Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
all right, benji
brady, welcome in to episode 16.
I'm excited to be here withy'all one six one six christmas
episode.
This is your you should joyful.
This is your favorite time ofyear.
You start this basically inAugust.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I was going to start
out and ask you guys this
question.
So, truth be told, when did youput your Christmas tree up, or
have you put your Christmas treeup?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
When did I put it up?
Or when did my wife make mepull stuff down?
Either one, okay, real quickbefore we jump into the episode.
I'm a believer that we need tocelebrate America being found
and that we don't need to skipover a Thanksgiving.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Adam, I knew I liked
you.
I'm 100% with you.
We do not need to forget thePilgrims.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
No, we skip a holiday
, I kid you not.
We finished Halloween.
The girls were still sortingthrough their candy and Emily
said do you want to get theChristmas stuff done?
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Nope, the reason I
asked the question.
I know we are just a few daysaway from Christmas.
We've had our tree up sinceOctober 30th.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
No joke.
I remember Sarah postedsomething and she said don't at
me for having my tree up andI've sent her a message.
I was like yo, it's still like90 degrees outside but no
Christmas.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
I mean, christmas is
my favorite time of the year, um
, but before we get into thewhole Christmas you know theme
again, we're just a few daysaway.
I wanted to point out weactually had someone text in
about one of our recent episodes.
Um, and they they actually,contrary to popular belief,
people do like Starbucks, adam.
And this gentleman said Iactually ordered your Starbucks
(01:51):
drink.
He sent us a picture of theexact order and it was to the T,
exactly what I get.
And he goes I will drink thatagain, no question about it.
And even, honestly, even morethan that, what was really
hitting to us was he said thetiming was perfect about that
episode, about making peoplehappy you know, be happy.
(02:12):
And he said we actually werehaving that same conversation
with our employees and it was atimely episode.
So, hey, thank you guys forlistening.
Appreciate you guys.
It means a lot.
But as we were getting ready toplan for this episode and just
talking about Christmas, Ithought it would be fun to kind
of go down memory lane a littlebit, because the title you know
(02:33):
the heart of Christmas.
What does that mean to you?
It puts an emphasis on giving.
You know you've got personalstories.
So I wanted to start out andask both of you a personal story
.
Oh man, wanted to start out andask both of you a personal
story.
Oh man, let's.
Let's start with brady.
What was your favorite?
That again, we're brothers, sohe's obviously he may have a
different one than me, andthat's, that's great.
What is your favorite christmasmemory that you ever had
(02:54):
growing up?
Is this going to be from?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
when he was a kid,
because were you ever?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
a kid, or did you
come?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
out like running
businesses.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
So I think two things
come to mind.
One is I remember one Christmasa bicycle that I got and it was
just the coolest bike becauseit was a um, like you know, you
get some of these bicycles andthey got the gear shifters, you
know handlebars, but but thisone had a gear shifter like in
in the middle, like what youwould see in a car nowadays, and
(03:26):
I just thought that was thecoolest thing ever.
but I think the other thing wasand, benji, I might be stealing
your thunder here a little bit,but every single christmas, at
least as long as I can remember,we, benji and I, would come out
on christmas morning and therewould be fireworks just all over
the floor in our living roomand it was like one of those
things you forgot about but yougot excited about when it.
(03:49):
When it comes to it Causethat's one thing that our dad
did is just he loved fireworksand we knew Christmas morning
was going to be tons offireworks.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
That's Adam.
What's your favorite memory?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Oh man, I remember it
Cause it was thinking it was in
sixth or seventh grade.
Anyways, I remember this wasback in.
You gotta think I'm 40 now.
So when I was younger,skateboards were like huge when
I was in middle school and Iremember either one of the
skateboard or I wanted nintendo64 okay that was when it first
came out like you know, mario,mario kart, nintendo 64,
(04:23):
greatest system ever made, andit was don't come, you know.
Let me tell you, I have one in abox in there, and so it's
phenomenal.
Um, but I, I remember I didn'tknow what I was getting for
christmas.
I remember asking for boththings and I remember my mom
telling me she's like you know,it's supposed to be a really
(04:44):
nice day outside and I thinkdeep down inside I want a
nintendo 64, more than askateboard and and I was like
it's supposed to be, reallyshe's like it's supposed to be
nights outside.
Anyways, came down, hadnintendo 64 and I just, man, I
think I played that sucker allday.
My poor mom was like this wasthe worst gift, because now he's
just, he's gone, he's not goingto pay.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Great job, mr and Mrs
West.
Great job.
I would have to agree withBrady.
I was thinking he was probablygoing to say that I do remember
the bike he was talking about.
It was had the little, it lookedlike a motocross, you know, yep
, but I think the greatestmemory I have was when our dad
he did Every Christmas he hadfireworks, and when he didn't
(05:25):
just have one package offireworks, he had a ton of them.
And I remember one Christmascoming out that we didn't see
fireworks.
Brady, I don't know if youremember this.
I don't remember how old wewere we had to have been 12 and
10, something like that, and wedidn't see any fireworks.
Yep, and it was kind of likeman what is?
Going on.
And at the very end, dad cameout and he said, hey, I've got
(05:49):
one more gift I want you guys toopen, and that was it.
And then, honestly, as we gotolder, I think I was probably in
today's world it would be abully to Brady, but we'd go out
and have bottle rocket wars andwe didn't have just the small
bottle rocket wars.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Oh, these were the
big ones.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
We did the big ones,
but it was a fun memory.
So kind of shifting gears alittle bit, did you guys?
What was your?
Did you ever have a badChristmas memory, adam?
Let's start with you.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Oh gosh, I was trying
to think about this when you
hit me with it.
I was reading through the notes.
I don't think I had like a abad memory.
We hadn't really had anythingcrazy like happen with our
family, or you know, we've beenvery fortunate, nothing during
the holidays, um, you know, Imean I don't think it was bad,
but we moved a lot.
So we never, you know, we hadtraditions.
(06:37):
You know, my dad was a, uh, airforce chaplain, for I think it
was 43 years, so we moved everytwo or three years, so every
christmas was different.
I don't think it was bad, Ithink it would be more.
We never really like.
One of the things we're tryingto do with the girls right now
is have a tradition right, likewe're.
We're trying to.
You know, we'll be in thishouse for a while.
This is where we are, this iswhat we're planted, you know.
(06:59):
So I don't think it's bad.
I just don't think I everreally had the chance to like.
We have our traditions, likewhat we do on christmas, but in
terms of like maybe somewhere wego, something we do, we never
really had a ton of that um,because, uh, because, where we
were, I would say the kind ofgoing back to good memories with
that, some of the things we did.
(07:19):
I guess if you said it wouldn'tbe bad, one of the tough things
is when we lived in j forseveral years we didn't get to
come home for Christmas.
You're flying overseas, but Ialways remembered every
Christmas we would do all ourstuff in the morning and then,
because my dad was with thechaplaincy and everybody's in
the same boat, right Like you'reon an island, we went to the
(07:40):
mess hall and ate with a lot ofthe airmen.
So I think if you said said bad, it was just always tough
because you're like I can'timagine being a, you know, 20
year old, I mean especially nowbeing 20, 21 years old overseas
during the christmas, you know,and you gotta think this was
like prior to like facetime.
I mean, this is before cellphones were hot yeah for sure,
(08:00):
so you know not even skype, noneof that stuff nothing I mean, I
mean I think I did have a cellphone my senior year and I think
I had 30 minutes and then I hadto throw the phone away and
then I had to start over.
So, um, but I think if I saidbad, it was just those
experiences, you know, I thinkit was just more, it was tougher
cause you got to see, you know,cause Christmas is one of the.
We've talked about thisrecently on our staff.
(08:21):
Christmas is one of theloneliest times of the year.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, for sure.
So I would.
I would say this uh, dude, allof our military out there, thank
you guys so much.
We would be remiss if we didnot say thank you for what you
do.
There are some folks that arein the military that do listen
to this podcast and we say thankyou because we could not be a
free country without you.
And we just want to say thatBrady, yeah, bad memory
(08:47):
Christmas Any.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Bad memory.
Well, this may be the same onethat you have and this is the
way that I remember the storyand I may have it wrong and you
can correct me, because you wereobviously older than I was but
where Benji and I lived when wewere kids, we had this backyard
and then we had this Creek thatran behind the house, and behind
the Creek was this huge kudzufield no-transcript, is it?
Speaker 1 (09:15):
those little things
that look like hot dogs on a
stick.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
It's like grown-up
weeds everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yeah, it's just
everywhere.
So we'd go out there and playfrom time to time.
We were kids Benji and I wereout there, I think somebody else
was with us.
We were just kind of playingand all of a sudden we see
Christmas presents.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I knew he was going
to do this.
We haven't even talked aboutthis.
This is fantastic.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And we saw like
baseball cards, like just
everywhere, and we were like,well, this is kind of odd.
And come to find out, theneighbor that we had beside us
was like a menace Like you everheard.
Dennis, the Menace Well, thatwas his name was Dennis and he
(10:04):
had broke into our house, takenour Christmas presents not all
of them, but some of them andhad, like, ripped them to shreds
.
He hated us that much andripped them to shreds.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
True statement that
much.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
and ripped them to
shreds and and threw them out in
this kudzu field.
And Benji and I I mean when we,when we saw it, we brought all
this stuff back and we're like,hey, mom and dad, this is kind
of weird.
We saw this stuff back here andthey were like, oh, my goodness
.
So that's what I remember,benji.
Maybe you can fill in the gapsa little bit more.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You should have had
your mom on for this, I would
have loved that.
Perfect, that was perfect.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
That's the way it
happened, and what's interesting
about that is I collectedbaseball cards, football cards.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Huge collector.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
And I had asked that
year for the 1986 Tops MLB
baseball set and in the 1986,the reason I wanted it was
because Bo Jackson's rookie cardwas in there.
Barry Bond's rookie card was inhere, Okay, and I had wanted
this set and I wasn't going toopen it if I got it and I was at
(11:08):
Christmas and I remember I didnot get to open that gift and I
thought, well, they just didn'tbuy it this year, no big deal.
And Brady's exactly right.
We went out to play and we seethese cards everywhere and come
to find out our buddy up thestreet.
He had gotten his, obviouslyhis Christmas.
He was showing us his gifts andhe pulled out these two cards
and they were in a sleeve.
(11:29):
They had taken these two cardsout, put them in those plastic
sleeves to protect them andeverything else.
So that is exactly the samememory.
That that is wild.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
It was bad.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
It was really bad, a
true story True story to Adam
about kudzu.
Real quick, this is not a badmemory, it was kind of a fun
memory is we took thosefireworks.
We were having fireworks.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
We caught kudzu on
fire fire department, fire
department, I mean, yeah, it wasthat's just pre.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That was just
pre-shadowing for what you guys
would end up doing one day yep,clean up pre-shadowing
foreshadowing foreshadowing yeahforeshadowing what you would do
one day but you know, you know,as people approach christmas
obviously again, we're just afew days away um, many people
and even businesses give extra.
You know, it doesn't have to befinancially.
It could be time, energy.
Obviously, people do financialcontributions as well.
(12:22):
But I actually looked a verseup okay, because it's not about
how much you give, what you give, it's about the heart.
And there's a verse that comesto mind 2 Corinthians 9, 7.
It says Every man according ashe has purposed in his heart, so
let him give, not grudgingly orof necessity, for God loves a
(12:44):
cheerful giver.
And so I thought you know what,what?
What could we do on thispodcast episode to inspire
people to give back?
And I know a lot of people dogive back.
We've done a couple of thingsin our business that have helped
us tremendously, uh, as being agood shepherd of the resources
that we have, and we're going totalk about that here in a
(13:05):
second.
But I actually looked up thenumber one um thing that people
give back during each holidayseason.
Would you guys have any ideawhat that is?
A gift that they don't?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
want.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
When you said give
back you're supposed to, you're
having like a seriousconversation the first thing I
thought was oh, you're doinggive back gifts.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
No, that's actually
not.
I mean no-transcript listenersa couple of things that we do
(14:09):
internally to help othercharities and such um that
really helps them out.
We started this thing Brady Idon't know how it was, probably
10 years ago now if I had toguess but we call it Operation
Green Wave G-R-E-E-N-W-A-V-EGreen Wave Operation Green Wave.
We wanted to put an operationmindset behind it.
(14:32):
Obviously, the green is in thebusiness that we do every single
day with Servpro and then awave of people being able to
help us do this.
So it's not just us and ourpeople.
We have other centers ofinfluence help us with this and
it's just a little bit differentapproach.
And Brady's actually in ourBirmingham office.
He's actually on the board of acompany called Vineyard Family
(14:54):
Services.
They're a nonprofit and I justwanted him to explain kind of
what Vineyard Family Servicesdoes quickly and then what we
have been able to do to helpsupport that.
And then we're going to talkabout at the end how much money
it saves Vineyard FamilyServices and the income that
they need to be able to do thissupport, and then we're going to
(15:15):
talk about what we do in ourTexas market.
So, brady, tell us a little bitabout Vineyard Family Services.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
Yeah, so Vineyard
Family Services, or AKA, vfs is
what we call it, but yeah, I'veserved on the board there, I
think, since 2010, somethinglike that.
And it's a, it's a nonprofit,it's specific to Shelby County,
alabama, but it is the wholemission is to support and help
(15:41):
the family unit, like bringingfamily units back to not just
local community but get thingsout there in the national
community.
And so there's initiatives likeWard, who's the executive
director, a friend of mine, um,uh, ward, who's the executive
director, a friend of mine, youknow, he's big, big on the
fatherhood initiative and makingsure that that kids have, you
(16:01):
know, a good fathers uh, inhomes.
And there's a lot of stuffthat's done in in prison
ministry and, uh, there's thingsthat are done with um, like
just several youth programs, andone of the one of the big ones
is specific to operation greenwave, is something called
(16:22):
backpack buddies, and sobackpack buddies it's actually a
national movement, but we wepartnered with backpack buddies
here in Shelby County.
When your family services does,and what it does is it provides
food to kids in the schoolsystem that are on the free or
reduced lunch program, and sowhat we do is we work with the
local counselors.
(16:42):
We don't know who the kids namesare, but we work with the
counselors to find out who thosekids are.
And then what we'll do is wedeliver food to the schools
through the counselors andthey'll take food like
non-perishable items for cause.
A lot, a lot of these kids.
Um, they don't have anything toeat from Friday at three
(17:06):
o'clock when they leave school,until Monday morning, when they
are Monday at lunch, when theyhave lunch at school, so being
able to feed them for over theweekend.
And so what these counselorswill do is we'll deliver food
once a week and then they'llactually put these
non-perishable items in theirbackpack so that's why it's
called Backpack Buddies go outto our centers of influence and
(17:39):
we'll get them to participateand give some of those items so
that we can help Vendor Family.
It's really a.
It's a giving, it's a givingthing to offset an expense for
the organization.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, and that's a
really big push too.
Brady, you know, one of thethings when I was serving on the
marketing team and doing that,the reason that it's also large
for the, the reason we do thistime of year, was these kids are
home for like two weeks, right.
And so you know, and I know now,at least in Shelby County, you
know, sometimes the schoolsoffer lunch and breakfast.
(18:09):
You know kids can come now theygot to get to the school
somehow but you know they'lloffer where they'll cook it.
But what they were able to dois the reason that it was such a
big push was they're sendingkids home with enough food for
like two weeks, right, likethat's right.
And so it's not just a backpackfor the week, like this is
something I mean they were, wewere putting breakfast in their
(18:30):
snacks, lunch, you know, it wasreally to get them through the
day until their parents got home.
So it was, it became and it was, it was phenomenal to be a part
of you.
I mean, we, we were taking, wewere putting everything in one
of those massive containers thatwe would put, you know, typical
contents and we were fillingthat sucker to the top.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So and dropping it
off.
It's funny you say that, adam,because I remember the first
year that we did it, we thought,you know, how cool would it be
if we could, you know, provide500 bags of food, whatever those
bags.
That's the way it started, andwe actually one of our, one of
our marketing representatives atthe time they they said, what
if we got our centers ofinfluence to help with this
(19:09):
initiative?
And we were like, well, how dowe do that?
So I remember Brady andVineyard Family Services put
together a list of items.
It may it may have beensomething as simple as we still
use that list today.
I saw they shared it the otherday.
Yeah, I mean it may be assimple as like a box of Capri
Sun.
It might be a little granolabar box or something like that.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Pop-Tarts like Chef
Boyardee.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Feed them multiple
things in one deal.
And I'll never forget it waseither the first or the second
year we had a company, aninsurance agency, call us and
say hey, when are you guys goingto come pick this stuff up?
And they said, well, we'rescheduled to come next week.
And they said Great, because weneed to figure out if you guys
can come in the next day or two,because not only have we in our
(19:52):
office provided some bags tohelp you guys, we actually got
our policyholders to helpparticipate and I think they had
over a hundred bags in justthat one office and we thought
we never even thought of that.
So my point is charitablecontribution and just giving
back to something like BackpackBuddies.
(20:13):
You know Vineyard FamilyServices is a way that you can
participate in your localcommunity and give back.
You know Vineyard FamilyServices is a way that you can
participate in your localcommunity and give back.
You know, brady, justapproximately how much does it
save Vineyard Family Services inthat one month that we do this
initiative?
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What does it
typically save them for their
I'm trying to remember the exactnumber, but I want to say it's
anywhere from five to $10,000 ayear.
Man, that's big and and andthat's and those are.
So this is, this is oneparticular program that there's
not, because the, the uh, thenonprofit is based off of a lot
(20:48):
on I mean individual donors, butalso a lot of grant programs.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Um, and this is one
of the ones is there's not like
a specific grant program, soit's a lot of donor
contributions.
Well, this just helps offset wecall it in-kind, but it helps
offset the cost of what they'realready going to spend.
It right, it just helps offsetthat cost so they don't have to
spend it and it just puts moremoney into the organization.
(21:13):
And I mean it's just.
I have seen in in uh, so wow,14 years I've.
I've seen how much theorganization has grown in the
amount of just that ministrythat they get to do that.
And it's not that the church isnot doing, but there's some
areas that they can fill in thegaps and that need to be filled
(21:33):
in the gap.
It's just been phenomenal tosee what the impact is Well.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
I remember just from
us doing that Brady I had before
my wife moved to the companyshe's with.
Now she's working with anothercompany downtown.
Just from that I think they sawus.
They like she shared somethingwe posted.
Remember we made some video oryou know, we made posted some
pictures of our team delivering,because I think that was the
same year because we filled upan entire like we had to take it
(22:00):
.
We had to take a container thatyou're you're talking about
benji put all the food in it wehad to take, take it there, put
it in a container, bring thecontainer.
And then we had to take thecontainer in a box truck to
family services because theywere like there's just too much
stuff for us to load and unload.
But just because of all thattoo, I remember Emily's company.
Um, they did like packingparties.
(22:21):
So they did so for a couple,like two or three years.
They did the same thing intheir office and then Vineyard
Van Circus came and picked upthe items and brought it.
So it was just so awesome, youknow.
And then VSF does so much moretoo.
Right, like this, not justbackpack buddy.
So doing that allows them tohelp with the other ministries
that they're doing, just fromone thing, how it offsets and
(22:42):
helps everything.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Yeah, like I said,
it's a, it really the ministry
or the nonprofit is issupporting and helping the
entire family unit and so therethere's lots of stuff that that
they do.
I mean, I know that there was a.
We got a grant last year thatis just for how to help kids and
work with churches and pastorson sharing their faith with
(23:04):
their kids and yeah, it's justit's been phenomenal to see what
they're doing.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Well then, through
all that, you know, when you
guys expanded into the Texasmarkets, I remember we were
trying to find a way so we don'twant to do this just in
Birmingham, Like how do we dothis in Dallas and how do we do
it in Houston, and so the teamwas able to work through that
and find very similar type ofministries and organizations
(23:33):
that we could partner with toessentially do the same thing.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Yeah, I mean honestly
.
One of those, adam, is theFirst Responder Children's
Foundation.
They're based out of there Ithink they're headquartered in
New York City actually, but theway that their mission is is a
great.
If you're not participatingwith them, I'd encourage you to
look them up Again.
First Responder Children'sFoundation.
What they do is they provideassistance to first responders.
(23:58):
So it is as people donate totheir operation, their fund,
they are able to give back.
It may be through scholarships,through a first responders
child, it might be through a toydrive that they can help those
kids at Christmas time.
Just because we know firstresponders I'll be the I'll be
(24:19):
one to admit they don't get paidenough money.
Let's just be honest, theydon't.
These people are putting theirlife on the line to help us
every single day Fire, police,medical.
They're all first respondersand what the First Responder
Children's Foundation does isable to provide assistance to
those people and I'd encourageyou, if you haven't considered
(24:39):
something to donate towards orsomething to give back, to
contact them.
The team is Jillian is the CEOof that company and she is
fantastic to work with.
I would encourage you to reachout to them.
The team is Jillian is the CEOof that company and she is
fantastic to work with.
I would encourage you to reachout to them.
They will schedule a call andtell you how you can participate
in a toy drive in your localmarket.
It's a great resource.
So, to answer your question,adam, or your statement rather
(25:02):
that, that's kind of what we'retrying to do to help our other
offices as well.
So it's a great.
It's a great resource.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, yeah, I know
that's a big, a big thing to do
to help our other offices aswell.
So it's a great, it's a greatresource.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's a big, a big thing to do, because you
know we've done that.
And then we actually didbackpack buddies in the other
market, like you were talkingabout, brady, that is a national
program and because of thatpartnership there we were able
to do the same thing.
I can't remember which market,um, but I know they we did.
(25:30):
I mean, instead of, we didoperation green wave and instead
of vsf it was backpack buddies.
So we were able to do similarthings in every market but find
a way for every team.
What's nice is that's the toughpart, right, especially you guys
as owners.
You're you're dealing withsometimes totally different
markets and you're dealing withwell, how do we create a team
atmosphere in other marketswhere we can do things that are
(25:54):
similar and bring the teamtogether?
And that's something they wereable, that we were able to kind
of lock in place and say, hey,we can do similar what we're
doing in Birmingham and you knowany business owners that might
be listening it's the same thingthey could do is say, hey, well
, we want to give, but we're indifferent markets, right Like
we're, so you can find thingssimilar to help do that.
So that way you can really getyour team involved and have them
(26:17):
say, hey, this is what we'redoing as a team, this is how
we're giving back and this ishow we're going to try to make
change during this holidayseason.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, and another way
, from an outside perspective,
that you know businesses orpeople give back to their local
communities is through theirlocal church.
You know there are people,there are businesses that at the
end of the year maybe they'vehad a great year and they're
looking for a way to offset someof their expenses and what have
you taxes, but they're doingcharitable contributions to
(26:45):
their local church, whichimpacts that community as well.
So it's not just anorganization, like we've talked
with Vineyard Family Servicesand First Responder Children's
Foundation.
Also, you've got the localchurch, the local community that
people can get involved in.
And I thought, as we kind ofbrought this episode to a close,
brady, talk about just a couplethings that we've done with our
(27:07):
employees, that we've been ableto give back during the holiday
season.
It's simple things.
Just talk about a couple ofthose that you may remember.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
One thing before that
, benji.
I think you were talking aboutgiving back to your church.
Obviously, we know, you knownext Friday, black Friday people
are going to be, people aregoing to be spending a lot of
money and then, uh, thefollowing Monday, cyber Monday,
people are going to be spendinga lot of money, but don't forget
about giving Tuesday.
So that's that's the very nextday.
(27:37):
So we, we, you know, especiallyas, uh, you know, americans and
and living in the part of theworld that we do, we, we do have
a consumer mindset and we spenda lot of money, and so I think
it's great that, right on theheels of that, we've got Giving
Tuesday, and I know our churchjust sent out something
(27:57):
yesterday about some of theministries that we'll be
supporting as a part of thatGiving Tuesday.
But, wherever you are, you'regoing to be spending money.
Go ahead and prepare to givetoo.
It's just great being generous.
Some of the ways that we've doneit.
I mean, typically we've donesomething on Thanksgiving.
I remember years ago, benji,you know, we gave out turkeys to
all of our employees.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
We had to go buy some
of them.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
We did and I think
several years ago, we discovered
, you know, it's going to behard to do for 200 people, yeah,
we discover you're not it'sgoing to be hard to do for 200
people, yeah, so we, we dosomething different, but just
helping to provide, you know, toour, our family, our ServPro
family, for Thanksgiving meal,and so we do it in the form of
gift cards.
Just, that's just the the, apractical way that we can do it.
(28:41):
I'd love to go back to theturkeys because it's, it's, it's
more, it's more real.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, gift cards,
just cards, just but we would
have to have about 10 deepfreezers to do that.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Well, funny story
this morning, when I was pulling
out to take my daughter toschool, I pulled up.
Leo and I are director of humanresources, live in the same
neighborhood, so I pulled upnext to him and I rolled my
window down.
I was like, hey, buddy, youseem excited You're getting to
go to work.
He was like I'm about to spendthe next four hours at Publix
buying gift cards Because theyhave to do them individually.
(29:16):
He said Adam, they know me byname, they know me when I come
in, because it's like I needthis many gift cards.
He said every single one ofthem has to be activated.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
He will be there for
about four hours.
Another thing and this is notnecessarily just during the
holiday season, and I can'tremember if we've talked about
this on the podcast or not butour organization, we started a
care team and what that careteam is is really getting the
entire organization to fund thecare team.
(29:52):
And we actually have acommittee that meets once a
month and it's not me or benji,it's five of our team members
and they rotate, you know, everyquarter, every six they
volunteered on that on top ofyep what they're doing so it's
not in.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
They're doing what
they're in the company and pay
for it.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
They said, hey, I'd
love to be a part of this and be
a part of it, and so whatpeople will do is is they have a
need, and I suspect that duringthe holiday season, we'll have
some needs that that pop up,some financial needs, and what's
great about that is, uh, it'snot just Benji and I
participating in the care team,financially, which we have, but
(30:34):
we've got a lot of team membersacross our organization that
have also participated.
So when those financial needscome up, then we're able to help
people, and we've done this inyears past, not necessarily, you
know, quote, unquote the careteam, but with this initiative
that we launched this year,we've already been able to help
out so many people and, uh, andI, like I said, I suspect that
we'll have some more during theholiday season.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Well, and it's a
really cool thing too, because
you know one of the things that,um, when I was still on the
leadership team, we it wasn'tjust financially, it was like
people that said, hey, you knowI'll, I'll give up.
You know I'll give up days offI have, because, especially
during the holidays, you know, Ican tell you personally we're
fortunate to have parents thatcan help with it.
But just having kids and notbeing able to like if your
(31:17):
daycare is closed or school isclosed or things like that, you
know.
So that's what's.
You're just talking aboutgiving Benji.
There's so many different ways.
I think so many people thinkfinancially right, and that's
the first thing they hear theword giving and they're like, oh
well, you know, we don't havethe money to give and you can
say, well, you don't have tolike.
Well, what if you have a couplehours you could donate?
You know if your company doesthat like hey, you know, hey,
(31:37):
you know, you know we joke allthe time.
You don't use days, you know?
Or you know, can I give some ofmy time and things like that.
So I think sometimes, as we'rethinking about not just business
but just personally, what aredifferent ways that we can do
things?
It doesn't always have to bemoney.
(31:58):
You can find ways to do thingsand and give that back.
So it was really cool.
Adam.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
I was going to say.
Speaking of that, I've got afriend of mine that I'm in a
peer group C12, with and he runsa big financial group in town
and one thing that he does andwe've actually considered this.
We haven't done anything withit yet, but he will give I think
it's either eight hours or 16hours of paid PTO time to go
(32:25):
volunteer somewhere.
Oh, that's cool.
So it's not normal PTO to govolunteer somewhere.
So it's not.
So it's not normal.
Pto is specific volunteers.
You got to bring something backof where you served and what
you did, but he's actuallypaying a day or two to any
anyone in his organization to goand serve the community.
I thought that that was realneat.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
That's really good,
no, that's really cool, Cause
you think I mean he, I meanthat's a way for him to give, to
say, hey, you know, here'sanother way that we as a
business can give.
But while you're doing that,because it is tough, you're like
, well, you know, how am Isupposed to?
You know, I'm working a 40, 50hour week.
How am I doing that?
And then, on top of that, likefinding time if you have family,
(33:07):
so that's, I've never heard ofthat.
That's a really cool way tolook at things.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yeah, and and again.
As we wrap this episode up, wejust want to tell you how
thankful we are.
Keep your stories coming to uswe.
We appreciate the feedback, weappreciate the encouragement, um
, that we do this for you andhopefully it gives you some
knowledge to share, not in justyour local business but, as the
guys had said, your personallife as well.
One big achievement for us guyswe just passed the twenty five
(33:33):
hundred download of our, of ourepisode A fist pumping listeners
A fist pumping Watch on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
You can see it.
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah, it's, it's,
it's really, it's fantastic.
And you know, as we, as we getagain really close to Christmas,
we just want to say from ourfamily to you Merry Christmas,
and Jesus is the reason for theseason.
Connect with us on social media, appreciate you guys.
Tune in next time.