From Invisible to Unstoppable: Rick Sebastian's 43-Year Mission at Kennedy Collective

[0:16]  Welcome back to another episode here on the Heart and Hustle Podcast. This next guest, he grew up with his cousin Benny, lived through homelessness, and now leads one of the most inclusive organizations in the country. And that's just not purpose. That's truly transformation. Rick, I'm gonna go into it. Take me back to Benny. I want to know more about Benny and says to everyone that's watching. What was it about those moments with him that planted a seed that most people would have truly missed?

[0:42]  Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Good to see you, Fra. Uh, happy to be here. It It's one of my first memories that that I have as a as an adult today, thinking back to my childhood. We we grew up in upstate New York in central New York, just a couple of miles away from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Coopertown. And Benny was a a kid that was he was a cousin, my mother's one of my mother's older brothers, uh had had multiple children. And Benny had an intellectual disability. Um he also had a seizure disorder. And so like like every kid, everybody wants to play and everybody can play. And so Benny did all the things we could do. But as we got older, we realized that Benny couldn't read as fast as we could. He couldn't comprehend math. He had difficulty in subjects in school. But at at the end of the day, he was just like us. And so back in the 70s when I was going to school, 60s and 70s, kids with disabilities didn't go to our school. They went to a special school um in New York State. And so Benny was se separate se separated from us. And part of the the bringing everybody together, we also had friends that also had their level of disability. Um we didn't know what those were because no no one spoke about disability back then. No one spoke about being different because we were breaking windows in the old warehouses that were that were broken down. We were playing baseball. We're playing football in the streets. We did everything kids do. We just didn't look at what made us different. We looked at what really brought us together as family and also brought us together as friends.

[2:26]  You know, it um when you say that I just remember thinking friends, right, that you grew up with as you kind of mentioned, you would never know anything was wrong. And then as you kind of grow older and you guys graduate, you start to see people change and their directions and where they're going and and realizing that it's just because now they're on their own. They don't have those friends now. They have to kind of almost deal with their own issues, you know? And I and I say that because we all have our own problems, our own issues, our own disabilities, right? And sometimes we don't know until we're actually having to face it alone because Benny was just so excited to be around people that loved him for who he was. Cuz we mentioned earlier right before we got here, we're all somebody, you know, and then sometimes you get left alone. You you question yourself, am I somebody? Right. But now you're in a space, the Kennedy Collectives, the mission is truly just allowing these individuals to feel like they're somebody. Um, is that what got you into this space, Rick? like what got you into being part of the Kennedy Collectives and their mission?

[3:29]  Yeah. So, so, so this this I am somebody phrase comes from a friend, a dear friend from years ago, Tom Miller, who who taught a nationwide self- advocacy program and Tom had cereable and Tom was working in the space of providing employment to people with disabilities. So this concept of I am somebody I first learned from Tom. But I think I learned that long long time ago when I was growing up. And when when I look at what families go through who have kids with disabilities, I I look at my own family um and and what we experience having a daughter with multiple disabilities. It it really begins to question or families begin to question what's what's my function? what's my purpose? What's the value that's going to be brought into our life with this child? And so early on, I can remember being the the person who would take a stand for I didn't even know what the heck taking a stand was, but I was the one that would raise my hand and ask a question about why so and so was being treated differently. And then I found myself in high school gravitating towards those kids that were different, those kids that had a visible physical disability and really being attracted to being a part of their world and learning as much as I could. Um, back in the day, kids with Down syndrome again weren't going to public school. They were going to special school. In the state of New York, it was Boseies, the Board of Cooperative Educational Services. They'd go to Boseies during the day, but then participate in sports with us after school, just as if they were part of our regular classroom. But we didn't have that level of experience. What we had was what they could perform in an athletic endeavor or what they could how they could perform in a musical or in a chorus or in a a band. And so really looking at kids being kids, I think really was the beginning of, yeah, I can I can make a difference in somebody's life by focusing on them as a child and seeing them. Most folks that I've learned in my 43-year professional career now with disabilities are essentially invisible in their community. There are very few people that are working. We've got a a massive unemployment rate in this particular population. And I think in part due to visible bias, in part due to bias about what someone can't do versus what they can do for my business, small business, large corporation, nonprofit like the Kennedy Collective. And so this being somebody, I am somebody and making an impact really then provides that pathway to belonging to a broader community. And again, when we look at the areas of segregation that our country has gone through with a variety of populations, the disability community from a segregation standpoint is frequently left out. We're making great strides. We're doing some wonderful things, but we continue to have a day in and day out experience of belonging and making sure that we are doing everything possible to integrate everybody in our community and not just those who lend specific value that we can see or feel.

[6:52]  I love that, Rick, and I I love that you're in this space. And I actually spoke to a leader, I believe last week from I might butcher this, but I believe it was the Lighthouse Louisiana Lighthouse. But um what they do is they have a huge warehouse with very um high power manufacturing you know uh machines. People with disabilities that are legally blind are running these machines. And I thought how cool how you know you talk about they can do it all. You know I think sometimes we automatically put a stigma on somebody because we just look at the visual. In reality, these people are doing probably better than we would ever do, you know, but they don't have the opportunity. They don't have no one, as you mentioned, being their voice at times. Um, and yeah, I I do agree. We are doing better, but there's still such a huge need. I love that we're now seeing them enter their own homes like right when I speak to nonprofits and I see that's going around the world. Of course, we need more people like Rick, more leaders to to really advocate for them, but I'm seeing a lot of great things as well, man. What are you guys doing over at the Kennedy Collectives as well to just kind of pour into that hey you are somebody um you know mantra?

[8:02]  Yeah. So, so we're building social enterprises on the employment side. A social enterprise that that ecosystem has been around for a bit over 35 years and it's really a double or triple bottom line business. The bottom line for us 65 to 82% of people with disabilities are unemployed in this country. Excuse me. When we look at that and we look at that great unemployment rate, we're missing 20% of our general population in the workforce. And so the first mission for us, and these are not literal uh missions. These are not longitudinal where they just connect. They're fully integrated. It's like clasping your hands. You can't have your hands clasp if you don't hold them together. So the second bottom line is a positive impact on the environment. For those of us in the social enterprise world that have both a mission orientation as well as an environmental orientation, that then creates the pathway for triple bottom line impact. In in our case, we're a a SIMS uh green building certified janitorial company. We have janitors with intellectual disability, physical disability, deafness that are cleaning buildings to today's lead building standards, green building, green chemicals, etc. Um, when we look at our warehouse and logistics line of business, we're looking at using technology to create an opportunity for a person who can't read to be productive in the workplace. Not every job requires being able to read. Not every job requires being able to fully comprehend, especially if I have a device that tells me through a barcode scan, this is where I am in my warehouse and this is how many pieces I need to pick for this particular production. We also look at here at the Kennedy Collective, we also look at what exists in my home, what tools, what relationships, what pieces of equipment are going to make me more successful. We're looking at conduction convection type ovens, stove tops. If we're looking at devices we can attach to our microwaves that can detect when I might have pressed the wrong button and started cooking my food for 10 minutes rather than 1 minute. And this device will pick up the scent of food just before it begins to burn and shut the microwave off. looking at those individuals who require being lifted out of a wheelchair and using adaptive equipment in their home to make them more to make their home more accessible. Same thing with vehicles, utilizing accessible vehicles. The partnership that gets built among our community and our employees who create the support and service is also of critical importance to the social enterprise because it takes what what we're doing from a rebrand standpoint. It takes more than one of us to make a difference in the life of another human being. And so we're living into our new name, the Kennedy Collective. We rebranded from the Kennedy Center almost three years ago and we start to see more and more of ourselves in every community in which we support a person. And so all of the things that we're doing is supposed to be leading us into the future of economic empowerment of independent empowerment. And there's a a nuance to that level of independence. I'm a pretty successful person. You're a pretty successful person. But I don't think either of us are 100% independent. We're interdependent. Like Stephven CVY says, I depend on government, for example, to make sure that I have adequate roads to drive on. I I depend on family and friends to make sure that there are things that are happening in our neighborhoods, things that are happening in our families that are advancing the quality of life for us and people we've yet to meet. And so that level of interdependency is also something that we're pretty focused on here at Kennedy Collective. Rick, we're just about to unfold everything you just said because that was just so much just good information that people are digesting. I really want to kind of go back to what you mentioned that you did drop center and embrace collective. Um, what did that word actually really mean to you when changing that, right? You changed it for a reason. What was the meaning for it? Um, and initially I I have to tell you I was one of more than a dozen leaders including some board members here at the Kennedy Collective when the marketing agency we selected came and said, "Yeah, here's here's a new name we're recommending." And we go, "Oh my word, Kennedy Collective, that doesn't mean anything. What in the world are you asking us to do?" And the marketing folks continuously kept saying, "Give it an opportunity and put it together with what you're doing." We have four core values that make up that there are 11 words in those core values. Challenge the status quo, build community, create purpose, and ensure inclusion. When we look at those core values and we look at the collective in our name, it really then begins to to create this level of energy that really is about we do this together. When we unite as a collective, our ability have no bounds. And so when we start looking at everything we're a part of, community living, community employment, community socialization, everything begins with this concept of community. And when we look at one of the definitions of collective, it really is about community, right? And we start seeing that each of us has a role to play and each of us as somebody creates impact for the future, not only for ourselves, but for people we've yet to meet. And so there's a phrase that we that we use here at the Kennedy Collective. Just like I never met our founder, Evelyn Kennedy, but just like I think she created 74 years ago, she made a promise for us to be here in 2025. And we're making a promise for people to be here 74 years from now without ever meeting them. And that promise is maintain the consistency, maintain the integrity, and ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to everything that each of us has in our community.

[14:16]  Hey, real quick. Have you enjoying the podcast? We first want to say thank you. And we also just want to give you a little insight of what we're up to at Francis. Some don't even realize that we're working with organizations to help them use AI to create that real human communication experiences where that's actually supporting your your families, those patients or the entire community. We're actually creating tech that connects. Check it out. Francis.ai. Truly what what I'm admired by is the passion. I can tell you have passion for what it is that you do. It's not another job. It is truly I do this because I realize it's not about me. All right? It's so much more than us. And you're a father, you're a grandfather, but it's still there's still so much more that you are giving out there. So I I truly just appreciate the passion that you have for what it is that you do. Um but I ask you in a sense, I just recently, you know, dropped this mindset journal and and mindset to me is everything. you know what when you talk about mindset Rick there has to be times where you face some of the challenges that made you question are you who you are right that imposttor syndrome um and I I I think as leaders sometimes we all go through it and we don't speak about it had there's been moments that you've encountered that and and how did you overcome those parts of your your leadership journey

[15:36]  wow every day I I think m multiple times a day um we're being tasked in in our world with doing things that no other corporation, no other business would do. Um, do things without the appropriate funding, do things without the appropriate reimbursement for the service that you're providing. Do things for free. most people in our puritanical world. Um, I'm bring I'm I'm I'm channeling a gentleman by the name of Dan Palada who wrote the book Uncharitable. That that puritanical thought of the nonprofit sector of being charity and giving everything away is one of those things that frequently finds its way creeping into my thought that all right, we don't have enough money to do this. We don't have this type of resource to provide that, but there's an expectation that we're going to do it and we're going to find a way to do it, give it, create it. And so when those thoughts creep in about I'm less than, when those thoughts creep in and show up because I just left the state capital in Hartford and we're not getting another dime of resource for the next fiscal year, that quickly disappears and and goes away because it's then replaced with if not us, then who? And so when we start looking at what it takes to do the work that we do, those of us that raised our hand and said we are going to make life better for another human being, that's a responsibility that cannot be replaced. And when we start looking at and feeling that level of self-doubt, it just takes a quick instant to remind ourselves that we chose this world. We chose this world that was going to be filled with all kinds of doubt, with all kinds of vagueness, with all kinds of scarcity.

[17:34]  Yeah.

[17:34]  But I'm going to go back to being a little kid and growing up poor. We didn't know scarcity because the people around us ensured that we lived abundantly. We didn't have abundant things, but it was this to to what you said about this mindset, Colonel, that it's how you approach every situation that we're given. It's how we approach every relationship. Is there an abundance to who it is that I'm being that I then can give to another person in relationship? And so that's what the Kennedy Collective does best is we look at erasing those moments of self-doubt and and erasing those moments of invisibility and creating a pathway for us to equally walk forward.

[18:20]  So good. So good. I appreciate I'm also going to transition that into those that may um not know the space very well, right? We we you guys are working with those with disabilities. How do they shift their mindset to see things different from a different perspective? People may not see have this in their family. You know, usually that's where people could relate because they have it within their family. But how about for those that just are not in the space? They don't encounter this on a day-to-day. So when they see someone with a disability, it's almost already judging. Um how we how do we shift that mindset? So we we shift here at at the Kennedy Collective through a concept that we call collective voices and impact storytellers. And so when we rebranded it, it's important for each of us to tell our story. Our story is powerful. No matter what walk of life we come from, no matter where we come, we're powerful human beings. The the nature of who we are is something that we we need to be related. very few of us. I've never met a person in my life that wants to be isolated. I've never met one of those folks um that that wants to wander off and never be in contact with a human being again. I've always met people who want to belong. And so when we start thinking about how to create that that level of belonging is something that we instill in all new employees, we instill in the ability to listen. listen to people who may not have the ability to use spoken language. Well, Rick, that that seems like counterintuitive. How could I listen to somebody who doesn't have spoken language? Multiple ways to communicate. And that's one of the things that that I've learned throughout my career. It's one of the things that I've learned as a dad. It's certainly one of the things that as a CEO, we have to do better. We have to become better at listening and we have to become better at being able to take what we've heard and put that into impactful action. You just amazing. Every time I ask a question, I'm just sitting here just like deep in listening to what Rick is say because he's so good. Rick, I want to I told you we're going to unfold a lot of these things. You mentioned a little earlier about technology and where we were in this in this space. Um, innovation. You also just mentioned communication. I think we're in a space where AI is helping us communicate. You talked about um just embracing people, which is why I believe that AI will never replace a human being because people need people, right? I think AI becomes a tool for us. However, I want to know when it comes to AI, Rick, how are how are you guys using it now and maybe how would you want to use it when it comes to communication in itself, communicating with within our internal team or maybe even our external teams?

[21:03]  Yeah, great great question. And I think the our sector, our population has benefited from assistive technology in in recent years and and certainly in in recent months with the advent of all of the different chat platforms, right? Most of us are thinking that AI is limited to the bot that we're typing in prompting commands to. In our world, AI has been around from an accessible wheelchair that that has the ability to lift me out of the chair and have me stand. That's artificial intelligence. We have the uh Boston robotics. um when we start looking at what the military has done in the field of robotics that comes to the general population and we find ourselves benefiting from it in the disability community from an augmented communication standpoint. I I can remember going back to the early 1980s where this whole augmented assisted communication was taking place with those people who had zero speech and didn't have the ability to use American Sign Language. And so we've got devices, we have software that are being used. We have a young woman here at the Kennedy Collective that is essentially nonverbal but is an amazing communicator because she has worked we have worked with rehab engineers to create pathways for her iPad device that she can use a head click type out all of the sentences using various eye gaze pictoraphs and communicate like you and I are communicating today. That's AI. And so we're using that with assistive technology, assisted devices. Administratively, we're using AI in process mapping, in process development, and looking at standard operating procedures in our business enterprises and helping us to write technical proposals for RFPs where we're competing against the small business community. When we're looking at the philanthropic side, grant writing, letter writing, communicating to a broad-based donor network, we're also using those chat bots to to help create some of that pathway as well. And so I think in the next I want to say five years, but I think in the next five months, we're going to see even more dramatic change finding its way into our world, helping our employees do concurrent documentation using AI so that when Rick and Ephrain are working on a project together, we can just simply use our own speech to text and have the note of that particular session. That's a great use of AI.

[23:48]  Yeah, man. I I do agree with you. AI is moving faster than what we believe. And I'm happy that as a nonprofit leader um that you've you you see it right um as a leader in general that you see it because I don't know that a lot of leaders are I speak to so many of them and they're still kind of behind, you know, and still living in fear, you know. And I think to myself like, man, it truly makes a difference. It makes us move a little faster, makes us think a little, you know, uh more creative. There's times I I always go back to this one story. I had one of my board members 70 maybe two I might be giving her a little less years but still in her 70s and there's people that in their 70s that's it. They're just kind of tapped out. I don't want to learn anymore. But I was like hey I see that you have to write like 10 to 12 scripts. It was almost like copy and paste. Do you mind if I teach you chat tpt? And she was she's like sure. You know when she was seeing it she was just in awe of what it was truly doing and how fast it was being done. and she's like, "Ephra, it's overwhelming because I'm, you know, seeing it digitally, but I would love to just do it while you're there with me, so you can kind of walk me through." Yeah.

[24:52]  But it's cool that we are in a space where it don't matter what age, you're able to use AI and it truly does help you. Um, so I'm I'm happy to hear, you know, another thing I I forgot to mention about about the nonprofit um Louisiana Lighthouse, or it might be backwards, their CIO, I believe. you know, COO is legally blind, but she also deals with all their tech. So, it goes back to what you're saying, right? It's like it doesn't matter what the disability is. You have a COO of a company and they're dealing with all the tech. Like, it's possible, right? I So, I say that story because we've been talking about it, Rick. A lot of people feel that they have a disability and it it it holds them back. I'll tell you another one. I'm a big wrestling fan, right? I'm a big wrestling fan. the guy that was going for the championship. No one ever knew because he didn't do a lot of talking. He started to talk and you realize, oh wait, he's deaf. So this dude's a professional wrestler and he's fighting for every single person that that never thought they can get in the ring, you know, and wrestle. And now the work that he has he has to do probably a little bit more work cuz he has to kind of read what's going on to kind of interact, but it's possible, you know. So, I just love that this conversation was it's possible, you know, for those that have disabilities because sometimes disabilities also you can't see a disability, you know, but we live with it and we think that we can't we we're not good enough. We talked about it earlier that we're not good enough, but you are. And these are the conversations that I love to have, Rick, cuz we're showing people it you are completely capable of doing whatever you want to do. We have to just find the right resources, which is why we have these these conversations. is strictly resources. A lot of the things that you're saying, I can imagine people never even knew existed. They didn't know what that, you know, didn't know was a thing. But you guys don't just do one or two things. You guys are a lot. Have we tapped Have we not tapped into something, Rick, that you want to mention about what you guys are doing at the collective?

[26:45]  Yeah, we we have um my goodness, 74 years of trial and error. We have 74 years of innovation. I I tell folks all the time that to today I'm I'm talking to you on a podcast right now uh just before noon on June 2nd at 1:30 this afternoon I'm going to be speaking with a parent about a concern that parent has with a child that an adult child that we're providing services to. At 5:00 I'm having a conversation with a state legislator on a bill that will impact. at 7:30 I'm going to be giving a pitch to a group of folks that want to do some volunteer work. And so that level of innovation again takes us all the way back to the beginning. Our world is about being in relationship. Our world is about community. One of the things that we have that that we are very proud of, we've been doing for almost 11 years. We'll be celebrating our 11th anniversary and that's the Maggie Dailyaly Arts Cooperative. We have a group of 20 to 25 artists that in those 11 years we have taken from I like to make art to now they are exhibiting on the global stage. One of our artists was invited to exhibit last year at the outsider art fair in New York City and sold two pieces. We are in a co-exhibit right now with a social enterprise in Greenwich, Connecticut called Coffee for Good. Coffee for Good partnered with the Rye Garden Club and the Greenwich Daffodil Society and the Maggie Dailyaly Arts Cooperative through the Kennedy Collective to do an art exhibit featuring daffodils for springtime. We had artists contribute 20 paintings for this particular exhibit and half of those were sold during the exhibit. We're looking at creating opportunities for people with disability to use art as their voice to the community. And so we have three artists that have been commissioned by local legislative leaders and by an international NGO to do art specific for them. the city of Bridgeport's mayor commissioned one of our artists, Christina, to do a painting of uh the the harbor here in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and we had a huge celebration. And so, again, it's taking a person who has essentially been invisible her entire life. Christina's been told time and time again, she can't, she can't, you won't. It's not worth trying. And now every time I see her, she's asking, "When's the next time somebody's giving me a commission to paint? Who's next? Who are you going to introduce me to the next time?" The other thing that's happening here at TKC and and sometimes I shorten ourselves from the Kennedy Collective to TKC. The other thing is really looking at how are we able to stand up and support small businesses with our workforce? How do we create opportunities for commercial businesses within our community and internationally to bring our workforce to their solution? So, we've got joint ventures that we've created with service disabled veterowned businesses, international NOS's in the clean water space, Canadian food manufacturing firms, Canadian beverage manufacturers, American dairy, American clothing manufacturers. We're going to be in New Jersey with a large small business that makes military clothing on Wednesday and we're looking at the potential of providing some third party logistics for this small business that's much larger than the Kennedy Collective because we have a ready, willing, and able workforce. They just need to be given the opportunity. We spoke earlier about injury, right? We spoke earlier about fear. the the Lighthouse for the Blind in Louisiana having their blind employees working on high-end machinery. I've seen the Arizona industries for the blind and their CNC lathe machines that can they're they're manufacturing the stretchers that are being used by our military in in battlefields. Not a single person gets injured operating those machines because they're not willing to take a risk that you and I may will may be willing to take a shortcut. Our folks with disabilities don't want to take that risk and lose the job that in some cases took their entire life to get. And so that's the other piece that we're doing here at TKC. And that all falls back to I am somebody. It is possible that I could be doing something that I know nothing about. But once I learn it, I show up every day. I will decrease the small business and the nonprofit's workers compensation rates because I'm not standing on a chair ch changing a light bulb as a janitor. I'm not putting my hand into a paper shredder to clear out um you know uh stuffed pages, etc. Not willing to take that particular risk, but I am willing to show up during a snowstorm. I'm willing to stay late. I'm willing to get everything in order for you business owner or you nonprofit to be successful because I'll ultimately be successful.

[32:02]  Rick, I smile, man, because you truly leave with so much grit, so much gratitude and giving giving to and and just giving your time to this. You can just tell you gave me a schedule and that is giving every ounce to what truly the mission is that you fight for. And it looks like till till God decides to call you, this is what the fight is for, man. You can hear it. I sense it and I love it. How like which one are you leaning into the most right now? You know, and why between gratitude and giving? You lead with all of them, but is there one specific one you feel you're more in right now than the others?

[32:40]  Tremendous question, Ephra. Gratitude. I I I'm going to go all the way back to to to being a kid. Um I have spent 43 years as a professional. I've spent I'm I'm 65 years old with a 20-year-old mindset that I can change the world.

[33:01]  And my my goal when I was a little kid was to never allow another kid to feel what I felt. being abandoned, being poor, being made fun of.

[33:13]  Um, and so found myself really gravitating toward, wow, I don't have a whole lot, but I'm pretty darn happy. Not even understanding that that meant gratitude. Being thankful for everything you have. Um so so here here at the Kennedy Collective again using collective voices when when you see and hear our voices and and that's our take on humans of New York uh Kennedy collective voices hear my story as a person who can make a difference in another life. There is gratitude in everything that we do. I am grateful that I am a part of this particular life right now. this experience good or bad chaotic or filled with unbelievable steadiness and peace the gratitude that I have that I then impart that I receive it's both a giving gratitude is a giving and receiving function that each of us has as human beings and so when we think about that everything we do there is going to be some gratefulness a part of that families are going to be grateful because we've paid attention to their loved one employees are going to be grateful because we have provided a new benefit. We're providing a steady place to spend eight hours of your day. Eight hours or more than eight hours. Donors, donors want consistency and donors want to see impact and there's gratitude with that. And at the end of the day, gratitude leads to possibility. And I'm not talking about pie in the sky possibility. Anything is possible. Anything is possible. And that's going to come from being grateful and being filled with gratitude. Guys, this has been the Heart and Hustle Podcast. My name is Zrain. This is Rick. We'll catch you guys on the next episode.