19. How I Lost 100 Pounds | Tommy Thomaidis

You know how Jesus said, "It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven". Well, Tommy Thomaidis is doing everything he can to get there!

Hear Tommy share his journey from struggling with obesity to becoming a community food advocate, and especially how he left his Wall Street career behind to focus on feeding those in need.

His insights about equal access to nutritious food and how sharing meals builds community connections is a message worth repeating over and over. 

We can all learn a lot from Tommy & his story!

Email: LeanOnMePVD@gmail.com

LinkedIn: Thomas Thomaidis

Website: tommypaul.org

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Transcript

Tommy Thomaidis (00:00.226)
Baltimore Ravens. They asked me for some muffins, stay up two days, make the muffins, drive 11 hours, go to the training camp, drive 11 hours. And I told the Brandon Asne, one of Brandon Copeland's people at the training camp for the Ravens asked me, he sent me a message, you get enough sleep on the ride home. said, well, I blinked a bunch of times. So I think so. I just think it's fun being that person that people can utilize and I don't really care.

what's gonna happen as long as it gets done. And it's that mentality, we need more people, or people together saying enough is enough, we live by example, and this is how what we should be doing.

Jollie (00:49.326)
More than 73 % of Americans have overweight or obesity, while more than 12 % have food insecurity. America is getting heavier, sicker, and more isolated from each other every day. Our motto, Give, reflects our belief that virtually every problem in America could be fixed if we took better care of ourselves and took better care of each other. Welcome to Interrupt Hunger's Move, Give podcast, where we talk with experts in exercise is medicine, food is medicine, and food insecurity.

And understanding that knowledge isn't always enough to help you lose weight. Every other episode showcases someone who's lost at least 10 % body weight to share exactly how they did it. Interrupt Hunger is a 501c3 nonprofit, which helps you lose weight while feeding the hungry. Bring our free 12 week weight loss challenge and donate your weight program to the places you live, work and pray. We fund our mission with sales from our movie, give bracelets and clothing. So please visit us at interrupthunger.org to show your support.

50 meals are donated for every item sold to the nation's largest hunger relief network. So you get to look good while feeling good. Now onto today's episode. Hey everyone, it's Jolly here. Welcome back to the Movie Give podcast by Interrupt Hunger. I got Tommy Thelitis here with me today. Tommy, thanks for joining us. Appreciate you, man.

everyone do it? Say I'm excited to be here.

Life is wonderful down in South Texas, not quite as chilly as you are, I'm sure.

Tommy (02:12.878)
You don't want any part of the Northeast right now. We got like an ice storm. It's wonderful. It's awesome. I'm doing snow angels in the middle of the highway hoping it ends quicker than this.

All right, man. So thanks for being here and going through your journey. Man, you've been through a lot. but, but the cool thing is you're doing some really, really neat, big stuff. And that's why, uh, we connected on, LinkedIn and I, I saw what you were doing and I was just impressed as heck. Well, you're really devoting your life to, to helping other people and vets and kids and just doing some, great things. So with that, why don't you just introduce yourself?

Thank you again. really appreciate the time and consideration. Hello everyone. Thanks again to Bill. My name is Tom Tomaitis. I'm with an organization called Lean On Me, PVD, which is a play on words. PVD is Providence, Rhode Island. I'm up here in the Northeast, kind of the armpit of the United States right next to Massachusetts and Connecticut. It's really just an everyday battle with me remembering my relationship to food and the way I grew up. Give you a little background.

Grew up, have a lot of money, neighborhood was kind of poor, not access to healthy food. With miserable kid, picked on a lot and that just started my spiral into bad eating habits. And I think that when I grew up in the eighties, access to junk food was very, very easy. No one was really telling the dangers about sugar or salt. And again, they weren't really putting the pieces together because the food pyramid was upside down where they were telling you eat.

you know, 18 servings of carbohydrates with less protein, which we all know is not the case. We were the cereal generation. If you were born in the seventies, they really pushed the cereal aisles on us. And I had a relationship, my first girlfriend was, you know, Wilma Flintstone of Fruity Pebbles Nature. You know, I used to go through, not a bowl a day, a box a day. You know, my father had restaurants, a great background, but again, growing it around a lot of process.

Tommy (04:09.23)
pizza, heavy, good oils, things of that nature. You just keep eating and eating. And on top of that, once you start going down that road, the only way you get comfort is through that bad food. My relationship with my family wasn't that strong. A lot of things I did on my own, because my parents were always working. So I was a kid of the streets. When they call those, when the lights go off, you come back home generation. again, being out 10, 12 hours a day.

with no money in your pocket, maybe 25 cents, you're buying a lot of sticks of gum, lot of lollipops, lot of things that front counter items that weren't good for you. And I would say my relationship with food growing up until about, was 18 was love hate. Love when I ate it, hate how I felt after it. And it's very, very personal. And I think what's bothering me now is we have all this access to all these wonderful programs that people are doing.

We're not getting to the kids quick enough. And it breaks my heart. And I think that's why, you know, almost 10 years ago, I dropped everything, came back home and just started making food for, you know, one muffin at a time. And we get into that later, but we got to start somewhere, you know, and especially in the Northeast because the Northeast has a big problem with eating habits, food insecurity is huge up here. And I still to this day can't figure out how I survived in college with no money.

Because again, it was self-taught education. And I think we got to get back to the fact of I got to be treated like that little kid and I got to respect the food on the table. And I respect the other things that people are doing. And the best way to do it is to actually go out there and shake some people's hands and actually have these conversations. Cause a lot of these people are being talked to, Bill. They're not being talked with. It's not an inclusion conversation. A lot of these diets, a lot of these things are going on. We're telling people what to do.

We're not engaging them and motivating how to do it. So, and again, 300 pounds at 18, 18 years old, at 5'11 and a half, I wasn't motivating anyone, especially myself.

Jollie (06:18.678)
You really have to start with yourself, don't you?

Yeah. Go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just saying, it's a one man team. know what mean? Just sometimes you got to get the ball rolling. You just got to go. 49.

How old are you now? 49. Okay. So it was crazy. there's a big difference between like knowing you should do something, whether it's yourself or your community or something, seeing a problem and know it needs to be fixed. I was on a webinar this morning actually, and it was like a world health organization. I was kind of excited because there was dieticians literally all over the world. I mean, it was cool. Literally like Sweden to Malali, South Africa, and then South Africa, and then...

And I'm like, man, I was so excited to hear from these people that are doing like trying to feed people. It was specifically about school meals, but there wasn't a single like action step. finally, after 40 minutes, and I'm like, this is, I'm so, I was so mad. Like they're just talking like what needs to be done, but it was nothing like actually fixing it, how to do it. There was no action. It was driving me bonkers.

I have a question for you. If we have the answer, right? Would these programs be needed? And again, I keep asking everyone the simple question. I know people need to make money, but we're talking about hungry kids. We are not talking about 40 year old individuals trying to figure out what their next meal is. We're talking about some kids out there, which I was one of them, who probably didn't eat for two days. And for me, like, I don't think the urgency is there because there's a lot of the stories. They don't resonate as well as I think they should.

Tommy (07:53.506)
How do you know if you've ever been hungry, if you've always had food, right? And I treat the day every day, like it's my last meal. I got to get a next meal. And I go back to the fact of, you you're listening to these wonderful people speak very educated, but there's never like a plan that solves the actual problem. And I say this all the time. If people are hungry, they're going to eat whatever is in front of them. They're not going to be picky. I know people have food allergies and things of that nature, but when it comes to beans and rice, and again, this coming from a Greek guy.

I know that beans and rice are plentiful. So why aren't they at least getting to the people? just, I, know, I, don't need, they don't need that. What they need is food first to engage them. I always said, and we can get into this after bill, like the best way to bring people to the table is through food. The best way to have meetings is through food. So why are we treating engagement the same way? Why are these programs, when you go to them, some of them, right. And they're wonderful people.

But I went to a health program in Rhode Island and I literally had to take a picture of the buffet table because none of the food at this big like Marriott, you know, out there wellness thing. There was no healthy food at the actual meeting. So I'm leaving and I'm like, someone goes, what are you leaving for? You got to listen. I said, I don't listen to anything. I'm hungry. I can't eat any of this. You want me to wheel a cheese and you want me to, you know, Danish is, I'm like, we're not in 1950. I'm like, I just don't need it. 5,000 muffins. Two days ago that.

Again, see, and you guys, this is the best you can come up with. And you know what happened is they go to, well, it's what we can get at the establishment. Cause that's what we rent the hall on. Well, maybe Bill, what we do is instead of trying to fight the Marriott's and the McDonald's and the, you know, whatever out there that just trying to take care of their employees. Why can't we actually bring bridge the gap? Meaning work with them to get them a healthier menu. So that's way when people don't.

do go to McDonald's, there are healthier options. I know they say they do that, but it's not done in a way where the normal people, normal public understands it. Where I'm the 17 year old kid again, going to McDonald's, not understanding what they're trying to feed me. I'd rather us all work together. If you have a, if you are a vegan and you want some person to eating burgers for the past 30 years to become vegan, you can't give them a beat burger. What you do is you trick them. You give them a burger.

Speaker 1 (10:17.934)
Then you add some lettuce and the next time you add lettuce, tomato, the next time you keep adding more vegetables. And in the end, then you give them the beet burger. What we try to do is throw these things down people's throat. And it actually makes us fight the actual results. Even if they're positive, we still don't want to work with them because it's not in nature to deny everything. you know, so I just, think the slow, gradual burn is a better way to do things rather than, you know, trying to shove it down people's throats. I don't know if you agree, but I see-

Yeah, a lot of people think that, you I know better and I can fix you. Yeah. So, So, so let's see here. So you're like roughly 300 pounds at 18 at 18. And like, how, how old were you when like things switch?

it.

like to have, which was a little bit of respect for myself. So the magic light came on when this girl who I really liked didn't have a date for the prom and I spent the next month just losing weight like a banshee at senior high school. Like it was senior prom. I lost probably in two months, close to 55, 60 pounds. Yeah. And again, I am very drastic. There's no rhyme or reason. I'm all in on everything I do. there was an incentive at the end.

Wow, two months.

Speaker 1 (12:03.532)
And she actually won prom queen. didn't get prom. Okay. But again, at least I danced for the first time and it's, you know, again, it's that simple. was, that's all I just wanted to date. I was tired. I, I know it's not the correct way to say it.

You're 18 dude. Come on. Come on now. Be real We were all 18 once

I hate it. It resonated when I, I have one picture of my, childhood and I'll, maybe I'll run downstairs and grab it. It's me at 16 years old, my best friend who passed away. We're in front of the Philadelphia spectrum arena in Philadelphia. And I literally am like half the size of them. And the kids, when I show them this, I actually made a t-shirt out of it. When the kids see this picture, they laugh their ass off because they're like, they think it's photoshopped with my head. And I'm like, no, that's what happens when you keep eating those.

Twinkies and the, know, whatever, the talkies and all. And again, it kind of says in their mind going, maybe there is hope. You know what mean? That little push, you know, so.

I want to say that it can be done.

Speaker 1 (13:06.894)
And also they like to make fun of me, so it's fine.

So let's see here. like fast forward to, you know, a lot of people can lose weight, not that fast, not that much, but a lot of people can lose weight, but they put it back on very, very quickly. So what changed in you to, or what did you do to, you know, keep up with the healthy behaviors?

I think it's the way people treated me after the weight loss because they started to realize I had self-respect for myself. And that came from two of my friends. know what mean? Like they told me flat out, like, you know, we were kind of concerned because you you're very obese and they'd make fun of me. But when I started to lose the weight and went to college and really pushed it, the more and more I pushed myself, the better my awareness came about how I could be a decent human being.

Meaning again, if I want to change the world, I have to change myself first. I have to look at this and say, if I'm going to motivate people to take, have a healthy lifestyle with finance and nutrition, I got to have both of those locked up. And during college, it just kept the momentum going because I didn't have a choice. I had a scholarship for engineering. I didn't have any money. I had to keep the wheels turning. So I had no choice but to eat a better diet, which again, it goes back to my theory.

Healthy food costs less, but hey, you know, I did it for five years straight where I had no money in my pocket. But again, once you start that ball rolling, if you have the right people around you, you really, really can have such a wonderful direct correlation with your own life, meaning you could just really move mountains if you want to. I think because I wasn't close to my family, my family was my friends and my friends supported me throughout all of this. The only question I asked a lot of them is,

Speaker 1 (14:53.014)
Why can't you help me out sooner? And one of them came back with the best answer I've heard. They're like, we didn't want you dating the girl. So I'm like, that's a farce. But again, but again, like I would give up, I would give up everything just to have that story change one child's life for the better. I don't care if I get made fun of by every single adult in the planet, as long as I make positive impacts with veterans and communities on food in general.

There has to be a way to do it. You know, I think a lot of the things that are being highlighted and what you're doing in your area is phenomenal. Like that's just changing your whole area right there. And obviously I'm going to ask you about that, but, people already know about what you're doing, but the more and more I think about that, that, that means it spreads and there's no better place to do it than Texas. Cause everything gets done bigger in Texas. That's all I know.

It is fine. like almost, I found myself every other email I'm sending or texting and like positive peer pressure. Like you start doing something good and people see that you're actually getting stuff done and they want to join on. Yeah. So we can talk about that a little bit later, but so, all right. So we're going to fast forward. You, you spent like, you spent some time on wall street. don't you go through that real quickly and bring us up into like how you got to lean on me.

In 2000, 1999, 2000, I packed my car as soon as I graduated and with about a thousand dollars in my bank account, moved to Credit Stanford, Connecticut, which again, kid from Providence didn't realize what type of place I was moving to. But with no job and said I was going to give myself three months and within three months I had my Series 7. I always wanted to be in finance. Don't do a lot of reading unless it has to do with math.

And, you know, from there, my career really took off and I had wonderful opportunities to work with some of the brightest people on the planet. And I always felt honored because, you know, being from where I was and never having an opportunity, never having a mentor. I realized as long as you smile at people, shake their hands and be true, you could do, you could, you could do a lot of things. And the more and more you engage people, meaning being outside, being aware of what they're going on in their lives. They really tend to resonate to you. So.

Speaker 1 (17:11.456)
Even though I moved to a place where I didn't know anyone within two years already had a better life than I ever had and wrote out. And it taught me that sometimes again, if you surround yourself with people that have passion, people have love, you can really turn something into nothing. And then from about 15 years, I was working on wall street, working with a lot of different firms. I bounced around because I liked the experience. And then in the back of my mind.

It just happened that my girlfriend at the time had two restaurants in the area that I was help closing. So I'm a Greek. I just love to work. There's no other way to describe it. If I'm working at Happy, if you put me on a beach, I'm trying to swim to the closest island. That's exactly who I am and I'm never going to change. So they gave me a response, we run these restaurants and then at this point, not running them, but working them, closing them. And I'm like, I'm still around food. I have this wonderful job in New York city. I have all these opportunities and I'm still closing a restaurant. What is going on? And then.

A year after that, someone called me and told me how bad the situation was in Rhode Island. And I quit everything and I just moved back up to Rhode Island from New York and just started slinging food, baking protein, everything, giving away my house, giving away my car, giving away everything because I didn't care. I didn't have anything when I got here. So it didn't matter. mean, I didn't, I always joke. I got lucky because I, because I use food as medicine. I've had to buy new clothes in the last 10 years. So all that money gets donated back to the food.

I mean, I haven't changed my weight. don't, I do my own haircut. I literally, I just bought a nice bike for myself so I don't drive as much so I can bike to appointments now. I don't want to grow up. What do they say? The Toys R kids? I literally am sitting here for the past 10 years. I'm a little bit off topic, but I'm saying to myself, I don't even know what I did the last 10 years. I know I gave away tons of food and I met tons of people and I've got tons of pictures, but the last 10 years has gone by so fast. It makes me question.

how happy I was because they always say things go kind of worldwide faster when you're having fun. I literally, there's been two or three days where I didn't get sleep in the last, you know, say 12, 13 months. I mean, it's documented because I love it so much. I say to myself, even this morning, I was so happy to talk to you. I was excited to talk about this, about what's really going on. I'm excited to just attack the day I can't sleep in. And I always say too, I'm good in segments, meaning you don't ever want to live with me.

Speaker 1 (19:37.75)
In fact, you don't want to be in the same neighborhood with me, but you want me visiting once a week. You know what mean? But just because that's what I am. And I understand it's not, as soon as I get off the phone with you and stop talking about this, I'm going to keep going for the rest of the day, talking about what you do, what your friends do, because we need to help each other out. no one can ever say that feeding children, feeding communities is a bad thing. No one. It's just lot of bad.

programs out there that aren't run, which need our help. Now they're wonderful programs, right? So, in here to take a step back, they're wonderful programs, but how many programs, these programs are run by people that actually cook through their kitchen or restaurant or a short order cook. If we want to produce food, maybe we combine with the local eatery and produce mass produce items that's relevant to your neighborhood. And so, you know, I mean, I came back with the attitude I'm telling you for two weeks when I drove.

from New York back to Rhode Island and I just started making food. And this is, it's been ground hard day every single day for the past, almost 10 years now. And the best thing, huh? No, the best thing was as, as I'm talking to you, one of the local colleges just asked me, can you bring us breakfast please? And it's, the athletes. So I want to stress this, the same food I feed to the athletes, which are snacks that I eat, are, is the same food I give away to the communities.

No, what's the best thing?

Speaker 1 (21:03.5)
So we all eat the same, because an athlete is not better than some poor kid in the neighborhood, and some person in the neighborhood is not more important than some other kid in a lower income neighborhood. I think what we've got to do is break down to the lowest common denominator and treat everyone with food the same. We deserve food, and you build from there.

So how many, what are you up to? Like how many people have you helped? I don't know. was like, oh, oh.

no, we did the numbers. and I, you know, I didn't do a lot of posts because I don't like to exploit what I'm doing, but I'll say this. I bought the food, made the food, live with the food, all healthy food. No one's ever complained. Never a problem. Over 253,000 meals the last five years. Here's the thing. And this is what my friends around me don't, they want me to talk about more, but that was my

253,000 meals.

Speaker 1 (21:57.132)
That's, that's a hobby. That's, that's cause I care. That wasn't my job. So when people get paid to do this type of work, that's why I'm trying to get more awareness out there. I have solutions that can be done. And the reason I know this can get done is cause I did it, you know, and never maybe every day, if you think about it, four extra hours, I'm giving back to make the food or buy the food, right? Or deliver the food. I never put my own time, my own life into the value of what I'm giving away. Cause people do a wonderful thing. They'll grab like.

dry items and give them away, but I'm turning that dry item into more of a lovely, lovely product where it shows people that you care because I wanted to not to shake the game up.

You're just trying to help your community in Providence there. So talk about what kind of food, talk about the food, the pizzas, the muffins.

yeah. So everything is, it's very simple. Everything is a high good fats, high protein, low sugar, low salt. Whether it's I trick, I trick a lot of people or a lot of young kids with the baking because I put stuff in the bakery items that they probably would never eat if they know it's in there. Like for instance, one of my base ingredients for my muffins is avocado pulp. So I'll give away these muffins and kids will be slamming down avocado. Well, again, it goes back to me always cooking as a kid trying to

trying to make a penny go the longest way, but also to the engineering part, I re-engineered a lot of food that was bad into stuff we want. So instead of having a bad muffin, I have a really healthy muffin with a full serving of vegetables that tastes like a Betty Crocker muffin or whatever. So these kids will eat these muffins. I have it on video and I'm like, how's your muffin? They're like, these are slamming, yada, yada, yada, yada. And then I'm like, how do you like avocados? One kid's like, I hate avocados. I'm like, well, you just had a half an avocado.

Speaker 1 (23:43.714)
And I'll walk away. actually flew almost 800 protein muffins to Pango's basketball camp. And this might be a sorry for another time, but I got a call for a basketball camp on a Wednesday, it's two, three years ago. It's the largest basketball camp for basketball players in high school. Like the best players in the United States, right? They saw what I was doing online. They called me up, they're like, can we ship some of your muffins to this camp?

Can you donate? I said, I'll do you one better. I'm gonna bake them fresh. I'm gonna dry some. I'm gonna fly to Vegas. I'll get my own room and I'll fly back. They didn't believe me. When I got off the plane, we have a seven, three kid from Providence, Rhode Island, who actually, during COVID, I was taking care of a lot of these kids. They were training in my facility. I got off the plane and went to the hotel. He's the first kid I said, he's screaming in the middle of Vegas, the casino, going, the muffins are here.

And I got video of this and I'm like, I never went to sleep for three days. And I'd roll these kids around, fed, I threw out all the food they had in all their rooms and they would eat nothing but muffins. And you want to know why? Cause they, one of the kids goes, you're crazy enough to lie here, work out with us, do all this stuff and telling me these muffins are healthy, I'm gonna eat them. Because I don't believe they're healthy. The kid's like, I don't believe this is healthy cause it tastes good. I'm like, healthy food doesn't have to taste bad. You don't have to eat basil.

What are they teaching you? You know, so, so again, lot of the food I do is a muffin, a play on muffins, a play on pizza. I do a vegan patty, which has more protein than a regular burger. I do a bean salad. I basically will take anything you want and turn health. That's so cool. No, go ahead. I'm sorry. I talk a lot. Everyone out there. I'm like a chihuahua in a bull shop.

No, go ahead, no.

Speaker 1 (25:29.92)
mixed together, you know, I literally look at food and I can kind of reverse what's going on. So the muffins again, during COVID, even though I don't get political cause I'm ambidextrous, I, I delivered over 15,000 muffins for COVID relief within two weeks to all the stations donated just to make people feel better. Cause they were scared. These people were going to these COVID sites, right? And I don't, I never get shots, but

I did get a COVID shot so I could do this. I don't care if I get sick and I really don't care. But I'm looking at these people going, there'd be so much, everyone's happier when they're eating. There's no food here. How do you, they don't trust you because there's not even water here. So me and a wonderful gentleman, Brendan Powell, would love to get him to talk to you. He has a wonderful story. But again, like we came up with this plan, I just went around and as soon as you know it, everyone kind of see the muffin person coming. It could have been cookies, it could have been someone else, but at least it was food.

You know, at least people will gravitate and at least sit down with each other and break bread and not be as mad if they have something in their bellies. You know, that's why we need to end hunger. We have to, everyone will be happier.

I love that. We're social creatures. So a couple of things real quick. So one of the cool things about your story, and I know you don't like hearing this, but your story is unique. What you're doing is unique. There's a lot of people out there that are helping people, but you gave up a very rewarding career because you saw a problem. There was people in Rhode Island that needed your help, and you just dropped everything. You're like, you know what?

I don't know exactly how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to go help. And the other thing I'm thinking about, because I just heard it again last night, there's a Bible scripture where it's easier for a camel go through the eye of the needle than a rich man to, you know? And as you're talking, I know you don't like to hear it at all, but that's what I'm thinking, man. You have given so much of yourself and your income.

Speaker 2 (27:39.394)
to because you had it and you saw a need, you saw that people were hurting, you saw that people, like we've forgotten how to build community and there's no better way to build community than sharing bread together.

I gotta say this too is that, know, thank you for your service. And the reason why I'm gravitating more and more to the veterans, I had some uncles that were in Vietnam. I still think those men and women didn't get what they would deserve. And, you know, I remember going to my first VA meeting when I'm back home and I just remember feeling so good because they did two things. What did they do? Well, first they said a prayer. Everyone in the room said the prayer. And then they said the Pledge of Allegiance. And I said to them, I'm home.

I'm home, I'm good. I feel good now because again, it wasn't about my religion. It was just people celebrating something that was positive. And I said to myself, okay, the largest community is the veteran community. It has to be because either you know a veteran, live with a veteran, marry a veteran, family members a veteran, you've interacted with a veteran. And I'm saying to myself, you know, yes, everyone has problems, but if you serve your country in that way, you've got to be able.

to give something back. And when it goes back to what you're saying, I haven't done enough yet. I've only gotten started. I I have a couple of projects that I'm working on right now that I want to test the limit and see how many people actually pay attention. I want to do things to wake people up to say, okay, you know, maybe if I surprise you one day, come off a plane, just literally go by wherever your office is, drop you off, muffins, fly back. You would be a mate. You'd like, my God, what's going on here? Or, you know, still.

The thing I did, I told you I did with the Baltimore Ravens. They asked me for some muffins, stay up two days, make them muffins, drive 11 hours, go to the training camp, drive 11 hours. I told the Brandon Astinney, one of Brandon Copeland's people at the training camp for the Ravens asked me, he sent me a message, you get enough sleep on the ride home. said, well, I blinked a bunch of times. So I think so. I just think it's fun being that person that people can utilize and I don't really care what's going to happen.

Speaker 1 (29:53.94)
as long as it gets done. And it's that mentality, we need more people or people together saying enough is enough. We live by example, and this is how what we should be doing. Again, there are a lot of knowledgeable people in food that aren't really giving their insights. I'll even say this, the churches, I've helped three different churches in the area and how I've helped them is just go in the soup kitchen, serving some food, not being the typical person behind the counter.

I'm a little bit more energetic than most people. So when I go to the soup kitchen or when I work these lines or I do something for operation stand down for the VA, I know I'm good for about 15 minutes and they want me out and that's fine. It's fine. I get it. again, sometimes you need someone different doing something just to get the ball rolling even more. believe so.

I think so many people, I mean, there's so many good hearted people. Most people are good hearted, but I think they also, they're like stuck in a rut. They don't have the self confidence that they could make anything better. But I think we need to, it's gonna take people like you, these sparks all over in communities all over the country. And it really honestly does just take one person that's fired up, that's motivated like, damn it.

I don't know what I'm gonna do, but people are hurting and we need it, we need it, we wanna help. And so just, almost like going back to your burger analogy, like somebody, know, vegan trying to convert a, you know, a carnivore or whatever, don't start changing, with changing the patty, just a little bit, right? Just go do like one tiny little volunteer session. You know what? You're gonna meet some really cool people. And then it just, that's how it spreads.

I think, I think a lot of people got used to the fact of giving an excuse to stay home, which I understand. Like I understand, but for me, that's not my journey and me being a wholesaler because I, my in finance, I was a wholesaler. So I was going to Texas, love my Texas. lot of wonderful friends in Texas, Chicago, Newport Beach. But what's happening was is that again, just interacting on a one-to-one basis, getting conversations.

Speaker 2 (31:40.43)
One interaction at a time.

Speaker 1 (32:08.738)
that actually lead to a result, right? So think how many people you know that are trying to help people through food is medicine, food insecurity, all these things. Imagine if we had our own conference of motivated people, because you know, you looked in their hearts, you looked in their eyes and said, okay, these people are gonna do whatever it takes to get it done. Again, I think people are looking for that type of attitude. And I think they're looking for people like you and what you're doing and your friends.

And then again, I'm seeing your posts now and your friends posts going, man, I'm loving this. I'm really loving this. mean, I can see it. Um, and it almost makes you want to take a bike ride to Texas. Like I want to do something. That's so ridiculous that yeah, that I would actually ask, I was going to tell you this, but I actually asked my work if I could take a week and a half because I do have a job. Uh, we can have, well, cause I have had a vacation in like 10 years. The bike to take my bike to.

DC to actually bicycle to DC. And they're like, why? said, because on March 15th, they're talking about the food access for the schools and the kids. said, I, and they said, how fast can you do it? And I showed them and it said a day and a half. said, well, I want to do it in less than five days. The person looks at me goes, you're going to die. said, well, if I die, then more people know we're trying to do on World Day. And I'm not going to die. I mean, I want to plan it so I can actually stop by a couple of places, surprise the people.

You know, show up unexpectedly, shake their hand. Thank you for being a part. There is one story, two stories that I'd like to get to really quick, but we can, I can talk about them later. right. All right. So I had surgery on my neck. I was supposed to be paralyzed on the left side of my body. Long story short, battled, had emergency surgery. That was last March. So I've been using Uber as to donate food. So not only can I not drive, I've been paying Uber to drive me to donate food. So I can't even write it off. It is what it is.

Go now, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (33:55.95)
But Uber say basically don't eat almost 50,000 meals. They just don't know about it yet. I got picked up by an Uber, come in the front seats telling me, he looks at me and he goes, aren't you the muffin guy? said, yeah. And he goes, uh, he goes, man, I just lost. He's telling me about his weight loss story. And I said, where'd you go to school? He goes St. Ray fields. I saw, man, my friends would see rate bills. said, I had two idols, the Butler brothers. said those guys, when I was kid, was a kid, I dreamt to be in those guys. The guys on the highway pulls his car over.

Turns around and on side of the highway, runs around and goes, what's up, Tommy? It was him. I didn't know it was him. You didn't? Yeah, it was his twin brother. And I'm sitting there going, he goes, dude, he goes, I seen what you're doing in the community. He goes, man, if I knew, if me and my brother knew that, because they were state champions, almost went to the Olympics, I used to see them run by my house. You know, and I'm like, I'm like, man, and he goes, that why you lost all that weight? I said, yeah, that and you guys are stealing all the girls. And he starts like, but again, it just, I'm like, what's the chances of God?

having an Uber guy pick me up. That's one of my idols growing up as a kid. And he literally is like, you really thought of me like that? I'm like, dude, you guys are state champions. I was a bad kid rolling around in the snow. The second thing is my friend who protected me from a really bad neighborhood. His father was a U.S. Air Force Colonel. He ended up having some problems going away to prison, but this person basically protected me while was growing up. He actually got murdered the day he was supposed to come back to when he got out of prison and was supposed to come live with.

He was like, you know, you're supposed to come live with me. This is like about 12, 13 years ago. And I never let that go. And I'm gonna explain why. He always believed that I can be in shape. Cause he was the best basketball player in the area, but he always had me on his team because he wanted me to get better. He always said one day, goes, you're going to be able to play basketball like I play basketball. This is just a white kid and a black kid becoming friends and the black kid pushing them. And now that I have this responsibility.

I got to let his legacy go on. His name was Keith Lewis. I got to make sure his mother knows that of all the things that happened in his life, he actually was a foundation of what's actually going on in Providence. And I want, I want to tell her, I can't find her, but I want to tell her her son helped me help donate 200, over 250,000 meals to veterans and communities from scratch. And I think that would mean a lot to her. And you know, I tried to find her on LinkedIn and stuff. And it's one of those things, you know, you're looking at it going.

Speaker 1 (36:17.656)
There's one or two moments in your life you could take a step back and say, that was the point where I said, okay, enough is enough. The first time was, you know, my friends telling me that, you know, I can do it when I was in college. The second time was learning my friend got murdered, dropping everything and running back here after waiting a year after finding out the news. Cause I was denying myself what I'm supposed to be. you know, and again, I, I, you know, I can have his legacy live on in my other friends' legacies.

live on through me, then that's what needs to get done. You know, it'll never be about me. It'll never be about what I'm doing. It's going to be about the numbers. And the more meals I give away, the more impact we're going to have. And because of you, my friend, I'm going to be donating another thousand muffins tomorrow morning. I'm going to take the picture. You know what mean? And again, I'm telling you these conversations I'm having, just keep pushing me. Another gear that I didn't know I had. You know, I just didn't, I was starting to lose faith here in Rhode Island because

yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:14.222)
We have the most nonprofits per capita of any state with two people or less. I don't know what you can do with two people, but I'm sure I know I can do with one, you know? So, so I'm willing to help anybody out there. I just want these conversations to take place. Your platform is a wonderful way to do that.

Well, I think your story is so inspirational and you're so positive. You've got like just the biggest heart. If anybody's listening out here and hopefully things start clicking for you on some of your connections on LinkedIn, the people you've gotten to know. Man, you make anybody a fantastic motivational speaker. I know that's going to be in your future, but man, it's just, it's been so cool get to know you and hear your story, how you're helping. It's just awesome.

Thank you. appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (37:58.612)
And again, I was nervous, I apologize, but again, this is a big deal for me because I got to get back to my roots where I used to actually have these conversations where again, you're not like-minded, but they're open, the dialect's real. I think you're going to change our whole community. And if I'm to give you 30,000 muffins that day you change it, then I will literally get the you all and drive them down for you. Cause I am sending you those muffins and when I do, I think that's when we become real friends.

Alright, I can't wait man. I'm looking forward to these Chagatum muffins.

chocolate chip, blueberry, birthday cake. The blueberry ones are my favorite, again, I already had two this morning and again, it's been a great day so far and God bless.

love that. And get to connect with one more person.

Exactly. Again, if anyone wants to reach out, I can be reached out at tommy at tommypaul.org. can, you know, again, that's the email tommy at tommypaul.org. And again, don't be hesitant to ask me any questions or even if you need some food in the local area, you know, I give, I give a lot of food out. I'm never asked for anything in return as long as everyone does their job.

Speaker 2 (39:10.732)
I love that. Well, I'll put it in the show notes. put your email. Lean on me, Providence. You're doing some good stuff, man. So thanks for coming on today. I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Speaker 1 (39:21.208)
I appreciate it. you have any, let me know. Thank you so much, bro. All right.

Good deal, Tommy. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (39:31.822)
Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review the podcast on the platform of your choice so we can reach more people and more people are recommended this podcast. And if you really liked it, the single best way you can help us grow is by telling your friends. Now for all the legal stuff. The views and opinion expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. For my day job, I'm an employee of ABB and appear on this podcast on my own accord and not in the professional capacity as an ABB employee.

All viewpoints provided are my personal opinions and not intended to reflect those of my employer. If you have any questions or comments, please shoot me an email at jolly at interrupt hunger.org. Let's go spread some joy people.