Matching the capabilities of construction firms with the needs of the communities in which they operate can be a huge win-win. Many construction companies highlight "giving back" as a core value, but find themselves too pressed for time and energy to follow through in the way they'd like.

Maury Peterson with Rebuilding Together Mongomery County and Molly Cape with M-TECH Mechanical join The Huddle to share their success stories of contractors engaging in community service. They will inspire you to get involved and help you to envision how you and your company can get started.

Transcript:

‍ ‍

00:01
Speaker 1
We need to get back to work. And work is one of the ways that we contribute to this country, that we grow our gdp, we grow our tax base, we contribute to each other effectively. We help finance our national security, our homeland security, our infrastructure. I had key employees that really wanted to be leaders in the company, but they didn't want to have any ownership in it, responsibility that way. So I just had to start researching out and figuring out, well, how do I market my company?

‍ ‍

00:29
Speaker 1
Go to your local school board for one hour twice this year, and if you can have even just 10 or 15 employers show up and do that at the same school board every single month, there's two contractors filling out a little card to give your 30 seconds at the podium that says, I need your help and we have great jobs. Eventually they will hear you. But if everyone just did two hours a year, that's how we change this. Stacy, how you doing this morning?

‍ ‍

00:51
Speaker 2
I'm doing great.

‍ ‍

00:53
Speaker 1
She loves it. I ask the question every time. She's like, I'm fine, dude, just a little much.

‍ ‍

01:02
Speaker 3
And I say to that owner, I said, see, you're not willing to invest in yourself. You're not going to invest in yourself. You're going to invest in companies you have no control over, whereas your company, you control and you don't have the confidence to pour the money into that. When things are busy and they're looking for their GC friends to sit down and negotiate a project on a GC and a fee, and they're more excited about building the project, and then all of a sudden the model, the market swings and now the developer market is going to go out and they're going to hard bid the same project to two or three different PCs. And that's where it starts going down.

‍ ‍

01:44
Speaker 1
It's morning huddle time. Good morning. Episode 18. Stacy, how are you today?

‍ ‍

01:51
Speaker 2
I'm doing good. I'm really excited for this episode. I've done so many community service events over the past 15 years, and I know the struggles that we'll talk about today, whether it's, you know, what organizations you get involved within the construction industry or actually having the time to do it, or motivating your team to participate. So it'll be great to have both, you know, the company side and then a nonprofit side to talk about, you know, how we can solve those issues.

‍ ‍

02:25
Speaker 1
I've got my learning cap on for sure that there's. I'm excited about some personal takeaways as well. You know, sort of how I can get involved. And you know, thinking about ways to play a positive role in the community. So we have Molly Cape and Maury Peterson. So Molly is with us from M Tech Mechanical, which is a mechanical contractor, 500 so employees based in Colorado. Molly, tell us a little bit more about yourself.

‍ ‍

02:53
Speaker 4
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everybody. Super excited to be here and chat with this topic. I'm super passionate about that, which hopefully you will see and learn about. I've been at mtech for about eight years. I'm currently the marketing manager there and amongst, you know, your typical market activities like web and social and proposals. I also oversee kind of our community engagement platform as well. So. Yeah, thank you.

‍ ‍

03:16
Speaker 1
Awesome. Thank you. Yeah, thank. We appreciate you being here. And then we have Maury Peterson from Rebuilding Together, Montgomery County. Mauri, just tell us a little bit about yourself.

‍ ‍

03:26
Speaker 5
Hi. I'm really happy to be here as well. Maury Peterson. I'm the executive director at Rebuilding Together in Montgomery County. We're a nonprofit part of an affiliate network of about 120 affiliates from across the country, and we provide critical home repairs for. For seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities. So really excited to share what we've done. I've also worked on the corporate side, so can. Can see it from both sides and happy to share what I've learned.

‍ ‍

03:51
Speaker 1
Awesome. That's great. Okay, so that's exactly what you two just described is what Stacy had in mind when we talked about this show was how can we bring in somebody that represents, you know, the industry side that sort of, you know, has the ability to talk about how the industry engages and the best way to get your company involved? And then how do we bring in somebody who's more on the mission side who's, you know, got the opportunities and the stories about the most successful ways they've experienced, you know, corporate involvement in particular, from the building industry in their world. And so we kind of got like, you know, 1 and 1 equals 3 on that front with this group. Right. Because Molly's got absolutely, you know, with a 500 employee organization that I know philanthropy is.

‍ ‍

04:46
Speaker 1
Is absolutely built into your culture, and I'm looking forward to hearing how you've been able to pull that off. But also, you know, Mori not only is on the mission side, but has background on the corporate side in making that happen. So I think we're gonna. We're gonna get, you know, a lot of really interesting perspectives on just sort of why we should want to do this, how we should pull it off, and sort of lessons learned that, you know, any organization that's joining us may take away whether you're on the corporate side or the mission side. So, Stacy, as per usual, we will have you know, field questions from the audience and encourage discussion from those folks who are joining us live this morning and bring you back with some questions, you know, here for the last 10 minutes or so to.

‍ ‍

05:39
Speaker 1
To funnel those in. Sound good?

‍ ‍

05:41
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure.

‍ ‍

05:42
Speaker 1
Excellent. See you soon. All right, let's start with why we should want to do this. And, you know, from your perspectives, what does a corporation get from giving? I'll start with Molly on that question.

‍ ‍

06:04
Speaker 4
Yeah, you know, I think corporate giving has a lot of benefits. You think of, you know, fostering employee engagement, generating value for those team members, you know, really improving company morale. When you go out and do events together, you build that morale. You build that camaraderie amongst team members, the company culture, you know, and then, you know, the company side of it, too, the reputation in the. In the industry, in your community. And then I think also, you know, we've been talking a lot about recruiting and retention, and workforce is a really hot issue. It has direct benefits there.

‍ ‍

06:35
Speaker 4
You know, you expand that network, you show what you're doing in the community that, you know, what are people's purpose in life and how does that tie to their work and how can they have kind of both that personal purpose and work purpose as well, kind of on the daily basis?

‍ ‍

06:50
Speaker 1
That is a serious punch list of reasons why we should want to do this. And I'm interested if you could, you know, maybe share some specific success stories one or more of those points. You know, it's. Please don't take this as me being negative, but I am maybe a healthy skeptic.

‍ ‍

07:11
Speaker 4
Yeah.

‍ ‍

07:13
Speaker 1
You know, how do we. It's nice to hear, you know, hey, it really helps with recruiting morale, you know, things along those lines. Can you prove it?

‍ ‍

07:24
Speaker 4
I think that you can. You know, we've been really involved in, like, top workplace surveys, and we get a lot of those questions of, you know, my purpose at work and is my work meaningful? And I think that just really expands much more than what they're doing at their desk or their job site every day. I think that we've made some great connections in the community where. Just kind of where that network piece comes in. You know, we've worked some nonprofit organizations who we also now do service work for. You know, we replaced the air conditioning at the Denver Children's Home a couple years ago, and we have a long standing partnership with them.

‍ ‍

07:57
Speaker 4
So just kind of one of Those examples and we do a lot of community service, which I'll talk about here in a little bit of connecting projects that we've done. So a remodel, a new build to a community service project. And I think it kind of goes the other way as well of, you know, they appreciate our support and giving, but then they want to give that back to us as well when needed.

‍ ‍

08:18
Speaker 1
Awesome. That's great. Maury, give us a little bit more on your background on the corporate end and answer first with the corporate hat on, if you would. You know why organizations should want to get involved in giving back.

‍ ‍

08:34
Speaker 4
Sure.

‍ ‍

08:35
Speaker 5
Well, really the reason why I'm at Rebuilding Together is because of the corporate experience I had being on the other side working with Rebuilding Together. So, you know, we use Rebuilding Together. We partnered with them. I work for a company of 500 employees. And so every year we would do national rebuilding day where we would send volunteers out to do critical home repairs. And skilled and unskilled, they, you know, a little bit of both. But the, the return on investment was profound. So we would use it as a talent pipeline. So you know, for example, you put a kid from the mail room in a room to paint with a bunch of senior vice presidents or managers and all of a sudden they see this person in a different light.

‍ ‍

09:21
Speaker 5
You can see leadership skills, you can see people who hustle, you can see people who problem solve. And so we really use that as a talent pipeline. It didn't turn out that wasn't the intent at the beginning, but it certainly did that at the end. It also, you know, people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And so I think community service is something that connects people. Like it helps, as Molly said, with recruitment and retention. People, yes, they want a good paycheck, but they, it's today, it's more than just the paycheck. And so this, these types of events really did create community within the company and helped to kind of show our values and the, and what were trying to prove as a company and it did help us retain and attract people.

‍ ‍

10:07
Speaker 5
So the word gets out amongst, you know, the best advice you can get is from your co workers. So, you know, if they have a really great experience, they would help recruit new people to join. And it was a really, it just built over the years and it was really something special.

‍ ‍

10:26
Speaker 1
I'll tell you that was surprising for me to hear just now, but totally connected when you talked about actually being able to see leadership skills in action Maybe in different environments than somebody's used to. Maybe somebody doesn't have any managerial responsibility in their day to day role by design. And now we're watching them operate in this building project and all of a sudden they're orchestrating a team, right?

‍ ‍

11:01
Speaker 5
And then I would build off of that. And when I saw someone that had that, when the next event came up, I said, hey, would you mind taking a leadership position? And at first they were like, oh no, I'm not, you know, I'm not a department leader or whatever. It's like, no, I saw you, I saw what you're capable of. And it builds people's confidence and they can take on more within the company even.

‍ ‍

11:22
Speaker 1
Well, it's so much of that. You're 100% right. Because so much of that. I hope I don't diverge too much here, but our identity is what tells us what we're capable of doing, I think. Right. It's in addition to your skills and other things. But so much of what you're actually capable of doing is just right here in terms of how much permission you've given yourself to be capable of doing things right. And so finding those opportunities where outside of your daily work context, you get a chance to kind of reimagine your identity on the team that can carry with you. You know, it's so funny, I remember, and it's happened to me dozens of times where I'll meet somebody who in their office is kind of quiet and maybe doesn't play a particularly large role and kind of wants it that way.

‍ ‍

12:21
Speaker 1
And then I'll get to talking to them and they're like, you know, a 30 year Scout troop leader and, you know, an absolute like, oh, yeah, well, I do a lot of speaking. You know, public speaking is kind of my. I'm like, what? Where did that come from? You know, but. But you people love to contribute to those things that they're passionate about. So that leads me to my next question, which is how do we determine the right places to invest? And you know what, as an organization, how do I figure out the right things to support that my people might get passionate about? How do I do that?

‍ ‍

13:00
Speaker 4
I think that from our standpoint at mtech, you have to ask, you ask your team members or your employees if you do surveys or what that might look like, or just walking down the halls and asking the break room, hey, what organizations are you passionate about? We found the greatest success with organizations that people are connected to. You know, we had an employee several years ago, unfortunately, that was diagnosed with Ms. And so that was kind of the charity for that year. You know, we had probably 35 people do kind of a fun mud run and we raised money and we threw mud pies in people's faces. And it was just super fun, campaign focused, you know, in supporting that person.

‍ ‍

13:38
Speaker 4
But we kind of do that throughout the organization of, you know, we have people's family members or people are really passionate about animals. So asking, I think is first. I think you also have to have a little bit of that top down direction and you have to ask those hard questions. You know, there are a million great organizations that we can support, and so finding the one that fits best for your firm is really important. And maybe that's some sort of connection to the executive team or if there's an organization that you aren't totally sure about, you know, doing some research on charity navigator or seeing how many dollars they're putting back or how many cents on the dollar that they're putting into their organization. And then also having some focus areas.

‍ ‍

14:19
Speaker 4
You know, at mtech, we really focus on kids, community, and then some connections to some projects as well. But you know, those organizations can get very tricky if you have, you know, social focused, politically focused, religious, you know, all those hot buttons you really have to examine, you know, where you want to put your money and how that's going to reflect on your firm and those relationships that you want to build. You know, having those tough conversations and figuring out what works best for you.

‍ ‍

14:48
Speaker 5
Yeah. And I would add that, you know, for the construction industry, in an organization like Rebuilding Together, you know, sometimes it's really good to look for synergy with your, what your business model is and then a nonprofit that complements that. And so because we're doing critical home repairs and, you know, accessibility modifications for veterans, seniors, people with disabilities, marginalized communities, a lot of folks in the construction trade and their vendors feel a real synergy with our mission. You know, that they can take something that they're really good at and that they know how to do and apply it to a nonprofit setting and really kind of leverage that expertise, which I think is a wonderful thing.

‍ ‍

15:30
Speaker 1
That's a, that's a wonderful point. And it's specifically, you know, the reason that I know Stacy wanted to pull you in, Maurice, because I think people do want to do something that they want to use their skills for good. How's that? You know, I, I'm not good at a lot of things, but I, I, I am pretty good at running strategic planning. You Know, and facilitating those kinds of group, you know, environments among leaders and volunteer leaders and things along those lines. And I, I participate in a group called Best Buddies, which is a really cool mission that I won't spend any time on, but if anybody wants to look it up, I strongly encourage them.

‍ ‍

16:19
Speaker 1
But I, I, I had this conversation this heart to heart and I said, look, I'm not good at the majority of stuff you need, but I will run the hell out of your retreats. Right. Like that's what I can do. Can I? You know, and they were like, please, that sounds great. And it invigorated a kind of a passion in me in a way of giving in my skill sets. So if you're a construction company and you've got, you know, tons of handy people who love building and fixing and working with their hands, it would be wise, I think, to channel those skills and that energy into the places where that brings value.

‍ ‍

17:06
Speaker 4
Yeah, I can't like reiterate that enough and just like heard about it. Gets me excited. You know, I think that you have to find that fit in those skills, that your team can utilize their specialty skills because, you know, not everybody has those skills. Like you said, like, you know, hands on work is a niche thing. And we have, you know, 350amazing individuals who are, you know, doing that every single day, you know, and that can look a lot of different ways too. It doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, building a home or you know, working with, rebuilding together or, you know, it can be building bicycles for kids or building wagons for the children's hospital or, you know, building flower beds or renovating. You know, we're doing an accessible restroom renovation right now for charity in Colorado.

‍ ‍

17:53
Speaker 4
And so, you know, we have, you know, 200 plumbers on our team, which is amazing. And like they can do that in a couple hours versus, you know, that organization would have to spend a lot of time and a lot of money and you know, we're really helping kind of. Yeah. Utilize those skills like you said, you know, and I think also too, you know, everybody on our team isn't necessarily also field focused. You know, for example, in marketing, like we work with an organization right now that is revamping websites for small businesses. And so, you know, on the marketing side, I might not have those hands on skills. Or you might have administrative staff who's great at billing or invoicing or is a wiz at Excel spreadsheets. Like there are organizations who are looking for that administrative support too.

‍ ‍

18:35
Speaker 4
You can kind of look at it both ways from your team.

‍ ‍

18:38
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a great point. Like, you know, not everybody needs to be, you know, too many chiefs, not enough. Not everybody needs to be the head of the thing. And, you know, administrative help is deeply appreciated. So again, figuring out how to leverage your team skill sets even across, you know, I'm sure, Maury, in your world, you. Not everybody needs to have a hammer in their hand.

‍ ‍

19:07
Speaker 5
No, no. We also, we use a lot of what we call unskilled volunteers, you know, good hearted people that want to give back. We've got plenty of, you know, yard work and painting and that kind of thing. We also have a program we call she Bill, which is getting women volunteers from the construction trade together, whether they work in marketing or, you know, they're swinging hammers. And we'll pick charities that also focus on women. And we'll have a day where lots of women will come out to help other women at a nonprofit. And it's, we'll teach folks how. Okay. You've never, you've never hung drywall. Well, we can show you how to do that. This weekend we're hosting our largest event. It's National Rebuilding Weekend. We are going to have 700 volunteers out from 35 different companies and faith based groups.

‍ ‍

19:54
Speaker 5
And so we're going to be teaching people how to put siding on houses, you know, how to install drywall, how, you know, all sorts of interesting things that they haven't done. But it's also a wonderful way to build your skill set and give people new opportunities.

‍ ‍

20:11
Speaker 1
I love it. That's really cool. So let's get to some brass tacks here in terms of. So let's say I'm watching this or I'm listening and I'm getting excited about trying to make this go inside my organization. I can see the value.

‍ ‍

20:26
Speaker 4
Right?

‍ ‍

20:26
Speaker 1
Hey, we're going to give people a sense of contribution. We're going to create this really interesting opportunity for people to shine and use their talents for something that is, you know, meaningful and gives all of us a sense of accomplishment. High fives all around.

‍ ‍

20:44
Speaker 5
Okay.

‍ ‍

20:45
Speaker 1
How much money should I be spending? How much time should I spend? Should I be paying my employees for this time? You know, let's talk about some of the, you know, best practices, if you will, that you would recommend that you've seen, you know, work, you know, inside or maybe don'ts, right? Do's and don'ts when it comes to actually making this thing go.

‍ ‍

21:08
Speaker 4
Are you sure we only have 10 minutes left.

‍ ‍

21:11
Speaker 1
Yes, it is a very fast.

‍ ‍

21:14
Speaker 4
We could spend a whole hour chatting about this. I think this is, you know, one of the key pieces that we've been talking about at mtech. And then we also had a conversation yesterday of, you know, what fits best for your firm. So, you know, giving can look a lot of different ways if that is, you know, your time. So volunteer time. You know, there's a lot of great organizations that are going to give, you know, one volunteer day a year, or maybe that's five a year, or maybe that's two hours per year per employee. Figuring out what that number looks like for your firm and what you can, you know, budget or afford.

‍ ‍

21:48
Speaker 4
You know, giving that option of paid time off or, you know, saying that you have your PTO package, but then you have an extra volunteer day, and what does that look like, and what do you need for people to do in order to validate that? Or maybe it's an organized day type of thing that they need to show up at one of these four places to volunteer for one day. And then I think that, you know, paying them volunteer time, like, those are just questions to have internally. And I think that also, you know, talking about how much you want to budget for this, you know, it's not a one size fits all approach. And so I would say that if your firm doesn't have a program yet, start small.

‍ ‍

22:25
Speaker 4
You know, start with two events per year to get your entire team involved, or depending on how large you are, maybe it's a couple groups get involved and then see if you can grow it or expand it. And I think you have to have a champion, too. You know, whether that's one person, obviously. I met marketing at mtech, but I wear a lot of different hats, including this one, which I think is pretty similar for, you know, firms our size or smaller. You know, figuring out who that person is going to be or that committee and what that looks like too.

‍ ‍

22:57
Speaker 1
Talk for just one second, Molly, about the committee. What does that make up look like, you know, in your organization? Because again, I'm just. I'm sitting here thinking I might. If I'm a business owner and I'm. And I'm, you know, involved in this episode, I may be thinking, okay, so I got to make this decision. This is. No, no, don't make all those decisions by yourself.

‍ ‍

23:18
Speaker 4
Yeah, for sure.

‍ ‍

23:19
Speaker 1
What does it look like in your world?

‍ ‍

23:20
Speaker 4
Yeah. So for us, it looks like we have a committee of probably 10 individuals. I'm kind of the chair, facilitator whatever you want to call it, the ringleader, the sheep herder. You know, we have people on our committee that take different roles. Your committee could look like, you know, a formal committee of a chair and a secretary and a treasurer, and, you know, you could look that way. Our committee is a little bit more informal. Each person on the committee is expected to take one event per year, and. And they're really the champion of that from start to finish. So it could be promoting the event with the marketing team. It could be organizing that event with the charity. You know, who, what, when, where, why, what time are we going to set up? What are we going to do?

‍ ‍

24:03
Speaker 4
How many people do I need just kind of getting all those questions answered and being that main point of contact? So those people are really running the event from start to finish. Our support and help from kind of the marketing events team.

‍ ‍

24:16
Speaker 1
That's helpful. Thank you. Maury, how would you chime in on the brass tacks of getting something, you know, up and running?

‍ ‍

24:22
Speaker 5
Yeah, I would say start small. You know, look for mission alignment. And I also think leadership is really important. You know, it should be a partnership between the company and the nonprofit. So making sure that, you know, you sit down with the executive director, whoever's in charge on the nonprofit side, to make sure that there's a good fit there and that there's good synergy between the organizations. I think that goes a long way to make making sure that, you know, on my side, I always want to sit down with the company and find out, you know, what are your goals and objectives? What do you hope to get out of this? Because I want to make sure that I'm.

‍ ‍

24:57
Speaker 5
In addition to fulfilling my mission, I want to make sure that I'm delivering on your deliverables and helping you have the successful event that kind of meeting your objectives as well. So I think that. That sometimes those things can go off the rails if you don't do the work up front of finding the right partner and having those upfront discussions. But I would say start small, get a champion. As Molly said internally, you know, some of. Some of this can a little be. Be a little bit of trial and error, but I think that it's just a matter of just start. You know, there's so many good causes out there. There's so many people that need help. People want to use their skills and gifts, and so it really does impact positively your bottom line. There are, you know, intrinsic things that you.

‍ ‍

25:48
Speaker 5
Sometimes you can measure, and sometimes it's just. It's just the way that you want your company to be perceived internally and externally to the community.

‍ ‍

25:57
Speaker 1
Love it. That's great. Stacy, what would you. What kind of questions would you tackle?

‍ ‍

26:01
Speaker 2
Well, I do want to add to what you just said, Maurice. So what business owners might not realize too, when you're doing community service projects and you. So there's different awards that you want to apply for, whether it's a social corporate responsibility, awards in your community or accredited contractor. The AQC accredited quality contractor with abc. There's an ethics award with associate or American Subcontractors Association. All of these awards have a huge, like, criteria that you have to fill out. And they usually have a community service or community relations portion that all of these, you know, all of your efforts actually come into play with these submissions and can help you get awards and increase your marketing for recruiting people to your organization. Also, some of the proposals that we do, they want to see how you're participating in the community.

‍ ‍

27:07
Speaker 2
So that's really important to consider.

‍ ‍

27:09
Speaker 4
I think.

‍ ‍

27:10
Speaker 5
You know, I think that's a great point. In addition to volunteering, you know, there are other ways companies can give back to nonprofits, whether in kind donations of materials and supplies or time. You know, we can give tax letters so that they can. Folks can use those to. For their tax purposes. So I think the in kind is a. Is a really important thing. Also, there's sponsorship. So sometimes when people are so busy but they want to do to give back, you know, they can sponsor a nonprofit event or maybe send some folks to. If it's a golf event or a 5K or, you know, something like that. That's another tip. Way to kind of tiptoe into a. A relationship.

‍ ‍

27:51
Speaker 2
Yeah, definitely. I did want to ask Molly if you could talk about your awesome campaign for the 2020, your 20th anniversary and the events that are surrounding that.

‍ ‍

28:05
Speaker 4
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. This is something we are super excited about. This year is MTech's 20th anniversary. So really great to see the longevity of the company. And so we wanted to celebrate that by giving back. And so this year we are hosting 20 events throughout the year in Colorado. And so we're partnering with 20 different organizations. And that all looks a little bit different, you know, from like a minimal standpoint. We are partnering with a local school to do two STEM grants. We'll be judging those submissions, you know, very minimal, you know, minimal time required or effort versus we had all of our general superintendents go to Volunteers of America, deliver Meals on Wheels for a morning. So you are pulling 18 people off of a job site for three hours.

‍ ‍

28:53
Speaker 4
You know, that's much more of a commitment from the business end as well. We're doing this across the state. We have four offices in Colorado. So we really want to kind of touch each of those areas was also really important. And then finally we are donating $2022 to all 20 of those charities. So it has just been amazing to see. And usually the check part is the spoiler alert that they have just been amazed to, you know, receive that. And we've been, you know, so thrilled to be able to give that too.

‍ ‍

29:24
Speaker 1
That's awesome though. You're sending an extremely dangerous precedent for.

‍ ‍

29:28
Speaker 4
Yeah, right.

‍ ‍

29:30
Speaker 1
The 50th is going to be a whole thing. Really saving up for the next 30 years.

‍ ‍

29:35
Speaker 2
Yeah.

‍ ‍

29:36
Speaker 4
But yeah, you can, I'll just put a small plug. You can definitely learn about it on our website, mtechg.com 20years. And all the events are listed there and updated throughout the year. And you can also submit a charity to get involved. So if you are in the Colorado area or no Colorado charity to give back to, we'd love to hear about them.

‍ ‍

29:56
Speaker 1
Awesome. Thank you. Maury. I'd love if you gave our view, our audience an opportunity to get involved in rebuilding together Montgomery County. How, how would we take some steps in learning more and getting involved?

‍ ‍

30:12
Speaker 5
Thank you. So you can visit our website, which is rebuilding togethermc.org and so there you'll see that we have a number of great events coming up. We also do tailored events for specific companies that say they have three hours on a Thursday in September. And we can do things that are specific to those organizations. I'll just reiterate. We're part of an affiliate network of 120 affiliates across the country. So our parent affiliate is@rebuildingtogether.org and you can also search an affiliate in your area if you'd like to get involved.

‍ ‍

30:51
Speaker 1
Wonderful. Thank you. It's amazing how many different organizations you said. 120. Yeah, that's every state.

‍ ‍

31:02
Speaker 5
Not quite, but they're very much neighbor helping neighbor. They were all started primarily by volunteers and then have grown up into non profits. And so ours has been around for 32 years, started by just good neighbors that wanted to help other neighbors. And we've been able to help 2,600 homeowners and galvanized 50,000 community volunteers just in our community alone. So across the nation, it's a pretty profound impact. It used to be called Christmas in April and it's now called Rebuilding Together. So.

‍ ‍

31:31
Speaker 1
Got it.

‍ ‍

31:32
Speaker 2
Okay.

‍ ‍

31:32
Speaker 5
Some folks may remember it as Christmas in April.

‍ ‍

31:35
Speaker 1
That's wonderful. What an important conversation. What an important mission you guys have. Thank you both so much for joining and, you know, having this discussion and getting all of our wheels turning about creative ways to do something important both for our own organizations and for our communities. So I think that thanks for having.

‍ ‍

31:58
Speaker 5
Us and I will just, I'm sure probably Molly feels the same if there's anybody out there that has questions or needs help, you know, I know I would be happy to help anybody answer any questions on how to get started. So thank you for having me.

‍ ‍

32:12
Speaker 2
Yeah.

‍ ‍

32:12
Speaker 4
Thank you so much. This was great.

‍ ‍

32:14
Speaker 2
Thanks so much.

‍ ‍

32:15
Speaker 1
Likewise. Yeah. So, Stacy, let's talk a little bit about what we have coming up next week. Next week we've got Amy Rock, who is from Prince George's County Public Schools. She is an awesome success story. She's got a fantastic story to tell about how to engage young people in educational programs that land them with careers quickly and sustainably and end up, you know, saving a whole bunch of money on debt. So I think we're going to have a really cool conversation with Amy. Is there anything that you want to add on that I'm missing?

‍ ‍

32:59
Speaker 2
Nope, you're not missing anything.

‍ ‍

33:01
Speaker 1
Awesome. Just a reminder, just a reminder for everybody. If you don't want to have to try to keep up on the posts on LinkedIn to get registered, please just shoot us a note. Stacy h. @steeltoe com.com she will help to get you on our weekly email list, which comes straight to you with the link to register. And you don't have the stress of trying to keep up with LinkedIn, which Lord knows I can't, and I don't think most people can. So thanks so much. Have a great one. We'll see you next week.

‍ ‍

33:36
Speaker 2
All right.

‍ ‍

33:37
Speaker 4
See ya.

‍ ‍

33:37
Speaker 1
See ya.