Transforming Communities: Bob Dalton's Journey with Sackcloth and Ashes

What if the key to transforming your community was within your reach? Join us as Bob Dalton, entrepreneur and TEDx speaker, reveals how his personal journey inspired the creation of Sackcloth and Ashes, a company dedicated to helping the homeless. Learn about his unwavering commitment to localism—a philosophy that emphasizes the power of making a tangible impact within your own community. Bob talks about the pivotal moments that shaped his mission and outlines the three pillars of localism: changing public perception, encouraging community participation, and focusing on proximity.

Discover the unique story behind Sackcloth and Ashes, a company that donates a blanket to a local homeless shelter for every blanket sold. Bob takes us through his grassroots journey from buying fabric at Joanne's Fabric to establishing a flourishing business that not only provides warmth but also fosters community involvement. He introduces innovative concepts like the "think out of the box" method, which encourages customers to fill their blanket packaging with essential items for local shelters. We also uncover special initiatives aimed at realtors that amplify the company's impact.

Celebrate the heroes among us as Bob shines a spotlight on grassroots leaders who make a significant difference in their communities. We discuss the development of LoveYourCity.org, a platform designed to connect people with local nonprofits and organizations. Hear a touching personal story about how a blanket drop in Portland led to Bob's mother getting sober and thriving, underscoring the profound impact of community support. Join us every Thursday at 7 pm on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for more updates and stories that remind us of the power of giving back.

"Bob is transforming the lives of people in communities all over the nation, one blanket at a time.  His company Sackcloth and Ashes donates a blanket to a shelter closest to your community for every blanket you purchase.  Amazing Story of WHY this is passion and what drives him to spread the word about LOCALISM.  Must listen episode!"  - Brad Weisman

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Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show (formerly known as Real Estate and YOU), where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife #realestateandyou

Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

From real estate to real life and everything in between. The Brad Wiseman Show and now your host, brad Wiseman. All right, we have another show here for you. Thanks for joining us here 7 pm every Thursday night. Oh my gosh, this show is really exciting. You know, this is why I love doing this podcast, because this show is going to be really cool in that we're bringing a guy on here that is an entrepreneur. He is a TEDx speaker. He's doing something for people in need that I've never seen done before, and it just when I when I got this, I saw it on Instagram or Facebook, one of those places I was looking around for different guests and and this guy's name popped up and he's doing some amazing things. Um, I'm going to bring him on screen here. His name is Bob Dalton. He has a company called sackclothandashescom. Bob, how you doing, man?

Speaker 2: 1:14

I'm doing good. Thanks for having me, Brad.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Absolutely. This is exciting. Yeah, I've been trying, I've been wanting to get this together for a while and I know we only met probably two, three weeks ago. But I want to say thank you for coming on the show because it means a lot to me, because I know you're very busy. Absolutely honored. So, yeah, let's start at the beginning here. So I'm going to read your bio, just so people have an understanding of who you are, because it's the best way to do that at this point. So Bob is an entrepreneur, tedx speaker and the founder of Sackcloth and Ashes, a company that donates a blanket to local homeless shelters for every blanket sold. He's recognized for inspiring local action and has been named a Forbes Changemaker and a CNN Champion of Change as an advocate for localism, bob aims to inspire people to get involved in their communities through his foundation Love your City. That's a lot, but tell me, what is it that you're doing? Tell the people what you're doing right now and then we'll go back into why you're doing it.

Speaker 2: 2:05

Yeah, what I'm doing right now is a sackcloth and ashes. My company is about to hit 10 years on June 1st Wow, um, so been at it for a decade running a product company and, um, yeah, my main focus right now is is running sackcl and Ashes, which donates a blanket to a homeless shelter for each blanket purchased. I'm currently working on writing what I'm calling the Localism Manifesto, which is a piece of writing that my goal is to diagnose what localism is and how it's going to shape society in the future, and how it's going to shape society in the future, and, um, and localism has just been a philosophy that I've adapted as something that I feel like is the most effective strategy to create change moving forward in our communities, and so I've been endorsing that, promoting it, and really anything that I work on or create or build comes back to figuring out how can we make a local impact in our communities. That's my main mission and my main message.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Yeah, that's awesome. So it's like one step at a time. You know it's like anything today. You know where they say. You know they always say even just like I'm not going to bring up government, but local government people seem to tend to look past that. But we have to be really concerned about our communities, our neighborhoods, because we can't change the community. You know you're in California, right, if I'm not mistaken. Is that where you are? Yeah, I can't. I have a hard time changing a community in your state. But localism, you know, if you start working on your place where you live, it will grow. And then look at this now You're in San Diego, is it San Diego? Am I right about that? You're in San Diego and look how now you've affected somebody in renting Pennsylvania directly all the way to the other side of the of the nation.

Speaker 2: 3:50

That's incredible, and that started with localism. Yeah, localism is is really three main things. It's changing public perception and helping people become more educated on what's happening around them. Um number two is participation. Everyone has a role. We all have some sort of role to play. And the third is proximity. It has to happen within proximity to us. So if you can change public perception and help educate people on what's happening locally, you invite people to participate on a local level and you do it within proximity, we're going to see real, legitimate, positive results in our communities, whereas right now, we've become too codependent on the government or large corporations or philanthropic ventures to solve our issues for us, and it's just not effective. We're investing billions of dollars into these societal issues and they continue to get worse. So it offers up an opportunity for us to present a new solution, and I do believe that the most effective strategy for society is local.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Yeah, I agree with a hundred percent. So let's go back into. You know where your passion came from for this. I mean, you didn't grow up going, wow, I can't wait to be in the blanket business, or you know. In this kind of a situation you probably, you know, just like any other kid, planning on doing either baseball or something. What kind of hat do you have on there? New?

Speaker 2: 5:09

York Yankees.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Oh, my wife and you would get along very well. She's a Yankees fan, so how does that work? In San Diego, though, with that hat I'm just bought into the brand of New York.

Speaker 2: 5:18

New York's my favorite city, there you go there, you go.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Awesome, that's cool, so yeah, so how did you get into this? I read a little bit about your mother and she had gone through some rough times living on the streets, and this is where the whole idea of giving the blankets came from. Tell me more about that.

Speaker 2: 5:34

Yeah, I was 23, 24 years old, and my mom went through a series of events where she found herself living on the streets, and it completely changed my paradigm of homelessness. I was already passionate about helping my community and I did want to dedicate my life to impactful work. I decided that pretty early on in my life, but homelessness was always at the bottom of the list of a cause that I actually cared about, and I was the guy that would be, you know, trying to hit the green light so that I didn cared about. And I was the guy that would be trying to hit the green light so that I didn't have to face the reality of someone coming up to my car window and asking for money. And when my mom ended up in that situation, it shifted my paradigm, because she's the hardest working woman that I know. She raised my sister and I by herself. She has two college degrees Uh, not somebody that you would expect to end up in that situation.

Speaker 2: 6:25

And so the fact that she did, and falling into some, uh, problems with addiction, um, it inspired me to do something, and so I started calling homeless shelters in my community to see what they needed, and they said blankets. And that's when I came up with the idea for every blanket that we sell, we donate a blanket to your local homeless shelter. And I really I very, very early on. From day one, I wanted to integrate the local component to give anyone an opportunity to make a difference down the street from where they live.

Speaker 1: 6:55

That's cool, yeah, and and what? So? Why blankets? Is that? That's the thing that you felt was the most important. I mean, is that something you got from somebody that said, hey, we need blankets Cause it is? It seems to be like a very obvious thing, right? That even if you were to live in a warm climate or warm area, you still, at nighttime, need a blanket. If you're on the street, you need a blanket.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Yeah, everybody wants a blanket yeah exactly.

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yeah, I know I called a couple homeless shelters and was just like hey, what can I do, how can I help? And they were like we need blankets, wow. And they were like we need blankets, wow. And then I talked to maybe like another one or two that said the same thing and I'm like, all right, I'm going to start a blanket company and I was familiar with the Tom's one for one model and I was like that'd be interesting Start a blanket company and for every blanket we sell we donate one.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Amazing. It's awesome. And tell me about the name. Where did the name come from?

Speaker 2: 7:44

Yeah, I was what you call an aspiring entrepreneur, where I had like 100 different names in my phone of all the businesses I would start one day Right. Sackcloth and Ashes was one of the names that was in my phone and it's ancient Jewish symbolism, which means mourning and repentance, oh goodness, and I thought that was the perfect name for it, just because it was.

Speaker 1: 8:03

Say it again, what that means. So explain that again.

Speaker 2: 8:06

What does it mean? Yeah, it's ancient jewish symbolism, which means mourning and repentance, and so the concept of it was every time somebody wraps himself in a blanket, it symbolizes mourning over the homeless population and repentance by contributing to a shelter in your area wow, everything has meaning there.

Speaker 1: 8:22

That's incredible. I'm looking at this name. Is that on your website anywhere? Is that anywhere that I could that? I missed it because I was trying to figure that out and I think that'd be good. Something good to on there, right? No?

Speaker 2: 8:31

we had it on our website for years and now it's not on there anymore, but it's um. Actually it might be under the faqs, like why the name? There you go, there you go, but I didn't dig deep enough, huh, yeah and yeah and I don't know. I kind of like the idea that it's this kind of mysterious name and it's historic. I mean it came out of Jesus's mouth, like it's in the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament and it's deeply ingrained in the Jewish religion and philosophy.

Speaker 1: 9:01

Amazing. I love that. So okay, so tell me. So how do you go from? Okay, I'm going to give out blankets or I'm going to get the blankets? Did you start first, like having people donate blankets to you and then you would drop them off at the shelter? I mean, cause you know, there's a lot of places that do hey, bring a blanket and we'll we'll drop them off at the home of shelters or bring a blanket, or you know, or buy a blanket and whatever. So this is different. I mean, I looked at the video showing how you guys are manufacturing these blankets. I mean, they're made out of recycled materials. Is that true?

Speaker 2: 9:33

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 9:35

So how did you go from let's get a blanket to you're a blanket company?

Speaker 2: 9:41

Yeah, yeah, no. I drove down to Joanne's Fabric and bought a sewing machine and a roll of fabric oh my gosh. And tried to Joanne's Fabric and bought a sewing machine and a roll of fabric oh my gosh. And tried to learn how to sew and realized I'm horrible at it. And so I hired a local seamstress in my community and I started boxing up blankets and putting them in my trunk and starting to walk into shops and just be like, hey, you guys interested in buying blankets? And that was it. Hey, are you guys interested in buying blankets? And that was it. I mean, I started it as grassroots as you can get going door to door, walking in asking people if they want to buy blankets, and got into maybe 10 to 20 shops out of 200. Listed those shops on my website and launched a website through and it was off to the races.

Speaker 1: 10:29

Amazing. And now, how many blankets are you making in a year, or how many have you? Have you given out?

Speaker 2: 10:36

Yeah, I think the last stat was last year. We did around 80,000 units uh produced and shipped and the total as a company for around 420,000.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Unbelievable, unbelievable. And each one you're giving. Now, how does that work? When you say you're giving them back, how does that work then? So, if I buy a blanket, I I in fact, I'm on your website Now I have my own account, uh, because there's actually a special place there for realtors, uh, which is really cool, and uh, realtors can give these out as client gifts and things like that. I already sent two out. I told you that before we went live, I sent two out to clients of mine and I think it's a great idea. So tell me, how did it get to that? Also, some of the other stuff I saw is, when you open the box, there's things in there that tells you to put supplies in there and give the box then to your homeless shelter.

Speaker 2: 11:26

Yeah, um, so the way that the actual give back works is we donate based off of your zip code. Okay, so if you buy a blanket and you live in Austin, texas, we'll send a blanket to a shelter in Austin. If you live in Milwaukee, we'll send a blanket to a shelter in Milwaukee. Um, and everything that we wanted to do and create. You know, when you're building something from the very ground up, you have the opportunity to look at everything and say what can we do that's creative and innovative and um makes an impact. You know, and one of the things that we looked at was our packaging how are the blankets coming and what are they packaged in? And all that. And I recently deemed it uh, I call it the think out of the box method, um, which is like no pun intended right.

Speaker 2: 12:13

No pun intended, yeah, Um think out of the box is like what can you do outside of having this be a vessel for messaging and delivery?

Speaker 1: 12:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:25

And so we looked at that and we were like let's create an opportunity for people to fill the boxes up with needed items and donate to their local shelter. And so on the bottom of the inside of the box it says take it a step further, place the following items in this box and donate to your local shelter. And there's a list of socks, lip balm, snacks. Yeah, it's awesome and it's cool. We get a lot of photos and notes from people of them and their families filling the boxes up and taking them to their local shelters and it's a really small opportunity for people to do something, and I think that the majority of people want to do something and they don't know where to start, and so, as a company, we're looking for any creative and innovative way to help encourage people to get involved in their local communities.

Speaker 1: 13:10

Yeah, it's awesome and I have a box here. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to show it or not, but I'm going to try to. I have a box here and I just got this today, which is really really good timing. I actually went home to pick it up, but on the front of the box it says, um, make it, make a local impact. And then inside, obviously, is the blanket which you can see here really cool. I got the the more like patriotic one, like red, white and blue kind of looking thing, uh. And then inside there's cards too. It kind of explains what, what the process is and where, where this came about, and then, like you said, on the bottom inside it'll tell you what to pack in here, should you want to, you know, take something, um, all these items then to another shelter. I love this stuff here too. You can then scan this. They can scan this then, right, and order another blankets for somebody else or whatever right, yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Yeah, we wanted that qr code on the box to take you to a landing page to give you an opportunity to make a difference in your community in a couple different ways. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:10

And the quality of the blanket's. No joke, that was the biggest thing I was waiting for, bob. I got to tell you before I told our agents about it, before I really started getting out there and pushing these things. It's like anything online. I mean, I trust you, but what's trust? Trust but verify, right? So, um, I was. I was waiting to get the blanket because, at the end of the day, if the blanket quality was not that great, it would change everything. You know it'd be like oh okay, now I get it. The blanket's not that great. This blanket is serious. Like it's a nice blanket.

Speaker 2: 14:40

Yeah, no, it's always funny when people come up to me and they're like, wow, your blankets are actually really good quality. I'm like what the hell, man Of?

Speaker 1: 14:47

course I was expecting, like one of my, the lady that I was talking to, she's like well, at least there's not like a bottle cap stuck to it or something like that for being recycled. So tell me how the recycling things you're actually using. Me some recycled products in there too, right?

Speaker 2: 14:59

yeah, it was just another opportunity for for us to look at, like, how can we go about this in the most effective way and also just the most sustainable way? And we found an amazing manufacturer out in italy where they've been making fabric for over a hundred years and and they make all of their fabric out of recycled materials. So the blankets start as t-shirts and sweatshirts, scraps of fabric and they get put into a carding process and grind it up, turned into yarn, and then the yarn to the jack hard loom, jack hard loom to washing the fabric and putting the tasks on. So it actually goes through about seven to eight steps before it actually gets turned into fabric. And then the fabric gets shipped to our production hub in Oregon and that's where we cut, sew, label polybag and do all of our own fulfillment. So it's a really the journey of one blanket is pretty significant. I do have the dream of documenting that journey at some point.

Speaker 1: 15:56

It's really cool. But there is a cool part on there. If you go to his YouTube page I don't know if it was under Bob Dalton or if it was under the sackclothandashescom, but there's a YouTube video there it kind of gives you a short synopsis of showing you guys making the material, making the blankets, which I thought was kind of cool. So check that out too. If we want to order one, is that the best thing to do? Right, go to sackclothandashescom and you can order blankets there. Um, there's also a book too. Oh, by the way, I ordered the book. It's coming. It should be here this week or this week.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Yeah, cause I I saw the book and I was like I got to buy this book I have. I have kids that are nine and 12. Um and uh, I thought it'd be kind of cool to show them that book. But yeah, you wrote the book right.

Speaker 2: 16:38

Yeah, yeah, I was always on my bucket list to write a kid's book and we ended up self-publishing the book and selling it through Sackcloth's website, but it's called Everyone is Someone and it's just a simple poem that I wrote. And then the creator or the illustrator or artist who did all of the design for the book he hand painted every page on canvas, oh, wow, and it took him like eight months and he's an amazing artist named Richie Collins out in Scotland. Wow, he made the book and it was. It came together and it's honestly like and I'm not saying that I like played my small part in writing the poem of it, but it's a masterpiece, bro. Like it's awesome.

Speaker 2: 17:24

Well, I'm excited to get it yeah, I really want to publish it through a legitimate publisher and take it global, because it's a. It deserves to be out there. I have so many families and kids that have sent me videos of them reading the book and so many parents are like my kid doesn't even read in the kid.

Speaker 1: 17:44

That's, that's, that's that'll make you, that'll make you feel better than even anything, Right, and when you know?

Speaker 2: 17:50

and I haven't tried. I haven't tried promoting the book or getting it out there in any creative marketing ways, and it ended up getting picked up by an educational school system in Italy that is using the book to teach kids English.

Speaker 1: 18:06

There you go. You should have put some meatballs or something. Is there any kind of meatballs or spaghetti in the book?

Speaker 2: 18:10

No, no, no, just good art and messaging.

Speaker 1: 18:14

That's great. Well, I'm excited to get that too. I'll have to let you know when I get that. So you have the other thing called Love your City. It's a podcast that you're doing. I listened to some of the stories. They're pretty amazing. Explain a little bit about what Love your City is and what you're doing with that.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Yeah, my journey of donating blankets to shelters turned into me being able to travel around the U? S and getting to meet with these grassroots leaders and uh do what what's called like a blanket drop, where we donate blankets in person and um get to learn firsthand what they're doing and get to invite executives from companies that were partnered with into these blanket drops and? Um get a tour of the shelter and pass out blankets and all that. And as I started doing it more and more, I was like man, how are people like? How do we not have a mic in front of these people? These people are true community heroes and they have so much incredible things to say. And so I started in 2022. I traveled every week to a different nonprofit organization and interviewed some of the best grassroots leaders in the United States, and you can view all the interviews on loveyourcityorg slash podcast and it was an amazing I mean, it was a life changing journey.

Speaker 2: 19:32

And then, during COVID, when everything shut down, there was a lot of people I was connected to that wanted to make an impact, but they didn't know where to start. And then you have all these nonprofits and organizations that needed support and help, and so you had this gap of people that want to do something and organizations that need something to be done. Really, any websites and I did a lot of research of there wasn't anything out there that existed that I felt like was designed well for people to get connected to what's happening in their communities and um, and so my team built it from the ground up. Love your cityorg. You can search your city and we show you all of the amazing grassroots work that's happening in your city and how you can get involved, and it's a great resource for people that are just want to know what's happening right down the road for me that I can get plugged into.

Speaker 1: 20:24

You know it's. I wanted to ask you about that. I saw that in the closest city for us was Philadelphia. Is there a way that we could add Reading Pennsylvania in there, get them on there as a separate thing, cause we have a lot of good stuff going on and we're so? We're about an hour and 15 hour and 20 minutes away from philly, so sometimes it's not really local local, but I'm just curious if that's something we could do, could we add a city like that on there?

Speaker 2: 20:45

yeah, we're, um, I'm in the process of developing an app. Ah, cool, even better, that's. Yeah, and that will get it pretty. Um, that will offer it to more cities, well, it could geolocate too.

Speaker 1: 20:57

It could find out where you are and say, because we have, like, the Hope Rescue Mission here, we have Salvation Army, we have all the different ones, we have Opportunity House, we have Habitat for Humanity, but they're all local chapters and it'd be good to have that access to them because a lot of times you're right, a lot of businesses, a lot of people that are out there entrepreneurs and people that have money to give they're looking for these avenues and it's not always the easiest to find.

Speaker 2: 21:26

Yeah, they're just really spread out. You know it's like you can find them, but it takes work and research and all that. And what we need is we need more platforms that are helping you identify and find everything that's happening on going on around you a lot easier. And you know, you have, just like, you got Yelp, which is, you know, horribly designed, it's a necessary evil, and you got Facebook groups and you got next door and all of these are our platforms that we kind of Jimmy rigged to kind of like make it work. But we need one hub that's helping us identify what is going on around us and how can I get plugged in immediately?

Speaker 1: 21:57

I agree with you a hundred percent on that. I a hundred percent agree with you. I love what you're doing. I really think it's amazing. Um, how, how is your? Is your mom still around? How is she doing?

Speaker 2: 22:07

Yes, yeah, she. Um. In 2018, I was doing a blanket drop in Portland, Oregon at a women's program and they said, hey, where's your mom now? And I said she's still struggling. And so they say, hey, we got 38 out of 40 slots here at the program. Are you interested in trying to get her here for an interview? Cool. And so we ended up getting her in the program. She got sober and now she's been sober for five years. Oh, that's awesome.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Or six years now and five years. It will be six years on November 1st and she's thriving Like she. Cnn just did a segment on sackcloth where they highlighted me as one of their champions for change, and my mom was in the segment like did a full interview. That's awesome. I got to watch that and she's yeah, she's sober. She's working at a detox facility helping people transition out of addiction. Amazing, she's killing it.

Speaker 1: 23:07

She's healthier than I am. That's great man. That's awesome, great story. And you know what. Everything you're doing is just phenomenal and I want to make sure we stay in touch. And you know what? Everything you're doing is just phenomenal and I want to make sure we stay in touch. I want to keep checking in on what's going on. Please stay in touch with us and give us updates. We can share it on our socials, but this is just amazing. It's probably one of the most awesome podcasts that I've done as far as people making change, and we're going to be pushing these blankets out through our real estate agents here and I'm going to be promoting it wherever I can, because it's such a great cause and I think it's awesome. So congrats to you, everything you're doing and thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2: 23:45

Yeah, thanks for having me, man.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Awesome. Thanks so much. All right, that was amazing. You definitely need to check this out, bob Dalton. It's sackclothandashescom. You can go there. You can also check him out on Love your City LYC podcast. He's got all kinds of great stuff going on there, yeah. So just look him up everywhere, order some blankets, get those boxes, fill them up with other supplies and take them to wherever you can to help other people. This is just a wonderful thing. All right, there you go. It can be found on Facebook, instagram and YouTube every Thursday night at 7 pm. All right, Thank you.