Today we have the privilege to sit down with a powerhouse couple in our community who is making a difference when it comes to our youth and helping families who have been though tremendous loss. Please welcome Corey & Kim Whitmore! Corey is a Record/Mix Engineer, Producer, DJ, Founder of Media 22, Educator, & Coach. Kim is a #ladyboss in the healthcare field. She is a nurse, who's passionate about helping those with disabilities, and the President of the "Alana Rose Foundation." This segment is not only exciting, but very informative. First we begin with Corey's journey and expertise in the music industry. We will learn what initially sparked Corey's passion for media and music. Also we will learn what "experience" led him to commit himself to community engagement and youth empowerment, and what advice and insights he shares into breaking into the media industry.
Lastly, we end today's segment on a powerful & emotional journey that led Kim & Corey to create the "Alana Rose Foundation" This extremely brave, strong, and resilient young couple share their story of their beautiful baby girl who they loss due to an acute total placental abruption. Their mission of the Alana Rose Foundation is to raise awareness and provide hope, healing, and support to families who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss.
Learn more AlanaRose.Org
Lastly, we end today's segment on a powerful & emotional journey that led Kim & Corey to create the "Alana Rose Foundation" This extremely brave, strong, and resilient young couple share their story of their beautiful baby girl who they loss due to an acute total placental abruption. Their mission of the Alana Rose Foundation is to raise awareness and provide hope, healing, and support to families who have experienced pregnancy and infant loss.
Learn more AlanaRose.Org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, Karina, I'm super excited about our two special guests
here today. I had the opportunity of being invited on
another dear friend of ours, Markshaw Evans podcast, You Control You.
And when it comes to this amazing couple, they are
making a difference in our community. And might I just
add his resume is long. Not only is he a
(00:20):
record mix engineer, a DJ, an educator, an owner and
founder of Media twenty two, a coach, and he and
his wife Kim are the founders of a beautiful foundation
called the Alana Rose Foundation, which we will be talking about.
Please say hello to Corey and Kim whitmore. What's up,
my man?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
How are you doing? That's a list, It's a list.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That's a list.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You definitely have been getting your hands in our community
for quite a while. And I love that about you
because it's important, especially for Koreina and I, is to
keep meeting more individuals that are doing things like that
for our youth. So thank you so much again for
what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thank you, thank you. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
It's something that I true enjoying, something that really started
out with My mom was in education and my sister
is at education as an administrative principal and teacher, so
she really introduced me to giving back to the community
in that way. When I was younger and she had
me up for some of the summer camps she would
run just.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Like your mom. My mom was also a teacher. She
taught special ed and there was a camp that all
of us kids would go to because it was a
family tradition, even with my mom. So it was like
a month long all female canoe camp. I'm like, either
my mom's trying to get rid of me or I
just don't know what's happening here. But I am not
a so called expert of venuing, but I definitely am
(01:39):
someone that can portage one. So if you ever get suck,
let's get into what actually sparked your passion into media.
I know for myself, I fell into it luckily being
in theater in college and getting into this industry with
Karna being you know, in Chicago at the time, being
an actress. Tell us why this was like something you
decided to walk your path through.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
It's interesting because I got a late start as well,
so I really didn't get into the music side of
media until college. I didn't play an instrument in high school.
Wasn't involved really in media in high school. And I
got to college and my roommate I was staying with
a roommate from California, and he had a beat making program.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh, I'd never.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Heard of it, and I was like, oh, I'm like
this is interesting. He's like, yeah, you should. You should
mess around with it. So I messed around with it
and I made probably around like fifty seventy five beats
off of it, and I was like, Oh, this is cool.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Is there something else out there?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Then I found another one and it was like a
mix of DJ and producing, and then I did a
bunch of beats on there, and then I was like, ah,
is there something even better? Like I would max each
one out and say like was there something more complicated
that I that I could use? And then you know
connor From there, I ended up graduating from Marquette University
and shortly after that started a record label with some
(02:56):
a few students that I knew from Marquette and some
folks that kind of that worked with, and some folks
that ended up searching me out from the Northern Illinois
area that were artists.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And so I'm.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Fresh out of college not sure how to have to
run a record label. I know, I like making music
and I was learning how to record music, and so
everything was kind of on the fly. And so I
had three artists in the beginning and then ended up
with six to seven artists and we did mainly hip
hop and R and B. Then we went into reggaetone
(03:29):
and then we had older artists, then we had younger artists.
So before I left Milwaukee, we had two high school
groups that were actually a part of the label. And
it was my responsibility kind of from front to back
produce record book shows, orchestrate practice and everything, rehearsals, how
to market. It helped put stuff on the website. At
(03:52):
that time, ringtones.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Were and all those things, and you know it, I learned.
I learned a lot. There's a lot of skills.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
From a management standpoint, from a media standpoint, but really
just from working with with people and kind of the
business aspect of it, of like how do we sustain this,
how do we make a profit, How do we reinvest
so that we can add merchandise, We can go on
longer trips, we can go on promotional trips and try
(04:28):
to just go and meet people, even though we aren't
making any money back when we're trying to you know,
meet people and try and create that network. And so
it's a lot of facets to that experience that really
helped shape and mold me and kind of even pushed
me towards where I am right now, you know, moving
into not only doing the music side with the recording
studio at Media twenty two, but also adding the visual
(04:50):
side to it, which is the live streaming and the
video podcasts and things of that sort, because that was
a part of the music business as well at that time.
We outsourced for video, but I was still intricated in
the process. This is what I kind of wanted to
look like, here's the idea I have for this artist
for this video.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Can you do X, Y and Z.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I just wasn't pulling the trigger as far as the
editor that was putting all that together right.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And it's so important too, And I like that you
brought this up, the educational part of it, because you
can be very passionate about something, I know, Like for me,
I fell into radio, like I was hired because of
like my personality, but I had no idea how to
do anything right. I didn't know how to run a board.
I didn't know how to produce. I didn't know how
to do that. So, like you, I lived in Chicago,
went to the Illinois Center for Broadcasting so I could
(05:34):
learn all of that, and then I was interning for
B ninety six and like that's how yeah that you
know those connections, that networking, But you have to have
the skills in order to really make a living, right,
I mean, that's really important to teach our children, right,
And there's.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And there's you know a couple of ways to do it.
You did it the correct way. That's the way I
wish I would have done well.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
It's looking back on a like, ah, man, I should
have did it that way. Uh. You know.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I started in, jumped in and I had a short
kind of internship at a local.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Record label.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
But I really jumped in and was trying to bang
my head and figure it out.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So it was really trial and error.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, it was wow, Okay, this sounded good here, and
then I played in the car. Wow, I'm gonna I'm
gonna lose a speaker here. We continue to play play
this mix because the base is so heavy and you know,
a lot of trial and error, and I ended up
kind of on the ladder end going to Madison Media
before it closed when we relocated from Milwaukee to Madison,
(06:38):
and so I think that helped to fine tune and
even correct some things that maybe you know from being
self taught that I learned either you know, make it
a little bit better, made it sharper, or you know,
that's probably not the best process in which you're using
to try to get this done. Here's something easier, here's
something that's quicker, here's something that's more efficient. So I
(06:59):
went to school, you know, funny on the back end,
but school was the separation between the record label, which
I did for eight years, and then going into media
twenty two, which we're now in our seventh year with
that business, and really transitioning from something that was based
upon artists and talent and moving towards something that's now
based upon service and things that we can offer to customers.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And so the revenue stream changes.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
The revenue stream for that was, you know, depending on
how talented the artists and how well we were able
to market them, that's where the revenue would come in.
Where now I have a base of services that I
can put out to the public, and now that's a
little bit more of a steady revenue stream and something
that's you know, more foundational that you can kind of
build upon and move forward.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Love that.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I'm sure Karina you can understand, like, you know, well,
needing a business like that.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, And I think what's really interesting is your journey
and how open you are about the process than the
steps that you took, because I think that's such a
valuable conversation to have, especially now, and everyone is also
needing to be more mindful of their actions and the steps,
right because we're going in a different world, yes, you know,
And and I like that because I think that's what
(08:11):
makes what you're doing now just so impactful for people. So,
I mean, I feel like we could have like eight
episodes on this guy.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Absolutely, we just have him back.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I keep buying to like hold back and be like
I have a question for you.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Let's go back, Let's go back to your Corey.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But you know, we talked a little bit very early
on about your connection with your family and how they
kind of leveraged this take off for you right in
the community, and then obviously hearing about your journey and
this whole bio that I feel like we could literally
do eight episodes on you know, your your commitment to
the community, youth empowerment. I mean, can you pinpoint or
(08:50):
share an area where that really like became your moment
of commitment for this.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, I think what I had mentioned before is more
the introduction with my sister have including me in camps
and staying with her for for a month and things
of that sort. My wife, I think it had stopped
at the Boys and Girls Club, I think for it
was it a clinic I'm you're working on and I
had tripped upon a recording studio there, and this was
while we're in Milwaukee that was closed, and you know,
(09:19):
she had said something, I think she had said something
to them, and then comes home it's like, yeah, there's
a there's a recording studio not being used sitting in
the teen center at the Boys and Girls Club in Milwaukee.
It is one of the larger Boys and Girls clubs,
And so I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm doing
music right now. I didn't really that time see the
parallel between working with kids and the music because I
(09:40):
was still really learning myself right, and I'm like, well,
do I have something to really share, you know, I
put it in an application.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
They brought me in.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I looked at the studio, I said, yeah, we could
do something. We may want to make some upgrades and.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Some changes here.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
I took a part time position there, ended up going
full time and then being the teen programs coordinator, then
eventually having some of the teens that came up while
I was there run the studio, and so from there
really moving up until now. I've always been involved with kids,
(10:15):
mainly teens, and media and music in some way, shape
or form. So it hasn't always looked the same, but
there's always.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Been that connection.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And so so from there, from the studio and to
here in Madison, I'm working with the juvenile Detention Center,
I'm working with the local shelter here and the Restore
program through the Madison School District here doing.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Music production and podcasting.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I love that, And so even though I'm no longer
in Milwaukee, I'm here, but it's taken just a different
form and a different.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Shape, but still still relatively simmer.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And next to you you have your beautiful wife, Kim,
who also is a lady boss. And we're going to
be speaking more with her and how she has has
well joined you in touching our community. How important is
it to you to, you know, have watched Corey go
through his journey and to really fulfill the things that
he really wanted to reach out for.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
I am so proud of him, and I don't know
if I say that enough. But you know, Cory and
I have been together for twenty five years, which is
crazy to think. And I remember when he was just
playing around with beats in college.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
And you know, he had his Ducetuice entertainment label and
I was a groupie and we go to shows and
you know, it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Was so fun.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
But then you know, we got married, we had kids.
Those performances at two in the morning at the clubs
were not that fun anymore for either of us as
we got older, and you know, just seeing him evolve.
And the one thing you know by my husband is
he is the most self directed, self taught human I've
ever met like he. You know, he's well educated, he's
(11:54):
got you know, he's got a degree in business from
Marquette and broadcasting, but he what he does now is
all stuff he's taught himself, and he is constantly learning.
He listens to books and podcasts and you too, I
mean two nauseum sometimes like people be driving in the
car and he's like listening to something to make himself wise,
you know. But it's amazing and he's the most humble
(12:16):
person you would ever meet. But he makes such a difference.
And it's interesting because my background, my career is more
working in public health and I'm a nurse and I've
done a lot of work with people disabilities in the community.
And you know, I think it was probably like ten
years ago when I'm like, you know, what you're doing
is public health work, Like you are doing youth empowerment work.
(12:38):
You are helping folks. And I actually helped him write
a public health grant for the Minority Health Department at
the state, which he used to do a podcast with
high school students to better understand their experience with the
education gaps that exist in opportunity gaps in our schools
and for our black and brown students in Madison and
(13:00):
that that that podcast was an amazing experience. But what
he does is really helping to support and mentor kids
and it's what he loves. He's so good at it.
Like we have a sixteen year old, and I'm not
very good at raising a teenager, but he's really good
at it. He has just such a great way with youth.
(13:24):
He's you know, you know, I don't know if you're
familiar with the term eky guy no, which is it's
the Japanese phrase that means your reason for being and
it's sort of the intersection of what you're good at,
what you love to do, and what the world needs
you to do. And for Corey it's mentoring, like he
is a mentor like through and through and everything he
(13:45):
does like he doesn't just do stuff, he models it
to teach others. And it's been really amazing to see
him grow and finally get some of the recognition that
he deserves, even though he doesn't think he deserves it
because he's very humble.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Well, we are deserve They are definitely showing the love.
Aspiring youth is what you are all about. And especially
there are so many kids in our community that would
love to get into this business. What advice would you
give to them.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
The great thing about technology is that they have the
tools at their disposal right away to be able to
at least start the process. There's so many students that
come across and says, I recorded a song through my
phone on band laugh.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Do you want to hear them like you did?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Want? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I'm like, yeah, I would love to hear yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
And so, you know, technology allows allows them to be
able to experiment that process that was starting when I
was in college without having to acquire a bunch of equipment.
And and the second part of technology that's great is
that it will also allow you to connect with people
in that industry that can now help guide you or
(14:53):
answer questions or help you to provide opportunities for you
excuse me, oh, sorry about that, opportunities for you moving forward.
And I know when I started, you know a lot
of that networking was going in person, flying, driving conferences, conferences.
(15:19):
I remember driving to Indianapolis for conferences, flying out to
New York for conferences, and things of that sort. This
is pre zoom for those that are listening. And so
technology really allows you to be able to connect, be
able to get access to technology and access to information
to guide you on that path. So the main thing
is one just get started in some way, shape or form,
(15:40):
no matter what you have, and then from there as
you start to grow and you get questions and you're
curious about.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Things, start to reach out to folks.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
And seeing like, hey, you know I work with such
and such, I do this, you know, could you help
me with this? Could you you know, what advice would
you give me? And so we can be very interconnected
with that way that technology allows us to be.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
One thing that I always try to instill into my
own daughter just with life is you got to work hard, yes,
and perfect example, like you worked hard to get to
where you're at. Nothing was given to you. And I
think it's really important that we share that with her,
with you know, our kids, especially when it comes to
reaching your dreams.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right absolutely, I think.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
I mean there I joke, but you know there's stuff
that I still have that I still use from the
record label that's in that brand new studio. Because folks
come in it's, oh, oh wow, look at all these
screens and things that you have.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
It's been an accumulation over years.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You know, the computers of I still have a computer
that's six seven years old. Is it doesn't do all
the functions that I needed to do, but it still
does some functions. And so to know that it's a
it's a journey, but it's a lot of steps and
for a place that you're at. You know, when were
first and moved in those three studios, weren't full of stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, that we had to grow.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Into that spot because the place we came from was
half that size.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And so to be comfortable.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
And okay with the journey is important to know that,
you know, it's not going to be something overnight, It's
going to be an accumulation over time.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, look what you've created.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yes, magic really really where you have a foundation to
kind of pivot a little bit here? Would you mind
telling us a little bit about it and why you started.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Well, I'm going to have the president of the foundation
share that, thank you.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Yeah. So, my husband and I co founded the Alana
Rose Foundation in twenty nineteen after our daughter Alana was
still born, and we worked to help raise awareness and
provide whole healing and support to other families who experience
bring seen it been loss. We know that nationally, about
one in four women across their lifetime experience loss, and
(18:07):
it's something that we don't often talk about. There's a
lot of stigma around it. There's a lot of people,
you know, grieving and hurting and silence because of that stigma,
and we're really trying to normalize, normalize the conversations about it,
and increase the supports that's available, and especially partnering with
other organizations as well. We have since more recently joined
(18:31):
forces and started a Wisconsin Grief Collective to try to
connect a lot of the nonprofits and organizations that do
work in this space together so that we can have
a more collective impact on the work that we do
across our state, to ensure that no matter who you are,
where you live across the state, that you have accesses
to the resources that will help you to transform after
(18:54):
loss in positive ways, because we know the mental health
toll of that loss on the entire family is lifelong.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that. And I do
think that what you said is breaking that stigma of
the conversation, you know, of allowing that to be open
whether people can talk about it or not. I think
that is so beautiful. And I know a lot of
people probably listening they are thinking, thank you, because it
(19:27):
is hard, and it isn't isn't something like you know,
Chris and I talk a lot about stuff on the show, right,
and it's the purpose of it is to open that
door for people, whether they go through it or not.
But you guys are opening the door.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Yeah, you know. I think one of the things that
makes me, I don't know, it's weird to say, feel
good about all of this is that it does it
does help others, you know. You know, by grieving out loud,
we've allowed others to feel okay with that and reach
out for support. And that feels really good. You know,
it's taking our pain and creating some purpose out of
(20:01):
it to help others. And you know, we do a
lot of really I think meaningful things through our foundation
and one that I think recently has grown and has
made a huge impact is our burial support program. So
we have funds that you know, we raise funds through
different fundraising events and donations throughout the year, and we
provide financial support for burial expenses when babies die, because,
(20:25):
especially if it's a pregnancy loss or early you know,
early infant loss, you don't have life insurance for your babies.
You know, our employment opportunities, like you don't get the
same leave after your baby dies, and if you were
to have a live baby in many work environments, and
there's a financial toll. You need to take that time
(20:46):
off for physical healing, for mental wellness, and emotional healing,
and there's loss of income on top of extra expenses,
not only for often more emergent medical needs, but then
the expenses. And nobody ever wants to think about having
to pay for their baby's funeral, and the last thing
they should do is worry about how they're going to
(21:07):
pay for it. And so we've been able to help
so far about twenty families locally with covering their burial expenses,
just to take one thing off their plate. And that
was really important to us because we were fortunate that
we worked with Crest Funeral Home, who actually does provide
their services for free for when babies die, which is
(21:30):
amazing and we're so grateful for them and their continued
support of our foundation. But they don't they can't provide
all the casket and all the all the other things.
And so we actually had some random donor who had
donated a casket. And so when we were, you know,
having these conversations that seemed impossible at the time of
(21:50):
oh my god, I have to pick out you know,
like all you just you don't want to have those
conversations and it was just nice to know that someone
paid that forward, and so we wanted to make sure
we could pay that forward. And it started out just personally,
like Forlana's birthday, we donated money to the funeral home
to pay for a casket for whoever was going to
be next, and then decided we wanted to take that
(22:12):
on as a bigger initiative through the foundation so that
we could raise more money and help more people in
greater ways.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Our deepest sympathies go to both of you. This is
something you know, for myself and critic could never imagine.
You know, the one thing that we continuously always try
to talk about again is the mental health aspect. What
you two went through as a family is so traumatic.
And to be so young and to be this beautiful
(22:40):
married couple and to be around your children, reading your
story with your two sons and you instantly something is wrong.
Did you ever question like, why me? Why us? How
do we get through this?
Speaker 5 (22:52):
You want to answer that one. He doesn't like to
talk a lot about it. Yeah, I mean it sucks,
like there's no better way than to say it sucks.
And I make it emotional here, but you know, you wonder,
like I the day that my daughter died, I had
a normal, healthy appointment that same morning, everything was fine,
and within twelve hours she was gone in just a
(23:15):
heart you know, and a heartbeat, truly, and you get angry,
you know, for you know, you go through all the stages,
and the stages aren't pretty. They're not like this beautiful
progression from you know, sadness to you know joy. It's
it's a roller coaster for the rest of your life.
And you know, I was mad at God. You know,
my faith was something that had carried me through a
(23:36):
lot of hard times in my life, and I was shattered,
like I couldn't believe that God could let this happen
to us, you know, why us? And so you know,
I've I've done lots of lots of work, lots of therapy,
lots of lots of reading, lots of connecting with other
people who've gone through loss, and you know, you learn
(23:57):
to realize that bad things happen. We can't control things,
and they don't just have to you know, good bad
things happen to good people all the time. And this
world is broken and there doesn't have to be some
beautiful meaning or reason for these things that happen, but
you have the opportunity to create something good from this.
(24:18):
So sure, we knew right away that we didn't want
our daughter to be forgotten. We wanted to make sure
that her life had purpose. And we get to really
parent the foundation and help help it grow as a
part of parenting her.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And this journey is again what you two have done,
you know, taken something so sad, but you're helping so many, so.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Many families, and I think, you know, even still tough
for me to talk and to navigate. And you know,
you know, my wife has done such an incredible job,
and I marvel at the strength that she has to
be a able to push this foundation forward and champion
(25:04):
this and even you know, even answering the question, even
answering the question is is hard for me. And she
has the strength to, you know, interview after interview and
butterfly ball after butterfly ball, that stand up and folks
to tell the story, but more importantly, share how we
(25:27):
can be a support system and a lending hand for
folks that are also going through something like this. And
you know, sometimes you know it feel it feels lonely,
and you know, you look around, and you know that
some folks don't understand because they haven't been through it,
and and.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
You just don't know how to process. There's just so there's.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Just so many things happening at once, as far as
the loss, as far as well, you know, how do
we care for each other, How do we care for
our family? What are what are our boys going through
right now? Are what are they thinking? What are they feeling?
How do we help them to navigate it? And I
think this foundation and especially the Butterfly Ball we have
(26:15):
every year, as in some regards, been somewhat healing for us,
but also hopefully for those for those that who.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Have attended and.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Been in a room with other folks where they feel
like they understand me, they get it, and they can
you know, take some solace and being in that space,
in that environment with other folks that can at least
understand what they're going through and what they're thinking and
what they're still trying to navigate. And so I'm thankful
(26:48):
for my wife, I'm thankful for our family, and I'm
really proud of what we've been able to put together
for not only ourselves but for other folks with this foundation.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well, thank you for your tremendous strength and your passion
to continue her legacy, which you are helping out so
many others that have gone or are continuing at this time,
going through sickness and having the idea of losing their child.
So thank you for both of you coming on to
(27:23):
our show. Especially for those in our community that are
going through something or might have just lost their child.
How can they reach out, how can they get involved
with the Butterfly Ball, what else can we do to
help support you and your foundation.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
I would just like to say for anyone that has
experienced a loss, whether it's recent or it's been decades,
your loss matters no matter how young congestation your baby was,
or how old they were. No parents should ever bury
their child, and it's something you never get over. It's
something that arguably is the worst pain you can experience
(28:03):
as a human being, and do not alone. So if
you're interested in the need of support and connections to resources,
you can always reach out to us through our website
or our Facebook. The Alana Rose Foundation website is Alanaose
dot org so A L A N A r O
s E dot org. You can also find us on
Facebook and Instagram, and you know, I'm happy to talk
(28:26):
with folks and connect them to whatever might be the
most supportive. If you're interested in being a part of,
you know, supporting the work, and you know you can
do that by making donation through our website. You can volunteer.
We have different committees for different initiatives that we run,
and you can attend the Butterfly Ball. It's always the
last Saturday of February. We hold it in the Madison area.
(28:51):
This next year will be our seventh annual Butterfly Ball
and we do it that that week because that's around
the time of our daughter's birthday. So for our for
our family, it's sort of like an annual birthday party
we get to throw for our daughter, but it's so
much more because we get to honor all the babies
that have been loved and lost over the years and
bring in you know, powerful speakers and stories, and also
(29:14):
raise a lot of money to help continue to do
the good work that we're fortunate to be able to
do through the foundation.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Well, thank you for bringing your beautiful picture of your
daughter here and mementos like the bear, these things you
know represent her to you.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Yeah, next to me, I have a photo of Alana
and my Alana Bear that travels with me a lot.
What's unique about my Alana Bear and you ladies are
welcome to hold her of you on is she weighs
the same amount my daughter weighed when she died. So
she's from a company called Molly Bears that unfortunately closed
down this year, but there's other companies that do similar well,
(29:55):
they'll make memorial bears that weigh the same as your baby.
So anything from you know, super super tiny to toddlers
who die and so that bears four pounds one ounce
and being able to hold her and love her in
that way is really really powerful. But I take her
a lot of places. She's testified at the state capital
(30:18):
for stillbirth policy and been on radio shows and TV shows,
and you know, comes along to a lot of different
things as just a nice symbol and representation of who she,
who she was, and who she is.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Well, thank you to both of you again spreading the
love of something that definitely has impacted your family but
is definitely making a difference in many here in our community.
So thank you once again to Kim to Corey for
coming on the mom Squad sharing your fabulous journey with
helping out so many young kids reaching their dreams, especially
(30:56):
in what we do, and being such a strong couple.
I think that's super important because we can lose sight
of that.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, it's so beautiful. You both are very, very beautiful
inside and out.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
We look forward to again following your journey and whatever
we can do on our end to help support you.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Please let us know, all right, thank you for having us.
We appreciate it.
Well, Karina, I'm super excited about our two special guests
here today. I had the opportunity of being invited on
another dear friend of ours, Markshaw Evans podcast, You Control You.
And when it comes to this amazing couple, they are
making a difference in our community. And might I just
add his resume is long. Not only is he a
(00:20):
record mix engineer, a DJ, an educator, an owner and
founder of Media twenty two, a coach, and he and
his wife Kim are the founders of a beautiful foundation
called the Alana Rose Foundation, which we will be talking about.
Please say hello to Corey and Kim whitmore. What's up,
my man?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
How are you doing? That's a list, It's a list.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
That's a list.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
You definitely have been getting your hands in our community
for quite a while. And I love that about you
because it's important, especially for Koreina and I, is to
keep meeting more individuals that are doing things like that
for our youth. So thank you so much again for
what you do.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Thank you, thank you. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
It's something that I true enjoying, something that really started
out with My mom was in education and my sister
is at education as an administrative principal and teacher, so
she really introduced me to giving back to the community
in that way. When I was younger and she had
me up for some of the summer camps she would
run just.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Like your mom. My mom was also a teacher. She
taught special ed and there was a camp that all
of us kids would go to because it was a
family tradition, even with my mom. So it was like
a month long all female canoe camp. I'm like, either
my mom's trying to get rid of me or I
just don't know what's happening here. But I am not
a so called expert of venuing, but I definitely am
(01:39):
someone that can portage one. So if you ever get suck,
let's get into what actually sparked your passion into media.
I know for myself, I fell into it luckily being
in theater in college and getting into this industry with
Karna being you know, in Chicago at the time, being
an actress. Tell us why this was like something you
decided to walk your path through.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
It's interesting because I got a late start as well,
so I really didn't get into the music side of
media until college. I didn't play an instrument in high school.
Wasn't involved really in media in high school. And I
got to college and my roommate I was staying with
a roommate from California, and he had a beat making program.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Oh, I'd never.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Heard of it, and I was like, oh, I'm like
this is interesting. He's like, yeah, you should. You should
mess around with it. So I messed around with it
and I made probably around like fifty seventy five beats
off of it, and I was like, Oh, this is cool.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Is there something else out there?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Then I found another one and it was like a
mix of DJ and producing, and then I did a
bunch of beats on there, and then I was like, ah,
is there something even better? Like I would max each
one out and say like was there something more complicated
that I that I could use? And then you know
connor From there, I ended up graduating from Marquette University
and shortly after that started a record label with some
(02:56):
a few students that I knew from Marquette and some
folks that kind of that worked with, and some folks
that ended up searching me out from the Northern Illinois
area that were artists.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And so I'm.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Fresh out of college not sure how to have to
run a record label. I know, I like making music
and I was learning how to record music, and so
everything was kind of on the fly. And so I
had three artists in the beginning and then ended up
with six to seven artists and we did mainly hip
hop and R and B. Then we went into reggaetone
(03:29):
and then we had older artists, then we had younger artists.
So before I left Milwaukee, we had two high school
groups that were actually a part of the label. And
it was my responsibility kind of from front to back
produce record book shows, orchestrate practice and everything, rehearsals, how
to market. It helped put stuff on the website. At
(03:52):
that time, ringtones.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Were and all those things, and you know it, I learned.
I learned a lot. There's a lot of skills.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
From a management standpoint, from a media standpoint, but really
just from working with with people and kind of the
business aspect of it, of like how do we sustain this,
how do we make a profit, How do we reinvest
so that we can add merchandise, We can go on
longer trips, we can go on promotional trips and try
(04:28):
to just go and meet people, even though we aren't
making any money back when we're trying to you know,
meet people and try and create that network. And so
it's a lot of facets to that experience that really
helped shape and mold me and kind of even pushed
me towards where I am right now, you know, moving
into not only doing the music side with the recording
studio at Media twenty two, but also adding the visual
(04:50):
side to it, which is the live streaming and the
video podcasts and things of that sort, because that was
a part of the music business as well at that time.
We outsourced for video, but I was still intricated in
the process. This is what I kind of wanted to
look like, here's the idea I have for this artist
for this video.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Can you do X, Y and Z.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
I just wasn't pulling the trigger as far as the
editor that was putting all that together right.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And it's so important too, And I like that you
brought this up, the educational part of it, because you
can be very passionate about something, I know, Like for me,
I fell into radio, like I was hired because of
like my personality, but I had no idea how to
do anything right. I didn't know how to run a board.
I didn't know how to produce. I didn't know how
to do that. So, like you, I lived in Chicago,
went to the Illinois Center for Broadcasting so I could
(05:34):
learn all of that, and then I was interning for
B ninety six and like that's how yeah that you
know those connections, that networking, But you have to have
the skills in order to really make a living, right,
I mean, that's really important to teach our children, right,
And there's.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
And there's you know a couple of ways to do it.
You did it the correct way. That's the way I
wish I would have done well.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
No, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
It's looking back on a like, ah, man, I should
have did it that way. Uh. You know.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
I started in, jumped in and I had a short
kind of internship at a local.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Record label.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
But I really jumped in and was trying to bang
my head and figure it out.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
So it was really trial and error.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, it was wow, Okay, this sounded good here, and
then I played in the car. Wow, I'm gonna I'm
gonna lose a speaker here. We continue to play play
this mix because the base is so heavy and you know,
a lot of trial and error, and I ended up
kind of on the ladder end going to Madison Media
before it closed when we relocated from Milwaukee to Madison,
(06:38):
and so I think that helped to fine tune and
even correct some things that maybe you know from being
self taught that I learned either you know, make it
a little bit better, made it sharper, or you know,
that's probably not the best process in which you're using
to try to get this done. Here's something easier, here's
something that's quicker, here's something that's more efficient. So I
(06:59):
went to school, you know, funny on the back end,
but school was the separation between the record label, which
I did for eight years, and then going into media
twenty two, which we're now in our seventh year with
that business, and really transitioning from something that was based
upon artists and talent and moving towards something that's now
based upon service and things that we can offer to customers.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
And so the revenue stream changes.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
The revenue stream for that was, you know, depending on
how talented the artists and how well we were able
to market them, that's where the revenue would come in.
Where now I have a base of services that I
can put out to the public, and now that's a
little bit more of a steady revenue stream and something
that's you know, more foundational that you can kind of
build upon and move forward.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Love that.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I'm sure Karina you can understand, like, you know, well,
needing a business like that.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Yeah, And I think what's really interesting is your journey
and how open you are about the process than the
steps that you took, because I think that's such a
valuable conversation to have, especially now, and everyone is also
needing to be more mindful of their actions and the steps,
right because we're going in a different world, yes, you know,
And and I like that because I think that's what
(08:11):
makes what you're doing now just so impactful for people. So,
I mean, I feel like we could have like eight
episodes on this guy.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Absolutely, we just have him back.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
I keep buying to like hold back and be like
I have a question for you.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Let's go back, Let's go back to your Corey.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
But you know, we talked a little bit very early
on about your connection with your family and how they
kind of leveraged this take off for you right in
the community, and then obviously hearing about your journey and
this whole bio that I feel like we could literally
do eight episodes on you know, your your commitment to
the community, youth empowerment. I mean, can you pinpoint or
(08:50):
share an area where that really like became your moment
of commitment for this.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yeah, I think what I had mentioned before is more
the introduction with my sister have including me in camps
and staying with her for for a month and things
of that sort. My wife, I think it had stopped
at the Boys and Girls Club, I think for it
was it a clinic I'm you're working on and I
had tripped upon a recording studio there, and this was
while we're in Milwaukee that was closed, and you know,
(09:19):
she had said something, I think she had said something
to them, and then comes home it's like, yeah, there's
a there's a recording studio not being used sitting in
the teen center at the Boys and Girls Club in Milwaukee.
It is one of the larger Boys and Girls clubs,
And so I was like, yeah, I mean, I'm doing
music right now. I didn't really that time see the
parallel between working with kids and the music because I
(09:40):
was still really learning myself right, and I'm like, well,
do I have something to really share, you know, I
put it in an application.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
They brought me in.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
I looked at the studio, I said, yeah, we could
do something. We may want to make some upgrades and.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Some changes here.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
I took a part time position there, ended up going
full time and then being the teen programs coordinator, then
eventually having some of the teens that came up while
I was there run the studio, and so from there
really moving up until now. I've always been involved with kids,
(10:15):
mainly teens, and media and music in some way, shape
or form. So it hasn't always looked the same, but
there's always.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Been that connection.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And so so from there, from the studio and to
here in Madison, I'm working with the juvenile Detention Center,
I'm working with the local shelter here and the Restore
program through the Madison School District here doing.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Music production and podcasting.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
I love that, And so even though I'm no longer
in Milwaukee, I'm here, but it's taken just a different
form and a different.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Shape, but still still relatively simmer.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And next to you you have your beautiful wife, Kim,
who also is a lady boss. And we're going to
be speaking more with her and how she has has
well joined you in touching our community. How important is
it to you to, you know, have watched Corey go
through his journey and to really fulfill the things that
he really wanted to reach out for.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
I am so proud of him, and I don't know
if I say that enough. But you know, Cory and
I have been together for twenty five years, which is
crazy to think. And I remember when he was just
playing around with beats in college.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
I love it.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
And you know, he had his Ducetuice entertainment label and
I was a groupie and we go to shows and
you know, it.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Was so fun.
Speaker 5 (11:31):
But then you know, we got married, we had kids.
Those performances at two in the morning at the clubs
were not that fun anymore for either of us as
we got older, and you know, just seeing him evolve.
And the one thing you know by my husband is
he is the most self directed, self taught human I've
ever met like he. You know, he's well educated, he's
(11:54):
got you know, he's got a degree in business from
Marquette and broadcasting, but he what he does now is
all stuff he's taught himself, and he is constantly learning.
He listens to books and podcasts and you too, I
mean two nauseum sometimes like people be driving in the
car and he's like listening to something to make himself wise,
you know. But it's amazing and he's the most humble
(12:16):
person you would ever meet. But he makes such a difference.
And it's interesting because my background, my career is more
working in public health and I'm a nurse and I've
done a lot of work with people disabilities in the community.
And you know, I think it was probably like ten
years ago when I'm like, you know, what you're doing
is public health work, Like you are doing youth empowerment work.
(12:38):
You are helping folks. And I actually helped him write
a public health grant for the Minority Health Department at
the state, which he used to do a podcast with
high school students to better understand their experience with the
education gaps that exist in opportunity gaps in our schools
and for our black and brown students in Madison and
(13:00):
that that that podcast was an amazing experience. But what
he does is really helping to support and mentor kids
and it's what he loves. He's so good at it.
Like we have a sixteen year old, and I'm not
very good at raising a teenager, but he's really good
at it. He has just such a great way with youth.
(13:24):
He's you know, you know, I don't know if you're
familiar with the term eky guy no, which is it's
the Japanese phrase that means your reason for being and
it's sort of the intersection of what you're good at,
what you love to do, and what the world needs
you to do. And for Corey it's mentoring, like he
is a mentor like through and through and everything he
(13:45):
does like he doesn't just do stuff, he models it
to teach others. And it's been really amazing to see
him grow and finally get some of the recognition that
he deserves, even though he doesn't think he deserves it
because he's very humble.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Well, we are deserve They are definitely showing the love.
Aspiring youth is what you are all about. And especially
there are so many kids in our community that would
love to get into this business. What advice would you
give to them.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
The great thing about technology is that they have the
tools at their disposal right away to be able to
at least start the process. There's so many students that
come across and says, I recorded a song through my
phone on band laugh.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Do you want to hear them like you did?
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Want? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I'm like, yeah, I would love to hear yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
And so, you know, technology allows allows them to be
able to experiment that process that was starting when I
was in college without having to acquire a bunch of equipment.
And and the second part of technology that's great is
that it will also allow you to connect with people
in that industry that can now help guide you or
(14:53):
answer questions or help you to provide opportunities for you
excuse me, oh, sorry about that, opportunities for you moving forward.
And I know when I started, you know a lot
of that networking was going in person, flying, driving conferences, conferences.
(15:19):
I remember driving to Indianapolis for conferences, flying out to
New York for conferences, and things of that sort. This
is pre zoom for those that are listening. And so
technology really allows you to be able to connect, be
able to get access to technology and access to information
to guide you on that path. So the main thing
is one just get started in some way, shape or form,
(15:40):
no matter what you have, and then from there as
you start to grow and you get questions and you're
curious about.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Things, start to reach out to folks.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
And seeing like, hey, you know I work with such
and such, I do this, you know, could you help
me with this? Could you you know, what advice would
you give me? And so we can be very interconnected
with that way that technology allows us to be.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
One thing that I always try to instill into my
own daughter just with life is you got to work hard, yes,
and perfect example, like you worked hard to get to
where you're at. Nothing was given to you. And I
think it's really important that we share that with her,
with you know, our kids, especially when it comes to
reaching your dreams.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Right absolutely, I think.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
I mean there I joke, but you know there's stuff
that I still have that I still use from the
record label that's in that brand new studio. Because folks
come in it's, oh, oh wow, look at all these
screens and things that you have.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
It's been an accumulation over years.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You know, the computers of I still have a computer
that's six seven years old. Is it doesn't do all
the functions that I needed to do, but it still
does some functions. And so to know that it's a
it's a journey, but it's a lot of steps and
for a place that you're at. You know, when were
first and moved in those three studios, weren't full of stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Yeah, that we had to grow.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Into that spot because the place we came from was
half that size.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
And so to be comfortable.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
And okay with the journey is important to know that,
you know, it's not going to be something overnight, It's
going to be an accumulation over time.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, look what you've created.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Yes, magic really really where you have a foundation to
kind of pivot a little bit here? Would you mind
telling us a little bit about it and why you started.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Well, I'm going to have the president of the foundation
share that, thank you.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
Yeah. So, my husband and I co founded the Alana
Rose Foundation in twenty nineteen after our daughter Alana was
still born, and we worked to help raise awareness and
provide whole healing and support to other families who experience
bring seen it been loss. We know that nationally, about
one in four women across their lifetime experience loss, and
(18:07):
it's something that we don't often talk about. There's a
lot of stigma around it. There's a lot of people,
you know, grieving and hurting and silence because of that stigma,
and we're really trying to normalize, normalize the conversations about it,
and increase the supports that's available, and especially partnering with
other organizations as well. We have since more recently joined
(18:31):
forces and started a Wisconsin Grief Collective to try to
connect a lot of the nonprofits and organizations that do
work in this space together so that we can have
a more collective impact on the work that we do
across our state, to ensure that no matter who you are,
where you live across the state, that you have accesses
to the resources that will help you to transform after
(18:54):
loss in positive ways, because we know the mental health
toll of that loss on the entire family is lifelong.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that. And I do
think that what you said is breaking that stigma of
the conversation, you know, of allowing that to be open
whether people can talk about it or not. I think
that is so beautiful. And I know a lot of
people probably listening they are thinking, thank you, because it
(19:27):
is hard, and it isn't isn't something like you know,
Chris and I talk a lot about stuff on the show, right,
and it's the purpose of it is to open that
door for people, whether they go through it or not.
But you guys are opening the door.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Yeah, you know. I think one of the things that
makes me, I don't know, it's weird to say, feel
good about all of this is that it does it
does help others, you know. You know, by grieving out loud,
we've allowed others to feel okay with that and reach
out for support. And that feels really good. You know,
it's taking our pain and creating some purpose out of
(20:01):
it to help others. And you know, we do a
lot of really I think meaningful things through our foundation
and one that I think recently has grown and has
made a huge impact is our burial support program. So
we have funds that you know, we raise funds through
different fundraising events and donations throughout the year, and we
provide financial support for burial expenses when babies die, because,
(20:25):
especially if it's a pregnancy loss or early you know,
early infant loss, you don't have life insurance for your babies.
You know, our employment opportunities, like you don't get the
same leave after your baby dies, and if you were
to have a live baby in many work environments, and
there's a financial toll. You need to take that time
(20:46):
off for physical healing, for mental wellness, and emotional healing,
and there's loss of income on top of extra expenses,
not only for often more emergent medical needs, but then
the expenses. And nobody ever wants to think about having
to pay for their baby's funeral, and the last thing
they should do is worry about how they're going to
(21:07):
pay for it. And so we've been able to help
so far about twenty families locally with covering their burial expenses,
just to take one thing off their plate. And that
was really important to us because we were fortunate that
we worked with Crest Funeral Home, who actually does provide
their services for free for when babies die, which is
(21:30):
amazing and we're so grateful for them and their continued
support of our foundation. But they don't they can't provide
all the casket and all the all the other things.
And so we actually had some random donor who had
donated a casket. And so when we were, you know,
having these conversations that seemed impossible at the time of
(21:50):
oh my god, I have to pick out you know,
like all you just you don't want to have those
conversations and it was just nice to know that someone
paid that forward, and so we wanted to make sure
we could pay that forward. And it started out just personally,
like Forlana's birthday, we donated money to the funeral home
to pay for a casket for whoever was going to
be next, and then decided we wanted to take that
(22:12):
on as a bigger initiative through the foundation so that
we could raise more money and help more people in
greater ways.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Our deepest sympathies go to both of you. This is
something you know, for myself and critic could never imagine.
You know, the one thing that we continuously always try
to talk about again is the mental health aspect. What
you two went through as a family is so traumatic.
And to be so young and to be this beautiful
(22:40):
married couple and to be around your children, reading your
story with your two sons and you instantly something is wrong.
Did you ever question like, why me? Why us? How
do we get through this?
Speaker 5 (22:52):
You want to answer that one. He doesn't like to
talk a lot about it. Yeah, I mean it sucks,
like there's no better way than to say it sucks.
And I make it emotional here, but you know, you wonder,
like I the day that my daughter died, I had
a normal, healthy appointment that same morning, everything was fine,
and within twelve hours she was gone in just a
(23:15):
heart you know, and a heartbeat, truly, and you get angry,
you know, for you know, you go through all the stages,
and the stages aren't pretty. They're not like this beautiful
progression from you know, sadness to you know joy. It's
it's a roller coaster for the rest of your life.
And you know, I was mad at God. You know,
my faith was something that had carried me through a
(23:36):
lot of hard times in my life, and I was shattered,
like I couldn't believe that God could let this happen
to us, you know, why us? And so you know,
I've I've done lots of lots of work, lots of therapy,
lots of lots of reading, lots of connecting with other
people who've gone through loss, and you know, you learn
(23:57):
to realize that bad things happen. We can't control things,
and they don't just have to you know, good bad
things happen to good people all the time. And this
world is broken and there doesn't have to be some
beautiful meaning or reason for these things that happen, but
you have the opportunity to create something good from this.
(24:18):
So sure, we knew right away that we didn't want
our daughter to be forgotten. We wanted to make sure
that her life had purpose. And we get to really
parent the foundation and help help it grow as a
part of parenting her.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And this journey is again what you two have done,
you know, taken something so sad, but you're helping so many, so.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Many families, and I think, you know, even still tough
for me to talk and to navigate. And you know,
you know, my wife has done such an incredible job,
and I marvel at the strength that she has to
be a able to push this foundation forward and champion
(25:04):
this and even you know, even answering the question, even
answering the question is is hard for me. And she
has the strength to, you know, interview after interview and
butterfly ball after butterfly ball, that stand up and folks
to tell the story, but more importantly, share how we
(25:27):
can be a support system and a lending hand for
folks that are also going through something like this. And
you know, sometimes you know it feel it feels lonely,
and you know, you look around, and you know that
some folks don't understand because they haven't been through it,
and and.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
You just don't know how to process. There's just so there's.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Just so many things happening at once, as far as
the loss, as far as well, you know, how do
we care for each other, How do we care for
our family? What are what are our boys going through
right now? Are what are they thinking? What are they feeling?
How do we help them to navigate it? And I
think this foundation and especially the Butterfly Ball we have
(26:15):
every year, as in some regards, been somewhat healing for us,
but also hopefully for those for those that who.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Have attended and.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
Been in a room with other folks where they feel
like they understand me, they get it, and they can
you know, take some solace and being in that space,
in that environment with other folks that can at least
understand what they're going through and what they're thinking and
what they're still trying to navigate. And so I'm thankful
(26:48):
for my wife, I'm thankful for our family, and I'm
really proud of what we've been able to put together
for not only ourselves but for other folks with this foundation.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well, thank you for your tremendous strength and your passion
to continue her legacy, which you are helping out so
many others that have gone or are continuing at this time,
going through sickness and having the idea of losing their child.
So thank you for both of you coming on to
(27:23):
our show. Especially for those in our community that are
going through something or might have just lost their child.
How can they reach out, how can they get involved
with the Butterfly Ball, what else can we do to
help support you and your foundation.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
I would just like to say for anyone that has
experienced a loss, whether it's recent or it's been decades,
your loss matters no matter how young congestation your baby was,
or how old they were. No parents should ever bury
their child, and it's something you never get over. It's
something that arguably is the worst pain you can experience
(28:03):
as a human being, and do not alone. So if
you're interested in the need of support and connections to resources,
you can always reach out to us through our website
or our Facebook. The Alana Rose Foundation website is Alanaose
dot org so A L A N A r O
s E dot org. You can also find us on
Facebook and Instagram, and you know, I'm happy to talk
(28:26):
with folks and connect them to whatever might be the
most supportive. If you're interested in being a part of,
you know, supporting the work, and you know you can
do that by making donation through our website. You can volunteer.
We have different committees for different initiatives that we run,
and you can attend the Butterfly Ball. It's always the
last Saturday of February. We hold it in the Madison area.
(28:51):
This next year will be our seventh annual Butterfly Ball
and we do it that that week because that's around
the time of our daughter's birthday. So for our for
our family, it's sort of like an annual birthday party
we get to throw for our daughter, but it's so
much more because we get to honor all the babies
that have been loved and lost over the years and
bring in you know, powerful speakers and stories, and also
(29:14):
raise a lot of money to help continue to do
the good work that we're fortunate to be able to
do through the foundation.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
Well, thank you for bringing your beautiful picture of your
daughter here and mementos like the bear, these things you
know represent her to you.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Yeah, next to me, I have a photo of Alana
and my Alana Bear that travels with me a lot.
What's unique about my Alana Bear and you ladies are
welcome to hold her of you on is she weighs
the same amount my daughter weighed when she died. So
she's from a company called Molly Bears that unfortunately closed
down this year, but there's other companies that do similar well,
(29:55):
they'll make memorial bears that weigh the same as your baby.
So anything from you know, super super tiny to toddlers
who die and so that bears four pounds one ounce
and being able to hold her and love her in
that way is really really powerful. But I take her
a lot of places. She's testified at the state capital
(30:18):
for stillbirth policy and been on radio shows and TV shows,
and you know, comes along to a lot of different
things as just a nice symbol and representation of who she,
who she was, and who she is.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Well, thank you to both of you again spreading the
love of something that definitely has impacted your family but
is definitely making a difference in many here in our community.
So thank you once again to Kim to Corey for
coming on the mom Squad sharing your fabulous journey with
helping out so many young kids reaching their dreams, especially
(30:56):
in what we do, and being such a strong couple.
I think that's super important because we can lose sight
of that.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Yeah, it's so beautiful. You both are very, very beautiful
inside and out.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
We look forward to again following your journey and whatever
we can do on our end to help support you.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Please let us know, all right, thank you for having us.
We appreciate it.
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