All right, all right.
Feeney talks with friends, episode 129.
This is a good one. How are you doing, Anthony? Very well.
How are you?
Anthony's a in the house. Yes, sir.
I'm very excited to talk with Anthony.
But first let me review.
Episode 128 was a good one.
We talked with the Rotary Club of West Hartford.
We talked with my friends Patrice, Victor and Kyle.
Go back and check it out.
As you can see, this is Feeney talks with friends.
My name is Eric Feeney, founder and president, friends of Feeney.
Friends and Feeney is a nonprofit, and we help children and families
that need assistance after heartbreak or tragedy.
And I use this podcast.
Feeney talks with friends, and I talk to great people
in the community that are doing great things.
And you've been helping people in the community for ten years.
Maybe. 11 going on 11 years now.
Going on 11.
That's right. Yeah, it's a. Big part of what we do.
And you went to Connor.
So you're a West Hartford guy.
That in southern Connecticut, in New Haven and back home to West Hartford and.
Yeah, started the first company. What elementary school?
Duffy middle school.
Sedgwick.
Nice shout out to the West Hartford Public Schools.
Yeah, it's great man.
I mean, I was very lucky to grow up where I did.
And the school systems. Excellent. Yeah.
That's so cool.
I went to southern.
Yeah. Let's go.
Nice go, owls.
So I graduated in 2012.
Nice. Yeah, I. Was 2000.
So it's a fun spot. Yeah. Yeah.
New haven. What dorm did you stay at?
Oh, jeez. What a great question.
I was in Jordan Wilkerson.
What a memory on you.
I remember, yeah. Wilk. Then Brownell.
And then I was off campus.
So I went Neff.
Brownell on campus. Cool.
I was a refugee. Yep.
That's how that name stuck in 2012.
They were Neff.
Same thing.
Yeah. And the Wilke was the wool.
If you went to Wilkerson, that was the wool.
Chase's the place. Farnum courts.
We were. Wilk boys.
Wilk boys. And I don't. Really remember the others.
You got a great memory.
Brownell has a nice little spot.
Yeah, that was like coed. That's where I met my wife.
No way.
Her. My dorm and her Durham were next to each other.
Yeah. The thin cement walls. Right? Yeah.
So I bang on the wall and, like, you know.
Okay. Like you. Why don't you like me?
That was my pick up line. Yeah.
Let's see.
And it worked good.
And we've been married 20, almost going on 20 years.
Oh, I mean, at Southern Brownell Hall.
How about that moving day?
I hear Kokomo by the Beach Boys, and I'm like, who's playing Kokomo?
Yeah, I'm.
On a college campus.
I go in and I see like this.
She has short, fiery red hair, long sleeve shirt, basketball shorts.
And I was like, that's it. How about the. One?
Oh, I love that. Pretty cool. Yeah.
Anthony's abatement.
So I teach third grade.
Yes. Abatement is a big word for our third graders.
Yeah. How do you explain abatement.
For a lot of people?
So, I mean, abatement tech technically means
to slow down the process of whatever it is you're talking about.
In terms of what we do.
Is this abatement led abatement, mold remediation.
We want to stop the problem and remove the problem.
So if it's especially this, we're removing it or we're encapsulating it,
if it's lead, we're removing it.
And if it's mold we're removing it.
Gotcha. Yeah.
Yeah I see that here that you do.
Asbestos abatement, lead paint removal, mold removal,
water damage restoration, material testing, oil tank.
Removal. And demolition services.
Yeah, that's right.
So oil tank like that's that's got to be a huge process.
I don't I don't understand how do they get these oil tanks in the basement.
Yeah.
And they do they build a house around it some.
And then how do we get them out?
Yeah. How does what's the what's the trick?
Oil tanks are. Tough.
Each one is different.
So we clean out the we we pump out the oil, we clean out the sludge.
And normally we have to cut the tank up to get it out.
Cut it into pieces. Yeah.
And, it's a nasty process.
The oil stains, everything it touches.
The smell is aggressive.
So, when we take it out of your home, we build a plastic containment
just to do that, just to carry out the waste.
Yeah, because the smell is so pungent.
And then there's a good clean up process afterwards.
You know, it's a nasty material, so we don't want to leave anything behind.
You know, the mission of Anthony's abatement is to create
healthy building schools, homes for the children of Connecticut.
And, you know, that is near and dear to our heart.
So we stick to that with everything that we do.
Yeah. Now, you said near and dear to your how?
Helping the children.
Yeah. You know, I want to thank you personally.
You helped friends of Feeney on multiple fundraisers.
You sponsored our golf tournament with two, not just one sign.
Maybe 2 or 3 tee signs. So thank you.
And then a wonderful, wonderful event.
It was a community event at your alma mater.
Yeah.
Conard and I randomly talked to you, right?
We just bumped into each other once at Beach Little Tavern,
and you're like, you overheard something. You're like, what?
What do you do? You help children and families.
You're in West Hartford.
I'm a West Hartford guy. You're a West Hartford guy.
And I had this idea.
Hey, do you want a sponsor?
Riley Foxx scoring his 2000 point.
And we were going to give friends of Fox t shirts. Yeah.
And here, here's our friends at Fox.
Riley's buddy designed it.
Awesome is really cool design.
Look at that artwork.
But we were able to give all of these out for free
because look at that sponsorship on the back.
Anthony's amazing. Yeah,
that's pretty good.
And then Riley signed my thanks for everything.
He was podcast number 93 at the time.
He scored 2028 points. What a feat man.
That is awesome.
He would take me, I think. I mean, I'm 46.
I still have scored 2000 points in my career.
Yeah.
I've been playing since I was ten.
Even even pick up included walking part.
Yeah, the. Gym.
Even. Layups you know.
But anyway yeah thank you so much.
That was a huge thing.
So yeah of course.
You sponsored I think we gave out like
500 shirts or something to up to 500 shirts.
It's great.
I go to I go to a couple Yale games and people are still wearing these up.
Well, to show support for Riley.
Oh, I love to hear. That people are wearing these at the gym.
And so it was huge.
And thank you so much, man. Yeah, you took care about the community.
And I'm very glad to get to talk with you. Yeah.
You seem like a really good doc.
Good guy.
You have some cool, bulletin boards and billboards, right?
And, dude, this is the coolest.
I'm watching the Super Bowl.
Yeah.
Come on. Halftime.
Yeah. You had a halftime commercial?
We did.
Can we talk about that?
It, it. Was nerve racking.
So we did it last year, and we did it this year.
It's just five seconds, you know, it's real quick, but,
it help get it helps get the word out.
And, you know, it's it's amazing notoriety.
I sold my girls and my wife and, like, Anthony's abatement.
Yeah, that's my guy. He'd helped us do the Friends of Hockey.
Yeah. I love we get a lot of feedback like that.
Like say, hey, I saw you.
I told all my friends, and, you know, it brings a smile to my face.
It's. I love seeing that. Yeah.
The community around us is excellent, and they support us.
And, you know, we just try to give back.
That's so cool. Very cool.
Do you want to get into ranges and cause, like.
Super Bowl commercial.
Is it a lot. Is it a little bit. Is it.
It's a lot.
For five seconds.
Five seconds. Yeah.
Yeah I know the
like the national broadcasts, those things are like 30 million bucks.
20 million bucks. Right?
Our we're just local.
We cover the state of Connecticut.
That's it. But still. It.
Yeah, it got out there, and that's pretty cool.
Yeah. It's interesting.
So, I haven't seen the numbers for this year, but last year, the day after,
well, I guess the night of and the day after our Super Bowl commercial
got 19,700 hits on the website
where we're normally at like 100 a day.
So. So it works.
It worked. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's amazing.
Cool.
Yeah, it was a good halftime. Show and.
Yeah. Pretty solid game. So that. Helps.
It worked out.
Yeah. No, I was cool.
I was like I got to ask Super Bowl commercial.
Yeah yeah I want to I. Want to be friends with Feeney.
Super Bowl commercial. Can we. Collaborate.
You know we can maybe we can get. The logo up there. For next year.
Be a good friend. Yeah.
Use Anthony's abatement. Boom boom.
Yeah I like that logo. Logo.
Absolutely I like it, I like it.
So yeah.
No. Speaking on your website, Anthony's abatement.com. Yes.
Some really good stuff.
Who runs that. Who updates that. Because that's I.
Like that's a great question because he does deserve a shout out.
His name is Evan with Upstream Agency and he runs the website.
He updates it monthly and yeah, I love our website.
He started it back in 2020,
I want to say, and it's a huge reason why people trust us,
because the first thing they see is a professional well built website.
Yeah.
And 100 plus five star Google reviews helps.
Yes, I saw that to leave a Google review.
Yeah, that's smart.
And they're all positive. All five stars.
Yeah I saw a bunch of them today.
And then you could be reached at (860) 385-8501.
Yes. That's correct. That's the number.
Yeah.
And Carla, I've been going back and forth with Carla about the.
Carla's incredible. Sponsorship. Right. Yeah.
Okay. Very cool.
So it's Carla at at companies.com.
Yeah. Carla at ATR companies.com.
Atr. And, Yeah she's excellent.
She's our office manager and she makes everything go.
And then you're located right off of Talcott Road.
Yeah. West Hartford.
Yeah. So I go to Uber Dog and I go to Doctor Rex.
Kyra. Okay, so I think you're right in the middle.
Yeah, yeah. Well, so yeah, you go down a little bit. Bang. All right.
And that's our shop. Very nice. Yeah.
How many people do you have employed?
So it
varies depending on the jobs that we have and the size of them, but,
anywhere from 20 to 25. Yep.
And then do you finish basements? We don't.
So we don't do anything after the removal.
We don't do the rebuild.
We have excellent contractor on our referral list that we hand out.
But no, we're solely focused on going back to our mission statement.
Our goal is to make safe environments for families and kids.
And that's what we stick to.
Nice. Keep it simple.
We only offer a few services and we do those really well.
I love it. Yeah. Love to. Hear that.
Do you do, crawl spaces, like, We work in crawl spaces, and,
we will waterproof them
for certain clients if they need us to.
Or if the crawl space is a little more demanding
than a normal basement waterproofing job would be.
We kind of get called in, like a pinch hitter.
But not often. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah, I was a personal question.
I need a basement in a crawl space down so.
We can check it out for you. All right.
You would be one of those special for you. Let's go.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you for that.
I appreciate it. And I do love the shirt too.
Good man. I'm glad.
Yeah. Swagged up. Let's talk about the flags.
We got the.
Got the American flag.
Got the Italian flag and the Portuguese flag.
All right.
I was blessed with great food growing up
and, culture that I'm really proud of.
Yeah. Nice to eat at, Primavera.
Oh, my gosh, all the time. Chavez.
I love Chavez, I love Primavera and, Italian restaurants.
You know, they're they're dime a dozen, but a lot of great ones in West
Everett Center.
Yeah. You want to name one?
I like travel a lot.
Thank you.
Yeah, travel is good. Scott Miller was a guest.
Freak shows. Excellent.
Frisco probably takes the cake for me.
We did, demolition of the freak show when they did their renovation last year.
Yeah. So we did the selection of. Their new kitchen.
Where they did the kitchen, and they kind of did a facelift
around the whole restaurant.
So all the finishes, bar tops, carpet,
flooring, walls, we stripped it all.
And then, and construction did a great job on the build up.
Very cool. Yeah. All right. Yeah.
Billy's been saying for years he's going to be a guest, so come on, Billy.
He's busy man.
Yeah. Great, though. He's awesome guy to work for.
And then tio the chef. Head chef.
Tito's awesome. I work with his daughter at work. It's.
Do you? Yeah. He's great. Oh, yeah.
A couple hostess were former students.
Yeah. Going through there, I bet. Yeah.
Great. Great place.
That's what thing about being a teacher is, you see, so many kids come through.
And then I would imagine you keep a lot of those relationships afterwards
or you see them around town.
Yeah.
And I just was walking Saturday night.
Yeah.
I was walking to Savoy. Yeah.
And there's a huge line for the bunker.
Okay. All of a. Sudden, I hear. Mr.
Feeney, Mr.
Feeney.
Two of my former fifth graders. Whoa!
Dominic and Kayla come running up to me.
Yeah.
Mr. Feeney, we had to say hi.
Yeah, I'm. Like, you're out. Like,
if they were ten, 12 years ago.
There you go. They're out and about.
Yeah.
It might be tough for you to walk around going to local gyms and.
Yeah, yeah, you get seen everywhere. I'm sure.
Just yesterday I'm 46, so I had my first ever going to talk about it.
But colonoscopy.
Oh I knew I was.
Going to have to.
You said 46.
And then all of a sudden I hear Feeney.
Oh, geez.
The nurse assistant or tech assistant goes.
Yeah, hey.
I played Cards Against Humanity with you at John Scripps House.
Get out.
And I'm like, it's my good friend John's cousin Todd's wife, Erin.
Okay. Probably breaking all types of hip or loose.
I'm like, tell script.
Yeah, but I was just like.
Like you said, that was just a funny connection.
That wasn't a former student, but it was just like, I'm
trying to get a call, and I'm like, the day before is like, not fun.
Yeah, I've heard. You're going under some.
All my mind is like, you know, you're kind of nervous about.
Going under, but.
It worked out good.
I'm here.
I'm just helping is good. Yeah, I try to work out.
I know you work out. Yeah, yeah, a little bit.
What are you putting up?
Oh, geez.
What do you deadlift? Bench?
Everything.
I don't deadlift much, but I could bench.
The bench.
Yeah. Bench.
I like bench in three, 15, 315.
Yeah. That's fun.
It comes and goes though,
you know, sometimes the shoulders hurt and you can't even put up.
I just do 135 the other day. Yeah. Twice.
Try to 184.
That did more than that.
I try to do 185 and I got.
A little has it this big sky that we've come across each other where.
Yeah I go to the JC.
Yeah. I see your stories.
Oh that's what I'm referring to.
I thought I. Walked years ago, I thought.
Maybe the edge. You ever go to the edge? Yeah. Yeah okay.
I went to the edge for two weeks.
JC is great. Too. Yes. Yeah.
You like to JC you want to try it?
We did I probably will.
Yeah. Three week. Pass. Yeah.
Got an awesome thank you man. Yeah.
Now I've been playing basketball there for 16 years.
Every Wednesday I just became a member.
It's amazing.
Swimming, working out sauna, you big sauna guy.
Yeah. I love the song.
Like that changes your whole day.
Oh, yeah? Yeah. Saunas are amazing.
And then if you can follow that up with a cold shower.
Yeah. Like a. Contrast. Yeah.
You're on top of the world. So I'm floating for the rest of the.
Cold plunge in the backyard.
But it's been frozen solid for like, a month.
I've been able to use.
It, but the cold plunge gets you going. Yeah, yeah.
Do you go all the way under?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You start all the way under.
I mean, I can't fit all the way under, but I try.
Do you have the tub or like.
I get.
A little Amazon inflatable. One.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's outside. So that's, that's.
That's the worst part is getting out.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
So you got to try float 41.
Yes. Over by target. Right over it.
Right over here. Yeah.
But there's one in Cromwell called float 41.
Exhale where you do the sauna.
Cold plunge. Yeah. And you do a rotation. Sauna.
Cool plunge on. It's, contrast therapy.
Fire and ice.
Sarah is great.
Podcast sponsor.
Okay, Send her your way.
But again, you feel like you could run a marathon after that.
Yeah, because, you know, you do, like, ten minutes in the sauna.
You know, I work my way up.
I do, like, two minutes in the cold plunge.
And the next round, I could get to, like, 3 or 4. Yeah.
And then the following round, I'm like five now.
Is it called the float chamber where it's totally dark in there.
So that's. Yeah, that's.
They have that as well. They have that one over here.
Have you done that?
Oh yeah, I love that.
That turns you on. Interested?
That turns you off in like.
The when you say turn it off means like.
Like we have so much. Yeah. We have so much on our mind.
We're so busy.
Yeah.
It allows you to just decompress and just think about nothing and flow.
And it puts your body at the most natural position.
The arch in your neck and back, like you get out.
You feel taller. Yeah.
And your spine feels straight.
It's better than I think is better than a chiropractor.
I think that's, you know, who goes over there?
Dan Hurley. Oh, yeah. Over there once a month.
Because you see him, he's all fired up. Yeah.
That he needs to flow.
Yeah.
If anyone needs a float Dan Hurley float.
And he shouted them out one time at a like a press.
Did some reporters asking me who's. You know what I need?
I need to get to float 41 to float. Oh, wow.
So it was like a good little.
Awesome shout. Out for. Her.
I've always been interested in doing that. Yeah.
So I've actually they do a 60 and a 90.
Minutes. Yes.
So the first time you're like 60 is way too long, right? Yeah.
It's by the time because the first time you're like,
I got to get comfortable, you can float.
There's so much salt in the water.
10,000 pounds of salt. Yeah.
You're buoyant.
Like you could float.
You can go, I t you can go across the mat.
You're just floating.
And you, you can hit the sides.
It's like. Yeah, dark.
You get music, no music.
You could get a little donut for your head, which is like a pillow.
And you're just floating. It's so calm.
But then like I said, by the time I'm like I found it, I was like
the lights went on, 60 minutes were up and I was like all right.
Okay.
So the next time I'm like, all right let me try 90. Yeah.
Or was really cool.
I went in with my wife because they have you could coed float.
Sure. So she felt comfortable.
She said that like knowing that you're there.
Felt made me feel a little more. Relaxed I get that. Yeah.
So she actually enjoyed it because they do ones that like are an eggshell.
Yeah.
You can pull down one person and then they got this huge one.
It's like a shower. You walk in and.
It's all. Together and Nicole and I have done it.
We like that one too.
Yeah. Kind of like, hold hands a little bit.
Sure, sure. Yes.
Flow again.
Like, then you got, like, some sort kicking up on your chest
and definitely don't want to rub your eyes. Yeah.
But then you shower after and have some kombucha.
It's just a great.
I can't talk about it enough.
It sounds it. Yeah, yeah.
I'm over here, Raven, I flow. You got me a commercial.
Yeah, yeah.
You should try. It.
Yeah. No, I will be.
I'll.
I'll connect you with Sierra.
She'll take care I appreciate. Good.
Well, you are master of connections as well.
That's.
I got a lot of friends. Yes you do. Yeah.
So back to your favorite restaurant.
You're AB Rico.
Sure.
You can eat with four guests.
Dead or alive. Jeez. Who you in with?
Oh, boy.
I wasn't ready for that.
Let's see.
Dead or alive, Johnny Cash.
I like it.
Jimi Hendrix.
Boy, Vince Lombardi.
Then where am I going?
Gosh,
Tiger Woods, how are you?
Yeah. All right.
Two athletes, two musicians.
Yeah, yeah, that's very cool. Some people always do.
Like family member, politician, athlete.
Yeah.
I probably should have thought of the family, but.
Sorry, guys, we go. For the famous people.
We love it. Vince Meyer, are you a Packers fan?
No, I'm a Jets fan, but, my dad is Packers fan.
Gotcha.
And, and they Vince Lombardi that that would just the
I don't know the personality that at least it seems he had
would be wild to ask him some questions.
Yeah. Great leader coach
fired up guy.
Yeah yeah Tiger. Woods. Tiger's an easy one.
Do golf. I do.
Oh not well but I play.
You got to play in the tournament next year. Yes.
So number. 13.
September 13th. Dogs.
Yeah. We're going to go back to that.
I'm going to shout out some sponsorship opportunities too because I know
you got a good heart and a good game.
Oh yeah. No.
Yeah we love sponsoring and good things.
Giving back to the community a little bit.
I think last year, Anthony's Bateman
donated just over 30,000, to different causes.
Wow. You, Friends of Feeney?
Of course.
Covenant Prep, which is a school in Hartford.
What else we got going on Connecticut Children's Hospital?
Always.
That's pretty close to us because, a lot of the lead
poison kids come through there.
And where the contractors working in their homes, making them safe.
Geez, I'm forgetting our fourth big one.
But, yeah.
Yeah, Johnny grew up with our.
Yeah. Johnny's job for sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
It's great we collaborate with the Cmbc or Cmbc now for the sunflower kids.
Yeah, kids that need like that are there for a while.
They need socks, pajamas.
Yeah, t shirts. We we fundraise for them.
Great program over there, obviously.
Covenant Prep, I just sat down
with Dan Clark and Mike Harlan. Yeah.
Do you know those two? They're on the board.
Yeah, yeah, they're on the board. Yeah, interesting.
I just met with them at Rockledge last week.
Yeah. Great, guys.
Dan Clark's awesome.
And my first time meeting him, it was wonderful chatting with him, too.
Yeah. Great people. And that school is awesome.
Really I mean thing what's your. Take on that. One?
It's incredible. You know, you're giving kids,
opportunities that they would never even scratch.
And not only are you giving them the opportunities, those kids are
taking full advantage of them.
Yeah, and they're going to awesome schools and these insane careers afterwards.
It's. Yeah. Impact is immeasurable.
Okay.
Yeah, I know they go on to, they're graduating is 100%,
Avon Old Farms.
Yeah.
Ran Brook Loomis.
Yep. Westminster, all the. Big high schools.
And then they're going on to even bigger colleges.
Yeah, they got a Yale.
No, not a Yale kid.
They have I mean, there's bc.
That, oh, throughout the years, they, they.
Send kids to.
Everywhere. That's great that you do that. Yeah.
Oh, that's so funny. I just met with them.
Met with Mike and, Ryan last time.
Yeah.
March 15th.
Baseball and bow ties is their event.
You going? Oh, yeah.
I just got invited to that, too. Yeah, I might be there. All right.
Dan invited me. Yeah. Good, good.
Okay, cool.
And what was the other one? So coven.
Of course.
Was great. Dan. Oh, yeah. Dan's great.
Yeah, I had Laura and Kelly from Johnny's JAG.
Laura moran. Yeah.
They were a podcast guests, great friends.
We earned the Shamrock, the Clover Club.
So, Johnny Jug, they donate to Covenant Prep every year.
Yeah, they do three every year, and then they pick a fourth one
is which changes and friends of Feeney was honored a couple of years ago.
Oh. So it was huge.
It was really, kind catapulted our organization.
It was our biggest one time grant ever, so.
Oh, thank you again. Johnny's job. That's incredible.
Oh, yeah.
Let's talk golf.
So golf that September 13th,
we want to thank
golfs.
Already doing some merch.
Keating agency is sponsoring the beer,
and Fuchs Financial is sponsoring a whole those already.
We have a couple people that,
have sponsored.
You got to get out and golf.
I know it.
Let me just look up some things because I want to shout out some opportunities.
We got a but a $10,000 one is like the,
what is it called?
Oh, shoot. I'm going to check it out. Sorry. Excuse me.
Yeah, pull that up.
We'll definitely be attending that event and sponsoring.
Nice. Again.
Once again, you know, we got a pretty good
little four person squad put together.
We just we're coming off a win from the West Hartford Chamber.
So you want. It. Yeah. Oh wow.
Yeah I had nothing to do with me. But I had good team members.
Oh yeah.
Keating. Look at that. Keating and Fuchs are already on there.
So you get your web, you get your logo on the website.
Yeah.
Golf law group presenting sponsor.
So you get the foursome, you get,
when everyone puts their scoring, you get your logo on the app.
Yeah. Signage everywhere.
Cocktail hour sponsorship,
T-shirt sponsorship, exclusive whole sponsorship.
You could set up a table hole in one
closest to the pin.
All in one longest drive.
Beer sponsor.
Just mulligan sponsorship.
So everyone buys the mulligans.
Yeah, we have, like, this cute kid that goes around selling them.
I almost didn't do it last year.
We raised 400 bucks off the mulligan. Wow.
But then people are like, people abuse it or use too many.
Well, yeah. Enough.
But I'm a culprit of that.
I'll buy as many mulligans as I can. Afford.
To sign sponsor.
So these are some really wonderful opportunities to get involved.
And again, thank you again.
I know you will sponsor you sponsored last course.
Yeah.
Without a doubt.
Will be sponsor and some presenting sponsor.
Yeah a couple of these come with foursomes like the cocktail hour sponsor.
Shout out to King of Dings.
There are our t pin,
pin flags, pin flag sponsors and lunch sponsors.
Excellent.
His wife was pregnant last year,
and he's, like, around the turn, there was no lunch.
She's like, you know what? I'm hungry.
Next year I'm sponsoring lunch.
Oh, I love like you're the man.
Yeah, you're the man.
Very good.
Yeah.
And you mentioned key Keating agency.
I've known the Keating since I was a kid.
Oh, I went to school with Kevin.
Ryan's a little older and,
more, I
mean, I hung out with them almost every day of school.
Really? Cool. Yeah, yeah.
The. As a nonprofit, we need directors and officer insurance.
I use Keating. Yep.
They have sponsor.
They sponsor the podcast. Shout out to the Keatings.
I had Ryan Keating on episode 23 because he was the Michael Jordan of insurance.
Okay, good.
I want big Mike
just sponsored the cocktail today, so.
Oh, thank you, Mike Keating agency.
Good guy.
And Matt already put it up.
Do you already got the Keating logo on the website?
And it's got to play around.
I say you got a great team. Great team.
That's Matt and Jen.
This is Anthony.
We're talking them into it.
We're trying to get them to be the presenting sponsor
or the cocktail sponsor. Yep.
He's greasing the wheels.
It's freezing it up grease. No.
So back to it.
What?
Anthony's abatement.
So where'd you get the inspiration
to create this organization and company?
And where did you learn about it?
Yeah, I'm. Interested as being a third grade teacher.
You can have any job in the world.
Yeah, and.
Your job is you want to take care of people's houses
and make sure it's clean, efficient, and you're concerned about kids.
I love that, absolutely. So,
the inspiration started when I was a kid.
My dad owned his own electrical business, and I wanted to be just like him.
I didn't know what it was going to be, but I wanted to be a business owner.
That blossomed into
starting my first company, which we did only commercial stuff.
And I didn't love that because there was no real connection with the clients.
It was, you know, the lowest bidder eats, and that's it.
Get the job done as fast as you can for as cheap as you can.
Keep it moving.
So I didn't have any really, like, fulfillment through that.
So I, I broke off from that company, I started Anthony's abatement,
and we only attacked the residential, which is what I cared about.
And, I knew there was a lot of
holes in the industry,
so I, we tried to take advantage of those and provide the level of customer service
that you would get from your Hvac guy or your carpenter
or your kitchen remodeler that didn't really exist in our industry.
So I tried to bring that to the forefront.
And, you know, seemed to it seemed to work out based off referrals and stuff.
So once we got some traction,
then we were able to market like a real business.
And now we're here.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's kind of it.
You know, growth is always on our horizon.
We're never going to stop growing.
And,
like I said, our mission is just try to make as many,
healthy buildings and homes and schools as we can, you know?
Very cool.
Where'd you come up with the logo?
I like that the. Logo is great.
So, the inspiration from that was a company
in the UK called the UK Asbestos Fighters.
So they have like a whole action figure of a guy soaring through the air.
And, I had a graphic designer just.
I was like, look, I like this.
Give me something similar, but just the head.
And he came up with that.
And, yeah, that gets a lot of good feedback.
Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. That reminds me of G.I. Joe.
The logo was great. Yeah, G.I. Joe was giving up G.I. Joe.
But we get a lot of, Are you a firefighter?
Just because of the way our our shirt is and the badge and the placement of.
Not yet, but. Yeah.
No, the logo sticks.
Oh, I. Definitely yeah, we got lucky.
That was like one hit wonder.
Yeah.
First try, first proof. Boom. Nailed it.
Very cool. Yeah, yeah.
And then is your dad's still working?
He is.
He is the, building official for the city of Hartford.
Yeah.
He, he stopped working with his hands.
Oh, I say like, 7 or 8 years ago.
Became an inspector for the city of Hartford.
And then, you know, he he works his butt off.
So he worked his way up and.
Yeah, now he's trying to, make it super efficient.
Permits, inspections, stuff like that.
It's a tough it's tough spot.
Yeah. You know. There's so much quantity.
Does he check in on restaurants or is that.
No fire marshal stuff? Yeah. That's true.
I think that's more like, health department. Health department?
Yeah.
No, he's like, code of the building permit.
Gotcha.
How's the project looking? Inspection.
Final inspection.
Rough in and, Yeah, yeah.
So he's got that place home and now.
Nice. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good guy.
Yeah.
All right, so our motto.
Be a good friend,
you know, hold the door, pick up trash, give a compliment, be charitable.
Yeah, I know your dad.
But what makes your dad a good friend or a good dad?
That guy
care so much about people.
And it goes from people that he knows
extremely well to people that he doesn't know at all.
I mean,
just because of the weather.
Lately I've been thinking about when I used to,
snow blow with him and
I would hate the fact that we'd have to walk down
and do our neighbor's driveway three doors down.
And, yeah, I we finished an hour ago.
Why are we still going?
Why are we cleaning people's aprons and sidewalks?
And why are we driving to all the grandparents doing their driveways?
And why can't they get something to do?
Now? I see the value of that.
So he was just helping everyone
and in his business
he helped people
so much that it
probably was to a fault where he didn't grow it the way he could.
So that instilled in me, okay, that's people before profits.
And it's pretty simple.
And to be totally honest with you, I didn't even realize I was doing it.
It was kind of subconscious, but it was just built into me through him.
So why is he a good friend?
He helps everyone he sees.
Yeah. Very cool.
I'm lucky to be his son.
That's awesome. Well, many are we? I to remember that.
That's a good one.
Four minutes, 34 minutes.
Shout out to. Pops.
Shout out to pops. What's his name right now?
Well, outdoor male.
Alto or male. Good guy. Yeah.
And mom's great too.
Gross. She's awesome. She's done.
I think she's going on her 40th year at Saint Francis Hospital.
Yeah.
She started, and met
my dad and dietary and, worked their way
up to, like, medical secretary and to pack you and everything.
And shout out to mom, too, because she's the backbone of everything.
Rose and al. Yeah.
Yep. That's right.
Brothers or sisters? Yeah. Two sisters.
Two sisters.
I'm lucky.
I got a great family.
And Jean Elena.
Elena's a teacher.
And Angela is, working at Connecticut Children's,
as the right hand woman to the CFO.
And, I mean, I don't know anyone with more drive and work ethic than and
and I don't know anyone smarter than my little sister Elaine.
What school system?
So she gc killing me. Now.
I should remember this.
I want to say it's Thomaston.
Okay. Yeah. God, I hope I get that right.
We got that up. I did. Yeah, of course.
Let me know out.
Yeah. She's great.
Middle school, social studies.
Nice again.
She just cares so much.
And I am sure you can relate to this.
Being a teacher.
You know, I've told her,
regrettably, I was like, Elaina, you're too smart.
You should be a superintendent. You you.
I see so much potential in her.
And she brings you back down to earth, and she's like Anthony, I don't care.
I want to impact a kid's day to day.
Yeah. No. Yeah.
It took me a while to get that when I was in my mid 20s, I.
Elaina, what are you doing?
You can move up, move up, move up.
She's like that's not my motive.
But now, you know, I get it.
It makes sense. Nice. And she's great at.
The Tamayo family.
Yeah, yeah.
That's really good. Yeah.
Very cool. We're pretty fortunate. Yep.
Keep up the good work.
Oh, we do a game.
So you're.
I don't know, you know, check your memory.
Your jobs is not good. My memory is not good.
But go ahead. Your jobs for Anthony's abatement.
Your first one, your last one, your best one and your worst one.
It's called first, last, best, worse.
Oh, yeah. Great question.
No banging on the table. All right.
The first job, no shot.
I get this remotely close.
But I do know that Anthony's
abatement started with strictly asbestos,
so I would assume it was definitely a West Hartford basement.
Removing nine by nine floor tile and the black glue behind it.
I mean, I'm almost certain it was, that was the first one.
Now, if the tiles nine by nine is automatically asbestos under it, right?
So I can't say automatically, but nine out of ten times it is
to the point where if you see a nine inch by nine inch floor
tile, you don't normally waste the money on sampling it.
You just assume it is and you treat it like that.
Because like I said, nine out of ten times it is.
And then the glue under it, which is black mastic
also is normally hot is what we call it when into spaces.
It's hot.
Yep. What if it's 12 by 12 by 12?
You got a.
Much better chance of it not being asbestos. Okay.
But if it's held down by that same black mastic then the
that leans in the favor of being best.
It's the. Glue. It's the most likely.
Yes. Yeah.
Well the nine by nine the tile itself will be.
Oh well then the glue is just an added factor.
Yep. Okay. Interesting. Good stuff. Yeah. Good to know.
There's a lot I mean, there's a ton of asbestos materials.
It's a great insulator.
It's just horribly.
I remember I was in like second or third grade Kingsbury School in Waterbury.
Yeah. You can't eat in the lunch room.
We're eating lunch in the classroom.
The removing a substance.
During the school day.
That's crazy. Well, we're still there.
We're not allowed to do that anymore.
I think. That explains a lot about. Me.
I hope that.
But, Yeah, no longer is that allowed.
You can't do a specialist work in schools when the school is in session.
Okay, so that's why during the summer, as best as really ramps up,
because every school in the state is trying to get their specialist
work done during that or during break.
How many schools have you done? Oh, boy.
A lot of West Hartford schools.
Over 30. For sure. Yeah, yeah.
School projects are normally pretty big.
Nice. Yeah.
So the first one was a West Hartford home.
First one definitely a West Hartford basement.
Okay, so the best one.
This might be recency bias, but we did
the largest lead abatement job in the state of Connecticut last year.
That was in Putnam, Connecticut.
Unfortunately, what happens is they renovated a mill into apartments,
and they didn't address all the leftover lead paint chips that were on the ceiling.
So, right when people started moving
in, you had kids pop in for lead poisoning and,
you know, the second that started, the state got involved, and
we have to come in, move them out, clean up the apartment
and move them back in and do it psychically and, try to do as fast as
you can, you know, so you don't interrupt these people day to day lives.
So that was a big one.
And I was really proud of that one. So that was probably our.
Best, biggest in the state.
Yeah. That that's the title, right.
Yeah. That was a good one for that. Yeah. That was last. Year.
Oh last year okay. Yeah that was. Great.
Yeah.
All right.
And then worst was that question.
Geez.
You know.
The worst job.
I don't have a particular job.
But the worst feeling that we have is when we let a customer down
and they're just not happy with what we do.
It'll never be something that lasts, because we will always fix
whatever mistake we might have made or whatever expectation we then meet.
We'll go back every single day for a year
until it's done right and the customer's happy.
But that's the worst feeling, is that initial
call the day after you leave a job and you say, hey,
you scratched my floor, you left my window open.
You know, mistakes happen and, that hurts.
You know, we hate that because we strive for perfection.
But we'll never leave a customer unhappy.
We'll always go back and fix it.
And like I
say, we won't leave that job until they are satisfied.
Yeah.
What was the fourth question?
First. Last best, worst.
Your last one was your most recent. Did you do a job today?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, we did five jobs today.
So, we are at,
an old, old storage facility in East Windsor
owned by a gentleman, a gentleman named Jim, a great guy,
always smiling, super happy, good conversationalist.
And we are ripping down all of his old particleboard and insulation
so he can bring the building up to energy coat.
And just provide a better spot for his tenants.
So, yeah, that's a fun one we're doing. It's fun.
We don't do a ton of demolition.
But it's fun when we get to do a big demo job because the guys like breaking stuff
and cleaning it up after, and you take an ugly space and you make it
clean and and beautiful and, you know, it's nice.
It's rewarding.
That's cool. Yeah.
You do have a nice before and after pictures, right?
You could see it before. Oh, yeah. It looks like this.
And then after you're like, wow. Yeah. It's a big change. So that's
something that.
Yeah. Motivating.
Yeah.
And we see a lot of nasty places.
You know we're in a lot of nasty buildings and it's wet and damp and dark
and smells like mold.
And when we leave, it smells like Mr. Clean.
Yeah.
So, yeah. Water damage, lead paint.
So when you said part, like how long that would lead have to be in the ceiling.
Yeah. For a kid to test.
Yeah.
How long do you have to be around lead? It's an excellent question.
So, a child's blood lead level
can be elevated within a matter of days.
Probably a week, I'd say is more common.
Definitely. Just for being on the ceiling.
It gives off, and they don't have to eat the paint.
Well, so.
Because I like to joke, you eat lead paint.
Yeah. Yeah. No, I'll get into that.
So, the most common cause of lead poisoning is definitely lead dust.
So it's not the lead.
See, lead painted ceiling itself.
It's when those paint chips fall and get walked over and moved around.
And it's a traffic area and the kids toys are there and a kid's
crawling around, and then his hand is touching his mouth
and she's chewing on her toy, which is on the ground.
So it's the lead dust, which comes from a lot of things. So.
And lead abatement, big things are friction points.
So a window that opens and closes all the time, a door that opens and closes
all the time creates a friction point, which leads to that lead dust.
And, that's what we try to avoid and prevent before
we get to the point of lead abatement, which is a sick child. Yep.
I think
my school also we weren't allowed to open and close the windows, I swear.
Same reason.
Yeah, we had a special Sydney cafe.
Yeah. And our windows had led.
I swear the teachers like, don't open a window.
It's the same thing.
Friction. Absolutely.
Yeah. And oh, how about that?
Times have changed.
Big time.
Right?
Like I know workers
are like my dad's friend.
My dad painted and his friend was like, oh, that's just, you know, it's best.
It's like we didn't care, right?
Just picked it up and like, carried it anyway.
No masks.
But nowadays you're in full wet suits.
Mask full moon suit looking.
Yeah. So it's so weird.
I mean, this guy also drink and smoke, so I don't know if this
was his biggest concern. Yeah.
No, I mean, you're absolutely right.
So a lot of the cut offs are 1979.
Like pain is bad 1980 for asbestos.
They didn't allow you to well some companies still
were allowed to produce it for certain applications.
But you weren't allowed to sell it and stall it.
And that's when they started
the movement of removing these things from public places.
The issue,
you know, when they were installing it back in the 40s
and 50s is they're good materials and they were cheap,
you know, they didn't know the repercussions of it.
You know, you had guys in submarines
slapping on asbestos on, you know, wet asbestos, slapping it on pipes,
molding it around the pipe so it would insulate this steam pipe
and, yeah, it's nasty stuff.
I got some sponsors.
Can I shut up some sponsors?
And I got a follow up question.
We already talked about Keating agency and float.
We have the fix.
Evie Luna pizza, golf law group, people's bank, Parkville market,
West Hartford lock, maximum beverage.
We're here at 340 North main Street.
Hopefully my my guy Matt.
Whitney shows up later and then Direct Line Media, we got Stephanie and Dave.
The Direct Line Media's in Branford on 11 Sycamore Way.
So thank you for all of our sponsors.
If you're interested in being a podcast sponsor, please let me know.
I think Sally and Bob's is coming on soon as a podcast sponsor.
Who knows, maybe Anthony's abatement will come on as a podcast.
I think. We should.
But with that being said, West Hartford Lock is one of our sponsors.
What are three keys that make you great at being?
Are you the CEO and president?
No, just president.
Just the president and CEO. We don't have a board.
Yeah.
Are you not only a president, your client, or.
I'm not only the client, I'm the player. President.
Yeah. You know, that's from.
What is that from?
I think it's a biggie. Small song.
Okay. There you go. Yeah.
You know, that's from.
I'm not only a client, I'm the player.
President.
I'll always love Big.
Pie, but.
No different song anyway.
Is that memory yours?
So it's phase two. Yep, yep.
Three keys that make you great at being the president of Anthony's abatement.
All right.
Yeah.
That's good.
Belief in people,
my employees, I don't micromanage.
I believe in them to get things done.
And they are way smarter than I am.
They are way better at what they do than I am, and I trust them to do it.
So, you know, you got to believe in other people
and let them reach their potential,
personally. Discipline.
I wish my diet
discipline was a little better, but, no, my work ethic is pretty good.
You know, I'm not afraid of early mornings.
Another key
is you have to be understanding
of people and their situations.
You know, it goes back to, if you walk by a stranger on the street,
you don't know what kind of day they're having.
You got to be understanding of clients and their situations
and try to mold the scope of work to best fit them.
And just reach the outcome that makes everyone happy.
Yeah, yeah. So you got to understand people.
You got to believe in people,
and you gotta have a little discipline to go along.
With all of it. Yeah.
That's very good.
Those are three keys.
Helpful. As a teacher, I like those. Discipline.
The 5:00 Am club is a book,
and you say your world and your life will be so much more productive.
If you can start your day at 5 a.m..
Easier said than done. Yes.
430 is even better.
Ooh. Are you up at 430?
Oh, yeah. 430. Yeah.
I'm also a dad by eight.
So before
30, do you do you get some me time with the coffee first?
No workout? No, man, I, You're up and out.
I shower up, I get to the shop, like 515 and just start
plugging away on the computer guy show up around six,
get them going out to the job sites, and then it's like meetings
till ten, 11 a.m..
And then I'm fortunate I get to hit the gym little early when it's less
crowded and back to the office when, the crews come home.
Yeah, that's the best time.
You're very fortunate to hit the gym.
11 to 12.
That's the optimal time because the edge at five in the morning, it's a zoo.
Yeah, there's a million people there.
Yeah. And.
Then I actually, I mean, and then. Afterwards. Worse.
AC automotive, do you know Aldo Carducci?
I don't, but I mean, I know AC, I drive by.
Great, great guy, great person.
He also does CrossFit midday.
So he does.
He goes to, West Hartford job.
Then he goes to CrossFit, then he goes checks the new brand.
Yeah. Yeah. It's neat.
He's midday workouts.
Teachers.
There's no.
Midday working.
On, well, during the summer you can get.
Actually, today I did ten push ups three different times.
Yeah. I got a couple kids. There's, Alana.
I call her. Luna.
Yeah, a bell.
I call her Bella. And I l I call Ella, so I.
If I mess up their name, I do push ups.
And the Clara that I call Clara. So three times. Today.
So ten push ups every time I mess up a kid's name, Feeling,
feeling good.
Yeah. That's good. Yeah. I see you got the pump.
Got some pump at the pump.
Yeah.
I've been swimming.
I just swam a miles on Saturday.
That's the best exercise they say.
Yeah, yeah, because.
It's it's great on your back, knees
and shoulders because playing basketball is just getting to be too much.
Yeah, I might be retiring soon.
It's hard on your knees.
Well, that's why we shift to golf, because.
Oh, yeah, it's a lot easier on the body.
Yeah. Are you a member anywhere?
Yeah. Whomp.
Oh. You are? Yep.
Cool. Yeah. Just joined up.
Excited to get new clubhouse.
Probably in a year. And.
Yeah. And you won the West Hartford Chamber.
Want we. Did. Who was awesome.
So, our sales guy lawn, my buddy Max,
and then Lomb brought his friend who turned out to be a ringer.
And, and then he won it for us. Yes.
The best. The scramble.
You need one good guy to on. Yeah. It's fun.
That allows you to like or motivate you.
Well, you could be. The bad guy, which was me.
And just.
If you come through on a putter, too, then you're.
Saving Grace. Yeah, yeah.
Scramble.
Yeah.
I didn't play this year, but I did playing the womp a couple times.
The West Hartford Chamber.
Yeah. Great place. Are you a member of the chamber?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
Great network to be. Oh, isn't it great? Yeah.
They were vital to Friends of Success.
Like, I don't be here.
With Dave without the chamber.
You know, meeting so many different people.
Luna pizza donut crazy.
Yeah.
The list goes on and on from the chamber.
Kate and Chris are great future guests.
That, captured the.
Concept is that, That's the, they're the presidents of. The.
Oh, yeah, but. Capture the concept is great, too.
You work with them?
Yeah.
I don't, but I mean, they get they do good stuff.
I can just tell from afar.
Yeah, they're they're good at what they do.
Yeah. Yeah.
But no, I can name. Yeah. So many good people.
It's definitely where we are a part of a number chamber's around
Connecticut, and West Hartford is definitely one of the best ones.
Oh. Can you compare and contrast some things that you see?
Yeah.
West Hartford has a much more feel of, togetherness and a group
and being tight knit and a ton of events that a lot of people actually show up to.
The other chambers are a little more.
I don't know if this is the right word, but commercialized where it's.
It just
it doesn't feel as homey and it's more just business centric
networking like that, which I understand is, you know, it's the goal.
But, yeah, no West Hartford Chamber just does so many other things
that aren't just networking.
That I really love about Tony.
You know,
Tony from the Ron Foley Foundation, I don't know, you got to meet Tony.
Yeah.
Tony's got a good name. Tony.
Yeah. Forget about it, Tony. Yeah.
You go by Tony.
No. Anthony.
You never been. Born to use my grandfather.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony. Tell Amara, tell them more.
Oh, yeah.
Forget about it. Yeah, I got five fingers.
Best friends.
I can only use three.
I was waiting to see that.
So, being a West Hartford teacher. Yes.
Teachers are important. Extreme.
Do you have a favorite teacher?
Oh, boy, that's tough.
Because my favorite teacher,
if I'm being honest, is probably Mr.
Wells because he played football with us at recess.
But wait, doctor Wells, Rick wells. Yeah.
Webster hill.
No, you said Duffy for a little bit.
Maybe he was at Duffy. Yeah. Was he a marine?
Yeah, yeah. For real?
He was your teacher?
Well, one of my teach.
But at recess, he was my teacher.
Right. Gotcha.
And, But that just that impact me because it made the school day so great.
So fun.
You look for a picture.
Well, he remember you? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
We got a thing that that Mr.
Wells and I, we sent pictures. Do you?
Oh, yeah. Great guy.
You know that.
He's always been in great shape, but he was a young man back then.
Back when I was in freaking third grade.
So, he still had a lot of the marine in him,
and, he was great at recess.
Yeah. That's so funny.
Yeah, but, Miss Moran, fifth grade.
Duffy,
really instilled a lot of discipline in me,
to the levels that, like, playing in football later on, instilled in me.
She's just, you know, no nonsense type of woman.
And she was great because, you know, she did it with kindness,
but she made her point.
And, you know, I was I was a little rascal, and she kind of
straighten me out a little, so definitely most impactful.
Nice. Yeah. No.
Mr. Wells have come up a bunch of times, actually.
Yeah.
Luna pizza, I bet.
I asked PJ Foley's kid.
PJ Foley teaches at Connor. He has a son.
I don't know, PJ Foley, Irish name.
Yeah, he's a coach.
He was a tight end coach right now.
Oh, yeah, he's a tight end in college. I think too. Yeah.
Yeah. Great. Got guys at Unit.
Oh yeah.
He still plays. Who still. Oh I believe. Yeah.
Plays Irish
Gaelic football too.
Really. Yeah.
Grew up playing Gaelic football. Coaches Gaelic football.
Great guy PJ Foley. Amazing person.
But his son said Doctor Wells too.
Yeah, yeah.
Doctor Wells actually to my wife does rivalry.
And there was an awards
celebration at orange, Connecticut at the golf course and they wanted someone
to be the guest speaker and well, showed up in his marine suit.
Yeah.
Had, you know, two books and we just did a wonderful presentation
and talking about when does your school day start in the morning.
At night before,
when you're getting your stuff together, you're getting your homework together.
You know, he had a golf club.
He did a little golf club. Yeah, but.
He was a really interesting.
And he's a great speaker, a great person.
Oh, excellent role model, that guy.
He's gonna be a guest doctor.
Wells. Oh, yeah. Rick Wells
so I'll send that picture.
I'll see what he says. Please send us anything. Yeah.
And then it's a long time ago.
That's so funny.
I remember, I still remember my.
There's a graduating class right now.
They're in 12th grade.
When I was in third grade, it was the most serious to hand touch football.
Yeah. Kids went in crying. Oh, yeah. It was a Super Bowl.
Every game was the Super Bowl.
Yes, you nailed it.
Clinton plays on the whoop team BC is that Suffield Academy?
He's going to Nicholls State to play, baseball.
The twins Anthony and Ryan Ethan was a six soccer player.
All these kids were like, what's his name?
Austin Austin's a quarterback, RKO.
And these kids will come in.
I was Tom Brady.
Yeah, I threw. Through a thousand yards.
Yeah, touchdowns. I was the autumn doctor.
Wells was doing. Crazy. The automatic quarterback, I loved it.
I could see it hit. Me and the same thing. Yeah.
But they were
like, always, you know, and I'm putting the ball on the money.
I'm not.
We're throwing touchdowns, but some kids would get upset and then we like.
All right, fourth quarter.
Do we go on to like two minute drill. Yeah.
To get the tie or you know this team wins.
But it was amazing.
This is how long. Half a half an hour. Yeah.
Best half an hour. That changed it right.
You thought about that. You're like, man, what's going on?
I still got this recess.
Yeah, I wasn't the greatest, school kid, but, that.
Yeah.
And then this year, what does my school do to me?
They gave me two lunch duties, no recess duties.
Oh, man. I you know who those. Recess me?
Yeah.
Forget the kids.
It was.
Probably a good place to connect with kids on a different in a different.
Environment. Yeah, yeah.
I there's the playscape.
I do a chin up contest. Yeah. Pom pom.
Then I would throw the football.
So not.
It's hilarious
teaching teaching and playing football.
That's great. No, but you've been instrumental.
And a great friend to friends of Feeney.
You supported us multiple times.
Got any questions for me?
Recommendations.
Anything that you feel I didn't share that you would like to talk about?
Recommendations? No. I do have questions, though.
And it's in terms of like mentorship because
we can always give to,
nonprofits like yourself.
But we'd also love to start fundraising ourselves
and give even more to Connecticut Children's.
And I just, you know, I'm starting a I have a gentlemen's
dinner we're doing, which, a friend of mine, Johnny
Russo, is a realtor down in Milford, is helping me put together.
But, you know, that's the tip of the iceberg.
How do you put together such a force of fundraising?
And, you know, where do you start?
And how do you get the raffle items?
And you're calling everybody and inviting people, and you don't know
if it's going to pan out or not?
Yeah, I know you do that.
So many concerns and hesitations when you're like, we have this wonderful
event. Will people show up? Yeah.
It's so far, knock on wood, everything has been working out.
But you know, a lot of people don't like to RSVP.
They don't want to let you know.
They don't want to buy the ticket until the day of. Sure.
They're always waiting on the weather.
If there's something else, they have children, so we get that.
But, you just hope for the best.
And yeah, you know, we have a good team.
Like I said, Marty, Jen, Matt, Rob.
Marty. Jen.
Matt. Rahm.
That's the team.
So right now we all have it.
Like Jen runs the raffle. Yeah.
So Jen will organize and make these wonderful signs
with the container that matches it.
We call you know, we call a lot of people for donations.
And yeah, gift.
Cards like salute gift card travel gift
cards are a gift card, Lumina Pizza gift card, Sally and Bob's.
All these wonderful organizations.
Like you say, West Hartford Cares.
West Hartford wants to help.
Just today, you know, for the Saint Patrick's Day parade,
we need t shirt sponsors.
Yeah, I'm shooting out some text.
Yeah, I got that DM. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
DM some some.
I have to text some. I have the DMs. Yeah.
So yeah. Thank you for that. Well this will be great.
Another time of the Anthony that. Sure sure.
Yeah. Love it.
I would imagine you find that organizations and people
are far more giving than you could even think of.
Yeah. Expect.
And then we have, you know, a mission that's easy to buy into.
We're helping
children and families that need assistance after heartbreaking tragedy.
It's hard to say, like, I don't know.
I really don't believe in that one.
Or it's against my politics or some reason.
There's no. Excuse.
Yeah, we're. Helping people that need it.
Yeah, right.
So I'm a teacher, you know, I don't make an extraordinary amount,
but I have a roof over my head, and, you know, I'm happily,
housed in everything I need, so I want to help as many people as I can.
I've been doing it in the classroom.
Now I want to do it outside of the classroom. Yeah.
And I'm very fortunate right now.
We've helped up over 90 families and raise over $230,000.
That's incredible. Yeah.
All in 12 years.
All volunteer based, community based grassroots organization.
Just helping,
you know, we're talking about school.
Kingsbury school. Reminds me of Dwayne Hunter.
Was in my third grade class in my fifth grade class, last year.
He's crossing the street and got hit by a car.
Oh, no.
So his father, you know, paid for the funeral
and his his baby mom and his daughter need some funds, so we helped that family.
That was most recently,
there was an unfortunate event.
A Bloomfield football player, 13 years old, died at practice.
Oh, we hope that family. Yeah.
Yeah, you name it, we've helped fires cancer.
Whatever.
We have a system now where we have a donation request form.
We. There was a fire in Harrisville.
They went to the,
like, services, civil services or human resources,
and they referred friends of Feeney to them.
How about that? Right. And this is in Terry ville.
We've been helping the family. Yeah. We've helped.
We gave them, you know, I think like $5,000,
maybe ten boxes of Amazon items.
Yeah. Toys for Christmas coats.
Oh, like so many things.
Which is huge.
Oh yeah. Especially at that time.
Yeah. So it's been great.
We have some things looking forward to.
Like the Saint Patrick's Day parade.
We have a wolf pack game. Our golf tournament.
Yeah.
Memorial day parade.
We're honoring a veteran.
I tried to honor Rick Wells last year.
He was going to Martha's
Vineyard for his wife because his wife writes books.
Yeah, and. He couldn't make it.
So maybe I'll have him back because we have a guest of honor.
Yeah, yeah, a veteran.
So maybe Rick Wells will be our guest this year.
Yeah, it's all incredible stuff.
Yeah. But like you said, that's that's great.
You have a great heart, great family.
Sounds like you have wonderful parents and you're doing great things.
So, I would happily
maybe talk to you more about how to help you start your own organization or.
Yeah, let me know the data. That gentlemen's dinner.
Yeah. Well, you know, I'm.
I think I'm a gentleman, so maybe I.
Invited, I'd be honored to have.
I have.
The grab the right fork on the right side of the plate and stuff, but,
you know, You me. Two of my mouth closed.
Yeah.
Yeah. No, I definitely bend you here.
Yeah. Cool.
What's the connection, Milford?
Is that the New Haven connection?
So the guy who is kind of teaching me up how to do an event,
that's where he's at. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah.
Very cool.
Yeah, well, I we talked recommendations.
I just recommend I always say it.
I say the same thing, write a handwritten note and take a cold shower.
Those are my two recommendations. But this is really cool.
Anthony, my neighbor Anthony had a birthday,
so he wrote me a thank you card. I want to read it. Fini.
This is funny to me.
Maybe a little backstory.
His wife wanted to trick him to get down to West Hartford brewing and roasting.
Yeah, and his whole family was there to surprise him, so she used me.
She's like, hey, can you text us?
Yeah.
And say, hey, Feeney, we really did win Best Nonprofit three years in a row.
But tell him there's a celebration
of feeney's nonprofit winning, and we want it to go.
So I'm like, hey, I kind of cut and paste whatever she said.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, come down.
Friday seven free drink.
Feeney won best nonprofit Haley and Anthony
and he's like, he goes, Feeney, I should have known.
You're pulling some strings to plan my surprise party.
The most surprising part of the night that you weren't
were in a
room full of people trying to sell merch.
Appreciate it all. Thanks for the gift cards to.
Cheers to 30.
So happy 30th birthday Anthony.
Yeah, he's like all his friends are there.
He's like, he thought I was going to go to the car
and try to sell, like get your fini shirt that. You feel you.
Want a magnet. Hat.
Then I'm like, darn it, I missed the golden opportunity I should have.
Yeah, pushing merch at a birthday. Yeah.
Anthony, I oh, this is with heartfelt gratitude.
This is the Sunshine the Sunflower Kids program.
We're so grateful to your kindness and thinking of our team
and our sunflower kids.
And a bunch of kids signed it.
Thank you so much. Thank you for the generous things.
Thank you for thinking.
Thank you for finding the family some sunshine.
And then this is my guy, scion.
I like Mr. Feeney.
Look at that.
Thank you, Mr. Feeney.
He calls me Eric in parentheses.
That's like a huge thing for a third grader.
Oh, yeah.
They're like Eric's name. And I'm like.
Well, first you gotta figure, well, figure out what their name is, right?
I don't want you to get that information. Yeah.
But back in the day, you're like, you don't ever.
You call your teacher Mr..
So I'm like, call me whatever.
Yeah, yeah, I don't care. Yeah. Eric.
Yeah.
You know, out of respect, don't call me like names.
Oh, you see, that happens too.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah. It's so cool you had.
How are you feeling on this podcast?
You're very nervous.
Not not not not nervous at all.
You're like calm, cool, collective.
Yeah, well, you can't tell what's going on inside.
Reminds me of the time that you were on with Karen Scott.
They're all dude, Scot Haney.
Yeah. Channel three, better day.
Connecticut.
Great day. Connecticut.
I was that very good.
No nerve wracking. That was a little nervous.
I mean, you got a lot of cameras on you tight.
But, Scott and Kara make it very easy, just like you have today.
Yeah, they're super welcoming, and, you know,
they you gotta go in prepped a little so you know what you're doing.
You can't just get stuck on the on the screen.
I watched. That was. Really good. Yeah.
How did you. Set that up? Do you reach out to them?
Do they reach out to you?
Yeah.
So, We have a,
a marketing rep with channel three, and she reaches out and she tries
to let us know when good times might be and invites us on.
And, you know, we try to do it probably like three times a year
because you get to talk to people more than just a commercial.
And, we get a lot of great feedback with that.
Yeah. That's cool.
That was great.
So maybe I'll share the link.
But Karen Scott.
Yeah, we already think.
We already think, maximum beverage.
You know, my guy Matt Whitney.
Matt Anthony.
You ready for us?
You're going to come on. You want to come back.
To find. My channel?
Okay, we'll give you a couple minutes.
That Happy Gilmore check.
Oh, so as a thank you and you swagged me up.
I love my shirt. Yeah.
The Portuguese and the Italian flag.
Yeah. Embroidered in there.
Yeah, yeah.
Does your shirts, Dave freshening.
You. Know, the West.
I forget. Park Road. That's right.
Funny that you see that. Could guess who does my shirt.
There you go.
Fresh ink, fresh ink.
Shout out the fresh. Yeah. Keep it local.
Keep it local.
I want to give you a shirt. Thank.
Thank you for. Being a good friend I.
Love it I love that's the OG shirt.
Correct. Yeah. Good friend.
You talk about my design.
Yours is excellent. As well right. Yeah.
And that's another thing. Motto is you can't you can't beat the motto.
Be your friend.
No drive like a friend. Hold the door.
Give compliments, be charitable.
Yeah, I love that.
Good color to the gym.
You bet. Don't rip out of it. You like rip out?
I like the Hulk, though.
David Banner, that shirt. Yeah. I wish.
Putting up 315 or 350.
Three 1503 is a little three. 15 for a few.
Yeah. Geez.
That's nothing.
It's nothing.
Now, now they're gonna put up more.
Have you ever put up more? Nope.
Now probably stronger there, but really?
Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. Discipline, man.
Goes a long way.
Take creatine or.
Any lots of. Great. Yeah, yeah.
Lots creatine.
Pre-workout out, amino acids.
I take it all magnesium.
Are you up to peptides yet or. No. No.
Not yet. I think I will be soon though, right?
I don't know, I hear cuz that. Game day West.
Hartford. Yeah, I should talk with that.
I met the guy there. I met the guy. Yeah.
I've heard. Good. Thanks.
He's talking very high on the peptides. Yeah.
Hydrogen water, mineralized water.
Yeah, they're doing it all now.
It's got a job.
Some labs is, and we'll do yours.
I take calcium, vitamin C, and like, kosa mine for my knee.
Yeah.
But I don't take anything yet.
Our protein. Protein powder.
I want to get on this creatine.
Do you do gummies? Greetings. Great.
I do both gummies in the powder.
Cheese every day? Oh, yeah.
Every day. Even if I'm not going to gym.
I heard creatine is also good for your brain.
Do you feel good with memory or recall. Or.
No, but I've always been deficient in that.
I'm not the smartest guy.
Yeah, no, but, it definitely helps with recovery and growth.
Yeah, yeah.
When you stop taking it, you see how much it helps?
Yeah.
I agree with that. Then I'm getting some creatine. Great things.
Great. Yeah. Creatine. Yes, sir.
But we have this.
How about Jordan juice.
You have a drink Jordan juice.
This is Knob Creek.
I got to get this in before Matt comes back.
Signature Wine and Spirits in Simsbury did a collab with us.
They picked the barrel signature wine spirits, and this is a cool label.
Oh, shelf.
Thank you Vinnie.
Thank you Omar, our co-president.
Vinnie, put this together.
You get to scan our code.
Yeah.
Go to and go to Vinnie's code. QR code.
But you see the golf theme?
Yeah. Friends of. Feeney.
You can't get ten year knob creep in Connecticut.
Really? The only one you could get nine year.
Yeah, this is. The only ten year. Wow.
So this is an exclusive. There were 90 bottles.
There's only 20 bottles left, so get it while you can.
It's 85 bucks.
20 of it goes to Friends of Feeney. Okay.
So it's really cool.
But thank you, Vinnie.
And again, thank you all for this wonderful idea.
And they move fast too.
Oh I believe yeah. So
check it out.
Look at that smart collab.
I like it I know we're we like collabing on, fundraisers.
You know, we're doing a hockey game.
We sold over 100 tickets.
Yeah, I think we're getting five bucks a ticket,
maybe more.
We get 5 or 4.
Four bucks a ticket.
It's pretty good.
400 bucks just to go to a game. Yeah.
We got ten kids that are going to line up and do the high five tunnel.
Yeah. It's fun. So it's pretty cool.
That wolf pack. Yeah.
Very good.
Pack.
Also want to recommend,
do you like basketball?
You like that? Sure. There's a Netflix special.
I just watched it. Six episodes.
About the Olympics.
Oh, yeah.
It didn't just focus on the USA, which was really cool.
I learned so much about Team Canada.
Stacked with NBA players.
Yeah, team France stacked.
They're going to win it next year when me.
Because. When me. On if he's not hurt. Yeah.
If he's not hurt but yeah even Serbia
amazing amazing team Serbia with Jokic.
But it was really cool.
And then R.J. Barrett. He's Canadian.
He's Canadian.
His dad he's he's Rohan Jr Barrett.
His dad was the Canadian coach and played with Steve Nash I didn't know that. Oh
who else is the Canadian.
What's his initials SK J oh yeah.
I mean he's a stud.
He's going to be MVP this. Year, I think. Yeah.
What's his name?
I just watched him last night OKC versus Timberwolves on NBA TV.
I watched.
You big. Basketball game.
Yeah yeah. And I didn't have YouTube TV.
So now I do.
And I'm like I'm watching this game.
It goes to overtime.
OKC makes it 12
point comeback with like five minutes left.
Now the other way around.
Timberland Timberwolves come back. Yes.
What's his name. Yeah.
Jarius. Alexan.
But they call him
SGA. Yes.
That's it SGA.
Yeah. You know.
Oh, great.
And I swear they called the,
they called the USAA team, the Avengers right there in the whole time.
Yeah, I swear they ended it with me looking like Thanos going.
They may have lost, but you're going to.
I'm calling out, everyone watch me.
From now on. And it ends.
And it ends.
It was crazy. Like, yeah, he called out the world. Yeah.
And it ended. It was like, when he's going to be the man.
That good Olympics.
It was coming up in school.
He's seven one goes between the legs.
Threes. Yeah.
Oh, there's another guy who's French.
He's the French captain.
What's his name?
I don't know as well as you do not Tatum.
It's like shoot.
But his dad, he was three.
He was watching his dad play basketball.
His dad passed, passed away on the court.
Gosh.
Button.
Peter Nico.
Batum is it. But Batum
but I highly suggest.
The same.
Batum that we knew growing up between. It.
I think.
Yeah there's that that
I don't know I.
Think that's we know that we know the.
Kid. Yeah. No I learned a lot.
Yeah a lot of that is from the Dream Team.
Yeah. Their imprint all over the world.
They said that comes back in front of all these excellent international players.
Dirk was ten when he saw that Dream team.
And he's like, that's it. That's what I want to do.
Dirk and Vince and they interviewed him. There you go.
So many people were like, that was the inspiration over the world.
Sure,
absolutely.
Greatest sports team ever assembled.
Freshman year, my first day of school off, it was a Charles Barkley.
Yeah, matching up to Charles Barkley.
Yeah. Shorts and shorts.
Shirts set with air Max.
And that vintage look is back in style in the.
Vintage thing because I was like, I want to buy the Barkley jersey again.
Yeah, it was number 1414.
Yeah, I know they do.
And Jordan was number nine.
Yeah, yeah. I remember that.
I forgot what bird was.
Bird was like, maybe.
It wasn't what I think.
Oh yeah. Yeah.
But that yeah that 92 team was amazing.
Greatest team ever assembled. Greatest team ever assembled.
Change the way I. I mean, I fell in love with sports.
Yeah.
I was already in love with sports, but that was like.
And then, like the patriotism and the pride.
Yeah.
Destroying people. USA is that. Bad?
It's always fun to win, too. Yeah, yeah.
So you're Anthony's a
family owned, operated for in CT for ten years.
Have you ever done a job outside of Connecticut?
Yeah. We do southern mass.
Okay. Yep.
Yeah. It's not.
It's a it's a quick right.
We do a lot of Greenwich and Stamford, Fairfield County, too.
It's definitely a tough ride for us, but, we covered a whole state.
Yeah.
Where do you see Anthony's abatement in five years?
That's a great question.
Five years?
I would probably say
more than doubled in size.
And,
probably a another branch in Fairfield County
and, yeah, yeah,
doing the same services, sticking to the same things we're doing,
keeping it simple and, just doing it at a larger volume.
Yeah. Very good place to go.
I know someone said that asked that where would friends of Feeney be in five years?
And I was like, I don't really know, but I hope that we're raised,
you know, over close to $1 million for families. Yes.
Because if we're at a quarter of a mill now, yeah, five years,
we hope to get to a mill. Yeah. And maybe get
to over like 60
families or 75 family would be great or no, not worried at 90.
So it would be great to be like 500 families.
That is an awesome goal.
The million is huge. In $1 million.
Yeah. Would get a golden check. Yeah.
Big happy. Gilmore.
I don't see why not.
The growth that you've done.
So I'm PA.
Yeah. We just had this wonderful.
Event at. Parkville Market.
My buddy band showed up. We were.
We collaborated with them.
It's called Rock the local. Yeah.
We worked with the Hartford Greater Arts.
Greater Hartford arts.
And we have the concert series, and then we got this beautiful
mural inside the local, which my students helped paint.
And it's like the starry night.
So it's like the magnet, but Starry Night, the Van Gogh painting.
Yeah. And my buddy doc.
Episode 58. Great podcast.
Most viewed, put on a band, put on a show with his band.
It was amazing.
So it was a great time.
I saw friends I haven't seen in a while.
My buddy Justin showed up green.
He showed up.
And. It's
funny, my guy Seth, this guy lives in California.
I swear I see him more
than some of my friends.
I live in. Connecticut. Yeah. Isn't that weird how that works?
It is. Because when he's around, he'll come by.
Right? Right.
He was like, at the casino, and I just threw it out.
Hey, I'm here 7 to 10. Yeah, and it's weird.
He's like, I'll be there in ten minutes.
I'm like, haha, you're in California.
And he really showed up.
It was like a wonderful surprise to see good friends like that.
So it was good together.
You know, a good. Venue there.
And, yeah.
You like Parkville?
Oh yeah.
What's your go to food at Parkville Market?
I would probably say Mofongo. Right. Yeah.
It's tough to get out Saturday night.
My phone go. Yeah. Very good. Yeah.
And then actually had mofongo and a beef patty and some curry.
Jamaican food was really good.
I kept it diverse.
Yeah. Looks good.
Listen, I got a daughter that's a vegetarian.
Yeah. Like me.
You go there with a family.
Everyone's happy.
Yeah.
You can't say, oh, I don't like what I see.
And something. So it's an amazing place. It's.
What's cool about that place?
Used to be a ladder supply place.
Yeah, they have that.
Our mural is next to the ladder supply.
Yeah. There's an old bishop's ladder.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a yellow. Says Bishop's ladder. Yep.
You remember that?
Yeah. We gutted the place.
Did you do the abatement of.
We didn't do the abatement.
We did some of the demo. On the way. Yeah.
And Carlos is big on preserving some of this stuff.
Portuguese?
Yeah.
Mozambique. He's from Mozambique.
Yeah, but he's Portuguese. Yep.
Carlos moto? Yep.
Carlos mode, a podcast guest.
The other person? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
We needed storage.
He gave us storage out.
Yeah,
40 Arbor Street.
We're in the basement of 40 Arbor Street.
Put a lot of our parade equipment there.
Yeah, he's smart guy.
He is owning half of Hartford.
Yeah, right. Yeah. And so did you.
Did he tell you to preserve some things, like keep the vintage look like
he wanted some of the, We weren't working directly for him.
We were working for his general contractor.
Yeah, we were doing, like,
just a overall clean out and taking down, like, shelving and stuff.
Yeah. Because he likes to build around it.
If he.
If the wood could be preserved, he likes to have that shown.
Yeah. Even in his apartments, he was, smart.
And he kept, he kept, he kept a lot of woods to make the picnic table.
Yeah.
He had that Bishop ladder sign still, which he thought it was really cool.
He's big into, like, holding on to and keeping it,
authentic and vintage, which is.
Good for an investor like him, because too many of them lose sight of that.
And just want to demo.
Yeah. Yeah, it's good to keep the character.
Yeah, he's a great guy. He is.
Oh yeah.
So do you know PD PD then that PD Q the Portuguese place.
I don't know. P2P. Oh you got to check that out.
They opened up.
They were in Parkville market but now they have their own location on Parkville.
Oh Portuguese.
Okay I got check that they got a. Special.
Sauce. Yeah.
We did a hot dog contest there.
They came in third place.
Really? Second place.
But interesting.
Yeah. I'm gonna have to check them out. So.
So who do you like? Messi. Ronaldo? I mean,
boy, I have to say
Ronaldo, but, I can admit Messi is probably the best player ever.
Yeah. Really? Yeah, I think I can say that.
That you were just gonna automatically go with. The tomboy.
I got to. I mean, it's my favorite, but.
Yeah, she's a little different than everyone.
True. Yeah.
Did you like soccer now?
I was this size when I was three, so,
soccer wasn't really in my repertoire.
Nope.
I was, Oh, line football and goalie in lacrosse.
And that's about it.
Yeah. We're here at maximum.
Maximum beverage.
Good friend. Coach, come say hi. Come say hi.
Tell us how you feel.
Yeah. All right.
That's my guy right here. You know. Anthony. That's nice.
Hey how you doing Anthony.
What's up. My meet you are you man. Good good.
Anthony's abatement.
Oh nice. That a. Branded. Bills.
Yeah. That's a amazing.
Oh look at. That.
That's a nice. Hat. With the shades on.
Yeah it's America baby.
People asking me are you a Philadelphia Eagles fan?
What about this says Philadelphia Eagles?
Recency bias.
It's like
I'm like, all right, I'm not a Eagles fan.
Although I did root for them to win
I think Chiefs go down.
Yeah it's better than that. Yeah.
Not much okay.
So yeah. No big check.
Got a small check in my pocket.
I can give you that.
All right.
You want to, but, we could do it.
Another one. All right, we'll do another one.
We'll do some. It.
We got to get the. You got to get the big check.
Can't can't do a check presentation with the check.
It's this. Big. Yeah. It's not cute. All right.
Well, we'll we'll find it.
Well, thanks for everything, man.
Good to meet you. Sweet. You guys. Yeah.
All right. We're at our 20.
We usually shoot for 50 minutes for Feeney.
Yeah, but.
So we're, our 20.
We got any closing remarks?
I had a wonderful time talking with you.
I could talk with you forever. No, I. Know you have the gift. Of the gab.
Yeah, it was good.
It's great.
You know, you made me feel very welcome here. And,
you know, your cause is incredible.
I mean, it's what we aspire to be like is the cause that you're putting forth.
So, I'm just honored to be on here.
Thank you for having me.
All right.
So on three will say be a good friend.
One, two, three, be a. Good friend.