization. They knew that They didn't want to cease to exist as a nonprofit or as an organization. They wanted to continue to serve St. Charles County. We just didn't know how. So they were they did some research, found the three um biggest opportunities for individuals at or below the poverty level in St. Charles County. One is affordable housing. It's almost non-existent. It's not just St. Charles County. It's all over the place, but it really is a problem in St. Charles County.
00:07:52
Speaker
And even for the largest, most well-funded organizations, that is a very expensive thing to provide for people, rent, mortgage, whatever, whatever it might be. So then public transportation, also non-existent in St. Charles County, affordable childcare. That was number three. And so we figured, I say we, I wasn't there then, but we really took a look at how we could provide affordable child care to low-income
Childcare Program Initiatives
00:08:22
Speaker
families in St. Charles County. So our project manager, our case manager, ah Becca, did a bunch of research and found an organization in Houston, Texas called Project One Day. They essentially hire the parent as a 1099 worker. They work one full day and trade that work for five days of free daycare. It's a smaller organization.
00:08:48
Speaker
ah They don't have, I think they're growing, um but we don't really have too much contact with them. We just got a little information and decided we were going to try to replicate that here. So we stayed in the house that we're in and started going through the ah planning and zoning, all of the steps in order to open a childcare cooperative at the nest. We were hoping to be able to open with 10. Initially our conditional use permit through the county was going to allow for 10. And then we're in the Cottaville Fire District with a couple different things, kind of challenges with the house. They approved us for five kids, okay which is not an incredible, you know, maybe impact when some people think of the number of only being five. Honestly, it was a blessing in disguise because there were a lot of kind of kinks to work out in the programming, in the process.
00:09:40
Speaker
ah So what differentiates us from Project One Day is we don't consider the parent who is enrolled to be a worker or even a volunteer. We make a clear distinction that they are participating in the program. So we call them a participant. The child enrolls, the parent enrolls. The child receives all of the you know benefits of being in an early child here childhood program. We are licensed through DESI.
00:10:09
Speaker
um lead provider has a lot of experience in child care. The parent is required to fulfill certain parts of the programming and that's the trade for the five days, five free days of daycare. So they participate four hours a week. It started as one full day and we really saw that as a barrier. No employers are going to give their employee an entire day off of work in order to get free daycare. There are a lot of part-time workers out there. One of our minimum requirements is that they are working at least 25 hours a week and or enrolled in an education program or a combination of the two. So as we were trying to fill the house with the five kids and get enrolled, we kept coming up against, but I'm working full time. I'm working full time. So we identified that very quickly as a barrier. So we've reduced that to four hours a week and that can be one four hour day or two, two hours a day. Okay. So, um, you know, they have to drop off their kiddo.
00:11:05
Speaker
and they have to pick up their kiddo. So whether they stay in the morning or they stay in the afternoon, that kind of thing, or if they do have one day after in the week, maybe they do a four-hour day, that's completely up to the parent who's enrolled. While they're there, they receive one hour of case management, one hour of parent education through our online curriculum, it's called Bright Course, one hour of working with their own child on emerging milestones or developmental delays, and those are identified by using the ages and stages questionnaire We use the developmental one and the social emotional one. So the lead provider performs the questionnaire on the child and then so does the parent. And then they come together with their results of the questionnaires and create an individualized lesson plan for the parent to carry out with their own child while they're there. So it's kind of like a parents as teachers right type of thing, except we're not going into their home, they're coming to ours. And then the fourth hour is,
00:12:03
Speaker
kind of up to our discretion and how we use that. We have one mama who loves to organize. And so she'll organize our snack cabinet and the fridges and just, she's fantastic at that. ah They might use it to go to a WIC appointment or if there's, you know, another service that is only accessible during the time that they're at the nest, they'll go and do that. Different things that last hours, you know, looks different for everyone.
00:12:27
Speaker
It's one of those the things that is going in my mind, lots of things. But when you say that you can only have five kids and yet we want to talk about the opportunity, but yet you don't want to have more than five kids and you don't want people on a wait list and you don't want, it just, that's so hard. It is hard. So, and I understand, um, what Cottleville Fire Marshal the requirements, set because its it's about safety. yeah um So there's a fire hydrant down our driveway. It needs to be 500 feet closer in order for us to have more children. We possibly could have up to 10 in the home, or maybe even eight. I'd be thrilled with eight, ecstatic with 10. To move that fire hydrant 500 feet closer would cost 50 to $70,000. And that is an estimate from an individual from a company who would be really doing us
00:13:25
Speaker
we would be getting some discounts. It could be very expensive to move that fire hydrant. So we're up against some difficulties. So with only having five, the program has, hi next month, August, will be ah one year since we opened our doors as the co-op. We've really worked out the kinks with the programming. We've had some great participants who have been flexible with us, knowing that you know we we have to figure out how to kind of make this work you know for everybody.
00:13:55
Speaker
So we think we really have a great foundation for our program. We really have a great program for the kiddos. It's very, since we're in a home, it feels, we're technically an in-home childcare provider. It feels like home. We eat in the kitchen. Our backyard is huge and it's fenced in and we have so many different like play areas. We do water play. We have playgrounds. There's critters, you know, in the backyard and it really is just a great environment for you know, the kids to kind of grow up in, right, at school, at preschool. And the participants love being there. it It really does feel like home, but we can't have any more than five. And it really sounds like there aren't, unless we move that fire hydrant, that's our biggest our biggest thing, but that would only get us up to 10. Doubling is our goal. If we were able to identify another building, getting moving, even if there was another house somewhere that we could buy, sell the one that we're in,
00:14:51
Speaker
We need a decent sized parking lot though. That's the thing. Houses usually don't have parking lots, ah but to be able to have 10, maybe for another one to two years so that we could double, we want to make sure that we grow wisely and don't kind of overwhelm ourselves because we're not a daycare. We are a social service organization that is providing free, no cost childcare to families who are living at or below the poverty level.
Program Impact and Expansion Plans
00:15:18
Speaker
But that's only kind of a piece of what the Sparrow's Nest is doing. We kind of operate under the um notion of we want to serve families from conception to kindergarten. So we offer pregnancy resource programming is what we call pregnancy help programming. So we have material resources. We have parent education. we you know We use the same thing, Bright Course. We have referrals. We have our case manager. She will do case management with the The parents that come into our pregnancy resource program, when they could be pregnant or they their children can already be born. And our goal is that we would maybe walk with the pregnant mamas or mamas with young kiddos and kind of use that as sort of a feeder pattern into the child care. So it's just one big program, not silos of an organization.
00:16:07
Speaker
Well, it's like not having band-aid, so to speak. I mean, you have probably started to see multiple organizations will now say, okay, we have addressed the problem and we want to help fix it, but we can't just put a band-aid on it. We have to educate. We have to show financial budgeting. We have to show responsibility. You can't just say, all right, we'll take care of this for right now and then expect someone and to just go out on their own. And I'm talking all kinds of things. Oh, absolutely. Even you know a lot of the programs that we would maybe consider a welfare, food stamps, WIC, all the they can be good programs. Sometimes they're not designed to really help the family who's starting to come out of those programs. Maybe they have maybe they have received a raise at work and just enough that it then kicks them out of the income requirements for the program.
00:17:04
Speaker
And so now they don't get that resource anymore, which food would maybe cost more than their raise. And so they're kind of back in the position that they were in. But it looks like on paper they make more money. yeah you know And everything costs so much more. oh Everything. you know And even thinking about looking at buildings, I've looked at a number of properties. I have a friend who's a commercial real estate agent in the area. And I'll drive past a location and you know say, hey, text him. Like, hey, you know tell me about this one. Look it up. How much is it? Can we go look at it?
00:17:34
Speaker
And everything has been a million dollars or more, everything. And it's just kind of discouraging. And when we get individuals go to our website to submit an interest form, we ask for a little bit of information on our website. We call them back. you know We talk to them. I always take the address that they give us and put it on a Google map and so that we can pinpoint where our interest forms are coming from. um Kind of life to date for the co-op, we have received not quite 150 interest forms.
00:18:04
Speaker
throughout, and they have come from Lincoln County, St. Louis County, all over the place, but right now we're restricting to kiddos who live in St. Charles County. Most of our interest forms have come from the 70 corridor from Winsville into St. Charles City, and just down 94 to kind of the Harvester area. That is where the clusters are when I input them on the map. We're down on the south end of Kay, and if we took even a five mile radius of our location, there's only like two or three interest forms. you know And so we have individuals who are driving from St. Charles to South O'Fallon to drop off their kiddo and then going back to work in the St. Charles area, that's still more economically feasible for their family than paying for a child care at a center. But we know we need to move. What is the program life or maybe, like does that make sense? like How long are you able to stay in it?
00:19:02
Speaker
until their kiddo is eligible for kindergarten, until they are eight old enough to enroll in kindergarten. Okay, so the soonest the child can come in six weeks. six weeks So somebody could be there from six weeks to but kindnegarten yeah which I mean... And at this point, even if they were to let's say income out, our program right now isn't designed that we would then kick them out.
00:19:31
Speaker
As long as they're fulfilling the requirements, participating in the program the way that it's designed, we would still have a spot for them. And daycare can cost as much as college now. So oh right we're kind of across K from this magnificent, castle-like daycare. That's about $2,000 a month for one kiddo. And that is amazing for families who choose to send their kiddo there, whether they can afford it or not. I've known so many women.
00:20:00
Speaker
who worked just essentially to pay for daycare because staying at home wasn't the right financial choice for them, which I completely get. And so they they did work while their kiddos were little preschool age and essentially their income went to paying for daycare. Well, yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of talk about that. I mean, that's why there's the tax credits and stuff like that. It's just,
00:20:25
Speaker
There isn't a tax credit for child care. I mean, there's the the one that parents can claim, and they're like the federal. So our state, for three years now, I don't think it's been a full maybe Senate session, so four years. ah But Governor Parson, this was really something he wanted to get done, is a it was three different types of child care tax credits just for the state of Missouri for income Missouri state income taxpayers. and businesses, so one of them was child care providers would be able to um get a tax credit on our payroll taxes. That would be huge for an organization like the Sparrows Nest, ah because we're not for profit. There was a corporate business side tax credit, and then there was a more kind of individual donation
Regulatory Challenges and Vision for Growth
00:21:16
Speaker
type of tax credit. So it wasn't really a tax credit, this one, for parents who are paying for child care. That was these past two sessions was
00:21:25
Speaker
essentially stomped on and smothered into the ground by our Senate. it was It passed the House. It did not make it out. I think it made it out of a Senate committee, but it was destroyed on the floor.
00:21:37
Speaker
Well there, that's something that when you first started talking about everything with the zoning and this and that, I'm thinking all of these hoops that you have to go through. And I, trust me, I understand the limitations that are put for safety. I support that a hundred percent.
00:22:01
Speaker
But what is so hard are the individuals who are trying to do something really, really good for their community. And there's lots of roadblocks or there's hurdles and there's this and that. And and I always choke around about certain things about how, you know, it only just takes one bad apple. And I get that, but I can't even imagine the fight that you have in you to just keep going and keep going and keep going. It, I mean, it truly is a passion. Every single, our board members, our staff at the nest, we are all fully invested in this mission. We want to see it through. We want to see it succeed. I dream of multiple locations. I dream of a Lincoln County location, a Winsville location, a North O'Fallon location, St. Charles City,
00:22:54
Speaker
and having multiple sparrowness, childcare locations throughout. And they don't have to be giant. It doesn't have to be a location that is 50 kids or 100 kids. It could be somewhere kind of, you know, smaller where there's maybe 20, you know, and and then there's space throughout. Because really when it comes down to the case management aspect, you know, hiring case managers, you know, retaining them and then having a caseload of You know, possibly 20. That's a lot of families. So keeping kind of that caseload around 10 and um and really one of the challenges with some of the other nonprofit or organizations that do provide some kind of child care. A lot of the
00:23:36
Speaker
this county in the county, the early childhood centers through the districts, most of them are kind of half day programs. They do have full day programs. Now those aren't free unless the kiddos are receiving different services. And so those programs are kind of a little you know different than what we do. Great programs. And then there's Head Start, who their hours are not fantastic. I think they're only open to like two.
00:24:03
Speaker
you know And so if you're a working parent, that probably isn't going to work for you. um And then it's needs-based. So the highest needs, get the spots first, which that I totally understand that. That makes sense. um Where we are a little bit different, we really don't go by needs-based. But we do take into consideration if a kiddo has any special needs if we are able to really care for them well and in the way that they need to be cared for.
00:24:28
Speaker
um so hopefully as we grow and are able to maybe bring on a therapist. But we are are, if the kiddo is enrolled in a program, we are always happy to have if they're getting a ABA therapy or if they're getting speech therapy or something like that. They can always, even parents as teachers, we offer the space for the parents as teachers educator to meet with the parent while they're at the nest. If, I know sometimes people have reservations about, you know, social services coming into their home.
00:25:00
Speaker
um and So we offer the time and the space and the opportunity for those things to occur at the nest. ah So we really want to work with our participants, with the kiddos, with other service agencies to create kind of the best scenario for the kiddo. Do you have an example or have you been a part of someone who has aged out or you've seen the progress that has been made?
00:25:28
Speaker
We haven't been open long enough to have a kiddo age out. We do have a kiddo who, if he goes to early childhood, we, if they're able to provide transportation, bus transportation, we could continue to enroll him half days. where We're kind of stuck in between a, do we take, since we only have five spots, do we allow a full spot to be taken up by a half day kiddo, or do we you know, not accommodate that and then open up, you know, the wait list again for a full spot. We're not quite there yet. We've just kind of had these conversations. Um, but we have seen a lot of progress. Uh, we've had kiddos come who, you know, kind of the ticket typical COVID baby, uh, you know, born in kind of that, you know, that timeframe, just really not, um, not a lot of speech, not a lot of words, uh, social, emotional,
00:26:24
Speaker
you know, kind of on the lower end of the spectrum, simply because not having just a whole lot of exposure to, you know, being an only child and, you know, not having other kiddos in the home and just, you know, different things like that. That is a challenge that so many kiddos who are entering the preschool kindergarten now are the districts are, you know, so especially speech. But yeah, no, we have seen just incredible,
00:26:52
Speaker
growth in a couple of different kiddos, even just having a lot of words now and speaking in paragraphs, you know, even just in the a short period of time is really, really great. And using the ASQ that generally is administered maybe every three to six months, depending on the age of the kid. And so we're able to set goals. If we know it's speech, we can set goals with the kiddo. We can set goals for the parent to work with the kiddo on those particular things.
00:27:21
Speaker
And so being able to you know offer those, we have a captive audience ah for many hours during the day, you know and so we're able to really work on things. And being smaller allows us to offer that individualized time with the kiddo throughout the day. If we had 10 to 20 kids, we'd have more staff members, but it would also look a lot different yeah for that experience for the kid.
Fundraising and Community Support
00:27:43
Speaker
Well, as we wrap things up, I want to go back to what we talked about at the very beginning about being for St. Charles and being a part of your community. And this happens with you all. You ah teamed up with Upshot Coffee, which is local to the St. Charles area, also in the St. Louis area. Talk to me a little bit more about that because now your name is associated with Upshot and then Upshot can talk about the sparrow's nest and then it just goes and goes and goes. Yeah, so at my former organization and also going to North Road Church, I saw that there were different blends and labels and things that were still upshot and I got super excited. I, you know, wanted a coffee. I wanted a label, you know, with our organization on it. So when I came to the sparrow's nest, that was one of the first things I was like, we're going to do this. We're going to have our own coffee. And so I got ahold of upshot the brewer, or not the brewer, the roaster. Yeah. Yes. Tom Whitehill. And I just asked him i like, Hey, what do we got to do to have, you know, kind of our own being our own label? He's like, Oh, that's easy. Oh, it really was that simple. So we purchase, they bag it, they they do all of it, bag it, print the labels, everything like that. And then we purchase at a price and then they give us a recommended.
00:29:00
Speaker
you know, upcharge. And so we sell it at that. And it's it's I'm always looking for opportunities for passive income for the sparrows nest. Absolutely. And so you said that you can purchase that through your website, which is Yeah, only through us. Okay, shot themselves. They don't sell our coffee at all. Okay. i Get it from them. And so yeah, so if somebody goes to our website and it clicks the, I think it's at the donate now button. Okay. Um, one bag, it's 12 ounces whole bean is $18. Our coffee mugs are, I think 12. I would have to double check that. Okay. I can buy, I kind of call it the early bird bundle for 25. Nice. Yeah. So you can get both. And then we have an event coming up on September 27th. It's our annual fundraising dinner or banquet.
00:29:48
Speaker
It's at Old Hickory, so it's a Friday night. And if you go to our website, thesparrowsneststl.org, you can purchase tickets to the banquet and then you can add on through Eventbrite is where the tickets are purchased. You can add on coffee or a mug or the bundle and then pick it up that night of the banquet.
00:30:06
Speaker
So you are still looking for people to purchase tickets for that. We are. So VIP tickets have been available for a couple of weeks now. okay It's 50 for a regular ticket, 75 for VIP. VIP is a limited number of tickets. So we're in the, in Old Hickory, there's a room downstairs. It'll be one hour of appetizers, open bar, and a meet and greet with our featured guests. Her name is Jennifer Maggio. She's the founder.
00:30:34
Speaker
of the life of a single mom out of Baton Rouge. They have served over a million single moms down there. Her testimony is on YouTube. It is incredible. You will not have dry eyes yeah after watching her testimony. I cannot wait to host her at our banquet. We're hoping to sell out 320 tickets or more. We can add tables. There's still a little more room.
00:30:56
Speaker
um It's when it comes to nonprofit and fundraising and budgeting. Most nonprofits have many opportunities throughout the year for fundraising, but there's usually that one big fundraiser, you know, the banquet or different organizations. It's different things. So when you think about if you, as your, you know, your, even the church, you, as your, you know, your income at home, if you only got paid once a year, yeah how would you budget? What were the stressors that you might feel those 11 months of the year?
00:31:27
Speaker
of, you know, spending money, making money, making sure you're not, you know, in the red and just all, you know, all those things. And that's every, you know, nonprofit, every organization that's, you know, so it's really, really important that we um sell our tickets. And of course, there'll be an ask at the event that's, you know, typical of our goal. I mean, we've kind of tossed around, you know, an idea for a goal. I would really love to bring in 100,000. That would be incredible. That would, with moving and how much,
00:31:56
Speaker
other locations might cost and all of those kinds of things. To be able to have really successful events um would allow us to really, really plan for the future. um I'm hoping within the next year we will be able to really identify another location. And we're always open you know to consider partnerships if you know there's a church that really doesn't do anything in their building during the week. If there is you know a a strip mall and somebody's you know leasing a space and they have you know kind of an open space. There are some requirements you know for it to be a child care facility, but we're open to being creative. Most importantly, we want to be in a location that is where the individuals we'd be serving near them so that they're not driving an hour round trip yeah you know just to drop their kiddo off.
00:32:48
Speaker
And then speaking of those individuals that are in need, they would still go to your website to learn more? Yep. All right. We have a button that says learn more. Look at that. Make it easy for them. And I encourage anyone to fill out the interest form. We'll get a hold of them. We'll talk to them about the program. Right now we are pending full. We've been full for a little bit. We have had some come and go. We recently had a mom who adore her kiddo, little angel.
00:33:16
Speaker
ah who she was on her second car that you know broke down in the few months that she was in the program, two cars, cost more to fix it than it's worth. And she was she had to stop working, had to unenroll. we I even put out on our social media, if somebody was able to donate a working car to us, I would give them a year of coffee for free. It's just anything to just you know help her family, get you help her to work, you know be able to get her back, you know her kiddo at the nest. but Some things are out of our control. Yeah, but that's where we can just pray. We can talk to others. We can spread the news and that's what we're going to keep doing. So thank you so much for sharing your story for what you're doing. I can tell the passion that you have. And ah this, this community is, is a different place because of it. So thank you so much.