Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership. Good morning, you'll find out
with Pete the Poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonard and I'm
the Poet Gold and we're on the air this morning.
People from Drake Creative. That's Alex Tolly and Dean Temple.
And before we get to Dean and Al, we're going
to go right to the poet Gold for her weekly
poem prayer incantation on Gold. Please get it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Thank you, Peter. I'm going to do a poem called
The Last Christmas, which is a poem about my sister,
but it's about joy. It's comes from the Joy section
of my upcoming book, be the poem Living Beyond Our
Fears The Last Christmas. She found joy in the singing
and the laughing, and the giving, and the living, and
the loving and the dancing, and the watching and the
carrying and the knowing. Then she exclaimed, as we reveled
(00:51):
in the unwrapping, this may be my last Christmas. So
we found joy in the singing and the laughing, and
the giving and the living and the loving and the
dancing and the watching and the carrying and the knowing.
And then it was her last Christmas. And in the
new season we honored her in the singing and the
dancing and the laughing and the giving and the living
and the loving and the watching and the caring and
the knowing. How joyful she lived.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
That's as good as poems get gold. I mean, no,
I know, the laughing and the living and giving. I
never heard that one. Okay, So that's a new one, right, yes, okay?
And giving? Okay, giving and giving is a thing that
Drake Creator has done for quite a long time. And
(01:36):
the recognition of that is this year on July eighth,
they're going to be July tenth, I'm sorry, Joe, July tenth,
they're going to be honored by family services at the
Big Family of the Dinna. And thank you for the
correction on the number. But could you both give us
(01:58):
a sense of what Drake Creative is about. And you
will eventually work into a community community contributions else you
want to sure?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So we very creative.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
We started in twenty let's see two thousand and three,
and we are an MWBE and we explain.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
It to our Oh yeah, what that is.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yes, absolutely, We're a woman owned business enterprise recognized by
New York State and Dean is the art creative director.
I am the production director and owner. And we started
out working for all sorts of different companies, but we
(02:44):
sort of when we came to the Hudson Valley, we
really decided to focus on nonprofits and so we do
communications and branding for nonprofits mostly.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Well, I know that that we worked on a project
together right for the City of Pikeepsie get a little
lot of projects like that.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Well that, so a lot of what we do is
what we call mission driven content, and so we take
a sort of a documentary approach to telling stories of organizations,
in that case, actually telling the story of Poughkeepsie for
the Mayor's office. We had been part of the DRI application.
They're the ten million dollar award that they got from
(03:23):
New York State, and we took the presentation that we
did for that and turned it into more of a
film for an audience so that it could be shown
at the Bartivon for the State of the City address,
and Gold was gracious enough to be the voiceover on
that piece. So I wrote the script that you read
and put together the film and that it was just
(03:45):
shown at the Barvon, which is kind of fun to
have your work shown on the enormous screen of the
Bard Front.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Can you explain to our listeners what the DRI.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Well, I can't explain what it stands for, but it
basically it's a series of capital improvement projects that are
a bunch of city supply around the state and Poughkeepsie
was one of the ones that won, and they won
a ten million dollars grant for projects to improve the city,
to create to drive commerce, to create spaces for people,
(04:15):
to create community. It's a very positive thing for Poughkeepsie
to have received. It's great.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Now in July tenth, you're getting the award from Family
Services and what is the name of the award that
you guys are recipient of, humor.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yes, a part of the Community partners.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Yeah, he's a Community Partner award, all right, all right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And the work you do definitely is in partnership. Like
you said, it's mission driven, So you're forming these collaborative
relationships in order to convey the vision that an organization has.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And it encouraged to me when you usual a mission
which has a mildly spiritual tone to it. One of
the things you guys have done for a long time
that I'm aware is you've blessed the Hustl Valley. You
know there was the good stuff going on. You've made
it clear what that good stuff is. Yeah, you're not
(05:08):
out there saying terrible anything is. You are the ones
who highlight, uh, what's swell about it? So the thing
about the thing for the city is state of the
City of venceus Ya, which you know you okay, you
wrote goal read it, Uh, and it was just one take, right,
(05:30):
I mean that was really you were both Uh it.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Was largely one take and there was a couple there
were a couple of little bits we read it, but yeah,
it was it was We went through it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it's really called one take when you have to
do two words here and two words is. But it's
clarifying what's true. So, I mean, true things are good
in themselves, but in order to really become a community,
you have to tell the truth and make and make
it interesting. And that's where art comes in, right.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Sure, I mean you look at the foundations for things,
you see what the positives are. I think quite often
what we do is we try to listen to what
people have to say, and then we translate that into
what the possibilities are. We're always looking to see the
work people are doing. We look at the work people
are doing and try to highlight that and then just
(06:22):
get out of the way. I really what I've always found,
if someone knows what they're talking about and you allow
them to say it, that's going to be better writing
than you will ever come up with on your own.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
But I think you also, we know where we live
here in the Hudson Valley. It's not as physically beautiful.
I mean, the people here are beautiful and wonderful, and
I mean we're so lucky actually to work here with
everybody here. I just I mean, I feel really grateful
that we've been able to establish these really long term
(06:57):
relationships with our clients.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And you know, so, do you reside in Poughkeepsie or
in the surrounding areas.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We're out in the town of Washington sort of towards
Dover Plains. But we have an office here and we
you know, we get here every every week get commute. Yes,
it's a it's a beautiful commute.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I know, I love it. So so when you came
to this area, you decided to be more mission driven.
What's the difference between what you do now in comparison
to what you did in New York City.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Well, in New York City, we were working for large corporations,
a lot of large financial corporations. AIG was a client, Morgan's,
Stanley Capitol International was a client, Thompson Reuter's was a client.
So we was all a lot of it was very
financed driven. It was much higher pressure. That said, it
also was much higher payank. But but that's also a
(07:53):
difference between being in the city and being here, right,
There were there were aspects of it that we didn't like.
And there's I mean, there's a story worry that I
don't know that I would tell on the radio. But
we had one particular all right, I'll tell you. We
had one particular client, and I had been writing all
of this content for them about how they approached investment
and all these things. And I was writing things to
make them sound really good. And so I've immersed myself
(08:17):
in Benjamin Graham and all of these fundamentals of investment,
started writing all of this stuff for them. And I
was sitting next to this older woman on the train
at one point who told me a story about how
she decided to invest her life savings since she started
quoting my writing to me. And that was very uncomfortable moment.
That was, as a younger person, a moment where I
(08:38):
realized that I was doing some things that I didn't
know if I believed in, and I didn't know if
the people I was writing for believed in either. So
when I suddenly was confronted and again you're younger, you
don't understand the implications of those, but those moments happened,
and suddenly you're like, Wow, I'm impacting people, and I
(09:00):
don't know if I'm impacting them in a good way,
And so it's sort of forces of rethink of how
you approach the world.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I mean, I would say, going even farther back though
than that, when Diana and I first started, we're working
out of college. I mean, we met at work, but
I mean so much of our work was based in stories. Anyway.
We traveled around the world to different places, some safe,
some unsafe, and produced newspapers and they were all based
(09:34):
on you know, banking, but it was it was the
stories that we told. So we've always been part. That's
always been part of whatever we do is that's finding
the truth in the story content and developing from there.
So we still do that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So the nature of ought is to find the truth
and make an interest. But if the overroy, overall Aussian
entity is predatory, it can be a little you could
feel stuck in the middle of that if.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
You're just sitting and you're listening to Finding Out with
Pete and the Poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonard and I'm
the Poe Gold and we're here today with Alex Tully
and Dean Temple, owners of Drake Creative.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You know the idea of you know, being knocked off
your horse. Uh uh, you know.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Alex is a is a is a horsewoman. It has
been knocked off for horse planning.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, but it's a Bible sort of you know, soul
that knocked off the horse say hey man, what do
you do? What are you doing for me? And gene
you being knocked off your horse on a train ride
by some woman and making you re not only rethink,
but re enact, re embody your life is there's a
(10:58):
drama to that, and it's conversion and it's something. And
so when you're to talk about the stories in the
Hudson Valley, if you find your good stories, you'll find
a good way to tell them. And I think that
Alex points that out. One of the things it's really
different and great about the Hudson Value is how many
(11:20):
nonprofits there are that are really great, not only great
in terms of the emission, but the execution of the
things they're actually caring. And my sense is, you know,
it's not completely unique, but the percentage of nonprofits that
are really committed is astonishing. And that's been my observation
(11:41):
over the last thirty or forty years. Here.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, I think we're the broad misconceptions about nonprofits. It's
that they're just charities. Nonprofit is just a corporation that
doesn't have profit as it's focus. You're looking at if
you got a corporation focuses on profit in a way
where the profit is delivered to shareholders, a nonprofit or
(12:03):
a b corp. Also they change their focus so that
any profits that are generated are invested in stakeholders. So
if a nonprofit's making a profit, that money has to
go back into programs for that nonprofit. And you have.
I don't remember the exact numbers. I used to know
the percentage of people who are employed by nonprofits in
the Hudson Valley, but it's a substantial percentage of the
(12:26):
working population here and a lot of those nonprofits it's
not they're not just like Family Services, which is human
services organization and is dealing with a lot of shortcomings
of systems and doing it very professionally. I mean, you're
talking about Family Services is a large corporation and what
(12:46):
it's doing. All of the money that comes into Family Services, though,
is going into investment in the community. They are and
they are addressing issues in this community that are major
challenges that we're facing, like the trauma and traumas one
is one our focus for this year's Family of the
Year at Dinner. The film we're doing focuses on pt
(13:09):
S not d E, Persistent traumatic stress environments and what
happens to Yes, so pt s E is persistent traumatic
stress environments and what that means is someone who has
constant exposure to high stress environments, usually environments that involve
a good degree of violence, or they can involve a
(13:32):
degree of drug abuse. Is no longer the term but
drug use and what that can do to somebody, not
just in terms of mental health and emotional health, but physiologically.
It can actually change your brain chemistry. It can alter
the way your prefrontal cortex develops, It can alter the
way the neural pathways in your brain develop, and it
(13:53):
can and it can make it can make challenges for
people that people don't necessarily necessarily understand. You don't understand
that a kid who's who's experiencing PTS on a regular
basis is going to have more trouble in school because
they're going they're going to be in more of a
survival mode instead of a self regulatory mode. And that's
(14:16):
something we talked about on Monday with doctor Crenshaw, who
was with the Pick Gipsie Children's Home for years and
specializes in trauma, and we detailed with that that with
him extensively. That will be part of a film that
we will do for this event also.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And will this film be available on your website or
will it'll.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Be available through family services? They're generally they're available through
our website also, but we try to encourage people to
go to the.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Client instead on their website.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It'll be on their website and on their social media
and it'll be at the event. So if you want,
you can get tickets to the event and come honor
Alex and me and even donate to the organization and
see the film there. And I won't say free, because
you'd have to pay to go do that, but as
part of the event.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
And what you also made clear before you use the
word pay anything you pay to go to the event
is it's a community act to go and the implications
of spending that money are going to go to not
only the community in general, but it will go to
very specific people in the community. So you know, young
(15:27):
people who are experiencing Yes on trauma. Family Services has
a way of handling that, and it really they do
a lot of really great work, and they do more
great work if they had more great money.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Oh yeah, absolutely anything any money that goes I again,
I don't like to look at these things as charity.
I think of them as investment in community and investment
in quality of life. Everything that we do that invests
in strengthening parts of our community is not just Poughkeepsie.
In every area here, there's there's there's an aspect that
needs to be strengthened and it's a community effort to
(16:03):
do that. Well, you know, you talked about this living
beyond fear and caring and loving, living learning. That's engagement
and when we engage. The more we engage with each other,
the more that we involve ourselves in this process with
each other and develop what we have right, the greater
(16:25):
quality of life all of us.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Will have, absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And it's great to see the nonprofits working together. Actually,
so last year when we helped with Family Services fifty
to end Stigma campaign, they worked with Walkway of the
Hudson and you know started we put we designed these
(16:47):
beautiful decals that go on to the deck of the
Walkway over the Hudson and they have these incredibly positive
messages on it and it encourages community, encourages people to
look up and say hello and talk to people and
engage and just keep an eye out make sure that
everybody's doing okay.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Now, have you, I know a lot of your work
has been Poughkeepsie focused. Have you worked with other nonprofits
outside of the area of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Absolutely. One of our special great friends is the nonprofit
V Day and what's V Day? V Day will you
describe V Day.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
VDAYA is started by the playwright Efan slur Tony Award
winning play right now known as v She started that
with using her original play that was on Broadway, The
Vagina Monologues, And what she did was she took that
play and she said, anybody can use this without paying
rights to use it, but all of the money that
you bring in for this has to go to organizations
(17:48):
in your region that work towards ending violence. For Winning Girls,
they raised one hundred and eighty million dollars in the
first ten years. Yeah, so they've been a client of
OAR since two thousand for We've done a lot of
world premieres for them. We've done that, We've done all
that aside. Well, Alex did a great project for them
last year that she should talk about, which was the
(18:09):
Afghan Women's Speak Project. Tell them about the Anthem Award also.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Oh okay, well I'm a little modest, but we did
get an Anthem Award for a social media series that
developed when d Day came to me with these stories
coming out of Afghan about women, what was happening to
women over there, and so they would be these stories
(18:35):
would come to me and I'd read them and I'd
be like, oh my gosh, how do I how do
we get this across to people? Like? How do we
get across what's happening over there? But we can't show
people's faces, we can't really say anybody's names. So I
took these stories and I started thinking, well, hey, would
you guys consider doing like a graphic novel approach to it?
(18:58):
And so we did and we started to They said yes,
try it, and so I took the content of the stories,
broke it into frames and themes and created these beautiful,
uh you know, little stories that then turned into short
reels that are narrated by a woman who an Afghanian
(19:20):
woman here in the United States. And we were lucky
enough to be nominated for an Anthem Award and we
somehow landed one. It was really a fabulous experience to
have it. But vide gives us these opportunities, and actually
all of our nonprofit clients have given us these extraordinary opportunities.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
If you're just tuning in, you're looking to finding out
with Pete and the poet Gold, and I'm the Poet Gold.
We're here today with Alex Tully and Dean temple right
from Drake created.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
You know, the story of trauma being you know low
a kid in Poughkeepsie or a woman in Afghanistan. It's
all human based stuff that we can eventually understand if
it's artistically brought to us in a way that is workable.
But that's very hard because we're uh innundated with numbers
(20:18):
and the newsreels so quickly and all. So how do
you tell the truth in a way that endures is hard?
And I would like to give myself a free minute
to about one of the things that you've done a
family services, and that is I created a logo for them.
(20:39):
And the picture of the is of a tree. It
has lots of very colorful strands to it with branches
and they're inter related and the h and this I'm
claiming an idiosyncratic but I think, uh, it's not off base.
(20:59):
The tree reminds me so enticing that it reminds me
of you know, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,
where you know that the snake entices Adam and Eve
into eating the apple or committing the sin, and that
story is built in visually to me, but the other
(21:22):
at the same time, the same tree look simultaneously triumphant
and out of the tomb. I mean, it's to me,
it's the whole history of Christianity. It's the sin in salvation.
And the way that tree has the equivocation between being
enticing and sinister and triumphant and holy, is something that
(21:48):
every time I see it, which is a lot I
think of that.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
You know, without the Tree of Knowledge, Peter, we wouldn't
be here on your show today. Well, we wouldn't have
the microphones or the broadcast capability.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Well, it shows how good knowledge is right. But it
and I know everyone doesn't have to think that when
they see it, But that's what all is about. Aught
makes the viewer or the listener or the reader, It
makes them bring their stories out.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
And the tree itself is much is about the importance
of being intertwined, how we all support each other, and
how deeply rooted that has to be for strength. And
so the tree has those roots that come out of it,
and all of the branches in the tree are intertwined.
(22:48):
So what that is is, it's creating. It's the it's
the textile, it's the fabric of a community.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I like to think though of that though, as well
each of the there are you said, there's strands that
come up and out and branches. People aren't on a
on a singular path, right, I mean people you intersect
with somebody and you're and all of a sudden you
branch out in a different direction. But it ultimately it's
(23:18):
growth and opportunity that also comes out of that tree.
And in reality, that particular tree is budding and so
it's It's what I like to think of it is
that it helps individuals be part of a community but
also keep their individual spirit, you know, that's what makes
(23:39):
things grow and yeah, and realize their potential and thrive is.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Key in this case because family services. Why statement is
everyone has the right to thrive.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And I think going back to dealing, what you were
saying about the interconnection in the tree and the roots
sort of reminded me for second of Avatar, you know,
when she's explaining the connection. I don't know if you
ever saw the film, there's.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Something very mythological about that. Yes, there's like a there's
an archetypal idea there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It's all it is. And it's very important to have
good art serving the truth. And one of the things
about the dinner itself, which is another form of you know,
physically coming together in order to be supportive of Family Services.
And I think Jean made the point. You know, we
think of charities as one thing, but Family Service is
(24:35):
very explicit. The leader there, Leah Fellman, is very explicit
that this is about justice. In other words, the people
receiving services deserve them. So if you're, you know, a
woman getting beat up by her partner, it's not only
nice for you to get help, you have a right
to get help. A teenager who was experiencing trauma, it's
(24:58):
not only nice if somebody comes loan, you have a
right to do it. And so Family Services explicitly seize
itself as a human rights to organization and as geans
using the word thrive that Liayer uses all the time,
that people have a right to thrive. And just one
of the things with Golden I will be that Jenner
(25:18):
for sure. And what we're doing is we're putting together
at a table of nonprofit leaders of small organizations, political activists,
so people who are working day in day out for
the good of the community, and as a way of
having them get to know each other better and be
(25:41):
more cooperative. But I mean, and that's in line with
the mission of Family Services. It's reflected very well, I think,
and not only in the work you've done for them,
but in your own partnerships throughout the Hudson Valley. So
we're looking forward to it's July tenth.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
It's a way of having solidarity, you know, an a
an a mission such as Family Services and the work
and the work that you do, you know, because you
certainly don't do charitable work, you know, but but but
you do giving work. You know, in a sense of
what you do, you could be anywhere. You can be
(26:21):
back in New York, you know, doing doing work for
big commercial firms, and you've chosen to go on a
different path based upon your own individual journeys. You know
that impacted you collectively. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I want to encourage a lot of people to join
us on July tenth as your Family Services uh been
a They will honor both Jean and Alex for their
work great creative.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And so let them know how you can get tickets.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
How wow do you know the answer that question? I
would go to Family Services dot org okay, and there
will be something on their website about that I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You just click on a big picture that says Family
of the Year Awards.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
They may have Alexis in my name on it. It
does not. It does not have our picture.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
It does have your name on You sound disappointed, it
doesn't you.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
No, no, no, I think we didn't get them a picture
for a long time, and then we still haven't got
them our biore there they want stuff from We've been remiss,
we have been delinquent. We haven't given them everything they
asked for.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think sometimes with these award events, it happens and they,
you know, the people, the organizers always expected that that
there's going to be a delay with giving the bios
and the pictures, so they'll send an email to have
someone call you.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
And I'm pretty sure they would rather have the film
from us than our bio.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
But not only Family Services, all these nonprofits that have events,
community events where they invite people. And I had such
an important ritual because people of good will need a
place to stand next to some y else of goodwill
and it fortifies that will. And sometimes they measure it,
(28:05):
in my opinion, they measure it to clearly in terms
of the money you raised and all that kind of
stuff which is real and important, but the moral benefit
to being with people who are standing as witnesses the
good work is important for fortifying those witnesses.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Absolutely, don't. You don't feel alone in this world of
nonprofit you know when you when you're with yourself and
kind of going, Am I losing my mind?
Speaker 4 (28:39):
If I can really quickly. I want to go back
to a point that Peter made a little while ago
about people having a right to support, that kids facing trauma,
are women facing trauma have a right to support. Yeah,
that's where the people he mentioned. But I want to
mention something that doctor Crenshaw mentioned on Monday during our
inter because it's so important. He pointed out that when
(29:03):
he was working he did a study on trauma at
the Pighepsie Children's Home from between two thousand and nine
and twenty twenty four on how kids responded, the kids
on their resilience in the face of severe trauma, and
their finding was that eighty four percent of young people
who received the support they needed following trauma experienced recovery,
(29:24):
showed complete resilience, and were able to start functioning at
what should be a normal level for their age. Eighty
four percent, So when we're not providing those supports, we
are losing vast potential in terms of our abilities as
a community and just as humans.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Well, alex Indean, thank you so much for being here
today with finding Out with Pete and the Poet Gold.
We enjoyed the conversation, and to our listeners, we always
appreciate you and tune in next week to finding Out
with Pete and the Poe with Gold. Thank you, thank you,
thank you so much.
The views and opinions expressed in the following programmer those
of the speaker and don't necessarily represent those of the station.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
It's staff management or ownership. Good morning, you'll find out
with Pete the Poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonard and I'm
the Poet Gold and we're on the air this morning.
People from Drake Creative. That's Alex Tolly and Dean Temple.
And before we get to Dean and Al, we're going
to go right to the poet Gold for her weekly
poem prayer incantation on Gold. Please get it roll.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Thank you, Peter. I'm going to do a poem called
The Last Christmas, which is a poem about my sister,
but it's about joy. It's comes from the Joy section
of my upcoming book, be the poem Living Beyond Our
Fears The Last Christmas. She found joy in the singing
and the laughing, and the giving, and the living, and
the loving and the dancing, and the watching and the
carrying and the knowing. Then she exclaimed, as we reveled
(00:51):
in the unwrapping, this may be my last Christmas. So
we found joy in the singing and the laughing, and
the giving and the living and the loving and the
dancing and the watching and the carrying and the knowing.
And then it was her last Christmas. And in the
new season we honored her in the singing and the
dancing and the laughing and the giving and the living
and the loving and the watching and the caring and
the knowing. How joyful she lived.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
That's as good as poems get gold. I mean, no,
I know, the laughing and the living and giving. I
never heard that one. Okay, So that's a new one, right, yes, okay?
And giving? Okay, giving and giving is a thing that
Drake Creator has done for quite a long time. And
(01:36):
the recognition of that is this year on July eighth,
they're going to be July tenth, I'm sorry, Joe, July tenth,
they're going to be honored by family services at the
Big Family of the Dinna. And thank you for the
correction on the number. But could you both give us
(01:58):
a sense of what Drake Creative is about. And you
will eventually work into a community community contributions else you
want to sure?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
So we very creative.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
We started in twenty let's see two thousand and three,
and we are an MWBE and we explain.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
It to our Oh yeah, what that is.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yes, absolutely, We're a woman owned business enterprise recognized by
New York State and Dean is the art creative director.
I am the production director and owner. And we started
out working for all sorts of different companies, but we
(02:44):
sort of when we came to the Hudson Valley, we
really decided to focus on nonprofits and so we do
communications and branding for nonprofits mostly.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Well, I know that that we worked on a project
together right for the City of Pikeepsie get a little
lot of projects like that.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Well that, so a lot of what we do is
what we call mission driven content, and so we take
a sort of a documentary approach to telling stories of organizations,
in that case, actually telling the story of Poughkeepsie for
the Mayor's office. We had been part of the DRI application.
They're the ten million dollar award that they got from
(03:23):
New York State, and we took the presentation that we
did for that and turned it into more of a
film for an audience so that it could be shown
at the Bartivon for the State of the City address,
and Gold was gracious enough to be the voiceover on
that piece. So I wrote the script that you read
and put together the film and that it was just
(03:45):
shown at the Barvon, which is kind of fun to
have your work shown on the enormous screen of the
Bard Front.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Can you explain to our listeners what the DRI.
Speaker 4 (03:53):
Well, I can't explain what it stands for, but it
basically it's a series of capital improvement projects that are
a bunch of city supply around the state and Poughkeepsie
was one of the ones that won, and they won
a ten million dollars grant for projects to improve the city,
to create to drive commerce, to create spaces for people,
(04:15):
to create community. It's a very positive thing for Poughkeepsie
to have received. It's great.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Now in July tenth, you're getting the award from Family
Services and what is the name of the award that
you guys are recipient of, humor.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Yes, a part of the Community partners.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Yeah, he's a Community Partner award, all right, all right.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And the work you do definitely is in partnership. Like
you said, it's mission driven, So you're forming these collaborative
relationships in order to convey the vision that an organization has.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
And it encouraged to me when you usual a mission
which has a mildly spiritual tone to it. One of
the things you guys have done for a long time
that I'm aware is you've blessed the Hustl Valley. You
know there was the good stuff going on. You've made
it clear what that good stuff is. Yeah, you're not
(05:08):
out there saying terrible anything is. You are the ones
who highlight, uh, what's swell about it? So the thing
about the thing for the city is state of the
City of venceus Ya, which you know you okay, you
wrote goal read it, Uh, and it was just one take, right,
(05:30):
I mean that was really you were both Uh it.
Speaker 4 (05:32):
Was largely one take and there was a couple there
were a couple of little bits we read it, but yeah,
it was it was We went through it pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, it's really called one take when you have to
do two words here and two words is. But it's
clarifying what's true. So, I mean, true things are good
in themselves, but in order to really become a community,
you have to tell the truth and make and make
it interesting. And that's where art comes in, right.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Sure, I mean you look at the foundations for things,
you see what the positives are. I think quite often
what we do is we try to listen to what
people have to say, and then we translate that into
what the possibilities are. We're always looking to see the
work people are doing. We look at the work people
are doing and try to highlight that and then just
(06:22):
get out of the way. I really what I've always found,
if someone knows what they're talking about and you allow
them to say it, that's going to be better writing
than you will ever come up with on your own.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
But I think you also, we know where we live
here in the Hudson Valley. It's not as physically beautiful.
I mean, the people here are beautiful and wonderful, and
I mean we're so lucky actually to work here with
everybody here. I just I mean, I feel really grateful
that we've been able to establish these really long term
(06:57):
relationships with our clients.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
And you know, so, do you reside in Poughkeepsie or
in the surrounding areas.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
We're out in the town of Washington sort of towards
Dover Plains. But we have an office here and we
you know, we get here every every week get commute. Yes,
it's a it's a beautiful commute.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I know, I love it. So so when you came
to this area, you decided to be more mission driven.
What's the difference between what you do now in comparison
to what you did in New York City.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Well, in New York City, we were working for large corporations,
a lot of large financial corporations. AIG was a client, Morgan's,
Stanley Capitol International was a client, Thompson Reuter's was a client.
So we was all a lot of it was very
financed driven. It was much higher pressure. That said, it
also was much higher payank. But but that's also a
(07:53):
difference between being in the city and being here, right,
There were there were aspects of it that we didn't like.
And there's I mean, there's a story worry that I
don't know that I would tell on the radio. But
we had one particular all right, I'll tell you. We
had one particular client, and I had been writing all
of this content for them about how they approached investment
and all these things. And I was writing things to
make them sound really good. And so I've immersed myself
(08:17):
in Benjamin Graham and all of these fundamentals of investment,
started writing all of this stuff for them. And I
was sitting next to this older woman on the train
at one point who told me a story about how
she decided to invest her life savings since she started
quoting my writing to me. And that was very uncomfortable moment.
That was, as a younger person, a moment where I
(08:38):
realized that I was doing some things that I didn't
know if I believed in, and I didn't know if
the people I was writing for believed in either. So
when I suddenly was confronted and again you're younger, you
don't understand the implications of those, but those moments happened,
and suddenly you're like, Wow, I'm impacting people, and I
(09:00):
don't know if I'm impacting them in a good way,
And so it's sort of forces of rethink of how
you approach the world.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I mean, I would say, going even farther back though
than that, when Diana and I first started, we're working
out of college. I mean, we met at work, but
I mean so much of our work was based in stories. Anyway.
We traveled around the world to different places, some safe,
some unsafe, and produced newspapers and they were all based
(09:34):
on you know, banking, but it was it was the
stories that we told. So we've always been part. That's
always been part of whatever we do is that's finding
the truth in the story content and developing from there.
So we still do that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
So the nature of ought is to find the truth
and make an interest. But if the overroy, overall Aussian
entity is predatory, it can be a little you could
feel stuck in the middle of that if.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
You're just sitting and you're listening to Finding Out with
Pete and the Poet Gold. I'm Peter Leonard and I'm
the Poe Gold and we're here today with Alex Tully
and Dean Temple, owners of Drake Creative.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
You know the idea of you know, being knocked off
your horse. Uh uh, you know.
Speaker 4 (10:33):
Alex is a is a is a horsewoman. It has
been knocked off for horse planning.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, but it's a Bible sort of you know, soul
that knocked off the horse say hey man, what do
you do? What are you doing for me? And gene
you being knocked off your horse on a train ride
by some woman and making you re not only rethink,
but re enact, re embody your life is there's a
(10:58):
drama to that, and it's conversion and it's something. And
so when you're to talk about the stories in the
Hudson Valley, if you find your good stories, you'll find
a good way to tell them. And I think that
Alex points that out. One of the things it's really
different and great about the Hudson Value is how many
(11:20):
nonprofits there are that are really great, not only great
in terms of the emission, but the execution of the
things they're actually caring. And my sense is, you know,
it's not completely unique, but the percentage of nonprofits that
are really committed is astonishing. And that's been my observation
(11:41):
over the last thirty or forty years. Here.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, I think we're the broad misconceptions about nonprofits. It's
that they're just charities. Nonprofit is just a corporation that
doesn't have profit as it's focus. You're looking at if
you got a corporation focuses on profit in a way
where the profit is delivered to shareholders, a nonprofit or
(12:03):
a b corp. Also they change their focus so that
any profits that are generated are invested in stakeholders. So
if a nonprofit's making a profit, that money has to
go back into programs for that nonprofit. And you have.
I don't remember the exact numbers. I used to know
the percentage of people who are employed by nonprofits in
the Hudson Valley, but it's a substantial percentage of the
(12:26):
working population here and a lot of those nonprofits it's
not they're not just like Family Services, which is human
services organization and is dealing with a lot of shortcomings
of systems and doing it very professionally. I mean, you're
talking about Family Services is a large corporation and what
(12:46):
it's doing. All of the money that comes into Family Services, though,
is going into investment in the community. They are and
they are addressing issues in this community that are major
challenges that we're facing, like the trauma and traumas one
is one our focus for this year's Family of the
Year at Dinner. The film we're doing focuses on pt
(13:09):
S not d E, Persistent traumatic stress environments and what
happens to Yes, so pt s E is persistent traumatic
stress environments and what that means is someone who has
constant exposure to high stress environments, usually environments that involve
a good degree of violence, or they can involve a
(13:32):
degree of drug abuse. Is no longer the term but
drug use and what that can do to somebody, not
just in terms of mental health and emotional health, but physiologically.
It can actually change your brain chemistry. It can alter
the way your prefrontal cortex develops, It can alter the
way the neural pathways in your brain develop, and it
(13:53):
can and it can make it can make challenges for
people that people don't necessarily necessarily understand. You don't understand
that a kid who's who's experiencing PTS on a regular
basis is going to have more trouble in school because
they're going they're going to be in more of a
survival mode instead of a self regulatory mode. And that's
(14:16):
something we talked about on Monday with doctor Crenshaw, who
was with the Pick Gipsie Children's Home for years and
specializes in trauma, and we detailed with that that with
him extensively. That will be part of a film that
we will do for this event also.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
And will this film be available on your website or
will it'll.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Be available through family services? They're generally they're available through
our website also, but we try to encourage people to
go to the.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Client instead on their website.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
It'll be on their website and on their social media
and it'll be at the event. So if you want,
you can get tickets to the event and come honor
Alex and me and even donate to the organization and
see the film there. And I won't say free, because
you'd have to pay to go do that, but as
part of the event.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
And what you also made clear before you use the
word pay anything you pay to go to the event
is it's a community act to go and the implications
of spending that money are going to go to not
only the community in general, but it will go to
very specific people in the community. So you know, young
(15:27):
people who are experiencing Yes on trauma. Family Services has
a way of handling that, and it really they do
a lot of really great work, and they do more
great work if they had more great money.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Oh yeah, absolutely anything any money that goes I again,
I don't like to look at these things as charity.
I think of them as investment in community and investment
in quality of life. Everything that we do that invests
in strengthening parts of our community is not just Poughkeepsie.
In every area here, there's there's there's an aspect that
needs to be strengthened and it's a community effort to
(16:03):
do that. Well, you know, you talked about this living
beyond fear and caring and loving, living learning. That's engagement
and when we engage. The more we engage with each other,
the more that we involve ourselves in this process with
each other and develop what we have right, the greater
(16:25):
quality of life all of us.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Will have, absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
And it's great to see the nonprofits working together. Actually,
so last year when we helped with Family Services fifty
to end Stigma campaign, they worked with Walkway of the
Hudson and you know started we put we designed these
(16:47):
beautiful decals that go on to the deck of the
Walkway over the Hudson and they have these incredibly positive
messages on it and it encourages community, encourages people to
look up and say hello and talk to people and
engage and just keep an eye out make sure that
everybody's doing okay.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Now, have you, I know a lot of your work
has been Poughkeepsie focused. Have you worked with other nonprofits
outside of the area of Poughkeepsie.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Absolutely. One of our special great friends is the nonprofit
V Day and what's V Day? V Day will you
describe V Day.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
VDAYA is started by the playwright Efan slur Tony Award
winning play right now known as v She started that
with using her original play that was on Broadway, The
Vagina Monologues, And what she did was she took that
play and she said, anybody can use this without paying
rights to use it, but all of the money that
you bring in for this has to go to organizations
(17:48):
in your region that work towards ending violence. For Winning Girls,
they raised one hundred and eighty million dollars in the
first ten years. Yeah, so they've been a client of
OAR since two thousand for We've done a lot of
world premieres for them. We've done that, We've done all
that aside. Well, Alex did a great project for them
last year that she should talk about, which was the
(18:09):
Afghan Women's Speak Project. Tell them about the Anthem Award also.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Oh okay, well I'm a little modest, but we did
get an Anthem Award for a social media series that
developed when d Day came to me with these stories
coming out of Afghan about women, what was happening to
women over there, and so they would be these stories
(18:35):
would come to me and I'd read them and I'd
be like, oh my gosh, how do I how do
we get this across to people? Like? How do we
get across what's happening over there? But we can't show
people's faces, we can't really say anybody's names. So I
took these stories and I started thinking, well, hey, would
you guys consider doing like a graphic novel approach to it?
(18:58):
And so we did and we started to They said yes,
try it, and so I took the content of the stories,
broke it into frames and themes and created these beautiful,
uh you know, little stories that then turned into short
reels that are narrated by a woman who an Afghanian
(19:20):
woman here in the United States. And we were lucky
enough to be nominated for an Anthem Award and we
somehow landed one. It was really a fabulous experience to
have it. But vide gives us these opportunities, and actually
all of our nonprofit clients have given us these extraordinary opportunities.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
If you're just tuning in, you're looking to finding out
with Pete and the poet Gold, and I'm the Poet Gold.
We're here today with Alex Tully and Dean temple right
from Drake created.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
You know, the story of trauma being you know low
a kid in Poughkeepsie or a woman in Afghanistan. It's
all human based stuff that we can eventually understand if
it's artistically brought to us in a way that is workable.
But that's very hard because we're uh innundated with numbers
(20:18):
and the newsreels so quickly and all. So how do
you tell the truth in a way that endures is hard?
And I would like to give myself a free minute
to about one of the things that you've done a
family services, and that is I created a logo for them.
(20:39):
And the picture of the is of a tree. It
has lots of very colorful strands to it with branches
and they're inter related and the h and this I'm
claiming an idiosyncratic but I think, uh, it's not off base.
(20:59):
The tree reminds me so enticing that it reminds me
of you know, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden,
where you know that the snake entices Adam and Eve
into eating the apple or committing the sin, and that
story is built in visually to me, but the other
(21:22):
at the same time, the same tree look simultaneously triumphant
and out of the tomb. I mean, it's to me,
it's the whole history of Christianity. It's the sin in salvation.
And the way that tree has the equivocation between being
enticing and sinister and triumphant and holy, is something that
(21:48):
every time I see it, which is a lot I
think of that.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
You know, without the Tree of Knowledge, Peter, we wouldn't
be here on your show today. Well, we wouldn't have
the microphones or the broadcast capability.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Well, it shows how good knowledge is right. But it
and I know everyone doesn't have to think that when
they see it, But that's what all is about. Aught
makes the viewer or the listener or the reader, It
makes them bring their stories out.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
And the tree itself is much is about the importance
of being intertwined, how we all support each other, and
how deeply rooted that has to be for strength. And
so the tree has those roots that come out of it,
and all of the branches in the tree are intertwined.
(22:48):
So what that is is, it's creating. It's the it's
the textile, it's the fabric of a community.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
I like to think though of that though, as well
each of the there are you said, there's strands that
come up and out and branches. People aren't on a
on a singular path, right, I mean people you intersect
with somebody and you're and all of a sudden you
branch out in a different direction. But it ultimately it's
(23:18):
growth and opportunity that also comes out of that tree.
And in reality, that particular tree is budding and so
it's It's what I like to think of it is
that it helps individuals be part of a community but
also keep their individual spirit, you know, that's what makes
(23:39):
things grow and yeah, and realize their potential and thrive is.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Key in this case because family services. Why statement is
everyone has the right to thrive.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
And I think going back to dealing, what you were
saying about the interconnection in the tree and the roots
sort of reminded me for second of Avatar, you know,
when she's explaining the connection. I don't know if you
ever saw the film, there's.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
Something very mythological about that. Yes, there's like a there's
an archetypal idea there, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It's all it is. And it's very important to have
good art serving the truth. And one of the things
about the dinner itself, which is another form of you know,
physically coming together in order to be supportive of Family Services.
And I think Jean made the point. You know, we
think of charities as one thing, but Family Service is
(24:35):
very explicit. The leader there, Leah Fellman, is very explicit
that this is about justice. In other words, the people
receiving services deserve them. So if you're, you know, a
woman getting beat up by her partner, it's not only
nice for you to get help, you have a right
to get help. A teenager who was experiencing trauma, it's
(24:58):
not only nice if somebody comes loan, you have a
right to do it. And so Family Services explicitly seize
itself as a human rights to organization and as geans
using the word thrive that Liayer uses all the time,
that people have a right to thrive. And just one
of the things with Golden I will be that Jenner
(25:18):
for sure. And what we're doing is we're putting together
at a table of nonprofit leaders of small organizations, political activists,
so people who are working day in day out for
the good of the community, and as a way of
having them get to know each other better and be
(25:41):
more cooperative. But I mean, and that's in line with
the mission of Family Services. It's reflected very well, I think,
and not only in the work you've done for them,
but in your own partnerships throughout the Hudson Valley. So
we're looking forward to it's July tenth.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
It's a way of having solidarity, you know, an a
an a mission such as Family Services and the work
and the work that you do, you know, because you
certainly don't do charitable work, you know, but but but
you do giving work. You know, in a sense of
what you do, you could be anywhere. You can be
(26:21):
back in New York, you know, doing doing work for
big commercial firms, and you've chosen to go on a
different path based upon your own individual journeys. You know
that impacted you collectively. Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
I want to encourage a lot of people to join
us on July tenth as your Family Services uh been
a They will honor both Jean and Alex for their
work great creative.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And so let them know how you can get tickets.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
How wow do you know the answer that question? I
would go to Family Services dot org okay, and there
will be something on their website about that I'm sure.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
You just click on a big picture that says Family
of the Year Awards.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
They may have Alexis in my name on it. It
does not. It does not have our picture.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
It does have your name on You sound disappointed, it
doesn't you.
Speaker 4 (27:12):
No, no, no, I think we didn't get them a picture
for a long time, and then we still haven't got
them our biore there they want stuff from We've been remiss,
we have been delinquent. We haven't given them everything they
asked for.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
I think sometimes with these award events, it happens and they,
you know, the people, the organizers always expected that that
there's going to be a delay with giving the bios
and the pictures, so they'll send an email to have
someone call you.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
And I'm pretty sure they would rather have the film
from us than our bio.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
But not only Family Services, all these nonprofits that have events,
community events where they invite people. And I had such
an important ritual because people of good will need a
place to stand next to some y else of goodwill
and it fortifies that will. And sometimes they measure it,
(28:05):
in my opinion, they measure it to clearly in terms
of the money you raised and all that kind of
stuff which is real and important, but the moral benefit
to being with people who are standing as witnesses the
good work is important for fortifying those witnesses.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Absolutely, don't. You don't feel alone in this world of
nonprofit you know when you when you're with yourself and
kind of going, Am I losing my mind?
Speaker 4 (28:39):
If I can really quickly. I want to go back
to a point that Peter made a little while ago
about people having a right to support, that kids facing trauma,
are women facing trauma have a right to support. Yeah,
that's where the people he mentioned. But I want to
mention something that doctor Crenshaw mentioned on Monday during our
inter because it's so important. He pointed out that when
(29:03):
he was working he did a study on trauma at
the Pighepsie Children's Home from between two thousand and nine
and twenty twenty four on how kids responded, the kids
on their resilience in the face of severe trauma, and
their finding was that eighty four percent of young people
who received the support they needed following trauma experienced recovery,
(29:24):
showed complete resilience, and were able to start functioning at
what should be a normal level for their age. Eighty
four percent, So when we're not providing those supports, we
are losing vast potential in terms of our abilities as
a community and just as humans.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Well, alex Indean, thank you so much for being here
today with finding Out with Pete and the Poet Gold.
We enjoyed the conversation, and to our listeners, we always
appreciate you and tune in next week to finding Out
with Pete and the Poe with Gold. Thank you, thank you,
thank you so much.
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