Communities Grow Together on Elevate Springfield featuring Jeff Dillman

Summary

In this conversation, Robert Ferriell and Jeff Dillman discuss various community engagement initiatives, local business challenges, and upcoming events aimed at supporting the Springfield community. They emphasize the importance of local involvement and the impact of fundraising efforts, while also highlighting the significance of supporting local businesses and organizations.

Takeaways

• Community engagement is vital for local growth.
• Fundraising events can significantly impact local organizations.
• Supporting local businesses strengthens the community.
• Innovative approaches are necessary to tackle business challenges.
• Collaboration among local organizations leads to greater success.
• Events like chicken dinners and cornhole tournaments foster community spirit.
• Local First Springfield is focused on supporting small businesses.
• Grants can provide essential support for new businesses.
• Engaging with local initiatives can be rewarding and fulfilling.
• Involvement in community events creates lasting connections.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Elevate Springfield, where we'll dive into strategies and stories that help you rise to your full potential. Each episode, we'll talk about how you can take intentional steps to elevate your life and your business while making a meaningful impact on those around you. Along the way, we're gonna bring in the change makers from our community that are already elevating. We'll bring the actionable strategies, you bring the discipline and follow through, and together, we can elevate Springfield. Alright, let's go, Springfield. Time to 10X your day, y'all. Time to level up, time to crush it. Hey, you are listening to the Elevate Springfield podcast. Robert Farrell here, certified 10X coach, speaker, and mentor. Here to bring you actionable strategies. You bring the discipline and follow through it together. We're going to Elevate Springfield. Well, you are listening to another segment of Communities Grow Together on the Elevate Springfield podcast. As you know, we drop these segments each week. The Communities Grow Together segment will touch on all things nonprofit associations and how we as a community are working together so we can all grow together. This segment is brought to you by David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agency over on West Wabash. Whatever you need insurance-wise, whether that's business, life, home, auto, or anything in between, hey, David and his team can take care of you. Give them a shout, or hey, stop by and visit them over on West Wabash. These segments are quick hits of actionable strategies and what's going on in our area to help you level up and grow together. Be right back after the break. Looking for personalized insurance with hometown care, David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agent is here to help you protect what matters most: your family, your home, and your dreams. Whether it's auto, home, life, business, David and his team are proud to serve the Springfield community with trusted advice and reliable coverage. Local service, real relationships, peace of mind. Call today or stop by their office. They can build your dream protection plan together. Call 217-726-6343. And we are back for another edition of Communities Grow Together, brought to you by David Hillst, American Family Insurance Agency. Hey, anything you need, insurance-wise, personal or commercial, David and his team will take care of you. Give them a shout or stop by their office over on West Wabash. Hey, friend of the show, might as well say regular contributor to the show, a man you see often, probably holds the record for most guest appearances on Elevate Springfield by now, Mr. Jeff Dillman. How are we doing? I'm good. I think you got the record. I'd have to go back and look, but I like that. I like that. You know, me going in thinking who's been in here the most, other than me, of course.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Well, maybe Ellie. She might be catching me.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

Oh, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. But well, I don't know if I count her because she's the actual host on that show. I'm the guest. That's true. So she's she's the host of that segment, so I'm not counting her. Well, maybe I can be a host. What do you think? There you go. You want to take this one over? Yeah, let's do it. The official communities grow together host. Let's do it. The communities grow together phrase came out of conversations with you.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

It really did. It did. So trade. So it would make sense. Have you asked me to use that?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

I did. Okay. I did. Yeah. I remember I did right before I said, hey, I'm going to call this segment Communities Grow Together. You good with that? Because I think it came out of your name first.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

I didn't get any royalties though, or nothing. No.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

You know, at least I'm on the show.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

That's true.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

And I got a cup of coffee. We can consider that your royalty. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

You know, the being on the show. It's cold out today. I had Will bring me, so bringing in the big guns. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's always good to see Will. What do you guys got going on today? Well, we just stopped downtown to see a few customers, including you. Yeah. And then I don't know what Will's going to do all day. We can't talk to him right now, but he's watching us. But but uh Will's Will's been doing some installs, so he's been busy. He had a tough week last week with uh a couple installs, and every once in a while we'll have uh just um little goofy thing happen at at uh Masco and somebody brought broken dispensers back, put them in a box and put them up in inventory and loads them up in his car, takes off down south, and I can't remember Carnival, Lichfield area, wherever, but and then finds out that maybe one or two are good and all the others are broken. Ouch. Yeah. Ouch.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

So uh and it wasn't even in town, so he could just pop over real quick and wasn't that easy.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Daycare, you got kids running everywhere. So uh he's uh as we say in our industry and well, really in sales in general, burn burning cookies, scraping knees. So he burnt cookies that day, scraped knees, but uh I do I do believe that he uh went back down and got it, got it taken care of. But no, it's there's always something going on there. You know, right now Masco, we're we're um we're facing um a lot of price increases, but we have over the last 12 years, so it's nothing new. Uh maybe a little bit more here lately, but uh, you know, we're trying to balance that out. Uh there's no guarantee past 30 days in pricing, so that's that's hard to run a business and try to keep customers happy. Uh so we're we're we're trying to figure, you know, how we do that and and uh we still, you know, we're a small business, we still have to make money and stay afloat. So um, but you know, that's the challenge, but it's nothing new in in our industry. So we came out with a new general manager weekly uh I did. I saw that. I saw that. You know, hopefully that turned out pretty good. Uh uh, we're gonna do that weekly, you know, just to, you know, once again, thinking outside of the box and just trying to do something different competition's not doing, and let people know what's going on in the world because we're we're dual agents. You know, we do packaging and we do janitorial supplies. But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

You said a second ago, installs. Will was out doing installs. Remind everybody what you mean by when you get when you're going out and doing an install.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, that's a that's a good that's a good point. So added value for us is that when we uh get into a count or a current account, the install term is basically soap dispensers, hand towel dispensers, toilet paper dispensers, and really anything else, you know, maybe maybe not a picture, but but it's very important so for us to get our product a dispenser on the wall, show them how to use it, and uh train them, and then generally they'll stay on the walls for a long period of time. So that means you'll you'll have a customer for a good amount of time. So that uh that's just something that all I think everybody in our industry does. These are a little smaller, which is great. When we in healthcare, we have to have a little help because that could be anywhere from five to thirty thousand dispensers, but this is just added value, then we'll basically repair it if it breaks and all that. So it's just good customer service you get from a locally owned company.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Love it. Yeah. Sam's Club's not gonna come out and do that. They're not gonna come out.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And you know, and that's the thing we try to remind people all the time and on the local initiative is that you need to buy local, and this is why. Um, because you what they're gonna do most likely is just say you're gonna have to buy another one, then you're gonna have to find labor to hang it. And you know, businesses, business owners don't have time. They don't really have time to be and that's the last thing on their mind, quite frankly, is hanging a toilet paper dispenser or a towel dispenser. But take pride in that. We have good products, and quite frankly, they usually don't break unless you're hanging on them or just beating them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Absolutely. Well, you said you take pride in that, but we all know that you take pride in your community, brother. So Yeah, I do. You as all as always, you've got a lot going on, man. We've got a lot of different things going on in the commun in the community, man. I want to win that I don't sleep award. I can't remember where else. It's all yours. I I think you're running away with it. So yeah, we've been together at a couple events recently. What what all's been going on, man?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Well, the Compass for Kids thing was cool at Landa Lincoln Professional Networking. We gave them a thousand dollars. That's always a good reward, good feeling. I did send Brandy a note this morning, make sure she did receive the check. So that's cool, you know. Uh between local first and you know, working with you with local first and the board that we have and Landa Lincoln, that's that's hopping in the community. Always trying to find new membership both ways, whether it's local first, which we're looking for, restaurant-based uh companies right now, because we really don't have a lot. Landa Lincoln, we're just trying to fill categories at our own pace. And then, of course, you know, the community, community-wise, we've got our big am vets, uh, Family Service Center chicken uh dinner coming up this Friday. If you haven't been, you need to come. Hundred Mills, it is it is fun, it is stressful, but it is fun, and it's rewarding after the fact, is when you get in there at five, you know, five o'clock and you're done at seven, and you make a little bit of money for both agencies, so that's pretty cool. So we're excited for that, and we're really excited with our partnership with them. We just attended the Spark uh annual breakfast at the Abraham Lincoln uh hotel, and and uh that breakfast is very rewarding. We're you know, we at Mazco are very engaged with Spark, and uh it was great to have solid people at our table. So thank you for attending. We did uh really good on the fundraising side of it, I think. For them, there were a few people that I probably got to follow up with that paid with credit card that didn't give her the right information. Oh no. If you were one of them, I need to talk to you. I was not. I put cash in my output. Okay, good, so good. So I gotta find out who that was because she needs a little bit more information like address and all that. No, that Spark um that annual fundraising is just it's just good. You you know, when you and I talked about it when I asked you to come, you know, you had a tight schedule. I said, but man, it's in and out one hour. Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_01 9:54

And it was too. It was 7:30 to 830, and it was 8:30 on the dot. We were Denise does it up to the biggest.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Matter of fact, you showed me with your Sangham to watch. Yeah, exactly. What time it is. Denise runs that like clockwork, but that's always a good thing. And and Sparks um big um they've got their other picnic coming up that we're Maskell's a big part of, so we'll we'll look forward to that. Maybe we'll send you an invite for that. Absolutely. That is pretty cool because uh Maskell gives out three awards to the residents that that actually will win. Uh and that's pretty cool just to see the excitement at that. The picnic theme, they like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

So Well, when you say residents, remind everybody what Spark is and what they do.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah, so Spark basically uh I don't really like calling development disabled, but uh they're challenged individuals, but some of them have a lot of growth. They're living in their own housing with uh with a caregiver, but these are people, it's an another another agency that you know is always seeking funding and fundraising in community that takes care of just takes care of adults that maybe the families just can't take care of. And I think there's a staggering percentage out there that a lot of them don't even know their parents may not be alive, or maybe their parents just put them there for the care and have never seen them again. It's it's pretty staggering when you hear that. We've had uh one, Ben Formia, which is related to Will, that's been in Maskell. He's a resonance spark, he makes the dog treats. Okay. So that's pretty cool. Spark's real huge in the dog treats. But Benny, he's came to Maskell one or two times and helped us out for a few hours. So we always entertain that idea as well. We're allowing them. But a lot of them have in the workplace, they may be working at McDonald's. So I mean, I think it's kind of like uh Night of Stars. It's you know, you've got tier one, tier two, three severities. What a great, just a great organization.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Yeah, hopefully they had met their fundraising goals for that that breakfast and beyond. I'm sure they did. Through a lot of impact.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

You know, and we said something, Night of Stars. What about that?

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, that was fundamental, wasn't it? Yeah, we hadn't talked since, or at least we hadn't talked on the show since we had that about a week and a half ago. Eddie dancing?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Eddie was dancing now. My first experience, uh Love Westside, that was my first time, my wife and I uh attending that. I will do that for the rest of my life. A very rewarding. I had King Jason, and King Jason was awesome. I think I told you two things he said to me snacks and dancing. Don't ask me to do anything else. Right. So we went into the orange room and uh he wanted to look at the games, and he said, These games, we're too old for these games. So he decided that he danced and he danced and he danced, and then we just sat and watched people. Gentlemen knew everything about music, 70s and 80s, and he was singing to me. Paul Abdul, ELO, Foreigner, Fog hat, I mean, names I said to him, I'm 61. I said, Dude, you brought up a lot of memories of the eight-track tape player I had in a car, but wow, what an event. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

So now you mentioned Eddie came out and danced. So Courtney, my wife, for the audience out there, her buddy was one that pulled Eddie out onto the out onto the dance floor. That was that was pretty fun.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Awesome, awesome. I didn't know that. So but leave it to Courtney. She was right there, right? So that's another another way to get involved in the community. And then you big thing we got with Family Service Center coming up, we're really excited about its return of bags and brews uh and tennis shoes, as I always joke. But we've teamed up with uh Jose at Casariel, July 25th from 12 to 5, Capital City Cornhole. It's a basically a cornhole tournament. Capital City Cornhole basically runs that entire side of it. We just do the fundraising and uh support. But Jose's gonna open up the garage doors on the side. We got a bar, we're gonna be throwing um bags, and uh we ironed out with him yesterday a taco bar for$15. Oh, with one soft drink. So that's gonna be pretty cool. Easy peasy for everyone. Everybody's invited to that, and all proceeds go to the Family Service Center, which will allow us to give kiddles things that they need, whether it's bedding, beds, furniture, backpacks, school supplies, whatever. So once again, another um another community engaged event. We do already have a title sponsor, Protective IT, and Jamie does a real good job with our agency, and he is supporting that. Even at at Casarail yesterday, I had people walk by taking pictures saying, Hey, I want to help with that. Oh, nice. So that's that's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So you say that's something that used to do and now you're bringing back?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Yeah. So we did it two years ago. We did it down at BuzzBomb, and you know, we had a great relationship with BuzzBomb, and and um, you know, last year we tried to bring it back. Um, you know, Rachel Shea, Rachel was you know on our board the first year that we did it, and well, I shouldn't say the first year, two years ago when we did it, did a phenomenal job. Well, Rachel moved on and schedule got kind of tight, so I took the lead last year. Um but we were just fighting tooth and nail with the city on closing the street down on Adams.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Uh even though we didn't do anything different we did the year before, we had support a buzz bomb and just we just for whatever reason couldn't make it happen. So we sadly had to walk away. And uh so this year, well, at the end of last year, we decided we're bringing it back. What a better venue.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

It's gonna be a sports bar there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

With Jose. And we looked at Ingrain, we looked at uh Casseriel, and with Casariel, it's just I just think the environment with uh opening the garage doors.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, the garage doors and everything there are making a cool thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

And I don't think and I don't think the the guys and gals that really throw bags are I think that it's big to differ, but they're not really huge IPA drinkers. You know, just give me a standard beer, domestic beer, and I'm drinking it and I'm gonna throw and they smoke and drink, I'll say that. They do a lot of that, but they are great. So we're kind of excited about that's five to six to seven thousand dollars for the agency. Nice when we're facing a deficit, we need it. So we're stoked about that. So there's a lot of stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

So is that gonna be tournament style? Capital City Cornhole's taking it over, taking that side of it, but it's it's gonna be an like an official tournament tournament as well.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

So what you'll have is yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you said that. So we'll have prize money for the uh for the pros and prize money for the um, well, whatever you want to call us. The amateurs that think we can throw back. Most pros or whatever. Will and Dalton, they threw in it two years ago. I think they're coming back to throw in it. So Mender Media, and of course, Will for Masco. Um, I don't remember the prize money, but it's it's gonna be very rewarding this year. It's 250 or 300 for first place. Uh so that's kind of cool. First, second, third place, and we'll do that for pros and amateurs. Uh so you can come out and win a little bit of money. And the way they're gonna do it this year is when you you'll team up, you're gonna draw a chip to see who you team up with. So don't come equipped saying you and I can throw bags, we're saying baggage, we're gonna win it. Yeah, not gonna happen. So you'll you'll draw a chip to see. Uh, I think two years ago, what they did was they we we were led to believe, and I think Will will say this, is that, well, he brought a partner and then come to find out, well, you can't use your partner. Right. So, but this year, after talking to Randy, who kind of runs the whole thing, him and his wife, Randy said, I think the easiest and probably the right way to do it is let's let's just draw a chip and we'll go that way. So we're excited about that. Jose's excited. We're grateful for him and our friendship and our partnership that he'll open up the house. So we'll have these little uh uh commemory of glasses that we sell from Family Service Center for five, I think they're five or six bucks, maybe more, a five-ounce, and and then Jose will put uh beer in them with a coupon. So you can taste some beers and decide what beer you like. And if you just don't want to drink a Dissecis, if you don't want to drink uh Corona or you know, Corona Premier or whatever he's serving, then buy something else. Right. Buy margarita. There you go. Uh so yeah, so we're we're pretty stoked about that. And of course, there's a lot of other things too, man. We've got a backpack toy drive coming up, but with Family Service Center, we're still ironing out dates. But one of the partners and uh friends in Land of Lincoln Professional Networking came to me and said, I want to do something for the kids. So I want to do a backpack drive or a uh I'm sorry, a toy drive. My wife and I do the backpack drive, so we'll do 100 to 150 backpacks for kiddos coming up, yeah, right before school starts. But this toy drive, we're like, Yeah, let's do it. It's RB properties, Rob Underwood, he's a good friend, him and his wife Bree. And Rob said, I've already got 2,000 committed and we haven't even sat down and talked. Oh wow. So we're stoked about that. So now we're trying to figure out what the kiddos actually need so we get them something they're gonna utilize, use, right? So man, there's just a lot.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

So much stuff.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

A lot of stuff in the community.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Is Will a pretty good uh bags thrower? I got another.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Yeah, he's pretty good. He's probably got something in technology that will tell him the wind speed and and all that, you know. He's like bowl hunting, like bowl hunting. He knows the arch and all that. Yeah, he's he's pretty good. So I mean, quite frankly, I didn't pay a whole lot of attention two years ago because I was running around crazy. But uh but I I think him and Dalton, if anything, those two together, they're gonna have a good time, you know.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

No doubt about it. Now, with with Will and Dalton, and you mentioned Compass for Kids earlier. You also you guys did your uh you cooked for Compass for Kids too last year.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah, yeah, I left that out. I left that out. So let's chat Chatham Chamber of Commerce, uh the ambassadors, Will and Dalton are running uh the show there. I'm the mentor behind scenes. Let's get community focused, get engaged, let's do something fun. So Emily, there's a good step, Justin, all the young guns, man. That's that's what's pretty cool. Even Meredith with BOS. We uh came together at Compass for Kids at Third Presbyterian Church on 7th Street, and we fed them. And I tell you what, um just hot dogs. It was simple, right? Hot dogs, we did some fruit, we had chips, milk, and some juice, and uh cupcakes. And these kids, when they saw hot dogs, they lit up. You know, I'm always thinking, we've done this with the FBI a few times too, and I'm always thinking, man, we got to do something big. But these kids loved it. They ate 100 hot dogs. Ooh, man. 80 cupcakes. And I don't know how much Kool-Aid juice and cupcakes, Will brought, but I'm sure they were running around the house for hours after the fact. But very rewarding. So that's something that you and I've talked about with with uh local first Atlanta Lincoln partnering up. We're getting about the end of the school year, so we'll have to start at the new school year. So yeah, we're excited for that. Next, I believe it is next Thursday, May 14th, I think. Outside of we've got uh Masco's got university coming up. Uh so we're looking forward to that. That's just where we bring in manufacturing reps, all of our customers, potential customers, give them a quick training, half day show, and then we lead into the afternoon, evening with the FBI, the FBI Springfield Citizens Academy Alumni Association. I'm the chapter president as well as two F two or three FBI agents from the FBI Springfield. We'll be back at Comfass serving next Thursday night from 5 to 6 30. So there I was thinking maybe hamburgers and hot dogs again. It might be smoked chicken. You you never know what I'm gonna do. But once again, there's a lot of people out there around the McDonald House. I mean, there's a the outlet, there's so many people that we are trying to get to. And I think you and I should continue to talk off off air about ways that we can help with them too. I just love being in the community. Look at C A C C a couple weeks ago, three weeks ago, whatever it was. That was a fun experience, right? That was a fun interview. Yeah, interviews for student of the year, and you know, you kind of made me smile. Uh tonight is your uh awards ceremony. That's right. I'd love to see that. I mean, I'll tell you what, for me, um I shouldn't be blown away, but the intelligence, just the character, not shy. These students, I can see why they were in the top. That was a fun experience. And the questions were just it blew me away. I mean, they were prepared. They did a little bit of research.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

They did, especially one of them did some research on you pretty good. He brought up some stuff.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Oh, wow. That kind of shocked me. There you go. You know what? Like I told them, all four, they're all winners, right? They're all winners. Unfortunately, one has to come on top, but that was pretty cool. So, you know, other things I I think I want to get involved with. The community is is probably the Sangaman CEO group. Yeah. You know, I've been looking at that a little bit. That was a fun one.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

We I did the judging for that oh a little over a week ago now, I guess. And then sneak peek. They're uh I've got an episode with the top three coming out Thursday. So tomorrow you'll hear that one. So we had the top three here. They have some great business ideas. So it's that would be another good one to get involved with. No doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

Yeah, I definitely so. But you know, man, we're all over the place. Foremost, the most important thing is uh support the people that are paying me, and that's Masco. Masco has given me the opportunity to do all these things. I hope they see that it does make a difference being involved in the community because it does. It's not out there for Jeff, it's out there to really support a small family business that I've been with for the last 11 years, just trying to get everybody engaged, how important it is to buy local, shop, local, eat, local, bank, local, and just do whatever you do local, right? We're constantly there trying to think of ways to just be different and just show people in the community. Times are challenging right now. So we have to be sharp. We have to be in front of our customers. We can't be out of sight, out of mind. But yeah, absolutely. A lot of things happening. So balancing life. I mean, TRN, I mean, I do a lot of cooking. At TRN, we did a wing night.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

You spend a lot of time cooking, brother.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Man, I I mean, I love it. People, if people say anything about me, I don't sleep and I love to cook. But you know, when someone says to me, Let's do something, let's do it. We did a wing night uh last Friday night at the at the Lake Club TRN. Jared, who owns locals, he's a good friend. Him and I tossed some wings and had some jumbo wings and you know, it's a six-minute cook, and you toss them and you just watch all the smiles and happiness there. We didn't have a huge turnout. It just is what it is, but uh, we were excited about that. And then, you know, June 25th, I might think that's the date. That's pretty close if it's not. We're gonna be back with uh Family Service Center in the Ambets and we're gonna do a horseshoe bar at the BFW.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Dude, there's a lot going on. It just keeps on coming, doesn't it? One thing I want to mention before we close out here, I mentioned LocalFirst earlier. We're putting the finishing touches, I guess, on an event that we're having in September. It's gonna be September 24th over at The View. That's Jane Hayes' new place over uh behind this market over on the west side, her new event venue that she has. But part of that, Local First Springfield, is putting together a small business grant. So we're gonna be giving away$5,000 to two local businesses that's split between two. So two$2,500. We've spoke with our members, and a lot of them when they're first starting out, a couple thousand bucks would have gone a really long way to helping them grow early on. So we want to be able to support local businesses here with that. So we'll have information on how you can apply. The main requirement is you need to be a local first Springfield member. That's the first and foremost the requirement. And then you'll have some questions and a video to put together. But we're putting the finishing touches on that, and I'm really excited about getting to go.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

That's really exciting. I remember Chad, actually, Chad Fowler was saying my tree service making that comment that you know what 2000 could have done for me when I started? Yeah. That's still stuck with me because you know, 2000 doesn't seem like a lot, but when you're starting a business and you're scared as hell, that's a lot. It can go a long way with us. But yeah, that's um that's that's an exciting event. Uh, that'll be fun. I did say no to serving on that committee as far as that. So if my wife is listening, I do say no.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

He actually did say no.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

He did say no. I didn't raise my hand, but I know that you know the scope of one from Celeste and everyone else on our board, the talent that we have uh and their their ownership, that it's in good hands.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

So it's funny you said you didn't raise your hand, so it was more of a passive no. It was like yeah, it was just I wasn't saying yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

So I was hiding. I was at Cafe Moxo, I was probably I don't know what I was doing. I was hiding. Right. I'm like, don't look at me. Right. I'm not saying no. No, I'm excited. That that'll be fun. I know on the past, me being served as past prison local first and being on local first board for quite some time. We were always trying to replan that gala style theme, just never had the horses to do it. So I'm proud of you and proud of the board putting that together because uh that that uh as we say, that momentum is strong and that'll be a fun night. And to give money back, you know, that'll be cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I'm excited. Yeah, gonna be great. So much great stuff going on in Springfield. Hey, if you are out there and you're not involved, get involved. Find your find your niche, find your organization. Call us, we can help you out with that. Oh well. There is there's so many great people out in this community, there's so many great organizations. Get involved because as you know, Jeff, when we work together, we grow together. When we grow together, communities grow together. That's right. That's good. There we go. You should have, yeah. You would have made a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

It does it does ring good, though. It does. Communities grow together. It really does.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

They do. They do. Well, Jeff, appreciate it as always, man. Likewise. All right. Well, we're gonna let Jeff get back to elevating Springfield. But for the rest of y'all, we'll be right back. Hey, Springfield, when it comes to reliable, high-quality roofing, you don't want to leave things to chance. That's why you should reach out to Acosta Angeli Roofing, your local roofing expert serving Springfield and surrounding communities, from quick, dependable repairs to full replacement, from residential to commercial. They are your trusted pros. Call them today at 217-993-2748 or visit their website to book your free quote and inspection. Don't wait, a little leak now could lead to major damage later. Trust the local experts, protect your home, and get peace of mind with Acosta Angeli Roofing. Well, thank you for joining us today, everybody, on another segment of Communities Grow Together on the Elevate Springfield Podcast. Thank you again to David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agency, for partnering with us on this segment. A take what you learn today. You bring the discipline and follow through and together. That's right, y'all. They're your trusted local pros, delivering quality workmanship, exceptional customer service, and fair, honest pricing. Every time. Whether it's trimming, removal, or storm cleanup, their team brings professionalism and care to every job, big or small. Call the name your neighbors trust, Sangman Tree Service, or visit them today at SangmanTreeService.com. Sangamon Tree Service, rooted in quality, built on trust.