Outro 0:01 Welcome to Engaging Ideas, the bi weekly podcast from Parsons TKO, bringing you conversations with mission driven leaders and luminaries to shift your perspective and challenge your assumptions on the art of the possible. Tony Kopetchny 0:16 Hello, everyone. And welcome to another episode of engaging ideas, the Parsons TKO podcast where we like to bring leaders and innovators within the nonprofit sector to share their thoughts and have conversations with us and hopefully provide some insights and ideas to you and your work and your daily life as well. And this episode today is a special recording. We are going to have this recording come out on Tuesday, October 11, which is National Coming Out Day. And today I am very privileged to be joined by Sharon Herrera. She is the founder and executive director of LGBTQ saves, which is an organization in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Welcome, Sharon. Hello. Hey, and we are recording on video too. So we're gonna have audio and video clips of this. It's gonna be exciting. And you know, I we've been running this podcast for over a year now. And it's, we've not made any direct asks of our audience at this point. But today, I am going to ask please consider getting a donation to LGBTQ saves. It is. And we're going to have the website linked in the show notes. It's going to be linked everywhere. We're putting this out. And for anyone listening at the moment it is L GBTQSAVE. S that work. And you will see a donate link right in the upper right of that website. Please click on that and get some money to LGBTQ saves. You will save a life today if you can make that happen. All right. So before we dive in, yeah, in the prep for the show, Sharon we had talked about one of the things was could we get voices from some of the youth you've worked with or get them into the show. And I did not want to do that just for certain protections. And a lot of the you know, there's a lot of issues with Child Protective acts and being aligned. But I did you know, scoured your website here, I've pulled a few quotes. So I want to read that here just for anyone listening and they can see this on your website too. But before we dive in, just to give people a real sense of the impact your organization's been having. And these are quotes from some of the youth that you've worked with. So let me read these real quick after I take this drink of water. My family and friends do not support my identity as a lesbian. My dad told me I did not know who I am yet. A teacher told me it was just a phase and to choose better friends. My mom has su pumpkin emotional shit. I'm gonna be able to make it through the quotes. I'll try again another we're gonna make another drink of water. We'll leave this in the episode too. I mean, this is this isn't real impact y'all. All right. All right. Try for your audience. All right. I am thankful my sister found LGBTQ sites for me. I get to visit and talk to people my age that understand what I'm going through. I am just me. Wonderful, silly, lovable me wanted to end my life at one time. And now I have other people to reach out to for support. I'm feeling less happy. Again, you know, LGBTQ s a vs.org. I know a lot of the listeners in our audience are not possibly living in Texas. And so we're going to talk a little bit today just about were some of the laws of gun the humanitarian crisis that we're facing here. And I would love Beto to win. I think as much as everyone that I know, at least in the state, and a lot of people around the country is very exciting figure battles got a lot of money, y'all, this organization really needs your help. So please consider donating today if you're listening. Alright, let's dive in. I don't know if I'll make it the rest of the quotes, but they're on your way. They're on the website. They're super powerful, obviously. And the work you're doing, Sharon, it's just been amazing. And fantastic. And I really appreciate it. So let's go. All right. Thank you for diving in to talk to me today. So can you tell the audience just about LGBTQ saves and the mission. Unknown Speaker 4:27 The mission is to provide safe and brief spaces for youth to simply be themselves. We have a lot of programs, a lot of resources for our youth. It was something in 2010 September 2010 to be exact. There was nine suicides back to back of LGBTQ youth. And this one being Asher Brown, 13 years old. He took his life on September the 23rd 2010 here in Texas, and I worked for Fort Worth ISD one of the largest school districts in the state of Texas and I knew exactly what was going on in our school systems. The bullying was intense, and not a lot of support. So it also triggered my suicide attempt. I attempted suicide at the age of 16. Back in the late 70s, I'm 58 years old, I will be 59 next month. And back then I didn't know about drugs or guns. So the way I was going to take my life was Drano. Rhino had the little skeleton sign with the X on it, and I read that it would, you know, cause death if ingested. So that's the way I was, I chose to take my life. I was a Catholic priest, that told me I was going to hell that finally led to my suicide attempt. I'm Latina, born and raised Catholic, there was no LGBTQ safe back then, or a counselor, or anybody talks about, you know, the LGBT community. And if they did, it was all negative. dating myself, there was a show called soap back in the day with Billy Crystal, Tony Kopetchny 6:06 I remember that one. Unknown Speaker 6:08 He portrayed a gay man. And he was made fun up on the show. And also the family I was watching the show with was making light of him in front of him so that my dark, my closet got darker and darker. And I had nowhere to turn to. So indeed, my life was going to be the answer for me. And the reason that I'm sitting here having the conversation with you today is seven words that my aunt said to me. She walked in when I was trying to ingest the Drano and knock the cup out of my hand, and said, I know me her, you don't like voice. And that's what saved my life and why I'm still here. My aunt is currently 80 years old. We text every day, we talk every day, she lives back home in San Angelo, Texas, a very small town in Texas. And, like I said, those words are the reason that I'm alive, one affirming adult. And still, the day stands true that one affirming adult will save a life. So that is the reason that the suicides in our nation triggered my suicide attempt. And I started LGBTQ saves. And I always tell people, I still don't know what I'm doing as far as running a nonprofit. But all I wanted to do was save lives. And here I am. I've been blessed enough to have board members and friends that know about nonprofits and guided me along the way. I was told from the very beginning in 2010, that this nonprofit wouldn't last for two or three years, because we're 100% donor funded. But here we are 12 years later thriving. It's about saving lives to me. Thank you, Tony Kopetchny 7:46 and thank you for sharing your story there. But those two and you know, it's really personal and I really appreciate you helping us hear that story. And so if somebody someone needed help, how would they go about getting that help from your org? How do how does the contact happen? Unknown Speaker 8:04 Our social media or we have a an email contact us at LGBTQ saves.org We also have our you know, our Facebook or Twitter, everything you can private messages, our website as well. My numbers always out there. I get phone calls at three o'clock in the morning or nine o'clock in the morning, all hours of the day asking for help because I tell everybody here locally, just give him my number if you're not comfortable, and I will help. So yeah, my telephone numbers given out a lot of times. I don't know if you want me to give it out here national nationwide, but I don't mind. My life has been threatened. I will give you that warning. I have an FBI agent that is assigned to me because of that. I'm not scared to give out my number if it's needed. So Tony Kopetchny 8:54 we'll make sure we get the email at least and you know, I don't want to add any any more pressure to you. That might already be coming your way. Unknown Speaker 9:04 Thank you. But definitely a lot of a lot of parents a lot of youth during COVID. A lot of Latino families our numbers went up from I think it was 17% to over 38 Because of COVID A lot of kids were at home and are always say our youth are so much stronger and braver than I was at the age of 16. I had a 10 year old call me and tell me what I explained to his mom about being transgender, all in Spanish. So I was able to contact mom and we had a conversation. There was so many Latino Spanish speaking families reaching out that we had to create a Spanish tab on our website for strictly our Spanish speaking parents that were calling. Not one father called but I can tell you about eight to 10 mothers did call during COVID. Tony Kopetchny 9:52 Thank you, just following what struggles do you have to deal with when you're trying to aid LGBTQ youth? In particular, Unknown Speaker 10:01 the homeless homelessness, because we don't have anything here in the city of Fort Worth, we have maybe places that will allow one night or two, but not for a long term, we have to send our kids to Dallas or sister city and or brother, city, whatever. When I got here to Fort Worth, I didn't know there was so much friction between the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. Yeah, I didn't understand. But unfortunately, we have to send our kids to Dallas because there's really nothing here in the city of Fort Worth for our youth. The other issue is transportation, transportation for our youth that we have to send to Dallas, and our youth that want to attend our events that we have here in the city of Fort Worth. Tony Kopetchny 10:44 So we got a little bit into to a drove, you don't want to start the organization. And you're you have I mean, the motivation to keep going even though you have these threats, what kind of help have you been getting along the way as you've been restarting this to take it over these 12 years? I mean, that's horse, superhero work right there. Unknown Speaker 11:05 At the beginning, it was money out of pocket. We were able to save enough money in 2016 to start our own nonprofit. And Attorney John Barnes. I love him to death. He reviewed our paperwork. So we didn't have to pay the big fee to get all this started through a through an other another company. So we just had to come up with $500 to for the state of Texas to certify us as a nonprofit. So in 2016, is we were able to do that. And we received our first $3,000 Check I remember from a local church, and we were able to buy, provide a scholarship $1,000 scholarship, order some T shirts, and just buy some spend some stuff that we needed for our Youth for Youth meetings. Back then we had one youth youth group meeting a month and now we have all Thursdays. And it's incredible what has happened because we were so tiny we can only afford so much and now we've kind of now that we can afford a lot of stuff, but we're able to have enough money to have people that like Amon Carter's coming forth forward. And they did they do our for Thursday free and they provide food as well. We during COVID We plan I panicked. And my younger staff said let's go virtual and I said okay, what does that look like? And because of going virtual despite COVID We now are in Connecticut, Ohio, Michigan and Florida. Oh wow. I didn't realize you've expanded. We blew well, those were never my intentions. But because we went virtual kids were reaching out to us from everywhere. The child in Michigan that reached out to us who had come out to his father, his father beat him up, threw him out of the house, he Googled us found us we were able to get CPS involved in he now lives with his grandmother. So that's the kind of stuff that was going on. During COVID We were being called from everywhere. There was a young a young child and I believe it was Iowa. And he sent his family sent us $500 His family told him to select an organization he wanted to donate, they wanted to donate money to and he Googled us and found us. So we received $500 from that family COVID You know, yes, it was horrible. But for us, it just it allowed us to get bigger and bigger and reach out and save even more lives. Tony Kopetchny 13:23 And you know, I know I was talking to some of your staff too. And there's some other you know, there's there's different things you do provide to some of the youth as well in addition to trying to get them into housing as well. You know, gender identity for being products. Unknown Speaker 13:38 Yes in gender affirming where gender affirming haircuts. We collaborate with a cute salon and novec Salon here in the city Fort Worth. And we we innovate provides free haircuts for LGBTQ youth that we serve in our volunteers. And also a cute salon we pay half price because they're a smaller salon. So we provide that as well. We provide scholarships we provide. We started with 250. And then we moved up to 1000 because of that donation, so we provide a two scholarships in June and two scholarships in December, one to a high school student that's been with us that's about to graduate in one to a college intern that has been serving us. We're very well connected with Tarleton State University here in the city of Fort Worth. And for the past six years, their social work interns have been donating 75 hours 3535 and 15 per semester and that is the reason that we're we've stayed alive because of those volunteer hours. The first interns that we had created our first website. Our website has been upgraded since then, and it will continue to get upgraded. But they were able to do our first website ever. And it was just an incredible experience to have these these interns. One intern I remember was disowned because the family found out that they were serving LGBTQ saves and Other intern hit her son was able to come out to her at the age of 27. Because he was contemplating suicide, but because his mother was a social worker and started working with us, he was hearing and listening to the way the mother was speaking now, and African American family, you know, very difficult. And at the age of 27, contemplating suicide, he was able to come out to his Mall. So those stories are incredible, because, you know, they come back and tell me these things, and you just don't know how, how far you're reaching out and touching people's lives and in saving lives. That that's why sometimes on my Facebook I have it doesn't matter where they're 717 or 27. You know, they're listening and hearing everything that you're saying. And are you accepting your child unconditionally? Tony Kopetchny 15:53 If If you cared for the audience, there's people in our audience who work in nonprofits of all different sizes, budgets, sizes and ranges, I mean, what's the type of budget you're doing all of this work on annually? what's your what's the size just to help the audience get a sense and then so then the all rush to LGBTQ s ap s.org. Unknown Speaker 16:17 My treasurer just told me that in 2018, we had $287 in the checking account, because it COVID We are now at in the 90s. So we're able to provide more and more and more to our kids. And I mean, we have a Santa drives we have back to school drives, we have Youth Pride coming up our picnic, or Youth Pride picnic we had last year, we made the cover of Dallas Morning News, not Fort Worth, Dallas Morning News. We had over 200 families, kids and families show up this past year, this year to this year, this past June, we had over 400 waiting waiting list of 200 people trying to get in. So next year, and probably even bigger. But but that's those are, that's what caused the most to provide a safe and brave space for these kids to be themselves. I can't imagine. I can tell you the first event we had back in 2011, because we had saved some money to have a poser prom, we had 27 youth show up in all of us chaperones adults in the background were crying. Because these kids were having so much fun just being themselves, just being able to be in US adults, you know, we're in AR, but back then I was in my 40s. And I was like, Wow. You know, we're all crying because we never had that opportunity. And if we could do this over and over again, to our for our youth. That's what we're doing. You know, often say, as a kid, I loved the Wizard of Oz. Right? And the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow. There's a land that I that I've heard of once in a lullaby, or dreams that you dare to dream to really do come true. I really believe that. But it was until my teenage years and I said oh, there is no such line for me. There's a seven days. So that's why, you know, another reason that led to the suicide attempt, there was no such land. So what I'm trying to create is that land, it's not just in a in a lullaby that you heard once in a lullaby, right? It's right here in the city of Fort Worth. And being the honor for the 12th or 13th largest city in the nation. We need something like this here. We need something for our youth. It just so important to give these these kids hope, the hope that they need to carry on their lives and be who they're going to be. We recently purchased the former kk k building. I don't know if you're familiar with that. Tony Kopetchny 18:36 Yeah, there's a fantastic story. I mean, so you gotta you might want to tell the battery's not as familiar. I do want to interview Adam and Daniel at some point, too. Unknown Speaker 18:44 Yes, yes, we were one of the seven groups that are going to be housed there. And it's an incredible story. A man was lynched here in the city of Fort Worth 101 years ago now at our stockyards. And he was they were he was beat up because we're crossing a union line. I don't know what they're called a picket line. And they left him they thought they had left him for dead. He was taken to the hospital here in the city Fort Worth the kk k found out about it dragged him out and hung him at Samuels Avenue. And we're naming our our building after him the Fred rouse arts and community healing center. And it's an incredible story because we're going to we're eradicated the roots of hate and we're planting seeds of hope and love and our kids will have a safe place where they know that they can just walk in that question if they're going to be accepted and loved Tony Kopetchny 19:40 Yeah, just for everyone listening to this, this building that we're talking about here this was the former que que que auditorium yes for massive entertainment and rallies that they would have in Fort Worth located right within sight of the City Hall to really sort of show their power in the cloud and the group transform tend to ignore have made that LGBTQ certain share. And as part of has secured the building, so won't be knocked down. And it's going to be transformed into the center for healing and arts because it was Adam, it said this before, and I heard this when I'd worked at the US Institute of Peace, you know, pain, pain, not transformed, his pain transferred. And so how do we start to change that, that narrative and use something like this, I mean, I really think it is a super beacon of light and hope, at to your point, these are the things we need. And these darker times, if you're watching us on YouTube, you can see maybe get a glimpse of Sharon's shirt. But you might also be listening, because most people have just been listening. But she is wearing an Air Force shirt because she is a vet. So one of my questions before we dive into some of the state laws here is just as you were starting up the organization, I know, when there's veteran status for small businesses or different organizations, it usually helps when you're trying to file legally. I mean, what how did that help at all? As you're working with this lawyer to get to the 501? C three? Or what's your, what's your story there? Unknown Speaker 21:07 It didn't, that didn't, didn't come up at all, because we were using this shortcut. And, but as a veteran, you know, I served long before, don't ask, don't tell, I was survived, which cuts article, I believe, 30, I can't remember them at all the articles that I survived, but I served my country proudly. And I wanted to continue 20 to 30 years. But I was only able to serve four, because there were so many witch hunts. I'm a consultant as well. So I provide LGBTQ one on one training for a lot of organizations that want to better serve their clients or their employees or youth if they serve youth. And I always, always remember Alan Schindler, because that is the gentleman that they brutally killed. And the reason that don't ask, don't tell them all. But even after Don't Ask, Don't Tell was in place, over 30,000 Soldiers still got kicked out. So I have friends now that were kicked out back then that are now being allowed to reapply for their honorable discharge instead of having a dishonorable discharge on the record. But yeah, it was, it was a horrible time. And since I worked in the accounting and finance area, and I processed soldiers out every day, you know, every hour, we could see why they were being kicked out. So I added a lot of stress to my being in that's why I just served four years in the Air Force. So I am a proud veteran. I do it again. But it was very difficult for me back then Tony Kopetchny 22:33 you have shouldered a lot for anyone not following Texas politics. as closely as those of us living through it at the moment, it's gotten a little insane. Lately, they passed a lot of laws. I think that was around September 21, September 2021. When they came out, it was I'm calling it a humanitarian crisis. There's obviously nationally, people have had the the spotlight the abortion bans, the laws against basically against women here in the state, but they have come out really hard against trans youth in the state of Texas. And I think it's really important every time you're talking about people being able to show up and be themselves. That's they're trying to criminalize that here in the state of Texas, I think for anyone who's maybe not as familiar, I mean, can you just give a little bit of insight into sort of what your from your perspective and the youth you're working with, I mean, how these laws are starting to impact some of the kids here and what those laws are, if anyone might not be as familiar. Unknown Speaker 23:31 We have families that are leaving the state. Just recently, I went to an event and I found out another set of parents were leaving, they're moving to Colorado. And the reason being because their child is trans. I mean, there's House Bill 29, and I believe 813 99. And they're all against transgender youth, the ability to receive gender affirming medical care, the play sports, and they're even coming after the the physicians as well. And I'm alive Senate Bill 1646 able to punish a parent for facilitating that care as child abuse. Texas is very scary right now. But even the nation with Clarence Thomas coming in saying that maybe we should reverse our marriage, same sex marriage is just I don't know really what's happening. It's just it's so dangerous. Especially the trans bills are so dangerous, especially for youth. I believe these are rooted in fear, discrimination and misinformation, and is simply cruel, because we're attacking children. And I just don't understand that I can't comprehend. I don't have any children, but I serve so many, and I can't imagine wanting to hurt a child. I'm considered everybody's very gay mother. I was given that name when I first started this organization by the first 14 neural youth that we helped, and I've carried that on servers since but I just can't imagine being so cruel to children. Have all of these governmental restrictions deprive children of their personal growth and development? That is why we focus on that social and personal development with LGBTQ sage, you know, children who are trans, they feel even more isolated and depressed because of what's going on in our state Abbott and Emily Paxton. Paxton. Yeah, Paxton is really, he's he's something that we really have to vote these people out. If we're going to stay in Texas Tony Kopetchny 25:28 to September 27 Dallas Morning News Today anyone who wants to go back since this is coming out on October 11, Ken Paxton had his wife take him in SUV and leave the house so he can avoid being subpoenaed for a trial. For some more of his misconduct deeds that he's done Unknown Speaker 25:43 right after pride. They they did, they wrote a 40 page document adopted at the state parties first in person conventions in 2019 2018. homosexuality as a normal lifestyle choice in this section on homosexual homosexuality and gender issues, and I'm going to read this paragraph to you let me get my phone. We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. And we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality at a faith, conviction or belief in traditional values. No one should be granted special legal status based on their LGBTQ plus identification. The section reads, it also opposes all efforts to validate validate transgender identity and calls for a ban on gender affirming care for people under 21. And then there's another section entitled counseling methods. It also endorses so called RE integrative therapy or other counseling methods when consulting clients of any age with gender dysphoria or unwanted sexual attraction. So it's like, backwards, here we go. Here in the state of Texas. This was done purposely during pride month. So like I said, I survived witch hunts before, don't ask him until, you know, I was an adult. And you know, our children are in tune to everything. And what's going on? And can you imagine being a child reading this on social media, knowing what you're up against? That is why so important that we exist, LGBTQ studies exist. Our lifeline chat is is is truly that a lifeline chat? Tony Kopetchny 27:31 Yeah, that's why I keep phrasing humanitarian crisis. This is, yes, this is bad. I mean, this is awful. This is telling people, you just can't be you. And you are now criminal, because you just were there. And that was what you were to, we need to help everybody. If you're listening. We really do need some help. We got to help support LGBTQ saves. I know, National Coming Out, there's, I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of happier stories and things like that. But I think we do need to bring this to the surface and really have people understand some of the struggles and to your point, the reversal on so many things and how that is really affecting and impacting real lives. They're real people. These are kids, maybe they just want to play some soccer. And they can't go out can't do that. Now. I mean, what would that feel like if that was you? You know, if someone listening is feeling really motivated at this point wants to help. What can they do to support you LGBTQ saves and the organization LGBTQ sit LGB saves? In addition to donating, you know, what other kinds of support and help do y'all need? Unknown Speaker 28:38 Volunteers, we always need volunteers. I'm going to recommend a show a documentary for everybody watch trends in Trump land, powerful, powerful documentary that the actor Tony, and the director, Tony, he's the actor and director. He joined us, I wanted to share that we also have a virtual happy hour for parents, where parents come together. It's actually like PFLAG, but it's on steroids because it's growing, because we're virtual, and parents from all over are joining us. And he was able to come speak to our parents and the actor, the first four episodes in transit trip one in the family from the first one, we're actually we're able to help and facilitate one of our virtual happy hours for our families. So volunteer, volunteer, volunteer, but most importantly, if you're not comfortable, now you have a resource for these children or your niece or your family member to turn to to help us save lives, spread our message, anywhere and everywhere. I've been asked to speak at so many churches, not churches, chicken, actual churches. And I'm kind of like, okay, but they're even they are changing. They want to save lives. The Scouts of America have reached out for my training. And that in itself speaks volumes. to mean that, you know, they've had, they've had the, the non discrimination policies in the books for a while, but now they're acting upon it and pushing it forward to better serve all all children, not just, you know, they want to serve everyone and be diverse. And they all they often come the Scouts of America also have a booth at a lot of our events to support us in the LGBT community. Tony Kopetchny 30:25 So on the volunteering, since you have some of the remote locations now and you're doing more of an online presence, can anyone who's not in Texas, would they be able to help volunteer? Unknown Speaker 30:35 Yes, they can just volunteer for we do a background check. Our, our one of our marketing coordinators that we have, it lives in Wisconsin, she does our newsletters and maintains our website, and things like that, of course, we had our pain scale of $10 an hour, up to 30 hours a month. $10 an hour up to 50 hours, you know, just we have to, we have to, because once we're a full blown Yes, full staff running, running 100 miles an hour. But for right now we have to be very careful how we spend our money. Tony Kopetchny 31:09 Wow. And it's every dollar just completed. Complete impact, complete impact. Unknown Speaker 31:16 Yeah, our binders are $50 apiece, our scholarships, you know, they're $1,000. If they need food, if they need clothing for an interview, our kid in Michigan often needs food because you know, they're the grandmother is living on Social Security. And, you know, we send out, we send out gift cards to our youth to buy food to buy clothing to buy gas, if they have to go to Dallas, I had a recently had a 21 year old and a 23 year old living out of a car. And they were looking for a place here in the city for wars that we had to send them to Dallas. So we were able to gas up their vehicle, buy him some food, and send them off on their way we had to pay for medical bills for another idea that needed our help. So we're always helping you in whatever way that we can to make sure that they continue to thriving. We've had kids youth that have moved to California, because it's safer for them there. So we were able to buy a one way ticket to California. I asked I asked everyone to look at our YouTube and look at ESA is a video and look at Eli West. Some of the youth that we were able to help just carry on after being kicked out of the home, or being bullied at school. Tony Kopetchny 32:25 Well definitely linked to those who have Unknown Speaker 32:29 been subscribed to our newsletter, because you'll know everything that's going on our Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. And you'll see how what's going on in our in what we're doing for our youth and how your money's being spent. But subscribe to our YouTube because I believe we have to have I don't know what Bernie said 1000 subscribers and so many hours so we can start getting money off of that. But yeah, it's incredible and AmazonSmile has, has really has really helped us out as well. People are selecting us as a charity, and we get like maybe three to $400 every quarter, from Amazon smile. We're just trying to find different ways to raise money and to make money to continue doing what we do. Tony Kopetchny 33:12 I know in the network of listeners we have and the work that we've been doing at parse TK I know there aren't a lot of communications professionals in that might be listening. So love to see some dollars come in to LGBTQ sav es.org LGBTQ saves.org but also some time or even just some of your experience and expertise. If you're able to get all the Sharon in the team sort of help them think through some of the ways they could be using some of their communications channels, maybe help spread the word, get it out to different locations. And there's a lot of fundraisers who listen as well. So please just think about that. I really appreciate you being here with us today. I know this is heavy conversation. But it's been wonderful. And I know you carry that weight a lot. So thank you for doing. Unknown Speaker 33:57 Thank you. Thank you. And like I invite you, Tony, when you're ever in Fort Worth to join us at one of our family dinners. We have four family dinners a year where we bring our kids, their families or volunteers or board and everybody just come together and break bread and have activities for the kids. And it's an incredible event. And it's like, you can see your work right in front of you. And like I said we've had we have a lot of youth that are that were with us when they were 14 and now they're in their 20s, mid 20s and paying it forward. Still being part of us. That's incredible. Yeah, it's been an incredible journey. It's all worth it. Tony Kopetchny 34:35 Thank you again, for everything. Stay safe and hope we're going to be able to help y'all out with getting some of the word about LGBTQ saves out a little bit more to some folks around the country here in the US maybe even internationally. I don't know if any listeners there or not. Like I said this is coming out. This will be National Coming Out Day. So thank you for sharing your story. I really appreciate that. And we do end everybody cast with the same question. So I've got to ask you, or else I'm following the process. So what is your go to song when you need a boost? And why? That's always the hardest question. It's, it gets everybody. Imagine. Imagine by John Lennon by John Unknown Speaker 35:15 Lennon still today. I remember hearing it as a kid. And I didn't understand it until you know, they're a little older. And it really can be that way. If we if we really, you know, come together, especially for youth. I really think that, you know, when I sign off on my emails, I always say, What are you doing to make this world a better place? I'm on this side of the fence. I'm not trying to hand out a torch. I'm trying to light torches to create more hope, but a light of hope for especially our youth, because our youth are still struggling. And like I said, I attempted suicide in the late 70s. And here we are 2022 Kids are still trying to take their lives. So we have to do something for you. Bottom line. So yes, I still imagine Tony Kopetchny 36:02 is that phrase, you're not the only one. I think there are there are a lot of us. Yes, yes. Let's do something about it. Let's do it together. And I think you just said it earlier to just for everyone listening. I was you know, one, one adult who's willing to listen? Unknown Speaker 36:15 Yes, enemy simply who, whose story you don't know about. So take time to listen. Tony Kopetchny 36:21 Thank you. Thank you for sharing. I hope everyone also gave us a good listen and listen to your story and really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much. Unknown Speaker 36:29 Thank you. Thank you so much. Outro 36:33 Thank you for listening. Join us again for more engaging ideas with your host Parsons TKO CEO Tony Kopetchny. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a comment and share with your friends. Send us your feedback at create change at Parsons tko.com. Transcribed by https://otter.ai