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143: Single Moms Are An Underserved Community
171 Plays1 year ago
In reflecting on the number of episodes Jill Devine has produced for Two Kids and A Career, she realized she hadn’t had an episode dedicated entirely to single moms. That changes with this week’s episode.
Samantha Tradelius is a Mother, Wife, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur, and Speaker. Samantha is brutally honest, fast moving and a supporter of all things SHE.
A born go-getter from early on, Samantha always knew she was destined to do big things. Armed with her brokerage license and natural gift for being a connector, Samantha began her entrepreneurial journey co-founding Commercial Coverage Insurance Agency (CCIA) alongside her husband. From humble beginnings the pair quickly turned CCIA into a wildly successful business, valued at an impressive eight figures.
Following her success with CIA, Samantha knew it was time to lean into a passion that had inspired her from a very young age. Having never stopped thinking about the stories her grandmother and hero, GG, would tell her about raising three children as a single mom in the 1950s. Samantha always noticed that in all her stories, her grandmother never mentioned anyone helping her...or asking for help. She knew that her grandmother had done everything she could to rub her nickels together to make everything possible for her children.
Samantha and Jill discussed the nonprofit Samantha created to help single moms.
IG: @SamanthaTradelius
Two Kids and A Career Website: https://www.jilldevine.com/
Two Kids and A Career Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jilldevine/?hl=en
Two Kids and A Career Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JillDevineMedia/
Thank you to our sponsor: Elemental Esthetics
This episode is brought to you by Elemental Esthetics. When you call or text the following number (314-279-6069) to schedule your appointment, mention my name and you’ll get a special gift with your purchase.
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Transcript
Introduction & Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production.
00:00:22
Speaker
And I mean, it gives me such joy to be able to have those conversations or even be in a position that somebody would want to hear what I have to say. I mean, that's the better part, right? This episode of Two Kids and a Career is brought to you by Elemental Aesthetics. You can be guaranteed that your experience is going to be unique and customized to your specific needs. See how they can help you focus on natural beauty enhancements by visiting elementalaesthetics.com.
Meet Jill Devine
00:00:51
Speaker
Hi there and welcome to Two Kids in a Career. I'm Jill Devine. As an entrepreneur, wife, and mama, the daily grind of trying to build a business while taking care of kids and trying to maintain a healthy connection with my hubby, it's a lot. With this podcast, you're going to hear candid conversations at their moms.
00:01:08
Speaker
parenting experts who can share their knowledge and insight, or you'll just hear me rambling to get it all out. There's going to be tears, there's going to be laughter, but most importantly, there will be support. Take a listen and connect with me so we can grow and learn from one another.
Guest Introduction: Samantha Trudelius
00:01:23
Speaker
This is Two Kids and a Career.
00:01:25
Speaker
Welcome to this week's conversation of two kids and a career. And as I introduce my guest to you, I just want to read something. I mean, I'm drawn to my week's this week's guest because of her nonprofit work. But first, let's go to this little description of my guest.
00:01:44
Speaker
mother, wife, philanthropist and entrepreneur, brutally honest, fast moving and supporter of all things. She and I said, OK, I read that. Mm hmm. Yep. She's got to come on. Samantha, I am so excited to talk to you. And let's see. You just told me how to say your last name, but let's see if I can remember it. Trudelius. Perfect.
00:02:08
Speaker
Yes, that's like a big thing for me when I can get the last name or the name in general. I'm like, yes, I'm in. Yes, small things for sure. Welcome to the podcast.
00:02:22
Speaker
Thanks for having me. I'm super excited. You were a
Samantha's Career & Inspiration
00:02:25
Speaker
fun one. I was reading up on you too. So I think we're in good company today. I think so too. I mean, there were so many things about your bio that just really hit me. And one of them is your nonprofit and the work you're doing there. And then the other thing was that this nonprofit is helping single moms. And I don't
00:02:51
Speaker
think that I've represented the single moms on this podcast as much as I should have. But I know that the stats, which I'm sure you can probably talk to me a ton about, of single moms is just so crazy high. I was actually listening to a podcast
00:03:11
Speaker
And the hosts were saying something to the guests like, oh, tell us what's new. It's been a while since we've talked to you. And she's like, oh, you know, I'm a single mom to three. And it just hit me. I was like, man.
00:03:25
Speaker
That's got to be so stinking tough. I think of just single mom of one and that's hard. But we're going to get there first, Samantha. Let's dive into you. Let's talk about you, your background and what you're doing now. And then we'll get into that single mom and nonprofit conversation. Yeah. So there's a lot going on with me as you as you probably read.
00:03:52
Speaker
After I finished fine tuning that I go, Oh my God, there's so much going on here. Where does it all connect? And it all connects with one great foundation. And that's supporting women in everything I do. So that's kind of my North star on a daily basis. I've spent 25 years in the insurance industry, which is not what I would like to call sexy or glamorous. But it has been good to me. And it's some somewhat of my profession, if you will, I'm still actively participating in that activity.
00:04:20
Speaker
And I have two kids. They are 10 and 12, two young girls. They give me a run for my money every day. I think I saw a post somewhere that said having daughters is like having a best friend that thinks she's really rich. Yeah. This is true. As we enter into the teen, tween era, I'm reminded that daily.
00:04:40
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, I've got a podcast, wrote a book, um, and live a life of purpose through my work, uh, the sparkle foundation, which I founded seven years ago.
The Sparkle Foundation's Mission
00:04:51
Speaker
And I've actually been gifting and working with single moms for, this is my 20th year, which I'm starting to date myself. I'm old. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a lot of stuff. It's a lot of fun stuff. It's a lot of hard stuff. And, uh, it's a lot of stuff that makes me feel good every day waking up doing.
00:05:09
Speaker
All right. Well, let's talk about that journey. 20 years ago, you said that you started working with helping single moms. Why? My grandma. My grandma was a single mom in the 50s, raising my dad, my aunt, and my uncle.
00:05:25
Speaker
It was really interesting because growing up, I would always hear these crazy stories about how they were raised and how, you know, my dad and my aunt were really involved with roller skating and like my grandma would work three jobs and sew all the costumes and they would work at the race or the roller rink to be able to afford it, you know, just things like that. And so when I became of age, I was in my twenties and I just started an insurance and I was like, you know, there's got to be something out there that like I could do and help the world be a better place.
00:05:55
Speaker
So I started sniffing around at nonprofits. And what I was finding was more times than not that a lot of these organizations were not as transparent as what I wanted, even at a young age. You know, let's say $100 to donate, that I was finding that like $80 of that hundred was not going to what I thought it was. And that really bothered me at a young age. So I thought, hmm, I'll just go do it myself. So I started doing some research and I actually found the Dear Santa program, which is put on through the post office.
00:06:24
Speaker
Um, you know, and I lived in LA at the time. And so you could go to their major hub where they had all the letters that kids would write to Santa and they would sort them into areas of need through the different communities. And you could go in there and they take your fingerprints and a copy of your ID and like run a background check. Cause you were literally going to get a letter with somebody's address on it.
00:06:45
Speaker
And they would let you in this room and there would be like barrels of letters. I mean, thousands of them. And so the first time I went in there, I sat there and I started reading these letters and, you know, each one was worse than the one I read before. And, you know, there were stories of struggle from young children, like, Hey, my baby sister needs food or Hey, it's just me and my mom and my sister. Can you help us?
00:07:06
Speaker
And so I didn't even realize what I was doing with the single mom stuff, but the first couple of years I picked women that were single moms. And then that really gravitated towards becoming, okay, this is something I really want to focus on because I knew it was such an underserved community because I knew that was how my dad was raised and my grandma raised these kids. And so right before my grandma passed away in 2017, I remember having conversation with her and I said, you know,
00:07:34
Speaker
The whole reason for sparkle is because of you. Do you know that? She goes, what do you mean? And I said, well, I subconsciously always gravitated towards single moms because of her story.
00:07:45
Speaker
and knowing what she had done and gone through and never asked for help. And I said, I never tell your story because it's, you know, sad and not great and not a really good time for our family. And she goes, Samantha, you have to tell my story and you have to continue to tell my story because there's so many women out there that could use what you guys are doing. And, you know, with that,
00:08:04
Speaker
in mind, I've just always kind of used that as my legacy feature of what I, you know, how we push forward every day is to just really forward that message. And sparkle, as I said earlier, is seven this year. And the program has grown so much bigger than just holiday giving. We do enrichment scholarships throughout the year, backpacks in the fall. We'll do 5000 bags this year. We do micro loans for single moms.
00:08:31
Speaker
that want to start or grow their businesses. And we now have three chapters. We have the Bay Area, Sacramento, and also Los Angeles.
Challenges & Support for Single Mothers
00:08:38
Speaker
So we've grown. We've grown a lot.
00:08:42
Speaker
It's weird because you don't want to celebrate the growth because of the reason, but you want to celebrate the growth because of the reason. And that's what's hard. I mean, that's so hard when it comes to those in need. You wish there wasn't a need, but there is. And so you're doing something about it. And I was thinking, too, when you were talking like single moms,
00:09:07
Speaker
come in so many different variations, whether or not it is a family that, you know, mom and dad were married, they had kids, all was fine and something tragic happened to the father.
00:09:23
Speaker
There could be situations where it's not a tragic, it's just a normal split. There could be situations where it's a single mom who dad was never in the picture. And that's the thing is I think sometimes we might make assumptions on where these individuals are based on their needs and we cannot do that. No. And these women are women that you would never think
00:09:53
Speaker
Are these women? Because here's the thing that's really great about women, we don't ask for help. Whether we're single or attached, we are the last ones to ask for help because it's our nature. We can do everything, right? And so you take a single mom and maybe she's able to pay rent and put food on the table, but now her son or daughter wants to play basketball and it's $700 and it's like her car needs to get fixed or somebody needs new shoes and there's just no extra money.
00:10:22
Speaker
That's what we can come in and really plug that hole for her. And that's what we've been really effective. I live in the Bay Area of San Francisco, Marin County, which is a very affluent area, as many of these different communities that we serve are. And you'd be really surprised where the majority of Americans really do live paycheck to paycheck.
00:10:42
Speaker
And you get a gal who can afford to live in a nice area and raise her kids in a nice area. But honestly, there's no extra money. It's really hard. And women that have been abandoned by their partner or something like you said, tragic happens. I mean, after all the dust settles, there is little services for these women. And to be able to provide a safe blanket that we can help just kind of
00:11:08
Speaker
We're not a forever solution, but we are like a trampoline to kind of get you where you need to go and bounce you back up and get you going. And that's really where we have really sought to, you know, put forth our efforts year to year. Another thing that I was thinking of when you were talking about your grandma and, and I've heard this with other individuals, but the idea of,
00:11:35
Speaker
You know, you have to work two to three jobs to, you know, even make any kind of ends meet. You know, you're living paycheck to paycheck, plus it's just awful. And what bothers me about that, and it's still true to this day, is that time that you aren't able to spend with your kids. And that just really tugs at me as well because I
00:12:04
Speaker
I know how important it is to have that relationship with your mom, your dad, you know, any kind of family member. I mean, I give kids tons of credit for those that have to raise themselves. I mean, it's not because their parent is not wanting to. It's because they are literally trying to make sure that the roof stays over their head. And I didn't know if you, I mean, with the Sparkle Foundation, like,
00:12:34
Speaker
you were mentioning some of the programs, how that can help so that we can show that being there with our child is probably the most important thing in this whole realm of things. 100%. And also keeping kids engaged. Children many times are just victims of circumstances. So the fact that their family is in the position that they're in is not something that's their fault.
00:13:01
Speaker
Um, or that they shouldn't get to do certain things. I mean, I always find it, I've got two little kids and they do a lot of different sports and I find it so amazing how expensive things are. And like how in the hell do they expect family or children to be able to afford these things? Because it's, it's, you know, as someone that isn't in these hard times of situations, I mean, I find it challenging and you know, it's, it's, it
00:13:27
Speaker
I have to make some decisions personally like, hey, I'm not choosing to afford this because it's $500 a month to send you to this activity. And that's ridiculous. So I then I think about a mom who's on her own trying to make that work and in that fight or flight mode, you know, every single day with just trying to provide basic necessities. And then you top on that, like the mom guilt.
How the Sparkle Foundation Works
00:13:50
Speaker
because we all get that as working women. And, you know, I'm not doing this because I'm doing this. And, you know, how is this affecting my kids and all these other things? I mean, there's so many different pieces to the puzzle that, you know, like I said, we're not providing a life solution, but at least so we can provide a little relief in times that are tough. It's, you know, it's a huge honor to be able to do it.
00:14:12
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:15:43
Speaker
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00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'll be completely honest. We do the paycheck by paycheck in our household. And those extracurricular activities, my husband and I, there's also that guilt of you see everybody else doing it, and you think that you have to do it, and you need to get your kids out there. Anyway, that is a whole other side topic. But it is. We have to choose. And I mean, I won't lie when, you know,
00:16:39
Speaker
One of them says, I don't really want to do that. And I'm like, oh, yes, we don't have to pay for that. And you get multiple kids doing multiple things and it's unaffordable. And a lot of times, you know, we'll get these applications for scholarships for travel ball or, you know, high end competition teams. And I don't always win, but I will typically decline them. My vote will be a no, because I know what it's going to take.
00:17:07
Speaker
on the other side of things to be able to afford those, you know, yeah, rooms and travel and those things and, you know, you get a kid in a program for a year and then, you know, what happens if mom can't afford it next year? Right? We are programs worker. We're a one time gig.
00:17:22
Speaker
So we will help once and we will pay the venues directly. And then, you know, it's just kind of a one time situation. So that allows us to help more families. But a lot of times it's like, you know, I kind of look at it more of like, is this a solution to an immediate problem or is this a solution to a bigger problem that would need ongoing assistance because we're not able to provide it?
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah.
Empowering Through Sparkle Biz Microloans
00:17:43
Speaker
Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about that then with the nonprofit with sparkle. How are you helping? I mean, you, you did a very brief explanation. Like I want to know now, what are you doing? What are the criteria, criteria that you are asking of moms, all of that, because this is, this is good stuff.
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah. So with our program, and it's taken us many years to kind of iron it out and get the information that we need to make our proper decisions. So every single applicant that comes through our program, we vote on as a group. And I'm the one that puts the votes in the system, sends it out to the board and say, you know, they have to reply back. And then it's not, it's a majority rule situation. And sometimes it gets knocked out, dragged out. We've got opinions. I got seven people that got a lot of opinions all the time about things.
00:18:36
Speaker
So really what we look for is this a lifestyle or is this a situation? Because if it's a situation, that's where we're good. If it's a thing where you're needing services ongoing, that's not what we're here to help with because we just don't have budget, I'll be honest. So what we do is if it's an enrichment scholarship, our intake is very simple. Tell us the story. Tell us why this program is important to your son or daughter. Tell us how we can be helpful. Tell us the cost and tell us a little bit of backstory about the who, what, when, where, why.
00:19:05
Speaker
When it comes to the holiday gift drive, we require that someone else nominates you. And we do that because in the past, when we just had it open to everybody, we found that a lot of times the applicants, you know, they weren't really giving us the gritty, the storyline about why they needed our, you know, we'd get an intake for Christmas that says they need help for Christmas.
00:19:26
Speaker
Hey, girl, we all do, right? Right. We need a little more. So what we do is we ask some pretty pointed questions. How would this benefit this family? What are the things that they need? Tell us a little bit about their story, where they live, et cetera. We don't go into your tax documents. We don't ask for your credit. We don't go through any of that kind of stuff. We really just go off of the good of word of others. And when it comes to our sparkle biz,
00:19:54
Speaker
applications, we're actually doing it right now. We have our, our sparkle tank tonight, which is kind of like shark tank, but it's a sparkle tank where we have, um, our candidates pitched to us why they need funds and what they would use the funds for. And then we figure out if it's indeed something that we want to get involved with. Um, and sparkle business, our newer program and what it is our microloans for single moms that want to start or grow their businesses. It's five to $15,000 loans that are interest free. So it's basically free money.
00:20:23
Speaker
But you got to pay it back. And along with the free money comes mentorship. So part of the application process is we get to know you, your needs, and where you need some holes plugged, whether it's marketing, accounting, finance, assistance, all those things. And then within our networks, we have some great mentors that we plug in and help accelerate wherever these candidates want to go.
00:20:50
Speaker
This program we started in 21, we funded in 21 and it works. We had our first loan out for 10,000. She was able to grow her business, open a second location, hire like five or six people, get where she wanted to go and paid it back in full within 15 months.
00:21:06
Speaker
Oh my gosh. It was pretty badass. Like I was so nuts. So I had this crazy idea back in like 2018 that I wanted to take my sparkle mind and my business mind and fuse the two together. Yes. Like God, what if we could do loans? So I first started thinking about it, researching it, you know, because there's lending laws and there's all these different kinds of things. And then I thought, well, maybe we do grants. Then I got to thinking with my team
00:21:33
Speaker
We all had this big round table discussion and we decided that if it's a grant, there's no skin in the game. So if you just give out free money, like there's no need for them to succeed. Cause if it fails, it fails. Right. So we thought, okay, let's give that a loan, but let's not charge interest and let's not be requiring ownership of a company. Like let's just genuinely give the funds, help them get where they want to go and then get them to pay us back so that we can then fund another business.
00:22:01
Speaker
So I got this whole thing, you know, set up mentally. I pitched it to like a hundred people and I, cause I needed a fundraising and be people to jump in and help me.
00:22:11
Speaker
Half the group told me I was out of my mind. They're like, this will never work. Stay in your lane. What are you doing? This is crazy. And about 20 people stood by me and said, you know what? I think this could work. So we built the program out. And then COVID happened. And it just threw a wrench in everything. And I was so upset. I was turning 40 at the end of 2020. And I was like, no, I'm going to get this thing off the ground. So I started a fundraiser on Facebook.
00:22:39
Speaker
$40 for my 40th birthday. I raised $15,000. And with that money, we started the sparkle biz fund and now we're ready to loan out our second round of funding, which is really cool.
00:22:53
Speaker
Okay, I wanna know about that woman that you just mentioned. Because listen, like what you were just saying too, you're putting funds in the community. You're giving people the opportunity to work. You're giving a woman the most empowering thing ever with her self-esteem and her drive. I love it. So tell me what was that business?
00:23:20
Speaker
So her business is a business that was called Stay Sculpted, and it's still very active and successful now. And she had a business prior that was called Stay Published, which is actually how I actually knew her, like I knew of her. So she had a mobile makeup tanning and teeth whitening business, and she would go all around and take care of what you needed.
00:23:46
Speaker
She started stay sculpting, which was a like body sculpting kind of like, you know,
00:23:52
Speaker
make your body kind of get rid of extra water through massage and different techniques. It's kind of an interesting concept. She was very successful bringing in money, but what she was lacking was systems and process. But when we met her, she had come to us and she wanted 10,000 bucks and she wanted $10,000 because she needed help growing. She wanted to grow and open a second office and needed to buy machinery that she didn't have money for.
00:24:19
Speaker
And so, I mean, we looked at her books, we looked at everything, everything was kind of firing on all the cylinders. But when we peeled the onion a little bit, we're like, girl, you've got to get your accounting in order. You've got to get your insurance in order. You've got to get all these things in order. So we placed folks, these women that are successful CPAs and insurance professionals. And within six, seven months or so, we had helped her get a website, get her scheduling.
00:24:46
Speaker
She was having money come in via Venmo, via PayPal, via cash. There was no system for tracking funds that were coming in. It was very complicated. And so we figured that out for her, or helped her figure it out. Actually, I don't want to say we figured it out. She did. But we really just kind of gave her those tools. And if you imagine all the things that you learned the hard way in business, that if you have somebody just sit you down and go, okay, here's what you got to do. And some of this genuinely interested in what you're doing.
00:25:15
Speaker
You know, for a lot of us, when we start businesses, we don't have a lot of extra money to spend to pay someone to tell us these things or to help us. And so to have, you know, successful business women be able to provide their time and their, their brain power, it's, it's incredible. And it's honestly, all the sparkling I do, I think it's my most fun right now because it's new and it's exciting and
00:25:38
Speaker
And what we are able to see these women do, and they're doing it already, but we're able to help them get to where they want to
Women Supporting Women
00:25:45
Speaker
go. I mean, it's pretty badass. I am just thinking about all those things, especially when I started the business. Luckily, I had some good
00:25:56
Speaker
networking people in my life where they would say, Oh, you should do this. You should do that. Um, and it just, I mean, I had to do the legwork, but I also had really cool people that understood being a small business owner and understood about those funds because listen, you do lose money and that sucks. And I don't think anybody wants anyone to lose money when you know, you're starting out like at least kind of
00:26:23
Speaker
make it so that you can break even and have those people in your corner. I mean, seriously, having certain women in my corner to say, all right, you know, this is what needs to happen. And normally somebody would charge you X amount of money for that.
00:26:41
Speaker
Let's just make sure we talk about this. We figure it out. We want you to be successful. That's huge. And yeah, I mean, why wouldn't you want to support and and you just think about your dreams and your desires and so that and this is something we've talked on the podcast a lot about is this shift from this competitiveness with women to now
00:27:06
Speaker
wanting to help women i mean we still have a lot of work to do is society does but i think we're getting there i think we're starting to understand like there is enough room for everyone in this business and here's the thing like i don't know i mean i do know it took me a long time to really.
00:27:25
Speaker
become a grown-ass woman, as I like to say, right? Yeah. And surround myself with other grown-ass women. And so the women that I support myself with, and I believe I can hear it your voice too, I'm assuming you're kind of along the same lines, or I'm only interested in women that are supporting other women and supporting me. And likewise, vice versa. And so, you know, women as a whole, we do business different.
00:27:48
Speaker
We think different. And if a sister needs a hand or she needs, you know, hey, how do you do this or what do you do for this? I mean, I am so excited to get to share anything that I've stumbled on or maybe what worked, what didn't work.
00:28:02
Speaker
And it gives me such joy to be able to have those conversations or even be in a position that somebody would want to hear what I have to say. That's the better part, right? Because I've made so many mistakes and not just in this nonprofit space, but in my insurance business space.
00:28:21
Speaker
a life is about making mistakes and learning and picking up and growing from them. And I think that's the beauty of the journey of life and doing it together, you know, walking arms with other women is it's incredible. And it's I think the coolest part is watching women help other women and be like kind of a facilitator of it. You know, like I kind of sit back and I let them roll and go and have their own meetings and do their own things. And it really gives
00:28:50
Speaker
a sense of being to that each individual person involved. And I think that part of it for me is the most gratifying. I mean, not just what we're doing and the money and all the things, but the opportunity that it's giving for others to help other people, because that I think is the greatest gift of all.
00:29:09
Speaker
Uh, yes. And you have those conversations with other women and all of a sudden you're like, Oh, well, I didn't think about that. I was here to help you, but then you just helped me. And then it's just a beautiful cycle that keeps going and going. Exactly. Exactly. And we all
The Joy of Helping Others
00:29:26
Speaker
have it in us. And it's like, just when you turn the dial a smidge, you know, in one direction, what you're able to project and amplify and get out there is incredible.
00:29:36
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I can just hear it in your voice too and I absolutely love it. Okay, we, as we start to wrap things up, I just want to make sure that we're getting all of your information out to others. Here's the thing, I mean, I know that you probably would love world domination with the Sparkle Foundation, but is there an opportunity for this to go out of the Bay Area?
00:30:03
Speaker
Sure, and it's one of my big pie in the sky dreams is to have sparkle chapters everywhere because every major city has single moms. The hardest part with anything is getting boots on the ground. And one of the things I didn't mention, but the reason I started this going back to what I had said originally about researching charities was 100% of every single dollar that the foundation gets goes right back out into the community. So we don't have any paid staff.
00:30:29
Speaker
We don't have any one on payroll or any overhead. Anything that we buy or purchase as an operational expense, we as a board or typically yours truly is paying for because what I firmly believe is any donation needs to go serve what it's intended to. And that's not looking, you know, buying stamps or looking envelopes. That's doing the good work out there in the community. So that in mind, it's really challenging to find individuals that are
00:30:57
Speaker
willing to step up at the level that we're doing and not get paid for it. It is hard, but it's something about passion and doing the work that I think for all of us here in California, it really does fuel the fire. And it's not just a sparkle of what you're giving, it's what you're doing as well internally for yourself.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yep. But yes. And on my website, you'll see there is a place that says, are you interested in starting a chapter? Contact me because we are always interested in starting chapters. And, you know, if you've got a group of girlfriends and we even have guys at Sparkle too, I'm definitely interested in a conversation. I love it. I love it so, so, so much. And listen, we are all called to do
00:31:46
Speaker
things that benefit others and whether it's, you know, with your time, with your money, with your space, whatever, it's always good to give back in some way, some
00:32:02
Speaker
You can do it in some way. It's not always about the money because I know that that sometimes can be a barrier. And then you step back and you think about your gifts and you're like, oh, well, I'm really good at this. And that is a huge thing in itself. So I really encourage individuals to lean in, figure it out as far as what they can give, which doesn't necessarily have to be money and then apply it because so many people
00:32:32
Speaker
have these wonderful talents and gifts that they're not using and it's like, ah. You can find your mind. Like find what you're into, whether it's, you know, animals, plants, the world. I mean, whatever you're into, everybody, somebody once said to me, where you have the ability, you have the responsibility. And that's so true because, you know, to give back, to do,
00:32:56
Speaker
Even if you have no money, give your time. Go clean up the trash on the beach. Go help out at an animal shelter. Those types of activities feel so good. And to be able to do good, it's a feeling like I can't even describe because it's infectious and it fills your whole body and soul with goodness. And I wish more people would do it because it's the greatest high of all.
00:33:24
Speaker
It is. It really is.
Contact & Personal Insights
00:33:27
Speaker
Okay, so Samantha, let's go ahead and give out all the contact info. I will have it also linked on the show notes at JillDivine.com, but give all the goods out. I've got a really easy jewelry ready. It's muchfordelius.com. It's my first last name.com. There you can find dropdowns for sparkle dropdowns for anything me. I've got a monthly
00:33:51
Speaker
blog that I do focusing on three lady brands, which are female owned companies making things for us girls that I blog about each month. Don't get paid to talk about it. Just really love supporting women owned businesses. Podcast is there. Oh, and my book is also there if you'd like to check out a little bit about some incredible women in my life.
00:34:10
Speaker
Yeah, tell me the name of the book and the name of the podcast. Yes, my book is called Impact, which is 25 stories of incredible women that have impacted me on these last 40 years of my life. It was a 40-year-old birthday project that I did for myself. Nice. Which turned into a book, and it's awesome. I love it. And then my podcast, I co-host with my girlfriend, Stacey Fleece, and we interview women once weekly for 30 minutes. It's called Inspired.
00:34:39
Speaker
And it's women that essentially just do more than get up and breathe every day. So it's changemakers, it's activists, it's business owners, creators, makers, everything in between. And they're incredible stories because if you think about it, most women, unless you're rich and famous or have a huge platform or budget, you don't get to tell your story. And what inspired is about sharing those stories of everyday women doing extraordinary things.
00:35:05
Speaker
I love that. Yeah. So like I said, I will have everything linked up at JillDivine.com, you making it easy. So I hope to have sparkle start popping up in other places. That would be so awesome. And thank you for what you're doing to support women. This is exactly what this podcast is about too. And I am just grateful for people like you and your energy. So thank you again, Samantha.
00:35:32
Speaker
Thank you. As we wrap up this week's conversation, I want to talk to you about elemental aesthetics, a sponsor of the podcast. I had this conversation with some women the other day. We were talking about physical therapists and massage therapists and estheticians and how back in the day, those individuals were considered luxuries. And you may still think that. And I understand why.
00:35:57
Speaker
But we are learning over time that those individuals play a really vital role in our overall well-being and our health. And so I guess it's easy to think of massage or a facial. They're just surface level. It goes way beyond that.
00:36:16
Speaker
It is so important to take care of your body, whether that is surface level or on the inside. And I will tell you, when you visit elemental aesthetics, you will find out why these services are so very important to your overall well-being. And they make it easy for you to be held accountable for these services because they have membership options where
00:36:40
Speaker
You can get discounts on certain items, but you're booking them, like you're a member. So you're going to be held accountable for your appointment and your time. Jennifer Worman-Bloss is amazing. I just can't talk about her enough and everything that she's already done for me and helping me with my skin, she'll do the same for you. elementalesthetics.com, you can also go, when you go to elementalesthetics.com, you can
00:37:07
Speaker
text or call to make an appointment, but when you do, tell them I sent you. You'll get a nice little goodie bag. And speaking of websites, I encourage you to go to JillDivine.com and check that out. That's where you will find every single episode of Two Kids and a Career and some blogs. I've got some summer recipes there, all kinds of good stuff. Again, that's JillDivine.com. Thank you so much for your support of Two Kids and a Career.