Sheila Bennett

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02:19Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll, and I am your host. We will be joined with Jen Ichikawa as we talk with Sheila Bennett. Sheila is the executive director at CORE, which is an acronym for Children of Restaurant Employees, and they do so many amazing things that the opportunity – I met Sheila over at Maribor when she was doing a – we were Daddy Wreck, which is a type of Tennessee whiskey, donates to CORE, and they came to Maribor because we had donated – done some fun things, and we had taken some pictures together.

03:20We were talking about the podcast, and I said, I would love to have you on the show to just talk about what CORE is. Let's talk about all the different things that CORE does. It will be so fun. I love to get my listeners up to date. So she said, let's do it. So we did it, and it was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to share it with you. It's coming to you today on a Saturday because I got pulled away yesterday, and I got to tell you this story. It's the craziest story. I'm sitting in the studio, and I'm starting to do the editing. I'm starting to put this thing together, and my phone rings, and it's my wife. And I said, hello? She said, hey, what are you doing? I said, I'm at the studio, and she said, the dog jumped out of the car on Snead Road. And I said, a dog jumped out of a car on Snead Road? Like, what? And you saw it? She goes, no. Our dog jumped out of the car on Snead Road. Is she still alive? And she goes, yes, but she's got cuts, and I'm like, what happened?

04:24So I immediately jump up, obviously, and hop in the car, and I start flying down to our animal hospital at like 4.30 yesterday on Friday night, on Thursday night. So Thursday night traffic at 5 o'clock from Hillsboro Village straight to Bellevue. Not the best of times. The dog was actually fine, and I'll tell you what happened. My wife had just picked up the dog from being groomed, and she picked up my children at school. Children first, then she picked the dog up, and the dog was jumping around the car. It was very playful after being at the groomer for most of the day. And she turns on to Snead, which is close to our house. You may know where that is. You may not. I don't know. But she starts speeding up, and the dog is sitting on my kid's lap, or standing kind of on my kid's lap, with her head out the window. The window was cracked enough to where she can stick her face out the window. She loves the air. And she stepped on the window control, and the window went down, and she was like, here's my chance. And she just jumped out of the window.

05:27I was freaking out. And I'm sure you would too. You're hearing this story. You're just going, oh my god, the leash was still on the dog. She stopped immediately. But she goes, and the terror that she went through was just like, I don't even know. So I met the dog. The dog had some cuts, some scrapes. No broken bones. Nothing. I got to the animal hospital, and she was just jumping around, just happy as can be. So the episode didn't come out on Friday. It's going to come out on Saturday. And sometimes I share more than I should. Thanks for listening. Hopefully you didn't go through all the trauma that we just went through hearing that story, because that was mighty intense. And our little pup, Dolly, is all good. And she's playful. Sorry today. She's doing great. And yeah. So here we go. We're going to jump right into this episode with Sheila Bennett. You guys are going to love this.

06:28She's with CORE. And stay tuned. We're going to let you know how you can help out with CORE on your monthly or how you can help them out and how they can help you. This was a great episode. You'll enjoy. I didn't know that was a thing. Super excited today to welcome in Sheila Bennett to Nashville Restaurant Radio. She's the executive director over at CORE. Children of restaurant employees, welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. Oh my goodness, Brandon. Thank you. It's so good to be here in my hometown of Nashville. Yeah. On your podcast. So are you are you a unicorn? I am. It's a rare sighting in this town. I know. I know. I am so jealous. I have a shirt that I got from Project 615 that says lucky me. I'm from Tennessee and it's green and you're supposed to wear it for St. Patrick's Day. But you're a liar.

07:28I've lived here for 33 years. He's from California. I was born in California. I moved here when I was nine, but I've been here for 33 years and like most your local I've definitely so I've like if I go somewhere, they say, where are you from? I go, I'm from Nashville. I don't say well, originally I was born in California, but then I moved to Nashville before I don't do any of that. But my wife says you're not allowed to say that because you can't say you're from Nashville. Well, let's see, I'm asking a real Nashvilleian since you've been here for 30 plus years. I'm going to deem you today a Nashvilleian. Thirty three years. I always find a funny meeting like 23 and they've went to Vandy or something and they're like, how long have you lived in my 30 years? Oh, I consider you like, oh, do you consider me a Nashvilleian? That's nice. I had someone from California the other night at my table. Tell me that I was local because I'd been here nine years and I was like, you just moved here though. And I don't think anyone local would consider me local yet. I can see you. Let's give you another year.

08:29It needs to be at least. I agree with you. I feel like 10 years is substantial. Nine years is you're flirting, but you're not committed yet. You're almost there. I see the finish line. Well, who knew this conversation was going to start off this way? Sheila, what part of town did you grow up in? Oh, my goodness, South Nashville, Green Hills, went to college in Green Hills, born at Vanderbilt Hospital. My dad grew up just two blocks from here. Really? As a matter of fact, there's a little fire station across the street. Yeah. That was where my uncle Ralph learned how to play poker. No kidding. From the firemen. Yeah. And I think that I do not want that to go away. There's so many things I drive through Hillsboro Village and I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's just being torn down and rebuilt and I don't like it at all. And you drive down Hillsboro Villa, you drive down 21st and there's that adorable, amazing fire station. And I'm like, I don't want them to tear that down. No, it needs to stay. It's part of our history and we've got to keep that culture intact.

09:31So, see, you're speaking like a true Nashvilleian, so see? I feel it. I feel like I'm in Nashville. I see so many white houses going. There's all these just white houses everywhere. There's these amazing neighborhoods that had a lot of really charming ranch style houses that are now gone with huge white houses. And it's going up everywhere. And you drive through Brook Hollow or wherever and it's just like, oh, man, that's the way I feel. I know it breaks my heart to some degree. Yeah. But anyway, you know, because there were so many wonderful memories when I drive through my one of my uncle's former neighborhoods in Green Hills, where he had five acres is wonderful home. You now go there and I think there are 30 houses on, you know, and actually a team member lives in a condo that is right in the curve. And I just tease her and say, you live in my uncle's front yard. So I'm really excited. I'm going to Phoenix, Arizona in like a month or so.

10:33And I am going to the restaurant leadership conference and you're going to be speaking there. That is true. And what's so exciting is we're just not attending the restaurant leadership conference. We are the charity partner at this event. That's fantastic. So it's going to be another beautiful way to get the word out about core to let more people know that we exist. A we're based here in Nashville. Our offices in Brentwood. And would you believe we only help people in all 50 states, not just Nashville or Tennessee, but our reach is wide. Our team is small and we're mighty. But we help employees with children who work in any kind of food service operation or beverage service. What that means is they can work in a restaurant, a restaurant that's freestanding in a hotel, a food service operation in a hospital or a school or a stadium or beverage service that could be a coffee shop, smoothie shop, a bar, it could be a food truck catering facility. But if that employee has legally dependent children and the employee, their spouse or child faces a medical crisis, an injury that would keep them from work, a death of the employee spouse or child or lost their home or place of work due to a natural disaster, they may qualify for a grant with core, which is a gift.

11:56And we may cover things like their rent and mortgage because, you know, 84% of our grants are due to a medical crisis. And you know that medical bills are the number one reason in the United States for bankruptcy. And that's all Americans, not just folks working in the food and beverage industry. The number one reason for bankruptcy is medical bills. Yes. Wow. I believe that. It was a study on CNBC. Wow. I used to be an ambassador with core years ago. So I worked in the offices off when they were in Green Hills. And I was telling him beforehand about like Cory bear, because my kids now have a Cory bear. It's so soft. It is like the softest teddy bear. Every kid gets a teddy bear, right? Do you still do Cory bear? Well, they did until we exploded in growth the year of COVID. And I came back home to Nashville after being away for a few decades to lead this nonprofit. And at that time, the year prior, they had granted out to more families than they had ever at that time to, goodness, about $300,000 in grants.

13:02Wow. In the year of COVID, I granted out close to $1.5 million. Wow. So we grew a little bit. Yeah. Well, I mean, gosh, with everybody with us having to close restaurants and every— Being sick. It was a huge issue. I mean, you guys stepped in big. We did. I mean, imagine being furloughed from your job. And then you learn that your daughter has leukemia. You know, that's pretty devastating. You don't have an income. You've got a little bit of a safety net there. And we stepped in to help. Or you've got a COVID diagnosis. And in the early days of COVID, that's when many people were hospitalized. And unfortunately, we even covered, and sadly, you know, families where there was a death and their family due to COVID. So we stepped in a big way, and we were still the best kept secret in the industry. But our small and tiny, mighty team is working hard to change that. And thanks for your help there. I'm honored to have you here. This is one of the most—this is one of the most exciting things for me because the opportunity to have a podcast to get the word out about things like this was kind of a dream come true when it came down to, hey, let's start a podcast.

14:09If we can do great for the industry, then I'm in. This is really exciting for you to be here. How did it get started? How did CORE get started? And what was the genesis? Well, back in 2004, there were some friends getting together in Chicago at the National Restaurant Show. And about 75,000 people attend that event. And you know, a lot of times, many of us get together. You meet your buds for drinks or dinner. And they were meeting for drinks or dinner, and they said, you know, people come to us all the time. Now, keep in mind, these gentlemen primarily, they worked in the beverage industry. So they were representing Salute Vodka, Diageo, and other organizations. They said, people come to us all the time asking for money to help these great causes. But nobody ever asked us to help a cause that helps employees in the industry we serve, the restaurant industry and bar industry. And so as they talked about, you know, wow, well, maybe we should put something together. And the conversation turned towards kids. You know, so many times, kids are impacted the most.

15:12And that's why they created the organization called CORE, because they wanted to make sure that kids were taken care of. And in the early years, they partnered with Make-A-Wish. Because they really weren't certain what to do. They just knew they wanted to help kids. And they heard directly from families of, wow, this is really nice. And it's a great organization. But what we really need help with is just covering our living expenses. We'd love for someone to cover our rent and mortgage, because we're having to miss work for this, you know, or other things. So they took two years off, did a lot of research. And they determined that they really needed to create an organization that would help employees cover their living expenses for the month, or the time period maybe they were navigating through this experience, this crisis. And so our average grant last year was $2,400. And we pay rent or mortgage directly. And then we also have a branded Visa gift card, a CORE Visa gift card, which is trackable spend.

16:12And when someone applies for a grant, they provide documentation. We qualify everything. And we'll even get copies of their utility bills. Then we'll give them this Visa gift card that they can use to cover their electric bill, their water bill, maybe their car insurance, if they're needing to get to treatment or therapies or other events. Or maybe we need to give them money for out of pocket medical cost equipment, or just basic necessities. Are they putting groceries on the table? Do they need diapers, formula, things like that? Yeah, formula is insanely expensive. And I just read some report that that it's the most stolen item from grocery stores, which just breaks my heart because it's, I mean, I have twins that are 14 months, they were both formula fed because they were in the NICU and I just couldn't, I could not produce for two babies. And so we spent hundreds of dollars a week on formula because they would go through it so fast. And my mom was staying with us and she was like, what do people do that don't have the income to buy the formula?

17:18And then we found out that they just take it. And I just breaks my heart to have a hard time feeding your kids has got that I can't imagine something. It can be a struggle. Yeah, absolutely. So how long have you been with CORE? A little over two years now. I stepped in right before the pandemic. Good timing. Yeah, yeah. Well, it was a time when it was needed and we rebuilt the organization, put new systems into place. We're strong. We're solid. We've also worked with a lot of partners around the country, too. I'll bet. All 50 states, right? All 50 states, state restaurant associations, the National Restaurant Association. If my chart and the list goes on, do you have any restaurant experience yourself or what gave you the heart for this specific organization? Well, actually, I went to school to be a teacher and I was teaching part time at Vanderbilt in child psychiatry right around the corner and to supplement my income, because my goal was to go back and get my master's in special ed.

18:21Well, I started working part time at Ruby Tuesdays that used to be on West End and Murphy Road. Yeah. You remember? Oh, yeah. The old house. Well, if you'd come in, you might have seen me. I was your hostess. And then I transitioned to be a server. And then they opened up Hickory Hollow, which for those of you listening out there, Hickory Hollow used to be the really happening part of town and Hickory Hollow Mall. It used to be the Cool Springs before Cool Springs. And I opened up the Ruby Tuesdays there, worked a little bit as a floor supervisor. And then I met folks in the distribution world. What year was that? Oh, gosh, good question. I probably helped open that location. Now, the restaurant opened after the mall was open. OK, so the mall had been there for several years. But that restaurant probably opened in the mid 80s. OK, I worked I worked at Ruby Tuesdays in Brentwood in the 90s, the mid to late 90s.

19:22She's like, well, I'm sure we still have mutual friends. Sure. Ruby Tuesdays days here. Can I love working up rolling? Wow. OK. That's interesting. It's a small world. It is. It is. We were one time doing a podcast where he met somebody that was in the same third grade class as his brother, like it being from California, the same elementary school in California. Yeah. That's a big stick. They had the same teacher, didn't they? The same kindergarten teacher. Yeah. So the bread lady, Sarah Gonzalez. Yeah. So it gets small. The world gets smaller all the time. It does. So you come in two years ago before the pandemic started, right? So you didn't just see the pandemic coming. Did you or you just wanted to do this? You came in, started working with court and then all of a sudden, hey, there's a pandemic. What do you what do you do as a leader going into that? What's the first thing that you did when you heard the news, the pandemic?

20:23It's here March 17th or March 12th, I believe, was the day that they closed Major League Baseball. The spring training stopped. They put on hold the NBA season, the hockey season stopped. They canceled March Madness. Like everything happened on like March 12th. And that day, everybody went, oh, my goodness, what's happening? What do you do as a leader and a newly appointed leader in that moment? Well, number one, you think about your team, you know, how is this going to impact everybody? And we were going to start working from home and working remotely. And at the time, we were in individual office settings where you what I say is rent a room in an office in Franklin. And I knew that we needed to eventually get our own office space. And let's track back to January 24th when I walked into a board meeting day one, I had two full time employees, one part time employee, one employee went on medical leave day three.

21:25And then we were getting ready for the Vibe Conference in California, which was a big fundraising event. And then I had to sell my home in Atlanta, which happened to sell in two days in February. And I thought it would take 30 to 60 days and then I came looking for a home in Nashville. All I want to say is thanks, guys, for jacking up the prices while I was gone. No kidding, right? Yeah. So, you know, trying to find a home that was affordable back in Nashville and coming to look for a home, it was the first week of March. I looked in February and also March and the area of the community had been hit with five tornadoes, if you remember that. And so we were getting the word out to the Hospitality of Tennessee Organization and other people we knew in the community to say, hey, we're here. We're a resource for you. You know, please have people go to the website and apply for a grant and we'll go out and distribute gift cards at that time. So I just knew that we had to rebuild our infrastructure. We had to define, you know, what is covid, how much time are people going to be out of work, try to understand the pandemic and then how can we address it?

22:33And so we knew that restaurants were closing. And actually, I had some CEOs from major brands calling me saying, I'm going to have to furlough employees. Can you help? And I said, well, number one, we're not here just for when they're furloughed, but if they're going through any of this criteria, we're there. Even if they're furloughed, we made the decision because one of the qualifications is you have to be employed. So during the year of 2020, when the world was furloughed, that still was a qualifier. You had to be previously employed. Now you have to be fully employed, you know, to qualify this a qualification because everybody essentially was unemployed, correct? So we just had to change some of the language. We had to update the website, you know, we had to get the word out. We were sending out press releases as well as reaching out to our network to please disseminate the word out to their team members and employees and our partners. So you just start taking action. We hired a couple of consultants because even as folks would call us, some of our partners, they would say, you're going to be busy, you're going to need to add your infrastructure.

23:39So we added on three part-time consultants, some to help just with the influx of grant applications coming in, because we also talk to every applicant and learn more about their specific case and their needs, you know, and then it's taken to a committee where their case is reviewed and presented, and then we determine the grant amount. Wow. Every single one goes through that process. Correct. And if I'm out there right now and I, my children, I have a sick child that needs help, what's my first step? Your first step is to go to core, C-O-R-E, gives, G-I-V-E-S dot org, O-R-G, coregives.org. And at the top of the page is apply. Apply for a grant or also if you've got a co-worker and you know that they may qualify for a grant, again, go to the website, check it out. You can click the button that says refer a family. You can refer them and then we'll contact them and call them and then we ask for information through the process, documentation, you know, your checks, maybe if you're needing help with your mortgage, a copy of your mortgage bill, because we're going to pay that directly, bills, your diagnosis papers and also your prognosis.

24:57And the reason I asked for that is because last year I remember getting a case where someone had brain surgery and she was just asking for a month's help. Well, what a lot of people don't realize in 2015, I went through brain surgery. You did. I did. Wow. They just were doing exploratory surgery to see if I had a brain. Like you had me for a second. You know, me too. Why would you do that? No, no, no. I really did. It's what we would call a sphenoid wing meningioma, a type of brain tumor, and it had popped out and was crushing my optic nerve, which was how we found it, because it was pushing my right eye forward, crushing my optic nerve, damaging my vision. But the bad news was it was also crushing my carotid artery. Not such a good thing. But then I had to go through surgery, radiation, you know, physical therapy, and everything just to get through that journey. So I knew this young lady needed more than what she was asking for.

25:58So I asked not only for her diagnosis, but what is the treatment plan her doctor is proposing? Because you knew firsthand, this isn't going to be a month. Correct. This is going to be correct. Much more. Yeah. And we've got a team that they're well educated. We train them about various situations. And that's why our committee meets together. We usually have three to four people on the committee call to discuss the situations and then identify, you know, how can we help them? Because that's why we're here. CORE is here to serve. I always find it, I always admire people in your position because I feel like I would, even when I was an ambassador with CORE, you end up becoming so invested in these people that their heartbreak you wear. And it's so hard to not kind of separate yourself from like, okay, I want to do more. I don't know how to do more. Or when you know the outcome isn't going to be positive, it's just so hard to do. How do you continue to get up and help every day knowing that there is heartbreak in it?

27:02We also know there's strength and courage. You know, when you see the resiliency of people in America and people in the restaurant industry is amazing. It's inspiring. And actually, we get notes from families, we'll get emails and cards saying, you gave our family hope. Thank you. And because of that, we've named three campaigns using the word hope. So in the month of April, we'll have an inspiring hope campaign because we inspire hope to countless families across the nation. And this summer, we will have the summer of hope campaign, which is a personal giving campaign. And again, our goal is if every listener, everybody in the industry donated $5 or more we could raise the millions of dollars that we need to help more families. And then in November, we serve up hope. And it's really an employee appreciation month to let those know, you know, the workers know that you really appreciate them being there every day. Yeah, that's incredible. I can't. It's so amazing to see how positive you are about it.

28:04And does your brain ever turn off? Like, how do you not take this job home with you? Well, actually, I have someone here in the audience with us that can speak to that. Christine, we're going to bring Christine into the show. Christine's been hanging out, filming. And she is going to jump on here. Hi, Christine. You're wrapped around there a little bit. Hello, I know I'm caught up in cables. Sorry about that. I just won't move too far. Oh, you're going to come untangle me, huh? He can't help it. He's a helper. I figured as long as I didn't move too far, it'd be OK. To answer your question about Sheila, does her mind ever turn off? No, it does not. I cannot tell you how many times I am a consultant with Cora, a marketing consultant. And as a result, I work some kind of crazy hours to, you know, and I frequently work late at night or early in the morning.

29:10And no matter what time it is, she will answer. I know the feeling. It does not matter. I'll email her at 1030 at night saying, look at this. I'm proposing this to go out tomorrow. What do you think? And sure enough, she's right there answering me. And last week, she was out of town and she was supposed to take personal time off a couple of days. No, no. And it's to the point where we're all kind of getting on her and telling her that she needs to take a break because in order for her to be most effective for everyone, she needs to be well rested. And she has a big schedule coming up because she is going to be hitting. You mentioned the RLC conference earlier. That is just the beginning of her travel schedule. She is going to be all over the country this year talking and telling everyone about core. So she's wonderful. That's funny, Jen, when she messages me at night time, she says, this is not for you to respond. It's just in my head right now and I need to get it out. We can talk tomorrow. And no, no.

30:13Yeah, I try to like create boundaries for him if he won't. But also as somebody that has a similar person in their life of available 24 7, if I don't hear from him for X amount of time, then I grow concerned. Yes. And I have to be like, hey, just check it in. Like, are you still with us? Yeah. Now, unfortunately, we do try to make sure that she's like, hopefully we won't bother her. Hopefully she's actually spending time with her family as she should be doing right now. It happens on occasion. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we have fun. I have fun all the time. Yeah, but you let me know that you're doing that so that I know not to worry. So like if he's if he's going to be like away from his phone, be like, hey, I'm going to go into the park with the kids or the kids. Where's the amusement park you went to a bunch last summer? Oh, we went to Bowling Green to the. I forget what it's called right now. I don't know, but there's a park in Bowling Green that has like roller coasters. And he took his his two sons like a few times within a few weeks.

31:15Each Ben Park. That's it. Each Ben Park. And he would always be like, hey, I'm going. I'm leaving town. Yeah. And now he shares all of my calendar. Every time I put an event in my calendar, she's like, here you go. It's amazing thing now that we can do that. Yeah, it is. It is. I love technology. But Jen, guess what? You can be an ambassador again. I still I'm still on the email list. I still get all of the emails. I have not had a lot of capacity in my life to take on anything else for the last year or so. But now my kids are actually starting daycare soon and I'm a little sad about it and scared. So I'm trying to free up some time. Well, you proactively got to it. I was going to say the next side of this whole thing, we've kind of touched on what you do, how you're able to help families of restaurant children, of restaurant employees. But then that has to be funded somehow. Right. So we. Money doesn't grow on trees.

32:16I'm aware of this. Right. Yes. So it's always a touchy thing, you know, when you ask for money or donations. I always feel like if somebody's asking, I don't know. How do you go about funding your mission? Great question. We do it through primarily corporate partnerships. So a lot of organizations choose to support core, you know, through donations or cause marketing programs. We've been heavily funded historically by the beverage industry. So some of your brands like Tito's Vodka, Jose Cuervo, Ronnie Strong Wines, Moaning Gourmet Syrups, Pepsi, Barilla, Smithfield. I mean, I can go on down. There's a really big list. And but to a lot of restaurants are beginning to choose core to support. And a lot of restaurants are doing something fun and putting in a beverage program. So you can have a featured spirit or wine or beer or all the above. Or if you don't sell alcohol, think about it's getting to be summertime.

33:17It's going to be warm. Why don't you create a Coke float or a Pepsi? Or a Pepsi float? Yes. One of those products, you know, or a smoothie or something fun. You know, and you could let certain proceeds of that item come to core or a dollar per beverage come to core. Or you could have chef dinners or a special menu item that you could say, oh, something of this can come to core. If you're even in a small operation, you can do what we call a pinup promotion. Invite your guests to make a donation and pin up a little icon on the wall. Or this is another easy way. Add a side of hope on your guest check and ask your guests to add a side of hope. Make a donation to core of any amount, because again, we're owning the word hope with inspiring hope, somewhere of hope and serving up hope. But anybody can also donate. You can become a monthly donor. You know, just think about what is that stat that we talked about this morning? Christine, twenty five dollars a month. Oh, gosh, you're putting me on the spot here.

34:19I don't know what. Yes, yes. Well, even when you think about it, twenty five dollars a month, if you add that up, that's three hundred dollars over the year. And that could pay for utilities, depending on the time of year for an entire month of water, electric and gas for a family. So thank you. It all adds up. Every penny adds up. But what I also want to let the audience know is we are a best in class nonprofit. We have about an 80 20 mix, 80 percent go directly to the families, 20 percent to run the organization because you've got to pay this mighty team to get the word out, to do the work and to be able to process the grants and, you know, cut the checks and send out credit cards. And that's a lot of work. I mean, you know, that just 80 percent is a good number when you're 50 states. Exactly going to have a pretty healthy team just to do all of that. And we've got some pretty solid systems in place. That was something else that happened that first year is just rebuilding the organization, making it solid, making it stronger, giving it a really good application process that people are vetted through the system as they go through.

35:32So, for example, before that, it was more of filling out an online form where now it's a true application. People can upload their documentation using their smartphone, which is lovely. Plus, our application is also in Spanish and we have a Spanish speaking consultant to speak to applicants that speak primarily Spanish. Wow, that's incredible. So we've really buttoned up the system. The process is we've made it more efficient and so we can help more people. That's amazing. So I think that. It's hard. I mean, if you go back to March 12th, March 17th around St. Patrick's Day, 2020, we just had a tornado March 3rd and then coronavirus, everybody has to shut down. Nobody knew what to do. And I think that everybody looked around and said, we're not prepared for this. We're not prepared. What are we going to do? And. Donating on a consistent basis, I think I think the real thing there is donating on a consistent basis, not just a one time thing, it's a monthly gift.

36:40Exactly as I was reading, I was listening to podcasts of the day with James Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits, and he said, you know, just doing something over and over again to create that habit to do it. And he said, if you read one page of a book, but you do it every single day versus the intensity of I'm going to read five books in a week, it's kind of the the the tortoise and the hare sort of a thing like slow and steady wins the race. But like if you read one page for the next 10 years, it's three thousand pages you've read. Or if you can try and read five books and burn out and don't read another page. So I think that the consistency of constantly, like you said, if it's twenty five dollars a month that you're giving, that adds up over time. And what we've got to start doing now is preparing, preparing for the next thing that we don't want to be caught off guard by. We want to have reserves and we'll be ready so that we can help the children of restaurant employees when that thing happens, because we know what's going to happen at some point. Exactly. You know, in life doesn't always go as planned.

37:44You know, the unexpected happens sometimes through the diagnosis. Sometimes there's an injury or a death or a natural disaster, just like the tornadoes that hit Kentucky. Yeah. Just recently, Mayfield, Kentucky. And I'll give you an example. If you looked at some of the TV interviews, there was a young gentleman by the name of Daniel Carr. He and his family, his brother own Carr Steakhouse. And Daniel's actually on the Kentucky Restaurant Association Board. And it was their family business. Their grandparents had a little restaurant across the street and he employed 30 employees. Their restaurant is now a pile of rubble. They have nothing. And so immediately I was actually in Napa Valley meeting with wineries that support corps woke up on Saturday morning to see the news immediately scripted in an email, sent it to Kentucky, the Restaurant Association, their CEO, Stacey, and said, we're here, you know, and also Tennessee, because they border Kentucky may have some employees that could live down the street or across the state line.

38:48And she sent it to Daniel and Daniel reached out immediately and said, yeah, we need you. And he started telling his employees and then reaching out to other restaurants in their community. And we've helped numerous families in Mayfield, Kentucky. Actually, guess who you get to meet at RLC? We're bringing Daniel to the Restaurant Leadership Conference, and he's going to tell his story firsthand. Oh, I can't wait to hear that. I'm we're bringing our whole management team at the restaurants and we're excited to the leadership team is going to the leadership. We have five of us going. So we're excited. Well, I can't wait to be your tour guide at RLC. I've been for many years. It's our first one. We go to FSTech every year and we go to a couple different, you know, we we try and get out of the restaurant whenever we can to do some higher learning and see what other people are doing out there. But this one in particular, seeing that you were there and that this was the core was the benefiting charity was really that's not the right way to phrase it, is it? You're the. We're the charity partner.

39:50Charity partner. Thank you. Yes. Seeing as though you're the charity partner, I'm excited to hear you get up and speak. Well, thank you. And Daniel's going to be there with you. Is he going on stage? I will have Pepsi on the stage with me, who is our big supporter at that event in particular, because they're a leading sponsor. And it'll be Daniel, me and potentially one operator, another multi-unit operator who chose Coors, their charity of choice. That's amazing. So let's just say I'm a restaurant and I kind of am. What what how do I get started with this? If I'm listening to this right now and I go, hey, I got a restaurant, but I'm not making too much money. I could do twenty five dollars a month. Or hey, I want to do a Monday night promotion where every Monday night for the next year, I'm going to donate 10 percent of my sales to core. Will you guys help me promote it? Well, what we can do is we can put it there are a lot of restaurants around the country, but we can help give you tools. We have a resource center.

40:51It's a little bit of a top secret resource center for our partners so we can give you communications tools, POS designed graphics that you can put out in your restaurant. We can also give you content for your emails to your network and we can help you with some resources for your promotion and brainstorm with you and give you the rights to use our logo to raise money on our behalf. We can also send you the back of the house poster, which is on our website now. You can go to core gives dot org at the bottom of the page is the communications resource center. Click on that link and you're going to find a few resources already that you can start using today and then print off the back of the house poster, put it on your employee bulletin board and tell your employees about core a and then B. You can also invite your guests to make a donation and send a check. I love the side of hope. You know, put that on the on your sides, just put on the menu, put a side of hope. Any any dollar amount donation goes directly to core, which helps children of restaurant employees. I think that's it's unique.

41:54It's easy. Nobody's asking you to do that. You're looking at them and you're looking at the sides. You can choose to do that or not. It's kind of an intrusive way to do it. So while we're talking about donations, which are incredible and I hope everyone donates the ambassador program, can you tell us a little about that? Because I found it through I work at Cork and Cow and I have on and off for five years. And Jason McConnell is a big partner with core or was at least back in the day. And so I wanted to I love serving. I love service and I have a servant heart, but I wanted to do something that was outside of me and my tables. And that's how I came to find core through them. So I can you tell us a little bit about that program for people that also want to kind of step outside the table for a second and help in a different way? Oh, absolutely. Well, the ambassador program was created several years ago and it's a lovely volunteer program. All you have to do is go online where it says get involved on our website, click down to volunteer. And there are two ways to volunteer.

42:55Number one, anybody listening can sign up to be an ambassador. And what you do is you leverage your voice through social media for core and help us with the introductions and help get the word out about who we are. Open doors up to potential partners and encourage other operators to maybe host a promotion or fundraiser for core as well and then help identify employees that may need core. We also so all you have to do is sign up online. Then you get newsletters from us that Christine has helped us put out and we'll feed you content. And so we send out monthly newsletters. So you're getting information. Your inbox. I have to do is cut and paste and put it out in either emails to your friends or on social media. Then, too, we created a new program last year inspired by a team member with Zaxby's in Georgia. Nice. And she learned about core. She was with a seven unit franchise group and identified employees with her seven unit franchise group that needed core 10 employees throughout the year. Two employees had premature babies and their babies were in an ICU.

44:00One had brain surgery. One had a torn ACL. The other one had an Achilles heel injury. They couldn't work to go through physical therapy. There was were just assembly. One case was documented domestic abuse. So in those cases, we helped provide grants and she became such an advocate of understanding our grant criteria that we created the operator brand advocate program. So operators, I encourage you to go on. Sign up to be an operator brand advocate. We have training calls once a month to answer your questions about core grant criteria. How does the process work? How can you personally help your employees and then you can help guide them through the process. And we've seen even greater success of employees being qualified quicker and their grants being turned around quicker. We get the documentation. So it's a way of you helping us help your employees. What's the do you have an average turnaround time for that?

45:03Average turnaround time is around two weeks, but depending on when we get documentation and that's the biggest challenge you can imagine. Yeah. Everything you said was perfect. I didn't get anything to add, Christine. No, Sheila looked over to Christine and said, and like, do you have something? It's like, you said it all. You nailed it. Yes, absolutely. Um, I did just want to go back real quick to the side of hope. One thing that's really nice about the side of hope, especially if you're doing online ordering, it's so easy. It's just, you know, have it right there where the silverware is and just click, just boom, a dollar, five dollars, ten, however much it's a side of hope. Boom. And it's just, it is really the easiest way and something that most restaurants now, because they did have to do a lot of online ordering because of COVID, even if they didn't do it three years ago, it's right there and it's a really easy way to help raise money. And you know, we did a thing in the middle of COVID where we were feeding hospital employees and we had a thing said, hey, look, if you want to donate ten dollars on your to go order, because this is when restaurants were closed and we wanted to feed first responders and people who are on the front lines.

46:10We said, if you want to donate $10, we'll do $10 per dish and we'll match it. Right. So all these people at the end of the course, would you like to add, would you like to feed a worker, man, we like every other day we're taking 30 entrees straight over to Centennial or St. Thomas West is where we were going. And it's amazing the will of people, the hell they want to help. And people do want to help. We live in one of the most giving nations. You know, everyone has a big heart and especially when a pandemic or something hits, people step up and even that year, we more than doubled our fundraising goal. But then we granted to five times the number of families too. Yeah. You know, so we, we stepped up as well, but so did this country. It's an incredible thing. I mean, I love giving back in some capacity, whether it's financially or with my time or any of that. And I think it is a message of hope to people and not to like beat a dead horse with the word, but truly I, I feel like this year, everyone, or this last, I call it COVID season one, I feel like in season one, truly though, in COVID season.

47:22What season are we in today? I think we're in season three. Season three, are we ending renewals of the season? No one signed up for this, but either way in COVID season one, nobody knew what to expect, how it was, how it was getting contracted, how it was going around and none of that, and now we have the more information, but I feel like people are now starving for ways to help each other or to be around each other or just to everybody realized the fragility that we all had and we all kind of, I think nobody really understood that prior. Like we all felt safe and secure and then this happened and it took away all everybody's safety net in different capacities and so I think people are really starving for ways to be better and they've really changed their values and things like that to be on others. And I, I think that's one of the coolest things that's come out of the pandemic is just seeing the heart that people have developed for others. So I hope that they see this and you know, they take care of their own in a way that we now have organizations helping with between core and big table.

48:25Like these people want to help our industry and I think that's a really incredible thing and so I just wanted to thank you for it. Sure. Thank you. And I mean, it's just such an honor to serve the industry that I've been a part of for so many years, you know, I mean, it's the industry of opportunity, as we say, you know, it gives so many people their first jobs and their first opportunity on the job training. I mean, how many people can go sometimes without a further education and they can go and be their own franchisee or a manager of a restaurant and leadership opportunities as well. So it's a great industry, you know, and I love it. And I'm so grateful that we can help the employees that may need us and qualify when life doesn't quite go as planned. But another way I want to share that people can help is this summer, the week of August one and our summer of hope campaign, we're going to have what we call our national days of service. So it's a great opportunity for people to go and download our back of the house poster, print them off or order them on sustainable material through our print partner and the instructions are on our website and distribute those posters and to restaurants in your community.

49:35Or if you're working at a restaurant, make sure it's on the back of the house bulletin board, you know, and help us get the word out that we are here to serve. And that's just another way of getting boots on the ground around the country. And what's really nice is that those posters are available in eight or nine different languages, I believe they are. Well, I can't tell you enough. Thank you for what you're doing for the entire community. Thank you for your heart and your time and energy and just all that you're doing. I know you've had very advantageous summer and spring coming up. You're doing that because you're serving people and that's what you love to do. And I can see it and I can hear it. And I just, if you're out there, love you to support core. Um, one of the things that we do when we wrap up an interview is I like to give our guests the very final word, right? So I like to throw people off and I feel like I'm not going to throw you off at all, however, but take us out.

50:36You get to say the final thing, whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it, if you want to video her doing this, this would probably be. I'm on it. The thing is she, we have a videographer here, Christine. Oh my goodness. Well, first off, just thank you. I mean, what a great opportunity to come here and just have a great conversation with you and two great operators in the community where I love going personally. And then to, and letting us tell people about core children of restaurant employees, and I hope that there are people out there listening and you may know of somebody who needs us. So please go to core gives.org or if you're so inspired, consider becoming a monthly donor or a one-time donation, whatever is in your budget to do, and then sign up to volunteer. We need more boots on the ground. People helping us as well, because we're a small and mighty team. And we can only do that with the strength and the power of so many others.

51:37So again, thank you. It's great being back home in Nashville. You know, the nice little unicorn here who's come back and just loving it. So thanks. Sorry, I was on mute there for a second. The pleasure is all here. Anytime you want to come back, we are here for you. If you ever have news, any information that we can pass along, we do an intro to these shows. I'd love to inform the community of anything that's going on in August. When we're doing this promotion, the summer of hope, we'd love to get involved in help wherever we can. And we can even help with some fundraising. That would be great. See how many individual donors we can get in the Tennessee community too. And getting the word out to help more families here, right in our home state. Yes, ma'am. Well, thank you for braving the weather. We've it's, this is coming out on a Monday. We, you remember last week, we had all that rain, so it's a lot of fun. We're all like coming here in our boats, a little flooding issues in the studio today.

52:39So thank you again and wish you the best of, best of luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Wow. Okay. Sheila Bennett, thank you so much for joining us here in studio. I also want to say, I also want to thank Christine Miles for jumping in there. That was awesome. She was here just to film. She's doing some marketing for them. She is amazing as well. If you would like to help out with core, you can go to www.coregives.org. Or if you want to connect directly with Sheila, her email is Sheila, S H E I L A at coregives.org. All right. There it is. I hope that you have a wonderful, wonderful weekend and we are excited to bring you on Monday. Another very exciting episode. You can come right back at you in a couple days. Brand new episode, um, with the pastry chef over at husk.

53:44Her name is Rachel, Rachel Rathgab. You'll love her. Hope you guys are being safe out there. Please be safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.