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[Music]
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all right what's up everybody welcome back to another episode of greetings from the G of state power by the New Jersey Lottery I'm your host Mike ham uh we are here in Mountain Lakes with the
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CEO of the sound Foundation brammy Cole brammy welcome to the show thanks very much for being being here it's it's a real pleasure yeah absolutely so uh
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sitting out here in the courtyard a little bit of a change up but we this show really just like thrives on chaos
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that's kind of like what we do um but uh but we've recorded in way worse locations than this so this is pretty
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pretty cool you know yeah exactly yeah if it was raining we would have a little bit of an issue
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but it's all good so we're here um and we're talking about the sound start Foundation which you're the CEO of and
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so can we get like a we'll do like a quick 30,000 foot view what the sound
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sound start Foundation is and kind of who it serves and all that kind of stuff and we'll get a little bit more into the story as we go well great that's a great
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introduction thank you very much I think um soundart has been around for about 30 years I think we're on our 27th year
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right now and uh we are uh an educational program for kids who are born heart of hearing uh and we
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essentially provide early intervention services um today we have about 85 kids
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in our program and uh we're going stronger than ever yeah which is awesome and let's talk a little bit about uh you
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too so um how long have you been the CEO for kind of what's your how how' you get here U well you know i' I came here
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about a little less than a year and a half ago okay and most of my career has been focused on on healthc care and to
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some extent education healthc care with respect to geriatric care I spent uh um
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right after college I I got involved in healthcare and it led me to spend the last 10 years of my life uh actually in
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China okay doing what were you doing in China I was introducing modern geriatric care techniques to the Chinese
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population understand you know there are there are uh 250 million Chinese people
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over the age of 65 yeah and I got a phone call from a good friend of mine I went to college and he said you know I
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didn't know that you were in geriatric care we've got a colossal problem here and with my business background I
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thought uh you know having been in geriatric care in various forums here in the United States I thought it might be an interesting follow on to what I was
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doing so I packed my bags and I had it off yeah that must have been a crazy experience I would imagine you know kind
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of like almost like a different world I guess for you right well entirely different you know the the Chinese
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culture is very focused on this idea of filial piety you know where the kids are always taking care of their olders you
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know as they get older and today with the emergence of China economically you you know all the kids are working for
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Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley and they got no time they're working 80 hours a week and they got no time to do
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that and so um I saw you know from 2009
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to 2019 you know the construction of uh geriatric care facilities you know
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Community Care Facilities like you wouldn't believe all around China the difficult thing was was that they're
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great at building buildings but implementing the care techniques was something that uh you
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know takes a little bit longer and that was really my rle is to help them learn how to how to implement those care
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techniques and more importantly how to manage the geriatric care business right gotcha all right so you do your 10 years
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in China uh does that lead up to you uh getting your your now role here at the
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sound start Foundation or was there kind of something in between there well how somewhat um I was on the last plane out
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of Shanghai you know during during Co right I I got a call from the embassy and they said listen this is your last
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chance you know it may be four years before you can get out of here and so you should get out of here and so ipped
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thought a playing at the time I still had a Consulting contract with Asian development Bank working on on their
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implementation of geriatric care in various different parts of China um Mongolia
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Vietnam and um I continue to do that back here in New York and New Jersey but
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you know the difficult thing is being being able to implement those techniques when you're 8,000 mil away sure and so I
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got a phone call and said person said GE was you know there's this organization
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uh in New Jersey uh that uh you know is without a captain and um you might be
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interested in what they do and so we had a conversation and I tell you you know almost immediately my heart went out to
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them yeah and it was just uh a tremendous organization and I felt that
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you know my my wheelhouse is business and I thought that I could bring uh my
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business expertise to help write the organization and set it Forward write a strategic plan raise money and and and
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set them off again and that's you know I can say today you know mission accomplished yeah and so you you said you know when you first kind of got uh
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uh not when but learned a little bit more about what the foundation was doing um what were there certain aspects of it
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that kind of like Drew you in because obviously you know with your background all that kind of stuff you can go do a myriad of things but like what was it
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specifically about the soundart foundation that kind of Drew you here right well you know it's it's all about
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the theme of of being an advocate for vulnerable people right right that that's been a consistent thread
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throughout my entire career and the more I learned about early intervention and the things that the program did you know
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it really drew me in and most importantly you know the single fact that you know if if we can get to a kid
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at 18 months and and an art teachers can you know can can overlay their their
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magic on on a child who's born heart of hearing uh then uh I can give you 85 90%
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certainty that that kid will graduate graduate into a general Ed matriculate
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into a a regular school yeah you know when they're done with us at three and a half years old yeah which is really
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incredible considering you know uh almost kind of like when I Me growing up
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that necessarily wasn't always the case you know um and now it is you know because of groups like this right right
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and so um you know as we're kind of talking about this and and you know I know we talked a little bit off mic about how um kind of like your focus
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with the foundation is is on the business side and kind of making sure that like you know these great things that they're doing have the money to
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actually do them you know um and kind of how do you balance that between you know
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like knowing what the needs are and then kind of from like the business standpoint almost making sure that it's
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it we're reaching those needs I guess right right well when it comes down to you know finding the resources that we
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need it's a relatively simple process of my sitting down with the teachers and the head of their school and I asked the
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simple question what do you need you know over the next 12 months you know is it more computers you know larger
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classrooms um you tell me what you need yeah and I'll make it happen yep and
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it's as simple as that they give me an outline I write the budget and then I go out and uh I I I go hunting for money
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yeah and and where are you hunting like how is how is s start uh funded this is a great cause you know all I've got to
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do is go visit one organization and they fall in love the same way I did with with with exactly what the gals and the
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teachers do over at over at the program and so um some of our biggest sponsors
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uh are PNC Bank okay uh p Gladstone Bank um uh we have a lot of major donors who
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stand behind us and they are affiliated with the program in some way or another
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uh going back 30 years uh you know and so you know it it hasn't really been a
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problem the only issue today is really you know the drama that's kind of unfolding on the national stage that's
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that's that's been a little bit of a road bump but by and large you know we've got a Gala coming up and uh we're
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we're looking strong for that yeah which is which is great and you know like I know I mean I try to I me it's a
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different different cause for sure but like you know raising money is not always easy but when you do have a good
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you know message and and and work that you're doing I think that makes it kind of like you know it makes it almost like
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a no-brainer for people to kind of make sure that you're supporting that um so when so you you've been CEO for about a
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year I'm curious if there's been like any particular moments that it kind kind
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of I'm going to say validates that you made the right decision to come on as CEO here where you saw something you
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were like you knew what that they were doing good work but then you almost were able to kind of see something that you almost were unaware of at the beginning
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that kind of like really drove it home like okay this is right this is you know this is right two things uh I visited
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the school about uh 3 months into my tenure here and when you see the kids
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sitting around in the classroom uh singing along with the teacher or learning how to sign uh you know it's
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just it touches you in a way that little else little else does yeah um in addition to that I had a chance to meet
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some of the alumni uh you know guys and gals who had graduated 15 20 years ago
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and uh these people because of the early intervention that uh they got at the program are leaders in their Community
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today you know they're they're they're financial advisors they're in the food and beverage industry and they are
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shoulder-to-shoulder with their peers you know um and so when you see that
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both the during and the after you can't help but stand in allwe
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of exactly what the program and and the teachers do yeah let's talk about that a little bit too because I know you know I
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know you have the gala coming up on on May 9th um and we I know that there's
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you have a speaker coming through um and there's just you know uh there's a lot of I'm going to say bigname people that
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kind of like are supportive of of what you guys do so let's talk a little bit about that and kind of you know from we talk about financial supporters but
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almost kind of you know on the same on the in the same breath uh people that are just kind of champing the cause of
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what the soundart foundation does yeah yeah we have we have two individuals uh really pillars of the community that
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have stepped forward uh we have our Honore who is Dr Jed hortler who spent his entire career as a Pioneer in
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surgery um uh he's from uh I I believe he's he he's from the son health
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and he's one of he one of the most famous surgeons across the country um he performed the surgery on a lot of our on
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a lot of our kids um and so we are enormously grateful for his support and
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uh we're going to honor him on May 9th and we have another other you know outstanding individual that we came by
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quite by accident and um we were looking around for sort of a
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guest speaker a celebrity and a lot of times You' got to pay a lot of money for somebody like that right I mean and
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given the budget that we're on we were hoping to find somebody uh you know who would do it for a stien and um one
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evening I happen to be watching TV and I caught a commercial it was a Kia car commercial
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they were advertising their ev6 car And the tagline was um the power of silence
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and as I was watching it it dawned on me that the guy there he he's this NASCAR Superstar and he was born deaf
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and you know it just the light bulb went off my head and I knew we had to contact him and somehow get him to our Gala and
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it was as easy it was as easy as that our our um uh the woman who runs our our
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events said I'll call him up and I was a little concerned ini yeah well I was a
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little concerned initially that we were going to get an agent and we were just going to get embroiled in this whole thing yeah but he picked up the phone
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himself incred right and uh you the question was this is who we are would
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you be interested in in being our guest speaker and you know what he said not a problem yeah and this guy lives in
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Calgary Canada oh okay right and and and two weeks later we contact him in January he said I love this program I'm
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flying down to New York New Jersey and I want to come visit you guys yeah on his own sure uh and so he showed up uh went
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to school with uh uh the rest of the kids um and he was instrumental in
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helping us uh gain the support the financial support of Kia USA yeah um and
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he's coming back on May the 6 and we're going to bring him around to all of our sponsors he's an extraordinary supporter
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of ours yeah you know that's incredible and so I mean he must have been just totally Blown Away with the stuff that
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you guys are that you guys are doing right well you know it's curious you know when when you speak to him about his his experience and he had his copar
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implants uh Set uh when he was about 8 years old old okay um uh which you know
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um today that's a little bit late um and he said golly you know um and these were
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his words right he said if I had had the benefit of the stuff that you guys do yeah you know I'd I'd be president of
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Canada or like that right yeah yeah um but uh he's uh he's an enormously
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successful individual and to listen to his story is incredibly motivational and
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that's why we want him in front of our kids as much as possible sure is a great role model yeah absolutely you know and
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I think uh it's sometimes I think when people uh are going through whatever they're going through I think a lot of
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times people feel like they're kind of on an island by themselves almost and then to kind of see someone that you
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know is in the position that he's in essentially doing something and we were talking also off mic about how like you
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know like driving the car and communicating with a P crew and knowing all the stuff that's going on around you
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I mean it's to me it's like it's hard to almost kind of wrap your head around you know um but I think like giving like
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give it's a role model type of deal and I think it's it's it's incredible well the interesting thing about his about
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the way he got into racing he was he was declined by NASCAR a couple of times you
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know because they were concerned about this and he had to prove that you know his his FM system you know would give
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him you know non-stop communication with his pit crew and uh when they saw when
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they saw how he race and how professional he was yeah they simply said okay you know have at it um but I
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want to I want to touch on another point and that is he's not just a great role model for the kids when the parents interact with
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him you know being a parent to a child who's born heart of hearing uh you know
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there is there's a lot of anxiety associated with that you know and the decision to go ahead and have a child
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implanted you know it's your kid you know and so when they see him when they
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see Chris Martin uh and and and how he's developed it you know is it's you know
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they they take a great deal of satisfaction and and it calms them down a great deal yeah the male
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notes hey folks I want to tell you about the crew over at make cool these are The Magicians who recently gave our
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[Music] co.com because I think that's that's the other thing too you know like when you talk about parents you know and I know
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that the foundation not only educates the kids but also provides those Services for Families which is also
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important like you're talking about because you know there if you never dealt with that before never dealt with
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something like this before you don't know right and it's about like the education and and awareness and and all
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that kind of stuff that that kind of goes into it I would imagine absolutely you know one of the things that's that's really amazing not only do we have a
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classroom multiple classrooms but we have this tele intervention service where uh uh you know our teachers can
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meet with families either via Zoom or they go to their homes and the earlier
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that we can do that I mean if I could reach a kid at you know just after they were born not so much to begin um not so
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much to have our teachers begin their their their their LSL and their the
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inserting the lean in Technologies but more so to help the parents with
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stimulation exercises and to teach the parents how to work with a kid yeah you know from from the very outset you know
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you can't start early enough sure no I would imagine not and it just kind of you know gets everyone almost ready as
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those steps start to come like you start implementing all those things you know the educational type things with with the kids yeah it's just you know then it
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becomes almost seamless so to speak um so H I'm curious and we should have
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talked about this before uh how did the sound start Foundation start right yeah
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uh you know it's it's all due to really the founder Laura mcer um and she was uh
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a longtime Mountain Lakes resident uh had been in education um and uh this was
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one of her passions in life yeah and it started off with just a couple kids in school and it became you know 85 kids uh
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every semester and uh it it just you know there was a demand right and she
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saw the demand and she met that yeah and so we're talking about kids in school 85 kids are they all right here in Mountain
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Lakes is that where the schools oh no we we we have we have a big Outreach we're we're serving right now 12 counties in
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Northern oh wow awesome um uh and one of the things that we want to do uh going
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forward in the Strategic plan that we've written is uh you know there's there's a real void uh down south sure you know
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you look at viin Glassboro there really isn't an early intervention opportunity for kids down there now granted the
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population is much low much lower sure but um uh you know we would really love
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to be able to set up a satellite classroom in Trenton um or or or even
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glass power for that matter yeah um that takes time it takes money uh and there's
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a lot of state bureaucracy that you got to go through in order to be able to set that up but one of the things that we've
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toyed around with uh and we're working on today is a mobile audiological unit
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okay um where you know we're looking at acquiring a large van on sort of the you
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on the UPS size sure and and outfitting that with uh testing equipment uh and
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and sending that off uh to visit schools around southern New Jersey um and even
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after school it's out we want to send it to camps uh you know all around New Jersey and that will really give us the
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Outreach to be able to expand our services yeah and that's it's because that that's a great segue because I was
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my next question was going to be about you know like we talked about the history we kind of talked about what's going on now but then looking into the
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future um and kind of growing the foundation beyond what it is right now
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and kind of getting it to like new level and New Heights and being able to just reach more people you know whether it's geographically and all that kind of
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stuff I think that that's really important as well no question and and and it's really about understood geographies at this point yeah you know
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we know that uh there are there are needs in uh the Union County Essex County area uh uh the where our services
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would you know are are desperately needed and so we would love to be able to set something up in in Newark yeah um
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The Challenge there is is being able to find the right space uh to be able to to attract the families
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and the kids uh same goes for Burlington Trenton area Camden we would love to be
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able to set up a school there as well um uh because again big population centers
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and at about the two to three kid per thousand ratio right um there are kids
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there who don't have the benefit of early intervention and that's a crying shame um and so we want to be a that's
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one of the things we want to be able to do I think first steps is the mobile audiological unit and then once we have
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established you know um uh a cohort of of individuals that really could benefit
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uh then we'll do it yeah it it um this is just cuz I'm curious now about it
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when you are looking at these different geographical areas are there ways you can kind of know like okay we would be
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best served if we were in I know you mentioned Newark which is the biggest city in the state but then like other areas where you know you know that like
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okay if we go here this is going to be able to serve x amount of people or we go to this does that kind of is that how
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it works well what what what happens is that when you have a kid in New Jersey
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they're automatically given excuse me we can cut that out yeah
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yeah when you have a kid in New Jersey they're automatically given a hearing test okay uh and then based on the
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results of that test uh they're referred to a number that they can call uh
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um sometimes that happens sometimes it doesn't sure the followup is really on on is really on the family and so um
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there is no precise science so so I can't tell you there are 30 kids in in Newark that need us or 15 and in in in
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in Tren that need us but um it only stands for reason yeah you know if if
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there's no early intervention opportunity like sound start in New York New Jersey then how are they getting it
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right they can't yeah and so again I always go back to the fundamental
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premise that you know if we can reach a kid at 18 months who's born heart of
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hearing I can guarantee you that that kid will graduate from our program and and and matriculate into a
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genn program shoulder-to-shoulder with their peers yeah you know and the consequences of that is that that kid
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will go on to lead will reach their full potential on right and not be you know
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on the do you or Award of the state you know you know it's crucial yeah
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absolutely and so if people are listening to this episode and they're like you know this doesn't affect me
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directly but I'm interested in getting involved somehow like what are ways that people can get involved with the
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soundart foundation lots of ways you can get uh involved with the soundart foundation uh by being a sponsor by
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being a volunteer we always need volunteers at our events uh come visit our school at at at on Lake Drive In in
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m Lakes um go to our website soundstart fd.org uh learn about what we do and uh
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give us a call you know we were open arms anybody and everybody you know the
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more the merrier yeah and if if this is something that a family is directly affected by and they're not in the
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program is there like I mean I would imagine it's like we were talking about before it's beneficial to get involved or get
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started with it as early as possible but if it's now a little bit down the road maybe the maybe the child's like or
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10 or older or whatever you know how does that kind of play into the stuff
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that you that you guys are doing is is there is there like kind of a I don't want to say it's too late but like um
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you know earlier the better but how does that work for fam our kids leave us at
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about 3 years old okay and and they go on 85% of them go on to their uh Local
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Schools okay um but there are lots of other programs around the state that
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offer Middle School experiences for kids who were born heart of hearing uh and so um give us a call yeah and we'll tell
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you where to go I mean if if if you're an eight-year-old and you need this type of work then we know exactly where to
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send you gotcha we should have I should have asked that question you know like the the ages that we're that we're
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focused on no worries yeah yeah all good um okay and then you know I think that
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that also kind of comes into play too because because I I think that no matter what the great thing about the foundation is that it's just a resource
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for families and kids that are you know either uh deaf heart of hearing all that
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kind of stuff and I think that that's the main the main thing so obviously like you're providing a service you know
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like the Early Education uh stuff but then also kind of being able to you know Point people in the direction like these
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are also places you can go as well right right anybody who has any questions about you know their child who is hard
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of hearing even if they're not a student uh you know we'd be happy to chat with them Point them in the right direction
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uh listen to their experience and um be able to offer advice as to what they
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should do next yeah so before we wrap um I I want to make sure that we kind of hit all the all the people that we uh
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want to shout out as far as supporting the soundstar foundation I know we we missed one early on but we want to make sure we mention it uh so who is that and
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and why well you know one of because we have Chris Martin you know you you
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if I told you you know that there was a real connection between car racing and and and being hard of hearing you would
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say what the heck you know how's that well because Chris Martin has he's really opened up a whole universe for us
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and because he's part of us right now and he's he's really sort of our ambassador uh we've been able to reach
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out to organizations like monacello motor club uh and uh they have they have
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an enormous following uh and they operate a racetrack in monello New York it's based here in Wayne Jers I believe
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and uh they're one of our big sponsors and the the the fun thing about their sponsorship is that they have we're
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going to be able to sell uh opportunities to go around their racetrack in their supercars oh wow uh
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with Chris Martin uh you can go around the track two three four times um at
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speed which which you know probably means you know 200 300 M hour um but
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we're going to be auctioning off those experiences and uh you know Chris is going to be he he'll show up in his
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racing leathers and it'll be very exciting yeah um and uh uh you know I
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can't wait for that some of our other sponsors you know like phonak who produces uh devices for for for people
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who are a heart of hearing uh they're one of our big sponsors I mentioned the banks of course uh there are a number of
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families uh who who've joined us and so uh you know we're we're blessed with a
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Cause you know that has attracted a very large following yeah absolutely and I
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love this and I love that we were able to kind of get this set up and and recorded it was great to meet you uh so
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we I know you mentioned the website earlier on but uh places that people can go to learn more uh get more information
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um all that kind of stuff where would you want them to go you know the best way best place to go um is really our
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website and that's soundart fd.org um we have a good good presence
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on Facebook we've got a good presence on on Instagram uh and uh over the last couple months with our Gala coming up
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you can imagine we we've flooded social media with all sorts of information yeah um uh go to the website buy a ticket
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come meet Chris Martin he's he's an extraordinary young man yeah awesome all right well we we'll make sure that we
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put the the website and everything in the show notes so people just go click it awesome check it out um we'll also put greetings from the gate.com which
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will is the website obviously for the show which you can get to all of our other episodes uh brammy thank you so much doing this thank you thank you um
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and uh so again this has been the green gar podcast powered by the New Jersey Lottery we're here in Mountain Lakes today with Bry Cole the CEO the
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soundstar foundation thank you for listening and we'll catch you next [Music]
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time myab do you are right oh tell me before you go way do
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you want to ride w
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[Music]
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[Applause] [Music]
