The B Team Podcast
Talking all things Business, Bentonville, and Bourbon. Hosted by Josh Saffran, Matt Marrs, and Rob Nelson. New episodes every Thursday!
The B Team Podcast
Ep. 77 - TASC: Supporting Teens, Empowering the Future
Every teenager deserves support during one of life's most challenging developmental stages. For nearly two decades, the Teen Action Support Center (TASC) has been providing exactly that to Northwest Arkansas youth, creating a space where teens can access vital services designed specifically for their unique needs.
Founded by Dawn and Greg Spragg in 2005, TASC recognized that teenagers occupy a developmental gray area – they're not children, but not yet adults – requiring specialized approaches to their wellbeing. What began in a small white house on New Hope Road has expanded to multiple locations serving hundreds of teens annually across Benton and Washington counties. Last year alone, TASC served 758 unduplicated teens, with approximately 200 receiving mental health services.
What makes TASC exceptional is their commitment to accessibility and their proven outcomes. Their sliding-scale payment model (starting at just $5) ensures no teenager is denied care due to financial constraints. Their First Steps program for teen parents boasts a remarkable 100% high school graduation rate, compared to state averages in the 30-40% range. Beyond counseling, TASC offers innovative programming like Bucket List Summer adventures, life skills workshops covering everything from budgeting to apartment leasing, and community service opportunities that build resilience through contribution.
The pandemic dramatically increased demand for teen mental health services, highlighting TASC's essential role in our community. As they celebrate their 20th anniversary, TASC continues evolving to meet growing needs – planning a new building, expanding services, and partnering with organizations like Sam's Club for fundraising events. Whether through financial contributions, volunteering expertise, or simply speaking positively about teenagers, everyone can support TASC's mission of helping teens become the best versions of themselves. Visit tascnwa.org today to discover how you can make a difference in a teenager's life.
Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I am your host, josh Saffron, with my co-host, matt Morris and our permanent guest, rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bentonville, bourbon and business. The B-Team Podcast Be here. Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I'm your host, josh Safra, with our co-host, matt Mars, and I can't say permanent guest, because we may get two people here that want to chime in at the same time, like the world's going to implode. I know, we got a little. It's weird. It's hard to get anyone to show up and once we got someone else, it's like they're both competing to see who can be. There's no competition. There's only one rob the permanent guest. But I'm just rob, but I'm nervous for saying our permanent guest. They both may answer in the same time.
Speaker 1:Let's try this. And our permanent guest. So rob bobby, robby bobby and our sometimes villain guest, my villain when I'm uh, when I'm, when he's in the, the island, what do you call it? His stunt double Scab. Let's try that again. And our permanent guest, Robbie, and stunt double Jim. There we go. That was good. That was easier than I thought it would be. Stunt double. We have a lot of problems here on the podcast because rob is the permanent guest but he tends not to show up 75 percent of the time and jim's in a mess. They fill in. Perfect, I show one night. Yeah, not. Yeah, it's open invitation. But now that the podcast is blowing up, we went from eight listeners to 20. Wow, I mean with 2x plus.
Speaker 2:Now everybody wants to be a part of it I see, and now jim is vying for the permanent guest one no, no, no, just I'm here as a happy put some gasoline on the fire.
Speaker 1:Jim is vying because he told you that in the green room I mean for Christmas I may give an opportunity to sit in on the majority of it.
Speaker 2:There, you go.
Speaker 1:Be a nice present for you, jim. It's been a fun time, it's been a treat. But Dawn did mention outside. I walked past she said that she heard that you were taking over the new permanent guest. You're not going to get her. You're not going to get her to bite, you're not going to get her. Sorry, rob, anyway, we're here every Thursday for all things. I'd celebrate. I mean, maybe I could just leave right now. No, no, we wouldn't want that. We're here every Thursday for all things Benville business and bourbon. I could go work out. We're here every Thursday for all things Benville business. He's not going anywhere. If we got into him at the gym, I mean that would be a four-hour episode, it would be a three-parter.
Speaker 2:Yeah three-parter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um. Anyway, we are here to talk about task today with co-founder don and chief officer um, just on the board and always a supporter of the teen action support center, does great work here and here in northwest arkansas and I've been a part of it really for 13 years now, but don's been part of it since the beginning, and her and Greg Sprague, her husband, founded the organization and I'd love to have her kind of tell you guys a little bit about it. I know you know a little bit about it just from me, but Dawn is the authority on it. But now Dawn did say off camera that in the last 13 years the revenue has gone down since you've been a part of it. For you it was much more successful. Is there any truth to that story? They definitely could get more out of me, there's no question, but it's been a great partnership and, like I said, I can't wait for you guys to hear more about it. I think it's something that both you guys and your listeners are going to love.
Speaker 1:So what Jim's nicely trying to say is Josh, stop fooling around. Yeah, stop fooling around. Sorry, can we pour some bourbon? Pour some bourbon? Sure, larceny, barrel-proof the C923, matthew, a little dust on that, but yeah, well, it's aged. Well, you know, I don't, it's from my house, I don't host. Oh, it was your. Oh, I thought Matt brought this. No, no, no, matt brings better than this to his friends in Florida. I mean, I brought one of those actually a few times ago.
Speaker 1:You did it's good, yeah, I think I stole that from you. I think you did so, don. These guys have a little bit of familiarity, primarily from the All In event which they were part of and were guests of mine last time we had one. But I'd love to give you cheers, guys, cheers. I'd love to give you an opportunity to kind of give us, like the elevator speech. Talk to us about TASC, what is.
Speaker 2:Okay, can I have like a 12-floor elevator speech? Sure, just like one floor Speaking of aging. Well, I'm not drinking the bourbon, but I was just looking at our very first newspaper, article October 9th 2005, which is when we opened. It opened actually officially on the 16th, so 20-year anniversary 20-year anniversary.
Speaker 1:See that math in my head. I did all my tests.
Speaker 2:And I look exactly as young as I did in that newspaper. Congrats 20 years, no kidding, but yeah, 20 years. So we opened our office on New Hope Road after realizing we just didn't have any services for teenagers specifically Like. Y'all probably know that teenagers are not children, they're not adults yet they're in a really unique developmental period and when we lump them in with everybody else we don't do justice.
Speaker 1:We all have teenagers. We fail you. We understand. We don't do justice.
Speaker 2:We all have teenagers. We fail you, we understand and usually when I'm with adults, I say something like were your teen years like the best years of your life? But maybe we don't want to hear your story. I don't know if that would make sense.
Speaker 1:They were great years. They weren't always the best decision making years.
Speaker 2:Okay, but y'all have teenagers.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, all of us, girls, girls, boys, boys, girls, boys.
Speaker 2:Ah, okay, okay, yeah. So you know, it's just a really unique time and unfortunately they get a really bad rap. They're great. They're great humans and we want them to be the very best version of themselves and that's really our mission at TASC. So 20 years ago actually 19 years ago we started doing research here about what the needs were in the community and then a group of adults and some teenagers got together in my living room and decided we needed to do something specifically for teenagers. So that's what our plan was. When I was reading the article, it's so funny. It's almost exactly what we are still doing A little bit of different programming, but we are really looking at a whole teen well-being approach, like it's not just one thing, it's making sure they have everything around them that they need.
Speaker 2:So they're cognitive, they're emotional, they're physical, they're social health, all of that. We deal with all of that in our programming. So we started in that little white house on New Hope Road which is where we do all of our counseling. Now we have a separate office for our mental health and emotional health care services, so that's separate. And then we have an office in downtown Rogers that's called the Hub and we do all of our programming and all of our administrative stuff there for Benton County and then in Washington County we have another space on Emma Street and it is called the Station and we have a good bit of programming there, but not as much as we have up here. We don't have any counseling services down there. Hopefully that will change soon.
Speaker 1:Lots of questions for you. I'm going to start first. This is a local charity too, right? And the reason I ask that is there's so many charities here and they're all wonderful. Most of them end up being national, international in scope. Like this is truly started local and all the money and everything stays local.
Speaker 2:Yes, that is 100%.
Speaker 1:Washington and Benton County.
Speaker 2:Yeah, washington and benton county. Yeah, washington and benton county. Um a couple kids in some of the rural counties that we should be in schools, yeah, but 100 of the money.
Speaker 1:I mean it stays north of sarkis, yeah yeah, it is north which is huge to a lot of people that they, when they they're giving, they know that it's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're taking care of acting our area yeah right here, and you all know what the growth is like here. Oh yeah, we suspect, if our math is good, that there are probably about 36,000 teenagers in Memphis.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's how many I have in my house. Well, you know, you think about you know, growth oftentimes is synonymous with prosperity. Think about you know, growth oftentimes is synonymous with prosperity. But at the same time, rapid growth also can create like more abundant need. Is that something? A hundred percent?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and that's. And the barriers to care and support are sometimes economic, but we want to make sure every teenager has access to care, it doesn't matter how much money they make. So the families that can pay for services do the ones that can't don't have to worry about it, which is that's a real, that's been a real blessing. I think too. So. But yeah, as our area grows, the number of teens that need support services and or any teenager could just benefit life skills. In a couple of weeks we have an alternative to college night. So giving kids all the options and making sure that families know that all the options are so again, are teens coming to find you?
Speaker 1:Are school counselors recommending them to you? Because, listen, I've had blowups with my, my kids in the house and then the next five minutes later everything's good and that's how typically it is in everybody's homes, right, but I I'd imagine that kids are not wanting to come find you. Like how, how does this whole thing work?
Speaker 2:yeah, they, they do actually um, so we it. We get referrals from everywhere.
Speaker 2:So, the answer to your question is yes and yes. Schools we are very active, not in the schools, because kids don't really want to receive services in the school. They want it somewhere else, a little bit of autonomy, so yeah, but school counselors recommend services to families, teens or parents or both if there's a way that they can get involved in things. But teens look for us too. So Bucket List Summer Jim and I were just visiting about that.
Speaker 2:Our Bucket List Summer program is a program for teenagers to have opportunity to do things that they might not get to do, like rock climbing and kayaking and horseback riding and all those kind of things. So we had 60 students involved in that program this year this summer, and we, because we've done it a couple of years, we have some kids who want to come back. So we're like, well, we want to make this available to all students and so we had a. We had a group of kids that came that have already been and they did different things, and then we had a group of two groups of kids that did some programming that was completely unique to them.
Speaker 1:Do you need volunteer chaperones? Uncle Matt may want to go on. I mean, you may want to go on some of these expeditions. Always, it's nice when they want to come back because you know that you're doing something good and you know that you're going to get probably down the road. They're going to want to come help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that actually happens. We actually have interns and we have had staff people who've received services at TAS before and they've come back to work for us, which is really nice.
Speaker 1:I was thinking you could take a group fly fishing this summer. Yeah, that would be fun, that would be good, right? The problem is they wouldn't catch very much with me. You would have to have someone that's really good at it to go with. But they would love it, yeah, yeah. So for the people who aren't super familiar, like when you say services, can you name some of the top services good, bad or indifferent? Good question, Bobby so we provide.
Speaker 1:That was a good question. That's why we want him as permanent guest. He just left you angry.
Speaker 2:He didn't even give it a Sorry, he's trying to.
Speaker 1:He's choosing to ignore it. We got to move on. Thank you, don. He's trying to make sure that he keeps his permanent guest role and he's adding value.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, the services. I don't know if these are in order of what we see the most kids, but last year we served 758 kids across all of our programs unduplicated. About 200 of those were in mental health services. So counseling, art therapy, group work, that kind of thing. So we see quite a few kids for mental health services. It's very expensive. We don't charge for that unless people can pay for it, and we want to make sure everybody has access to care. So that's what we do at New Hope. We want to make sure everybody has access to care, so that's what we do at New Hope.
Speaker 2:And then all of our other programming is like life skills, community service. So we've always had a community service learning program where kids can get in the community and volunteer, because contribution is one of the C's of resiliency, that's what we call it and so we want to make sure kids know that they can make a contribution to the community that they live in and they like doing work for other people. Like you'd be surprised, sometimes we think kids don't want to do that, but they really do. So lots of volunteer work. And now the Learns Act requires every graduating senior to have 75 hours of community service. So now we have lots and lots of different kids doing lots of work. So so a lot of the life skill after school programming. Some of it's specific to like social kind of interaction, that kind of thing, but most of it is very geared toward making sure kids have job and life skills and have other opportunities in the community to learn about things that they might.
Speaker 1:So there's 758 kids. Are they there on a curriculum? Are they part time? Is it drop in?
Speaker 2:It depends. So we have different what we call levels of engagement. So some of our students are referred by schools or by courts, or their parents want them to participate, or they want to participate in activities. So we might see kids in life skill programs maybe four times, five times during the year. In counseling we average about eight engagements with kids. So eight sessions with kids and their families. Um, some kids are just a one time, you know. They come in, they, they spend all day with us, they volunteer.
Speaker 1:They might come to bucket list summer and spend two weeks with us and then we, you know, we, we won't see them again um at all just to know that, the resources that you know one of the things to tag on to what you're saying, don, and again having been part of the organization for a while, one of the great things about it is seeing like some of the outcomes that come out of it. So, for example and I'm going to put you in the statistics on this.
Speaker 1:But, like you know, so single teen moms. They offer support, whether it be in kind, donations of supplies, things like that, counseling, anything that they need. I want to say the national average for single teen moms in the high school range the graduation rate is in the 40s, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, arkansas, it's in like the high 30s.
Speaker 1:High 30s in Arkansas and for the single moms engaged with TASC, that graduation rate was 100%. It's 100%. Whoa, whoa, whoa, Whoa whoa whoa Wait a second, wait a second.
Speaker 2:Wait a second. So a teen pregnant mom, 40% graduate high school.
Speaker 1:They've already had a child in there and then in your thing it's 100%. Yeah, we had 100%. It's a smaller bucket, but that's still 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%.
Speaker 2:And the program is called First Steps and that's a huge need in our community. In Benton County and Washington County About 450 teen births to teen moms and we know that the dropout rate is because it's very difficult to go to school.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's hard when you're not in school, yeah, and if you're parents or you don't have a supportive home environment and you're trying to work and raise a child and go to school, it's very, very difficult. So we have lots of other like single parent scholarship, like we have a lot of people who can help us, help them. But we are in the schools, we see the students in the schools, we provide resources. Like Jim said, we have counseling for them if they want counseling. So, yeah, our teen month, we're extremely proud of the and sometimes we have dads as well. So I mean we open it to teen parents and offer them support. But it's a really cool thing to watch them get out on their own and do well and be good parents, because they absolutely can be good parents.
Speaker 1:Great things. Can we pivot to some of the charity events that you do and some of the things? I don't know what it's called, but we call it the poker shit show, the blackjack game we played All in for team. Thank you, thank you, you helped me out there. We went to that last year. Oh my God, it was so fun. Yeah, I did have a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Now I'll tell you if there was an eye in the sky okay I don't know that they'd let josh saffron back in the building, because the cards are dealt and we always talk to this hey listen, everybody's a winner. Tonight it's really about the kids. Everyone's making a donation to be there. We want everyone to feel good about winning tickets and stuff like that. But they'll deal out the cards and Josh will literally trade cards across players and it's just a constant swap. So everyone's got double down ends, everyone's got oh, this guy's got blackjack. Everybody's a winner. If you go next year which I encourage everyone to go you want to sit at Josh Saffron's blackjack table because you will win. We laughed it. Want to sit at Josh Saffron's Black Day table because you will win. You know, we, we laughed you and it was so charitable and we all, you bought a package to go out to the casino, I think for a concert that night and we were just laughing and laughing and we had. We had a ton of fun, yeah okay, so here's a little tidbit.
Speaker 2:You might not know our very first uh all-in event was at the casino.
Speaker 1:At the Cherokee Casino.
Speaker 2:Casino in Siloam. They just came to us. They said, hey, we'd love to do an event for you, and they just offered us this huge sponsorship. And we're like, what year was that that was? It was like 13 years ago, yeah, you were there.
Speaker 1:I was there with you. I was the emcee. I remember he was our first emcee. Yeah, I wasn't able to move the cards around that night the same way. No, they were a little more strict, yeah, it was so great.
Speaker 2:And then once I'm not sure you were on the board yet.
Speaker 1:No, no, I was just a volunteer.
Speaker 2:To do that for us.
Speaker 1:And then we're, like jim's, really the good one.
Speaker 1:I agree, it's great yeah okay, and we are very grateful for his leadership and yeah, but he did the very first one and it's been that much fun ever since we've had four different venues for it, but but it is one of the fun, lighter events and you know, I know you guys are, you know at events and bobby, I know, is very popular, he's very in demand. But I'd say, from from a standpoint of just having a good time, the TaskOleN event is as much fun as you have at a charity event. Your wife is still not speaking to me from that event. That's when you called her out on her bingo card. Shout out to Corey, shout out to Corey. We forgot about that. We left the blackjack tables and went and played. Josh may have manipulated her card, so she thought she had a number.
Speaker 1:She didn't really have. And then she yelled bingo and then he called her out on it. She went up to get her cash prize and I go check her numbers, check. There's no way it's right. And of course it was. But you always say that in bingo because you're right. You always want the chance and hers was wrong. She about beat the living daylights out of me. I was about to to come into task. Oh man, that needs help in there. Do you remember that? Yeah, no, I do. That's funny. Oh, my goodness, that was bad. I loved all the different candies you had, all over the place.
Speaker 2:Oh, I know, we had like Nerds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nerds, jack Links. Right, Was it Jack Links?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're one of our presenting sponsors.
Speaker 1:You have the casino girls where you could spin the wheel.
Speaker 2:I know he would remember that. I told somebody.
Speaker 1:Good photo op.
Speaker 2:This is the only event in, and it's because it's in Arkansas where you can get a picture of Sasquatch. Yeah, sasquatch with the casino girls, like with the show girls, right, so you have show girls.
Speaker 1:One of one Kind of looks like Matt's wedding picture. Milk she milked. Yeah, that's why he's giving me a permanent guest. At some point he's adding color commentary. That was good. Sorry, bobby, that was good. Sorry, you don't hurt my feelings. I mean, I get my entire afternoon back.
Speaker 2:What other questions? What's the date of the event? Do you guys have a date for all in? We're solidifying that it's usually late.
Speaker 1:Late January, early February.
Speaker 2:Early February. We're trying to push it out a little bit in February and they'll still be here at the embassy.
Speaker 1:It will.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just a wonderful venue. It was yeah For that kind of yeah, for a casino, and they're wonderful to us, so we're grateful.
Speaker 1:And there's another event you guys do as well. So we have a really big one and a fun one. So Sam's Club obviously you guys might have heard about it. Shout out to Sam's Club, shout out to Sam's Club. So Sam's Club every year hosts a golf outing at Shadow Valley. Ooh, shout out to Rich Reeves, shout out to Rich Reeves at Shadow Valley. And this year, because it's TASC's 20th year, they always pick, and usually they pick a bigger charity. Frankly, I think last year was Kiss a Pig, the year before it was something else, like one of these national charities. This year they are really leaning in local.
Speaker 1:20th year of TASC. This is the first time they're doing TASC. This is the first time that TASC is going to be the primary beneficiary of the Sam's Golf Outing. So I know Matt and Bobby are big golfers. Josh, I've seen golf one time in my entire life and it was quite a treat. But I would like to think that you guys would at least participate in some way. Maybe you could. You know, drive the golf cart, drive the golf cart. So I think it's October 3rd. October 3rd is going to be that big event and it is going to be that big event and it is going to be all sorts of opportunities and fun things to do with that, but we're really excited to partner with Sam's Club on that. It's a big win for the organization. Now, is it true you know when I start this, it's not true Is it true that there's a pre-golf driving range event at the Casa de Corbett? No, but there's going to be a pretty exclusive after party After the show. It's the after party. So more detail about that. I've got to still clear that with Corey, can we break that right here on the podcast? We can break it right here on the podcast. No, we're always excited to host Stuff for Task and we're going to have people back at the house afterwards. And you know, listen at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:I've seen the work that the organization does. I'm thrilled that Dawn's been able to tell us a little bit about what it does here. The more we get attention around the need and the frankly need for donations, the better. So one of the things that I was going to have Dawn put us all on the spot here a little bit, the better. So one of the things that I was going to have done, but you know, put us all on the spot here a little bit, but also have everyone done. How easy is it for someone to, if they want to make a donation to the organization, to do that? So, matt, take out your wallet, show her how to download a credit card. No, it's even better than that. It's digital, digital.
Speaker 2:You just do task. Nwaorg, that's our website. This little button right here, see that Little button right there.
Speaker 1:Tiffany Blue Look at that.
Speaker 2:And then you can write. It'll take you right there to secure donation.
Speaker 1:Now just click on the $1,000 and just hand the phone to Matt. Hand it to Matt, it's her phone. He's going to donate on your behalf, Don. I've never done this before.
Speaker 1:It's probably like that layer check like a thousand dollars, and then you, what you want to do is go over to monthly and then just check a thousand dollar monthly, and that would be lovely the sustainable giving option is the one that I always try to push with people because, listen, this organization part of it is making sure you're planned out and you know it's dependent on donations, it's dependent on grants and the more they have visibility and line of sight to what's coming in, yeah, the more they can really pattern and schedule their services to accommodate the needs. And right now that need is exploding. And there's a couple of things honestly one, the growth in the population. Two, pan covid was a was a was a kickstarter for a lot of kids to be put in situations that have been difficult. And I mean, I know the counseling which is a major function of TASC right now really wasn't a part of it pre-COVID, or at least a minimal part we were, but yeah, but it flew up after.
Speaker 1:So like how many people, how many teens do we support in the counseling?
Speaker 2:Over 200.
Speaker 1:Over 200. And what was that? And what was that three years ago?
Speaker 2:oh well, before covid before 2005, so it was probably like a hundred, okay, ten and that's, but yeah, yeah, it's a triple. It is, it's, it's been, that's been. If if covid did anything good for us, it did elevate the need for emotional support, for teens specifically, but for all people, and just COVID actually was a trauma Like it's a kids that were in elementary school now are teenagers and we still hear kids talk about how hard COVID was for them.
Speaker 1:No, I remember. I mean high school graduation. Everybody remembers high school and right, high school graduation was canceled. A lot of the prom, I mean. A lot of kids are still talking about how they missed out on it and, on top of all that, having multiple teenagers in the house, social media is doing no favors for these kids. No Right, I remember back in Matt you want to go out tonight. Matt's like no, I'm not available. And then you pull open your phone and you see Matt at a party on social media and I go. Why didn't Matt invite me? But back in the day you didn't know. And now, if Matt's doing other things, at least I can find out about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, you're 100% right. It is a new day, a new generation. I don't know if any of you have ever read the Anxious Generation, but it really is helping us understand how now we have a digital playground instead of an outdoor playground for kids and it is a huge challenge. So, yeah, all the services really have seen growth.
Speaker 2:But mental health, just because people are learning that we're available and because we only work with teens, we don't work with anybody under 13, and because we only work with teens we don't I was gonna ask that under 13 and we don't work with anybody over 19, like it is literally so somebody, 22 years old, walked in and said like you'd give him a recommendation somewhere in the road, and sure so you guys can't help Josh.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't think anybody. There's no help for me. There's no organization out there. Emily's been asked. She asked if I was going to see you. She was going to call into this episode anonymously and see if there's any help for her.
Speaker 2:See if there's anything available.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for me. Shout out to Emily.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's such a unique age group developmentally and so everybody on our staff is trained specifically for adolescent care and best practices for teenagers. But I was talking to Jim about this too we're really understanding that prevention. We say prevention is the best medicine. We say that, but if we don't offer prevention for adolescents, they carry things into adulthood that make it really difficult for them. And so the Alice Walton School of Medicine, because they're also focused on a whole person approach they say prevention is the cure, and I believe that to be true. That's awesome. We can really make sure that everybody has access to preventative services and can really be the best version of themselves. Then they go into adulthood. We need fewer interventions and we think we won't meet the whole need. We know that the need is just too great, but if we could reduce the need, like if we could make sure that fewer people need access to mental health services or to other services, if we could make that happen, that would be a win for our community.
Speaker 1:I know money was the number one thing and Matt's going to click the donate before he leaves town and all our listeners are going to click it On your phone. However, I was thinking maybe we could have like a gents night for all the kids to come. They could get their hair cut. That would be kind of cool To go get a real experience. Shout out to the Gents Place. The Gents Place actually hosted our first friends and family event. I think we like Friend Razor, friend Razor.
Speaker 2:We raised a lot of money.
Speaker 1:We raised a lot of money and we literally, I think, doubled our number of sustainable givers those people who click on the monthly and donate If it's $10, if it's $20 a month. Josh Safran is a sustainable giver, but the Gents Place hosted the first one of that. That doesn't count, as Josh hosting the Gents Place hosted Feels like it. So Matt tried to flip the script on me, but we're going to push back to Matt. But, in addition to money, in all seriousness, I remember one of our team buildings, for, as a supplier, we came and painted the building at one point. Yeah, I assume you need books and I assume we need speakers and mentors and like there's a lot of stuff that you need above and beyond just money. Yeah, can you talk through?
Speaker 2:yeah, volunteers are a huge part of matthew volunteers of expanding our ability to provide service for teens.
Speaker 2:Right, and even you know the gents Club, love the fact that you know doing a friend raiser, but what can that teach all of our kids? About having your own business and you know being unique in a community or whatever it is. So I think that those kind of speakers and those kind of role models from our community can make a huge difference for kids. We know that, so yeah, so our after-school programming allows for teaching kids how to budget, teaching them how to take care of their cars or their bikes, or learning how to fix.
Speaker 1:Or their boats. No, the budget is a huge step because they don't have economy anymore, like when we were all in school. They don't even know how to write a check, and I know that's going away.
Speaker 2:You should know how to do that, yeah sure, yeah, so the budgeting is a big deal. Like, we have a large number of students, so parents want them to do it. Last year we had a thing called Senioritis, so all of our seniors had an opportunity to come in and learn some things about signing a lease and, you know, preparing to. If you don't go to college, you got to be ready to do some things as adults. So lots of adulting skills.
Speaker 1:Things with real world application. So, in all seriousness, because we do a lot of ball breaking here, but if we, but in seriously, if we, like these guys both are home builders, right, and there's a lot of blue collar and there's a lot of work that you guys need and stuff, I mean if we went in and had a conversation and talk to them about life skills, I think that would be a good use of time, right, I agree, because I think that's you know. I think for years it's been looked down upon doing trades and now it's making a huge shift back. Before it was like if you didn't go to college, you were over here, but it's also an opportunity for them to make good money. No, and that's what I'm saying, I think a lot of kids need to know that this isn't like your plan B. It can be like your plan A, what you want to do Absolutely, and college isn't for everyone.
Speaker 2:We know that, and so we're going to have that alternative to college nights so that kids can get exposed to what are the traits, what are the things that they can do if they're not going to do college.
Speaker 1:Definitely share with us when that is because, yeah, yeah, we would definitely hold us accountable for that. We will come in and do that the end of august.
Speaker 2:So I will get. I'll get the dates to you for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it would be just come in for a half hour an hour and just talk.
Speaker 2:I'm not really sure how they have the um, how they have it set up. I think that it will be a variety. There's several. They've already got lots of people booked, so and it would be a variety of opportunities for kids to kind of go around and talk to different people.
Speaker 1:A lot of one-on-one and just think they're probably teens. Today they're listening to this saying you know what? I could be a permanent guest host on a podcast. Yeah, I'll give you some advice right now. It doesn't pay very well, so skip that one. I'm still waiting for my B-Team podcast T-shirt. I mean, matt and I have them, because we're here all the time. Well, we choose not to wear them. We don't want them to feel bad. It would make them feel bad if we had our shirts and they just didn't have them.
Speaker 2:But yeah, lots of outdoor activities like all kinds of things, and they just didn't have them. But yeah, lots of outdoor activities like all kinds of things. We need adults in our community to let our teens know that they support them, they encourage them. We need that.
Speaker 1:You should get Dave to come too. Yeah, he would do that.
Speaker 2:They built some skateboards. A couple weeks ago I don't know.
Speaker 1:They built skateboards.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had a group come in and taught them how to, like, literally assemble a skateboard, and then someone yeah, learned how to skateboard something was going to fall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you skateboard? I did not skateboard. I wasn't able to go to that event. Yeah, you were too busy with other things. I think I was maybe something to vote him off of the board. I mean, how can you not be for skateboard night? Josh needs one more thing to do. There you go. What is the most urgent thing we can help with?
Speaker 2:I think awareness, awareness is a really important thing. When I talk to adults, I always ask them if they would just promise me to do one thing that when you speak about teenagers, use language that's positive. We use a positive youth development model. We speak only words of positive things about teenagers because they hear tons of things and they know most of our teenagers know adults don't think very much of them. When I ask a group of teenagers to give me the words that adults use for them, it's lazy, unmotivated, privileged.
Speaker 1:it's sad it's in it, I, I believe, I believe it.
Speaker 2:But then I know I, I think it sounds like she's listening in my house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm talking about it and I think we all fall into that, you know. I mean, I'm sure when we were teenagers the generation before us was like, oh, it's not like they. You know they're not walking uphill both ways like I did, that sort of whole matchup. It's so easy to say you guys have it easy, but the reality is Josh you mentioned it earlier like the Internet just makes like the idea of bullying and stuff that used to be designated to the school parking lot and maybe in the hallways. Now it's 24-7. If you want to bully someone, you can Just look at suicide rates that are up in teenagers.
Speaker 2:it's scary second leaning cause of death I think it's.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you say, if you look with someone in the world right now and I don't want to get too deep, but politics, right, it's very polarizing right now. Um, everything happening right now with social media, ai is going to have issues with these kids trying to find jobs. To your guys' point like blue-collar trade, jobs are making a huge comeback right now. I mean, the world is shifting very quickly for these kids and some of them are not really prepared for it. I think what you guys are offering is a wonderful service. Thanks. You don't have to have tons of problems to come see you guys. You don't have to come from a broken home and a broken family. Nope, this is a teenager that's just looking for an outlet that may live in a wonderful home.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, we serve all teens, but it's a challenging developmental time for all kids, just whether it's with their friends or their family, and we have a lot of trauma around us that most people don't know about. So it and we have a lot of trauma around us that most people don't know about, so it doesn't always surface and be seen. Sometimes it's very internal. So I won't go through all of the rates of things that teenagers deal with, but a lot of times if we don't offer services, we can't fix it.
Speaker 1:We can't help them heal before they become adults and when teens come to you, that's part of the funding and the donation. Like they don't pay anything right, like this is all part of what we do and we provide the funding for the kids to come in and get services complimentary.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, except if it's mental health services. So our counseling program is set up very much like a private practice. We don't see teenagers unless they have parental permission. Like a private practice, we don't see teenagers unless they have parental permission. In this state it's 18. So if you're under the age of 18, we do have to have your parents come in, do the intake with you, sign permission for us to see you, and then we charge everybody a minimum of $5. So if you can pay $5, then you can be seen for counseling services. It goes up to 50 if people can pay. So people in our community who know that we are skilled at taking care of teenagers, they want their kids to come to us. So if they can pay they do, and if they can't, and, to be clear, counseling sessions are more than 50 bucks.
Speaker 1:And the reality is and we have board discussions about this and it's like you know, we have that five dollar scale. It's like, hey, we want at least five, and if the person can't get five, we do not take anything. You know, the reality is we're not turning anybody away, but we ask like, hey, you know, here's what we'd like you to give, and usually come in and usually people see the benefit and want to do the right thing, and, and what I'd say is you, you know what you started with Josh, you know.
Speaker 1:I'd like to just bring back and this is something that is in our backyard. We don't see it all the time. You know, we're all very fortunate. We live in a really great area that's booming. We always talk about it being a bubble At least I always do with my friends and you know it's sometimes easy to turn a blind eye. But boy oh boy, when you can help people locally and I've seen it firsthand for the last 13 years there's no better feeling. And so you know, that's what I just wanted to make sure we, we shared today with the team. Yeah, don, I'm gonna put you on the spot, okay, okay, and we could always edit it if you don't like the question.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Can you give us a success story? Can you say Susie Q came in and this is what was going on, and Susie Q now, three years later, is doing this. I'm sure you have dozens of those. I do.
Speaker 2:I have to be very careful to make sure I have permission to share.
Speaker 1:You're Susie Q, this one I do.
Speaker 2:It's Susie Q. This one I do. Okay, this is a cue I have permission to share because she has shared her story before for us. But she lost her mom when she was 12 years old and started coming to TALIS, probably around 13 or 14 years old, struggling with grief, obviously, and some anxiety, that kind of thing. Her family really struggled after her mom passed away. Sisters got separated. She spent the last two years of her high school career with staying with friends, so she stayed with a family that took her in. It was so fabulous for her. She graduated high school and was the first person in her family to go to college.
Speaker 2:She had three other sisters, so the four girls and she I'm going to try really hard not to get emotional about this but finished college and decided to go into the Masters of Counseling program and so she started that. And then she called me and said is there any way I can do my internship at TASC?
Speaker 1:Of course I said you have to interview I bet she was the lead candidate.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, so we, we, we talked about it and and she asked me this question, I asked her which I always ask all of the interns, you know, why task Like, why do you want to, you know, to intern here? And so she talked about the impact of services for her, because they would not have been able to afford services, and that was the reason why not have been able to afford services and, um, and that was the reason why. And then, during her inter, well, I guess right before that, she asked me why do I do what I do? And I told her because the kids like her right, I just got trills I can't tell my story without.
Speaker 1:Without the emotion, because it was a direct connection, but she she got the job, I would assume right she okay, thank you sure.
Speaker 2:Good, it's making sure about to be in her last internship with us. She's done. She'll have done all three um, and she's going to be an amazing therapist that's awesome.
Speaker 1:That's a mobile.
Speaker 2:Deep understanding that sitting with someone and working through stuff changes who you are, and so she, yeah, and we can hire her.
Speaker 2:Well, we would do that too, like all of them, all of our, all of our interns that we get are amazing with teenagers, and so, yeah, I'd hire them all if we could afford it Sure afford it but sure, um, but and we've also had a teen mom who was in our first steps program who went to same, went to college, got a bachelor's in um social work and then came to work for us and so she was on staff with us and she just finished her master's program and um, and then they lost her because then she had an opportunity to work in the school system.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got nervous and you lost her. I got nervous. I thought the story was going in a bad direction for a second.
Speaker 2:No, the school system shut her up and so it's great for her to be able to work on the school system's schedule and be with her daughter. So, yeah, that's awesome. But yeah, we have lots of those stories and we're we're incredibly grateful when you get to do this work I've been doing it since we opened, so I get to see lots of this.
Speaker 1:Did you guys realize any of this stuff, like, have you guys? No, no, not that deep for sure, obviously. I mean, we heard a lot of great stories when we were at the event earlier this year, right, yep, it was in February, yeah, In February. So obviously we have a much more better understanding after today, for sure. I mean, again, we typically take that funny, but I'm looking at everybody's face here. But that story was very touching, you could see everybody was like, oh, what do we need to do now to help?
Speaker 2:In fact so.
Speaker 1:That was great.
Speaker 2:We're very grateful for this community. They have allowed us to be open and serving teenagers for 20 years.
Speaker 1:That's a big deal Well and you have enough track record where it's neat to see the stories of you know, the success stories and everything else. In spite of Jim, you seem to be flourishing.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're to his health.
Speaker 1:We are flourishing, which is amazing. I'm excited for you to host the post party. The post party is on October 3rd. I think that's where Matt and I can officially help. We could stay. Stay in your lane, know your role, leave us off the golf course.
Speaker 2:You're just going to come to the party now we're not going to come.
Speaker 1:We're probably going to bring a couple bags of chips, maybe open up a couple of cans of soda. Fire up the grill.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll do that Get yourself in there. We do still need to talk to Corey about this.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We'll yell some good plans.
Speaker 1:Knowing Corey she'd be 100% chill for it. She's going to be all in on it.
Speaker 2:She's actually also supporting TASC by serving on our campaign cabinet. We are still sort of in the silent phase, but yeah, we have a pretty big dream.
Speaker 1:They don't have that many listeners. It's still the silent phase.
Speaker 2:We are going to build a new building and five-year sustainable plan for serving teens in our team.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're very excited about that opportunity.
Speaker 1:Well, can you give the website one more time for everybody? Make sure everybody's aware of it. Make sure you explain to Matt one more time how he hits that blue button to donate the Tiffany blue button, the monthly thing.
Speaker 2:Our website is tasknwa, so T-A-S-C-N-W-A dot org, and right there in the middle of the page you'll see.
Speaker 1:Even you could figure it out, josh, I may have to hit. Is that the World Wide Web, the WWW? Do you have to do that first, still before that? No, I just go right to it. I don't have to do that anymore.
Speaker 2:You don't have to do it anymore. Actually, you don't even have to type it in, you can just get on your Siri or Tipton.
Speaker 1:I still have the AOL dial up. Yeah, no, pull it right.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:You have mail. You have mail. Thank you for coming in.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:This was good Thanks.
Speaker 2:Dave, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Jim, our permanent guest in residence and backed up. Thanks for bringing in this great guest today.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:More than Bobby has brought in a while. Appreciate it. Cheers, cheers, cheers. Guys All right.
Speaker 2:Wait, you're going to do it. Sure, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:But Jim has already out Cheers.