Got A Second To Help Save A Life? Seriously...

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another special episode of I Tell You What.
We're joined by special guest Russ Haynes. He's from Freedom
Fest up at Running Aces and Forrest Lake coming up
on the twenty seventh, that's next Saturday. At the time
of this point of this podcast, I should say, and
he represents Invisible Wounds Project. Tell us a little bit
about what's going on at the Freedom Fest.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, so next weekend is our biggest fundraiser, our signature
events called Freedom Fest, and what evolved from a car
truck and motorcycle cruises turned into an entire day of fun.
So it's car truck bike show. We've got food trucks,
we've got live music out in the parking lot. We've
got kids games, we've got face painting, we got bounty houses,

(00:41):
we've got Touch of Truck, all kinds of fun stuff
in the parking lot and that's all free for people
to come and be a part of it. Then in
the evening we've got a concerts with Clay Walker as
our headliner, and then Jake Nelson and Cindy Joe with
Dirt Row Dixie and also Ryan Sullivan as our local
opener acts and it's all big fundraiser to support the

(01:05):
Invisibles Project and the veterans and first responders and their
families that we serve through through our organization throughout Minnesota
and western Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 (01:15):
In what ways does the Invisible Wounds Project help veterans
or help helps first responders? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, So our organization we provide access to like immediate access,
so we have embedded therapists. We provide immediate access to
UH trauma informed, culturally competent therapists and without a weight right,
so if if people are in crisis or people need help,

(01:46):
and usually our people tend to wait until it's like
now it's time. Traditional places there's a wait list or
they don't get a callback for days. We have people
on staff so we can get people in touch immediately.
We also have a center where people can walk into,

(02:08):
so we physically have a ten thousand square foot space
and Forest Lake here called the Invisibles Project Support Center.
We have embedded therapists, we have social workers, we have
interns and stuff like that that work in the mental
health field. But it's way more than just therapy. It's therapeutic.
So when you walk in, it doesn't feel like you're

(02:29):
walking into a therapy office. It is a there's a
lounge with pool, table, darts, bubble hockey, foodsball TVs. Coffee bar.
That's the front end of the space, right, So coffee donuts,
just people connecting to each other over a common ground, right,
So over they served, they understand that, they get it.

(02:53):
It's not a place that's centered around alcohol. It's centered
around wellness and healthy things, so that's when you walk in.
We have a big focus on the arts as well,
so we have a large wood shop, an art studio,
a laser room where people can get their hands dirty,
get creative. We're in the process also of building out

(03:15):
a workout space, so we're kind of under construction in
one part of it, which will be a great opportunity
for our people to come in do some physical exercise,
get coaching and training from fellow members as well as
we have some We have one of our therapists who
is also a kinesiology guy, so he does individual one

(03:39):
on one trainings with people or small groups. But that
therapy already exists, right, And what happens is, especially after COVID,
there was so much where people would just isolate because
they could everything's virtual, rightetting people out of that isolation,

(04:02):
getting people into a space where they're surrounded by support
and they're surrounded by people that get them and understand them.
And we have three to four suicide crisis interventions a
week here and then annually we're serving well over one
thousand people. And not only do we serve so I

(04:25):
say military and first responders, right, but I want to
dive into that a little bit more. It's current and
former military, police, fire ms, frontline medical staff, so your nurses,
your security officers at hospitals, your doctors, corrections officers, nine
to one dispatchers, and then also their immediate family members

(04:46):
as well. So a lot of times the family is
left behind and there's not services for them. We work
with families really every day as well.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
How far is you reach? Is it mostly medicine? Is
the Minnesota Western Wisconsin? Is it?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
So we we have it's it's all of Minnesota and
it is western Wisconsin. So we have we have people
up on the Canadian border, actually down in northern Iowa
and all the way out to the western border of
Minnesota and then western Wisconsin stretching out to say eau
Claire and points north of that. So we we search

(05:26):
or we service a pretty broad area. Now you get
into some of these more rural areas, it's really hard
to find any support. And that's where you know, we're
not physically there, although we hope to have future opportunities
to be physically in spaces where people can access in
those other areas. But you know, we got to get

(05:48):
this one all buttoned up and working perfectly first before
we before we build upon that.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
And you need money. I mean, money is it never
but money is everything when it comes to building something
like you guys are building, you're doing God's work, Russ.
I mean, this is amazing. My question now is like
there's a lot of people and by the way, I mean,
you got Klay Walker at this thin congratulations, that's cool,
true patriot, good dude. Lots of hits. It's gonna be
a lot of fun next weekend from the country side

(06:19):
of things. And obviously Jake Nelson and Cindy Joe. But
say somebody can't just by listening to you, there's a
lot of people right along. I'm sure they're feeling what
I'm feeling is they're listening to you. May not be
able to make it next week, you know, maybe there's
just something else going on, but they want to donate,
So how do they do that? Where do we go?

(06:42):
We just google Invisible Wounds, find you on the donation page.
How soon should we make a donation? Because we understand
that you've got a goal here for this particular event,
freedom Fest, So where can we go drop some money?
Right now?

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah? So right now you can go to iw project
dot org website and now there's going to be a
pop up about Freedom Fest. But if you can't go
to freedom Fest, that's okay. Click out of that upper
right corner. There's a donat narrow button. You can go
right there and make a donation. And yeah, I mean
we are one hundred percent almost one hundred percent, let's

(07:17):
say ninety five percent funded by public donations and public
and private donations. I don't know if you've looked at
the political climate and all the budgets and stuff, but
there's not a lot of grants going out to organizations
like ours right now, and so we really I tell people,
this is a community that is being supported by the
community and our vests. First responders have a much higher

(07:44):
mental health rate and suicide rates and alcoholism drug use
rate than the general public does, like almost double or
triple and with that they need support. But there's such
a stigma within the responder and veteran world of getting
help that they don't go to the traditional channels. And

(08:05):
that's where we kind of come in. So we really
rely on those donations to make this happen and help
save live.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Can you give us real quick, no names, maybe just
a scenario, some kind of an example that kind of
tells us just what example, maybe maybe in the middle
of the whole spectrum of who comes in to use
your service, what they've been through, what's going on, what happened?

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, So, I mean it was a couple months ago
we had a veteran walk in. We open up on
Fridays for coffee and donuts at eight thirty. At eight
thirty one, a veteran walked in and you could just
we've been doing this long enough we can immediately tell
kind of where people are at just based on where
they walk in, right, And I could tell that this

(08:54):
person was not having a good day. I was able
to talk with them, get them into our therapy room here,
got my therapist to come in and talk with them.
They spent about an hour there determined you know, they
were actively suicidal, they had a gun in the car,

(09:15):
but instead of becoming a statistic, they had a place
to walk into, and they had a place where they
could go and get that immediate help, and they chose
to come in here. They came in, We got them help,
got them into a safety plan, took care of securing
the weapon, and they continue to come in and get

(09:37):
that support and work on their you know, work on
improving and work on changing their life, and we walk
alongside them and support them in doing that.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
What made them walk in, like in this particular case
or something like it, when they're sitting there and they're
staring it in the face and you know, it goes
the wrong way so many times, what made them want
in the door and give it a chance.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
I think just knowing that, you know, seeing that there's
other people that are successfully navigating this through the Invisible
Woms project, Knowing that there's other people that have have
taken that leap of faith, and that's really what this
this place feels like. It's it's not a ministry, but
there's there's faith involved in this that I'm going to

(10:24):
put my trust into someone else and see what happens,
and we get one shot to make it work. Right.
If we drop the ball, they're never coming back. So
we have to be on point all the time and
make sure that they feel like they're the only thing
that matters at that point. And so it's just it's

(10:47):
we get people who look who are watching us for
an extended period of time. They know things are going
wrong in their life, and they know things they should
get help. But it really feels like so often, so
many of our people who are really struggling just wait
until that last moment and build. Okay, I'm going to
grab on. I'm going to go in and I'm going

(11:08):
to get that help. I'm going to try to get
that help. And if it doesn't work, I'm out. And
I don't know the ones that haven't worked. I mean
certainly there are You're never one hundred percent, But I
do know we have these things happen three four times
a week that are successful where we are able to

(11:31):
take hold of them and bring them into our family
and our community and support them and see their lives change.
And sometimes it happens really really quickly. And I can
tell you anyone who does come to the concert there's
going to be a story there called the Story of

(11:52):
the pen And it is a it will bring tears
to your eyes. It is a heart it is a
it just pulls up the heartstrings, and that it's the
epitome of what happens in our center and in our organization.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Where's this person at today, the one that you were
kind of using as an example.

Speaker 2 (12:15):
This person yesterday, they were in our center. They are
continuing to work on their stuff. They are located in
the northeast metro western Wisconsin area, and you know they're

(12:36):
still here. They're showing up once twice a week. And
that's amazing.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
So when somebody walks in the door, it must be
just like a feeling of goosebumps. This is somebody that
is actively trying to get help. I mean, it's got
to be like, okay, it's like catching the biggest fish, right.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Yeah, when someone walks in in that space, right, like
we can tell we get we get thirty forty people
through here a day a lot of times. So not
everybody's in crisis. In fact, majority are not. Everybody's working
on something, or everybody's got stuff. Anyone who's worked and
served in the military or first responder world, you know,

(13:17):
and I say first responder, I mean and all those
other groups that we serve. Anybody that's running towards things
that everyone else is running away from. They've got trauma,
they've experienced things, they've seen things right, and everybody's in
a different, varying state of working on themselves and self care.

(13:37):
But there's certain ones when they walk in you can
just you can just see it. You can see it
in their eyes, you can see it in their body language,
you can see it in their face. And that those
are the ones where it's like, Okay, this one's different.
This one's not just someone coming in to check the
place out. This is someone that there's more there, There's

(14:01):
there's something really going on. You know, a really cool
story just real quick. You know. Earlier this week, we
had a husband and wife come in and they did
a tour with one of our people who we've we've
done those we've done that suicide intervention on and they

(14:22):
did that tour and that person who we helped was
the one that gave that tour and and just touched
them and you could just see it in their face
how much things changed from when they walked in the
door to when they got to the back and saw
the woodshop and heard some of the stories of things
that happened there. Turns out they lost a son who

(14:46):
was an Air Force veteran to suicide, you know, And
that's where the family comes in. They really didn't feel
like they had anywhere to go until they found this place,
and and now they've got a place ago and they
were in doing a painting class yesterday, and that's that's
just cool.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
So, Russ, you started the Invisible Wounds Project. Can you
share a little bit about your story and your background
that led you to want to even start an organization
like this.

Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, So I spent seventeen years as a police officer,
corrections officer, and nine on one dispatcher. During that time,
I would say I didn't really take good care of myself.
There was mental health back in those days, and I
should say I'll say them at that dangle, but you know,

(15:41):
it was the you know, it was the two thousands
and early twenty ten's right, back then. You didn't do
In seventeen years, I was involved in one critical incident
debriefing and as a nine on one dispatcher. For example,
I worked with Hennepe County Sheriff's Office for eight years.

(16:04):
On a flow day, I think maybe we'd take fifty calls.
On a busy day, it was a couple hundred. And
that's per person, right, that's per dispatcher. You didn't have
time to Oftentimes you didn't have time in a shift
to even barely go to the bathroom. So there certainly
wasn't time to process anything that you dealt with. And

(16:25):
over time that really, you know, that led to PTSD.
That led to not being able to function in my
job or in my life anymore. And there was a
point in twenty fifteen where I was suicidal. I was
horrible employee at the end the last several years, I

(16:49):
just wasn't a good employee. I hated life, I hated
going to work. I was burnt out. I didn't really
care anymore. And that also led me to be not
a great dad, not a great husband. And I obviously survived,
but I looked around, and I said, you know, I
looked around for help. And at that time in twenty fifteen,

(17:14):
there was help for veterans. There was a little bit
of help for police and fire, but really a lot
of it was related to you know, you can go hunt,
or you can go fish, or you can go do that,
and that stuff is all well and good, but in
the end, there wasn't a whole lot really working on
the mental health side. And so I had been doing

(17:36):
this what's turned into Freedom Fest. I had been doing
this event as a car trek motorcycle crew since back
in two thousand and nine, and we're donating just to
veteran organizations. And at that point I said, Okay, I'm
not the only first responder who is going through this.
I'm certainly not. Can't be the only one looking for help.

(17:56):
And so that's where the idea of, well, let's develop
an organization that helps on the mental health side of
things for not only veterans, but also first responders and
then also their families, because I know for sure personally
just how my stuff came home, and I wanted to

(18:19):
make a difference that way. And that's that's where the
Invisibles Project was born, from the need that not only myself,
but just all of our first responders needing a place
to go. And we really bid off an elephant when
we developed it, because we said, all right, we're going
to serve you know, police, fire ems, nurses, frontline medical staff,

(18:44):
and corrections officers nine to one and their families. Well
there's in Minnesota alone that's like but if you count
the family, that's like twenty percent of the population. You know,
we're talking millions of people. And you know there's a
lot of organizations out there, and we partner with other organizations.

(19:05):
I mean, we're not a one stop shop by any means,
but we are. We're a really we're a safe and
healthy entry point. We're a soft landing where people can
they can get in and they can get support. If
we don't do it, we know someone who does. And
that's the most important part, just people being able to

(19:25):
reach out and have a place to go where they
get connected.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
So you're at fifty thousand bucks, you want to get
one hundred thousand out of this festival, you're about halfway
there is what we looked up on your website. That
number is probably still in that neighborhood. So we got
a few days before the festival. People can get their tickets.
We have all the information capitletwo dot com and the
concert page, or just go to iwproject dot org like
IW Invisible Wounds iwproject dot Org Russ, dude, thank you.

(19:55):
Congratulations on what this has turned into and you're doing
great work. And for those that can't make it to
Clay Walker, which I don't know why, I mean, you
gotta find her over in your schedule because it's not
often that Clay gets around here, and it's great that
he's doing this. It's gonna be an awesome show coming
up on next Saturday. Depends on when you listen to
this podcast, obviously, but everybody should try to get to

(20:16):
Freedom Fest. And if you can't, from everything that you heard,
Freedom Fest at Running Aces in Forest Lake, everything you heard,
I mean, I'd make a donation to iwproject dot org.
So we appreciate you. Bud, thanks for taking your time.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Thank you. I appreciate it. Looking forward to having you
guys next weekend.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
Forsing.

Speaker 1 (20:32):
Yeah, we're gonna be.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
There, dude, I know it's gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Great guy, great event coming up. And thanks for listening
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