How a Nonprofit Saying 'NO' Led to a $100 Million Impact

[0:00]  a lot of people think in a nonprofit space we just have to say yes to everything but sometimes in order to be excellent at serving the people who count on us we have to say no what do you think about that I 100% agree with that I was uh talking to my executive assistant and during right after the wildfires we were getting calls from all over the world offering help and I said no probably more than I've ever said in all the years I've been here because our motto is yes we can right and uh but I knew that we have to be intentional we have to do what we can if we're going to say we're going to do something we have to be able to do it and not give people false hope and so and what that did again was open up opportunities where we

[0:51]  didn't commit to things early on that we couldn't do and then eventually there were funding opportunities that were in our wheelhouse that was exactly what we could do we had the infrastructure we knew how to do it and that resulted in bringing in about $100 million into the county to provide assistance to people that were impacted all right guys welcome back to to a brand new episode of the heart and hustle podcast I am incredibly excited for you guys to be able to learn more about my guest today this is an amazing leader who is literally calling in from

[1:40]  Paradise today we're going to be talking about some of the things that are challenges when it comes to creating Community Based Services supporting the people around us challenges and Leadership we're going to talk about island-based nonprofits which debie here has an amazing experience in Debbie welcome to the show hi Aloha from Maui so Debbie I want to kind of give everybody a little bit of flavor about this amazing individual who sits across this digital table with me here today so you are currently the CEO of the Maui Economic Opportunity AKA moo now one thing that we should recognize is that your organization was founded in 1965 Under The Economic Opportunity Act there's a thousand other organizations that have been stood up underneath this act that went into action in two and I'm sorry in

[2:27]  1964 so how did you become this amazing leader who sits across from us with such an amazing responsibility well I um lived in Maui I grew up in aahu my dad was in the Navy I lived in Maui since my early 20s and I worked for a large retailer uh called Liberty house and I was uh worked my way up through the company and I was their HR assistant HR officer and I had been there 20 years and I was sort of ready to spread my wings and um back then everything was in the newspaper and you had to open it and read it and there was no online anything and uh I saw an ad for HR Manager for this organization and um I was like well I don't know what that's about but you know Human

[3:13]  Resources is is transferable skills whatever kind of industry you're in so I put in my application and I got an interview and I really didn't know anything about the organization I was kind of embarrassed a little bit um I did see and you couldn't go online and look it up like now you can Google it and you can get all this great information so um I did know that they did buses and I saw some of the buses with special needs children and so that's sort of all I knew so I came in I did an interview and I got hired and I did that uh I was in that role as the HR manager and then the chief uh human resource officer uh being a strategic partner with the organization for about 10 years and then uh um there was an opport to be the chief ex Operating

[4:02]  Officer which is more on the program side of things and I was like well I don't know if I really wanted to do that but I had um the CEO at the time approach me and said you know I think that you have a really good perspective of the organization and you'd be good at that so I did that for about seven years and honestly the first few years I really didn't like it very much I was kind of uncomfortable with um I miss the people part I miss the HR part like really kind of being in The Trenches with the with the with the folks um but I made the transition and when I started to connect the dots it made it easier you know to to enjoy that so I spent seven years doing that and then the CEO at the time very abruptly decided she was going to retire um her husband had

[4:49]  some health issues and she said I told the board you know I want you to take over and I'm like I don't want to do that um but my husband said well if you don't bringing somebody out from outside and you're going to have to teach them everything and I'm like well so um I did and I have not regretted a a minute of it so I've been the CEO since uh 2017 and um I just feel so fortunate and blessed to to lead this organization and I I didn't had no idea what I was in store for 24 years ago in 2023 there was a national survey that was founded CEOs Coos and CFOs were all asked which team member has the skill set to be the

[5:37]  future leader and CEO of this organization 92 93 and 94% of those sea-level Executives all identified HR leaders because they understand the 360 view of the organization but more importantly they're in tune with the people why do you think being an HR leader was something that you've been able to leverage in your your skill set to be the CEO here today well I love I love the people I'm a very Hands-On leader I like to know who's working for me and what's important to them and we Are a Human Service organization I mean everything we do is about people so if we take care of the people that work for us then they can take care of the people that we are here to help and um and I think being a HR person gave me a really good

[6:28]  perspective about that like what what things impact them you know if somebody's got a personal problem and there's a garnishment that's coming in not everybody knows that um and not everybody shares so you have to meet your people where they're at so you know you can have two employees and one never shares any of their personal issues but they're struggling just as much as this person who always shares maybe over shares and so how do you how do you make sure that you're respectful of people and not make assumptions based on things you don't know meeting people where they are you know one of the things that I talk a lot about on the podcast is we saw in the recent years the great resignation where people were leaving their jobs and I had

[7:16]  an amazing leader on the podcast a couple days ago who said you know we have to remember that people don't leave jobs they leave managers and leaders why do you think so many people had negative experiences with leaders who weren't willing to meet them where they are especially over the last couple years um I think sometimes leaders get so caught up in the the business and then they don't realize like all the other things that are going on and and it becomes very transactional and so you know they I have to get this done and you just need to you know pull up your pants and move on you know you have to you know pull yourself by your bootstraps and do it and and I I think um particularly in the stay age people are not like they're not wired that way so really trying to

[8:05]  understand like where they're coming from um to make sure that there's you're offering them some value what your company's benefiting but what is the value to them to be there and I think for us we're very lucky because a lot of people stay I've got employees our average employees been here about 9 years which is very high for a nonprofit and we've got employees that been here over 30 years and they stay because they believe in the work and the mission and they love to come to work um and and feel like they're doing something good my my former career you know was in retail and some of those people that I worked with actually was able to bring them into my organization because they had the people skills to do the work learn the business and they say every day like I feel so blessed to work

[8:53]  somewhere where I'm making a difference serving the community you know one thing that I will always talk about was when I was living on aahu from 2020 until 2022 I experienced a culture of ohana of family of people who are willing to stand up and do right by each other because this is our community and that's something that I think is incredibly unique to the islands of Hawaii that so many people don't understand I mean when it comes to providing the services you guys provide on I'm just going to kind of go through the list here you guys have the Head Start program senior citizen engagement um you guys have immigration support youth programs you have business development you guys have disaster release efforts how much more can you guys do for the community it seems like you guys are doing so much to serve the

[9:40]  people who you love so much well we're required um we're we're our core funding comes from the community service block grant which is part of the funding that came through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 so we're the designated entity for Maui County and along with that comes a responsibility to do comprehensive Community needs assessment every 3 years so we talk to clients we talk to um informed residents who know what's going on in the community what's important to them we bring in legislators we talk we talk to our partners and we talk to our clients and our employees and we do this really indepth review then we use all the censes data and all of that and we make sure that what the work we're doing is in alignment with what's important at

[10:27]  that particular time um you can't keep doing the same thing all the time I think sometimes uh some organizations get caught in that well this is what we've always done and we we are designed to be nimble so that if things change that we can pivot and try to address those needs so um I I don't know if that answered your question but I think um you know we we don't want to you know one of the things I said when I took over is I'm not necessarily looking to grow the organization in terms of expanding what we do but looking at our core programs and making sure they're relevant and they're meeting the needs of the people that they're intended to assist I want to talk a little bit about the culture of nonprofits I had the

[11:17]  privilege of sitting across from the CEO of a United Way in Knoxville Tennessee and he said you know one thing that we have to get more comfortable with as Leaders of nonprofits is the impact that we're making and because the world and the landscape of communities is changing so quickly we cannot rely on the idea of we've always done it this way so we're going to continue to do it this way and to kind of hit on this I want to share a story with you I've been sharing a story about an experiment there are four monkeys who are put into a room and in the middle of the room there is a um a ladder the scientists would put bananas at the top of the ladder and allow for the monkeys to climb up and eat the bananas now the second time they put the bananas at the top of the ladder they actually threw cold water into the room on top of the monkeys and they didn't

[12:05]  want to go up and grab the bananas now what they did is they took one monkey and replaced it with the new monkey so when they put the bananas on top of the ladder the new monkey would try and climb up and the other monkeys would grab it down and they would say we don't climb up to the top of the ladder you continue that experiment and before you know it there's all the um monkeys who have been replaced who never experienced the initial splash of water and if you were to ask them why don't we climb up and go get the bananas they would say I don't know but this is how we've always done it here that mindset of this is how we've always done it seems like it's not a very fortuitous mindset to be able to meet the needs of the community in the future why did you kind of lean into that mindset of we can't do the same stuff that we've always been doing here if we're going to be able to meet the needs of the people who we serve well because I listen to the people that are

[12:52]  in the community and they're talking about what they need and I'm looking at you know we we use statistical data we use you know um facts and numbers but we also look at stories right we look at anotal you know information that says this is the impact that it makes so if you know and I'll use an example we had a very prestigious program that we ran before I joined the organization and we struggled probably over the last maybe 12 years with with really fulfilling the obligations of that program and nobody wanted to give it up because it was a part of our history and and who we are and people identified with that and so it took a transition for me to say this isn't this isn't working it's

[13:40]  not highest and best use of your time it's not really benefiting the community and maybe we should focus on other areas and I finally was a little painful got people on board to buy into that and we and we did um let that go and you know that opened the door for us to do other things that we may not have had capacity to do then I think we're going to make a larger impact so I think just being willing to be really objective and take the personal feel good oh but this is you know this is this is what you know people recognize us and uh but it's a double-edged sword because they can recognize you but then you're also hurting your reputation if you're not fulfilling your obligations right I had a a CEO of an organization of North Carolina um called Thompson Child and

[14:29]  Family Focus and this CEO came into the organization about 7 years ago and they were doing about 5 million in revenue and he's been able to grow the organization to 50 million in Revenue another nonprofit and he said you want to know how I did this Keenan I said how'd you do it he said by saying no a lot of people think in a nonprofit space we just have to say yes to everything but sometimes in order to be excellent at serving the people who count on us we have to say no what do you think about that I 100% agree with that I was uh talking to my executive assistant and during right after the wild Flyers we were getting calls from all over the world offering help and I said no probably more than I've ever said in all

[15:16]  the years I've been here because our motto is yes we can right and uh but I knew that we have to be intentional we have to do what we can if we're going to say we're going to do something that we have to be able to do it and not give people false hope and so and what that did again was open up opportunities where we didn't commit to things early on that we couldn't do and then eventually there were funding opportunities that were in our wheelhouse it was exactly what we could do we had the infrastructure we knew how to do it and that resulted in bringing in about a100 million into the county to provide assistance to people that were impacted so you know that's a a great um reason to say no

[16:05]  when you know when you're thinking H just because somebody wants me to do it maybe that's not the best thing to do but man Debbie wasn't that scary during that time you know people flooding you literally with opportunities to support did you get any type of backlash from maybe the community of like Debbie we should be saying yes all this stuff yeah I had a a few people I had a I actually had a a legislator say to me well what are you folks doing and they were so used to us being the first ones to step up and do something and honestly was trying to figure out like how can we make the most impact how can we really be helpful and not just spinning our wheels and my staff had worked incredibly hard during covid my my core staff and we didn't hire additional people and we helped about an additional

[16:53]  13,000 households during covid with emergency assistance and we had we never closed we we didn't have the public open but we were providing rental checks and paying people's car payments and their medical bills and buying groceries and all of this stuff for about a year and a half during Co and they were tired and I thought if I if I get them into another situation where you're you're you're there's no end and we're still now we're not closed down cuz we're wide open doing all the other things we normally do um that's not going to be healthy for anybody and so I had the lieutenant government Governor say to me later she said you know it takes a strong leader to be able to say no and to know when

[17:41]  when it's time to say no and when it's time to say yes I can do it so I appreciated that when we say yes to one thing we inherently are saying no to something else and that's something that I think we need to ground ourselves in a little bit more is if I say yes to this what do I have to say no to later you know Debbie I recognize first of all huge round of applause and appreciation for everything that you have been doing for your community over the last 5 10 years I mean thinking about the impact that you've had not only during the pandemic but during the wildfires as well you being the leader who stands fast and Stands Strong to be able to serve the community is something that I hope you get enough time to actually practice gratitude and the impact that you've made do you ever get time to slow down with all the pressure that's on you

[18:29]  um I'm doing better I'm doing better than I used to um you you use the term giving giving yourself Grace and somebody else said that to me not that long ago and I I am better I'm very um you know I have very high standards for myself and um and I don't expect from my people anything more than I expect from myself but I do realize sometimes they need a little more support um so yeah I've been uh good my husband's sort of semi-retired so we've done we've done some trips um I told my staff unless things you know something something major happens you know don't call me text me if it's an emergency and I'll check the email and they've been really good about it I I really do work with an incredible team uh my my executive leadership team and

[19:17]  even my senior leadership team where you know they really all um compliment one another and support each other and everybody tries to help I mean like I said we're helping organizations so if you you if you come here and you're not geared that way you're not going to stay because it's really about you know service above s and I know I I was doing something one time I'm hanging up a banner for some event and somebody was an attorney and he said well don't you have people to do that and I said well I am the people we all do stuff everybody does everything the truest form of of of an amazing leader Debbie you really are kind of that beautiful intersection of heart and hustle you know one of the things I'd like to talk about is you hold your staff to the same expectation that you hold for yourself and you're a

[20:05]  high achiever you've accomplished some amazing things in your career there's a a quote that I'd like to bring into these conversations there's an author named Kevin Kelly in his recent book he said you lead by letting others know what you expect of them which may exceed what they expect of themselves provide them a reputation which they can live up to I love that I just had a i just had a conversation this afternoon earlier this afternoon with one of my emerging leaders and she's a young leader and runs one of our largest apartments and I told her you know I I think you might notice I'm kind of pushing a little bit hard and she said yeah I've noticed and I said I'm not doing that to make your life difficult I'm doing that because I see a lot of potential in you and I know

[20:53]  you can do it and I'm going to give you every tool you need to to to succeed but I'm going to let you do it and she said okay so I it's exactly what you just said I mean I believe in that wholeheartedly and you know what people in my career gave me that opportunity you know I I mean I had people that push me outside my comfort zone I always say you got that little n nozzle in your gut right here and if that kind of Wiggly then you're outside your comfort zone but that's when you grow so that that's important to me and I I think I I instill that on my children as well it's like you know push yourself to be better than you you can be but but you're going to make mistakes and don't beat yourself up either you know how do you create

[21:41]  that environment and that culture of being okay with making mistakes failing forward what do you think about that well I think being honest I mean I've said that I said that from the beginning especially when I took over as the CEO I said you know I don't want to be that Emperor and no Club so if something's not working I want to know about it and if you don't agree with me it says in our handbook that's the HR in me I know my handbook says in our handbook we have an open door policy and I said what that means to me is you can come and say anything to me I said we can agree to disagree we can have a discussion about it I said because I don't know everything so if I don't know what you're thinking and you're walking around mad at me it's not really fair to me because I didn't have a chance to understand where you're coming from so I

[22:30]  I try to make the space where the dialogue is comfortable and I know not everybody will you know some people will say yeah yeah and they still aren't embracing that but when I when I when somebody does make a mistake I try to use that as a teachable moment I'm I'm really a big fan of that like saying okay so what could we have done differently what you know or when they come to me sometimes with advice and I'm been trying to do that even more so now as if they say well what should I do I say what do you think you should do and kind of let them go through the process and then say well maybe we should do this you know I mean creating that safe space for people to learn is incredibly important and I see a lot of leaders and CEOs that struggle with that trust of relinquishing the opportunity for our team members to be

[23:17]  able to grow one of the things that I talk about often is 80% as good as you think you could get it done by someone else doing the work is 100% awesome and sometimes it's about relinquishing trust and creating that safe space for our team to be able to navigate through the challenges and say well this is what I would do here because you don't want to be the genius with a thousand arms who's literally doing everything for everybody because then you're not building a team yeah and I I I think early in my career uh when I was building the HR department I did that I had all I felt like I had all these balls in the air and if one dropped everything was going to blow up and then I I don't know I had this self reflective moment and said hey you know that's probably not the best model because if I'm not here tomorrow who's

[24:05]  going to do that and how are they going to know how to do it and so that that helped me pivot and start looking at um how do we develop the leaders give them the tools let them make some mistakes that are not going to be you know super detrimental but but geing in the right direction so it it's a process and I think being the you know living at an organization and growing up with it for it really helps because there's continuity and so I think it's harder when somebody is in a lot of different organizations cu the cultures are all different and you're sort of like Reinventing yourself all the time and then to me then then in the in my roles I've been very lucky that I've been able to to create better versions of myself throughout the

[24:53]  years or at least I hope so yeah no I I can vouch for it because the person who across from me is pretty amazing you know the thing I think about is like there's a narrative in social media Landscapes right now where you see a lot of people who are very popular on social media say in order for you to get what you deserve employee you should be staying at an organization no longer than a year and a half job hop because you can leverage your skill but what are some of the advantages of being a part of an organization that you can grow up in that maybe a lot of people who have that short-term mindset aren't going to be able to experience well if you look at our history almost every leader in this organization um was grown internally so we're very very big on that um and it it it is um helpful because then they have

[25:43]  all this institutional knowledge they have the bigger picture and all of that and I think um yeah the the generation today that is that is a a you know sort of a um a practice that's happening quite a bit but I think staying with a company uh understanding and as long as it's a company that gives you an opportunity to grow so you know personal personal growth professional growth um then it's worth it staying because then you have you have a connection to that organization and then also I mean if you you know like if you have a pension or a 401k or whatever that is that's also you know if you keep moving that every time there's there's a lot of lost cost that

[26:30]  people don't realize it's associated with fee surrendering and all that kind of stuff but I think it's just more about um a sense of place I think what if you had to move your house every year or two I mean that's you know really disruptive to your life so it it provides you a continuity a safe place um but it is important that you feel appreciated and that you do have opportunities I think you lose people when they feel like there's no other opportunities for them maybe they just haven't come across a great leader like Debbie you know I think we can you know synthesize it down into something simple um I want to talk a little bit about the unique challenges of being a nonprofit but being a nonprofit on an island what are some of the challenges that you face

[27:18]  that are unique to your organization that a lot of other CEOs of nonprofits might not experience well I mean so we have a fleet of about a 100 buses so when I have bus on the island of mikai I have buses on the island of lenai I have buses in Hana and I have buses here in on Maui Island and if a bus breaks down I I don't have enough enough buses or infrastructure on those islands to have a full-time mechanic I and the and the mechanics on the island don't want to serve the buses because they have small shops and it takes up all their space so I've got to fly over mechanics to at least two um I have to have a space for them to do the repairs um and then you know flying back and and if it's on lenai they have to

[28:06]  take the ferry and if the weather's bad the ferry doesn't run and uh you know all of those things and even to get you know supplies if we need things you can't just drive to the next town and pick up something and of course everybody I know Nationwide experienced um you know uh shortages during covid with like uh air conditioning for buses and you know all of that kind of stuff so it just everything takes longer and it's so much more expensive it's so expensive I was just talking to my Transportation manager today and she said you know I think we should be swapping out those buses at mikai and bringing them to Moi um you know at when they start getting older so that they're here and we can take care of them they got to take it back I said well then we

[28:53]  got to put that in the budget we got to figure out how we're going to fund that because that's quite expensive which then means to get one bus here I have two two shipping calls CU I got to send one over and bring one back and it's just that you know the time um and I think the other thing too is um you know your Workforce is only here so you can't drive from you know from Maryland and go down and work in Washington DC I mean my brother for many years after he grew up he moved back to the east coast for a little while and he drove from Silver Spring down to DC and work and drove back you can't do that here so they don't have you don't have that um capacity to to increase your Workforce you have to really just focus on your you know what what you have

[29:41]  locally and I think that creates a unique opportunity to invest into the people of the organization because retention is not only a strategy to build great culture but it's also a cost reducing structure or strategy as well which is really important to kind of think about from the Tactical nature of what you guys do every day mhm absolutely 100% agree with that let's spend a little bit of time deie kind of talking about where we came from and where we're going so we know that you have some lofty goals to be able to be traveling here you know in the next let's say 5 10 years right where you want to be able to spend time with your husband what is the future that you're hoping for when it comes to moo and the things that you're trying to cast a vision for for the next great leaders to

[30:28]  kind of take over this amazing organization so we we ran a federal head start preschool program for lowincome children and families and we've been doing that since 1965 that was one of our first programs and uh but it's always the federal government only funded it up till 12:00 so the county of Maui was funding uh the afternoon to end when the doe schedule ended and I've always wanted to offer that as a full day 12-month program uh because we're our our target audience our low-income families they're working families or they're in school and school and work doesn't end at 2:00 so what do you do with the child and I said I don't

[31:15]  think we're really meeting the full needs of the families if it's a and and Head Start is a comprehensive family program not just for the children but also they have Family Partnership agreements for the parents so um we actually just were granted some funding over the next 5e period to do exactly that so I'm so excited um that we have this opportunity to um increase our core funding so that we're going to move to a 12 month uh full True full day 7 to 5 a.m. program or pm. program to really support those families and then also um we have a property that was given to us uh by a donor back in 2007 that we were going to use for re

[32:03]  reintegration program and um we never were able to to make that work and it was three CEO I mean two CEOs ago that started it three CEOs ago uh so I reached out to one of our Community Partners that does housing for low-income people and I asked him if he would partnership so he found a developer and we just got our District boundary Amendment approved um to change it from B from egg to Urban and we're going to be building 120 affordable rental units in wum Maui and it is for low income and it is always going to stay low income and it will help people build that that funding Reserve hopefully so that then they can buy their own house later or move into

[32:50]  their you know into an unsubsidized type of living situation so um construction here takes a long time but but uh I'm I'm hoping that we're going to start breaking ground uh you know by the end of 2025 at the latest and uh that will be exciting and then we've been doing a lot of focusing on adult and teen financial literacy and credit repair through our business development center and not just for business owners but also for people that are enrolled in some of other other programs cuz we're finding that the financial literacy is is one of the biggest barriers to people achieving Economic Security because um a lot of times people will get um you know you get a child tax credit refund from the IRS and they'll spend it and I know

[33:40]  I realize sometimes they have to but they'll say oh I want to treat everybody to something and so teaching them about you know once versus needs really understanding how credit impacts you you know not taking out too many credit cards because they're offered to you and then you're only paying min M and what that really is doing to your overall Financial Health so that's that's a big focus and then um we've also been focusing a lot on food insecurity so we're running a um senior Farmers nutrition Market program so it gets fresh and fuits and vegetables in the hands of the seniors but it also helps the local farmers because it's economic stimulation for them it's it's money that is and then it's teaching uh the seniors that once the subsidy ands and

[34:28]  you're going to buy your vegetables don't go to you know the market but go to the local farmers go to those Farmers Market support local um and I think in Maui there's a big Resurgence of of local farms and farming and I so I think that's going to be exciting and then um I think the other thing is uh you uh we've been providing tools to youth to identify risk-taking behaviors and we've expanded that it used to only on Maui Island we have expanded it this last 2 years to the island of mikai um we're helping about a th000 youth a year throughout the county and really feel like focusing on that group is so important because if they have those if they have those tools and those

[35:15]  protective factors now they're going to be much more successful later and they won't end up on our reintegration program working with folks coming out of incarceration so those are kind of the main things that we're focusing on in the next next few years I hope everybody who's tuning in and watching and listening to this podcast just heard Debbie's master plan to be able to impact the community for generations to come you know we talk about all of these objectives Debbie and we think that they're just things on our checklist but as I sit here across from you in this digital format I can truly appreciate the work the grit the tenacity and the compassion that it takes to push a lot of these things across the line because when you're serving your community at scale it's incredible to hear all the things that you're talking about because

[36:03]  you're making a lasting impact in your community and just thinking that I have the opportunity to sit across from amazing leader like you is just absolutely phenomenal it's incredible thank you thank you very tough to very tough often for us to you know accept the gratitude that of the amazing work that we do which is another form of an amazing CEO you know Debbie I want to ask a personal question if you could go back 10 years and you could give advice to your younger self what would you say to Debbie yeah I think I would have given my self- grace much much earlier not be so hard on myself I you know beat myself up second guasp myself um and you know I funny one of my daughters is a nonprofit leader now um you know she's 35 uh she's been with

[36:53]  that organization about 10 years um and I and I give her that advice um and I think she takes it you know don't be so hard on yourself don't second guess yourself you make a decision um and you just go forward with it and you can't look back because could have would have should have is not healthy as part of our final tradition here as we end our episode Debbie we had a leader who wanted to ask you a question from our previous episode now this individual is named Elizabeth Matthews she is the CEO and founder of an amazing organization called EMG Consulting out of um on the east coast and her question for you was if you could give advice to others in your space that you should lean into harder

[37:43]  that is outside of the traditional thought what would what would that advice be try to make it fun I think that's so hard when the work is so hard and the people that there's tragedy you see and struggles try to figure out how to make it fun you know have some fun while you're doing it what what yeah I I think that's it you know how how how can I make work fun when it's pretty daunting sometimes I would like to use the last couple seconds here for you to be able to run a Mini commercial if you will if people want to find out more about moo if they want to find more out about Debbie how can they get in touch with you how can they find out about the

[38:29]  amazing work that you guys are doing for this amazing Community well we we have a website and it's uh Meo in.org Meo I nc.org and um you know we try to keep it updated so there's a lot of information about all of our board members our our our senior staff um and client testimonials program information um and new probably could Google me if you want wanted to uh to see different things that we do um and um yeah you can email me at debbi dbb ie. kabibi CA BBE Meo nc.org or um give us a call and our numbers on

[39:21]  our website Debbie thank you for being the true definition of heart and hustle this has been an absolute blast and thank you for blessing this stage with me it's been an amazing time getting to know you and sharing your story thank you for the opportunity it's been my pleasure