November 4, 2025 • 54 mins
What does it take to help a child rewrite their story after losing a parent who served? We sit down with Joe Lewis, a multi-branch veteran and founder of Angels of America’s Fallen, to unpack a simple, powerful model: pair each child with a coach or instructor in a passion they choose—sports, music, arts, cooking—and stay with them until age 19. No red tape. No one-size-fits-all plans. Just steady mentorship, local providers, and consistent check-ins that turn grief’s chaos into structure, belonging, and growth.
Russ brings a trauma-informed lens to why this works. After a death, families lose the very co-regulation that keeps emotions manageable; everyone is grieving at once. A caring mentor becomes a nervous-system anchor. Chris Mamone adds the acceptance piece, showing how the “gift in crappy wrapping paper” reveals itself when kids feel seen, heard, and supported. Together, we explore post-traumatic growth without sugarcoating pain, naming the realities of PTSD, stigma, and the eligibility gaps that leave many families without formal benefits—especially after suicide or illnesses tied to service but not documented.
Joe shares the origin of “Lessons from Lila,” a swim-safety initiative created after a waitlisted toddler drowned. It’s a sober reminder that the waitlist—now 800+ children—represents urgency, not numbers. We walk through wins large and small: a teen who went from ICU-level anorexia to cooking professionally and dreaming of dietetics; a young athlete nurtured from pee-wee football to national recognition; and kids who light up a room at the Angel Gala as their passions take center stage. Along the way, we talk joyful fundraisers like “Skate for Chicken,” new city chapters that raise local awareness, and the power of recurring donations to move children off the list faster.
If you care about mental health, veteran families, first responders, and practical ways to prevent downstream harm, this conversation delivers both heart and blueprint. Join us: donate or start a monthly pledge at aoafallen.org, share this episode with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to help more listeners find these stories.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_05 (05:14):
Hey everybody, welcome to Tremlet Talks Live.
We are live on all theplatforms.
My name is Russ.
I've today with me, I've got acouple guests.
I've got Chris Mamone with theEmpowered Grief Journey.
Uh, him and I have been workingon a book project together, so I
brought him on, um, as well asJoe Lewis of the uh Angels of
(05:35):
America's Fallen.
They're an internationalnonprofit based locally here in
my uh hometown of ColoradoSprings.
So we're gonna have some greatconversation today.
But thanks for joining us.
Uh, if you want to come on andask any questions, if you have
anything, just go in the chat.
We'll be monitoring that chatthroughout the time that we're
chatting and get you guys on.
But in the meantime, let's bringout uh Joe, the star of the
(05:59):
show.
Uh tell us about you, Joe.
SPEAKER_03 (06:03):
Oh wow.
Um, okay, so uh militarybackground.
Started with my dad being uhMarine Infantry in Vietnam.
And if he had not come back fromcombat, I never would have
existed.
So as a kid, it made me thinkabout how far the the ripples go
forward when we lose someone.
And later, then I ended upjoining the military at a
strange military career, but itwas an awesome ride.
(06:24):
Started with the Army NationalGuard, did field artillery with
them throughout college, rightafter high school, and then the
Marine Corps active duty forabout 11 years and uh ended up
transitioning out of the MarineCorps to the airlines after my
back was broken in training.
And uh flew for the Air AmericanAirlines just a little bit
before 9-11 occurred, and thenended up going back active duty
(06:45):
with the Air National Guard anduh retired Air Force basically
after a career, which alsoincluded doing carrier
operations for the Navy and somecounter-narcotic support for the
Coast Guard.
And uh during that process, Ialso did support of law
enforcement and counter-narcoterrorism, so Secret Service,
FBI D E A, down to local taskforces, and saw the risks our
(07:06):
first responders were takingright here at home.
And throughout my career, I lostfriends in every branch of the
military and it was always agreat guy with little kids, two
of my buddies in the MarineCorps.
(07:39):
But there wasn't something forthem to be engaged long term
within their own localcommunity.
And the idea behind supportingkids of our colon kind of came
to me when I was watching mysons playing soccer, both in
championship games, differentage groups.
It saw the goodness of themburning energy and interacting
with the coach and doingsomething positive instead of
something negative.
And I felt the calling thatengaging kids of our colon
(08:02):
military, the first responders,that was what I should do.
SPEAKER_05 (08:24):
I had to mute it because it was muffling Joe.
What I was gonna say is what Joeis not telling you out loud is
he was basically a badass.
Got to do all the fun stuff, flyall the fun jets.
Um, and now because of thatexperience and and living that
experience with the guys thatyou lost, friends that you lost,
lost her ring, you you decidedto put forth your effort now in
(08:48):
in retirement, right?
SPEAKER_03 (08:49):
Yes, absolutely.
That is it.
SPEAKER_05 (08:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:51):
It was uh, you know, I I'm blessed.
How could I not pay forward tothose on an outspoken?
SPEAKER_05 (08:57):
Yeah, and I I've known Joe for uh 10 years or so.
I mean, we've we've been prettygood friends for a long time.
And man, this this organizationhas been absolutely amazing.
It's I I've seen some of thekids grow up in these
environments with these coachesand these mentors, and Joe, you
know, Joe comes in as a CEOwriting letters to these kids
(09:18):
every year, and each individualkid to let them know there's
someone there that cares aboutthem and make sure that they're
okay.
So yeah, it's amazing, Joe.
Chris, how you doing, my man?
Doing good, brother.
Thanks for having me on today.
Oh, dude, I'm awesome, man.
Hey, so Chris and I um areco-authors in a book called The
Empowered Greek Journey.
(09:39):
I thought it would be a great uhmix to have both Chris and Joe
on because it's a pretty similartopic.
Um, Chris is a grief andacceptance coach with the
Empowered Group Journey, andthen we are the co-author of a
book with the same title.
Uh Chris, you want to giveeverybody a little bit of
rundown of who you are and whereyou're coming from?
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Yeah, definitely.
Um, so as Russ said, a very niceintroduction.
I'm a grief and acceptancecoach.
I help people who go throughgrief, loss, and trauma
rediscover self-acceptancewithin themselves and create a
new chapter of life because manypeople who go through grief uh
can get very stuck, it can getvery down when you go through
those moments of life as theytend to be.
(10:17):
But I also have found through myown journey that there are many
gifts, lessons, and blessings inour grief.
Yeah, when the time is right,they show themselves to us.
And that's where life restarts.
That's where we have a rebirth,those grief.
We're able to go out there inthe world because of grief
experience and go help otherpeople who are going through
similar situations in life findtheir new path.
(10:39):
And so it's a a big cycle ofpain at forward.
And to share with you guys alittle bit about my background,
I have um, as one of my podcastguests said it very eloquently,
grief chose me and I chose it.
Um and so my whole life, I'vegone through many, many job
losses.
I've gone through many umfriendships and changes in my
life on a very big circumstance.
(11:00):
The ones that really rocked myboat was actually when my
grandfather passed away in 2020.
Um I watched him as he took hislast breath, and that was
something I was very, very closeto for 35 years.
And that was my first timeexperiencing that loss.
And I didn't have a lot ofsupport um around me when I went
through that.
Two years later, I had to umlose my child in 2022.
(11:23):
Um my child, uh first one I had,we lost him to stillbirth um the
day before he's supposed to beborn.
And that same situation happenedagain where I didn't have a lot
of support system around megoing through that grief and
loss.
And um, there were some otherstuff going on family-wise that
I won't dive into, but when Iwhen you lose a child,
everything kind of gets inperspective for you.
(11:44):
Um you're really faced at acrossroads of I can really take
this in a bad path in life or Ican make something of this.
And so what Russ was talkingabout a few minutes ago, I
decided to create what's calledthe Empower Grief Journey.
And it's a coaching program madefor people that are going
through grief, loss, and traumato rediscover themselves and
step into their personal poweragain and reclaim their life.
(12:04):
And the Empower Grief Journeyhas turned into a podcast.
Um, there's 120 episodes on itnow.
We also started a book, ananthology, and that anthology
came from 22 different guests onmy podcast, coming together as a
collective voice to share notjust their grief and loss story,
but their healing journey too.
Because grief has no 12-stepprogram you can take.
(12:26):
There's no one specific way youcan do it.
But what I love to share aboutis in this anthology, people
like Russ are in there sharingtheir grief story and their
healing journey so that peoplethat read this book are going to
get an idea of how to navigatetheir own grief journey in the
way that they need to.
And so this what started as acoaching program has quickly
turned into a movement andturned into a huge mission of
(12:46):
paying it forward to otherpeople in their life and helping
them discover their gifts.
And so I'm very, very blessed tohave met somebody like Russ
along my journey.
Um, he's also the guy that Istarted podcasting with a year
ago this month.
Funny story.
So Russ, that's that's aboutwhat I can share about myself,
my friend.
Thank you.
Yeah, of course, man.
SPEAKER_05 (13:04):
Thank you.
Well, uh those of you who listento the show already know who I
am.
If not, my name is Russ Pelop.
I'm a somatic trauma-informedcoach um with Brain Spotting
Colorado Springs.
I also have a hypnotherapist anda certified brain spotting
practitioner.
So uh thank you for coming on.
We love I this show is typicallypre-recorded.
Uh, this is the first time thatwe're doing this as a live
(13:27):
event.
So going forward, the show willbe recorded live so that the
people who can watch it onYouTube um on all the other
platforms with video can do so.
But you guys can also interact.
So if you have questions, jumpin the chat, throw in a
question.
We'd love to have, we'd love tohear from you.
Um if you have questions forJoe, Chris, or myself.
(13:47):
And I guess with that, Joe, ifyou just want to tell us a
little bit about the angels andkind of how the program works
and how people would seek youout.
SPEAKER_03 (13:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
So it the idea is that we wantthe kids to pick their healthy
passion.
And what we realized veryquickly when we started this was
we're dealing typically withyoung widows who have gone in
survival mode to take care oftheir children and haven't even
dealt with their own grief yet.
So it it blossomed from a laserfocus on the kids to realizing
(14:17):
that when you help the kids, youhelp the parent, or when you
help the parent, you also helpthe kid.
So we get to know the family andum we let them determine who in
their local community is theservice provider they feel most
comfortable with, who they cancommute back and forth to.
They pick that outlet, and thenwe make the payment for sports,
music, um, arts, bankinglessons, whatever their healthy
(14:38):
outlet is that has a coach or aninstructor, so they're getting
an interim component in that.
And we make the paymentstogether, and then we follow up
with the family throughout theyear, checking in to see how
they're doing.
And out of that organically grewpeer support because we would
find a family with a story andthen meet another one and
realize that the two ought toknow each other or they
connected at events that we wereputting on, and we saw how very
(15:00):
healing that was.
And then it went into casemanagement, getting to know them
and referring them to otherthings they might qualify for,
and uh and then our voicesprogram.
And this this will probablyresonate with you, Chris, some
because uh what we found wasthat when the families tell
their story, they uh you knowthey're honoring their loved
one, right?
But they're also tearing openwounds, and in that process,
(15:21):
just like working out of muscle,you grow back stronger.
And what we've seen is as theytell their story to raise
awareness and resources to helpus pay forward to the families
that are unfortunately going tocome behind them, that there's
healing and helping.
And you know, you can you canyou hear the PTSD thing, you
hear post-traumatic stressdisorder.
You don't hear as much aboutpost-traumatic stress growth.
(15:43):
And the idea that we look atwith this organization is we
honor the loss and sacrifice,but we're focused on positives
and possibilities for the kidsso that they write their own
story of success in spite oftheir loss.
And uh, one of the best ways todo that is through helping
others.
And so uh, you know, how how doyou don't waste the pain kind of
a thing?
And and how do you grow and comeout of something, finding the
(16:05):
silver lining in somethingthat's otherwise um really
impossible to deal with?
SPEAKER_05 (16:10):
You know, Chris, that reminds me of something you
you say often, which is thecrappy wrapping paper.
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
Yeah, yeah.
I uh I call those moments thegift and shitty wrapping paper
because unfortunately, when weget dealt that card, like Joe
was just talking about, when achild deals with the loss, you
know, they're they've only beenon the planet somewhere between,
you know, five and however manyyears, and they're not equipped
to go through all these thingsin life.
I sure tech wasn't.
(16:38):
And so, you know, I call it thegift and crappy wrapping paper
for a reason because it doesn'tlook great and it doesn't feel
great, by the way.
But when you start peeling backthe layers of it over time, you
start to find that that moment,by the way, can help define you
and make you move.
And that's where um, you know,like Joe said when he started
the stream, I'm really inspiredby that.
He he's absolutely right.
(16:58):
I've talked to a Vietnam thathad his dad not come back, he
wouldn't be in the world.
And what a great way to see thatgift of a moment, by the way,
um, and make that a drivingpurpose for you.
And that's a great example ofwhat we can actually do with our
grief, is we don't have toalways say, it was this
terrible, horrible thing thathappened to me and sit in a
victim place all of our life.
(17:18):
It's fine to sit thereinitially, it's fine to sit
there for some time, but alsorealize there's a big gift
behind what you were dealt.
And when you do discover that,you end up doing powerful things
like what Joe's doing in theworld, giving back and observing
in a very, very big way.
SPEAKER_05 (17:33):
Yeah, and I think grief trauma gets overlooked
quite.
You know, it gets it getsoverlooked as something that's
not as intense as like a combattrauma, for example, or
something along those lines.
But the loss of somebody who isyour protector, your provider,
you know, that's there to helpyou raise your kid and all of a
sudden, boom, they're gone.
Some of these ladies that I'vemet over the years, they're just
(17:56):
in a complete and utter fog.
They have no concept of what'shappening or how to deal with
it.
Would you agree, Joe?
SPEAKER_03 (18:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's that's a greatway.
It's kind of they're they're ina fog of loss and they're not
able to process a lot of whatthey're initially told or given
at the beginning or the supportthat comes right around the time
of loss, but then quickly afterthat, it goes silent and people
stop coming by and they're leftalone with this.
And uh, and you know, for thekids, you know, you're you're
(18:25):
exactly right, Chris, that theyyou know, they're gonna have
this hole in their heart therest of their life.
And the thing is, though, askids, they're at least equipped
to handle that and and the griefand it revisits them.
And in particular, another goodreason for our long-term
commitment that when we enroll akid with them until they turn 19
is because it's not like thedust settles and they have a new
normal that's normal.
(18:47):
They revisit the loss atdifferent stages of maturity as
it impacts them differentlythroughout their childhood.
So it's not a it's not a one anddone kind of thing.
You can't take a pill for it andyou know, here's your treatment,
okay, you're good now, kind of athing.
SPEAKER_05 (19:02):
Yeah, one of the things I really love about it,
Chris, is that the whole idea ofnot replacing, that's not the
right word, but helping tosupplement some of the
mentorship, right?
That's the coolest thing aboutit, is it it's any
extracurricular program thatincludes a mentorship.
So it can't just be you knowfree credits for roadblocks,
(19:24):
right?
So yeah, there's gotta be amentor involved, someone that
can help them grow.
And yeah, it's really cool.
And the really cool thing aboutit is it's not they they still
honor the loss, but they helpthe kids write their own story,
which is something that isreally, really cool about it.
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
I find that really empowering, you know, because I
I went through loss when I was akid.
I lost my great grandma as closeto, and I didn't even understand
it back then.
Everybody like moved on and letgo, and my brain didn't work
that way for some reason.
But, you know, to have a to givea kid a mentor that will make
them it's my thing I preach allthe time in grief coaching is if
(20:04):
you make them feel seen andheard and understood and not
crazy and obsessive and worriedabout things, they're able to
process that a lot better.
They're able to actually gothrough those emotions.
And that's something with griefthat we can't get over it and
let go of it and move on.
And are you done yet?
That doesn't exist.
I've talked to too many people,it doesn't exist.
But what does exist is how do wemove through this?
(20:25):
And I think that's where havinga mentor um or a grief coach or
a counselor, whoever it may be,somebody that's very, very
supportive of you is what I wantto generically say.
You're gonna be able to findyour way through it.
And it won't be easy, it won'tbe fun at times, but you will be
able to go through that journeyknowing that you're not alone.
And also at the same time, whenyou do have those hard moments
where grief hits, that person tobounce ideas off of, to have
(20:48):
that conversation with, to havethat um call it a listing heart
is another way I phrase it.
Um, that's what we mean when wego through grief, and that helps
us kind of take out the bigwaves of grief and make them
smaller over time.
SPEAKER_05 (21:01):
Yeah, there's also just the idea of co-regulation,
right?
Having someone, I mean, ifyou're if you're dealing with
that kind of grief, Joe, you canspeak to this, I'm sure, a lot
better than we could.
But if you're dealing with thatkind of grief and your mom or
your father or your grandmotheris dealing with that kind of
grief at the same time, it'sreally hard for them to help you
co-regulate to get back to apoint of homeostasis, right?
(21:24):
But you've got like Joe said,you've got this whole team
working with the family to tryto help them for a short period
of time.
And then once that's gone, it'sjust feels like an abyss.
Joe, could you just speakbecause I don't know this
process, um, but could you speakto kind of what what that loss
looks like in the as far as thelogistical parts of it, kind of
(21:46):
how that works as far as fromthe time of loss up to the point
where you start talking with thefamily?
SPEAKER_03 (21:50):
Yeah.
So let's say if particularlylet's say that it was a military
family and they live on base,um, it's as destructive as it
can get for the child becausethey lose a parent, and then
they also have to, the familyhas to quickly move out of base
housing.
So they lose their home, and alot of the kids are going to
school on a base, so they losetheir home, you know, their
(22:12):
parent, their home, theirschool, their circle of friends,
and then they might move back towhere one of the parents is
from.
And a lot of times that is kindof a claustrophobic thing, or
it's to an area where peopledon't understand what they're
going through at all, and or itjust doesn't feel right because
there's been time away.
And then the families uh tend tomove a time or two, trying to
find a place that feels likehome because nothing really does
(22:34):
feel like home after that loss.
And um and as as Russ mentioned,you know, the parent is
generally in some fog duringthis time frame and the the kids
are in disarray and they don'tknow how to process this.
And so um it really is, it'sabout as traumatic as it could
get.
And if it happened to be from asuicide, um, you know, one thing
(22:55):
back to is we support the kidsregardless of the cause of
death.
Because to the child, it doesn'tmatter if it was a training
accident or combat fatality orit was an aggressive cancer
after toxic exposure to the burnpits.
And this applies to firstresponder families as well,
because a lot of toxic exposure,uh, suicide risk is quite high
on for first responders as well.
(23:15):
And typically you don't see therally of support behind that
like you might a combatfatality.
Um, you know, it's it's a lotmore of a taboo kind of thing.
And so a lot of isolation cancome from this this process and
guilt and uh all the other typeof emotions that could happen in
that process.
So it's it's a lot.
(23:36):
It's sometimes it's it's it'stoo much, you know, all at once.
Sure.
SPEAKER_05 (23:41):
Yeah, and just to highlight some of the some of
the need, I looked up a couplestats today before the before
the show, and 25,000 kids in themilitary community have lost
their loved ones.
Uh and are this is the thedirect population that Joe and
his team is serving.
And there's not a whole, there'sabout 75,000 children or family
(24:02):
members that are survivors ofpolice, and there's not a really
good solid number for fire.
So there's a massive need forJoe.
How many kids do you currentlyserve?
SPEAKER_03 (24:11):
Yeah, so um right now we're gonna serve a little
over 600 this year.
And again, we're serving less intotal because we're making such
a long-term and in-depthcommitment to them.
But what we found is that'sreally what's impactful, and we
wouldn't want to spread it sothin that it's not impactful.
But our waiting list iscurrently 830 kids, and uh, and
this is out of thousands, right?
(24:31):
So these are the ones that thathave gone through that process
and registered on our waitinglist.
SPEAKER_05 (24:36):
So you don't have a specific amount of time that you
anticipate people being on thewaiting list, it's just as until
the money meets the need becauseit's a long-term uh commitment,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (24:48):
That's exactly it.
Yeah, and uh you know, wheneverwe have kids that graduate out
of our program, then we backfillfrom the waiting list.
So there is always somemovement, it's just nowhere near
as fast as I would like to seeit.
Um, you know, these kids aretechnically at risk youth after
the traumatic loss of theirparents, they're at greater risk
of anxiety, depression, suicide,dropping out of school, and and
substance abuse.
So um there's a sense of urgencythat uh if I if I can, I I can
(25:12):
go into a story here, Russ,about lessons from Lodge.
SPEAKER_05 (25:16):
Yeah, I'd love yeah, that's actually a pretty
powerful story.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:19):
So that'd be great.
About our second year, we had anAir Force master sergeant that
had six kids that was a uhtactical air control party, so
forward air controller andmultiple combat deployments, and
was killed in a very uh freakyparachute training accident.
And his six kids went on ourwaiting list.
And and back then, it was aboutsix months maybe that the family
was on the waiting list.
(25:39):
And when we made the call tosay, Hey, we can enroll your six
kids, you know, this alwayspositive call.
The mom, Alyssa, said, I onlyhave five now, and my
two-year-old Lila just drowned.
And this absolutely crushed me.
Um the first kids we eversupported were the three sons of
the first chaplain to die inHalbat since Vietnam.
And we did swimming lessons forthem.
(25:59):
And the youngest one was solittle we did mommy and me swim
classes.
And so anytime we had an infantwhen they got enrolled, we said,
Let's get them started in swim,mommy and me swim.
And with Lila, it it didn'thappen, and I couldn't go back
and fix it.
And if we had grown faster, youknow, we would have offered
that, it could have made adifference.
And um I called Alyssa and said,I don't have the budget for
(26:19):
this, but I never want to hearsomething like this happening
again.
Uh, I'm gonna try to convinceswim centers to give basic life
safety swimming lessons to allthe kids on the waiting list and
would like to name theinitiative after Lila.
And Alyssa came up with a name,Lessons from Lila.
And so ever since when a familyregisters, we asked if their
child children know how to swim.
And if they don't, they they getswim instruction while they're
(26:40):
on the waiting list.
And um yeah, so there's a senseof urgency there.
But I I do need to share thistoo because uh Alyssa, uh, she's
an amazing woman.
So uh during this process, shelost her husband, and about 13
months later, she loses her herdaughter.
One of her brothers wasmurdered, and one of her
brothers committed suicide.
And you've got all this grieffor a single parent of five
(27:02):
children to raise.
And she ended up getting herdoctorate in clinical
psychologies and is now also agrief expert helping her with
heal, and it's just so inspiringum to see that kind of
resilience and that kind ofgrowth after so much.
SPEAKER_05 (27:20):
Yeah, that's a ton about a story of overcoming.
Wow, yeah.
You I'd love to get in touchwith her, Joe.
If you can get me in touch withher, I'd love to have her on the
pod.
I'm sure that Chris wouldprobably love to have her on his
as well.
That's that's a heck of a story.
SPEAKER_03 (27:33):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, to make this a smallworld, I I've got a cousin who
lost her daughter to a lengthybattle with cancer, and um, you
know, very difficult thing tolose a young child.
And I was at actually thefuneral for one of my great
uncles, World War II vet.
He was passed away at 101 yearsold.
And I was talking with her, andit came up about angels, and I
(27:56):
told the story about Alyssa, andshe stopped me and said, Wait,
what's her last name?
And uh, she is my cousin's griefcounselor, and she is amazing.
Oh wow.
So some of these things you justcan't make up.
The small, small worldconnections that that we see uh
is really pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_05 (28:12):
Well, I can't I can say that within your community,
I've seen multiple widows thathave turned that pain into
purpose as well.
So not only are the kids growingin this community, but the
widows are growing as well.
Yes, widow orders.
And you have you have males inthere as well that have lost
their wife.
So um, yeah, yeah.
So that it's a ripple effect,really, when you start not only
(28:34):
that, but I there's so manystories over the last past 10
years that I've I've had thepleasure of being a part of,
just being your friend and beinga part of the community, and and
stuff like um Taekwondo, they'llget involved with one kid, and
they fall in love with theorganization, they fall in love
with the gala, which we'll getinto in a little bit.
And they were like, we want tobe a part of this.
(28:55):
We're gonna offer free classesfor any kid who comes through
that wants to take taekwondo,and then that takes so much
pressure off the budget for foryeah.
So just a lot of really coolstories of people who really
want to get involved.
They have an amazing could youtell everybody about the the
skate for chicken?
This that's yeah, this one'sawesome.
SPEAKER_03 (29:14):
We were actually we just had lunch with uh the the
operators of the Garden of theGods Chick-fil-A here in
Colorado Springs, and somethingthat they do for us, and really
they they pretty much do it all,is it's called skate for
chicken, and people can sign upto participate in this.
And when they close the storedown at 10 o'clock at night,
people roller skate,rollerblade, however you want to
get around the parking lot untilmidnight.
(29:36):
And they have leading up tothis, they've gone out and asked
people to donate and supportedthem to do this.
And so those that raise acertain amount get free chicken
for a year, and those that arein the top get the they get so
the the other ones get like uhfree chicken sandwich or nuggets
for a year, they get 52 giftcards.
Those that raise the most get um52 meals, but the whole thing is
(29:57):
surreal because you've got theChick-fil-A cows out there.
Roller skin parking lot.
We've got a DJ.
We've got uh an awesome, awesomeuh meteorologist that's here in
town that comes in again, seesit.
There's a costume contest, soyou've got people in all kinds
of different costumes goingaround in this thing, and my
cheeks hurt at the end of thenight from smiling because it's
just so ridiculously fun.
(30:19):
And uh this year they raised uh50,000,$50,000 and one dollars
for us.
SPEAKER_05 (30:24):
And uh not lived until you've seen a
Tyrannosaurus Rex fly by you at25 miles an hour on a razor
scooter.
SPEAKER_03 (30:34):
No, that'd be awesome.
Oh, it's that'd be awesome.
Which which brings me to youknow one really cool thing about
this.
There's I get frustrated that wehaven't grown as fast as the
mission deserves, right?
Um, but nobody has to volunteer,nobody has to donate.
A business doesn't have to doanything to support this, and so
I get to see really the best inpeople when they've chosen out
(30:57):
of the goodness of their art todo something for someone else.
So pretty awesome stuff.
SPEAKER_05 (31:04):
Yeah, I agree, right?
Yeah, because you don't have ahuge volunteer core, do you?
I mean, you're a pretty smalloperation.
You've only got how many peopleon staff?
SPEAKER_03 (31:11):
Uh well, we have 10 now, so we have grown a little
bit.
And um, but yeah, the thing isbecause our mission, it's not so
much engaging volunteers withthe kids.
The the families typically don'twant strangers coming in and out
of their life, right?
Uh, the last thing we want to dois introduce a predator to a
family that in most cases theprotector is no longer there.
And um, and so yeah, it's kindof difficult.
(31:33):
So we do have some greatvolunteers that help us put on
the Angel Gala or some of ourother events, but um now we have
chapters.
That that's a great story, and Ithink this is how we're going to
crack the nut on moving kids offthe waiting list faster.
Is that we had a group of uh itwas a home inspector company
actually in Atlanta that heardabout us and really got behind
our mission.
They put our logos on theirfleet of vehicles and did a
(31:55):
fundraising event for us andkind of by default became our
first fundraising and awarenesschapter.
And then after that, we've gotone in Dallas.
Uh, a really cool story.
We've got one that just startedin the Hampton Roads area, so
Southern Virginia, North NorthCarolina area, by one of our
Rudos.
And she's impactful, you know,impacted by this so much that
she wanted to pay it forward andstarted a chapter for us.
(32:17):
So uh the potential for this togo into other locations across
the country because we supportthe kids nationwide and even
internationally when they go, Ithink that's gonna really help
us um because it starts withawareness.
You know, most people don'tthink about the kids or they
don't think about them longafter a loss, but raising
awareness in those areas andthen having local support will
(32:38):
help move kids off the waitinglist faster, help us increase
our capacity and really um kindof exponentially produce some
growth.
SPEAKER_05 (32:45):
I could tell you that having been a part part of
leadership with the AmericanLegion for a while, kind of the
mentality, especially aroundthis type of need, was that the
widows already get a lot ofsupport financially from the
military or from the VA.
But what that we didn't realizeat the time was that these
widows are in no place to dealwith this.
(33:09):
The last thing on their mind iswhat their kid's gonna do on
Thursday, you know?
So so the kids really losing outon a portion of their childhood
that they would normally havehad if they're if their loved
one hadn't passed.
Chris, you looked like you hadsomething to say.
SPEAKER_00 (33:23):
Um, I I couldn't agree more with you on that.
I I you know I worked withveterans for eight years in
mortgage, and you know, one ofmy clients was specumps and had
five kids, and his mom had towatch them because he was going
through a divorce.
And every time he had to go, youknow, on duty, whatever it was,
it was almost a 24, 48-hournotice.
And so um, you know, a lot ofthese balances too, like my
(33:44):
submarine friend, his wifedoesn't get any chance other
than to focus on what's here.
And if something happens, youknow, it's just very hard for
them to adapt and move tothings.
Because I think you know, whathappens in grief a lot is that
we we're so used and accustomedto our life.
We all have routines every day,we do the same stuff over and
over on certain days.
And when grief hits and it'sthen all of a sudden it's like a
(34:04):
break hits, and all of a suddenthat whole thing blows up.
And now it's like, where do Ipick up from here?
Where do I move forward fromhere?
What's my next step?
What's my next thing I do?
Um it's just a very cloudy placeto be.
So I I I don't blame a lot ofthose spouses in the way of a
grief like that to be in thatmindset.
That's completely normal.
SPEAKER_05 (34:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Joe, can you um can you andobviously now without sharing
any details, we don't want tomess with confidentiality or
anything, but can you kind ofgive us some examples of how the
programs really really kind ofhelp some of these kids achieve
what they wanted to achieve?
SPEAKER_03 (34:38):
Yeah, actually, so we've got um uh there's a uh a
girl that's in our program andshe had gone through loss of her
father and and then covet hit.
And now you take the isolationand the fear of losing others,
and it was it was a lot, right?
It was an awful lot.
And she ended up um in the in umthat's what you call it,
(35:00):
intensive care, uh, basicallyfrom uh anorexia.
And uh she was in the you know,the ICU, that's what I was
looking for, and uh she just hadno interest in doing anything
anymore.
And we were speaking with hermom and said, you know, anything
that she might show an interestin, let's get her in that and
when she gets out and see whatwe can do.
And she ended up having aninterest in point therapy, and
(35:23):
so that's what we supported thefamily with, and it was
tremendous for her, and it it itcreated such an impact in her
that even though she's still ateenager right now, she is a
personal chef for a family withsome unique dietary needs, and
she's interested in either beinga dietitian or a chef when she
you know grows up, kind of athing.
And that from somebody that wasso so struggling with anorexia
(35:45):
that she was hospitalized.
And so you never know what'sgonna be that spark or what's
gonna be the thing for that kid,what's gonna be that passion,
what's what's gonna make thatdifference.
But um the idea that she foundit, you know, that's the goal.
So we support the kids inwhatever they choose, and if
it's seasonal, we say, okay,well, what about the off-season?
So uh, you know, like we've gota we've got a kid, I say kid,
(36:08):
he's he's huge, uh, a footballplayer in uh in Alabama that
lost his father, law enforcementfather, and his dad was also a P
football coach.
And at six years old, we startedsupporting him, and he um
actually was the MVP in the PeeFootball Championship game that
year, and he's grown, he's grownlike crazy.
(36:28):
So, seven years after we startedsupporting, my wife and I went
and saw him play middle schoolfootball at 13, and he was 6'1,
310 pounds.
We had to buy him a helmetbecause the hospital didn't even
have one in Kebaro that fit him.
(36:49):
And he just got an award fromOptimus International.
And um, you know, he's probablygonna get recruited, he'll
probably be a D1 footballplayer, and uh, and he's a good
kid, you know, and it's all ofthat.
So the long-term thing is seeingthe growth.
Growth can be physical, like himgetting much bigger, but it can
be emotional, mental.
Um, you know, the measure ofsuccess isn't that they get
(37:10):
recruited and get a scholarshipfrom their activity, but we have
had kids do that.
Um, actually, we've got a younggirl in Florida, she's a
teenager now, but she's numberone in the nation in ski
shooting.
And we've got a little girl herein Colorado Springs who is third
of the nation in ice skating,and her goal is the Olympics,
man.
And and uh ice skating is herthing.
I asked her if you could skateas much as you want, you know,
(37:33):
how many hours a day would youwould you skate?
She goes, Well, all of it, youknow, and she said that's a slow
day, maybe eight or so hours.
So um I don't want to say thather passion that strong, but
it's really cool uh that theyjust have some power.
SPEAKER_05 (37:47):
Yeah, and one of the really cool things, Chris, about
the organization is they have agala every year.
Am I out?
Okay, I can be heard.
Uh so they have a gala everyyear, and they actually bring
some of the kids in to performtheir their uh sport or whatever
they're learning with theirmentor on stage.
So you'll have kids doing dance,uh shooting.
(38:08):
I think you had archery.
Have you had archery up there?
SPEAKER_03 (38:10):
We haven't done archery, but we did the speed
shooting.
SPEAKER_05 (38:12):
Yeah, speed shooting, we've done all kinds
of really cool activities forthese kids, all kinds of stuff.
It's really, really awesome.
And they then get a chance toperform in front of the entire
gala, but these are usuallyseveral hundred people.
SPEAKER_04 (38:24):
Yeah, this year was 700.
SPEAKER_05 (38:26):
Yeah.
Um, and then that's which is agreat segue, Joe.
If you want to mention the galaand kind of what that's all
about, and that's kind of theflagship thing for you guys to
raise money for the year andyeah, get things kicked off,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (38:39):
Yeah, it actually started as an event for gold
star spouses, those militaryspouses who had lost their
husbands.
And uh it was designed as anight out for them to have a
nice night.
And um, this was started by awidow, and she was the president
of the Gold Star Spouse Club,and she invited us for this
after we had enrolled herdaughter, and her daughter was
(39:00):
doing dance, and she said, youknow, we ought to turn this into
a fundraiser.
So it started as a nice nightout for some of these families
going through grief, and then itbecame a fundraiser event, and
it's our largest fundraiser byfar, and it's it's all about our
family.
So our keynote speakers are ourfamily members that we support.
And uh, in fact, uh, Alyssa, theone that I mentioned before, she
(39:22):
was our keynote speaker a fewyears ago, and uh, and then the
kids they perform the activitylike Russ was talking about.
So we film their family storyand play that beforehand.
It's a bit of an emotionalroller coaster because again,
the story of lost has to betold.
But then the kids come out andthey're on stage, and yeah, they
are the stars of the night, andthey stand up taller and the
(39:42):
crowds clapping for them, andit's just such positive energy.
It it is really fantastic, andthat's gonna be April 18th in uh
Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_05 (39:50):
And um, that's changed, right, Joe?
SPEAKER_03 (39:53):
Because that used to be at Rawmore, now it's at the
uh Polaris, the Hotel Polaris,which is uh a hotel that's kind
of military-themed aviationspecifically, right outside the
Air Force Academy, and uh areally great venue.
And we're gonna have twoperformers that we're we're
bringing in, just like Russmentioned.
You know, we we want to spreadthe wealth and bring in families
that aren't just local.
(40:14):
And uh, we've just filmed thefamily stories of both of them.
One of them is a little boy inuh the Atlanta area.
His father was uh was army andhad uh had separated and uh
realized that he didn't fit inreal well outside of the Army
and he had some PTSD and someissues, and he re-enlisted, but
uh unfortunately was lost tosuicide the day before he was
(40:38):
back on orders and the familydoesn't qualify for any
benefits.
And uh his son is gonna come outand his name is Cooper, and it's
gonna be cooking with Cooperbecause he's doing cooking
lessons now, and uh it's gonnabe awesome.
He's got a great personality.
And then the other one is theLos Angeles firefighters' son.
His father uh was lost when hewas really young, just an
(41:00):
infant.
And uh now he's doing martialarts.
And he's gonna come out here anddo a demo.
And we just filmed his familystory and spent some time with
the LA fire department with someof his dad's buddies, and um
just just really cool stuff.
So it's an opportunity forpeople that support us to see
the impact because it's allabout our families that night,
and uh and it's a healing nightfor those families that are
(41:21):
there and the kids thatparticipate, and it's a
fundraiser.
And we have an extensive,extensive uh silent auction.
So even though people can'tcome, they could still bid on
items for our silent auction.
And it's like 150 items.
And I mean, we've hadflamethrowers in it before, so
are you serious?
SPEAKER_05 (41:39):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
There's usually some sort offirearm.
That's my kind of gallery.
SPEAKER_02 (41:49):
Yeah, yeah.
And uh, yeah, I I took a pictureof myself wearing that, by the
way.
Just to try it out before this.
SPEAKER_05 (41:56):
You brought up a really cool detail too, and
that's the fact that um you guysare a private nonprofit.
Yeah, so you're able to supportsome families that the VA is
unable to support, and someother nonprofits are unable to
support, right?
SPEAKER_03 (42:09):
So, yeah, we're well, we're like nobody owns a
nonprofit, right?
So, but what we don't do, we'renot we're not federally related
in any way.
We don't receive any federalfunds.
Um, we are able to say yes whenthe system might be saying no.
And particularly you see thatwith suicides.
Um, if someone has separatedfrom the military, for example,
and the depression or PTSDwasn't in their records, the VA
(42:30):
will look at that and say, well,this isn't service connected and
you don't qualify.
And um, the thing is thatthere's a stigma around seeking
help.
And so, you know, most guys thatthat develop these kind of
things don't end up with it ontheir records.
You could lose your securityclearance, you could have
problems with future employment.
So there are reasons, and youknow, you don't want to admit uh
a weakness or or whatever itmight be viewed at, even though
(42:53):
it's it's not just a weakness,it's a normal reaction to the
trauma that you went through,kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_05 (42:58):
100%.
I preach that constantly is thatbeing vulnerable and talking
about the fact that you needhelp, you know, there's 22
suicides a day among the veterancommunity.
And in Colorado Springs, thereare 45 per 100,000 veteran
suicides per year, which is thenational average is 14 per
(43:21):
100,000.
So that's how much higher it isin Colorado Springs alone among
the veteran community.
And we have a really highconcentration of veterans and
military here, but and evenbeyond that, we have a really
high suicide rate in El PasoCounty and Colorado Springs.
Any suicide is too many, though,right?
And and the the culture amongthe military, the you know,
(43:45):
don't be weak, don't go, don'tgo seek militar or uh medical
care because then you're apogue, right?
I don't know if you're familiarwith that term, Chris.
SPEAKER_00 (43:54):
No, I haven't heard that one yet.
SPEAKER_05 (43:57):
But you don't want to be a pogue, right?
You don't want to be that guylabeled as the guy that always
goes to the TMC every time hegets hurt.
Well, why not?
Go to the TMC if you're hurt,man.
And if you if you're mentalhealth issues, you're you're
usually thinking about suicideand stuff like that or hurting
yourself or someone else, youman go now.
In fact, I'll put hotlinenumbers in the show notes.
SPEAKER_03 (44:19):
About a quarter of the kids we support lost their
parents' suicide currently.
Yeah, and so hearing some ofthose stories, um, is some of it
where there were warning signsand sometimes there weren't.
But uh sometimes you see adownward spiral that precedes
this, right?
And um it's it's man, anythingthat can be on the preventative
(44:40):
side is powerful because thoseripples do go so far forward.
And um yeah, some sometimes Ithink the guys think they're
doing their family a favorbecause they have become
isolated, because they'vedeveloped substance abuse
issues, which could have comefrom pain management that they
were receiving from the VA oryou know, any of these kinds of
things.
Um, but it's so damaging.
(45:00):
In fact, military kids arealready at a higher risk of
suicidal alienation than thegeneral public.
And if they do have them, theyare more likely than um
non-military kids to takeactions in that vein.
If that parent was lost tosuicide, uh really their their
risk skyrockets.
SPEAKER_05 (45:18):
Yeah, it's like 80% of the incredible, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (45:22):
Yeah, it's a lot, yeah, yeah.
And one of the things I like tosay, we never want to lose a
child because their parent madethe old sacrifice for our
country or community.
SPEAKER_05 (45:31):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Well, well, Joe, man, I thisgoes without saying, but but
everything you guys are doing isjust absolutely incredible.
It's such a huge need.
Chris, I'm sure that you canspeak to that too, man.
It's just a oh yeah, can you onelast thing I wanted to go over
before we close things out isJoe, you have a kind of a
(45:52):
personal connection with allthese kids.
Could you speak to that a littlebit and kind of how you manage
that and navigate that?
SPEAKER_03 (45:58):
Yeah, well, it's it's getting harder as we've
grown with kids in differentlocations, but um, I mean that
that's where my heart is.
That's that's where my mentalcapacity is too, I think.
But um I yeah, so it's it'sreally something else because
when we get together, youtypically see that the widows
will get together and andthere's a lot of laughing,
right?
And there's heal humor is such agreat healing tool.
(46:21):
Um, but I'm going to the kidsand connecting with them.
And um, and it's it's just anawesome thing to be able to see
them grow up over time.
And I get some honors out ofthat.
Uh, we've got a family that'sfrom Germany, or the widow is
from Germany.
She met her husband when he wasstationed there, and they chose
to she chose to stay here withher son, and um they he asked us
(46:41):
to be his grandparents forgrandparents' day at school, you
know.
So it's kind of a really coolthing to get to see that.
And I kind of live vicariously alittle bit like uh I don't have
grandkids yet.
So um, you know, getting to seethese kids grow and develop over
time is just so impactful andmeaningful to me.
It's the best part for sure ofwhat I do.
SPEAKER_05 (47:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
And yeah, I mean, letter it usedto be letters to every kid every
year.
Are you still doing the lettersevery year?
SPEAKER_03 (47:10):
The letters to every child when they're enrolled, but
I am not still doing uh one toeveryone throughout the year.
SPEAKER_05 (47:16):
Yeah, it's because you said 800 kids, that meant a
lot of writing.
SPEAKER_03 (47:20):
Well, over 600 will be supported this year, yeah.
Okay, wow, yeah.
800 plus on the waiting listright now.
SPEAKER_05 (47:26):
Yeah, and now are you still doing the the gala
virtually as well so that peoplecan be virtually?
SPEAKER_03 (47:30):
Well, we stepped away from that just just because
of cost and complexity trying todo it that way.
But we do have um you know a lotof stuff on our social media
where you can see the impact andsome of the stories and things
of families that we support,which is entirely up to them
whether they choose toparticipate in sharing their
information or not.
And um yeah, yeah, but our buton the social media we've got
more.
SPEAKER_05 (47:50):
That includes the auction, right?
SPEAKER_03 (47:51):
So people can view the auction online yes,
definitely the auction isonline, and so that's one that
that regardless of whether westream the event or not, it's
something that people canparticipate no matter where they
are.
SPEAKER_05 (48:02):
Cool.
Is there anything else you wantto put out there about the gala
or anything else that you'reworking on that you want to
throw out there and let peopleknow about?
SPEAKER_03 (48:09):
Wow.
Um, you know, I would say uh,you know, the limiting factor
for enrolling more kids isdollars.
And this year is kind of tough.
There was, like I mentioned, wedon't receive federal funding,
but there were organizationsthat did receive federal
funding, and a lot of them havebecome dependent on it.
So when there was a pause infederal funds, um, that's caused
a lot of them to start floodingother foundations with
(48:31):
applications.
And so we're we're down ongrants this year, and we're
going into our end-of-yeargiving, right?
So I would just say for yourviewers, if somebody wanted to
get behind this mission, youknow, they can connect through
our website and everything.
But um small donations matter.
If it wasn't for the smallthings, we wouldn't be able to
do what we're doing, yeah,frankly.
So I I guess that's the thing,it's just an appeal.
(48:52):
If this is something that umconnects with you, and uh maybe
maybe you were involved inhealthy activities as a child
and you know the impact thatthat had on you, or maybe you
didn't and you know the impactit would have had, you know,
that could be a connectionpoint, whether you've got a
military or first responderbackground or or anything like
that.
SPEAKER_05 (49:10):
Um if Joe, if they wanted to make uh like a small
donation, or is do you guys dolike pledging where it's like a
five dollar a month donation ora ten dollar a month donation,
or do you guys have a one-timething, or where do they go to do
all that?
SPEAKER_03 (49:23):
On our website, aoafallen.org, they could choose
to do a one-time or recurringdonation.
And recurring donations areawesome.
Uh I wish we had more of thosebecause you know, let's say even
if it's a five dollar a monthkind of a thing, it's static and
it helps us project how we'redoing and be able to evaluate
when is it safe to increase thenumber of supportive kids?
Because things like events,they're they're awesome too, but
(49:45):
we get this bump during the galeup and then it kind of falls
off.
And so it's hard to project whenyour funding does this versus uh
you know that that stable kindof thing throughout the year.
Or if someone has a connectionthat really has the means and
wants to get behind this, younever know we're just an
introduction or a storyteller orsharing our social media, right?
That's it, you know, theeconomy's tough.
(50:06):
And if somebody can't afford todonate, that's I completely
understand that.
You get on there and share ourpost and just help raise
awareness, and you never know.
You know, Bill Gates might be uhscanning your post or something.
SPEAKER_05 (50:17):
He might be desperate sitting on his couch
watching TV.
Hey, you heard it, guys.
Hey, share this post if you'reif you're watching this and you
enjoyed everything that thatthat uh Joe has to say, and you
can resonate with what hismission is.
Man, it's such an importantmission.
And these kids are precious,man.
They didn't they didn't ask forthis.
(50:38):
So this is an opportunity tohelp them move forward, right,
Chris?
Not move on, move forward.
SPEAKER_00 (50:45):
Joe, I just want to say thank you for the work that
you're doing, my friend.
I I got stories for days aboutthe vets I worked with, but a
lot of them did go through lossin the capacity that you work
in.
And so you're you're making animpact bigger than you know, and
probably you're gonna see someof your life.
And I'm just really gratefulthat those kids have somebody
like you in their corner becausethat's that's a very underrated,
(51:07):
underseen thing that we need toreally make more pronounced, uh,
especially in the military.
SPEAKER_03 (51:11):
Thanks, Chris.
Uh, you know, and uh thanks toboth of you for what you're
doing.
You know, healing andpreventative, um helping people
deal with these things so thatthey don't then become a victim
of grief themselves is iscrucially important.
And uh and it seems like it'snow needed now more than ever.
I think some of our resets andsome of our breaks from in
(51:32):
society aren't there like theyused to be, or things tend to be
more inflated or or um inflated.
But yeah, yeah.
So yeah, anyway, I I I reallylike what you're both doing, and
the the people that you'rehelping heal, uh, I'm sure are
incredibly uh thankful for that.
And I know your book's gonna befantastic.
SPEAKER_05 (51:51):
Oh, speaking of which, thank you.
We've got a little surprise foryou.
Um Chris and I got ahead, gottogether ahead of time, and I
think we're gonna put together adonation of some of those books.
That book is coming out November15th, um, and it's called The
Empowered Brief Journey, 23Stories, uh, that carved a new
path forward.
That's being released November14th, so our 15th.
(52:13):
So we should have plenty of timeto get some printed copies, and
we're gonna donate some toAngels for you to either auction
off, put in gift baskets throughthe gala, or if you want to give
them to the widows as just ahealing tool for them or their
kids.
And then Chris Hall and I alsotalked about putting together um
a coaching session that we canoffer to one of your widows
(52:34):
coming into the program thatthat you know is facing all this
for the first time and in thatbrain fog and kind of stuff.
And maybe Chris can kind of helpthem through some of that, and
then I can help with some um youknow, trauma-informed psych
education, which brings me tothe last thing because I already
told you about the first twothings.
But I got a last thing is Idecided through the mental
(52:57):
well-being company, I'm not sureif you're familiar with that.
Um, it's a franchise opportunitythat I bought into about a year
ago where we do trauma-informedworkshops for corporate teams.
So I'm gonna donate thetrauma-informed productivity
workshop for your team, all 10people, and we'll do that at
zero cost so we can schedulethat sometime after uh after the
(53:20):
holidays and get your teamscheduled up or trained up
because this stuff is important.
You know, this is a criticallyimportant area to be working in.
The people you're helping isit's a it's a critically needy.
What's the word I'm trying tofind?
Help me out, Chris.
There can't be a population ofpeople that deserve it more and
(53:42):
that need it, you know.
So so I really want to make surethat your team is prepared to
help them as the best possibleway they can.
And if my class can help you dothat, then fantastic, right?
SPEAKER_03 (53:52):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Because there is a burden, uh,particularly that our case
family case managers have.
Um, it's not normal to hear somany stories of loss and uh and
sometimes ugliness and thingsthat happen after the loss, too,
just break down the family orthe system and things.
So um, so that's great.
Yeah, we're looking forward toall of it.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05 (54:09):
So we'll get in touch with all that and we can
work on all the details later.
But yeah, uh, once again, guys,this is Joe Lewis with Angels of
America's following.
Thanks so much for coming outand and spending some time with
us, Joe.
Chris Mamoney, my friend.
Thanks again for joining me liveon Facebook and all the all the
books, all the grants foreverywhere.
(54:32):
Guess thanks so much for holdingon.
I'll talk to you soon.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Hey everybody, welcome to Tremlet Talks Live.
We are live on all theplatforms.
My name is Russ.
I've today with me, I've got acouple guests.
I've got Chris Mamone with theEmpowered Grief Journey.
Uh, him and I have been workingon a book project together, so I
brought him on, um, as well asJoe Lewis of the uh Angels of
(05:35):
America's Fallen.
They're an internationalnonprofit based locally here in
my uh hometown of ColoradoSprings.
So we're gonna have some greatconversation today.
But thanks for joining us.
Uh, if you want to come on andask any questions, if you have
anything, just go in the chat.
We'll be monitoring that chatthroughout the time that we're
chatting and get you guys on.
But in the meantime, let's bringout uh Joe, the star of the
(05:59):
show.
Uh tell us about you, Joe.
SPEAKER_03 (06:03):
Oh wow.
Um, okay, so uh militarybackground.
Started with my dad being uhMarine Infantry in Vietnam.
And if he had not come back fromcombat, I never would have
existed.
So as a kid, it made me thinkabout how far the the ripples go
forward when we lose someone.
And later, then I ended upjoining the military at a
strange military career, but itwas an awesome ride.
(06:24):
Started with the Army NationalGuard, did field artillery with
them throughout college, rightafter high school, and then the
Marine Corps active duty forabout 11 years and uh ended up
transitioning out of the MarineCorps to the airlines after my
back was broken in training.
And uh flew for the Air AmericanAirlines just a little bit
before 9-11 occurred, and thenended up going back active duty
(06:45):
with the Air National Guard anduh retired Air Force basically
after a career, which alsoincluded doing carrier
operations for the Navy and somecounter-narcotic support for the
Coast Guard.
And uh during that process, Ialso did support of law
enforcement and counter-narcoterrorism, so Secret Service,
FBI D E A, down to local taskforces, and saw the risks our
(07:06):
first responders were takingright here at home.
And throughout my career, I lostfriends in every branch of the
military and it was always agreat guy with little kids, two
of my buddies in the MarineCorps.
(07:39):
But there wasn't something forthem to be engaged long term
within their own localcommunity.
And the idea behind supportingkids of our colon kind of came
to me when I was watching mysons playing soccer, both in
championship games, differentage groups.
It saw the goodness of themburning energy and interacting
with the coach and doingsomething positive instead of
something negative.
And I felt the calling thatengaging kids of our colon
(08:02):
military, the first responders,that was what I should do.
SPEAKER_05 (08:24):
I had to mute it because it was muffling Joe.
What I was gonna say is what Joeis not telling you out loud is
he was basically a badass.
Got to do all the fun stuff, flyall the fun jets.
Um, and now because of thatexperience and and living that
experience with the guys thatyou lost, friends that you lost,
lost her ring, you you decidedto put forth your effort now in
(08:48):
in retirement, right?
SPEAKER_03 (08:49):
Yes, absolutely.
That is it.
SPEAKER_05 (08:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (08:51):
It was uh, you know, I I'm blessed.
How could I not pay forward tothose on an outspoken?
SPEAKER_05 (08:57):
Yeah, and I I've known Joe for uh 10 years or so.
I mean, we've we've been prettygood friends for a long time.
And man, this this organizationhas been absolutely amazing.
It's I I've seen some of thekids grow up in these
environments with these coachesand these mentors, and Joe, you
know, Joe comes in as a CEOwriting letters to these kids
(09:18):
every year, and each individualkid to let them know there's
someone there that cares aboutthem and make sure that they're
okay.
So yeah, it's amazing, Joe.
Chris, how you doing, my man?
Doing good, brother.
Thanks for having me on today.
Oh, dude, I'm awesome, man.
Hey, so Chris and I um areco-authors in a book called The
Empowered Greek Journey.
(09:39):
I thought it would be a great uhmix to have both Chris and Joe
on because it's a pretty similartopic.
Um, Chris is a grief andacceptance coach with the
Empowered Group Journey, andthen we are the co-author of a
book with the same title.
Uh Chris, you want to giveeverybody a little bit of
rundown of who you are and whereyou're coming from?
SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Yeah, definitely.
Um, so as Russ said, a very niceintroduction.
I'm a grief and acceptancecoach.
I help people who go throughgrief, loss, and trauma
rediscover self-acceptancewithin themselves and create a
new chapter of life because manypeople who go through grief uh
can get very stuck, it can getvery down when you go through
those moments of life as theytend to be.
(10:17):
But I also have found through myown journey that there are many
gifts, lessons, and blessings inour grief.
Yeah, when the time is right,they show themselves to us.
And that's where life restarts.
That's where we have a rebirth,those grief.
We're able to go out there inthe world because of grief
experience and go help otherpeople who are going through
similar situations in life findtheir new path.
(10:39):
And so it's a a big cycle ofpain at forward.
And to share with you guys alittle bit about my background,
I have um, as one of my podcastguests said it very eloquently,
grief chose me and I chose it.
Um and so my whole life, I'vegone through many, many job
losses.
I've gone through many umfriendships and changes in my
life on a very big circumstance.
(11:00):
The ones that really rocked myboat was actually when my
grandfather passed away in 2020.
Um I watched him as he took hislast breath, and that was
something I was very, very closeto for 35 years.
And that was my first timeexperiencing that loss.
And I didn't have a lot ofsupport um around me when I went
through that.
Two years later, I had to umlose my child in 2022.
(11:23):
Um my child, uh first one I had,we lost him to stillbirth um the
day before he's supposed to beborn.
And that same situation happenedagain where I didn't have a lot
of support system around megoing through that grief and
loss.
And um, there were some otherstuff going on family-wise that
I won't dive into, but when Iwhen you lose a child,
everything kind of gets inperspective for you.
(11:44):
Um you're really faced at acrossroads of I can really take
this in a bad path in life or Ican make something of this.
And so what Russ was talkingabout a few minutes ago, I
decided to create what's calledthe Empower Grief Journey.
And it's a coaching program madefor people that are going
through grief, loss, and traumato rediscover themselves and
step into their personal poweragain and reclaim their life.
(12:04):
And the Empower Grief Journeyhas turned into a podcast.
Um, there's 120 episodes on itnow.
We also started a book, ananthology, and that anthology
came from 22 different guests onmy podcast, coming together as a
collective voice to share notjust their grief and loss story,
but their healing journey too.
Because grief has no 12-stepprogram you can take.
(12:26):
There's no one specific way youcan do it.
But what I love to share aboutis in this anthology, people
like Russ are in there sharingtheir grief story and their
healing journey so that peoplethat read this book are going to
get an idea of how to navigatetheir own grief journey in the
way that they need to.
And so this what started as acoaching program has quickly
turned into a movement andturned into a huge mission of
(12:46):
paying it forward to otherpeople in their life and helping
them discover their gifts.
And so I'm very, very blessed tohave met somebody like Russ
along my journey.
Um, he's also the guy that Istarted podcasting with a year
ago this month.
Funny story.
So Russ, that's that's aboutwhat I can share about myself,
my friend.
Thank you.
Yeah, of course, man.
SPEAKER_05 (13:04):
Thank you.
Well, uh those of you who listento the show already know who I
am.
If not, my name is Russ Pelop.
I'm a somatic trauma-informedcoach um with Brain Spotting
Colorado Springs.
I also have a hypnotherapist anda certified brain spotting
practitioner.
So uh thank you for coming on.
We love I this show is typicallypre-recorded.
Uh, this is the first time thatwe're doing this as a live
(13:27):
event.
So going forward, the show willbe recorded live so that the
people who can watch it onYouTube um on all the other
platforms with video can do so.
But you guys can also interact.
So if you have questions, jumpin the chat, throw in a
question.
We'd love to have, we'd love tohear from you.
Um if you have questions forJoe, Chris, or myself.
(13:47):
And I guess with that, Joe, ifyou just want to tell us a
little bit about the angels andkind of how the program works
and how people would seek youout.
SPEAKER_03 (13:57):
Yeah, absolutely.
So it the idea is that we wantthe kids to pick their healthy
passion.
And what we realized veryquickly when we started this was
we're dealing typically withyoung widows who have gone in
survival mode to take care oftheir children and haven't even
dealt with their own grief yet.
So it it blossomed from a laserfocus on the kids to realizing
(14:17):
that when you help the kids, youhelp the parent, or when you
help the parent, you also helpthe kid.
So we get to know the family andum we let them determine who in
their local community is theservice provider they feel most
comfortable with, who they cancommute back and forth to.
They pick that outlet, and thenwe make the payment for sports,
music, um, arts, bankinglessons, whatever their healthy
(14:38):
outlet is that has a coach or aninstructor, so they're getting
an interim component in that.
And we make the paymentstogether, and then we follow up
with the family throughout theyear, checking in to see how
they're doing.
And out of that organically grewpeer support because we would
find a family with a story andthen meet another one and
realize that the two ought toknow each other or they
connected at events that we wereputting on, and we saw how very
(15:00):
healing that was.
And then it went into casemanagement, getting to know them
and referring them to otherthings they might qualify for,
and uh and then our voicesprogram.
And this this will probablyresonate with you, Chris, some
because uh what we found wasthat when the families tell
their story, they uh you knowthey're honoring their loved
one, right?
But they're also tearing openwounds, and in that process,
(15:21):
just like working out of muscle,you grow back stronger.
And what we've seen is as theytell their story to raise
awareness and resources to helpus pay forward to the families
that are unfortunately going tocome behind them, that there's
healing and helping.
And you know, you can you canyou hear the PTSD thing, you
hear post-traumatic stressdisorder.
You don't hear as much aboutpost-traumatic stress growth.
(15:43):
And the idea that we look atwith this organization is we
honor the loss and sacrifice,but we're focused on positives
and possibilities for the kidsso that they write their own
story of success in spite oftheir loss.
And uh, one of the best ways todo that is through helping
others.
And so uh, you know, how how doyou don't waste the pain kind of
a thing?
And and how do you grow and comeout of something, finding the
(16:05):
silver lining in somethingthat's otherwise um really
impossible to deal with?
SPEAKER_05 (16:10):
You know, Chris, that reminds me of something you
you say often, which is thecrappy wrapping paper.
SPEAKER_00 (16:18):
Yeah, yeah.
I uh I call those moments thegift and shitty wrapping paper
because unfortunately, when weget dealt that card, like Joe
was just talking about, when achild deals with the loss, you
know, they're they've only beenon the planet somewhere between,
you know, five and however manyyears, and they're not equipped
to go through all these thingsin life.
I sure tech wasn't.
(16:38):
And so, you know, I call it thegift and crappy wrapping paper
for a reason because it doesn'tlook great and it doesn't feel
great, by the way.
But when you start peeling backthe layers of it over time, you
start to find that that moment,by the way, can help define you
and make you move.
And that's where um, you know,like Joe said when he started
the stream, I'm really inspiredby that.
He he's absolutely right.
(16:58):
I've talked to a Vietnam thathad his dad not come back, he
wouldn't be in the world.
And what a great way to see thatgift of a moment, by the way,
um, and make that a drivingpurpose for you.
And that's a great example ofwhat we can actually do with our
grief, is we don't have toalways say, it was this
terrible, horrible thing thathappened to me and sit in a
victim place all of our life.
(17:18):
It's fine to sit thereinitially, it's fine to sit
there for some time, but alsorealize there's a big gift
behind what you were dealt.
And when you do discover that,you end up doing powerful things
like what Joe's doing in theworld, giving back and observing
in a very, very big way.
SPEAKER_05 (17:33):
Yeah, and I think grief trauma gets overlooked
quite.
You know, it gets it getsoverlooked as something that's
not as intense as like a combattrauma, for example, or
something along those lines.
But the loss of somebody who isyour protector, your provider,
you know, that's there to helpyou raise your kid and all of a
sudden, boom, they're gone.
Some of these ladies that I'vemet over the years, they're just
(17:56):
in a complete and utter fog.
They have no concept of what'shappening or how to deal with
it.
Would you agree, Joe?
SPEAKER_03 (18:04):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's that's a greatway.
It's kind of they're they're ina fog of loss and they're not
able to process a lot of whatthey're initially told or given
at the beginning or the supportthat comes right around the time
of loss, but then quickly afterthat, it goes silent and people
stop coming by and they're leftalone with this.
And uh, and you know, for thekids, you know, you're you're
(18:25):
exactly right, Chris, that theyyou know, they're gonna have
this hole in their heart therest of their life.
And the thing is, though, askids, they're at least equipped
to handle that and and the griefand it revisits them.
And in particular, another goodreason for our long-term
commitment that when we enroll akid with them until they turn 19
is because it's not like thedust settles and they have a new
normal that's normal.
(18:47):
They revisit the loss atdifferent stages of maturity as
it impacts them differentlythroughout their childhood.
So it's not a it's not a one anddone kind of thing.
You can't take a pill for it andyou know, here's your treatment,
okay, you're good now, kind of athing.
SPEAKER_05 (19:02):
Yeah, one of the things I really love about it,
Chris, is that the whole idea ofnot replacing, that's not the
right word, but helping tosupplement some of the
mentorship, right?
That's the coolest thing aboutit, is it it's any
extracurricular program thatincludes a mentorship.
So it can't just be you knowfree credits for roadblocks,
(19:24):
right?
So yeah, there's gotta be amentor involved, someone that
can help them grow.
And yeah, it's really cool.
And the really cool thing aboutit is it's not they they still
honor the loss, but they helpthe kids write their own story,
which is something that isreally, really cool about it.
SPEAKER_00 (19:44):
I find that really empowering, you know, because I
I went through loss when I was akid.
I lost my great grandma as closeto, and I didn't even understand
it back then.
Everybody like moved on and letgo, and my brain didn't work
that way for some reason.
But, you know, to have a to givea kid a mentor that will make
them it's my thing I preach allthe time in grief coaching is if
(20:04):
you make them feel seen andheard and understood and not
crazy and obsessive and worriedabout things, they're able to
process that a lot better.
They're able to actually gothrough those emotions.
And that's something with griefthat we can't get over it and
let go of it and move on.
And are you done yet?
That doesn't exist.
I've talked to too many people,it doesn't exist.
But what does exist is how do wemove through this?
(20:25):
And I think that's where havinga mentor um or a grief coach or
a counselor, whoever it may be,somebody that's very, very
supportive of you is what I wantto generically say.
You're gonna be able to findyour way through it.
And it won't be easy, it won'tbe fun at times, but you will be
able to go through that journeyknowing that you're not alone.
And also at the same time, whenyou do have those hard moments
where grief hits, that person tobounce ideas off of, to have
(20:48):
that conversation with, to havethat um call it a listing heart
is another way I phrase it.
Um, that's what we mean when wego through grief, and that helps
us kind of take out the bigwaves of grief and make them
smaller over time.
SPEAKER_05 (21:01):
Yeah, there's also just the idea of co-regulation,
right?
Having someone, I mean, ifyou're if you're dealing with
that kind of grief, Joe, you canspeak to this, I'm sure, a lot
better than we could.
But if you're dealing with thatkind of grief and your mom or
your father or your grandmotheris dealing with that kind of
grief at the same time, it'sreally hard for them to help you
co-regulate to get back to apoint of homeostasis, right?
(21:24):
But you've got like Joe said,you've got this whole team
working with the family to tryto help them for a short period
of time.
And then once that's gone, it'sjust feels like an abyss.
Joe, could you just speakbecause I don't know this
process, um, but could you speakto kind of what what that loss
looks like in the as far as thelogistical parts of it, kind of
(21:46):
how that works as far as fromthe time of loss up to the point
where you start talking with thefamily?
SPEAKER_03 (21:50):
Yeah.
So let's say if particularlylet's say that it was a military
family and they live on base,um, it's as destructive as it
can get for the child becausethey lose a parent, and then
they also have to, the familyhas to quickly move out of base
housing.
So they lose their home, and alot of the kids are going to
school on a base, so they losetheir home, you know, their
(22:12):
parent, their home, theirschool, their circle of friends,
and then they might move back towhere one of the parents is
from.
And a lot of times that is kindof a claustrophobic thing, or
it's to an area where peopledon't understand what they're
going through at all, and or itjust doesn't feel right because
there's been time away.
And then the families uh tend tomove a time or two, trying to
find a place that feels likehome because nothing really does
(22:34):
feel like home after that loss.
And um and as as Russ mentioned,you know, the parent is
generally in some fog duringthis time frame and the the kids
are in disarray and they don'tknow how to process this.
And so um it really is, it'sabout as traumatic as it could
get.
And if it happened to be from asuicide, um, you know, one thing
(22:55):
back to is we support the kidsregardless of the cause of
death.
Because to the child, it doesn'tmatter if it was a training
accident or combat fatality orit was an aggressive cancer
after toxic exposure to the burnpits.
And this applies to firstresponder families as well,
because a lot of toxic exposure,uh, suicide risk is quite high
on for first responders as well.
(23:15):
And typically you don't see therally of support behind that
like you might a combatfatality.
Um, you know, it's it's a lotmore of a taboo kind of thing.
And so a lot of isolation cancome from this this process and
guilt and uh all the other typeof emotions that could happen in
that process.
So it's it's a lot.
(23:36):
It's sometimes it's it's it'stoo much, you know, all at once.
Sure.
SPEAKER_05 (23:41):
Yeah, and just to highlight some of the some of
the need, I looked up a couplestats today before the before
the show, and 25,000 kids in themilitary community have lost
their loved ones.
Uh and are this is the thedirect population that Joe and
his team is serving.
And there's not a whole, there'sabout 75,000 children or family
(24:02):
members that are survivors ofpolice, and there's not a really
good solid number for fire.
So there's a massive need forJoe.
How many kids do you currentlyserve?
SPEAKER_03 (24:11):
Yeah, so um right now we're gonna serve a little
over 600 this year.
And again, we're serving less intotal because we're making such
a long-term and in-depthcommitment to them.
But what we found is that'sreally what's impactful, and we
wouldn't want to spread it sothin that it's not impactful.
But our waiting list iscurrently 830 kids, and uh, and
this is out of thousands, right?
(24:31):
So these are the ones that thathave gone through that process
and registered on our waitinglist.
SPEAKER_05 (24:36):
So you don't have a specific amount of time that you
anticipate people being on thewaiting list, it's just as until
the money meets the need becauseit's a long-term uh commitment,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (24:48):
That's exactly it.
Yeah, and uh you know, wheneverwe have kids that graduate out
of our program, then we backfillfrom the waiting list.
So there is always somemovement, it's just nowhere near
as fast as I would like to seeit.
Um, you know, these kids aretechnically at risk youth after
the traumatic loss of theirparents, they're at greater risk
of anxiety, depression, suicide,dropping out of school, and and
substance abuse.
So um there's a sense of urgencythat uh if I if I can, I I can
(25:12):
go into a story here, Russ,about lessons from Lodge.
SPEAKER_05 (25:16):
Yeah, I'd love yeah, that's actually a pretty
powerful story.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:19):
So that'd be great.
About our second year, we had anAir Force master sergeant that
had six kids that was a uhtactical air control party, so
forward air controller andmultiple combat deployments, and
was killed in a very uh freakyparachute training accident.
And his six kids went on ourwaiting list.
And and back then, it was aboutsix months maybe that the family
was on the waiting list.
(25:39):
And when we made the call tosay, Hey, we can enroll your six
kids, you know, this alwayspositive call.
The mom, Alyssa, said, I onlyhave five now, and my
two-year-old Lila just drowned.
And this absolutely crushed me.
Um the first kids we eversupported were the three sons of
the first chaplain to die inHalbat since Vietnam.
And we did swimming lessons forthem.
(25:59):
And the youngest one was solittle we did mommy and me swim
classes.
And so anytime we had an infantwhen they got enrolled, we said,
Let's get them started in swim,mommy and me swim.
And with Lila, it it didn'thappen, and I couldn't go back
and fix it.
And if we had grown faster, youknow, we would have offered
that, it could have made adifference.
And um I called Alyssa and said,I don't have the budget for
(26:19):
this, but I never want to hearsomething like this happening
again.
Uh, I'm gonna try to convinceswim centers to give basic life
safety swimming lessons to allthe kids on the waiting list and
would like to name theinitiative after Lila.
And Alyssa came up with a name,Lessons from Lila.
And so ever since when a familyregisters, we asked if their
child children know how to swim.
And if they don't, they they getswim instruction while they're
(26:40):
on the waiting list.
And um yeah, so there's a senseof urgency there.
But I I do need to share thistoo because uh Alyssa, uh, she's
an amazing woman.
So uh during this process, shelost her husband, and about 13
months later, she loses her herdaughter.
One of her brothers wasmurdered, and one of her
brothers committed suicide.
And you've got all this grieffor a single parent of five
(27:02):
children to raise.
And she ended up getting herdoctorate in clinical
psychologies and is now also agrief expert helping her with
heal, and it's just so inspiringum to see that kind of
resilience and that kind ofgrowth after so much.
SPEAKER_05 (27:20):
Yeah, that's a ton about a story of overcoming.
Wow, yeah.
You I'd love to get in touchwith her, Joe.
If you can get me in touch withher, I'd love to have her on the
pod.
I'm sure that Chris wouldprobably love to have her on his
as well.
That's that's a heck of a story.
SPEAKER_03 (27:33):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, to make this a smallworld, I I've got a cousin who
lost her daughter to a lengthybattle with cancer, and um, you
know, very difficult thing tolose a young child.
And I was at actually thefuneral for one of my great
uncles, World War II vet.
He was passed away at 101 yearsold.
And I was talking with her, andit came up about angels, and I
(27:56):
told the story about Alyssa, andshe stopped me and said, Wait,
what's her last name?
And uh, she is my cousin's griefcounselor, and she is amazing.
Oh wow.
So some of these things you justcan't make up.
The small, small worldconnections that that we see uh
is really pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_05 (28:12):
Well, I can't I can say that within your community,
I've seen multiple widows thathave turned that pain into
purpose as well.
So not only are the kids growingin this community, but the
widows are growing as well.
Yes, widow orders.
And you have you have males inthere as well that have lost
their wife.
So um, yeah, yeah.
So that it's a ripple effect,really, when you start not only
(28:34):
that, but I there's so manystories over the last past 10
years that I've I've had thepleasure of being a part of,
just being your friend and beinga part of the community, and and
stuff like um Taekwondo, they'llget involved with one kid, and
they fall in love with theorganization, they fall in love
with the gala, which we'll getinto in a little bit.
And they were like, we want tobe a part of this.
(28:55):
We're gonna offer free classesfor any kid who comes through
that wants to take taekwondo,and then that takes so much
pressure off the budget for foryeah.
So just a lot of really coolstories of people who really
want to get involved.
They have an amazing could youtell everybody about the the
skate for chicken?
This that's yeah, this one'sawesome.
SPEAKER_03 (29:14):
We were actually we just had lunch with uh the the
operators of the Garden of theGods Chick-fil-A here in
Colorado Springs, and somethingthat they do for us, and really
they they pretty much do it all,is it's called skate for
chicken, and people can sign upto participate in this.
And when they close the storedown at 10 o'clock at night,
people roller skate,rollerblade, however you want to
get around the parking lot untilmidnight.
(29:36):
And they have leading up tothis, they've gone out and asked
people to donate and supportedthem to do this.
And so those that raise acertain amount get free chicken
for a year, and those that arein the top get the they get so
the the other ones get like uhfree chicken sandwich or nuggets
for a year, they get 52 giftcards.
Those that raise the most get um52 meals, but the whole thing is
(29:57):
surreal because you've got theChick-fil-A cows out there.
Roller skin parking lot.
We've got a DJ.
We've got uh an awesome, awesomeuh meteorologist that's here in
town that comes in again, seesit.
There's a costume contest, soyou've got people in all kinds
of different costumes goingaround in this thing, and my
cheeks hurt at the end of thenight from smiling because it's
just so ridiculously fun.
(30:19):
And uh this year they raised uh50,000,$50,000 and one dollars
for us.
SPEAKER_05 (30:24):
And uh not lived until you've seen a
Tyrannosaurus Rex fly by you at25 miles an hour on a razor
scooter.
SPEAKER_03 (30:34):
No, that'd be awesome.
Oh, it's that'd be awesome.
Which which brings me to youknow one really cool thing about
this.
There's I get frustrated that wehaven't grown as fast as the
mission deserves, right?
Um, but nobody has to volunteer,nobody has to donate.
A business doesn't have to doanything to support this, and so
I get to see really the best inpeople when they've chosen out
(30:57):
of the goodness of their art todo something for someone else.
So pretty awesome stuff.
SPEAKER_05 (31:04):
Yeah, I agree, right?
Yeah, because you don't have ahuge volunteer core, do you?
I mean, you're a pretty smalloperation.
You've only got how many peopleon staff?
SPEAKER_03 (31:11):
Uh well, we have 10 now, so we have grown a little
bit.
And um, but yeah, the thing isbecause our mission, it's not so
much engaging volunteers withthe kids.
The the families typically don'twant strangers coming in and out
of their life, right?
Uh, the last thing we want to dois introduce a predator to a
family that in most cases theprotector is no longer there.
And um, and so yeah, it's kindof difficult.
(31:33):
So we do have some greatvolunteers that help us put on
the Angel Gala or some of ourother events, but um now we have
chapters.
That that's a great story, and Ithink this is how we're going to
crack the nut on moving kids offthe waiting list faster.
Is that we had a group of uh itwas a home inspector company
actually in Atlanta that heardabout us and really got behind
our mission.
They put our logos on theirfleet of vehicles and did a
(31:55):
fundraising event for us andkind of by default became our
first fundraising and awarenesschapter.
And then after that, we've gotone in Dallas.
Uh, a really cool story.
We've got one that just startedin the Hampton Roads area, so
Southern Virginia, North NorthCarolina area, by one of our
Rudos.
And she's impactful, you know,impacted by this so much that
she wanted to pay it forward andstarted a chapter for us.
(32:17):
So uh the potential for this togo into other locations across
the country because we supportthe kids nationwide and even
internationally when they go, Ithink that's gonna really help
us um because it starts withawareness.
You know, most people don'tthink about the kids or they
don't think about them longafter a loss, but raising
awareness in those areas andthen having local support will
(32:38):
help move kids off the waitinglist faster, help us increase
our capacity and really um kindof exponentially produce some
growth.
SPEAKER_05 (32:45):
I could tell you that having been a part part of
leadership with the AmericanLegion for a while, kind of the
mentality, especially aroundthis type of need, was that the
widows already get a lot ofsupport financially from the
military or from the VA.
But what that we didn't realizeat the time was that these
widows are in no place to dealwith this.
(33:09):
The last thing on their mind iswhat their kid's gonna do on
Thursday, you know?
So so the kids really losing outon a portion of their childhood
that they would normally havehad if they're if their loved
one hadn't passed.
Chris, you looked like you hadsomething to say.
SPEAKER_00 (33:23):
Um, I I couldn't agree more with you on that.
I I you know I worked withveterans for eight years in
mortgage, and you know, one ofmy clients was specumps and had
five kids, and his mom had towatch them because he was going
through a divorce.
And every time he had to go, youknow, on duty, whatever it was,
it was almost a 24, 48-hournotice.
And so um, you know, a lot ofthese balances too, like my
(33:44):
submarine friend, his wifedoesn't get any chance other
than to focus on what's here.
And if something happens, youknow, it's just very hard for
them to adapt and move tothings.
Because I think you know, whathappens in grief a lot is that
we we're so used and accustomedto our life.
We all have routines every day,we do the same stuff over and
over on certain days.
And when grief hits and it'sthen all of a sudden it's like a
(34:04):
break hits, and all of a suddenthat whole thing blows up.
And now it's like, where do Ipick up from here?
Where do I move forward fromhere?
What's my next step?
What's my next thing I do?
Um it's just a very cloudy placeto be.
So I I I don't blame a lot ofthose spouses in the way of a
grief like that to be in thatmindset.
That's completely normal.
SPEAKER_05 (34:22):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Joe, can you um can you andobviously now without sharing
any details, we don't want tomess with confidentiality or
anything, but can you kind ofgive us some examples of how the
programs really really kind ofhelp some of these kids achieve
what they wanted to achieve?
SPEAKER_03 (34:38):
Yeah, actually, so we've got um uh there's a uh a
girl that's in our program andshe had gone through loss of her
father and and then covet hit.
And now you take the isolationand the fear of losing others,
and it was it was a lot, right?
It was an awful lot.
And she ended up um in the in umthat's what you call it,
(35:00):
intensive care, uh, basicallyfrom uh anorexia.
And uh she was in the you know,the ICU, that's what I was
looking for, and uh she just hadno interest in doing anything
anymore.
And we were speaking with hermom and said, you know, anything
that she might show an interestin, let's get her in that and
when she gets out and see whatwe can do.
And she ended up having aninterest in point therapy, and
(35:23):
so that's what we supported thefamily with, and it was
tremendous for her, and it it itcreated such an impact in her
that even though she's still ateenager right now, she is a
personal chef for a family withsome unique dietary needs, and
she's interested in either beinga dietitian or a chef when she
you know grows up, kind of athing.
And that from somebody that wasso so struggling with anorexia
(35:45):
that she was hospitalized.
And so you never know what'sgonna be that spark or what's
gonna be the thing for that kid,what's gonna be that passion,
what's what's gonna make thatdifference.
But um the idea that she foundit, you know, that's the goal.
So we support the kids inwhatever they choose, and if
it's seasonal, we say, okay,well, what about the off-season?
So uh, you know, like we've gota we've got a kid, I say kid,
(36:08):
he's he's huge, uh, a footballplayer in uh in Alabama that
lost his father, law enforcementfather, and his dad was also a P
football coach.
And at six years old, we startedsupporting him, and he um
actually was the MVP in the PeeFootball Championship game that
year, and he's grown, he's grownlike crazy.
(36:28):
So, seven years after we startedsupporting, my wife and I went
and saw him play middle schoolfootball at 13, and he was 6'1,
310 pounds.
We had to buy him a helmetbecause the hospital didn't even
have one in Kebaro that fit him.
(36:49):
And he just got an award fromOptimus International.
And um, you know, he's probablygonna get recruited, he'll
probably be a D1 footballplayer, and uh, and he's a good
kid, you know, and it's all ofthat.
So the long-term thing is seeingthe growth.
Growth can be physical, like himgetting much bigger, but it can
be emotional, mental.
Um, you know, the measure ofsuccess isn't that they get
(37:10):
recruited and get a scholarshipfrom their activity, but we have
had kids do that.
Um, actually, we've got a younggirl in Florida, she's a
teenager now, but she's numberone in the nation in ski
shooting.
And we've got a little girl herein Colorado Springs who is third
of the nation in ice skating,and her goal is the Olympics,
man.
And and uh ice skating is herthing.
I asked her if you could skateas much as you want, you know,
(37:33):
how many hours a day would youwould you skate?
She goes, Well, all of it, youknow, and she said that's a slow
day, maybe eight or so hours.
So um I don't want to say thather passion that strong, but
it's really cool uh that theyjust have some power.
SPEAKER_05 (37:47):
Yeah, and one of the really cool things, Chris, about
the organization is they have agala every year.
Am I out?
Okay, I can be heard.
Uh so they have a gala everyyear, and they actually bring
some of the kids in to performtheir their uh sport or whatever
they're learning with theirmentor on stage.
So you'll have kids doing dance,uh shooting.
(38:08):
I think you had archery.
Have you had archery up there?
SPEAKER_03 (38:10):
We haven't done archery, but we did the speed
shooting.
SPEAKER_05 (38:12):
Yeah, speed shooting, we've done all kinds
of really cool activities forthese kids, all kinds of stuff.
It's really, really awesome.
And they then get a chance toperform in front of the entire
gala, but these are usuallyseveral hundred people.
SPEAKER_04 (38:24):
Yeah, this year was 700.
SPEAKER_05 (38:26):
Yeah.
Um, and then that's which is agreat segue, Joe.
If you want to mention the galaand kind of what that's all
about, and that's kind of theflagship thing for you guys to
raise money for the year andyeah, get things kicked off,
right?
SPEAKER_03 (38:39):
Yeah, it actually started as an event for gold
star spouses, those militaryspouses who had lost their
husbands.
And uh it was designed as anight out for them to have a
nice night.
And um, this was started by awidow, and she was the president
of the Gold Star Spouse Club,and she invited us for this
after we had enrolled herdaughter, and her daughter was
(39:00):
doing dance, and she said, youknow, we ought to turn this into
a fundraiser.
So it started as a nice nightout for some of these families
going through grief, and then itbecame a fundraiser event, and
it's our largest fundraiser byfar, and it's it's all about our
family.
So our keynote speakers are ourfamily members that we support.
And uh, in fact, uh, Alyssa, theone that I mentioned before, she
(39:22):
was our keynote speaker a fewyears ago, and uh, and then the
kids they perform the activitylike Russ was talking about.
So we film their family storyand play that beforehand.
It's a bit of an emotionalroller coaster because again,
the story of lost has to betold.
But then the kids come out andthey're on stage, and yeah, they
are the stars of the night, andthey stand up taller and the
(39:42):
crowds clapping for them, andit's just such positive energy.
It it is really fantastic, andthat's gonna be April 18th in uh
Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_05 (39:50):
And um, that's changed, right, Joe?
SPEAKER_03 (39:53):
Because that used to be at Rawmore, now it's at the
uh Polaris, the Hotel Polaris,which is uh a hotel that's kind
of military-themed aviationspecifically, right outside the
Air Force Academy, and uh areally great venue.
And we're gonna have twoperformers that we're we're
bringing in, just like Russmentioned.
You know, we we want to spreadthe wealth and bring in families
that aren't just local.
(40:14):
And uh, we've just filmed thefamily stories of both of them.
One of them is a little boy inuh the Atlanta area.
His father was uh was army andhad uh had separated and uh
realized that he didn't fit inreal well outside of the Army
and he had some PTSD and someissues, and he re-enlisted, but
uh unfortunately was lost tosuicide the day before he was
(40:38):
back on orders and the familydoesn't qualify for any
benefits.
And uh his son is gonna come outand his name is Cooper, and it's
gonna be cooking with Cooperbecause he's doing cooking
lessons now, and uh it's gonnabe awesome.
He's got a great personality.
And then the other one is theLos Angeles firefighters' son.
His father uh was lost when hewas really young, just an
(41:00):
infant.
And uh now he's doing martialarts.
And he's gonna come out here anddo a demo.
And we just filmed his familystory and spent some time with
the LA fire department with someof his dad's buddies, and um
just just really cool stuff.
So it's an opportunity forpeople that support us to see
the impact because it's allabout our families that night,
and uh and it's a healing nightfor those families that are
(41:21):
there and the kids thatparticipate, and it's a
fundraiser.
And we have an extensive,extensive uh silent auction.
So even though people can'tcome, they could still bid on
items for our silent auction.
And it's like 150 items.
And I mean, we've hadflamethrowers in it before, so
are you serious?
SPEAKER_05 (41:39):
Oh, yeah, yeah.
There's usually some sort offirearm.
That's my kind of gallery.
SPEAKER_02 (41:49):
Yeah, yeah.
And uh, yeah, I I took a pictureof myself wearing that, by the
way.
Just to try it out before this.
SPEAKER_05 (41:56):
You brought up a really cool detail too, and
that's the fact that um you guysare a private nonprofit.
Yeah, so you're able to supportsome families that the VA is
unable to support, and someother nonprofits are unable to
support, right?
SPEAKER_03 (42:09):
So, yeah, we're well, we're like nobody owns a
nonprofit, right?
So, but what we don't do, we'renot we're not federally related
in any way.
We don't receive any federalfunds.
Um, we are able to say yes whenthe system might be saying no.
And particularly you see thatwith suicides.
Um, if someone has separatedfrom the military, for example,
and the depression or PTSDwasn't in their records, the VA
(42:30):
will look at that and say, well,this isn't service connected and
you don't qualify.
And um, the thing is thatthere's a stigma around seeking
help.
And so, you know, most guys thatthat develop these kind of
things don't end up with it ontheir records.
You could lose your securityclearance, you could have
problems with future employment.
So there are reasons, and youknow, you don't want to admit uh
a weakness or or whatever itmight be viewed at, even though
(42:53):
it's it's not just a weakness,it's a normal reaction to the
trauma that you went through,kind of thing, right?
SPEAKER_05 (42:58):
100%.
I preach that constantly is thatbeing vulnerable and talking
about the fact that you needhelp, you know, there's 22
suicides a day among the veterancommunity.
And in Colorado Springs, thereare 45 per 100,000 veteran
suicides per year, which is thenational average is 14 per
(43:21):
100,000.
So that's how much higher it isin Colorado Springs alone among
the veteran community.
And we have a really highconcentration of veterans and
military here, but and evenbeyond that, we have a really
high suicide rate in El PasoCounty and Colorado Springs.
Any suicide is too many, though,right?
And and the the culture amongthe military, the you know,
(43:45):
don't be weak, don't go, don'tgo seek militar or uh medical
care because then you're apogue, right?
I don't know if you're familiarwith that term, Chris.
SPEAKER_00 (43:54):
No, I haven't heard that one yet.
SPEAKER_05 (43:57):
But you don't want to be a pogue, right?
You don't want to be that guylabeled as the guy that always
goes to the TMC every time hegets hurt.
Well, why not?
Go to the TMC if you're hurt,man.
And if you if you're mentalhealth issues, you're you're
usually thinking about suicideand stuff like that or hurting
yourself or someone else, youman go now.
In fact, I'll put hotlinenumbers in the show notes.
SPEAKER_03 (44:19):
About a quarter of the kids we support lost their
parents' suicide currently.
Yeah, and so hearing some ofthose stories, um, is some of it
where there were warning signsand sometimes there weren't.
But uh sometimes you see adownward spiral that precedes
this, right?
And um it's it's man, anythingthat can be on the preventative
(44:40):
side is powerful because thoseripples do go so far forward.
And um yeah, some sometimes Ithink the guys think they're
doing their family a favorbecause they have become
isolated, because they'vedeveloped substance abuse
issues, which could have comefrom pain management that they
were receiving from the VA oryou know, any of these kinds of
things.
Um, but it's so damaging.
(45:00):
In fact, military kids arealready at a higher risk of
suicidal alienation than thegeneral public.
And if they do have them, theyare more likely than um
non-military kids to takeactions in that vein.
If that parent was lost tosuicide, uh really their their
risk skyrockets.
SPEAKER_05 (45:18):
Yeah, it's like 80% of the incredible, yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (45:22):
Yeah, it's a lot, yeah, yeah.
And one of the things I like tosay, we never want to lose a
child because their parent madethe old sacrifice for our
country or community.
SPEAKER_05 (45:31):
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
Well, well, Joe, man, I thisgoes without saying, but but
everything you guys are doing isjust absolutely incredible.
It's such a huge need.
Chris, I'm sure that you canspeak to that too, man.
It's just a oh yeah, can you onelast thing I wanted to go over
before we close things out isJoe, you have a kind of a
(45:52):
personal connection with allthese kids.
Could you speak to that a littlebit and kind of how you manage
that and navigate that?
SPEAKER_03 (45:58):
Yeah, well, it's it's getting harder as we've
grown with kids in differentlocations, but um, I mean that
that's where my heart is.
That's that's where my mentalcapacity is too, I think.
But um I yeah, so it's it'sreally something else because
when we get together, youtypically see that the widows
will get together and andthere's a lot of laughing,
right?
And there's heal humor is such agreat healing tool.
(46:21):
Um, but I'm going to the kidsand connecting with them.
And um, and it's it's just anawesome thing to be able to see
them grow up over time.
And I get some honors out ofthat.
Uh, we've got a family that'sfrom Germany, or the widow is
from Germany.
She met her husband when he wasstationed there, and they chose
to she chose to stay here withher son, and um they he asked us
(46:41):
to be his grandparents forgrandparents' day at school, you
know.
So it's kind of a really coolthing to get to see that.
And I kind of live vicariously alittle bit like uh I don't have
grandkids yet.
So um, you know, getting to seethese kids grow and develop over
time is just so impactful andmeaningful to me.
It's the best part for sure ofwhat I do.
SPEAKER_05 (47:01):
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
And yeah, I mean, letter it usedto be letters to every kid every
year.
Are you still doing the lettersevery year?
SPEAKER_03 (47:10):
The letters to every child when they're enrolled, but
I am not still doing uh one toeveryone throughout the year.
SPEAKER_05 (47:16):
Yeah, it's because you said 800 kids, that meant a
lot of writing.
SPEAKER_03 (47:20):
Well, over 600 will be supported this year, yeah.
Okay, wow, yeah.
800 plus on the waiting listright now.
SPEAKER_05 (47:26):
Yeah, and now are you still doing the the gala
virtually as well so that peoplecan be virtually?
SPEAKER_03 (47:30):
Well, we stepped away from that just just because
of cost and complexity trying todo it that way.
But we do have um you know a lotof stuff on our social media
where you can see the impact andsome of the stories and things
of families that we support,which is entirely up to them
whether they choose toparticipate in sharing their
information or not.
And um yeah, yeah, but our buton the social media we've got
more.
SPEAKER_05 (47:50):
That includes the auction, right?
SPEAKER_03 (47:51):
So people can view the auction online yes,
definitely the auction isonline, and so that's one that
that regardless of whether westream the event or not, it's
something that people canparticipate no matter where they
are.
SPEAKER_05 (48:02):
Cool.
Is there anything else you wantto put out there about the gala
or anything else that you'reworking on that you want to
throw out there and let peopleknow about?
SPEAKER_03 (48:09):
Wow.
Um, you know, I would say uh,you know, the limiting factor
for enrolling more kids isdollars.
And this year is kind of tough.
There was, like I mentioned, wedon't receive federal funding,
but there were organizationsthat did receive federal
funding, and a lot of them havebecome dependent on it.
So when there was a pause infederal funds, um, that's caused
a lot of them to start floodingother foundations with
(48:31):
applications.
And so we're we're down ongrants this year, and we're
going into our end-of-yeargiving, right?
So I would just say for yourviewers, if somebody wanted to
get behind this mission, youknow, they can connect through
our website and everything.
But um small donations matter.
If it wasn't for the smallthings, we wouldn't be able to
do what we're doing, yeah,frankly.
So I I guess that's the thing,it's just an appeal.
(48:52):
If this is something that umconnects with you, and uh maybe
maybe you were involved inhealthy activities as a child
and you know the impact thatthat had on you, or maybe you
didn't and you know the impactit would have had, you know,
that could be a connectionpoint, whether you've got a
military or first responderbackground or or anything like
that.
SPEAKER_05 (49:10):
Um if Joe, if they wanted to make uh like a small
donation, or is do you guys dolike pledging where it's like a
five dollar a month donation ora ten dollar a month donation,
or do you guys have a one-timething, or where do they go to do
all that?
SPEAKER_03 (49:23):
On our website, aoafallen.org, they could choose
to do a one-time or recurringdonation.
And recurring donations areawesome.
Uh I wish we had more of thosebecause you know, let's say even
if it's a five dollar a monthkind of a thing, it's static and
it helps us project how we'redoing and be able to evaluate
when is it safe to increase thenumber of supportive kids?
Because things like events,they're they're awesome too, but
(49:45):
we get this bump during the galeup and then it kind of falls
off.
And so it's hard to project whenyour funding does this versus uh
you know that that stable kindof thing throughout the year.
Or if someone has a connectionthat really has the means and
wants to get behind this, younever know we're just an
introduction or a storyteller orsharing our social media, right?
That's it, you know, theeconomy's tough.
(50:06):
And if somebody can't afford todonate, that's I completely
understand that.
You get on there and share ourpost and just help raise
awareness, and you never know.
You know, Bill Gates might be uhscanning your post or something.
SPEAKER_05 (50:17):
He might be desperate sitting on his couch
watching TV.
Hey, you heard it, guys.
Hey, share this post if you'reif you're watching this and you
enjoyed everything that thatthat uh Joe has to say, and you
can resonate with what hismission is.
Man, it's such an importantmission.
And these kids are precious,man.
They didn't they didn't ask forthis.
(50:38):
So this is an opportunity tohelp them move forward, right,
Chris?
Not move on, move forward.
SPEAKER_00 (50:45):
Joe, I just want to say thank you for the work that
you're doing, my friend.
I I got stories for days aboutthe vets I worked with, but a
lot of them did go through lossin the capacity that you work
in.
And so you're you're making animpact bigger than you know, and
probably you're gonna see someof your life.
And I'm just really gratefulthat those kids have somebody
like you in their corner becausethat's that's a very underrated,
(51:07):
underseen thing that we need toreally make more pronounced, uh,
especially in the military.
SPEAKER_03 (51:11):
Thanks, Chris.
Uh, you know, and uh thanks toboth of you for what you're
doing.
You know, healing andpreventative, um helping people
deal with these things so thatthey don't then become a victim
of grief themselves is iscrucially important.
And uh and it seems like it'snow needed now more than ever.
I think some of our resets andsome of our breaks from in
(51:32):
society aren't there like theyused to be, or things tend to be
more inflated or or um inflated.
But yeah, yeah.
So yeah, anyway, I I I reallylike what you're both doing, and
the the people that you'rehelping heal, uh, I'm sure are
incredibly uh thankful for that.
And I know your book's gonna befantastic.
SPEAKER_05 (51:51):
Oh, speaking of which, thank you.
We've got a little surprise foryou.
Um Chris and I got ahead, gottogether ahead of time, and I
think we're gonna put together adonation of some of those books.
That book is coming out November15th, um, and it's called The
Empowered Brief Journey, 23Stories, uh, that carved a new
path forward.
That's being released November14th, so our 15th.
(52:13):
So we should have plenty of timeto get some printed copies, and
we're gonna donate some toAngels for you to either auction
off, put in gift baskets throughthe gala, or if you want to give
them to the widows as just ahealing tool for them or their
kids.
And then Chris Hall and I alsotalked about putting together um
a coaching session that we canoffer to one of your widows
(52:34):
coming into the program thatthat you know is facing all this
for the first time and in thatbrain fog and kind of stuff.
And maybe Chris can kind of helpthem through some of that, and
then I can help with some um youknow, trauma-informed psych
education, which brings me tothe last thing because I already
told you about the first twothings.
But I got a last thing is Idecided through the mental
(52:57):
well-being company, I'm not sureif you're familiar with that.
Um, it's a franchise opportunitythat I bought into about a year
ago where we do trauma-informedworkshops for corporate teams.
So I'm gonna donate thetrauma-informed productivity
workshop for your team, all 10people, and we'll do that at
zero cost so we can schedulethat sometime after uh after the
(53:20):
holidays and get your teamscheduled up or trained up
because this stuff is important.
You know, this is a criticallyimportant area to be working in.
The people you're helping isit's a it's a critically needy.
What's the word I'm trying tofind?
Help me out, Chris.
There can't be a population ofpeople that deserve it more and
(53:42):
that need it, you know.
So so I really want to make surethat your team is prepared to
help them as the best possibleway they can.
And if my class can help you dothat, then fantastic, right?
SPEAKER_03 (53:52):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Because there is a burden, uh,particularly that our case
family case managers have.
Um, it's not normal to hear somany stories of loss and uh and
sometimes ugliness and thingsthat happen after the loss, too,
just break down the family orthe system and things.
So um, so that's great.
Yeah, we're looking forward toall of it.
Thank you.
SPEAKER_05 (54:09):
So we'll get in touch with all that and we can
work on all the details later.
But yeah, uh, once again, guys,this is Joe Lewis with Angels of
America's following.
Thanks so much for coming outand and spending some time with
us, Joe.
Chris Mamoney, my friend.
Thanks again for joining me liveon Facebook and all the all the
books, all the grants foreverywhere.
(54:32):
Guess thanks so much for holdingon.
I'll talk to you soon.
Thanks.
Thank you.
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