February 24, 2024 • 18 mins
For years, the trio of Todisco brothers struggled with substance abuse, a battle which eventually led to two of the brothers losing their lives. Mario Todisco, however, was able to make his way through recovery, but it wasn't an easy road. Now, his daughter, Marissa Capone Todisco, has started a non-profit named after her father, "Mario's Mission", to help those on the road to recovery have an easier, more supportive journey. Marissa talks with Nichole this week about her family's history with addiction and how she's using their lessons to uplift members of her community.
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(00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend where each week
we come together we talk about allthe topics important to you and the place
where you live. It is sogood to be back with you again this
week. I'm Nicole Davis. We'vetalked about addiction several times here on the
show and how tough it can beto lift yourself up and get on the
road to recovery. There are somany factors that play into this, and
(00:29):
so many stumbling blocks as well.Making that leap alone can be really,
really difficult, and many just can'tdo it. Mario's Mission on the North
Shore wants to change that. Thisnew nonprofit is offering a helping hand to
anybody who wants to get sober,stay sober and thrive. And the story
here is all about family, thepain, the love, everything in between.
(00:50):
Marissa opponed to Disco is the founderof Mario's Mission. She's here on
the show. Marissa. Great tohave you on New England Weekend. I
want to learn a bit more aboutMario's Mission. This all came together.
Who's Mario and where did you getthis idea? The Tedisco Boys were three
brothers growing up in East Boston.Back then, when my father was growing
(01:11):
up, it was total adversity.This was back when children were being busted
in from other school systems. Therewas riots going on, there was tons
of chaos, crime, drugs.It was all over the place, and
my father, being who he is, fell right into that, and unfortunately
(01:32):
his two brothers did as well.They all lived in a two family house
together my grandparents. One was aseamstress and my grandfather was a construction laborer,
and they lived in normal lives.But my father and his brothers could
not seem to separate themselves from thecraziness and fell right into the loophole of
(01:55):
crime and addiction. Why did theymatter so much in this case, I
would say, is my father hasthirty one years clean as of this past
January of twenty twenty four. Hisbrothers one had made it eleven years and
then relapsed and overdosed on fetanol.The other one had passed away due to
a mixture of drugs that it resultedin an overdose as well. But one
(02:21):
could never get clean and one didattempt to get clean, and they both
overdosed and passed away. My father, not that I'm saying my father is
like God. But my father madeit out of a household of three boys
that just they could couldn't get itright. So one out of the three
did, and it was nice tobe able to see that at least he
(02:44):
was able to change his life andmake a positive impact on himself and others
around him. I mean, it'sit's very unfortunate that my uncles did ultimately
passed away the way that they did. Unfortunately, and with addiction, it's
very big the risk of overdosing.They both were found deceased on the floor
(03:04):
of the family home. So frommy father that they have to you know,
witness that and hear that. Andthey didn't pass away young. They
overdosed when they were older. Onewas in his sixties and one was in
his late sixties. And it's hatbreaking for someone to go through it not
once but twice. And then alsowith my uncle's wife, so my my
(03:28):
aunt, which is sister in law, she was also found deceased on the
floor from an overdose. So likeyou go through once, you go through
twice, you go through it threetimes. It's like, okay, you
know this is serious. This isa really big epidemic. I swear it's
gotten worse since COVID I still beenin you know, being kind of like
(03:52):
separated from everybody has totally driven thepercentage of addiction and the opioid crisis up.
Oh shure. It's scary because youhave young kids who are being prescribed
prescription pills for let's say, wisdomteeth or you know, an injury,
and now they're getting hooked on somethingthat pharmaceutical companies are saying, take this,
(04:16):
it's going to help you, butthey don't put the warning behind it
of take this and you may becomeaddicted to drugs for the rest of your
life. Right, And that wasmy uncle's case. My other uncle had
passed away, not the one fromFetnahl, but he was on prescription pills
and he loved them. There waslike candy to him. And my father
(04:39):
was given an ultimatum of and he'sprobably gonna kill me saying this. But
everyone knows the story now because itwas either you're going to go to jail
or you're going to go to rehab. And after so many times of being
picked up and you know, apaddy wagon or a Boston police cruiser,
you kind of figure out what youneed to do in life. Yes,
(05:00):
you do. And he decided,okay, I'll go to rehab. And
he did go to a rehab,primarily the first one was in East Boston,
but it wasn't for him. AndI feel like sometimes rehabs are not
a one fit all type situation.No, no, so it wasn't for
him. He had left the rehab, which was court ordered, walked to
(05:21):
the East Boston court and said,I want out. Find me somewhere else,
and they found him the Salvation Army, which when I say this,
people think I'm crazy. They likethe Salvation Amy. I says, yes,
they have a drug and rehab program. It's great. I don't know
how much they do with it still, But back in the eighties, my
father went through Salvation Abby the lateeighties early nineties. So he went through
(05:46):
the program. He lived in theirhouse in Saugust behind the old ninety nine
on Route one. Sure, okay, and he did chores like everyone else.
He went to church like everyone else, He did the steps, he
did the program, and he nowhas thirty one years under his belts and
he's the big driving force for Mario'smission. Because my mother and I don't
(06:10):
have substance use disorder where the twothat are on the board with him,
you know I we all work togetheras a family. We're starting to bring
some outsiders in on an advisory panel. I have a very good friend of
mine, Blake Rickison, that doesdocumentaries for homelessness and addiction, and we're
(06:31):
bringing him in as part of theadvisory panel, which is nice to get
outsider's point of view on what wecan do better, how we can assist
people, and we want to grow. So he's been a really big impact
on Mario's mission. I would loveto note. Tell me about the day
that you realized this had to becomea thing, that Mario's mission had to
(06:54):
become reality. Talk to me aboutthe process of that and how it was
like putting it all together in thisindustry, give or take about two years.
I was donating money to different organizationsback in twenty twenty two, and
it would be like, Okay,I have a small business, Excel Cosmetics
and Lashes, and I was like, all right, we're going to do
(07:15):
a fundraiser and we're going to giveit to this foundation that deals with substance
use. So we're going to giveit to this one that deals with it
and people were saying, URSA,what are you doing? And I was
like, being a good person,what do you mean, why don't you
just start your own nonprofit? AndI was like, Oh, you're crazy.
I wouldn't know how to do that. Well, I ended up going.
(07:38):
I like fell in love with it. And I know it sounds crazy
because people are like, how couldyou fall in love with treating people who
are sick? But it's almost likea nurse. When a nurse wants to
help people or a doctor wants tohelp somebody, like they love their job
and they're passionate about it. Yesthey are. I fell in love with
basically helping people reform and restructure theirlife. And I went through recovery coaching
(08:01):
school. I would volunteer my timeat different centers. I actually someone who's
a high school dropout. I actuallyam enrolled in college full time now and
I'm going to be in a differenthound. So I thank you wonderful And
it kind of hit me that,Okay, if I can go back to
school and I have great grades,knock on wood, and I can help
(08:24):
people at a detox or at anintensive outpatient program, I can help people
on my own. So we satdown as a family, and I looked
at my father and I said,I have a question to ask you,
and I name an organization after yourtwo brothers. And he looked at me
and said for what And I said, well, to give people scholarships for
(08:48):
sober living. And he was alwaysvery quiet because the stigma around addiction is
reality. It's very bad. Peopleyou know, are very vicious, and
he was always kind of closed offabout it. But I knew it was
there from growing up as a kid. I knew. I saw it.
I you know, could see thatthere was a difference between like my father's
family my mother's family. The dynamicwas different, the whole family breakdown was
(09:13):
different. And he looks at meand he says, I'm gonna name it
after my brothers, what about me? And I says, well, that's
what I was hoping that you weregoing to say, yes, I could
name it after you. And hewas like, what do you want to
call it? I said, Mario'sMission, and he looked at me and
he laughed and he goes, Okay, what mission am I on? I
says, well, it's not primarilyjust you, it's all of us as
(09:37):
a whole. So I had toexplain it to him. Now, you
gotta realize my father is sixty fiveyears old. He's not like with the
times. He doesn't know anything aboutsocial media, like I have to try
to like catching up to speed now. And he's like, Marissa, whatever
you want to do, I backyou one hundred percent. And my mother
always like my ride or die,you know, she's she's like with me
(09:58):
on everything. So she says,hey, lookten, you do all the
paperwork, you figure it out withthe attorneys, and you know, we'll
set it up. We'll just whateveryou want to do with you. So
we did, and this was backin October and it finally got straightened out
by November sixth, which was whenthe Secretary of State made us an official
nonprofit wonderful. So it was niceto be able to officially become something as
(10:24):
a family. And I've always madejokes like, oh, I'd love to
go into business with my father,and even though a nonprofit's not a business
where like we file as a corporation, but it's nice to be able to
see my father, who came fromnothing and work his way up to now
his name and his stories, ableto help someone who came from a similar
(10:48):
situation. You know what, I'vebeen looking at all the resources you're offering
and everything that you're doing to tryto help people connect them to recovery.
Tell us a bit about what you'redoing now that everything is set and you're
good to go. What can youoffer to people who are either in active
addiction, or people who maybe arerelated to people in active addiction, or
(11:09):
somebody who cares about somebody in addiction. So we offer scholarships primarily for people
who are newly in recovery or forsomeone who is been in recovery and is
experiencing financial difficulties or hardship. Whatthat means is somebody who's gone through dtalks
goes through a CSS program, whichis like a twenty eight to thirty day
(11:33):
program at a detalk center. Youknow, they stay the extended time to
get themselves totally one clean and soberand feeling good, because I'm sure you
know, the first couple of dayscoming off of drugs or alcoholics, it's
very crucial, it's very rough.So they like them to stay at these
twenty to thirty days. Then theyeither go into transitional housing or they go
(11:58):
into sober living, which primarily mostof them that we've dealt with have gone
into sober living. So what welike to do is to be able to
offer a scholarship for your first month, which I will say funding is running
out because we have already given thirteenscholarships from January first up until today's date.
Wow, okay, which is alot. And you know we're so
(12:20):
new. We're not getting grants yet, so we're going off of private donations,
sponsorships, you know, businesses thathave donated money, and of course
it's going to run out eventually,but that's the goal, is to keep
fundraising. So we do scholarships.We do something called an essential award,
So if someone doesn't qualify financially fora scholarship, what we give is an
(12:45):
essential award. So it's basically agift card to Target or Walmart or market
Basket and you can get whatever youneed. So what I would hope they
would use it for, and I'mreally hoping this is what kids you use
it for. But then again Ican't like tell you what to go by,
right, is like so fyodering conditioner, shampoo, maybe some socks if
(13:05):
you need it, or a toothbrush. Things like that essentials that you may
not be able to get because you'repaying for other things. So we've done
that. We also offer peer recoverymeetings on a Thursday night through Zoom.
It's open to all pathways of recovery. And we also offer job placement assistance
(13:26):
as well as resume writing assistance.And we're hoping to add a couple more
things that I can't discuss on airright now because they're not finalized, but
we're trying to expand bigger than whatwe're doing, but to kind of cater
to the families because everyone knows addictionjust doesn't hit the person, it hits
(13:50):
the entire family. And the familyneeds resources too. They need assistance,
they need help, and they needsupport and they don't always get it.
So we're trying to work everybody intoa better life because as much as it
affects the person who's addicted to drugs, it affects their mother, their father,
their kids, you know, everybodyinvolved. So we're looking to expand
(14:15):
a bit within twenty twenty four,all right, So then if anybody is
listening and they say, wow,I would really love to help Mario's mission
out, maybe they do want toget you a grant. Maybe they want
to sponsor you if they can helpyou in any way, shape or form.
You mentioned of course you need moneyfor obvious reasons, but you know,
(14:35):
what can they do to help andhow can they find you? So
we can be found at Mariosmission dotorg. We can be emailed at Mario's
Mission np so Nancy fall at gmaildot com. We can be found on
Venmo at Mario's Mission, Inc.Under the charitable section as well as our
website has a donate button, orif anyone is interested that I can be
(15:00):
found through Facebook. My name ismarisaka Pone to Disco and any help is
greatly appreciated. And we've had alot of people say, oh, you
know, nonprofits profit off the poolto feed the rich, and it's so
contradicting because it's like who's rich inthis situation and it's like nonprofits don't primarily
(15:22):
profit. I can say for thenonprofit that we have, we don't pull
a paycheck. None of us makemoney. It's all volunteer work. Even
the attorney that we have is througha program that it's all volunteer based.
So nobody is making money out ofthis situation. And we need to raise
(15:43):
as much money as we can tobe able to provide back to the community,
so we even sell merchandise. Wehave little sweatshirts that say be the
Boss of your Recovery. We havebeanies that say Sober Saints on the back
of it, which is a littleslow that we came up with because everyone
(16:03):
knows when using, you're obviously notgoing to be thinking like when you're using,
you do a lot of crazy things, which is natural and normal.
But we've come up with the littleslogan Soba Saints because you know, you
want to get back on your feetand do the right thing. So that
was that, and then we doa lot of different events. So we
do fundraising events. We have aHomedi show coming up February twenty ninth at
(16:27):
Tuscanafuano and Peabty, and then wehave a Black Balloon Memorial which is a
free event that's going to be atRed Rock and Lynn which Black Balloon Day
was organized by a family in Pebety, Massachusetts for their son who passed away
from an overdose, and it's nowbecome like a national day of remembrance.
(16:48):
So Mario's mission will provide balloons whichwill not be released into the air due
to the family's wishes and how theyyou know, conduct the memorial, but
people will be encouraged to take themhome or take them to their establishment and
you know, tie them and kindof have like the symbolization obviously black is
(17:08):
in mourning of death of loved onesor friends or family who have passed away
from all the nooses. Those arethe two big upcoming things we have.
We have in much the Pebty Chamberof Commerce Expo, which is for health
and wellness. It will be there, and then a couple different things with
(17:30):
children throughout the year. We'll beteaching kids about addiction. Okay, wow,
you've got a lot on your plate, but you know what it sounds
like, you're ready to get itdone. I'm definitely in this for the
long haul, and I know myfamily is, and we're not going anyway
when it comes to this. Welove what we're doing. It's making an
impact. You're gonna have your hateit, You're gonna have your worships,
(17:52):
and we have a little mix ofboth right now. But I can say
Mario's mission is gonna persevere through itoil and we're going to make sure we
can help people. Well, let'sget it done. Marisa opponed to disco.
Thank you so much for your timeand all the best is you make
your way into the rest of theyear and hopefully we can get you some
help here. Thank you you aswell, and thank you for having me.
Have a safe and healthy weekend,stay warm, and join us again
(18:15):
next week for another edition of theshow. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News
Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston.This is New England Weekend where each week
we come together we talk about allthe topics important to you and the place
where you live. It is sogood to be back with you again this
week. I'm Nicole Davis. We'vetalked about addiction several times here on the
show and how tough it can beto lift yourself up and get on the
road to recovery. There are somany factors that play into this, and
(00:29):
so many stumbling blocks as well.Making that leap alone can be really,
really difficult, and many just can'tdo it. Mario's Mission on the North
Shore wants to change that. Thisnew nonprofit is offering a helping hand to
anybody who wants to get sober,stay sober and thrive. And the story
here is all about family, thepain, the love, everything in between.
(00:50):
Marissa opponed to Disco is the founderof Mario's Mission. She's here on
the show. Marissa. Great tohave you on New England Weekend. I
want to learn a bit more aboutMario's Mission. This all came together.
Who's Mario and where did you getthis idea? The Tedisco Boys were three
brothers growing up in East Boston.Back then, when my father was growing
(01:11):
up, it was total adversity.This was back when children were being busted
in from other school systems. Therewas riots going on, there was tons
of chaos, crime, drugs.It was all over the place, and
my father, being who he is, fell right into that, and unfortunately
(01:32):
his two brothers did as well.They all lived in a two family house
together my grandparents. One was aseamstress and my grandfather was a construction laborer,
and they lived in normal lives.But my father and his brothers could
not seem to separate themselves from thecraziness and fell right into the loophole of
(01:55):
crime and addiction. Why did theymatter so much in this case, I
would say, is my father hasthirty one years clean as of this past
January of twenty twenty four. Hisbrothers one had made it eleven years and
then relapsed and overdosed on fetanol.The other one had passed away due to
a mixture of drugs that it resultedin an overdose as well. But one
(02:21):
could never get clean and one didattempt to get clean, and they both
overdosed and passed away. My father, not that I'm saying my father is
like God. But my father madeit out of a household of three boys
that just they could couldn't get itright. So one out of the three
did, and it was nice tobe able to see that at least he
(02:44):
was able to change his life andmake a positive impact on himself and others
around him. I mean, it'sit's very unfortunate that my uncles did ultimately
passed away the way that they did. Unfortunately, and with addiction, it's
very big the risk of overdosing.They both were found deceased on the floor
(03:04):
of the family home. So frommy father that they have to you know,
witness that and hear that. Andthey didn't pass away young. They
overdosed when they were older. Onewas in his sixties and one was in
his late sixties. And it's hatbreaking for someone to go through it not
once but twice. And then alsowith my uncle's wife, so my my
(03:28):
aunt, which is sister in law, she was also found deceased on the
floor from an overdose. So likeyou go through once, you go through
twice, you go through it threetimes. It's like, okay, you
know this is serious. This isa really big epidemic. I swear it's
gotten worse since COVID I still beenin you know, being kind of like
(03:52):
separated from everybody has totally driven thepercentage of addiction and the opioid crisis up.
Oh shure. It's scary because youhave young kids who are being prescribed
prescription pills for let's say, wisdomteeth or you know, an injury,
and now they're getting hooked on somethingthat pharmaceutical companies are saying, take this,
(04:16):
it's going to help you, butthey don't put the warning behind it
of take this and you may becomeaddicted to drugs for the rest of your
life. Right, And that wasmy uncle's case. My other uncle had
passed away, not the one fromFetnahl, but he was on prescription pills
and he loved them. There waslike candy to him. And my father
(04:39):
was given an ultimatum of and he'sprobably gonna kill me saying this. But
everyone knows the story now because itwas either you're going to go to jail
or you're going to go to rehab. And after so many times of being
picked up and you know, apaddy wagon or a Boston police cruiser,
you kind of figure out what youneed to do in life. Yes,
(05:00):
you do. And he decided,okay, I'll go to rehab. And
he did go to a rehab,primarily the first one was in East Boston,
but it wasn't for him. AndI feel like sometimes rehabs are not
a one fit all type situation.No, no, so it wasn't for
him. He had left the rehab, which was court ordered, walked to
(05:21):
the East Boston court and said,I want out. Find me somewhere else,
and they found him the Salvation Army, which when I say this,
people think I'm crazy. They likethe Salvation Amy. I says, yes,
they have a drug and rehab program. It's great. I don't know
how much they do with it still, But back in the eighties, my
father went through Salvation Abby the lateeighties early nineties. So he went through
(05:46):
the program. He lived in theirhouse in Saugust behind the old ninety nine
on Route one. Sure, okay, and he did chores like everyone else.
He went to church like everyone else, He did the steps, he
did the program, and he nowhas thirty one years under his belts and
he's the big driving force for Mario'smission. Because my mother and I don't
(06:10):
have substance use disorder where the twothat are on the board with him,
you know I we all work togetheras a family. We're starting to bring
some outsiders in on an advisory panel. I have a very good friend of
mine, Blake Rickison, that doesdocumentaries for homelessness and addiction, and we're
(06:31):
bringing him in as part of theadvisory panel, which is nice to get
outsider's point of view on what wecan do better, how we can assist
people, and we want to grow. So he's been a really big impact
on Mario's mission. I would loveto note. Tell me about the day
that you realized this had to becomea thing, that Mario's mission had to
(06:54):
become reality. Talk to me aboutthe process of that and how it was
like putting it all together in thisindustry, give or take about two years.
I was donating money to different organizationsback in twenty twenty two, and
it would be like, Okay,I have a small business, Excel Cosmetics
and Lashes, and I was like, all right, we're going to do
(07:15):
a fundraiser and we're going to giveit to this foundation that deals with substance
use. So we're going to giveit to this one that deals with it
and people were saying, URSA,what are you doing? And I was
like, being a good person,what do you mean, why don't you
just start your own nonprofit? AndI was like, Oh, you're crazy.
I wouldn't know how to do that. Well, I ended up going.
(07:38):
I like fell in love with it. And I know it sounds crazy
because people are like, how couldyou fall in love with treating people who
are sick? But it's almost likea nurse. When a nurse wants to
help people or a doctor wants tohelp somebody, like they love their job
and they're passionate about it. Yesthey are. I fell in love with
basically helping people reform and restructure theirlife. And I went through recovery coaching
(08:01):
school. I would volunteer my timeat different centers. I actually someone who's
a high school dropout. I actuallyam enrolled in college full time now and
I'm going to be in a differenthound. So I thank you wonderful And
it kind of hit me that,Okay, if I can go back to
school and I have great grades,knock on wood, and I can help
(08:24):
people at a detox or at anintensive outpatient program, I can help people
on my own. So we satdown as a family, and I looked
at my father and I said,I have a question to ask you,
and I name an organization after yourtwo brothers. And he looked at me
and said for what And I said, well, to give people scholarships for
(08:48):
sober living. And he was alwaysvery quiet because the stigma around addiction is
reality. It's very bad. Peopleyou know, are very vicious, and
he was always kind of closed offabout it. But I knew it was
there from growing up as a kid. I knew. I saw it.
I you know, could see thatthere was a difference between like my father's
family my mother's family. The dynamicwas different, the whole family breakdown was
(09:13):
different. And he looks at meand he says, I'm gonna name it
after my brothers, what about me? And I says, well, that's
what I was hoping that you weregoing to say, yes, I could
name it after you. And hewas like, what do you want to
call it? I said, Mario'sMission, and he looked at me and
he laughed and he goes, Okay, what mission am I on? I
says, well, it's not primarilyjust you, it's all of us as
(09:37):
a whole. So I had toexplain it to him. Now, you
gotta realize my father is sixty fiveyears old. He's not like with the
times. He doesn't know anything aboutsocial media, like I have to try
to like catching up to speed now. And he's like, Marissa, whatever
you want to do, I backyou one hundred percent. And my mother
always like my ride or die,you know, she's she's like with me
(09:58):
on everything. So she says,hey, lookten, you do all the
paperwork, you figure it out withthe attorneys, and you know, we'll
set it up. We'll just whateveryou want to do with you. So
we did, and this was backin October and it finally got straightened out
by November sixth, which was whenthe Secretary of State made us an official
nonprofit wonderful. So it was niceto be able to officially become something as
(10:24):
a family. And I've always madejokes like, oh, I'd love to
go into business with my father,and even though a nonprofit's not a business
where like we file as a corporation, but it's nice to be able to
see my father, who came fromnothing and work his way up to now
his name and his stories, ableto help someone who came from a similar
(10:48):
situation. You know what, I'vebeen looking at all the resources you're offering
and everything that you're doing to tryto help people connect them to recovery.
Tell us a bit about what you'redoing now that everything is set and you're
good to go. What can youoffer to people who are either in active
addiction, or people who maybe arerelated to people in active addiction, or
(11:09):
somebody who cares about somebody in addiction. So we offer scholarships primarily for people
who are newly in recovery or forsomeone who is been in recovery and is
experiencing financial difficulties or hardship. Whatthat means is somebody who's gone through dtalks
goes through a CSS program, whichis like a twenty eight to thirty day
(11:33):
program at a detalk center. Youknow, they stay the extended time to
get themselves totally one clean and soberand feeling good, because I'm sure you
know, the first couple of dayscoming off of drugs or alcoholics, it's
very crucial, it's very rough.So they like them to stay at these
twenty to thirty days. Then theyeither go into transitional housing or they go
(11:58):
into sober living, which primarily mostof them that we've dealt with have gone
into sober living. So what welike to do is to be able to
offer a scholarship for your first month, which I will say funding is running
out because we have already given thirteenscholarships from January first up until today's date.
Wow, okay, which is alot. And you know we're so
(12:20):
new. We're not getting grants yet, so we're going off of private donations,
sponsorships, you know, businesses thathave donated money, and of course
it's going to run out eventually,but that's the goal, is to keep
fundraising. So we do scholarships.We do something called an essential award,
So if someone doesn't qualify financially fora scholarship, what we give is an
(12:45):
essential award. So it's basically agift card to Target or Walmart or market
Basket and you can get whatever youneed. So what I would hope they
would use it for, and I'mreally hoping this is what kids you use
it for. But then again Ican't like tell you what to go by,
right, is like so fyodering conditioner, shampoo, maybe some socks if
(13:05):
you need it, or a toothbrush. Things like that essentials that you may
not be able to get because you'repaying for other things. So we've done
that. We also offer peer recoverymeetings on a Thursday night through Zoom.
It's open to all pathways of recovery. And we also offer job placement assistance
(13:26):
as well as resume writing assistance.And we're hoping to add a couple more
things that I can't discuss on airright now because they're not finalized, but
we're trying to expand bigger than whatwe're doing, but to kind of cater
to the families because everyone knows addictionjust doesn't hit the person, it hits
(13:50):
the entire family. And the familyneeds resources too. They need assistance,
they need help, and they needsupport and they don't always get it.
So we're trying to work everybody intoa better life because as much as it
affects the person who's addicted to drugs, it affects their mother, their father,
their kids, you know, everybodyinvolved. So we're looking to expand
(14:15):
a bit within twenty twenty four,all right, So then if anybody is
listening and they say, wow,I would really love to help Mario's mission
out, maybe they do want toget you a grant. Maybe they want
to sponsor you if they can helpyou in any way, shape or form.
You mentioned of course you need moneyfor obvious reasons, but you know,
(14:35):
what can they do to help andhow can they find you? So
we can be found at Mariosmission dotorg. We can be emailed at Mario's
Mission np so Nancy fall at gmaildot com. We can be found on
Venmo at Mario's Mission, Inc.Under the charitable section as well as our
website has a donate button, orif anyone is interested that I can be
(15:00):
found through Facebook. My name ismarisaka Pone to Disco and any help is
greatly appreciated. And we've had alot of people say, oh, you
know, nonprofits profit off the poolto feed the rich, and it's so
contradicting because it's like who's rich inthis situation and it's like nonprofits don't primarily
(15:22):
profit. I can say for thenonprofit that we have, we don't pull
a paycheck. None of us makemoney. It's all volunteer work. Even
the attorney that we have is througha program that it's all volunteer based.
So nobody is making money out ofthis situation. And we need to raise
(15:43):
as much money as we can tobe able to provide back to the community,
so we even sell merchandise. Wehave little sweatshirts that say be the
Boss of your Recovery. We havebeanies that say Sober Saints on the back
of it, which is a littleslow that we came up with because everyone
(16:03):
knows when using, you're obviously notgoing to be thinking like when you're using,
you do a lot of crazy things, which is natural and normal.
But we've come up with the littleslogan Soba Saints because you know, you
want to get back on your feetand do the right thing. So that
was that, and then we doa lot of different events. So we
do fundraising events. We have aHomedi show coming up February twenty ninth at
(16:27):
Tuscanafuano and Peabty, and then wehave a Black Balloon Memorial which is a
free event that's going to be atRed Rock and Lynn which Black Balloon Day
was organized by a family in Pebety, Massachusetts for their son who passed away
from an overdose, and it's nowbecome like a national day of remembrance.
(16:48):
So Mario's mission will provide balloons whichwill not be released into the air due
to the family's wishes and how theyyou know, conduct the memorial, but
people will be encouraged to take themhome or take them to their establishment and
you know, tie them and kindof have like the symbolization obviously black is
(17:08):
in mourning of death of loved onesor friends or family who have passed away
from all the nooses. Those arethe two big upcoming things we have.
We have in much the Pebty Chamberof Commerce Expo, which is for health
and wellness. It will be there, and then a couple different things with
(17:30):
children throughout the year. We'll beteaching kids about addiction. Okay, wow,
you've got a lot on your plate, but you know what it sounds
like, you're ready to get itdone. I'm definitely in this for the
long haul, and I know myfamily is, and we're not going anyway
when it comes to this. Welove what we're doing. It's making an
impact. You're gonna have your hateit, You're gonna have your worships,
(17:52):
and we have a little mix ofboth right now. But I can say
Mario's mission is gonna persevere through itoil and we're going to make sure we
can help people. Well, let'sget it done. Marisa opponed to disco.
Thank you so much for your timeand all the best is you make
your way into the rest of theyear and hopefully we can get you some
help here. Thank you you aswell, and thank you for having me.
Have a safe and healthy weekend,stay warm, and join us again
(18:15):
next week for another edition of theshow. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News
Radio on iHeartRadio.
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