Trauma Talks : With Russ Tellup
Hi, I’m Russ Tellup, a Trauma-Informed Somatic Coach and Level 1 Brainspotting practitioner. In my podcast "Trauma Talks," I dive into the neuroscience of trauma, exploring somatic healing practices, Polyvagal Theory, and IFS (Internal Family Systems) parts work. I also occasionally address the complexities of narcissistic abuse, offering insights and tools for healing. Join me each week as we navigate the journey of recovery, resilience, and self-discovery together.
Trauma Talks : With Russ Tellup
How A Veteran Turned Grief Into A Lifeline For 600+ Children
What does it take to help a child rewrite their story after losing a parent who served? We sit down with Joe Lewis, a multi-branch veteran and founder of Angels of America’s Fallen, to unpack a simple, powerful model: pair each child with a coach or instructor in a passion they choose—sports, music, arts, cooking—and stay with them until age 19. No red tape. No one-size-fits-all plans. Just steady mentorship, local providers, and consistent check-ins that turn grief’s chaos into structure, belonging, and growth.
Russ brings a trauma-informed lens to why this works. After a death, families lose the very co-regulation that keeps emotions manageable; everyone is grieving at once. A caring mentor becomes a nervous-system anchor. Chris Mamone adds the acceptance piece, showing how the “gift in crappy wrapping paper” reveals itself when kids feel seen, heard, and supported. Together, we explore post-traumatic growth without sugarcoating pain, naming the realities of PTSD, stigma, and the eligibility gaps that leave many families without formal benefits—especially after suicide or illnesses tied to service but not documented.
Joe shares the origin of “Lessons from Lila,” a swim-safety initiative created after a waitlisted toddler drowned. It’s a sober reminder that the waitlist—now 800+ children—represents urgency, not numbers. We walk through wins large and small: a teen who went from ICU-level anorexia to cooking professionally and dreaming of dietetics; a young athlete nurtured from pee-wee football to national recognition; and kids who light up a room at the Angel Gala as their passions take center stage. Along the way, we talk joyful fundraisers like “Skate for Chicken,” new city chapters that raise local awareness, and the power of recurring donations to move children off the list faster.
If you care about mental health, veteran families, first responders, and practical ways to prevent downstream harm, this conversation delivers both heart and blueprint. Join us: donate or start a monthly pledge at aoafallen.org, share this episode with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to help more listeners find these stories.
Hey everybody, welcome to Tremlet Talks Live. We are live on all the platforms. My name is Russ. I've today with me, I've got a couple guests. I've got Chris Mamone with the Empowered Grief Journey. Uh, him and I have been working on a book project together, so I brought him on, um, as well as Joe Lewis of the uh Angels of America's Fallen. They're an international nonprofit based locally here in my uh hometown of Colorado Springs. So we're gonna have some great conversation today. But thanks for joining us. Uh, if you want to come on and ask any questions, if you have anything, just go in the chat. We'll be monitoring that chat throughout the time that we're chatting and get you guys on. But in the meantime, let's bring out uh Joe, the star of the show. Uh tell us about you, Joe.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow. Um, okay, so uh military background. Started with my dad being uh Marine Infantry in Vietnam. And if he had not come back from combat, I never would have existed. So as a kid, it made me think about how far the the ripples go forward when we lose someone. And later, then I ended up joining the military at a strange military career, but it was an awesome ride. Started with the Army National Guard, did field artillery with them throughout college, right after high school, and then the Marine Corps active duty for about 11 years and uh ended up transitioning out of the Marine Corps to the airlines after my back was broken in training. And uh flew for the Air American Airlines just a little bit before 9-11 occurred, and then ended up going back active duty with the Air National Guard and uh retired Air Force basically after a career, which also included doing carrier operations for the Navy and some counter-narcotic support for the Coast Guard. And uh during that process, I also did support of law enforcement and counter-narco terrorism, so Secret Service, FBI D E A, down to local task forces, and saw the risks our first responders were taking right here at home. And throughout my career, I lost friends in every branch of the military and it was always a great guy with little kids, two of my buddies in the Marine Corps. But there wasn't something for them to be engaged long term within their own local community. And the idea behind supporting kids of our colon kind of came to me when I was watching my sons playing soccer, both in championship games, different age groups. It saw the goodness of them burning energy and interacting with the coach and doing something positive instead of something negative. And I felt the calling that engaging kids of our colon military, the first responders, that was what I should do.
SPEAKER_05:I had to mute it because it was muffling Joe. What I was gonna say is what Joe is not telling you out loud is he was basically a badass. Got to do all the fun stuff, fly all the fun jets. Um, and now because of that experience and and living that experience with the guys that you lost, friends that you lost, lost her ring, you you decided to put forth your effort now in in retirement, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yes, absolutely. That is it.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It was uh, you know, I I'm blessed. How could I not pay forward to those on an outspoken?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and I I've known Joe for uh 10 years or so. I mean, we've we've been pretty good friends for a long time. And man, this this organization has been absolutely amazing. It's I I've seen some of the kids grow up in these environments with these coaches and these mentors, and Joe, you know, Joe comes in as a CEO writing letters to these kids every year, and each individual kid to let them know there's someone there that cares about them and make sure that they're okay. So yeah, it's amazing, Joe. Chris, how you doing, my man? Doing good, brother. Thanks for having me on today. Oh, dude, I'm awesome, man. Hey, so Chris and I um are co-authors in a book called The Empowered Greek Journey. I thought it would be a great uh mix to have both Chris and Joe on because it's a pretty similar topic. Um, Chris is a grief and acceptance coach with the Empowered Group Journey, and then we are the co-author of a book with the same title. Uh Chris, you want to give everybody a little bit of rundown of who you are and where you're coming from?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely. Um, so as Russ said, a very nice introduction. I'm a grief and acceptance coach. I help people who go through grief, loss, and trauma rediscover self-acceptance within themselves and create a new chapter of life because many people who go through grief uh can get very stuck, it can get very down when you go through those moments of life as they tend to be. But I also have found through my own journey that there are many gifts, lessons, and blessings in our grief. Yeah, when the time is right, they show themselves to us. And that's where life restarts. That's where we have a rebirth, those grief. We're able to go out there in the world because of grief experience and go help other people who are going through similar situations in life find their new path. And so it's a a big cycle of pain at forward. And to share with you guys a little bit about my background, I have um, as one of my podcast guests said it very eloquently, grief chose me and I chose it. Um and so my whole life, I've gone through many, many job losses. I've gone through many um friendships and changes in my life on a very big circumstance. The ones that really rocked my boat was actually when my grandfather passed away in 2020. Um I watched him as he took his last breath, and that was something I was very, very close to for 35 years. And that was my first time experiencing that loss. And I didn't have a lot of support um around me when I went through that. Two years later, I had to um lose my child in 2022. Um my child, uh first one I had, we lost him to stillbirth um the day before he's supposed to be born. And that same situation happened again where I didn't have a lot of support system around me going through that grief and loss. And um, there were some other stuff going on family-wise that I won't dive into, but when I when you lose a child, everything kind of gets in perspective for you. Um you're really faced at a crossroads of I can really take this in a bad path in life or I can make something of this. And so what Russ was talking about a few minutes ago, I decided to create what's called the Empower Grief Journey. And it's a coaching program made for people that are going through grief, loss, and trauma to rediscover themselves and step into their personal power again and reclaim their life. And the Empower Grief Journey has turned into a podcast. Um, there's 120 episodes on it now. We also started a book, an anthology, and that anthology came from 22 different guests on my podcast, coming together as a collective voice to share not just their grief and loss story, but their healing journey too. Because grief has no 12-step program you can take. There's no one specific way you can do it. But what I love to share about is in this anthology, people like Russ are in there sharing their grief story and their healing journey so that people that read this book are going to get an idea of how to navigate their own grief journey in the way that they need to. And so this what started as a coaching program has quickly turned into a movement and turned into a huge mission of paying it forward to other people in their life and helping them discover their gifts. And so I'm very, very blessed to have met somebody like Russ along my journey. Um, he's also the guy that I started podcasting with a year ago this month. Funny story. So Russ, that's that's about what I can share about myself, my friend. Thank you. Yeah, of course, man.
SPEAKER_05:Thank you. Well, uh those of you who listen to the show already know who I am. If not, my name is Russ Pelop. I'm a somatic trauma-informed coach um with Brain Spotting Colorado Springs. I also have a hypnotherapist and a certified brain spotting practitioner. So uh thank you for coming on. We love I this show is typically pre-recorded. Uh, this is the first time that we're doing this as a live event. So going forward, the show will be recorded live so that the people who can watch it on YouTube um on all the other platforms with video can do so. But you guys can also interact. So if you have questions, jump in the chat, throw in a question. We'd love to have, we'd love to hear from you. Um if you have questions for Joe, Chris, or myself. And I guess with that, Joe, if you just want to tell us a little bit about the angels and kind of how the program works and how people would seek you out.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. So it the idea is that we want the kids to pick their healthy passion. And what we realized very quickly when we started this was we're dealing typically with young widows who have gone in survival mode to take care of their children and haven't even dealt with their own grief yet. So it it blossomed from a laser focus on the kids to realizing that when you help the kids, you help the parent, or when you help the parent, you also help the kid. So we get to know the family and um we let them determine who in their local community is the service provider they feel most comfortable with, who they can commute back and forth to. They pick that outlet, and then we make the payment for sports, music, um, arts, banking lessons, whatever their healthy outlet is that has a coach or an instructor, so they're getting an interim component in that. And we make the payments together, and then we follow up with the family throughout the year, checking in to see how they're doing. And out of that organically grew peer support because we would find a family with a story and then meet another one and realize that the two ought to know each other or they connected at events that we were putting on, and we saw how very healing that was. And then it went into case management, getting to know them and referring them to other things they might qualify for, and uh and then our voices program. And this this will probably resonate with you, Chris, some because uh what we found was that when the families tell their story, they uh you know they're honoring their loved one, right? But they're also tearing open wounds, and in that process, just like working out of muscle, you grow back stronger. And what we've seen is as they tell their story to raise awareness and resources to help us pay forward to the families that are unfortunately going to come behind them, that there's healing and helping. And you know, you can you can you hear the PTSD thing, you hear post-traumatic stress disorder. You don't hear as much about post-traumatic stress growth. And the idea that we look at with this organization is we honor the loss and sacrifice, but we're focused on positives and possibilities for the kids so that they write their own story of success in spite of their loss. And uh, one of the best ways to do that is through helping others. And so uh, you know, how how do you don't waste the pain kind of a thing? And and how do you grow and come out of something, finding the silver lining in something that's otherwise um really impossible to deal with?
SPEAKER_05:You know, Chris, that reminds me of something you you say often, which is the crappy wrapping paper.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I uh I call those moments the gift and shitty wrapping paper because unfortunately, when we get dealt that card, like Joe was just talking about, when a child deals with the loss, you know, they're they've only been on the planet somewhere between, you know, five and however many years, and they're not equipped to go through all these things in life. I sure tech wasn't. And so, you know, I call it the gift and crappy wrapping paper for a reason because it doesn't look great and it doesn't feel great, by the way. But when you start peeling back the layers of it over time, you start to find that that moment, by the way, can help define you and make you move. And that's where um, you know, like Joe said when he started the stream, I'm really inspired by that. He he's absolutely right. I've talked to a Vietnam that had his dad not come back, he wouldn't be in the world. And what a great way to see that gift of a moment, by the way, um, and make that a driving purpose for you. And that's a great example of what we can actually do with our grief, is we don't have to always say, it was this terrible, horrible thing that happened to me and sit in a victim place all of our life. It's fine to sit there initially, it's fine to sit there for some time, but also realize there's a big gift behind what you were dealt. And when you do discover that, you end up doing powerful things like what Joe's doing in the world, giving back and observing in a very, very big way.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and I think grief trauma gets overlooked quite. You know, it gets it gets overlooked as something that's not as intense as like a combat trauma, for example, or something along those lines. But the loss of somebody who is your protector, your provider, you know, that's there to help you raise your kid and all of a sudden, boom, they're gone. Some of these ladies that I've met over the years, they're just in a complete and utter fog. They have no concept of what's happening or how to deal with it. Would you agree, Joe?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, absolutely. I think that's that's a great way. It's kind of they're they're in a fog of loss and they're not able to process a lot of what they're initially told or given at the beginning or the support that comes right around the time of loss, but then quickly after that, it goes silent and people stop coming by and they're left alone with this. And uh, and you know, for the kids, you know, you're you're exactly right, Chris, that they you know, they're gonna have this hole in their heart the rest of their life. And the thing is, though, as kids, they're at least equipped to handle that and and the grief and it revisits them. And in particular, another good reason for our long-term commitment that when we enroll a kid with them until they turn 19 is because it's not like the dust settles and they have a new normal that's normal. They revisit the loss at different stages of maturity as it impacts them differently throughout their childhood. So it's not a it's not a one and done kind of thing. You can't take a pill for it and you know, here's your treatment, okay, you're good now, kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, one of the things I really love about it, Chris, is that the whole idea of not replacing, that's not the right word, but helping to supplement some of the mentorship, right? That's the coolest thing about it, is it it's any extracurricular program that includes a mentorship. So it can't just be you know free credits for roadblocks, right? So yeah, there's gotta be a mentor involved, someone that can help them grow. And yeah, it's really cool. And the really cool thing about it is it's not they they still honor the loss, but they help the kids write their own story, which is something that is really, really cool about it.
SPEAKER_00:I find that really empowering, you know, because I I went through loss when I was a kid. I lost my great grandma as close to, and I didn't even understand it back then. Everybody like moved on and let go, and my brain didn't work that way for some reason. But, you know, to have a to give a kid a mentor that will make them it's my thing I preach all the time in grief coaching is if you make them feel seen and heard and understood and not crazy and obsessive and worried about things, they're able to process that a lot better. They're able to actually go through those emotions. And that's something with grief that we can't get over it and let go of it and move on. And are you done yet? That doesn't exist. I've talked to too many people, it doesn't exist. But what does exist is how do we move through this? And I think that's where having a mentor um or a grief coach or a counselor, whoever it may be, somebody that's very, very supportive of you is what I want to generically say. You're gonna be able to find your way through it. And it won't be easy, it won't be fun at times, but you will be able to go through that journey knowing that you're not alone. And also at the same time, when you do have those hard moments where grief hits, that person to bounce ideas off of, to have that conversation with, to have that um call it a listing heart is another way I phrase it. Um, that's what we mean when we go through grief, and that helps us kind of take out the big waves of grief and make them smaller over time.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there's also just the idea of co-regulation, right? Having someone, I mean, if you're if you're dealing with that kind of grief, Joe, you can speak to this, I'm sure, a lot better than we could. But if you're dealing with that kind of grief and your mom or your father or your grandmother is dealing with that kind of grief at the same time, it's really hard for them to help you co-regulate to get back to a point of homeostasis, right? But you've got like Joe said, you've got this whole team working with the family to try to help them for a short period of time. And then once that's gone, it's just feels like an abyss. Joe, could you just speak because I don't know this process, um, but could you speak to kind of what what that loss looks like in the as far as the logistical parts of it, kind of how that works as far as from the time of loss up to the point where you start talking with the family?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So let's say if particularly let's say that it was a military family and they live on base, um, it's as destructive as it can get for the child because they lose a parent, and then they also have to, the family has to quickly move out of base housing. So they lose their home, and a lot of the kids are going to school on a base, so they lose their home, you know, their parent, their home, their school, their circle of friends, and then they might move back to where one of the parents is from. And a lot of times that is kind of a claustrophobic thing, or it's to an area where people don't understand what they're going through at all, and or it just doesn't feel right because there's been time away. And then the families uh tend to move a time or two, trying to find a place that feels like home because nothing really does feel like home after that loss. And um and as as Russ mentioned, you know, the parent is generally in some fog during this time frame and the the kids are in disarray and they don't know how to process this. And so um it really is, it's about as traumatic as it could get. And if it happened to be from a suicide, um, you know, one thing back to is we support the kids regardless of the cause of death. Because to the child, it doesn't matter if it was a training accident or combat fatality or it was an aggressive cancer after toxic exposure to the burn pits. And this applies to first responder families as well, because a lot of toxic exposure, uh, suicide risk is quite high on for first responders as well. And typically you don't see the rally of support behind that like you might a combat fatality. Um, you know, it's it's a lot more of a taboo kind of thing. And so a lot of isolation can come from this this process and guilt and uh all the other type of emotions that could happen in that process. So it's it's a lot. It's sometimes it's it's it's too much, you know, all at once. Sure.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and just to highlight some of the some of the need, I looked up a couple stats today before the before the show, and 25,000 kids in the military community have lost their loved ones. Uh and are this is the the direct population that Joe and his team is serving. And there's not a whole, there's about 75,000 children or family members that are survivors of police, and there's not a really good solid number for fire. So there's a massive need for Joe. How many kids do you currently serve?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so um right now we're gonna serve a little over 600 this year. And again, we're serving less in total because we're making such a long-term and in-depth commitment to them. But what we found is that's really what's impactful, and we wouldn't want to spread it so thin that it's not impactful. But our waiting list is currently 830 kids, and uh, and this is out of thousands, right? So these are the ones that that have gone through that process and registered on our waiting list.
SPEAKER_05:So you don't have a specific amount of time that you anticipate people being on the waiting list, it's just as until the money meets the need because it's a long-term uh commitment, right?
SPEAKER_03:That's exactly it. Yeah, and uh you know, whenever we have kids that graduate out of our program, then we backfill from the waiting list. So there is always some movement, it's just nowhere near as fast as I would like to see it. Um, you know, these kids are technically at risk youth after the traumatic loss of their parents, they're at greater risk of anxiety, depression, suicide, dropping out of school, and and substance abuse. So um there's a sense of urgency that uh if I if I can, I I can go into a story here, Russ, about lessons from Lodge.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I'd love yeah, that's actually a pretty powerful story. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So that'd be great. About our second year, we had an Air Force master sergeant that had six kids that was a uh tactical air control party, so forward air controller and multiple combat deployments, and was killed in a very uh freaky parachute training accident. And his six kids went on our waiting list. And and back then, it was about six months maybe that the family was on the waiting list. And when we made the call to say, Hey, we can enroll your six kids, you know, this always positive call. The mom, Alyssa, said, I only have five now, and my two-year-old Lila just drowned. And this absolutely crushed me. Um the first kids we ever supported were the three sons of the first chaplain to die in Halbat since Vietnam. And we did swimming lessons for them. And the youngest one was so little we did mommy and me swim classes. And so anytime we had an infant when they got enrolled, we said, Let's get them started in swim, mommy and me swim. And with Lila, it it didn't happen, and I couldn't go back and fix it. And if we had grown faster, you know, we would have offered that, it could have made a difference. And um I called Alyssa and said, I don't have the budget for this, but I never want to hear something like this happening again. Uh, I'm gonna try to convince swim centers to give basic life safety swimming lessons to all the kids on the waiting list and would like to name the initiative after Lila. And Alyssa came up with a name, Lessons from Lila. And so ever since when a family registers, we asked if their child children know how to swim. And if they don't, they they get swim instruction while they're on the waiting list. And um yeah, so there's a sense of urgency there. But I I do need to share this too because uh Alyssa, uh, she's an amazing woman. So uh during this process, she lost her husband, and about 13 months later, she loses her her daughter. One of her brothers was murdered, and one of her brothers committed suicide. And you've got all this grief for a single parent of five children to raise. And she ended up getting her doctorate in clinical psychologies and is now also a grief expert helping her with heal, and it's just so inspiring um to see that kind of resilience and that kind of growth after so much.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, that's a ton about a story of overcoming. Wow, yeah. You I'd love to get in touch with her, Joe. If you can get me in touch with her, I'd love to have her on the pod. I'm sure that Chris would probably love to have her on his as well. That's that's a heck of a story.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. You know, to make this a small world, I I've got a cousin who lost her daughter to a lengthy battle with cancer, and um, you know, very difficult thing to lose a young child. And I was at actually the funeral for one of my great uncles, World War II vet. He was passed away at 101 years old. And I was talking with her, and it came up about angels, and I told the story about Alyssa, and she stopped me and said, Wait, what's her last name? And uh, she is my cousin's grief counselor, and she is amazing. Oh wow. So some of these things you just can't make up. The small, small world connections that that we see uh is really pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_05:Well, I can't I can say that within your community, I've seen multiple widows that have turned that pain into purpose as well. So not only are the kids growing in this community, but the widows are growing as well. Yes, widow orders. And you have you have males in there as well that have lost their wife. So um, yeah, yeah. So that it's a ripple effect, really, when you start not only that, but I there's so many stories over the last past 10 years that I've I've had the pleasure of being a part of, just being your friend and being a part of the community, and and stuff like um Taekwondo, they'll get involved with one kid, and they fall in love with the organization, they fall in love with the gala, which we'll get into in a little bit. And they were like, we want to be a part of this. We're gonna offer free classes for any kid who comes through that wants to take taekwondo, and then that takes so much pressure off the budget for for yeah. So just a lot of really cool stories of people who really want to get involved. They have an amazing could you tell everybody about the the skate for chicken? This that's yeah, this one's awesome.
SPEAKER_03:We were actually we just had lunch with uh the the operators of the Garden of the Gods Chick-fil-A here in Colorado Springs, and something that they do for us, and really they they pretty much do it all, is it's called skate for chicken, and people can sign up to participate in this. And when they close the store down at 10 o'clock at night, people roller skate, rollerblade, however you want to get around the parking lot until midnight. And they have leading up to this, they've gone out and asked people to donate and supported them to do this. And so those that raise a certain amount get free chicken for a year, and those that are in the top get the they get so the the other ones get like uh free chicken sandwich or nuggets for a year, they get 52 gift cards. Those that raise the most get um 52 meals, but the whole thing is surreal because you've got the Chick-fil-A cows out there. Roller skin parking lot. We've got a DJ. We've got uh an awesome, awesome uh meteorologist that's here in town that comes in again, sees it. There's a costume contest, so you've got people in all kinds of different costumes going around in this thing, and my cheeks hurt at the end of the night from smiling because it's just so ridiculously fun. And uh this year they raised uh 50,000,$50,000 and one dollars for us.
SPEAKER_05:And uh not lived until you've seen a Tyrannosaurus Rex fly by you at 25 miles an hour on a razor scooter.
SPEAKER_03:No, that'd be awesome. Oh, it's that'd be awesome. Which which brings me to you know one really cool thing about this. There's I get frustrated that we haven't grown as fast as the mission deserves, right? Um, but nobody has to volunteer, nobody has to donate. A business doesn't have to do anything to support this, and so I get to see really the best in people when they've chosen out of the goodness of their art to do something for someone else. So pretty awesome stuff.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I agree, right? Yeah, because you don't have a huge volunteer core, do you? I mean, you're a pretty small operation. You've only got how many people on staff?
SPEAKER_03:Uh well, we have 10 now, so we have grown a little bit. And um, but yeah, the thing is because our mission, it's not so much engaging volunteers with the kids. The the families typically don't want strangers coming in and out of their life, right? Uh, the last thing we want to do is introduce a predator to a family that in most cases the protector is no longer there. And um, and so yeah, it's kind of difficult. So we do have some great volunteers that help us put on the Angel Gala or some of our other events, but um now we have chapters. That that's a great story, and I think this is how we're going to crack the nut on moving kids off the waiting list faster. Is that we had a group of uh it was a home inspector company actually in Atlanta that heard about us and really got behind our mission. They put our logos on their fleet of vehicles and did a fundraising event for us and kind of by default became our first fundraising and awareness chapter. And then after that, we've got one in Dallas. Uh, a really cool story. We've got one that just started in the Hampton Roads area, so Southern Virginia, North North Carolina area, by one of our Rudos. And she's impactful, you know, impacted by this so much that she wanted to pay it forward and started a chapter for us. So uh the potential for this to go into other locations across the country because we support the kids nationwide and even internationally when they go, I think that's gonna really help us um because it starts with awareness. You know, most people don't think about the kids or they don't think about them long after a loss, but raising awareness in those areas and then having local support will help move kids off the waiting list faster, help us increase our capacity and really um kind of exponentially produce some growth.
SPEAKER_05:I could tell you that having been a part part of leadership with the American Legion for a while, kind of the mentality, especially around this type of need, was that the widows already get a lot of support financially from the military or from the VA. But what that we didn't realize at the time was that these widows are in no place to deal with this. The last thing on their mind is what their kid's gonna do on Thursday, you know? So so the kids really losing out on a portion of their childhood that they would normally have had if they're if their loved one hadn't passed. Chris, you looked like you had something to say.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I I couldn't agree more with you on that. I I you know I worked with veterans for eight years in mortgage, and you know, one of my clients was specumps and had five kids, and his mom had to watch them because he was going through a divorce. And every time he had to go, you know, on duty, whatever it was, it was almost a 24, 48-hour notice. And so um, you know, a lot of these balances too, like my submarine friend, his wife doesn't get any chance other than to focus on what's here. And if something happens, you know, it's just very hard for them to adapt and move to things. Because I think you know, what happens in grief a lot is that we we're so used and accustomed to our life. We all have routines every day, we do the same stuff over and over on certain days. And when grief hits and it's then all of a sudden it's like a break hits, and all of a sudden that whole thing blows up. And now it's like, where do I pick up from here? Where do I move forward from here? What's my next step? What's my next thing I do? Um it's just a very cloudy place to be. So I I I don't blame a lot of those spouses in the way of a grief like that to be in that mindset. That's completely normal.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Joe, can you um can you and obviously now without sharing any details, we don't want to mess with confidentiality or anything, but can you kind of give us some examples of how the programs really really kind of help some of these kids achieve what they wanted to achieve?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, actually, so we've got um uh there's a uh a girl that's in our program and she had gone through loss of her father and and then covet hit. And now you take the isolation and the fear of losing others, and it was it was a lot, right? It was an awful lot. And she ended up um in the in um that's what you call it, intensive care, uh, basically from uh anorexia. And uh she was in the you know, the ICU, that's what I was looking for, and uh she just had no interest in doing anything anymore. And we were speaking with her mom and said, you know, anything that she might show an interest in, let's get her in that and when she gets out and see what we can do. And she ended up having an interest in point therapy, and so that's what we supported the family with, and it was tremendous for her, and it it it created such an impact in her that even though she's still a teenager right now, she is a personal chef for a family with some unique dietary needs, and she's interested in either being a dietitian or a chef when she you know grows up, kind of a thing. And that from somebody that was so so struggling with anorexia that she was hospitalized. And so you never know what's gonna be that spark or what's gonna be the thing for that kid, what's gonna be that passion, what's what's gonna make that difference. But um the idea that she found it, you know, that's the goal. So we support the kids in whatever they choose, and if it's seasonal, we say, okay, well, what about the off-season? So uh, you know, like we've got a we've got a kid, I say kid, he's he's huge, uh, a football player in uh in Alabama that lost his father, law enforcement father, and his dad was also a P football coach. And at six years old, we started supporting him, and he um actually was the MVP in the Pee Football Championship game that year, and he's grown, he's grown like crazy. So, seven years after we started supporting, my wife and I went and saw him play middle school football at 13, and he was 6'1, 310 pounds. We had to buy him a helmet because the hospital didn't even have one in Kebaro that fit him. And he just got an award from Optimus International. And um, you know, he's probably gonna get recruited, he'll probably be a D1 football player, and uh, and he's a good kid, you know, and it's all of that. So the long-term thing is seeing the growth. Growth can be physical, like him getting much bigger, but it can be emotional, mental. Um, you know, the measure of success isn't that they get recruited and get a scholarship from their activity, but we have had kids do that. Um, actually, we've got a young girl in Florida, she's a teenager now, but she's number one in the nation in ski shooting. And we've got a little girl here in Colorado Springs who is third of the nation in ice skating, and her goal is the Olympics, man. And and uh ice skating is her thing. I asked her if you could skate as much as you want, you know, how many hours a day would you would you skate? She goes, Well, all of it, you know, and she said that's a slow day, maybe eight or so hours. So um I don't want to say that her passion that strong, but it's really cool uh that they just have some power.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and one of the really cool things, Chris, about the organization is they have a gala every year. Am I out? Okay, I can be heard. Uh so they have a gala every year, and they actually bring some of the kids in to perform their their uh sport or whatever they're learning with their mentor on stage. So you'll have kids doing dance, uh shooting. I think you had archery. Have you had archery up there?
SPEAKER_03:We haven't done archery, but we did the speed shooting.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, speed shooting, we've done all kinds of really cool activities for these kids, all kinds of stuff. It's really, really awesome. And they then get a chance to perform in front of the entire gala, but these are usually several hundred people.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, this year was 700.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. Um, and then that's which is a great segue, Joe. If you want to mention the gala and kind of what that's all about, and that's kind of the flagship thing for you guys to raise money for the year and yeah, get things kicked off, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it actually started as an event for gold star spouses, those military spouses who had lost their husbands. And uh it was designed as a night out for them to have a nice night. And um, this was started by a widow, and she was the president of the Gold Star Spouse Club, and she invited us for this after we had enrolled her daughter, and her daughter was doing dance, and she said, you know, we ought to turn this into a fundraiser. So it started as a nice night out for some of these families going through grief, and then it became a fundraiser event, and it's our largest fundraiser by far, and it's it's all about our family. So our keynote speakers are our family members that we support. And uh, in fact, uh, Alyssa, the one that I mentioned before, she was our keynote speaker a few years ago, and uh, and then the kids they perform the activity like Russ was talking about. So we film their family story and play that beforehand. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster because again, the story of lost has to be told. But then the kids come out and they're on stage, and yeah, they are the stars of the night, and they stand up taller and the crowds clapping for them, and it's just such positive energy. It it is really fantastic, and that's gonna be April 18th in uh Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_05:And um, that's changed, right, Joe?
SPEAKER_03:Because that used to be at Rawmore, now it's at the uh Polaris, the Hotel Polaris, which is uh a hotel that's kind of military-themed aviation specifically, right outside the Air Force Academy, and uh a really great venue. And we're gonna have two performers that we're we're bringing in, just like Russ mentioned. You know, we we want to spread the wealth and bring in families that aren't just local. And uh, we've just filmed the family stories of both of them. One of them is a little boy in uh the Atlanta area. His father was uh was army and had uh had separated and uh realized that he didn't fit in real well outside of the Army and he had some PTSD and some issues, and he re-enlisted, but uh unfortunately was lost to suicide the day before he was back on orders and the family doesn't qualify for any benefits. And uh his son is gonna come out and his name is Cooper, and it's gonna be cooking with Cooper because he's doing cooking lessons now, and uh it's gonna be awesome. He's got a great personality. And then the other one is the Los Angeles firefighters' son. His father uh was lost when he was really young, just an infant. And uh now he's doing martial arts. And he's gonna come out here and do a demo. And we just filmed his family story and spent some time with the LA fire department with some of his dad's buddies, and um just just really cool stuff. So it's an opportunity for people that support us to see the impact because it's all about our families that night, and uh and it's a healing night for those families that are there and the kids that participate, and it's a fundraiser. And we have an extensive, extensive uh silent auction. So even though people can't come, they could still bid on items for our silent auction. And it's like 150 items. And I mean, we've had flamethrowers in it before, so are you serious?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, yeah, yeah. There's usually some sort of firearm. That's my kind of gallery.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. And uh, yeah, I I took a picture of myself wearing that, by the way. Just to try it out before this.
SPEAKER_05:You brought up a really cool detail too, and that's the fact that um you guys are a private nonprofit. Yeah, so you're able to support some families that the VA is unable to support, and some other nonprofits are unable to support, right?
SPEAKER_03:So, yeah, we're well, we're like nobody owns a nonprofit, right? So, but what we don't do, we're not we're not federally related in any way. We don't receive any federal funds. Um, we are able to say yes when the system might be saying no. And particularly you see that with suicides. Um, if someone has separated from the military, for example, and the depression or PTSD wasn't in their records, the VA will look at that and say, well, this isn't service connected and you don't qualify. And um, the thing is that there's a stigma around seeking help. And so, you know, most guys that that develop these kind of things don't end up with it on their records. You could lose your security clearance, you could have problems with future employment. So there are reasons, and you know, you don't want to admit uh a weakness or or whatever it might be viewed at, even though it's it's not just a weakness, it's a normal reaction to the trauma that you went through, kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_05:100%. I preach that constantly is that being vulnerable and talking about the fact that you need help, you know, there's 22 suicides a day among the veteran community. And in Colorado Springs, there are 45 per 100,000 veteran suicides per year, which is the national average is 14 per 100,000. So that's how much higher it is in Colorado Springs alone among the veteran community. And we have a really high concentration of veterans and military here, but and even beyond that, we have a really high suicide rate in El Paso County and Colorado Springs. Any suicide is too many, though, right? And and the the culture among the military, the you know, don't be weak, don't go, don't go seek militar or uh medical care because then you're a pogue, right? I don't know if you're familiar with that term, Chris.
SPEAKER_00:No, I haven't heard that one yet.
SPEAKER_05:But you don't want to be a pogue, right? You don't want to be that guy labeled as the guy that always goes to the TMC every time he gets hurt. Well, why not? Go to the TMC if you're hurt, man. And if you if you're mental health issues, you're you're usually thinking about suicide and stuff like that or hurting yourself or someone else, you man go now. In fact, I'll put hotline numbers in the show notes.
SPEAKER_03:About a quarter of the kids we support lost their parents' suicide currently. Yeah, and so hearing some of those stories, um, is some of it where there were warning signs and sometimes there weren't. But uh sometimes you see a downward spiral that precedes this, right? And um it's it's man, anything that can be on the preventative side is powerful because those ripples do go so far forward. And um yeah, some sometimes I think the guys think they're doing their family a favor because they have become isolated, because they've developed substance abuse issues, which could have come from pain management that they were receiving from the VA or you know, any of these kinds of things. Um, but it's so damaging. In fact, military kids are already at a higher risk of suicidal alienation than the general public. And if they do have them, they are more likely than um non-military kids to take actions in that vein. If that parent was lost to suicide, uh really their their risk skyrockets.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's like 80% of the incredible, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's a lot, yeah, yeah. And one of the things I like to say, we never want to lose a child because their parent made the old sacrifice for our country or community.
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. Well, well, Joe, man, I this goes without saying, but but everything you guys are doing is just absolutely incredible. It's such a huge need. Chris, I'm sure that you can speak to that too, man. It's just a oh yeah, can you one last thing I wanted to go over before we close things out is Joe, you have a kind of a personal connection with all these kids. Could you speak to that a little bit and kind of how you manage that and navigate that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, it's it's getting harder as we've grown with kids in different locations, but um, I mean that that's where my heart is. That's that's where my mental capacity is too, I think. But um I yeah, so it's it's really something else because when we get together, you typically see that the widows will get together and and there's a lot of laughing, right? And there's heal humor is such a great healing tool. Um, but I'm going to the kids and connecting with them. And um, and it's it's just an awesome thing to be able to see them grow up over time. And I get some honors out of that. Uh, we've got a family that's from Germany, or the widow is from Germany. She met her husband when he was stationed there, and they chose to she chose to stay here with her son, and um they he asked us to be his grandparents for grandparents' day at school, you know. So it's kind of a really cool thing to get to see that. And I kind of live vicariously a little bit like uh I don't have grandkids yet. So um, you know, getting to see these kids grow and develop over time is just so impactful and meaningful to me. It's the best part for sure of what I do.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. And yeah, I mean, letter it used to be letters to every kid every year. Are you still doing the letters every year?
SPEAKER_03:The letters to every child when they're enrolled, but I am not still doing uh one to everyone throughout the year.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, it's because you said 800 kids, that meant a lot of writing.
SPEAKER_03:Well, over 600 will be supported this year, yeah. Okay, wow, yeah. 800 plus on the waiting list right now.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and now are you still doing the the gala virtually as well so that people can be virtually?
SPEAKER_03:Well, we stepped away from that just just because of cost and complexity trying to do it that way. But we do have um you know a lot of stuff on our social media where you can see the impact and some of the stories and things of families that we support, which is entirely up to them whether they choose to participate in sharing their information or not. And um yeah, yeah, but our but on the social media we've got more.
SPEAKER_05:That includes the auction, right?
SPEAKER_03:So people can view the auction online yes, definitely the auction is online, and so that's one that that regardless of whether we stream the event or not, it's something that people can participate no matter where they are.
SPEAKER_05:Cool. Is there anything else you want to put out there about the gala or anything else that you're working on that you want to throw out there and let people know about?
SPEAKER_03:Wow. Um, you know, I would say uh, you know, the limiting factor for enrolling more kids is dollars. And this year is kind of tough. There was, like I mentioned, we don't receive federal funding, but there were organizations that did receive federal funding, and a lot of them have become dependent on it. So when there was a pause in federal funds, um, that's caused a lot of them to start flooding other foundations with applications. And so we're we're down on grants this year, and we're going into our end-of-year giving, right? So I would just say for your viewers, if somebody wanted to get behind this mission, you know, they can connect through our website and everything. But um small donations matter. If it wasn't for the small things, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing, yeah, frankly. So I I guess that's the thing, it's just an appeal. If this is something that um connects with you, and uh maybe maybe you were involved in healthy activities as a child and you know the impact that that had on you, or maybe you didn't and you know the impact it would have had, you know, that could be a connection point, whether you've got a military or first responder background or or anything like that.
SPEAKER_05:Um if Joe, if they wanted to make uh like a small donation, or is do you guys do like pledging where it's like a five dollar a month donation or a ten dollar a month donation, or do you guys have a one-time thing, or where do they go to do all that?
SPEAKER_03:On our website, aoafallen.org, they could choose to do a one-time or recurring donation. And recurring donations are awesome. Uh I wish we had more of those because you know, let's say even if it's a five dollar a month kind of a thing, it's static and it helps us project how we're doing and be able to evaluate when is it safe to increase the number of supportive kids? Because things like events, they're they're awesome too, but we get this bump during the gale up and then it kind of falls off. And so it's hard to project when your funding does this versus uh you know that that stable kind of thing throughout the year. Or if someone has a connection that really has the means and wants to get behind this, you never know we're just an introduction or a storyteller or sharing our social media, right? That's it, you know, the economy's tough. And if somebody can't afford to donate, that's I completely understand that. You get on there and share our post and just help raise awareness, and you never know. You know, Bill Gates might be uh scanning your post or something.
SPEAKER_05:He might be desperate sitting on his couch watching TV. Hey, you heard it, guys. Hey, share this post if you're if you're watching this and you enjoyed everything that that that uh Joe has to say, and you can resonate with what his mission is. Man, it's such an important mission. And these kids are precious, man. They didn't they didn't ask for this. So this is an opportunity to help them move forward, right, Chris? Not move on, move forward.
SPEAKER_00:Joe, I just want to say thank you for the work that you're doing, my friend. I I got stories for days about the vets I worked with, but a lot of them did go through loss in the capacity that you work in. And so you're you're making an impact bigger than you know, and probably you're gonna see some of your life. And I'm just really grateful that those kids have somebody like you in their corner because that's that's a very underrated, underseen thing that we need to really make more pronounced, uh, especially in the military.
SPEAKER_03:Thanks, Chris. Uh, you know, and uh thanks to both of you for what you're doing. You know, healing and preventative, um helping people deal with these things so that they don't then become a victim of grief themselves is is crucially important. And uh and it seems like it's now needed now more than ever. I think some of our resets and some of our breaks from in society aren't there like they used to be, or things tend to be more inflated or or um inflated. But yeah, yeah. So yeah, anyway, I I I really like what you're both doing, and the the people that you're helping heal, uh, I'm sure are incredibly uh thankful for that. And I know your book's gonna be fantastic.
SPEAKER_05:Oh, speaking of which, thank you. We've got a little surprise for you. Um Chris and I got ahead, got together ahead of time, and I think we're gonna put together a donation of some of those books. That book is coming out November 15th, um, and it's called The Empowered Brief Journey, 23 Stories, uh, that carved a new path forward. That's being released November 14th, so our 15th. So we should have plenty of time to get some printed copies, and we're gonna donate some to Angels for you to either auction off, put in gift baskets through the gala, or if you want to give them to the widows as just a healing tool for them or their kids. And then Chris Hall and I also talked about putting together um a coaching session that we can offer to one of your widows coming into the program that that you know is facing all this for the first time and in that brain fog and kind of stuff. And maybe Chris can kind of help them through some of that, and then I can help with some um you know, trauma-informed psych education, which brings me to the last thing because I already told you about the first two things. But I got a last thing is I decided through the mental well-being company, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. Um, it's a franchise opportunity that I bought into about a year ago where we do trauma-informed workshops for corporate teams. So I'm gonna donate the trauma-informed productivity workshop for your team, all 10 people, and we'll do that at zero cost so we can schedule that sometime after uh after the holidays and get your team scheduled up or trained up because this stuff is important. You know, this is a critically important area to be working in. The people you're helping is it's a it's a critically needy. What's the word I'm trying to find? Help me out, Chris. There can't be a population of people that deserve it more and that need it, you know. So so I really want to make sure that your team is prepared to help them as the best possible way they can. And if my class can help you do that, then fantastic, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's awesome. Because there is a burden, uh, particularly that our case family case managers have. Um, it's not normal to hear so many stories of loss and uh and sometimes ugliness and things that happen after the loss, too, just break down the family or the system and things. So um, so that's great. Yeah, we're looking forward to all of it. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05:So we'll get in touch with all that and we can work on all the details later. But yeah, uh, once again, guys, this is Joe Lewis with Angels of America's following. Thanks so much for coming out and and spending some time with us, Joe. Chris Mamoney, my friend. Thanks again for joining me live on Facebook and all the all the books, all the grants for everywhere. Guess thanks so much for holding on. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks. Thank you.