Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
KTBS Podcasting and the Committee of 100 present Good to Know Shreveport-Bossier, a podcast series showcasing the good things happening in our area. We’ll go in-depth about economic development, community growth and other topics about initiatives that are having a positive impact in our community. We’ll have new episodes every other Wednesday. You can find the KTBS Good to Know podcast wherever you listen to podcasting. Or go to KTBS.com or KTBS Now on your streaming device to see the full interview.
Hey. Hello again everybody.
Welcome to Good to Know
Shreveport-Bossier.
This is a podcast. We showcase
all the good things, the positive things
happening around the arklatex.
My name is Jeff by for over here
is my co-host and I use the term loosely.
Paul Reiser
is a member of the Committee of 100.
Used to fry
some mean French fries at Sonic, right?
That's right.
Became a multi-millionaire.
And yet he makes me do this.
And I'm his caddy.
Every podcast
we focus on topics and initiatives
that do have, as we said, positive impacts
around the community.
New episodes are available
every other Wednesday and you can find
good to know
wherever you listen to your podcast.
As always, Mister Racer, the honors
go to you to introduce our special guests.
I'll take a nap to you.
Get it?
Finally get around to saying their names.
Well, thank you for the honor, Jeff.
And it is an honor.
I do not take it lightly.
I appreciate it. Not.
It's too great gravity
with which you do these things.
Well, actually, today.
No. I'm laughing.
No, it's going to be fun. Super fun.
So this is a very eye
opening episode for me.
Okay.
for people of our demographic,
you and me, more mature.
What are you saying?
I use that term.
How old is that? Well,
I didn't want to come out and say it,
but we're kind of old,
and I don't think a lot about the younger.
Like the super young kid.
You probably do.
You think about everything, Jeff? Yeah.
pretty much. Yeah.
Because I'm young at heart.
That's true.
But I don't think about as much
as I should
just about some of the challenges
of our youngest and most vulnerable.
Vulnerable?
That's a tough word for me this morning.
Many words are tough for you, but,
the population of kids,
there's a big challenges that,
that sometimes I forget about.
But there is a group.
There's an organization called Volunteer
for Youth Justice,
and they don't forget about it.
They're helping to take care of kids
and all these tough situations,
whether it's hunger
or getting to school or see what I take.
It just goes on and on.
But but they're bringing so much,
just help to the situation.
So here to talk about all the things
that Volunteer Youth Justice is doing.
Executive Director Kelly Todd and,
executive of everything else,
Aaron Woods. Stop that.
You can't fit that on a card. Well.
Thank you.
Hey, you know,
thank you all for coming today.
Because what y'all do is so important.
And, it's just amazing to hear
about all these things.
So thank you for having us.
we we do.
We are youth as our youth and families.
That is what we are here to deal with.
And, we deal with kids in the school
system, the foster care system
and the juvenile justice system.
So it touches a lot of different areas
in our community.
one thing where we we've really made
a huge impact over the years
is our truancy program.
We work with the kindergartners through
fifth grade, the K through fifth grade,
and a lot of people think these kids
all go to school, but they don't.
kindergartners and first grades miss
a lot of school, and then they get behind.
And then by the time they get to third and
fourth grade, they can't read and write.
And we can't really blame the kids
for this situation.
So that's why it's so important to
to give them help.
And even my kids, who you wouldn't
think would get in any trouble,
they've been offended. I know you, so I'm.
They benefited from, the youth justice
program, actually.
What program did they go to? Well,
you know, teen court.
Teen court.
That is one of our favorite programs.
Mine, too.
Yeah, it's really cool.
I hope it saved us a lot of money.
Probably.
And it's put my kids back on the straight
and narrow early on.
Very good.
So we're here to explain teen court
because not only were they,
you know, members,
they went on and became volunteers
because it was so impactful for them.
Absolutely.
So Teen Court is a program
where we train teenagers
to become like prosecutors, attorneys,
jurors,
different things, and we train them
and then they hear their peers cases.
So when a teenager gets into first time
trouble, nothing major, a misdemeanor,
they can come to teen teen court
and be judged by their peers.
And those peers are pretty tough now.
I've seen them try to hand down sentences
and I'm like, wow, this is harsh.
But you know,
but they'll give them community service
and make them go to a class.
They make them write apology letters
to people, to the store owners,
if they if it was a theft, different
things like that.
But the most impactful
it is, it's very creative, very creative.
The most impactful thing about it
is a lot of these volunteers that we train
go on to become attorneys. We get
we have a board member
that's on our board now.
That was in court.
She became an attorney
and she's our village board member now.
So they start out on the wrong side
like my daughter had a speeding ticket.
My son, I don't remember what he did.
I think you all broke up in that school.
Well, it's too late for your first family,
your first offense.
So kids make a mistake.
And, man, she got in front of.
They go to the actual courtroom.
They do.
And, Judge Nair and man, he
he told her the full force of the law
kind of straighten it out.
But the kids will give a stronger,
you know, what they realize?
they have what are some things you said
they give, community, community service
hours, you know, and they'll make them
write apology letters.
if it's something at school
they make, may make them stay after school
with the teacher and help her.
I mean, definitely get to see
the court system and how it works.
I mean, they're these kids.
So your kids were involved,
but are these kids that normally
just fall through the cracks,
or are they all kids?
Well, what it does, it keeps them from
going into the juvenile justice system.
Because once you get in there
with a docket number
and a record, it's hard to get out.
So what?
It does it when they complete our teen
court, all their charges get dismissed.
So it's a nice diversion
intervention program.
And that's what we're all about really,
truly is the intervention and diversion.
Because if we can catch them now,
we're not going to have that issue down
the road.
And, you know, talking to Paul
a little bit before the segment,
he was saying that both of his children,
after going through Teen Court,
then went and got involved themselves
and then learned the ins
and out of our judicial system.
And they have that going forward.
And, you know,
what are they doing now? Ask.
Well, actually, my daughter
is an art therapist in Chicago,
the mean streets,
and my son's a computer scientist.
So so they've gone on to be they've gone,
I believe it
or not, despite their father's
poor influence.
But, Aaron, you talked a lot yesterday
about diversion. Yes.
So kind of explain to me what diversion
means to you and this organization
and how,
I mean, diversion is just like any
you would think you know, water's coming
down.
It's flowing pretty hard.
You throw up roadblock to try and
get it back where you want it going.
Correct.
So that's where we come in
with all of our different programs.
And, you know, Kelly talked about this
briefly when we first started.
one of our great programs
is our truancy program.
We call it task.
if you look at the numbers in our area
before Covid, I want to say it was like
something like 300 to 400 kids
in that K-3,
five age group in Caddo Parish alone.
We're having ten plus missed
unexcused days at school.
That's a lot.
That's really hard to catch up from.
Then you get into the Covid years
and it skyrockets.
At one point
we were around 3500, almost 4000 4000
kids in one parish with ten
plus unexcused absences.
And we're not talking about a 16 year old
that skipped school to go joyriding.
We're talking second grade,
where we were learning the basics.
That's correct.
And it is a parental issue at this point.
But after Covid it just spiked
because everything shut down.
People got used to not going to school
families in valued school.
Right.
So instead of sending them to court
and taking up the juvenile court's time
and talking about everything
that's going on there,
we get in there and figure it out.
Nine times out of ten, it's
not just because the parents like it.
They don't need an education.
They can go work the hard streets right?
Right.
It could be they don't have enough money
for school supplies, and they are
embarrassed to send their kids to school
to get, kid to school without them.
there's been instances
where there were kids,
multiple kids in a home sharing a uniform.
I mean, what in this day and age?
I mean, that's crazy.
So we try to fix those problems
before it becomes a legal issue,
get them back on the right path,
because they really do want to do right.
They do.
So how did you deal with it
during the Covid years?
And when you spoke with some of the kids,
we we
we took a different approach
and they weren't going to school.
So we started going to the house
and checking on them,
and checking on see what was going on.
And a lot of times, like she said, it was,
they didn't have resources
to get to school and they were scared.
It, you know, Covid,
they were scared to go to school.
They had watched family members
die. Right.
And so it was a it was a two year
spike in truancy.
Now we've got it back under control,
I believe.
but we're we work very hard on keeping
getting these kids in the school.
There's so many areas you work on.
I think six distinct programs. Okay.
We can't do justice to all six, but
what are the six areas that you work on?
So we work.
Casa is court appointed special advocates.
That's where we advocate for children
in foster care.
We train volunteers.
If anybody wants to volunteer,
please contact Erin.
would love it. Please.
so we train volunteers to advocate
for the best interests of the child
in the in the court system.
So we're trying to find safe and stable
housing for kids in our community
that are in foster care.
A lot of people think there's not a lot of
foster care issues in our community.
We serve 750 kids last year
in foster care,
so our goal is to get in there
quickly, start interviewing relatives,
meeting with their doctors,
trying to find them somewhere to stay.
So they're with somebody familiar.
we have about 150 Casa volunteers.
That doesn't equal to 750 kids.
We had to search.
So we're always looking for people
to advocate the some.
Some of these advocates
take more than one child.
They will, but it's tough.
It's a lot of work. It's
not an easy volunteer job.
I mean, you are
you are going to meet with the child,
the foster parent,
the parents, the schools. It's.
And then you have to write court
reports to the judge
giving you your recommendations.
And so this will take a year. Yeah.
They take a year
to two years to close out.
And if a person is, sensitive
to foster children
and they said, wow, this is a need,
I don't think that I could do that.
I couldn't take them on.
This is an opportunity
to get really involved and help
without actually becoming a full foster
parent.
Correct. Right.
You're not they're not moving in with you,
you know. Yeah.
But you're doing a very major part
and helping assistant kids.
Yes, I heard a story last week
and it just broke my heart.
It was a 16 year old girl that was going
through our quarter program.
And in the year
that she was a part of that program,
she had five different, different
agents from,
you know, were her DCFs workers.
Yes. Yes.
Her social worker and a different lawyer
every time she showed up in court. Wow.
So our casa that was assigned to her
was her only constant,
and I just I can't imagine it
as a 16 year old, much less, you know, a
seven year old walking into a courtroom
and not knowing what to expect,
but to do it without someone there
that you have a connection with.
It's got to be terrifying.
That's how I got involved
with this organization.
I was actually teaching school
at Captain Shreve in 2001,
and I started volunteering in 2004
with Vijay.
Well, once I saw a job opening up.
I've been here ever since.
And just the mission of our organization,
the impact we make on families.
What is interesting,
I just called volunteers
and there are a few paid employees,
but just majority of volunteers.
There's a lot of paid employees, really.
We've grown. That's what the programs.
So all the the staff members, they
supervise, the volunteers, the volunteers,
you know, they need guidance
and they need assistance.
So we supervise volunteers.
But not all of our programs are volunteer
based, but a lot of them are.
It shows how much impact
a volunteer can have.
You just wanted to go volunteer
and now you run the company.
Correct. You gotta be careful.
You gotta be careful what you get,
what you step and she'll grow.
Will mostly with the kids.
But do you deal with parents too?
We do all we we
we know how important it is.
You can't just deal with the kid
if you're going to send them back home
to the parent and nothing changes.
So a lot of our diversion, classes
that we run, power choice stamp out
shoplifting and
and our school fight program, they all
involve the parent component to it.
So while the child's in class,
the parents also in class.
You can't leave the parent out.
well, yeah, like you said,
you go home and nothing changes, right?
Or under the go ahead.
Well, how do the parents, how do they, Do
they are they resistant to this?
At first they are,
especially with our power of choice
classes because they're at night time
and it interferes the the 6 to 8:00.
Yeah. Schedule.
But once they get in there
and they're with another group of parents
dealing with the same issues,
they love it by the third class,
they have to come to six classes.
By the third class.
They're just talking
so many good things together
and they're collaborating together.
And it's been really effective.
They enjoy it. Good.
Well, you're not alone. Yeah.
Right. Yeah.
I mean I think that's the biggest thing,
you know,
you're not alone in you're
finding that connection.
At the same time you're learning.
Because one of the things that has
struck me is that so many of the issues
that we face are generational.
so in answer to your question,
with all the different programs
we have, the truancy,
we have our youth programs, we've got,
you know, the diversion programs
that you were just talking about,
our costs, our programs,
our TBR eye program
where we actually even go in to seek
and we work with the inmates
because when they get out,
it's trust based relational intervention.
And it's a trauma based focus
where you work with, you know, our goal
is obviously to work with the children,
and when they get overstimulated
or they get dysregulated,
we teach them how to center.
because at that point,
then you can eliminate
some of the bad behaviors
that people may have issues with.
you know,
you can do that in as an adult, too.
Everybody has got trauma.
It's how you learn how to deal with it
that makes the difference.
So I mean, it's like a fall.
So, you know, you go into CTC
and you teach these inmates as well
when they come out, guess what?
They're ready to actually be a parent
to their child.
And CCD, CCD is like
is in a correctional
at a correctional center.
I knew it was that,
but I couldn't think of the words.
So a lot of the kids we deal with,
their parents are incarcerated.
So if we can go in there
and we were given the tools to caregivers,
foster parents,
but we weren't given it to the bio parents
who eventually may end up getting custody
back of their child.
So it's a place
where we have a captive audience.
So you're well, you're well. Yeah.
But you're you're also dealing with,
a bunch of different groups here.
I mean, yes, kids, the foster parents,
the biological parents.
I mean, that's a lot to juggle.
It is a lot.
Yeah.
How do you do it?
Well, volunteers, baby volunteers,
and I agree.
And a great, staff, we have a great staff.
It's, everyone is mission driven,
and we're all here for the same reason,
and we're here to help.
How rewarding is it
when you see one of these kids
that might be going the wrong way?
It's back and not go the wrong way.
We get to see it.
That is what makes it.
At the end of the day,
we get to see it every week.
There's some kid that that turns it around
and makes a huge impact.
Tell me a success story about someone
that's really gone on and
thrived through this program.
okay, we have
a truancy case, I'll go truancy
and I'll tell you a couple little stories.
These are cases
I've actually been involved with.
We had a truancy case where the girl was,
not going to pass high school.
so when they get to middle high,
they go to our fans
department, which is another program
we run, Families in need.
The services.
Right.
That's where you deal with
the children who are ungovernable.
so they're running away skipping school
there.
Is there the issue
and so their parents can bring them in.
And we put together a service plan
for them to get back on track.
So we had a fence.
Gates actually was interviewed
by one of y'all, Janet Magner.
Yeah.
she came out
and did an interview, began to fail.
Wouldn't go to school for anyone,
get hooked up with our friends department.
She ended up, graduating.
She ended up getting,
He helped her write some scholarships,
ended up going to get a college.
And that's a big deal for this kid
who wasn't going to graduate.
Casas.
I mean, I could have so many stories
about our Casa program
because I had so many cases
when I was a Casa.
But probably my favorite story
is as a kid, he's one of my first cases.
this kid had been living on the streets
for 4 or 5 years.
nobody in his family wanted him.
He'd bounced from uncle to brother.
His mom was in jail.
he got in a really good foster home,
and I was with him for six years.
He ended up going into the military,
into the Navy.
And, he still communicates with me
regularly and is thriving.
Married, with kids. Nice.
that kind of stuff.
Makes it makes it worth it
at the end of the day.
Yeah.
It's great to know
that there are some specific examples.
Definitely doing some good.
And that gives a volunteer, the ability
to know you're making a difference.
And even if we're just one person's life.
But what are we doing
for the whole community?
Is there a way to kind of start
to improve the overall community?
This is probably probably
the best thing we've done.
Is the harbor.
the harbor and the
harbor will not take credit for it,
but I'm going to go.
This was a labor of love by her
eight years.
It took her to find the correct building
in the the correct alignment of the stars.
But we now have a building here
in Shreveport that houses
not only all of our programs,
but multiple other laws all in one place.
And I hate to say one stop shop,
but it truly is.
And she's the woman behind it.
It did take me eight years.
So the harbor is a building.
It's a building on Knight
Street, 3004 Knight Street,
across from the Walmart on Shreve City.
Okay. Nice bus line there.
so we moved all of our programs, as Aaron
said, along with all the other good
not good, high quality
nonprofits in our area.
So the goal is when a family walks in
because I can
you can come in, I can tell you
you need to go to counseling.
But if I send you across town, yeah,
how likely is it they're going to make it?
Not very likely.
They got it right there.
So we've got it right there.
When a family comes in there,
everything is there.
We have a all of our programs.
We have a food bank.
We have a uniform closet
for those kids who can't afford uniforms.
We have extended foster care programs.
We have domestic violence.
We have everything is there.
And our we take walk ins, school
referrals, probation, referrals,
anybody in the community can refer.
So that is something we have done
to really amazing.
It's amazing
how you don't want to brag on her,
but I have is this is a
so it's the community as a whole.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's making a big it sounds
I mean that's pretty fascinating.
I mean this is a good job.
You got feel good.
You're hard to get involved in.
I'm very passionate about the harbor.
I've worked on it, like I said,
for eight years and, a lot of meetings
and begging,
but it was a collaboration with.
I think it's good sometimes with the Caddo
Parish School Board actually gave us
the building after eight years of asking
for any building they would give us,
the Caddo Parish Commission
and the city and law enforcement
all are collaborating partners for this.
So it's a it's
a it's not a governmental agency.
Its run is really volunteers for justice,
but they are partnered with us.
That's what it is.
So it's not a government organization.
It's just who, who, who runs it.
How is it the nonprofit organized?
Yeah, yeah, the nonprofit board.
In 1981, we started this organization.
and it was actually founded.
Well, the first program out of it
was brought back from the ladies.
Some ladies at First Presbyterian Church
had gone to a conference
and saw this intervention program.
And then they formed
this nonprofit in 1981.
And it started with one program
and one volunteer and one employee,
and it just grew.
so we have a board of directors
that governs it.
I'm the executive director.
All of our programs have directors.
So it's run by how many volunteers
you got?
Total, total, total.
I'm going to go with it changes daily.
around 252
50 if you can't go recruit always.
Yes, I personally don't.
But, a lot of it
we have recruiters and training.
Okay. Right.
You get one volunteer,
they talk to the next person.
And if we do a lot, we go to every event.
We're out in the community
trying to make people aware of what we do
so that they can learn
about all the opportunities
we have where they can volunteer.
So when you approach a volunteer
or to maybe get into doing some of this
kind of work, what's the approach?
I mean, you say, hey,
do you want to help a kid or.
Absolutely.
And, well, 100%.
I mean, you know,
you have to have a heart for it. Yeah.
Because like we talked about earlier,
you know, these cases, you know,
some of them are tough.
Let's just be real.
And it is a true time commitment.
Now we do have some volunteer
opportunities.
You know obviously day of events,
whether it's our courses superhero run
or a gumbo Gladiators
event that we do each spring.
But we have our gems and gents
mentoring program
where you get matched up with a kid
and you're
supposed to have at least four touches
a month with that individual.
you know, two of them may be found,
but we really want you to,
you know, get with the child at least
once a month and do something together,
because it's what a mentor does.
all kinds of different opportunities.
We invite you to go to our website
if you want to check that out,
because literally, I mean,
we haven't even made it through the list
of all the programs yet.
That's how on here is
there? It's a fantastic way.
So it's v j l a.org.
And Aaron has not told you guys this yet.
But the reason she got involved with us,
she was she volunteered for our TBR
program was a TBR.
I volunteer in fact
my very first individual that I worked
with will be a senior this year
in a high school here in Choteau Parish.
Obviously, you know, we need to keep,
you know, everything confidential.
But when I tell you the things that
this child, this individual went through
and make your make your hair stand on it,
and they know that they are now going
to graduate high school, very involved
in the different programs there.
When you're talking about, you know,
the satisfaction you get from it.
I mean, I will be there when she walks
across the stage for graduation,
and it will make my heart
probably happier than hers.
I don't know,
I have friends that volunteer just to come
do homework, help kids do homework,
and this is one of the most fulfilling
things they do.
So what does it look like for a volunteer?
Someone says, I think I want to help out.
Well, what does that training look like?
How do they start?
What do they find when they come
to the organization, to the.
It's at the harbor. The harbor? Yeah.
it's hard to
to narrow that down because there's
so many volunteer opportunities.
But for Casa and the TBR, I advocate
they go through a 30 hour
training program, 15 hours
in class, 15 hours outside of class,
and then,
they're paired with like a supervisor
to guide them through their case.
but I will say it's 20 to 25 hours.
I'm not going to not going
to minimize work commitment.
It's a commitment
because you are all this.
You are the voice for this kid
in everything.
So I mean, it's
not just like I'm going to help out.
Let's go to the movies, right?
That's not like that at all. Right.
But then if you want to become a mentor
where you're not having to write court
reports and find relative place,
you can do the gems and gems.
That's two hours a month.
I mean,
you know, 2 to 3 hours a month, depending
on what you and your kid plan to do.
if you want to be teen court, well,
you know about that because your kids,
you know,
that's a lot of jailbirds on there.
Yeah.
They voted,
they were diverted to Foreign affairs.
So it really depends.
And as she said, we have some day of
of so many opportunities,
so many opportunities, that
where people can we have a lot of, groups
that just volunteer
to run our superhero run or come organize
our uniform closet at the heart,
just different things we try to make.
If you call,
we will find something for you,
and it's an opportunity to work with
someone that actually makes a difference.
And that does a really good job
in the community.
So and I will say this,
I want to brag on the organization
and that,
you know, especially for our donors,
$0.96 from every single dollar goes
directly to the kid.
It's only 4% goes to admin costs.
So I would like to think that we're very,
very efficient stewards
of, you know, the donations that are made
to us from our community partners.
Absolutely.
So what, like you,
I mean, you've mentioned so many.
We haven't got through all the programs.
So you said. Yeah.
So let's well,
we touched on a lot of them,
but we met some of you,
probably our most popular of this time
of year, unfortunately, is our conflict
resolution program.
So any kid in Caddo Parish
who gets in a school fight,
which we all know, that's pretty common.
I was a kid.
That just didn't happen.
But, well, they do different now.
So every every kid that gets in a school
fight gets suspended.
Okay.
They can come to our conflict resolution
class.
We sit down with the two fighters.
We work out in different ways.
They could have resolved their conflict.
They're allowed to return to school
the next day
and serve the rest of their time
in in-school suspension.
So they're not just sitting at home.
Is this something that you have to.
Obviously, this had to be worked out
with the school board
that they allow this kind of a program.
This is their this is their program.
Well, this is this is our program
that they actually fund for us to run.
They need it further.
They, they, they want
they don't want all these kids
that we would have
a thousand kids at the juvenile justice.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
Complex make sense about
school for school fights and
do you know
what our most popular school fight has?
Middle school girls really over?
Boys who nails middle school girls?
Yeah. Social media.
That is the biggest trigger.
You know I hate you.
Don't get me started.
I know, and they they plan these fights,
they film them, they really.
They share love.
Yeah. That's not.
It's terrible.
I shouldn't be
I shouldn't be laughing about that.
No, but you were
I was just shows you how much
how my kids just barely were diverged
from becoming horrible.
People coming from me diverged.
Okay, that's the word, right?
Divergent. Divergent. Divergent.
They were divergent. I'm not a movie,
I realized now.
Yes, you did divergent.
Yeah.
So, like I say, we're I don't know,
I think we're about to wrap up.
You getting the thing in your ears.
I just want to know.
So couple minutes.
So what are some of
your biggest fundraisers?
If people want to get involved
that are coming up,
you have them year round.
I think the gumbo thing comes around
right? Yeah. Gumbo.
Gladiators is probably
the one that people know us most for.
And that will be back on Saturday,
March 8th next year.
we'll be back in Festival Plaza.
and gosh, we had over 50 pots of gumbo.
I want to say last year.
We're definitely looking to grow
that even more. This year.
If you want to sign up,
you can do that now.
in fact, we are looking at some pretty
exciting additions I think, this year.
So toying with the idea,
I can't confirm it yet.
There might be jambalaya involved here.
Oh no.
Oh, those are good jambalaya guy
I know I love some jambalaya.
Okay, I'm going to I'm
going to go out there and say it.
I'll of Elia. Thank you very much.
I know that doesn't make me very popular.
All right.
Yeah. We're going
to wrap this up here in a minute or so.
You gave your, website address ones.
Go ahead and give that again.
Yes. It's Vijay la.org Vijay la.org.
So anybody that wants to learn
about your programs or wants to volunteer,
that's the place to go.
Volunteers
for youth justice, La dawg. Yes.
So y'all are making a huge impact.
What what can the community
do to help you out the most?
Volunteer.
Honestly, if you don't have time
or you can't make a donation,
spread the word on our events.
Go follow us on Facebook and Instagram.
It doesn't cost you a penny.
Share it with your friends.
you know,
we need that kind of grassroot marketing.
you know, just putting that message
in front of somebody
that may not know about us and need it.
You could be changing a life doing it
that way as well, that you're good
with either a volunteer help or donation.
Absolutely. Or community awareness.
Spreading the word.
A lot of a lot of families
don't know about the harbor.
You didn't hear is a big thing.
It's been a big deal.
And a lot of people don't know that.
There's so many kids in our communities,
even Bossier City, South, Bossier City,
oh, 100.
These people, a lot of folks
don't don't live very, very long.
They're constantly moving is
why they go in and out of school. Right.
What's what's the challenge with that
is that they're very transient.
so they
might live in a hotel for two weeks.
Correct.
so there's so many folks
that are transient
moving around from school to school
every couple of weeks.
It's such a challenge.
There's such a need.
So I appreciate your heart for it.
I mean, that's very inspiring.
Yeah. Yeah.
Glad to be here. Pretty cool.
Yeah.
Kelly and Aaron, executive director,
director of everything else.
Right. I like that.
I like that they're going to keep it.
I want to pin. Okay.
We appreciate y'all being with us today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much
I, I don't I'm not sure I appreciate you,
but I'm glad you're here.
And come on. Thank you to.
All right.
Thanks for being here everybody.
This has been another edition
of good to Know.
You can catch it
wherever you get your podcast.
That was almost a compliment from Jeff.
no, I didn't mean it that way.
So next time,
folks. Hey.