S2E20: YMI Talking to Tom Carson from Victory House

"Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you."

This week on the YMI Talking Podcast, TJ Carson shares heartfelt stories about Victory House and their incredible work supporting homeless veterans. From the struggles of military life to the triumphs of rebuilding, TJ sheds light on how this organization has been a beacon of hope for 40 years.

Hear about their Adopt an Apartment initiative, what makes veterans’ needs so unique, and how Victory House is changing lives one day at a time.

For more info on YMI insurance visit our website at ymiagency.com

Or give us a call at 610-868-8762 to see how we can better protect your business and family.

Transcript

1:00:00

I ended up volunteering for a program that was called the Adopt an Apartment Project. And it was through the sixth street shelter. So I went to the sixth street shelter and what we did is we basically took this empty apartment and we put beds in it, we put toiletries in it, we put food in it, like for this family who was homeless. And I made the beds with like hospital corners and stuff so I wanted to show off. So I made the bed for these hospital corners and this little girl popped in the room and she was running around the room so happy, like running around this little apartment like this ecstatic, like when I was like wow, like you know all the things I take for granted, I said this little girl is just happy to be in this apartment. She looked at her mom and she said she's a mom and it was like this this long dresser like on the floor and she looked at it, she says is that where I'm sleeping? She's like no honey you got your own bed and this girl was running around like so ecstatic about having her own bed. I was like oh my god, I was like you gotta chase that feeling. This is me, I'm Jimi Honochick and this is another episode of Why Am I Talking and I am joined as always up until this point by the wonderful Avery Pennell. Hi, hi, how are you? I tried to get back in there but you had to have your moment and it was great. It is, but I prefaced it that way because you're not going to be with us forever. Don't make me cry. I'm probably actually gonna cry first. You are pursuing your career in education. I am. Which is a noble and worthy cause. Thank you. But that doesn't stop me from trying really hard to persuade you not to do it. Every minute of every day. Yeah, so if you want to give up on your dreams, you could keep working here. I have considered and reconsidered especially now that finals are coming up. I'm like yeah you don't have to take a week. You can actually fail it. I would love it if you fail. So that's been said, you are obviously a very fun and wonderful and awesome member of the team. We're so good today. Thank you. This has been a dream job. Good, good. Please say that again so everyone hears that. This has been a dream job. Good and you can't record anything when I'm not around. That's fair. Good. So yeah we are looking to find someone to replace you. Exciting venture. Good luck with that. Nobody is me and you won't be able to replace me. What did Tom Carson, our guest today, say? He said you were so dope, God only made one of you. Oh, she did say. Yeah and that was a good line. I was like wow. I pretended like he said it specifically. I think he did though. Yeah. Oh yeah because he was talking about our names. I love my name. I'm one of one. You're one of three now. Three awesome awesome people. I mean yeah. The James Honochicks of the world. They are pretty cool. They are. But I have to argue that my name is pretty just for me. Right. I love it. Will not have an Avery Junior. But that was one line that he said that was awesome. And then the whole episode was more lines of awesomeness out of Tom Carson. It was just like far and far as the kids would say. That sounds like something the kids would say. I can't confirm that. But it really was. I had to ask him before we wrapped up like where his storytelling comes from because as he was telling that one story and not want to ruin it about warrior week. I literally was on the edge of my seat the whole time. You could tell it was building up to something and it it did. I'm supposed to be taking notes during this play. I literally like found myself like so just so enamored by it and then I was like oh I got it down. Write that down. So I guess we should get into it. Give the people what they want which is not me. It's not you. I don't think I think it's a sound effect. They what what does it sound like? And that is our cue. All right. Please enjoy this episode with Tom Carson and Victory House. It's incredible. We are here. Why am I talking? And our guest today is lights out. I mean is so involved in the community. When we talk about making a difference in the community, you can't do any better than our guest today. Tom Carson comes from Victory House, Lehigh Valley. And I'm so excited to have you here, Tom. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, thank you for having me. Such kind words to start out our podcast. I love it. It's all downhill from here. No, I mean, let's let's talk about Victory House, right? Like you guys are an incredible institution. You know, tell us a bit about your mission, about your goals, and what you do and what will happen beyond. Yeah, Victory House is a great community resource. We've been around for since 1985, just helping homeless men transition to independent living. We're we're known for our veterans program, but we actually serve non veterans as well. We serve them with with case management, health care. We have a little fitness center in there, pretty much everything someone needs to overcome becoming homeless. And it's an incredible goal. And there's got to be so many factors that you guys are battling and working with. Talk to me about sort of what a day in the life looks like for you there. Yeah, well, I mean, the days are pretty different every single day. But normally, we'll come in in the morning, we'll have our team meeting where we all get together and we talk about some of the issues that we're having, we talk about some of the people that need some support. We have a little clinical meeting where we get together and we discuss how we can help certain individuals that are within our program. And then it's all task centered from there, you know, meet with client, John Doe, meet with client about getting linked into health care services meet with client about life skills, like just different things. It's all different. And what I realized in this homeless field, this working with people who are homeless is 90% of the time, it's just bad things that happen to good people. Somebody, you know, may have just recently gotten a divorce or somebody had an addiction issue or somebody, you know, had some mental health problems that they need to get over. So it's a beautiful thing to just be able to work with a bunch of different types of people who have just different issues that you can help them with. Does that make it more challenging though, right? Because you're right, like the root of it comes from so many different places. How do you guys have the resources, you know, to help? Yeah, it's definitely challenging because everybody's different. Everybody's got got got different issues that they're dealing with. Everybody's raising or entering homelessness is a little bit different. But what what's a blessing for us is we got a vast amount of community resources that help us with everything. You know, we got connections and an addiction through through different treatment centers, we got connections in mental health. We work with career link, we work with all these different agencies to provide our guys with service. So that that that's a blessing in itself that we have good connections that can help our clients out. Yeah, to that point of good connections. You know, fundraising, I imagine is always top of mind for you. Yeah. Where where does the money come from? Like, where is the support coming from for you guys? What are your big channels? We have a lot of community support. You know, we have restaurants that do dine to donates. We have one coming up actually on Tuesday at Apollo Grill, you're doing a dine to donate for us. We have different, you know, MCs that are the motors are crews that are helping us out. You know, Nom Knights is a big veteran supporter and Leathernecks and just the community in general, we have a great community that comes out helps us out. Wind Creek helps us as well. There's just a lot of support that we have around Victory House. We also have a lot of, you know, contracted vendors, we have North Hampton County who helps us with, you know, serving our people who are struggling with mental health and drug and alcohol addiction. And the biggest one is by Department of Veterans Affairs who really believes in our mission and it has accredited us with our Grand Per diem program, which is the only one currently in the Valley to service veterans who are currently homeless with transitional housing services. Wow. And we have a lot of good community supports. And you said, you know, you're not solely veterans, but they are a large contingent. How does that, you know, how do you guys think about that? How do you guys work with that community? Yeah, so I mean, luckily for me, I'm a veteran myself. I served eight years in the Air Force. I went in 2003 and got out in 2011. So I, the way I look at it is I'm serving my brothers, like I'm serving guys that I could have served with, you know, I'm giving back to them. But veterans are complex. There's a lot of, there's a lot of different issues that they're dealing with. And there's, there's a lot of supports that are needed, you know, with we work with multi-generation veterans. So we might work with a guy who served in the Vietnam era who has different needs than a guy who served in, in, you know, the Gulf War or the post 9-11, the Iraq and Afghanistan era. So it's very challenging, but the VA has been a great support and the community has been, been also a great support for that. They identify veterans as a priority population. So veterans are usually put on the head of the list when it comes to getting certain services. Yeah. And we've touched on it, but walk me through the specific services that Victory House does offer. Yeah, absolutely. So we offer case management services. We have dedicated, we have two dedicated case managers on staff. And they, they, they basically meet with the clients and develop an assessment of where they're at and then develop a goal plan, idea ways that they can work with them. Some of the goals are very simple, maybe just obtaining an ID card or maybe, you know, getting, getting employed or staying sober for six months, you know? So we identify all these goals and then the case manager works with them and they help them get linked to the resources that are going to help them achieve these goals. And ultimately the end goal is to find permanent housing. We just did our quarterly report or actually our, we got our yearly report from the VA and it was right around 76% was able to transition to one of the outs with like an 87% were able to find stable employment. So it's pretty cool. That's got to feel good for you to be able to make that difference. Yeah, it does. It really does. It feels like that. It's weird because I thought my service, when I joined the Air Force, I thought that that was going to be my service to my country. Right. I was like, that's why 90% of people joined the military. They want to serve their country. I never would have realized that my service was going to come after. I was like, wow, this is where my service is really coming. It's helping people who are down in their luck, helping people that just need a little bit of assistance, helping them get back on their feet and ultimately transition to permanent housing. So, so we have talked about, you know, your military background, but let's, let's go deeper. Who is Tom Carson? Let's, let's learn about Tom. Sure. Who are you? What's your story? I'm an Allentown native. I was born here in the Lehigh Valley. I think I was born on top of a bar. I couldn't tell you which one, but you know, I, is there a story there? There might be, I did. I'd have to ask my parents to give me the whole, the whole detail. I was a little too young to, to know the exact name. But I know I was born on top of a bar. So my parents are from the Lehigh Valley as well. My dad, Bud Carson, he, he's a Lehigh Valley native. My mom Janet Carson, she was, she was in the Lehigh Valley Deer of High School. So there was an Allentown deer of connection, which is very rare. My mom went to deer. My dad went to Allentown. They met and they, they burst me and I have a twin sister, Tiffany. Oh, nice. And birth me and my twin sister. And is Tiffany in the area? Yeah. She's, she's in North Hampton currently. Okay. She's, she lives in North Hampton. Is there any like twin connection? Do you guys like sense each other? I'm, I'm convinced this is real. Yeah. Sometimes. See, I knew it. Yeah. All right. Good. Sometimes I'll be having a bad day and then she'll just call me and then she's like, I knew you were having a bad day. What else do you know? Yeah. But yeah, there's a, there's a good connection. I have a great relationship with my sister. That's great. When I was in the military, you know, we, we stood in contact all the time. Yeah. Call home and she'd, she'd help me out with a lot of things. So, so I grew up in Allentown. I, I, I went to, I went to middle school at South Mountain middle school. And then, um, ended up going to the William Allen. Uh, my parents split up when I was, uh, in elementary school and my, my sister ended up living with my mom and I ended up little with my father. So that's where I kind of learned. Uh, I learned a lot through my father because he was a US Marine. So I got a little bit of structure in my life. And then, um, ultimately I ended up graduating high school and I didn't really know which direction I wanted to go in my life. And, um, I graduated high school and I ended up going into the United States air force. Yeah. 9 11 happened. And then I was really gung ho about, you know, making sure that I was serving my country. Yeah. What year did you graduate? 2003. Okay. So I went in the military right after I got lucky and I was on a delayed entry program and they called and they said, you can go in a month. I'm like, I'm there. Wow. No. So I was shipped off to Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas. Okay. Very rarely left the state of Pennsylvania and onto a chapter and in Texas. Texas is a whole different world. It is. Yeah. That's like its own country in itself. Yeah. Where, so you said the city, but like where in Texas, it was, it was, it was in San Antonio. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Um, all right. And so then from Texas, uh, were you deployed from there? Yeah, Texas, I went to, um, after I got done with basic training, uh, I ended up going to, well, I went to shepherd air force base for more training. So I was, I was, it was called the aerospace ground equipment mechanic. And I got, I from, from basic, I went to shepherd air force base and, and it was, uh, it was almost like a six month program, a long program. And so I, I got there and then from there I went to, uh, Louisiana for a few years. And then I went to Guam. My deployment was to Guam, which is beautiful. Yeah. I went to Guam and then I came back to text Louisiana. And then from Louisiana, I went to Korea for a little over a year. And then from Korea, I left and went to Virginia. So I got to Virginia. So I've been all around. Yeah. It was pretty cool. Pretty good experience. It is. Um, talk about the training you received in the military. It's something that I didn't appreciate until I entered the business world, but you see military people in a business setting and you know, right away, right? Like they, they come prepared and they are, they're a force to be reckoned with. So talk to me about the training you received in the military, maybe how that's helped you professionally. Yeah. Absolutely. So it's, it's funny you say that cause I was just, I just did a keynote speech and I was talking about my struggles with the training. So I, I got to, I got to San Antonio and I hop, as soon as I hop off the plane, they grab you off the plane and they ship you off to your, your basic training site. Yeah. And when you get to the basic training site, you're, you have to stand on like this little pad at attention. So you stand there at attention and all of a sudden all the TIs just start coming in and they're, they're brilliant and they're, they're coming from every direction and trying to break you down. One of the main goals in basic training is to break you down. So, so you have that structure and you could react under pressure. So I was in basic training and I struggled a little bit at first, like in military, your uniforms have to be like crisp. You have to have your boots shine to where you like show an ID card in these boots and all this stuff. And, and they would do this thing. They called, they'd pull like three 41s off you. So it was like this little card. And every time you had an infraction, they would pull this card off you. So I remember I would have these little infractions like there was, like there was a string on my uniform or I'd have like, like some paper in my pocket or something. So they would call to pull these three 41s off. So I was like, all right. So I had these minor infractions. So I get in, in basic training, I get all the way up to warrior week, which was like the week where you go out to the field and you shoot the M16 for the first time and you get into what the gas chamber. So they actually tear gas. So you have to get into this chamber and the TIs in front of you and he's like, pull your mask off. So you pull your mask off and then he's like, you have to answer a question that way you suck gas. I suck in all the gas and I take it in and I go out and everybody's crying. They got like sweat down and their faces are all red. It's not coming out everywhere. So I get done with that. And I'm like, wow, this feels good. This feels great. Like a hardest week. I finished it, I accomplished it. And then after that we did like a warrior run. It was like a two mile run and you got to go through like all these obstacles. You got to climb over water. You got to do all these different things. So I get done with those and like top three, like I was like finished like in the top three. So I was like, wow, this is great. Like I'm killing it. And so I get to, I get back, like warrior weeks over and I get back to the chow and I'm going through the chow hall line and I'm getting my food and I'm like, yeah, you did good. I had myself on the back feeling real good, walking my chest out. Like I just finished the hardest week. I only got like a week left. This is amazing. This is an amazing feeling. So at the end of the chow hall line, there is, it's a trap. They got all these desserts. They got cakes, pies, like whatever you could possibly imagine. And I'm like, man, so I can go for a piece of cake right now. Yeah. So I take a left out of the chow hall line. As soon as I take that left, I grab this cake and sooner they put the cake on my plate, I turn around. Boom. There's like six drilling straws in front of me. They call it the snake pit. They're literally, they're just waiting for someone to grab a piece of cake, like so they can get on them and then they can just grill them in from each direction. And so as soon as I grabbed it, I turn it and then I got 16 eyes in front of me and they're grilling me and they're asking me all these questions. They're like simple questions that should be able to answer. What base are you at? Who's your base commander? All these things. And I froze. I couldn't say none. I just started crying. Like I just start, tears just started coming down my eyes. I'm like, man, like I'm in front of all these people. Yeah. So they say to me, they say go, as soon as you get done with this, go see your first sergeant. So your first sergeant is like the person that gives the administrative details, like the boss, you know, of your flight. So I go see my first sergeant and I get up there in front of the first sergeant and I'm standing there and she's like, "Airmen Carson." She's like, "You have multiple infractions. You know, you had this issue with your uniform. You had all this other stuff." And I'm like, "Yes, ma'am." And she says, "Based on this infraction that you had right here, you couldn't even answer any simple questions." She's like, "You, you know, you're not fit right now for the military." And I was like, "Oh my God, like what's, they're going to kick me out." And I was like, you know, I just finished the hardest week ever. I was like, "This is crazy. I thought I was going to graduate next week." So she said, "What we're going to do, we're going to wash you back a week." So hardest week I just completed. She said,"Well, I didn't, but actually I wish I would have had to do it again because they did something that was even worse. They sent me in a room by myself until the flight got finished. Because the flight that I was getting washed back into was getting ready to finish warrior week and come back and finish everything. So they sent me back into a room and I had to wait until that flight returned." What they didn't know is that my mom was already on base to see me graduate. So I didn't, yeah. So my mom never got the opportunity to see me graduate basic training. But the cool thing about that is since then I've done probably five or six keynote speeches, but not keynote, but I've spoke at various events. I just did a keynote speech for an hour and a half. And now I'm here on this awesome podcast. So that happened to me. And for the longest time I said, "Man, this happened to me. This happened to me. This happened to me." But what I've realized now is that all happened for me. That now when I was in the military after that happened, I ended up graduating finally and I ended up doing really well. I was in charge of what's called war ready material, the WRMs, where I had to actually brief some higher level ranking officer. I could speak in front of them. So in basic trade, I couldn't speak in front of anybody, but now I could pretty much speak in front of anybody. So I realized that didn't happen to me, it happened for me. It gave me something that I can look forward to. And after that event, I made it a purpose to be able to speak in front of people and have conversations with people, which is probably ultimately why I do so well in the career field that I'm in. Because I don't have any issues talking to anybody about anything. In a shelter, you have to talk about some pretty serious things. And sometimes you got to give some harsh feedback. There's guys that coming off the streets and I have to tell them, you have to take a shower. And I have the ability to do that now because I had that experience and I've grown from that experience tremendously. So that actually ended up being a blessing for me. That was early in my career. That was early in my military career. And since then, like I said, I've got to travel the world. I've lived in Texas, Louisiana, Guam, Korea for a year. And then I got out and I went to school at Penn State. And actually, I did really well in speech class, which is crazy. Most people's biggest fear is public speaking. It's a very difficult thing to do. My biggest fear is Warrior Week. Now that you've described that, that's incredible that you went through that. And it makes sense that you now have this ability to speak publicly and be on top of your game kind of at all times. So the public speaking class at Penn State, you said you felt prepared coming into that and ready to go. Yeah. Yeah. I was comfortable with doing that. Was that your major? Or was that just a course? I majored in, well, so I started out with criminal justice because I thought that that would be an excellent transition. I was like, about eight years military experience. I'll get a degree in criminal justice and I'll transition to being a police officer. And I had an altercation with one of the professors. It was something really stupid, but I left the class. It was one of those classes, if anybody's ever been to college, especially night school ones, they're like, okay, we could either do this. You could either take your break halfway through or we could just push all the way through to get you out of here really. And of course, everybody wants to leave early. It's a night class. Everybody's like, yeah, let's push through. Let's push through. Well, if you see me when I walk in, I have a big jug of water and then I carry around. And I've always been drinking a lot of water, probably from the military. You got hydrated after every stop. You hydrate, you hydrate, you hydrate. So I was drinking this jug of water and thing and I had to go to the bathroom. So I got out, I left the room to go to the bathroom. And when I came back, it's one of those doors that lock behind you. So he was in the middle of his presentation and I was trying to tap on the glass. I was like, hey, can somebody let me in here? So finally, somebody had opened the door, let me in. As soon as I walked in, he called me out in front of the whole class. And that just triggered like when, you know, everything from basic training, he called me out for all class, like thanks for interrupting my presentation or whatever. And I was like, I'm sorry. So I waited till after the class and I talked to him after class. I said, sir, I don't appreciate the way you called me out in front of the whole class. I said, I said, I had to go to the bathroom, bro. I was like, you know, I was like, something that was either going to pee myself or I was going to leave the bathroom. And he's like, well, you're in, and I think he had me mixed up with somebody else or something because he's like, you're, you're typically late to class and he had all these things. And I'm like, I think you got the wrong guy. You know, like I stay here all day long because I don't want to drive home. And I try to be everywhere early, you know, even for you. We're aware we were not ready for you. Most people are. I was like, I think you got the wrong guy. And then he's like, well, anyways, he's like, if you're going to take offense to something like that, you're not ready for this field. He's like, this isn't the right field for you. And I was like, wow. I was like, go, okay, cool. So from that point, I was like, maybe I don't want to be a cop. I'm going to be treated like this. And obviously I've grown and understand that, you know, that's, that's not typical. People don't treat people typically like that. But from there, I said, not everyone's an asshole. Yeah, exactly. I was like, all right, cool. I'm glad you said it. I was like, all right, cool. So I ended up volunteering for a program that was called the Adopt Apartment Project. And it was through the sixth street shelter. So I went to the sixth street shelter. And what we did is we basically took this empty apartment. And we put beds in it, we put toiletries in it, we put food in it, like for this family who was homeless. And I made the beds with like hospital corners and stuff. So I want to show off that. So I made the bed for these hospital corners. And this little girl popped in the room. And she was running around the room so happy, like running around this little apartment, like ecstatic, like, and I was like, wow, like, you know, all the things I take for granted, I said, this little girl is just happy to be in this apartment. She looked at her mom and she said, she's a mom and it was like this, this long dresser, like on the floor. And she looked at it, she says, is that where I'm sleeping? She's like, no, honey, you got your own bed. And this girl was running around like so ecstatic about having her own bed. I was like, oh my God. I was like, I'm gonna chase that feeling. So that's when I went back to school and I decided I was going to get into rehabilitation services. So I said, I no longer want to be the person that's, you know, incarcerating people. I don't really want that. I want to help them get away from all that stuff. And I wanted to chase that feeling of what I felt that day that I was in that apartment, knowing I made a difference in somebody's life. This little girl was so happy because I've made a bed for her. Like, you know, imagine the other things that I can do if this is going to make the difference. So I ended up going to Penn State for rehabilitation and human services. And when it got time to graduate from Penn State, we had to do an internship and it wasn't, it wasn't, it was a six months internship. It was basically a full time job. So I did the internship or even before that, my professor was asking me, she's like, so what is it that, where would you like to work? What do you want to do? And I said, well, I'm a veteran. I said, I really liked the way I felt working with this homeless family. I said, let's do veterans and homelessness. And she's like, okay, like, like, let's, let's find a place. So we sat there on the computer and we googled veteran homelessness. Yeah. First thing that popped up was Victory House in Lehigh Valley. I was like, holy crap, it was a spot for me. So I went there and I interviewed with the executive director at the time. And he, he let me do the internship on the spot. Like, it was beautiful. So I did the internship and then they hired me on as a case manager there. And then when that time lapsed, because the, I was hired as a case manager because the other case manager was out on a, on a medical. So they let me be a case manager until she returned. And then when I got done, I ended up working in drug and alcohol for a little bit. I worked with veterans of treatment, Trans Inc. Keenan House in the halfway home of Lehigh Valley. And I was running groups with veterans and helping them with all kinds of needs that they had getting signed up for benefits. Even Smell is getting her DD214, which is the paperwork where you exit the military. So I worked with them for a while. And one day, I was walking into work. This is when we started a program called the Center of Excellence, where we were helping people with opioid use disorder. We were helping them. They were coming off the streets and we were helping them get linked in the services, get linked in the treatment. And one day I was coming to work and I got a phone call from my old internship supervisor. And she's like, Hey, Tom, would you be interested in, in my job? I'm like, well, where are you going? I was like, that's crazy. But she ended up moving to Florida. So they hired me on. I said, yeah, sure, let's do it. So they hired me on as program director from the place that I interned at. And a year later, I was promoted to associate executive director, then the executive director at the time retired, and I became the executive director. So that's my story with Victory House, how I kind of transitioned to the role executive director. That's awesome. Congrats. Good for you. You guys are doing great things. I just looked at the clock and I'm like, Oh, no, we are running low. And I got two questions I have to hit you with. The first is storytelling. Like I'm sitting here on the edge of my seat as you're telling all of these stories. I mean, I guess the public speaking is part of that. But where does that gift that you have come from? Like clearly you have a gift for this. Any idea where that came from? Yeah, I believe in shine in your light. I think, I think, I think stories are what helps people grow. I think, I think there's somebody out there right now that's going to listen to this podcast and they're going to say, you know what, like, like, that's where I was at. You know, that was I remember being embarrassed one time, or I remember struggling with something one time. And that's, and that's where I was at. And if he can do it, I can do it. You know, and I really believe in this, I tell all my clients, see shine your light. There's no reason to keep things secret. No shine your light, tell people, give people hope, give people a reason to, to continue to grow to continue to do what they're looking, looking for doing in their life. And I think that's what really changes the world the most is seeing testimonial see and people that were once homeless, you know, we got a guy on our board of directors, Kevin McLeod, he's he was once homeless resident of ours. And now he's our vice president on the board of directors. He's, he's now working in the community as a certified recovery specialist, coming to Victory House and showing people the rope showing them, hey, I did this, I was in your spot. I was I was there, I was once homeless sleeping in that bed right there. Now I'm on the board of directors about helping out all these other people. So he shot in his light. And that's one thing that always I always remind myself of is is shine your light because there's somebody out there that needs to see that light, they need to see that hope, they need to see if there's something at the end of the top. So if I can do it, I'm sure a hundred people love anybody can do it. It's beautiful. And my second question was going to be a joke. And now I just feel like I can't even make a joke. No, make the joke, make the joke, bro. I see you have a ring, right? So is your spouse as good of a human being as you are? Like in my relationship, my wife, she does pediatric oncology, right? Like she takes care of kids with cancer. She's making the world a better place. And then I'm like, also insurance is is your spouse as good of a person as you? Yeah, she's better than me. Actually, it's it's she she is a human resource partner at Amazon. Oh, get out. And I thought I dealt with issues. I bet. Yeah, she's she's amazing. Really, she's got a heart of gold. Yeah. And she's also bilingual, which makes it even better because she could reach out to to double the amount of people that I can. Yeah, yeah. That's very cool. She does HR. She was she actually just received motion at Amazon. Very incorrect. And she's got a lot of Yeah, she's she's awesome. She's got a lot of lot of people that, you know, have given her good feedback for all the work that she's been doing. Yeah. And some of the stuff like, like, I'll kind of listen in when when she's doing her like HR. I'm thinking just fire. Just like figure out a way to help them to come to a compromise with the leadership there and then the employees. Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. That's awesome. All right. So we are sponsored by Hocus Pocus cleaning service. They are an incredible organization in the area. You know, they come in, they clean your house, but they also do the witching hour and it's magic. They come in the reorganize your closet, do whatever. So I love to say, if you could have any magical ability, what would you have and why? If I could have any magical ability, I believe it would be the ability to wave a wand and change somebody's life, take them from where they're at and and and make them get to where they want to be. Yeah. I don't have that magic wand. But what I do have is the ability to listen to people, I have the ability to offer assistance. The wand would eliminate a lot of time that it takes to work with somebody. But if I had that magical ability, I would I would wave that wand and take somebody to where they're at and what they're struggling with and show them what they could be. And that's what you guys do. But this would just shorten the period. It would shorten that period a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's amazing. So then I have to ask before we wrap this up, is there anything that we didn't hit that we should hit? Yeah, Victory House is going to be solid. It's 40 celebrating its 40th anniversary in April. 40 years. That's amazing. 40 years of service to the community, helping over 4000 men in that timeline. So we're going to be celebrating that arts quest on April 17 of next year. That's awesome. And so a big celebration. Big celebration. We're we're we're going to tell testimonials. We're going to I'm going to be up there speaking. Yeah. It's going to be a good time. Fun. Fun events. That's awesome. Well, congrats to you guys. Thank you for everything you guys do for the community. You know, this show is to shine a spotlight on people who are making the Lehigh Valley better place. Thank you. And there's not a better person. Thank you. Yeah. So thank you, Tom, for coming on here. I really appreciate it.