(In)Fertility Discourse: A RESOLVE Podcast

Show Notes
In this episode of "Everyday People," hosts Rebecca Flick, Barb Collura and Betsy Campbell answer questions from the community touching on varying topics from the impact of politics on IVF treatment to public representation of infertility treatment to the impact of advocacy on a small and grand scale. Join us as we dive into questions from our listeners, explore our official Spotify playlists, and much more. Whether you're in need of a fresh dose of insights or curious about our playlists, this episode has something for everyone!

Key Topics Discussed:
  • Community Q&A: We tackle some of the most intriguing questions from our listeners, shedding light on the topics that matter most to you.
  • Host Fun Fact: Discover an interesting tidbit about one of our hosts that you probably didn’t know. It’s a fun and personal touch that adds a unique flavor to our show!
  • Spotify Playlists: We discuss our official Spotify playlists, curating music and resources that complement our episodes and enrich your listening experience.
  • Additional Highlights: Tune in for more surprises and updates that make this episode a must-listen.

Why You Should Listen:
This episode is packed with engaging content and updates that bring you closer to our hosts and the heart of our show. From answering your questions to sharing personal insights, we aim to keep our community connected and informed.

Call to Action:
We love hearing from you! Stay connected by following us on Spotify and reaching out with your questions and feedback. Visit our website for more details and to access our playlists.

Listener Links / Resources:

Creators and Guests

BC
Host
Barb Collura
President & CEO at RESOLVE
BC
Host
Betsy Campbell
Chief Engagement Officer at RESOLVE
RF
Host
Rebecca Flick
Chief External Affairs Officer at RESOLVE

What is (In)Fertility Discourse: A RESOLVE Podcast?

Join RESOLVE’s leadership team for an in-depth look at what it takes to pass pro-family legislation, protect IVF, and what we’re up against.

HOSTS
President & CEO, Barb Collura
Chief Engagement Officer, Betsy Campbell
Chief External Affairs Officer, Rebecca Flick

ABOUT RESOLVE
RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association is the largest non-profit patient advocacy organization in the country focusing on increasing access to all family building options through insurance coverage and policy changes as well as protecting fertility care like IVF from legislation.

Rebecca Flick:

Hello, and welcome to Infertility Discourse, a podcast from Resolve, the National Infertility Association. I'm your host, Rebecca Flick, along here with

Barb Collura:

I'm Barb Collura.

Betsy Campbell:

I'm Betsy Campbell.

Rebecca Flick:

And we have gathered again for episode 4. We are just rolling these out, and we're very, very proud. We we got ourselves together on this, rainy Thursday where we're recording. And today's podcast is going to be really amazing because we are answering some questions from our community, and we at Resolve are all about community.

Rebecca Flick:

We love our community. It is grown, leaps down.

Betsy Campbell:

The best community.

Rebecca Flick:

Yep. Over the years. And, we are are are proud to have an organization that represents, millions of people in this country. And for those that engage with us regularly, whether it's on social media, or in our local support groups or in our advocacy efforts, we just really have the best people. And there's a, another organization out there who always says, worst club best members.

Rebecca Flick:

And I have to agree, with our friends at fertility rally, who I'm actually speaking to later today. So I'm excited for that. Anyway, we're gonna answer some questions today. We're gonna get right into it. Today's episode and our song is everyday people.

Rebecca Flick:

So we're gonna gonna bring some classic funk into this episode. And I'm excited that we are going to, along with this podcast, add a Spotify playlist that goes along with our our episode themes. So you can find that on Spotify, and we'll link to it in the show notes. Alright. Let's dive into the discourse.

Rebecca Flick:

Are we ready?

Barb Collura:

I love it that we're gonna have a have a playlist. That just cracks me up.

Rebecca Flick:

Well, we do have a playlist, of a community playlist where every year during national fertility awareness week, we ask people to add songs that they, that inspire them during their family building journey. And it is one of my favorite playlist to listen to because it's community built and, the songs either break you into tears or or just bring you such hope. So that that playlist is out there as well. But music music makes the world go round and so does advocacy. And that's what the questions that we are answering today.

Betsy Campbell:

Great segue, Rebecca.

Rebecca Flick:

I I think I was born to do this maybe. I did. Fun fact. We haven't done a fun fact in a couple episodes. I hosted my high school, morning news program.

Barb Collura:

You did not.

Betsy Campbell:

There you go.

Barb Collura:

I did. You're so good at this.

Rebecca Flick:

And did the morning announcements.

Barb Collura:

Wow.

Rebecca Flick:

Shout out to Wall High School in New Jersey.

Barb Collura:

They trained you well.

Rebecca Flick:

There we go. Alright. Let's talk. Let's get these questions answered. So, we asked these quest we asked for, question submissions, through Instagram.

Rebecca Flick:

So if you don't follow us on Instagram, you can follow us at resolveorg. And our first question I'm gonna start with this one. Someone wants to know what our reaction is to the presidential candidates Now that both tickets are pretty much set, VP choices have been solidified. Our reaction to what candidates are saying about our issues specific particularly IVF, and what do voters need to know, with these elections coming up?

Barb Collura:

Well, I'll I'll jump in and start. So I just wanna preface this question, or this my answer with a little bit of background on what an organization like Resolve can and can't do when it comes to elections and campaigns and that sort of thing. So we are classified by the IRS code as a 501 c 3 nonprofit organization. Again, 501c3, you probably heard that before. A lot of the charities that you probably support are 501c3's organizations that work in your communities.

Barb Collura:

Coincidentally, the American Society For Reproductive Medicine or ASRM is also a 501c3. So, unfortunately, we as 501c3's cannot get involved in any kind of campaigns or candidates. So we can't get out there and endorse candidates. We can't talk about candidates. We can't talk about as an organization, we can encourage people to vote, and we can do some voter education.

Barb Collura:

I don't know if we're gonna be doing that or not, but it because it takes a lot of work. But we certainly can, can encourage people to vote. So in answer to your question, which was how do we feel, I think that's what you said, how do we feel about, candidates who are talking about our issues in IVF and that sort of thing? And, look, I personally I love it because we don't have a big, huge public awareness budget. You don't see Resolve out there buying commercials during the Super Bowl.

Barb Collura:

You don't see us putting a lot of ads out there on Instagram and Facebook and other places on the Internet. So it's it's it's kind of free public awareness. And any time whether you're a movie star, a sports figure, a TV personality, a news a newscaster, we've had all those, who've talked about their own personal, family building struggles, it's amazing. It's amazing. It, it normalizes it.

Barb Collura:

It brings awareness. It educates the public. It does all those good things, and we are so, so, so grateful. I just wanna say though that and I'm getting a little a little, if you will, a little snarky about this because we've got a lot of people this year in 2024 say, I support IVF. IVF is great.

Barb Collura:

I support IVF. And here's the deal. Just talking about it doesn't actually get people insurance coverage. And I said that yesterday

Rebecca Flick:

to it. Yeah.

Barb Collura:

I said that yesterday to a reporter, and it ended up in Time Magazine. So, you know, we need to see action. And there's so many opportunities today for members of congress, for legislators at the state level to support our issues. They can do that by helping to expand, insurance coverage for IVF. They can do that by protecting IVF and ensuring that we don't see any kind of legislation that would harm access.

Barb Collura:

So, look. It's great. I'll take the free public awareness, but I want action.

Betsy Campbell:

Walk the talk. Right? Walk the talk.

Rebecca Flick:

Besides protecting and increasing access to IVF, what other issues does Resolve care about?

Barb Collura:

Betsy, I'll let you start with the other things that you do.

Betsy Campbell:

Right. Well, we care about all family building options. Check out our mission and values. So we respect all resolutions, whether that is, seeking medical treatment, whether that's adoption, whether it's surrogacy, whether it's resolving to live child free. And so we work very hard to make sure that people have all family building options and that all people have all family building options.

Betsy Campbell:

So, you know, in addition to the medical treatment of IVF, we're trying to, protect and expand access to surrogacy. Just this year, couple of months ago, Michigan overturned its ban on compensated surrogacy, which basically really was meaning if you were in Michigan, you couldn't access surrogacy unless you happen to know someone who would do your pregnant you know, carry, a child for you without any sort of compensation. So, an advocate who had to leave the state to, have her child via surrogacy decided that wasn't right. And she started an organization called Michigan Fertility Alliance. I'm talking about, Stephanie Jones, and we're looking forward to honoring her at our night of hope in, November because as a result of creating this grassroots movement, Michigan now, allows surrogacy.

Betsy Campbell:

It's legal in the state, and it also strengthens, the parentage laws for all people who, may need assisted reproduction, to have a child. So we've also worked to overturn the ban, in New York on surrogacy. People were shocked to hear that surrogacy was also allied outlawed in New York. We've worked in, Minnesota when there were groups trying to, make surrogacy harder to access. So, you know, most people don't know that surrogacy is, has been under threat.

Betsy Campbell:

So and I know we also do a lot in the adoption space. So I'll let Barb talk about that.

Barb Collura:

Yeah. Just briefly at the federal level and at the state level, we've, gotten involved in adoption advocacy and, really, we look at it from the lens of access. So at the federal level, there's an adoption tax credit. We were very proud to, have that be now a permanent part of the tax code. Resolve has been advocating for the adoption tax credit for, I don't know, more than 20 years, and we are, a part of a of a coalition that works in congress.

Barb Collura:

And then we wanna see that now refundable. It's gonna help more people if it's a refundable credit. At the state level, we've seen, some states, about 10 states who pass laws that allow adoption agencies to discriminate. Yes. You heard that.

Barb Collura:

Allow an adoption agency to discriminate. In other words, they can pick and choose who can and can't be an adoptive parent, and we wanna see a federal law that would ban that and would, in essence, set a federal precedent so that no state could pass that kind of legislation and overturn what already exists. So we work, on those kinds of issues and and more. But I would just say that, you know, we we we prioritize our our time and energy because it's so limited at Resolve. We are a very small organization, and we do a lot.

Barb Collura:

And so, we really have to prioritize where we think we're gonna get wins and where we think we're gonna get movement. And, it it sometimes, it depends on on the political climate, you know, what's happening in our country. And, sometimes, it depends on people like Stephanie Jones, who's worked really hard in a particular state. So Yep. I don't want this to sound like we do, you know, only one thing.

Barb Collura:

It's, it's a it's one of those things where, you know, we reserve the right to get smarter. We are constantly looking at what the landscape is and where we think, we can get, traction on a particular issue, and we're gonna put our time and energy there.

Rebecca Flick:

Yeah. And I think if you're listening and wanna know more information on where we stand on things, we have a a page, our issues on resolve.org. It'll be in the, show notes, to link to so you can see all the issues we cover. And I think we smartly go into to our advocacy priorities, like you said, Bar, but also where resolve can lead and where resolve can help and where resolve can be part of the conversation. And so we've recently added on our website a list of coalitions that Resolve is part of.

Rebecca Flick:

And I think our community will be really interesting to know the tables that we sit at and, you know, honor and representing them and and who we sit with is really important.

Barb Collura:

Can I just say something about that? You know, one of the things about coalitions and some some coalitions resolve has started and some, you know, we've been asked to participate in. And, you know, Betsy, I don't know how how you feel about this, but I really feel like because our time is so limited, we we have to sometimes pick and choose and pick and choose what what we can be a part of or what, you know, we can say yes to. And the way I always look at it is, are we providing value? If there's another organization that's a part of it that's could that's doing can provide better value than us, have at it.

Barb Collura:

Right? Yep. Likewise, if we're forming a coalition, let's say we're working in Minnesota or we're working across country on particular issue or wherever the case may be, and we have the opportunity to invite people to the table. And, Rebecca, this is, this is always hard. Right?

Barb Collura:

Because there's a lot of a lot of really, good people out there in different organizations. We're gonna look at who's bringing value to the table. And, and that's what's really, really important. And so I just encourage people as you think about how you get involved in things is if there's somebody who's doing the same thing you're doing, but if you have some unique value that you bring, then you need to make sure that that's been, front and center. So, you know, coalitions are about taking the best of every single organization and bringing it all together.

Barb Collura:

The last thing you want is people duplicating efforts because nobody has unlimited time and resources.

Rebecca Flick:

Yeah. There's, couple other issues I wanna talk about from kind of a communications lens since that's my role, is that we care a lot about how the infertility community is presented in a public space. So Barb kind of started the podcast talking about, you know, we love when celebrities or, you know, newscasters are, you know, talking about their infertility and their family building experience because public awareness is great. We also are used a lot as a resource for major production companies to say, hey, are we getting this right? Or what I've watched movies and mini series, for certain streaming services before they went live to say, hey, you know, what is your community gonna think about this?

Rebecca Flick:

And I've had to give some really honest, brutal, feedback at how wrong they're getting it or how kind of sensationalized they're making in fertility journey. And we've we've provided content for these streaming services and the production companies to say, this is a trigger warning. This is not representative of the journey. If you're seeking, you know, if you're, need medical attention, seek care from a medical doctor that's certified so we we those issues are important to us that we're represented correctly in the community and I think that's important to note and also the patient experience We talk a lot about that at Resolve, and over the years, we've done a lot of surveys of our community so we can give feedback to clinics, to doctors, to pharmaceutical companies to say this is what the patient wants. And, those issues really, really matter to us as well.

Rebecca Flick:

I feel like totally gonna call Barb out right now because I can hear her keyboard tapping and her Okay.

Barb Collura:

Here's the thing, ladies. Can we just can we just all just say what's on our mind? Betsy was technically challenged today. Now, here's the deal. We need to be a little chatty on these podcasts.

Barb Collura:

And so, I have a call that was scheduled right after this podcast with somebody, and now I'm realizing we're probably gonna go over. But, Betsy, I know you reserve the right to get smarter. But, we we gave you a lot of lot of tips today on how to get

Rebecca Flick:

Lot of runway.

Barb Collura:

Technology going between the headset and the microphone. I mean, for those of you listening, this is hard. Okay? Getting a podcast is not just fun and games. Alright?

Barb Collura:

What do they say? It's all fun and games until you bring out the 20 page instruction manual. So Right. We have a special kind of microphone. Betsy had to get a special headset.

Barb Collura:

We we had to get remove the dog from the room. Oh, all

Rebecca Flick:

of us all of us had to remove our dog.

Barb Collura:

That's true. My dog who was removed broke through the door right at the last minute after we all It's a little more ring.

Rebecca Flick:

It's we

Betsy Campbell:

love your fur babies.

Barb Collura:

So needless to say, Rebecca, thanks.

Betsy Campbell:

Segment ID.

Barb Collura:

Thank you for calling me out on my but all of a sudden, I'm like, oh my god. We we scheduled an hour for this, but I think 40 minutes was on technology. So what episode is this for?

Rebecca Flick:

For.

Barb Collura:

So we reserve the right to get smarter. We are gonna get this figured out. Maybe by episode 10, we will have all the technology down and be good to go at 9:0:1, Rebecca.

Rebecca Flick:

Yes. You're also a listener getting a real true inside look into our relationship, which is very sisterly. Very sisterly. I'm I'm the youngest.

Barb Collura:

Doesn't really bark very much and neither does mine, but Betsy's does. And so Yes. She has, you know Well, at

Rebecca Flick:

least we don't have a cat crossing.

Barb Collura:

Okay. Well, the cat doesn't always talk into the microphone, so it doesn't matter.

Rebecca Flick:

Alright. Oh, that makes me laugh. Okay. Let's see. I'm looking at all these great questions and I know we would spend hours answering people's questions if we could.

Rebecca Flick:

What could someone do right now this moment after turning this podcast off and maybe they already have because we're just a little crazy today. What can they do to advocate this summer? Especially when there's not, like, an advocacy data register for, our advocacy alerts are somewhat quiet because there's not a lot of legislative activity happening.

Barb Collura:

We get asked this all the time. Yep. We get asked this all the time. I did a talk yesterday and I got asked this, you know, in the q and a. What what can we do?

Barb Collura:

Because, you know, we always have our, like, do these five things. And they're like, but what can I do right now? And one of the things that really struck me, especially during you know, here we are in 2024, it seems like every day somebody's talking about IVF. And, you know, I think having your what I would call, like, your antennas up a little bit and listening to what's going on in the media, listening to what, politicians are saying, and and using this as an opportunity to maybe, you know, repost a news article. There's a lot of articles right now about, talking about IVF.

Barb Collura:

I would also maybe use this as an opportunity to talk to friends and family, share, where you stand on this, you know, why why it's important to you that there be insurance coverage, etcetera, and why IVF should be, should be accessible to all. So maybe it's just an awareness. So, Rebecca, I know that doesn't sound very activism like. I mean, people wanna be like, I wanna be marching in the streets and, you know, here's the thing. Advocacy can start very small.

Barb Collura:

Right? Think about the people in your world and those concentric circles and, you know, you start talking about it, they start talking about it, and so on and so on, and it starts making a real difference. But, Betsy, what would you tell people?

Betsy Campbell:

Well, actually, summer is a great time to, advocate because guess what? Most of your lawmakers are home in their districts for the summer. So they could have At

Barb Collura:

the state level and right state level. And then at the federal level, they have a recess in August and part of September. So they're they are they are home.

Betsy Campbell:

Right. So you don't have to travel to the nation's capital or your state capital. It's very likely that your, lawmaker may have an office, actually right in your district. So it's easy to, reach out and and schedule calls or meetings. What people don't realize is your lawmakers work for you.

Betsy Campbell:

As their constituent, you're the most important person to them because, guess what, You vote, but also their job is to listen to you and serve you. So, we really encourage people to get to know, their lawmakers, especially their state lawmakers while they're home. Also, summertime, there are often a lot of town halls, especially during an election year, where you can go and listen. And if you're so moved, ask a question about infertility. Share your experience.

Betsy Campbell:

Or if you don't wanna do it then, you know, reach out afterwards to let them know, that you care about this issue. And then guess what? You have now established yourself as a resource, someone that lawmaker can, reach out to you to learn more about that issue. Or when there's legislation introduced, you can say, hey. Remember me?

Betsy Campbell:

And then tell them that you really hope they'll support, that legislation or oppose it if it's bad. So, again, law and we talked about this on the last episode. Lawmakers are real people. You Most of them at the state level have other jobs. So, you know, they're just like you and me, except they decided to run for office.

Betsy Campbell:

So don't be, don't be shy.

Rebecca Flick:

And we'll also link to a blog we have about ways you can navigate this summer. So we will put that in the show notes as well because, if you're looking if you're not sure what to say, we have tips on that as well. And, you know, follow and share our our social media posts because you don't have to come up with the language to get it right about how to talk about the issues. We can do that for you. It's your story that personalizes it.

Barb Collura:

Yep. And that's what we wanna get across. Yep.

Betsy Campbell:

Right. Your story is the most important, and you're the expert on that story.

Rebecca Flick:

Alright. We're gonna take this last question right here because I think this is this will be a fun one for us to kind of reminisce a little bit. What's a time in all of our history here at resolve where you were inspired by the infertility community. And if I'm doing the math correctly, we have a combined close to combined between all 3 of us close to 50 years at Resolve. Wow.

Barb Collura:

Absolute oh, yeah. More than that. For sure.

Rebecca Flick:

Yep.

Barb Collura:

So, around that. Yeah. So, Rebecca, you go first.

Rebecca Flick:

Okay. Well, I had to dig dig deep a little bit, and I confirmed the date in 2011. Do you did? 2011. 13 years ago.

Rebecca Flick:

We were a very different organization than we were today, much smaller staff, and also the internet was really different. Social media, very different. And we were launching national fertility awareness week like we do every year, and all of a sudden I started getting a lot of, inquiries from the media about what PETA was doing. And I'm sure everyone listening knows PETA, not the bread, but the Ethical Treatment of Animals Organization.

Barb Collura:

P e t a. Right?

Rebecca Flick:

P e t a. PETA launched their own campaign around National Infertility Awareness Week, and they were encouraging people to, I guess, men, to sign up, to win a free vasectomy in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week. And we were Oh

Barb Collura:

my god. I remember that.

Rebecca Flick:

We were

Barb Collura:

so like, what?

Rebecca Flick:

What? It was such an abuse and slap in the face to what people go through. It they felt it aligned with their mission, but it absolutely did not align with the mission of National Fertility Awareness Week. We began our outreach from org to org, you know, organization to organization. But then it people in our community, we have online community, we had support groups, we had probably a face book presence at that time.

Rebecca Flick:

People were really upset, and so we started encouraging our community to reach out to PETA and tell them why it was so hurtful. We flooded their national office with phone calls to the point where their voicemail was filled. They changed their voicemail acknowledging that they were getting so many calls, but they were still standing on their campaign. They got very aggressive in social media against us, and we finally overwhelmed them so much. And the media started to kind of almost turn on them as well that they took down the campaign.

Rebecca Flick:

Not a formal apology, but taking down that campaign was enough. And I sat there, you know, very, very proud at our community who stood up at a very at a very vulnerable time in their lives and demanded that they not be used as collateral for another organization's Yeah. Wacky promotion. So bravo. As Betsy was, bravo to bravo to our community.

Barb Collura:

I'll go next. You know, I mean, when you get asked questions like this after Rebecca and Betsy, we've been all of us have been at Resolve a long time and have a lot of these memories. But recency, of course, is what my brain goes to. And I was in Alabama on February 28th when we had our advocacy day. And, you know, we didn't have months months of prep and, you know, we didn't have a lot of, a lot of, you know, promotion going on out there.

Barb Collura:

But I I ended up having to run an errand out to make some photocopies, actually, of of some of the materials we were gonna hand out. And the Uber driver you know, you chitchat with Uber driver, and he's like, oh, I don't know what's going down at the capitol, but I just dropped somebody off there and there's all these people and all these tents. And I was like, I think that's for what I'm going to. And so, you know, when I got up to the capitol to have my Uber driver take me there when I finally was ready, I was like, oh my god. There's all these people here.

Barb Collura:

And I had an opportunity to hand out t shirts. I had an opportunity to talk to people. And, I mean, I'm telling you, there were people, you know, clearly in their seventies and eighties, people with kids with strollers, people completely by themselves, men and women, all walks of life, 200 and some people. And I started talking to people, and it was like, why are you here? Why are you here?

Barb Collura:

Why are you here? And, I mean, the store I was crying. I was the stories, I had people there who were there they were there because their adult child was going through this. They were they were I I can't I could go on from now on and on. But to show up, right, they all came from other parts of the state.

Barb Collura:

And they came to the state capitol, and honestly, I found out most of them had no idea what to expect.

Betsy Campbell:

And Had never been to the state capitol.

Barb Collura:

And and it wasn't like we had this all, like, frequently asked questions. Here's what's gonna happen when you show up in Montgomery. Like, none of that was going on. So it was completely on, you know, just adrenaline of advocacy that these these folks got in their cars, drove to the state capitol, showed up, and we're kinda wandering around. And we were all gathering there.

Barb Collura:

So, wow, it was, I don't know. I don't know what it would take for me to do something like that. That was unbelievable.

Betsy Campbell:

And I feel like every article now that talks about the threats to IVF show those pictures from Alabama and the sea of the orange t shirts and the white doctor's coats. And, you know, talk about a picture tells a 1,000 words. It's just people turned out. They

Barb Collura:

That's unbelievable.

Betsy Campbell:

They wanted to do something. They Yeah. You know? They had a grievance that they wanted addressed by their lawmakers.

Barb Collura:

What about you, Bets? What's what's one of your memories?

Betsy Campbell:

Gosh. One of my most salient, kind of inspiring memories was meeting this wonderful couple from Colorado, Crystal and Tyler Wilson. I first met them at our federal advocacy day. Gosh. I think it was back maybe in the 2017 or so, and they were advocating for IVF for vets, and they shared their story of Tyler being wounded.

Betsy Campbell:

And and as a result, we actually got some coverage for wounded vets, IVF coverage. Well, fast forward to a couple years later, and I'm in Colorado because there is interest in getting a state insurance law. And who's leading the meeting, but Crystal Wilson with her newborn baby, her second IVF child. So her family is complete, and yet she's leading the effort to try to pass IVF insurance coverage for others in Colorado. So this is what's remarkable about our community is people wanna make it better for the next person.

Betsy Campbell:

Even though they have found their resolution, whatever it is, they wanna try to make it easier for others. And I'll just never forget, that experience. And that legislation was sort of, what does it say? When you capture lightning in a bottle, it passed the 1st year. And that really never happens, but, boy, it was just the perfect storm.

Betsy Campbell:

And, it it literally, the governor signed it April 1st during the COVID pandemic. Our bill was the last bill to pass before the government shut down for COVID. Yeah. So a lot of memorable moments there. And, of course, seeing her 2 IVF children running up and down the halls of the capitol, and she would bring them to the meetings and just just what it's all about, family.

Rebecca Flick:

Well, that's a great way to end this episode. I think we've pointed out a lot of ways. We're gonna get smarter, this episode as we as we try to close with. So what are we looking forward to, and what are we, the rest of this month of August?

Barb Collura:

Well, I'm gonna take some a few days off, so I'm very excited about that. I know Betsy is as well, but, I would just say that, you know, I don't know. It seems like every day something is going on in this country, and we are getting calls from the media. And, you know, we're just trying to keep it real. We're just trying to be honest.

Barb Collura:

We're trying to be forthright. We're, trying to make sure our community is supported and doing every everything we can to make sure that our issues are, front and center.

Rebecca Flick:

Yep. And we're gonna celebrate our 50th anniversary this month. That's

Barb Collura:

great as well. Oh, really? Cake? Are we gonna have cake? Are we gonna have a balloon?

Rebecca Flick:

Good.

Barb Collura:

We should have, like,

Betsy Campbell:

a pub orange icing.

Barb Collura:

You know what we should do? We should have we should next time, we should maybe have a little a little special treat. Little special treat.

Rebecca Flick:

Oh, a

Barb Collura:

little yeah. We can go right to the we can go right to the right.

Rebecca Flick:

We like the bubbly.

Barb Collura:

We like the bubbly. Right to there.

Betsy Campbell:

Barb, will you make your scones, please?

Barb Collura:

Okay. Alright. Well, maybe we'll one of these episodes, maybe I'll put my scone recipe in the show notes. Yes.

Rebecca Flick:

That would be fun. But we are gonna celebrate with a public fundraising campaign. So keep in touch via email, head to resolve. Org to see how we're recognizing and what you can do to support

Barb Collura:

I like the word fundraising. You still have to take all these.

Betsy Campbell:

And and people don't have to wait for that.

Barb Collura:

Right? They can donate now.

Rebecca Flick:

Right? Well, if you're listening to this, we are we will be in full full, fundraising mode. So Awesome. Alright. Thanks for being late to your call, Barb.

Rebecca Flick:

And whoever that is, tell them it was worth it.

Betsy Campbell:

Sorry.

Barb Collura:

Yeah. It was my fault. Everyone for listening.

Rebecca Flick:

Thanks. We'll see you next time.