SPEAKER_00

Well, good day and welcome to Pitbull 214 Podcast, a podcast for our veterans, their family, friends, neighbors, and really anyone who cares about that. I am a host for this program, Rick Perales, and I am a retired Air Force officer and very pleased to be with you. And I'm very thankful that you're with me today. As you start a new podcast, there are a lot of challenges. One of the biggest ones is just getting the audience. I believe that this is a solid program that will provide a lot of programs, organizations, services, opportunities for our vets and their families that are out there by the thousands, but they don't know about them. So I'll have the subject matter expert come on, talk a little bit about what it is, who qualifies, and how they can go about getting that service. In addition, we're going to have what I call veterans telling their war stories, war stories by veterans to the veterans. Very popular. And just this is just simply to uh bring some community into our veterans out there, some camaraderie. Um, and that has been very popular. Now, you might have noticed that there's been a delay since my last podcast. I'll tell you, life got in the way. Uh some of my uh guest um interviewees uh had things come up and we had to delay editing. And anyhow, uh we're back on track um and we're gonna stay on track. But what that does is I keep um the upcoming schedule for podcasts on my website, which by the way gets better and better. You need to go there, and it's much more in depth, has many more resources than I do on my podcasts. Uh the website is www.pitbull214.com. Uh go there. One of the things that I'll have are the next several podcasts and the dates that we're scheduling to release them. This will all be changing probably this weekend as I'm trying to rearrange given some of the situations. Um, so bear with me, be there. We'll get everything back on track and uh you'll be able to see. I also will remind you that just recently I've also started producing an audio-only podcast, uh, recognizing that not everyone can sit at their computer and see a video. Clearly, the videos are much more demonstrative. You can tell a lot more with the facial expressions, hand gestures, and whatnot, especially when they're we're together talking and responding to each other. However, an audio-only podcast works, like long drives, like doing errands. So we're doing that too. If you go to my website, it'll show you which is which, so you can get on. Again, the website's gonna also have other items like my Normandy trip, lots of pictures and a couple of videos there. So please, when you get a chance, go there and uh please let me know what you think. Now, this podcast today will be uh starring my interviewee, uh, will be Valerie uh Mullikan. Uh Valerie and her husband Steve, he's a Navy uh vet, um, and they started a program in the last several years, veteran and caretaker support. It's a small operation, it's north of Dayton, but they've gone through a lot. There's a real story here about resiliency and determination to get to a point, and they find people, vets in their families who are struggling like they were, and they can help them. It's a good story. So uh please tune in. We'll be right back with that story and join me with uh Valerie Mullikan and veteran and caretaker support. Pitbull, right back. Okay, welcome back to Pitbull 214. I am your host, Rick Perales, an Air Force veteran, and I'm pleased to be with you today. Again, this program is about organizations or programs or opportunities, resources that are out there for veterans that they're not aware of that could help the veteran, not only the veteran, but the veteran in their family. Uh and we have one here. Now the other thing we do is we do what I call war stories. All veterans love war stories, right? We do war stories uh that uh that have some kind of value to them. It teaches you something. I think a lot of you saw uh Larry Drawn, a veteran, a Marine who went over to Afghanistan, lost both his legs, a part of his use of his arm, and his attitude is um amazing. And if you haven't seen that, go back and look at it. Uh today we are fortunate to have someone that has a little bit of both of that. Valerie Mullikans. Mulliken. Mulliken, not Mulligans, Mullikan. Valerie, welcome. Hi. And Steve, he's back there. He's not a camera guy, but he's he's support, right? And Steve is a Navy uh veteran uh and he has some physical issues, and we'll get into that. So uh welcome, thank you for joining us. Um Valerie reached out to me uh through a program that you saw recently with Cassie Barlow and uh many organizations in that uh group for veterans, only for veterans and their families. And Valerie reached out, she has this organization that she started from scratch uh at a necessity and has a great story about that, and now it serves and assists many vets. And so, Valerie, again, thank you for being here. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and where you came from, uh the beginnings.

SPEAKER_03

Um, well, I was born here in the Miami Valley. I was born in Pickwick, Ohio to a pretty prominent family. Um a family business in town.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, my what kind of business?

SPEAKER_03

Uh it was a meat packing business. Uh so anybody who grew up in the Greater Miami Valley, like prior to 1985, would know of the Val Decker Meat Packing Company. Uh, that was my family. I am I'm Val Decker. Uh my maiden name is Decker. And my parents, neither one served in the military. My dad, however, was um public relations coordinator for the Cincinnati Bengals growing up in the 70s, so it was a lot of fun. Uh a lot of public uh activity in my life and a lot of connections throughout my childhood, so it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00

Good.

SPEAKER_03

Uh got into high school and was dating uh dating a gentleman who was in the Navy at the time and uh loped my the middle of my senior year. Uh married the Navy because I got tired of being Val Decker and wanted to explore the world and be able to serve other people. I was called to serve people and I serve to the nth degree. I just love what I get to do. And then uh I I did not expect the time that I was married to my first husband to be what it was. Uh during that time I was able to do a lot of community outreach. I was an activities advisor for the US Navy for Navy housing. That was exciting because I got to serve, I got to coordinate, I got to uh create programming, it was a lot of fun. Didn't get paid for it, but I made lots of great friends who are now my Navy family and long-term family, which is exciting. And then I also in 1991 uh went to Washington, D.C. and fought for the U.S. Navy ships that were in the Eastern Mediterranean to receive imminent danger pay and the awards for desert storm. That was an exciting opportunity also to learn how our federal government works, our department of defense works from a different perspective.

SPEAKER_00

And people don't understand how that advocating for those type of things, how much it matters. And people don't realize how much that advocating means. First for the soldiers, even if they don't get what they want, there's someone out there fighting for them, right?

SPEAKER_03

100%.

SPEAKER_00

But as a former uh state representative, uh it brings it up. You you start listening to it and then you look into it, and that's how you get things like that done. So good on you for doing it and you learn that.

SPEAKER_03

I literally took a critically ill baby. My daughter was born during Desert Storm while my husband was deployed. I took her with me to Washington, D.C. I literally walked through the entire House of Longworth building and knocked on every senator and congressman's door.

SPEAKER_00

I could see that.

SPEAKER_03

I was not backing down these men and women who were on these ships that were firing Tomahawk cruise missiles and scud missiles were landing off of the bow of these ships in the Mediterranean, they were in imminent danger. No doubt. And if a scud missile had hit the bow of the USS Virginia, which is the ship my husband was on, it would have been a nuclear incident because it was a nuclear-powered cruiser. And when I saw the video of the scud missile that came over Israel and landed off the bow of our ship by about two miles, I knew something had to be done.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so clearly you learned how to advocate for troops, troops early.

SPEAKER_03

I did.

SPEAKER_00

Listen, take take me to the next step.

SPEAKER_03

So the next step was I unfortunately ended up um being divorced from my first husband as a result of domestic violence. And that's something that all military men and women are apt to experience as well as their families, especially when you do have war involved, PTSD rears its ugly head and domestic violence happens. So while my first husband was a great sailor, he lacked the ability to get his life together and be a good husband. And today we're friends, and that's a good thing, and he's better. Um, I got lucky though, I got to marry my second, my last, and my best husband. Not a second choice. No. So I I met and married Steve, who needed somebody to be a child care provider for his children. And together we started raising seven kids. Shortly after we started dating, Steve developed uh facial paralysis and numbness, loss of balance. And he asked if I'd go to the doctors with him, and I did. And we learned that his uh brain and his spine has demyelation. Uh Christmas time of 1993, the doctor came in and he said, Well, your brain lights up like a Christmas tree, you have MS. We're gonna do a spinal tap and see what that looks like. And when they did, he came back and said, We don't know what you have. Uh you were in Bahrain during Desert Storm, you were also on a nuclear-powered ship during desert storm, and you're a nuclear engineer. We'll send you to the National Institutes of Health, see if they can figure it out. But for now, you're on a med hold in the Navy and we can't fix you. That was devastating to Steve because he had just gone through a divorce, was now in a new relationship with me. His career is now how many years ago was that? That was in night started in December of 1993. So going into 94. So just a couple years after Desert Storm. And we went from that to March of 1995 when the US Navy said to Steve when he went into work one morning, uh, we're cutting you loose. You're gonna be medically retired, your career's over, you got 30 days to vacate housing and and no job. And we didn't get a tap class, we were not married at the time, but on that day he asked me to marry him. He had no job, no money, no home.

SPEAKER_00

Well, you hit a home run there, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03

Well, you marry me, uh, and an illness that nobody could diagnose. Uh, did not know what that journey was gonna look like. The first ten years out of the Navy was pure pure hell, truth be told. The first ten years was pure hell. So that started our journey.

SPEAKER_00

Well, describe what what what was what were the issues?

SPEAKER_03

Briefly, just the nobody knows what is wrong with Steve. He has even today. Even today, we do not have a definitive diagnosis. And that's okay. The first 10 years it wasn't. We wanted to know what's wrong with him. Can we fix him? Can he go back and finish serving in the Navy? He had 10 years in, he planned to retire from the Navy. He had aspirations to achieve his goals, and they were cut short by no fault of his own.

SPEAKER_00

But he is 100% disabled.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, he's a hundred percent service connected through the veterans administration, and he is also receiving social security disability.

SPEAKER_00

Um that two years with all those kids.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we actually in that time we took in an eighth, we took in an eighth child. So Steve had two, I had five, and then we took in a foster adopt when he was 16, uh, his sophomore year of high school.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, good on you.

SPEAKER_03

So we had we raised eight eight kids.

SPEAKER_00

So he was gonna age out of um child custody.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, well, his mom didn't want to it was a it was a it was a sad situation, but it was a sad situation that we made great. As a matter of fact, just had a conversation with him a little bit ago because he's working at Northrop Grumham and they had Lumpia Queen there for lunch today. And I'm like, you bringing us Lumpia for dinner?

SPEAKER_00

We could have all had that, right? So um uh for for the audience, you will see Valerie's name, phone number, and email address scrolling across and at the very end of the program under credits. Um, if there's one thing I've learned about Valerie and Steve, is they like to communicate and to share and to help. It's about service, as you said right away. So I'm telling you now, as she gets into the specifics of this program, if you think that there's something there for you, your family, and if you even if you live far away from the Dayton area, you could start a program like this in your own hometown if you see the value in it. So uh keep an eye, keep keep your eyes on the scrolling numbers and we'll have her up there. And as we go through this at the end, just feel free to call Valerie, right?

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. Okay, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

So you get to that 10-year point that up to them was hell. That brings you to what year?

SPEAKER_03

Uh nine uh 2005.

SPEAKER_00

So what started getting you over the top?

SPEAKER_03

It started really before that. I I'll back up a little bit. 1999, because we were four years into lotions, potions, pills, and doctors, and Steve was actually working at that time. He worked for Yoskawa Motorman, had a great job and and was working well but missing time from work. I started to participate with the research advisory committee on golf war illness in Washington, D.C. Because I wanted to understand Gulf War Illness. It was just becoming a a piece of the pie. And one of those pieces of that pie are people with neurological conditions from Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

SPEAKER_00

Now, was that an appointee? Did someone have to appoint you to that or are you a smaller?

SPEAKER_03

No, it's just a general the general public can go and participate in those federal advisory committee meetings. You get notifications that there's going to be a meeting. There's an actual committee that sits and they rotate out, and it's physicians, researchers, lay people. I just went and sat and listened and talked to the to the board members and took in all of the information. And I continue to do that today. I don't go to every meeting in DC, but I will continue to communicate with them because of the research that's coming out. I want to advocate.

SPEAKER_00

Let me let let me interrupt. One thing I I learned about Valerie in my first discussions, what do we go to city barbecue or something?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Right? And then as I read her bio and information on her, is there are veterans and veteran spouses and family members who complain. Have every right to complain. I'm not good, but but that's not this young lady. She uh saw an issue and she said, I'm going to do something about it. So, as I understand, you went to DC on your own dime, right? Yes, I still invested her time and money to go get smart. And what else did you do at that time to get yourself ready?

SPEAKER_03

I went back to school.

SPEAKER_00

And what what what'd you learn? What'd you do?

SPEAKER_03

At that time, I I completed my social work degree and was working in social work. In 2005, 10 years out, my husband had been medically retired now from Motoman about three years. He was in a wheelchair, he was on 49 oral prescription drugs a day. And we had eight teenagers. Our lives were miserable. It it was awful. And he came, I got home from work on October 1st of 2005, and his parents were at my home, and he literally wheeled himself out with an arsenal of drugs in his clothes and said, I'm done. You you get the house, the kids. I don't I don't want any of it. I'm leaving. I can't live like this. I can't live with this micromanaging of everything. I I can't live like this. And that was a reality check. I went back to school, got a bachelor's degree in healthcare management with a minor medical research.

SPEAKER_00

Where did you go to school?

SPEAKER_03

Uh for that one? For that particular degree, that was at Franklin University. And I wanted to make a difference. I was gonna figure this out. The doctors weren't listening to us, they just kept pushing more drugs. Nobody wanted to talk to one another to help figure out what was going on. So somebody had to. I wanted my marriage back. I I love this man. I wanted my family back. Um, you know, we were a step family, but we were never a step family. We stepped right into unity and we were a unified family: mother, father, brother, sister. That's the way our family operates. And anybody walks in a room with my family will have no idea what kids or whose.

SPEAKER_00

You guys are Christians too.

SPEAKER_03

We absolutely are. So that's what happened that very first day, October 1st. My knees hit the ground. I called our youth pastor, who I worked under as a youth leader volunteer, let him know what was going on. He came, he prayed with me. Every single day I talked to Steve.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, take your time.

SPEAKER_03

I'd asked to pray with him. I read a devotional to him, and I have no idea if he listened. I have no idea. Uh that year, December of that year, uh, on my birthday, he asked for a divorce. That was rough. That was really, really rough. He said, if you've got to have an answer now, I want a divorce, I'm done. And I was like, No, you're not. No, you're not. I didn't work this hard to come this far to advocate for you. And so we flipped the script. New year of 2006, we flipped the script and we decided that okay, we had a life coach, we were going to figure this out together. We were gonna figure out how to get Steve walking again and how to get him off these drugs.

SPEAKER_00

And did you have your additional degree then?

SPEAKER_03

My third degree was my bachelor's degree in healthcare management. Uh it was dual actually with human resource management as well. Uh I finished it in 2011. Okay. Okay, good. So yeah. And prior to that, I had two associate degrees from Medicine State Community College in PICWA. So lots of great things happening there. Got this degree, started asking educated questions, started challenging doctors, wasn't getting quite the answers we wanted. But in the meantime, Steve and I changed our diet, we changed our mindset, we changed what we were doing. But the most important thing that we did is we put our faith in God first, and we were determined to define the disease process rather than allow it to define us. And when you change that mindset right there, everything else falls into place.

SPEAKER_00

So I would um uh like to uh share with my audience again that uh these folks uh didn't they weren't waiting on any help. Uh they took the initiative to take matters into their own hands. And you'll see a lot of the guests of my uh program do the same thing. They uh started getting healthy in body and spirit and and with each other. Uh they got educated. So take us to the next level when you start the program.

SPEAKER_03

So at this point, we start working on things by 2008, 2007, 2008, Steve is now walking again. We're reducing medications, and we're getting a lot of pushback from doctors. Why aren't you coming to these appointments? Why aren't you doing these therapies? What we're finding is that he's getting healthier, I'm getting healthier. We reduced him from 49 oral prescription drugs a day down to seven. That was huge. Uh, in the in that time frame though, Steve also developed a neurological condition called trigeminal neuralgia. And it is literally known as a suicide disease. If you do a Google search and you type in suicide disease, trigeminal neuralgia is the very first thing that comes up. And it it's horrific. And one third of one percent of all people get it on both sides of their Face that encompasses all six branches of the trigeminal nerve in the face. But it's literally a lightning bolt to the face, and it rendered Steve unable to talk, it rendered him unable to eat, drink, think. It was horrific. Nobody knows how to treat it. Nobody knows how to effectively treat it. There are surgeries that only last short term. There are drugs, but Steve was reacting to the drugs, so the drugs were not an option. He's on a few drugs today that help to control it a little bit. But the narcotics, opioids, they do not touch the pain. Benzodiazepines don't touch the pain. It is literally a suicide nerve. It is horrible. And we've been dealing with that now for 20 years. And that's been an interesting journey, which I can grow into as we continue to talk here today. Um by 2007, Steve's out of a wheelchair, he's walking, we're reducing the drugs. I was on six medications when we started that process and was now off of medication. He lost over 100 pounds. I lost about 68 pounds. That's huge. That's huge. And it was just changing our mindset, what we were eating, how active we were, and we were no longer living for doctor's appointments. We went from a dozen appointments a week to a dozen appointments a month. That's huge. That's freedom. That's freedom, my friend. We're not living for lotions, potions, pills, and doctors. Nope. No. We're living our life.

SPEAKER_00

And what a what a testament, uh testimony about taking control of your life. But you went fur one further than that, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03

I did.

SPEAKER_00

Then you said, well, if we went through all this, everyone there's got to be a lot of people out there going through the same thing, right?

SPEAKER_03

That's when you came up with we found we found the purpose in all of this. We've we felt like God was telling us, I gave you all this for a reason. Now take it and we're and make it one step further. So I went back to school, got my master's degree in public administration nonprofit, and we established Operation Veteran and Caregiver Support. And the whole mission is to connect.

SPEAKER_00

And again, we will have Operation Caregiver, Veteran Caregiver, and Support. We'll have the website on the screen so you can look it up and see what's involved, even in more detail than what Valerie will share.

SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. So the mission is literally to connect veterans and their families to the resources they've earned, empowering them to use those resources in an effort to transform the quality of their life. And that came about out of my own frustration of navigating the Department of Defense military treatment facilities, the civilian medical facilities, and the veterans administration. The system, when we came into the system in the 90s, was very broken. The system today is vastly different, but still you struggle to navigate it. You know, you have to make a phone call to talk to somebody to make an appointment. And you may get an appointment hotline. Today you get an appointment line and you want to talk to the doctor. You don't want to make an appointment, but you want to talk to the doctors. But you get the appointment line, and then you've got to make another call and then another call. And eventually veterans give up. Veterans give up after that third phone call. They don't want to keep making phone calls, they want to talk to the person they need to talk to now. And I don't blame them. It's very frustrating. That's pretty much the reason why I became an advocate for myself.

SPEAKER_00

So how do you how do you solve that problem?

SPEAKER_03

Um for me, I'm in your program. We'll make the phone calls for you. They quit the phone calls for you.

SPEAKER_00

So, okay, so how do they get a hold of you? How do they even know about you?

SPEAKER_03

You can find us on the web at operationveterancaregiver.org. You can call us at 937-570-6460, preferably Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. You can also text us, and then you can also find us on Facebook. It's the only social media platform that we have, and it is growing by leaps and bounds right now.

SPEAKER_00

And we will put all that stuff up there. Um all the stuff that you talked about. Uh, but but you do much more than that. So so there are really no qualifications for a veteran to get involved in this. You help veterans that need help, period.

SPEAKER_03

We do help veterans that need help, period. What we are able to do as a nonprofit organization and not funded by any government agency is we are able to discern who we serve that's a veteran. If you sign the dotted line to serve our country and lay your life down for our country, we can serve you. Even if you had a dishonorable discharge or you were National Guard or Reserve or the spouse of or the uh children, immediate children of, or the widow of. We do not turn anybody away from all of our programming. We have some programming that is very limited to our honorably discharged or general under honorable discharge veterans. We have programming that's limited to just women, we have programming limited to just men. Um but we we don't turn anybody away because we believe that there are, and we've seen it, I've actually worked over nine cases of veterans who had dishonorable discharges, and I was able to connect them with veteran service officers and have those overturned. And rightfully so, because of the things that they were dishonorably discharged for that aren't a dishonorable discharge. That's a big deal. That changes a life.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so let's talk about all the other services that resources that you provide people that come to you in need.

SPEAKER_03

So initially, we were going to be a resource hub where people would come in and we were like the Rolodex and we would just make the connections for them. That evolved in December of 2020 when we had a veteran who was referred to us by a county agency that needed some support at Christmas time. We discovered he was struggling with the isolation of the COVID pandemic. And when we started to peel back that onion, we discovered that he not only was struggling with that, but being a combat Vietnam veteran, he couldn't go and join a VFW American Legion Am Vets DAV because of the alcohol. And so we were trying to source out a place where he could meet with veterans outside of the VA Medical Center to gather safely. And there wasn't anything. So we created it. We created the mustard mingle. We meet twice a month for that currently. Uh it is a very simple, basic program. Anyone can replicate it. I'm actually working with an organization over east of Columbus right now to help them replicate that. Very exciting. Uh we serve a dinner and we have a guest speaker, an activity, or entertainment. Sometimes it can be a very entertaining guest speaker. It's very, it's very dynamic and eclectic, and we have a lot of good fun with it. It allows the veterans to come in at a safe place, bring their families and connect, build camaraderie.

SPEAKER_00

Radar.

SPEAKER_03

And it's exciting. And I love the name. When we were trying to figure out what are we gonna call this, I was like, well, let's see. You know, they have morning muster. And our director of development's an army veteran wife and caregiver, and she's like, Yeah, they have morning muster. And then what? I said, Well, and then they're just mingling, and that's how we came up with the name.

SPEAKER_00

I gotta tell you, I didn't know that. I couldn't figure that out. Okay, that's a great program. You do it twice a month.

SPEAKER_03

Twice a month, currently.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, and it's in the Dayton area, North Dayton area.

SPEAKER_03

It is so on the first Tuesday of every month we meet in Troy at our office at 1001 North County Road 25A, across from the Miami County Fairgrounds. And then on the last Wednesday of the month, we meet in Tip City at the Tip Center at 855 North Third Street. And these all begin around five o'clock and they run till 7, 7:30, 8 o'clock. It just depends uh what everybody wants to do. We are really very laid back on this and just keep the community uh where they are comfortable being.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, let's talk about some of the other things you do.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, so we have a food pantry that was established in this in the winter of uh 22-23. Uh that came actually after my husband's 11th brain surgery to address the trigeminal neuralgia in December of 2022. Uh my husband has 11th brain surgery, and on our way home, he developed a brain hemorrhage. And we ended up in Kentucky, and it was just before Christmas, and we had our Santa Suite shop for our families, and we had our outreach for our needy families, the Christmas baskets that were supposed to go out within four and and nine days or four and six days, respectfully. And I called my team and I said, You guys gotta handle it. I have to be with my husband. I'm walking away. You guys, you're gonna run with it or you're not. You can cancel sweet shop if you need to, but make sure those families get their Christmas.

SPEAKER_00

And I sure they took you took you very seriously. They did. Okay, we're running out of time. I'm gonna ask you a few questions.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh, what about you have a basket for houses? Briefly tell us what that's about. That sounded pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03

So that evolved out of our food pantry in serving our veterans. We have what's called the welcome home basket. We've now joined forces with Volunteers of America, the VA Homeless Program, and St. Vincent dePaul. And when they get a veteran rehoused, we jump in and we take care of um all the welcome home needs. We give them brand new bedding, brand new bath tiles, brand new kitchen wares, and we fill their their home with groceries. And the whole mission of that is these are the things that are overlooked that are very costly. And if you've been homeless and you haven't had a job and whatnot, affording a shower curtain is too much. And so we make sure that they have all those things. That's the empowerment component. And that came from serving people out of our food pantry and hearing stories. And then the Indian Lake tornadoes, that just kind of was the one-two punch, and now we have a blessing fund. So that blessing fund helps with those homeless and you know what?

SPEAKER_00

This is exactly where where I'm going.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

This is expensive. So I don't know if you have a QR code or but we're gonna put where people could go if they want to donate, right? You take donations.

SPEAKER_03

We do take donations.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, talk a little bit about the money part of it.

SPEAKER_03

So we are 100% donor funded. We do not get government grants, we do not have any government funding, state, local, or federal.

SPEAKER_00

And you're a nonprofit.

SPEAKER_03

We are a nonprofit. We received our nonprofit status on February 20th of 2020. Welcome to COVID. Good for you. Um, yeah, so we are 100% uh donor funded, and all donations are tax deductible. So we do take financial donations as well as goods donations. So if you uh wanted to contribute to our food pantry, you can do that. If you want to contribute to our blessing fund, you can do that. If you want to contribute to our welcome home baskets, you can do that. And then we also don't want you just to give. We want to be able to invest in you as well. So we want to be reciprocal and connect with you or your business and give back. So we do a corporate uh program as well where we will come in and we will do resource events, bring in breakfast, bring in lunch, bring in snacks, where we connect with the people that work for you too. So, like we have a great relationship with Collins Aerospace, with Tella, Doors and Windows. Uh, those are two big ones that we do. We'll go in and we'll actually do an event for their people.

SPEAKER_00

So a couple more questions briefly. We had a couple minutes left. Um again, I emphasize that uh we're just taking you're taking care of a small contingent of vets and their families here in this area. But the need is everywhere. Right. So if there's people out there thinking, boy, that sounds like something neat, something maybe I can help. I've been through kind of the same thing. What would you tell them? What would your advice be besides give you a call?

SPEAKER_03

Well, the first thing I would say is what's stopping you? That's that's the very first thing I'm gonna ask about.

SPEAKER_00

But some people need a little help, guidance.

SPEAKER_03

If you kick in the butt if you will. Because there isn't enough support. And our veteran communities are disconnected because there isn't enough support. We are really blessed right here in the greater Miami Valley. We have the largest contingency of nonprofit organizations of anywhere in the United States, right here in the Miami Valley. So we're really blessed by that. But there are places that don't have that. And when people are calling me from uh Fort Worth, Texas, and we're able to source out things for them, but there isn't anything there for them, that's huge. You know, we connected a caregiver with a husband in critical care in Fort Worth, Texas, in a hospital, a veteran, Vietnam veteran, no less, with a place to shower, hot meals through the the Vietnam Veterans of America, Texas State Council, and with a group of people from the chaplaincy at the Navy Reserve base there that got that family through that tragic time in their life.

SPEAKER_00

So it sounds like, again, what I said, you'd be a good starting point. Because every situation's gonna be different, right? Absolutely. And you've seen so much of this, you can say, well, I would start with, do you have a veteran services? These things are easy to find on on the website, by the way, if if you know how to look and where look, right? Right. So um as I've said before, uh, I think last week we started my website, Pitbull 214 website, and that's gonna have information that takes my discussions a bit higher. And so it'll have this organization on there and many others like that. So it'd be another good starting point. So we'll get you on there, right? One last question. What advice would you give to someone that's gone through what what would you do differently? What advice would you give someone? Besides, you might have started earlier. You started, it sounds like when you had to start, because you had seven or eight kids. Um, what advice would you give someone out there listening saying, boy, I'd like to, maybe I can, you know, that kind of thing. A little wishy-washy.

SPEAKER_03

Don't wait. Don't wait. When we procrastinate or we're complacent, it steals our quality of life. It steals time that you can't get back. I like that. Don't wait.

SPEAKER_00

You're right.

SPEAKER_03

And so if you need if you need that help, give me a call. I'll help motivate you. I'll encourage you. I will I will push you along. I want everybody to have what my husband and I have.

SPEAKER_00

I saw that the minute I met you. And I loved it. That's why I wanted to get you on the show. Listen, I thank you so much. Show show everyone the cup, your guest cup that you get there. Um and um I hope that you get for tea. Yeah, well, I hope I hope you get a lot of business, a lot not business per se, but a lot of calls, a lot of interest. Um, and uh if if we find that maybe you start doing something larger and expanding, I'd love to have you back on.

SPEAKER_03

Well, we are expanding. Uh we served less than 100 people two years ago out of our food pantry. We served less than 200 people in 2024. 2025 we served 973 people, and we are on par to do an excess of 1200 this year.

SPEAKER_00

All those people you've impacted, all those lives, the kids, the cousins, the and while we were driving here today, we were helping a homeless veteran.

SPEAKER_03

Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_00

People that believe in service, there's no there's no constraints. Service is service is service, right? So I can't thank you enough for joining me. I can only wish you the best, and I'm sure we're gonna be through Cassie. You're gonna be at Veterans Moving Forward as a matter of fact.

SPEAKER_03

We will be at Vets Moving Forward. I'll be there as well. That's a great program, and we'd love to support you.

SPEAKER_00

And I just had Cassie on. Her her video would be on Friday. You can look for it to talk about that program. Yeah, it's a great program. Tons of people that want to help. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you do for all the vets for the families. Uh, it's hard to even quantify the impact you're having. We just know it's there. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03

Love it. Thank you. God bless you. Thanks for having me. God bless you too.

SPEAKER_00

Pitbull, we'll be right back. So welcome back. I hope you appreciate and and enjoyed that uh interview. Um, these folks are are so resilient and um so dedicated to helping vets that it really does move me. And I hope it moved you too. They've gone through a lot to uh do what they have done and to um end up where they are today. Now they're small and they're in a local area, but I'm telling you, they're besides the uh the story of just uh breaking down the hurdles to get where they need to go, and Valerie just was amazing in that in that capacity. Um, it shows you if you want to do something, you can start it all by yourself. And uh they saw people struggling with the same type of uh indecisiveness and lack of direction that they had, and so they decided to do something about it. And it's a heartwarming story, and they are making an impact. So uh Valerie, thank you for that, Steve. And um, you'll see their information here and at the end under credits. Uh please feel free to uh give them a shout. And uh if you're somewhere else in another state and you would like to do the same thing, I'm sure that Valerie would be uh more than willing to give you a hand. So again, I want to give a plug to the website www.pitwolf214.com. Uh a shout out to Craig Johnson for uh developing it for me. And I really would like to push everyone there to see all the details and the resources. Um uh there's a place that you can go if you'd like to be interviewed, if you think you have a program or story of note that would fit this program. Uh just a lot of opportunities, and uh I will continue to grow that. There, there's a schedule of events uh locally and whatever anyone provides for me around the country. So keep an eye on it, take a look at it, uh, and thank you again, Craig. Um, I do want to also give a shout out to our troops um and thank them for all they're doing. And as I always do at the end of my podcast, I want to give a plug for my next guest and the next episode of Pitbull 214. My next guest uh in a couple weeks will be Jerry Lynn Maples. Uh, Jerry Lynn is the um uh area president for the Blue Star families, and I have been to many events with her. They do a wonderful job. They it's it does a lot, the organization does a lot, but what I see happening is they have events, they invite military families who, by the way, don't make a lot of money and some really struggle, especially when one of the one of the lead parents are deployed. Um they have uh events where the families could come, the kids could come, they have entertainment for the kids, and they offer the families um uh food, household items, diapers, just things to make the financial load uh a little less. Uh they do much more, and Jerry Lynn will talk about that, but I think you'll enjoy what she has to share. And the the bottom line is uh she only has our area, southwest uh Ohio. Uh at least our families are everywhere. So if you know a struggling military family, uh this might be good for them or you to listen to and pass on to them. So with that, I want to thank our viewers again. Uh, we can't do this without you. I appreciate you all, and I look forward to hearing from you. And until our next program, it's Pet Bull Out. Thank you.

unknown

Mr.

SPEAKER_02

Worldwide with the iconic show here.

SPEAKER_00

So let me go over a few notes as I close. Uh please stay right there if you want. Um, okay, as I said in the interview with Valerie, we have a website, it's live, and uh and we're still putting it together, but what it will do is you can't possibly talk about all the resources and the details of all the um opportunities out there for veterans and their families in 20 minutes. Uh this will give you that next layer, many resources out there. Um all my podcasts will be on there, and we're just gonna keep developing. I'm also gonna have a tab with events. So uh if you have an event going on in the Miami Valley or wherever you are, uh I'll be happy to put it on my website so other people can see it. So give that a look. Um, as I usually do, I like to talk a little bit about the next program. Uh we've decided that we're gonna do a podcast every second Friday and fourth Friday. Now that I have assistance and the help I need in the editing, uh I can program that properly. So uh next the next one will be um the guest will be Daryl Whitcomb. He flew classified missions in Vietnam. He was called a raven. And the stories of the ravens are amazing. Uh they're the guys that flew on the other side of the line of demarcation. They couldn't fly in uniforms, they had to give up all their identifications, and if they were shot down and captured, uh the the U.S. wouldn't claim them. They're on their own. It was a very dangerous job. Uh, and it's an amazing story. Daryl happened uh uh to write the book uh Rescue of Bat 21, which I'm reading right now. He's kind enough to send it to me. Uh uh a thrilling and um you know one of the stories that make you think, wow, this is a true hero. Uh Daryl's a great guy, and uh I'm sure that you will enjoy that program next time. Uh with that, I want to say, with that, I want to say, as I always do, uh thank you for everyone that's listening. Our numbers, like I said, we got over two million um uh views on Instagram, which just blew me away. But more and more people are listening, and we're getting that mostly because you're sharing that with them. So uh we will keep making impacts on the veterans, on their families, as long as you keep helping me. So give me ideas, give me programs, and give me war stories. We love it all. So with that, I'm gonna say, God bless you, God bless our troops, keep them safe, and bring them home to their families and pit bull out. Boom. Uh help me out. Is it right there? Oh, okay. Okay, and yes.