Action 2 Impact Podcast with Gwen Jones
Time to turn “actions into impact” With the Action 2 Impact Podcast. From right down the street to all around the world, get to know the amazing people and what they are doing to make this world a better place. Have them inspire you to get out there and have your “actions” make an “impact” everywhere you go!
Action 2 Impact Podcast with Gwen Jones
ENCORE SHOW: I'm A Rotarian Podcast Season 8 EP. 3 Richard Lalley & Operation Warm
WINTER ENCORE SHOW:
Time to think warm thoughts, and time to help kids stay warm too. Today we meet Richard Lalley and Operation Warm, a non-profit that was started by Rotarians to bring smiles and new warm jackets to kids who need them all over the USA.
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Join me as I talk to those "amazing people turning their Actions 2 Impact all over the world. #BE THE CHANGE
Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:Hi there, everybody. Gwen Jones here from the podcast to say that this particular episode, there was a little bit of a technical glitch with me, not with our guest. So I sound kind of like I'm in a tunnel. Not bad. It's just my computer trying to do its best it can to pick up what I'm saying. But our particular amazing guest, Richard Lally, is loud and clear. And that's what you really want to listen to, right? So hang on, bear with me, and enjoy the show. Hi there, everyone. I'm Gwen Jones, and welcome once again to the I'm a Rotarian podcast, the weekly podcast where I introduce you to amazing people that proudly call themselves Rotarians. Or this week, we're talking warmth, warm, being warm, warm, wonderful jackets for kids. That's right. Richard Lally from Operation Warm is joining me. Richard's got quite a story about not only how he joined Operation Warm, but how wonderful Operation Warm is making kids, well, warmer. So join us, won't you? The conversation starts right now about Operation Warm with Richard Lally. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Today, we're going to talk about warmth, and I'm going to take a few pictures because I am dressed for warmth today. I've got my vest on, but we're going to talk about Operation Warm, and we're going to talk about it with one of its head honchos, and a name that might be familiar to some of you. Richard Lally is with me today, and he's a longtime Rotarian. He's been known as Mr. Do-It-All for his club in 6440, but when he's not doing it all. He's talking about warmth, and he's bringing warmth not only to our hearts, but to a lot of kids' bodies, and we're going to find out all about it. Richard, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It is great to have you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you, Gwen. I'm glad to be here. This is fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you, thank you, thank you. I found you in Houston. You're one of my many guests that I found when I went to the convention, and I got to learn all about Operation Warmth a little bit. And it was so busy, those few days in Houston fly by. They sure do. So could you tell me, just tell everybody what the heck Operation Warm is. It's not warmth. Correction there, everybody. Operation Warm. Tell me about it.
SPEAKER_02:So Operation Warm is a Rotary Club-founded, nationally active nonprofit organization that has a very focused mission. We provide warmth, confidence, and hope to children living in need across the United States and now a little bit in Canada through the gift of brand new winter coats and now over the last two years, brand new shoes.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:And we believe that when a child who doesn't have much, and there unfortunately are a lot of those around the world and in the United States, When a child who doesn't have much is given a gift of a brand new coat, they receive not only physical warmth, but emotional warmth. They receive confidence that comes from having a brand new coat, one that they've picked out the color. They feel so proud of it. You wouldn't believe these kids will get their coats on at a school. We'll give that to them at an event in the school and we'll see them an hour later in the lunchroom wearing their coat, even though the school's 80 degrees. because they don't really regulate temperature very well in a lot of these old schools in big cities, right? But they don't want to take their coat off. They're so proud of it. So they get confidence from that. And then perhaps most importantly, they get, we talk about this a lot in Rotary, they get hope. They get hope that comes from knowing that somebody outside of their immediate circle of their neighborhood and their family, somebody cares enough about them to have taken the effort and put in the small amount of money it takes to but it's a big amount of money to them to get a brand new coat to them.
SPEAKER_01:Now, you've said, first of all, I know this is based out of Chicago. No,
SPEAKER_02:actually, we're based out of suburban Philadelphia, and we were started by the Rotary Club of Longwood that meets in Kennett Square, and they're in District 7450. And it started in 1998, so we've been around a long time.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:When our founder, a guy named Dick Sanford, he had been a technology entrepreneur. He had started a technology distribution business in the late 80s and ran it through the 90s. And it became a very large, publicly traded$5 billion company. And right before the tech bubble, he was I guess he sold it off to a number of other companies and he was unemployed and didn't have a whole lot to do and was convinced by a friend to become a charter member at the Rotary Club of Longwood. And while that was taking place, he was driving one December morning when it was like the first snowfall in Philadelphia and he saw some kids. in the Kennett Square area waiting for a school bus with no coats. And he couldn't understand how that could happen because it's a pretty wealthy
SPEAKER_01:area. It wasn't just a bunch of kids that took off without their coats. No, these were little kids.
SPEAKER_02:These were little kids and they were freezing. And it was, you know, he just couldn't understand it. And he was at his Rotary Club and he asked the superintendent of schools, who, of course, is in the club, right, you know, how this could be. He said, these kids are poor. They're just stupid. They're not wearing coats. He says, no, they're poor kids. We have a lot of migrant farmers around here and their kids are in our school district and those families don't make much money. And it's not surprising. You should see what these kids wear to school sometimes. So he got upset about it and went to the local department store and bought every coat they had. He bought 58 coats and arranged to have a meeting at the school with some of those kids and their parents, took some friends from Rotary and some friends from church and did the first Operation Warm coat gifting event. And it touched his heart very much that he then, you know, kind of was a, you know, how it works in rotary. Somebody gets an idea and rotary is all forward as long as they do it. So he did it. And, you know, some members of the club put some money in and he started working himself up the supply chain. He was in this, he knows the supply chain. That's what he did in the, in his business with computer industry. So ran a, program for a couple of years through the club, and then the district, the guy who was the district governor in the year 2000 loved the concept and said, we're doing 2,000 coats for the year 2000 in suburban Philadelphia. They raised enough money to do that, and instead of buying them at a store, they were getting them quasi-wholesale from Burlington Coat Factory or whatever. And shortly thereafter, about 2002, he decided it was time to start another company. So he formed a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and he was pretty active in the philanthropy community in the Delaware Valley area, had some good connections, and he hired a woman who he knew who had been in the nonprofit world and knew how to write grant applications. And they were off and running. He was able to get it funded with his own money and with some other friends of his who were you know, active in the philanthropy community, but that's not sustainable. You got to get it up and going.
SPEAKER_00:We have
SPEAKER_02:multiple donors going and they got that happening. And then one day you'll like this because it's from where you're from. He was at his Rotary Club and he was giving an update on how it was going. I think this was 2001 or 2002. And there was a Rotarian visiting because he was in town on business selling something or other. And he was from the Rotary Club of Woodinville. in
SPEAKER_00:Washington,
SPEAKER_02:in District 5030. And he heard Dick do this update and he came up to Dick and he said, hey, we've been doing a Coats for Kids program with all with new coats for years. Might we be able to piggyback on you and get coats with you? And that was the start of what we now call our community managed partnerships, where we have community organizations who get coats from us and leverage, help us build our scale and And they're able to leverage our scale, if you will. And they then find the beneficiaries and manage the coat distributions locally. So that started with the Rotary Club in Washington, which now we had a kind of Philadelphia and Washington sectors. And here we are now in 2002. And in December, we will distribute our coat to the five millionth child since we started.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. So here's something that you've said several times in that story is, quote, brand new coats.
UNKNOWN:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So why do they have to be brand new? And I say that because, I mean, every kid's grown. The coat may be in fine condition, but the kid has grown out of it. Why do you guys insist on new coats?
SPEAKER_02:We believe that when a child gets a brand new coat, They not only get physical warmth, but they get emotional warmth. They know that they're valued. They're worthy of a new coat as opposed to somebody's hand-me-down. Think about it. I'm not a second or third in line. I'm the oldest of four children. I was
SPEAKER_01:going to say, I was the youngest. For people who were the youngest,
SPEAKER_02:you grew up with a lot of hand-me-downs. How did you feel on Christmas morning or Hanukkah or whatever, your birthday, when you got a brand new article of clothing? How did you feel?
SPEAKER_01:You felt fantastic, right? You felt like a
SPEAKER_02:million bucks.
SPEAKER_01:It
SPEAKER_02:was yours. It was all yours. One of the things that happens at our coat distributions, which is really quite It's a little bit sad, but it happens to me every year when I'm at a coat giving event because I go to quite a few. A child will come up and say, oh, thank you, and I want to hug your knee or whatever, you know, hug your leg and say thank you for this coat. When do I have to give it back?
SPEAKER_01:Again, the hand-me-down kind of thing. They're just assuming that it's got to go now. Somewhere else afterwards, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. So what we've done, we did this years ago, is we have in our coats, our coats now are manufactured for us. We don't go through other retailers. We get them from the same places that Penny's or Walmart gets theirs from. And they're manufactured for us to our specifications, packaged the way we want them to be packaged to facilitate coat giving events and coat distributions, not to facilitate retail merchandising. So most coats are packed with, you know, two or three coats of a variety of sizes because it's easier to merchandise a store that way. Well, it's easier to do a coat giving event if you have boxes that are all one size. Because you can then lay them out by size more easily.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So anyway, in the coats that we've designed, we have a name tag that's right behind the collar and it says made just for you. And that's where... At a coat giving event, one of the volunteers that's working it will write the name of the child with a Sharpie permanent marker in that coat and say, this coat's all yours. You don't have to give it back. It's yours. It was made for you. And the kids go crazy. The kids go crazy over it. And you just, unless you've seen it, you cannot believe the emotional impact it has on children.
SPEAKER_01:So you say that these jackets have to be to spec. Is that true? Is that the style of the jacket or just how it is marketed? I mean, did you guys actually think about what a kid's jacket
SPEAKER_02:would
SPEAKER_01:be like? Because, I mean, that almost makes you sound like the– I mean, we have designers. I'm talking to you with a design coat now. So what's the specs? What does a kid's coat mean?
SPEAKER_02:So going into the specifications for the coat is a number of things. Does it have a hood on it? Is the hood detachable or not? You know, so all of our coats have a detachable hood with a zipper. Our coats have one of the things our kids love about our coats is they're so warm and fuzzy. Well, that's because we have a fleece lining in them and they love that fleece lining. They love the way that makes them feel. And then color is extremely important. And we work with a number, you know, we've now we're well beyond just working with Rotary Clubs. We work with lots of other community based organizations and lots and lots of charitable foundations and corporations. And some of our corporate partners like Nordstrom and Abercrombie and Fitch and Benjamin Moore, the paint people, but they're the color people.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Benjamin Moore, every year consult, they have their color people consult with us on what colors to pick and what colors to put together with other colors and Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch Hollister is one of their brands that has worked with us for years. And Nordstrom, they have people and they're buyers who were buying children's clothing. They also consult with us. We'll show them some of the things we're thinking about. And I say, yeah, we'd like this better than this. And here's why. And this is what the trends are going to be next year. So we're always on trend.
SPEAKER_01:You're always on trend. I mean, I think that's really important. So as a kid that's going to go to school, they're not going to be one of those kids. They're just going to be kids.
SPEAKER_02:Our kids, our coats are not a uniform. Our coats have most years somewhere around 72 different color combinations.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. And they also don't have your logo on them either. Well,
SPEAKER_02:they have our logo on it, but it's on the inside. It's on the inside. It's where the name tag is. But there's nothing on the outside that says that this is a poor kid's coat.
SPEAKER_01:There's nothing that says it's a poor kid's coat. Exactly. I think that's awesome. And, you know, being I'm in Washington State, I know the Nordstrom name very well. And so it's kind of funny you would mention that one of these organizations was in Woodinville, which is not far from where the Nordstroms are. And it's just kind of funny that it had to go all the way out to Philadelphia to To come back to Woodinville for coats. So you said 2 million coats so far? No,
SPEAKER_02:it'll be 5 million coats in December of this year. We expect to deliver our 5 millionth coat. And we're now running at a rate of about 600,000 coats per year.
SPEAKER_01:Is it going up or is it going down?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, we've never had a year that's gone down. We've gone up every year, so... This year we'll do over 600,000 kids will get a coat from us and our partners. Without our partners, it doesn't happen. For us to get it.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And how many states then is this in all 50 states?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. I mean, we don't distribute coats in Hawaii, but we have donors in Hawaii.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:We do distribute coats, not a lot, but some coats in Florida. We do more than you would think in Texas.
UNKNOWN:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:But, you know, in Dallas or in Houston, when it gets to be 40 degrees or a couple of years ago when they had that ice storm and it took out all the power in the state, you know, they had below freezing weather. They're freezing when it's 50 degrees. You know, they have that that hot climate, thin blood.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, I was different. I mean, I can talk to you in a vest. But have they ever thought of that? You know, I've seen jackets, you say the hood zips off. What about the arms zipping off and it makes into a vest? Or are we just talking all of a sudden kids are going to lose pieces of these coats everywhere?
SPEAKER_02:There's that. And I know we find that the coats are, you know, they're one of our biggest markets in the country is Houston, believe it or not. So there's a need for them and the kids want them and they don't need them to the same degree that somebody in North Dakota is going to need a coat. But they need them, and they love them.
SPEAKER_01:And it's worth doing. So it's interesting. We had Sanj from Shelterbox on the show not too long ago, the CEO, and another amazing charity that was started by Rotarians. Same year
SPEAKER_02:that Operation Worm started. Both started the same year.
SPEAKER_01:That was a good year, people. Yeah. And one thing I said to him was, what would it take for us not to need you? Like, we would really love it if Operation Warm and Shelter Box went out of business. I think
SPEAKER_02:there's going to always be a need for Shelter Box because there's always going to be natural disasters. And, you know, the work they do is fantastic. To get rid of our need, you'd have to get rid of poverty in the United States. And, you know, how to do that? Well, now you're getting into a political question. I don't know if you want to get into a political discussion.
SPEAKER_01:All right, we're friends. Let's keep it at... Well, I do find it very... That does bring up something that's very interesting. And that is, I believe in Rotary. And I will speak for myself here. Sometimes we in North America think of the problems out of North America, like we're building wells in Kenya or we're working with sanitation in Haiti and we're working what your particular organization is doing and saying, hey, let's look in the mirror here. This distinctively is a problem in the United States and Canada. And tell us a little bit more about Canada as well.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we're in Canada. We don't have a huge footprint in Canada. Most of our involvement in Canada is through some of our corporate partners who want to do coat distributions with their employees at schools in Canada. We do have a couple of rotary clubs that have partnered with us, including one that I met at the Houston Convention in British Columbia, who brought in quite a few of our coats this year. But it's a relatively new market for us, if you will. And I don't know if the... I'm not an expert on childhood poverty and poverty in Canada as much as I am in the United States, but I think it's a little bit more widespread in the United States. I think the safety net in Canada is a little bit more robust than it is in the United States.
SPEAKER_01:I was told that when it comes to need... be it food, be it shelter, be it clothing, that children are kind of the– I wouldn't say not counted in our homeless and needed, but they're kind of overlooked. Is that– I don't
SPEAKER_02:know.
SPEAKER_01:No? You don't think so?
SPEAKER_02:There's a federal law whose name is escaping me right now, but every school district of the country must have– knowledge of, count, and then put plans in place for how they're going to provide accommodative assistance to children that are homeless and highly mobile.
SPEAKER_01:Highly mobile. That's a, I've never, so homeless, that one I understand.
SPEAKER_02:Anybody who is in education would know what I'm talking about and would be able to tell you the name of the federal act that that it's responsive to. But every school district in the country has such a plan and has somebody on staff whose responsibility is providing accommodative services and support to homeless and highly mobile children. And there are more that are highly mobile than there are homeless. And what highly mobile means is they're couch surfing. Their mother has left a bad situation. and has temporarily gotten some nonprofit or governmental agency to put them up in a hotel for two weeks, and then they lose that. And then they go hang out with their sister for a week or two, and then that welcomes worn out. And so then they go live with a friend for a period of time. And then maybe they're lucky enough to navigate the system such that they can get into a transitional housing situation while they're trying to get qualified for the voucher program.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And what happens there is that this is particularly, you know, as you're dealing with large urban school districts is that A lot of the schools in Chicago or New York or in Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, that school will have 10 to 15 children leaving every day. I mean, leaving that school, no longer going to school there. And 10 or 15 new children showing up every day.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:So
SPEAKER_01:you may have put a code on every single one of those kids on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but there's 20 more next week. There's 20 more next week. Yeah, yeah. Because the population is so mobile because they just don't have the income to be able to afford a 12-month lease somewhere or something happened in their life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So– Operation Warm is, I want to dabble just a little bit more on it. And of course, I'll let all my listeners know, operationwarm.org, please check them out. You said shoes. Yeah. First of all, why would you get into shoes? Because to me, a coat seems to be small, medium, or large, right? Maybe an extra large. No, no,
SPEAKER_02:we carry two T's, three T's, fours. 5 slash 6, 7 slash 8, 10 slash 12, 14 slash 16, 18, and adults small, medium, large, and extra large.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so my question of moving into shoes seems like, oh, we got this thing down. This ain't no biggie at all.
SPEAKER_02:So we decided to move into shoes because it was one of the things that we're asked about a lot. we did a look at the landscape to see if there's people that are doing it. And there are a couple, but not very many. There's a lot of people doing Coats for Kids programs, especially Youth Coats for Kids programs. It's not very well known as a need, but a child, a growing young child will go through three or four pairs of shoes a year, not because they've worn them out, but because they've outgrown them. And you can't wear a pair of shoes that's too small.
SPEAKER_00:You
SPEAKER_02:just can't do it. And kids come to school wearing their mother's shoes or their mother's coat because that's what she has. Because particularly today with inflation the way it is, working families, they've got to pay their rent, they've got to pay their heat, and they've got to feed. So heat and warmth or cooling if it's a hot climate. Having a place to live, keeping it warm, and feeding your family have to be the top priorities.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right. So then there's no money left to buy clothing for your kids.
SPEAKER_01:But shoes, I mean, everybody understands a jacket and what a jacket is for, but shoes run the gamut. I think people might or might not be surprised that the number one shoe in the world is what we would call here in the United States a flip-flop. You
SPEAKER_00:know,
SPEAKER_01:but especially in Asia and in Africa and different continents, I mean, flip flops are it. When you pick a shoe, what kind of shoe do you provide? And is it off the warmth again?
SPEAKER_02:The shoes that we provide are a it's a fabric, fabric top PVC rubber sole fabric. tennis shoe type shoe. And our shoes are focused on young children. So we have shoe sizes that are appropriate for a child just learning to walk through about third grade. And we decided to do that to limit the number of sizes we had to carry as we get this program started. We're only doing it for two years. And then the feedback we got from our beneficiary organizations was, Once a kid hits about fourth grade, they start to get really, really brand conscious. And we don't have any branding on it, you know. So we thought we'd start with where we saw the most need was and that we could help the most and that the most acceptance would be there. And it's going great. We'll do about 100,000 pairs of shoes this year.
SPEAKER_01:Isn't that funny that not necessarily the jacket needed the branding, but the shoes? Shoes mean a lot in the branding department.
SPEAKER_02:They really do. I mean, you understand that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, gosh, yes.
SPEAKER_02:Nike kind of got that whole thing going, and now all of the brands and every brand's got its own cachet.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, hey, I mean, I was a kid a long time ago, but I remember that Swoosh meant a lot. It definitely did. Well, Richard, you're also a Rotarian, and I told my listeners, OperationWarm.org, please go check it out. Please get involved. But you're also... A Rotarian. So which came first, Operation Warmth or Rotary?
SPEAKER_02:So
SPEAKER_01:I'll
SPEAKER_02:tell you my Rotary story. I start my Rotary story by bringing to mind the presidential theme from I think it was two years ago that Rotary opens opportunities.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Well, it did for me. So I started with Rotary in 2004 when I opened a small home furnishings business in Winnetka. And I knew nothing about Rotary at that time. But my banker called me shortly after we opened the doors and said, hey, Rich, can I take you to lunch? Sure. When? Next Thursday. OK, great. OK, I'll come to your store and pick you up. So she came to my store and we walked out the front door and I turned to the right. which is where all the restaurants are on the street that my store was on. And she turned to the left, which is toward a residential area and a community center, a big, large community center that's right next door. I said, where are we going? There's no restaurants there. She said, we're going to the community house. I said, what for? There's no restaurants there. She said, well, I have lunch there every Thursday with my Rotary Club. I said, what's that? She said, don't worry about it. You'll have fun. So I went to lunch. And I saw what I thought would be a bunch of new customers. I was wrong, but it was a bunch of new friends. And so I went back the next week and I went back the next week and the next week I was asked if I would think about becoming a member and I became a member and I went every Thursday and it was my 90, for me at the time, Rotary was 90 minutes away from my business for me to clear my head, listen to an interesting presentation and and get inspired by some stories about projects that either our club was doing or other clubs were doing and get to know some people in my community and get involved in the community. So a couple of years go by and I'm on the board and then they ask me if I'll be the president in three years and I go, oh, three years from now, that'll never come. Okay, sure.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I think I said. But go ahead. So I was in
SPEAKER_02:the queue to be the president in the year 2009-10, the root of the year 9-10. But unfortunately, if you were in the home furnishings business, 2008 brought a tsunami, a very bad one. The financial meltdown of 2008 destroyed the housing market, and that destroys the home furnishings business.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And I was in a very well-to-do area in the north of Chicago, the northern Chicago, right along the lake. And half of my clients or half of our customers were in the financial services business. And the business wasn't going to make it. So I closed the business at the end of 2008. But I was in the queue to be president of the club. So I told the club I was too young to retire. I didn't have enough money to retire. I needed to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. But if I could serve as president, I would do it. But I didn't know. There's a chance I'd get a job downtown Chicago, or I'd just
SPEAKER_00:get
SPEAKER_02:a job in New York or wherever, and I'd move. So I started working on what am I going to be doing, and I had some things starting and happening. But in March, I went to Land O'Lincoln Pets training, president-elect training for all of the Rotary Club presidents to be in the state of Illinois. And it was my first time ever seeing anything about Rotary outside of my club. I'd never been doing a district event. I didn't know what a district governor was. It was just some boring meeting that took place once a year when this person had to come to my club. Where's my interesting presentation? What's this all about? So anyway, I go to pets and because it was a multi-district pets, they had great speakers there. And I'm sitting in this audience with 700 people or whatever it was.
SPEAKER_00:And
SPEAKER_02:I'm getting very motivated and enthused and impressed. And there was a small house of friendship. It was the smallest house of friendship I've ever seen. And it was overcrowded. They made the mistake of piling three licensed vendors into one room, tiny room, plus the coffee service. and a couple of service projects scattered here and there. And it was just packed.
SPEAKER_00:There was
SPEAKER_02:a guy, turns out it was Dick Sanford, the founder of Operation Warm, at that conference with half a table and a kid's coat on a stick and an admittedly fairly bad one-page brochure. And I never even talked to him. I just picked up the brochure and looked at it and said, you can get Brand new winter coats for kids in your community for$15 a coat. I go, oh, interesting. We don't need them in Winneka, but members of my club are doing stuff all over the metro area. So I go back and tell the people at my table for lunch the next Thursday that I asked how was the conference. I told them a little bit about it. I said, hey, I found this project. We can get coats for$15 a piece brand new to give to poor kids. What do you think? And the lady next to me goes, we're doing it. We're getting a code for every kid at Lawrence Hall, which is a old 150 year old institution in Chicago that now provides services for foster care students.
SPEAKER_00:We've got a
SPEAKER_02:therapeutic day school and she's on the board. So she says, we're getting a code for every kid there. I go, how many kids is that? She says, 400. I do the math. I go, okay, how are we going to raise that? Don't worry about it. We'll get it done.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. I like
SPEAKER_02:her. So I called up Operation Warm and the woman who at the time, at the time there were eight employees at Operation Warm and they were doing about 100,000 coats a year.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Not too shabby, I have to say. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:So I called her up and she said, oh, I'll be in Chicago in a couple of weeks. I could come to your club and make a presentation. I go, great. rearranged speakers, and she comes to the club and she makes this great presentation, shows some videos. Everybody at the club's on board. I'm going, this is great. I got a signature project for my year as club president.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:Well, she ends her discussion by saying, if any of you know of a Rotarian who's interested in joining our organization, we're looking for somebody to explode our relationship with Rotary Clubs. Three months later, I went to work and I was employee number nine. Ah! That was in 2009, and now here in 2022, so whatever that is, that's 12, 13 years later, I've been directly involved in raising the funds to provide coats to probably 3 million children, and I've met more Rotarians than I'll ever be able to count all over the United States because I would go to zone institutes, and I would go to pets conferences, and I got involved as a volunteer at my zone, and I got... uberly you know massively involved with my district in terms of providing
SPEAKER_01:yes yes yes but did you become president
SPEAKER_02:of what my club
SPEAKER_01:of your club
SPEAKER_02:well yeah i did i served as president of my club for that year and then ever since then i've done the books for my club and you know how hard that is
SPEAKER_01:so so the the long story short is not only Did you serve as president, but now you've been happily a member of Operation Worm now for over 10
SPEAKER_02:years? If I had quit my Rotary Club because I closed my business and I couldn't afford it because I didn't have any income, and I just said, to heck with it, I'm not going to live up to this obligation to be the president. Go find somebody else. I've got to go find a job. I wouldn't have gotten the job I have. And it's the longest job I've ever had. And it's the most fulfilling job. And I've had some pretty cool jobs in the past. But this is the most fulfilling job I've ever had.
SPEAKER_01:So seeing the financial meltdown was actually a good thing for you.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. No,
SPEAKER_02:there's no doubt about it. I have no regrets at all about it. It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I've had a great life since then. And, you know, I've been a part of a growing organization. We're still small. We're now up to about 35 employees. But, you know, we were nine when I started. The things that we're doing with some of our corporate partners now are fantastic. Not every charity that has Nordstrom doing their holiday
SPEAKER_01:promotion. Doing their work for them, I would say. Yeah. So one of our most beloved questions is what I call the it question or the smile question. And it is because normally when I ask our guests this question, they end up smiling. And that is, Is there a rotary moment that every time you think of it, it brings a smile to your face and you're like, okay, this is a crazy organization and there's all kinds of stuff that we could do. And sometimes things really drive me nuts. But when I think of blank, it makes it all worth it. What's your rotary moment? What's your it moment?
SPEAKER_02:You know, the story that I'll tell you about is the first time to my knowledge that Operation Warm Coats were distributed at libraries as a way to get families into the library for the first time. And that was done by my Rotary Club. Actually, my Rotary Club in partnership with a Kiwanis Club on the south side of Chicago.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. We like our Kiwanises.
SPEAKER_02:And... So we did this together and there were probably a dozen members of my club were at this library in the Chicago lawn neighborhood of Chicago. And they had 150 people in the children's library that day waiting to get into the community room to get their chance to come and get a coat. But while they were there, they were entertained by a puppet show and the mad scientists from the museum of science and industry were there. teaching them how to build bridges with straws and tongue depressors, which is like a STEM education project in engineering.
SPEAKER_00:That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02:So they had all these different events going on, and they issued, I think it was 119 new library cards that day. And six months later, like 80 of them were active in the prior six months. In the prior couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01:So not only... Two for one, I guess, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it was an opportunity to build a literacy program along with the WARM program, the WARM program. And that was done by my Rotary Club, and it was a great, great afternoon.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I have to say that I think libraries and people that work for libraries and, you know, I don't... May they never die. I think they are truly one of the most amazing places. Last time I was in Washington, D.C., I went to the Library of Congress.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_01:And people are like, why did you do that? I'm like, you know what? Just go. There's some really cool stuff in the Library of Congress. Well, I have just a few more questions for you. And I thank you so much for taking the time today and talking to me, especially about Operation WARN. But we do always dabble on the four-way test around here. I want to know, what does the four-way test mean to you? Is it more of an esoteric kind of thing with you that it's my responsibility or have you been known to be a four-way test cop? What do you think of the four-way test?
SPEAKER_02:Well, my first reaction to your question is going to be that I don't think there should be four-way test cops. The four-way test does not start, you know, its preamble is not of all the things you think, say, or do.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. It's all the things I think
SPEAKER_02:say or do.
SPEAKER_00:So it is
SPEAKER_02:purely a internal checkpoint to help you behave in a way that's ethical and fair and productive in the world. And it's hard to do all of that. And it's particularly hard to keep your thoughts in that way.
SPEAKER_00:But
SPEAKER_02:if you Keep your thoughts in that way. If your thoughts are to only think about and be willing to say what's true and to only behave in such a way that it's going to help build camaraderie or friendship and that it's going to be a win-win for everybody. Life is going to be a lot better for you and for them. So it's tough to do that all the time, but it's a good thing to recite it every week and keep it in your mind.
SPEAKER_01:One could say that if we all were kind of spending time with the four-way test, maybe we wouldn't need so many coats for Operation Warm.
SPEAKER_00:Well,
SPEAKER_01:that's
SPEAKER_02:possible. That's possible. Yeah. I think there's always going to be people that have a lot and people that have very little. And children don't choose where they come, where they show up. They just get bored one day and that's who you're living with. And these are the circumstances with which you're living, whether it's in a flooded out area in Pakistan or it's in a... tribal council in Africa or it's...
SPEAKER_01:Right. Kids are kids and they all should be warm and smiling. So my last question, what is the goal of Operation Warmth? If you could wake up tomorrow and, you know, your wish came true or your biggest need came true for Operation Warmth, what would it be, Richard?
SPEAKER_02:Well, ideally, it would be out of business because there'd be no need for it. It would be wonderful if there was no childhood poverty in the United States, but I don't think that's a realistic expectation anytime soon. So what we want to do is get as many kids who need them coached as we can, involving as many service-oriented people as we can, whether it's Rotarians or service-minded companies or church groups or other service groups and when we can use the gift of a coat as a way to connect kids and families with other resources that they need to thrive whether that's introducing them to a library or connecting them with health services or connecting them with books or connecting them with job, you know, parents with job fair opportunities.
SPEAKER_01:The sky's the limit.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And that's why we call it, our slogan is more than a coat. And what more than a coat means is it's the warmth and the confidence and the hope that a coat brings, but it's also the opportunity to use the energy that families will have to get a new coat for their kids. I've been in events in a church down the street from me here in the suburban Chicago area, where they would run an event in their church on a Saturday in November, and families would drive an hour and then wait three hours to get coats for their four kids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And,
SPEAKER_02:you know, Rotary Clubs can easily, this is a very easy to do Rotary project. You can do it for less than$1,000. You can provide 36 or 48 coats to children in your community. If you don't have a benefit, most clubs are going to have beneficiaries already in mind because they're working with them on other things. But, you know, there's Head Start programs almost everywhere in the country. And you aren't in a Head Start program if you're not in need. And There's nothing more fun than working with four- and five-year-old kids and giving them coats because they love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:It'll be the best Rotary meeting you've ever had. I
SPEAKER_01:would say so, yes. Well, Richard, thank you so much for telling us not only about Operation Warm. It is operationwarm.org,$15 a coat. No,
SPEAKER_02:it's not. No, no, not$15. I'm sorry. It was 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,$15 was 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_02:$22 a coat.$22 a coat will get you a$55 retail value coat to give to a child. And you can find information on how to partner with us on our website. If you just go to the website and click the button for Get Involved and then Community Partners. And it'll have the information on how the program works in a sign-up form or an inquiry form. And then myself or one of my colleagues will reach out and answer any of your questions. And we can even do a Zoom presentation to your club.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and I'll remind you that Richard said all that. Now he's worked for the company for a whole bunch of years, so who knows? You never know. Getting involved. Richard, thank you so much. Our latest hire
SPEAKER_02:actually is a past president of her Rotary Club in Simi Valley, California.
SPEAKER_01:See? You never know. You never know. Thank you so much for being on the show again, operationwarm.org. And it was an honor to talk to you. And I thank you so much for spending so much time with me today.
SPEAKER_02:My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:See what I mean? Who cares what I sounded like? I don't care if I sound like I'm on a tin can. The point is, Operation Warm is out there giving jackets to kids, oh, oh, and shoes too. And you can help them out. OperationWarm.org Thank you so much, Richard. I so appreciate you being on the show and thank you for all you do. Mr., uh, do-it-all? Well, it was a pleasure that you did this podcast hey if you know somebody a great Rotarian like Richard that I should know about please let me know RotarianPod at gmail.com and of course tell everybody about the podcast tell them about some of the wonderful stories about us alright then until next week take care of yourself and the world around you and we'll hear you next time on the I'm Rotarian podcast Have a wonderful week, everybody.