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On this episode of The Jeff Crilley Show, Jeff sits down with 17-year-old Brady Zeck, founder of the national nonprofit Trucks for Pups. What started as a simple idea while walking past his school’s service department has grown into an organization with hundreds of volunteers supporting animal welfare groups across DFW and beyond....
Jeff Crilley is a former news reporter, who spent more than 25 years in newsrooms across the country. He’s an Emmy Award winning journalist, who decided to make the jump from news in 2008, when he founded his own PR Firm, Real News Public Relations.
Today, the firm has more than 100 clients, and Jeff continues to tell the stories of interesting people he meets along the way.
These are those stories.
Coming up next on The Jeff Crilley Show, you're gonna meet the great Brady Zeck. He is an amazing young man. He's 17 years old, and he has a national nonprofit. It's called Trucks for Pups. His journey just ahead. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas Newsroom tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company, and we now have over a 100 clients. And we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team. And the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is the Jeff Crilley Show. I'm so inspired by my next guest. He's just 17 years old. He leads a national nonprofit. It's called Trucks for Pups. The great Brady Zeck is in the studio. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. Well, so let's let's talk about the beginning of the journey. How did it start? Well, we actually started when I was walking past our school service department, and the idea literally just popped in my head. I can't really attribute it to any sort of thing previously. I just it happened, and I decided, you know, nobody was doing this. It seemed like a need, and I went and executed on it, and we started from there. And he's a great publicist as well because you've got yourself on channel four. I found this amazing segment. We can't play the whole thing, but let's play a part of it. Welcome back to The Post. They delivered truckloads of love to animals in need. Joining us on The Post this morning, we have Jesuit high school students, CEO, founder of Trucks for Pups, Brady Zeck. Thank you so much for being with us. Okay. You're a high school kid. What what are you doing running a non profit? Honestly a kinda came to me. I don't really know. It was an idea. It just kinda came to be and I figured I should execute on it because nobody else was doing it and it kinda just snowballed. Now I'm here. How does it work? How does this nonprofit work? Tell us what you guys do. So we basically reach out to any animal organizations in DFW or even beyond. And whatever they need, we figure out a way to source that, kinda like a middleman situation. And we provide it to the best quality possible all for free for the betterment of all the animals involved. Okay. Like well, just an example. Like, my rescue needs dog food. You go find the dog food from somewhere that maybe is a donation, and then you also transport Yes. The dog food. To me and knowing so many rescues in our area, it's the transport that always seems to be the issue. They are in need of something. Someone might have it, but it's over here, and they can't get it over there. And they they just don't have the resources of their people, but they got you. Exactly. That's what we specialize in. We've been doing actually a lot of transporting, and you're a 100% nailed it. Transport is probably the hardest thing that people are having a hard time That is so impressive. And I know, because of the economy, many people who adopted animals a few years ago, they go through tough times, and then next thing you know, they're dropping them off at the shelter. So the need is great. You did a big event in Terrell, Texas. Tell about that event. So, this was our first major clinic and it was with Dallas Pets Alive, Spay and Neuter Network, and I believe Operation Kindness. And, I did it with one of my good friends, Leland Allen and Luke Walters, both of my Jesuit brothers. We were out there and it was the three of us managing traffic on this huge clinic. And this was the first time I had ever been to one of these clinics before. It was over 800 cars and it was ridiculous. And we went out there, we got to meet, interview some of these animals and people. It was honestly, it really showed me and brought awareness to myself and in my buddies that there there was a huge need for this animal help and these organizations help because we had to actually turn away over a 100 cars worth of people and that was super saddening to me but we made sure to get that done at the next clinic where we were a part of and helped with volunteering as well. And I compliment you because I think you have the purest of motives. I mean, you don't get anything out of this. No. It's Not nonprofit. So Yes, sir. Tell us your why. Why do you do it? I do it because I understand that there is a bigger need for care for creation in this world. And with so many animals with this pure and innocence, I mean, you see an animal in somebody's house, maybe it's your friend, maybe it's your own. These animals, they are just full of love. All they want to do is be your friend and love on you. And that's why we want to go out there and we want to help these animals because they deserve nothing but the best. And when you have these people who are abusing animals, leaving them on the streets, and they're over breeding at an uncontrollable rate, we feel that there's a need to go out there and make sure these animals deserve loving homes where they're not dying on the streets and enduring stuff that they don't need to be going through. And you do feel a need in the in the community because you have the SPCA, you have a bunch of other organizations that are into animal rescue and welfare, but they can't they can't do what you do. You know, it's not that they can't do what I'm doing. It's we're they're doing amazing stuff. But they have their hands preoccupied with already bigger issues, and I guess we're just trying to attack it at another angle in the more business side. But as a team, you know, all of us are partnered together to get this one job done to make sure these animals get off the streets. So and I never look at it as a rivalry, I look at it more of like a team effort as building another organization alongside them to contribute to the whole, cause of bringing awareness to this, terrible crisis. Absolutely. And I know you have a number of people to thank, including your parents. Yes. My mom, my dad. I really gotta thank my dad on the business side, but I really gotta thank my mom for the, like, the passion she's really ingrained inside of me for, like, I mean, she's the one who had the animal actually. She had a pet Chihuahua early before, like, I really had any consciousness. But, I mean, she's been really helping me a lot, especially focusing on the right things, especially when distractions come along. I mean, I have to really focus between school, the charity, and making sure my grades are up. And so Absolutely. She's been really keeping me on track, I really appreciate it. I wanna pull up your Instagram page because there's some great images, and I I'm sure you also wanna thank some of the volunteers who've come alongside you. How many volunteers do you have currently? Currently, have over 300. I haven't done a full count recently, but I'd say we're probably bridging the gap towards 400 right now. Wow. And obviously, as a nonprofit, you probably need donations. Do you need more volunteers right now? I would say right now we're always open to taking volunteers. Know, I've never said no to a single volunteer and I really think that, you know, the more the merrier. I mean, is an opportunity for people to really step through that door of service because I think one of the motivational things that we kind of thought at the very beginning of this was how can you become more involved in service? I mean, we understand this is a completely different world that some people have never even been in before. And so how can we make that the easiest door to walk through and be make it more more or less not a job, but something that you're passionate about? And we thought that animals would be the best way to do that. And, Brady, can people drop off food with you? Yes. They can. We we can find a place to donate to, and we have events almost every Saturday that we go to help contribute to these major, organizations at Alright. Brady, we have about a minute left. So, look into the camera on the left and give a call to action. So we're trying to raise about a $100,000, and we're a little over 25,000. And we would love if you guys could donate to trucksforpups.org, and that is trucksforpups.org on any sort of search engine and we're looking to raise this money to give $5 away to 20 different charities and even more if we can raise it. And so that would be awesome if you guys could do that and I just love to be a part of the show. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your heart and your wisdom with us. We're gonna end with the website which again is trucksforpups.org. The great Brady Zeck. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you so much. You bet. That's it for now. We'll see you next time.