Hudson River Radio dot com. It beats listening to nothing. Being Frank.
We're the only way to be, is Frank? Whoa and welcome to Being
Frank. We're the only way to be, of course, Frank. I'm
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podcast. You know, we bring our audience a new topical program every week,
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just to be on the safe side, so you can listen at your convenience,
and every program as archive, so you can listen to any Being Frank
virtually anytime that you want. It's truly the intelligent thing to do. Hey,
we're taping on April sixth, and it's a truly holy week because we
have Passover, Easter, and Ramadan all happening this week and this weekend.
So those who choose to celebrate happy. You know, I'm not particularly Orthodox
in any way, looking or practicing, but I do like holidays that bring
people together, so that's a good thing. Please enjoy one another. You
know, when I was a young man playing lots of football, there was
a ubiquitous locker room slogan just sort everywhere when the going gets tough, the
tough get going, it will made sense to me then, and it certainly
applies still today, and it applies to organizations as well as individuals. Times
are tough today for most of us, and that applies in particular to those
serving people with special needs or with less means. If you think that inflation
has been tough on families, think about the effect on organizations that often serve
hundreds or even thousands. Yes, you must be tough and resilient, but
innovative too. One organization that is continually adapting its methods to not only find
new ways of fundraising, but to provide their many clients opportunities for a fuller,
richer life, and that is Juannio. Since nineteen forty seven, Jeannio
has been providing thousands of adults, children, and families with a variety of
special needs that care they so desperately need. Now just last month March twenty
twenty three, and we say that because this is archived. If you're listening
in the past or a few children of the case, maybe they came up
with another unique, innovative and progressive way of helping their clients and the bottom
line, and joining us once again to explain this fascinating new program, which
is called Rickett Again is the CEO of Juannio, Randy Rio's Castro Randy,
thank you so much for joining us again. You were on about a year
ago. As a matter of fact, a little bit less ten or eleven
months ago. I think he was celebrating an anniversary at the time, seventy
five years. Seventy five years of serving lots of people, and for our
listeners, perhaps they missed the first show. Tell us a little bit about
the organization. It's rather unique, it was created in a rather unique way
and it serves as thousands of people of year a year. So since nineteen
forty seven, tens of thousands of people have been served by Chiwana. Tell
us a little bit about the organization first, please sure. So Juana as
a large human service provider. We cover Rockland County as well as Westchester,
and we touch a little bit into Orange and the Bronx. We are a
lifespan agency, so we serve individuals from birth through end of life in a
variety of capacities, and our focus is really on people with developmental disabilities,
mental health challenges, and chronic medical conditions. So we help people with providing
them residential services, day programming, employment, you know. For the younger
kids, we have early intervention and preschool as well. As a summer education
program and Article sixteen. So we're really touching a lot of different areas.
And you know, we've been as pretty big staple in the community, as
you said, for now seventy five years, and you know, I think
it's it's important for people to understand it's not just a place that people go
to and are serviced. It's broader than that. You involve people, you
try to get the most out of them with ever whatever, with whatever abilities
they might have. In other words, instead of looking a quote unquote disability,
you try to take advantage of the abilities they do have. And we're
going to talk a little bit about the Bricket Again program and how that is
really embodies the spirit of Juanio. If you will, we'll talk about that
in more detail, but I want you to speak to the fact that again,
it's a doing place, it's not just a being place. If if
you'll understand my play on words, if you could elaborate a little bit,
yeah, absolutely, So you know, are at the core of our mission
is really to help people live as independently as possible. So we meet them
wherever they are and we help them to attain the goals that they have for
themselves. So for some people that goal includes employment, and we work with
them to get them to the point where they can go out and be employed
now. And obviously, working in a place such as Juannio, you must
see many stories of courage and inspiration, and not only by clients, but
by staff as well, because their special needs takes a special person to care
for them, so it all kind of works together. Would you care to
share maybe a story or two that could really bring us to the core of
what Juannio is about. Sure. I think one of the most compelling stories
I could tell was when I first started at Juannio. You know, it
was in the summer and we have our summer education program and the individual that
I was with that was giving me a tour of the program and kind of
explaining about it, we came upon this group and they were practicing singing and
they were getting ready for the end of the summer show. And he points
to this young woman and said, that young woman right there, when she
came to Jeannio, she couldn't speak, and she was singing. And not
only was she singing, but she was preparing to do a solo. And
when I tell you, this young woman had the most beautiful voice she could
ever imagine hearing. She was brilliant in what she did, and she has
performed every summer for years now and last summer was her last summer and it
was so touching or getting up and singing her solo, and there's so many
stories like that. At Jeannio and the staff that work for us are so
dedicated to helping the individuals achieve their maximum potential that they do everything that they
can define what's meaningful to the individuals and to help them in their quests to
get to attain those goals. You know, we produce the program the podcast
via zoom, which means there is video. Unfortunately we don't transmit it anymore
for technical reasons. Be that as it may, that's not my point.
What I would like to share with people is that I can see how your
face has lit up just thinking about those stories, how much joy it brings
to you. It must be a unique perspective to be an administ administrator because
there are administrative issues, paperwork, etc. Fundraising, all that other nuts
and bolts stuff that you have to deal with, but it also has that
human element to it where you get to share with these incredible people, both
clients and staff. So if you can tell us a little bit about how
to make you feel, if you share that with us, you know,
it's it's interesting, you know, as you said, being an administrator and
an organization of our size, you know, it's it's complicated. There are
very challenging days that you have in dealing with you know, the myriad of
issues, you know, worrying about funding. But when you can walk through
different programs and see the individuals that you're supporting and watching them obtain their goals
and watching the staff help them, it just everything. It makes everything that
you do worthwhile. And then you hear all these other stories and you know,
I know we're going to talk about Bricket again, but you know,
Diana, recently, our chief communications officer, recently sent me a video from
a family member of one of the individuals that's working in the store, and
it was like to the point where you almost cried listening to this family say
how proud they were and how much their son look forward every day to getting
up, setting his clothes, getting them all ready to go to work.
And when you know that you and do that and help people, you know,
live their best life. It makes everything worthwhile, you know, it's
it's it's so important that you know the people know. Also, you mentioned
it's a large organization, and your website mentions helping thousands of people a year.
How many at any given time, how many clients are served by how
much staff at Juannio? How large is it? Sure? So right now
we're serving about thirty five hundred people a year, give or take. They
come and go sometimes depending on the program, and right now we have about
nine hundred staff. So it's it's a large and very complicated organization. You're
located in New City, if I remember correctly, and there were just some
renovations on the campus. Tell us a little bit about the interesting if you
will, before we move on. We have a little bit of time.
And I think it's important because Jiuanio is so unique in so many ways from
the things that you do, how you serve people, but even the inception
of it, how it all came about, I think is very interesting because
it was really aggressed roots organization that grew from from families for families, and
I think it's important for people to know that. Would you share a little
bit of the history. Yeah, So there was a group of families that
got together that really wanted more for their children. They didn't want them to
be institutionalized. They wanted them to, you know, be able to live
a normal life and be engaged in their communities. So they came together and
founded Jiwanio. And you know, it started off with a small group of
families and they put together this summer education program called Camp Jiwanio. And from
there, you know, the organization just blossomed into multiple programs adding on,
you know, after so many years, to the point now that you know,
we have over a dozen different programs that were providing Let's talk a little
bit about funding. Obviously that many people that have to be provided for it
do all the clients live there or some do some commute, but they are
living quarters. So it's obviously an expensive place to run. How are you
funded? How do you manage? So we you know, we are we
do get funding from the state. A lot of the individuals that we support
are you know, they get Medicaid and some of them have private insurance.
And then we have foundations that support us and we do a lot of fundraising.
Um the fundraising is what helps us to do innovative programming. So without
that, you know, we really can't innovate because we don't have the funds
to do that. So we were fortunate, you know, with the Bricket
against Or because we received a very large grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation.
Without that, we would have never been able to do something like this.
Well, and we mentioned and I've always been appreciative of some of the
innovations that come out of Juannio, And we mentioned Diana hass And I have
to think it was going to wait to the end of the show, but
thank you here and now for coming through with with you a great guest and
a great topic on Passover Nola. I don't ask for much. No,
it's pass over tonight. Can you get Randy for me? On short notice?
And she pulled it together and she's also Shepherd's A lot of it was
a dodgeball tournament. I think you guys did for a while of basketball things.
You're you're always innovative, and I wanted to talk a little bit about
some of those challenges of coming up with new and innovative ideas. Especially COVID
had must have had a huge effect because it had effect on all of us
in general. And something as confined, if you will, as people working
in such a close atmosphere as they have to with Juanio must have had a
unique challenges. How did you How did you weather that? You know,
the staffing is really our biggest challenge is getting staff to come and work,
because you know, to be able to pay a competitive salary is a little
challenging when you're competing with for profit businesses and you know you're a not for
profit and what you're what you're paying is based on the reimbursements from the state.
So you know, there's a lot of advocacy around um, you know,
the state paying staff a living wage and doing a cost of living adjustment
that would help us to you know, increase their salaries. So that really,
during the pandemic was our was our biggest challenge. I will say that,
you know, we probably weathered the storm better than some of the other
agencies because of our long history, because we have staff that have been with
us in some cases for decades, UM that are just so committed to the
people that we're supporting. I mean, they love these individuals like they're a
member of their own family, and for some of them, it's the only
family they've ever so for you know, a place like Juannio. You know,
having the staff is really at the heart and soul of everything that we're
doing, because without them we couldn't provide the programs we provide. And where
do you draw people from? Do they come from all over the state to
work at Juanio locally? And again because our listeners, because we do stream
and we do have listeners from all over hopefully to make your hopsa and beyond
just Rockland County. So you know, there are times I give the relative
area Rockland County about twenty five thirty miles or so north of New York City,
relatively affluent. We've talked about it. People to people, there are
still no matter where you are, no matter how wealthy the community, there
are always people in need, and so services are important to to provide.
But to finish that long winded question, do you draw people workers, employees
from all over the state, all over the areas and they come to work
at Juana Um? Yeah, I mean at our large portion of our staff
are from Rockland, but we do draw staff from the city, from Westchester
County, Orange County, Duchess, Putnam, um. You know, pretty
much the surrounding counties or the people that are coming to work for us.
We do get some staff coming in from New Jersey, but primarily, I
would say, you know, for our Rockland sites, the staff are primarily
from Rockland, and for our Westchester sites, primarily from Westchester, and like
the Bronx area. All right, we've got the good background. So let's
let's talk about Rickett again. It's just absolutely terrific. Again, you can't
see us smiling. I'll just have to tell everyone we're smiling ear to ear
because this just the coolest thing ever. I gotta say, how did you
come first? Exped I'm so excited, I'm going to get ahead of myself.
So it's stumbling, as we call it being Frank. It's too much
Frank from time to time. But anyway, very excited to hear about Bricket
again. What is it? How did it come about, what are you
trying to accomplish with it? Etcetera, etcetera. We'll get to them all,
but first what is Bricket again? So Bricket Again is a retail shop
that where we sell Legos, both used and new Lego products. And really
the idea stem from a couple of things. You know, I watch my
nephews play with Legos and you know, you just see how much joy they
got out of it. And then I started thinking, these legos are pretty
expensive. Where do they do with them when when they're done with them?
And then I started thinking about an organization I was on the board for called
Yes She Can. They had a store called Girl Again where they resold American
girl dolls and their clothes and accessories. And I thought, well, they
could resell American Girl dolls and get their stuff donated. Why can't we do
the same thing with legos. So the idea was born. And really the
goal we were trying to accomplish and we are accomplishing, is to get people
to work. We have a lot of individuals with us that they really they
want to be meaningfully employed, They want to earn a paycheck, and this
is a really good opportunity for them to do that. We, you know,
we do that primarily because we have a really great community. We've had
a lot of people come in and donate the Lego products to the store,
and what our individuals are doing is they are cleaning them, sorting them,
repackaging them, and selling them. So it's really like the best of both
worlds. We're providing you know, this retail shop in the community where people
can come in they could purchase Lego products. We're going to be doing birthday
parties there and other you know, community type events, and we are putting
people to work well, you know, you mentioned and all the good will
in the world and getting I'm sure a lot of parents donating legos step on
them any longer in the middle in the middle of the night. But you
mentioned earlier on that some funding was necessary to get it off the ground.
You know, the great ideas and great intentions are just that they're they're great,
but to make them happen, you needed some funding. And I understand
you got a special grant. Yes, we got a three hundred thousand dollars
grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, and that really afforded us the opportunity
to you know, rent the space by buy some products, renovate uh and
higher staff, and really help us get this off the ground for the first
basically the first year of operations. So I'm assuming then, if I might,
um, it's a combination of some of your clients who are working on
a certain level that are adaptable to cleaning, sorting, and things of that
nature. But you also have, if you will, professional help, a
store manager and people who are actually work in retail to be able to guide
them. So it's a true and I'm driving at it's a true working environment.
Absolutely, it's a it's an integrated site. So we do have a
store manager, We're going to be hiring a party host that will you know,
really run all the birthday parties and the special events. And then we
have the other individuals that are working there that will help with you know,
as I mentioned, the cleaning, the sorting, the packaging, and then
the selling of the product. Now, again with respecting people's privacy, what
type of clients are able and capable of work? What kind of people would
you like to see working at the Juanio store. So you know, we
support people with developmental disabilities, mental health challenges, and chronic medical conditions,
and we have you know, a wide variety of people that are working in
the store right now. So it's a great opportunity for people that you know,
have have those types of skills. We're really looking for people that are
Lego enthusiasts that really understand the Lego product. Because there are things that you
know, get donated that have value that UM like real Lego enthusiasts are looking
to purchase, so they will draw them to the store. And then as
well as you know, catering to the young kids, so we have kids
that will come in and play with play with the products, and build right
there in the store, which was you know, really exciting. And you
know, all of these things I think, you know, the individuals that
we're supporting, they love to do, they love to interact with people,
and you know, they really make some of the best employees because they're so
dedicated and they don't ever call it out thick. Yeah, that's great,
It's really great. Now you mentioned community involvement and that you accept donations.
How how did will you take virtually anything A piece, two pieces, five
pieces, anything Lego. So we'll take the bricks, we'll take the mini
figures, we take Lego books, Lego movies, any anything Lego. UM
the community can donate. They can come right down to the store. It's
at seven Lake Ridge Plaza and Valley Cottage. They can bring it to our
site in New City at two sixty North Little Tour Road, or they can
bring it bring it down to our Yonker site and any of those are you
know, great drop off points. Um. You know, for more information,
they can visit our website at www. Dot bricket again dot org um.
And you know, we're we're happy to for for real large pick up
product donations. We're happy to come pick it up. And how is it
going so far? Are you getting a lot of donations? Are you selling
a lot of products? Tell us about I think we're off to a really
great start. I mean we've had, you know, a lot of people
donating products to us. That we had this one, this one and that
called Diana and said I have a thousand pounds of legos to donate and Diana
and Diana she so she's texting me and she said she goes. He said
it's a thousand pounds. I said, Diana, tell him for a thousand
pounds, we'll go pick it up. And we sent we sent a staff
with one of our vans and it literally was a thousand pounds of legos um,
multiple bins of Ferris Wheel and VW bug. Like just the guy was
incredible, you know and just so generous. Wow. Now, then how
do you sell them? People go to the store. Is it Is it
a mail Do they say mail order anymore? When my gun I'm so square?
Order online? Excuse so, Malcolm. People purchase these yeah so um
they So we have a few different ways that you can purchase. So you
can come into the store and you can purchase by the pound. Um,
there's you know, we they're sorted the pieces, so there's technical pieces that
are a little bit more and then you have your regular bricks so they can
they can pick their whatever ones they want and we will package them and sell
them by the pound. There's pre owned sets that are complete sets that we're
selling in the store, and then we have new products anything that like the
new products and the pre owned sets, we are also putting on the Bricket
again website and people can buy off of the website if I might. Before
we go to the commercial break, I wanted to read something that came from
the Rockland County Business Journal and I think it's important and just give me a
moment. It's interesting to think about Juanio's scheme to open a store that sells
used in new lego bricks. Given a nonprofits strenuous reputation for building an environment
that nourishes people with developmental disabilities every day. The organization lays the foundation for
people with challenges to better inhabit and function in the world. I just think
that's absolutely terrific and it really says an awful lot about you, the organization
and how you keep going. And I said, these these are tough times,
uh, and you know we have to ask or organizations do, and
they need generosity. But I think the key and truly the key of evolution,
it's not it's not really the survival of the fittest. It's the survival
of the most adaptable. And you guys seem to keep adapting and in fun
and interesting ways all the time. We're trying, we're trying, and like
I said earlier, we're really fortunate because we have a very supportive community and
a lot of you know, community based organizations that are helping us with the
lego donations by doing lego drives of their own. So you know, they're
having people that are donating their use legos. They're asking people to donate new
sets and then they're bringing them to us or we're picking picking them up from
them. So let's take a brief commercial break. When it come back,
let's talk a little bit more about your websites, how people can get in
touch with you future events. Because I know I can see again, I
can see you. I know the head is spinning. Whether there's all things
going but between you and Diana, that's something going to be going on down
the road that's going to be fun and profitable hopefully for you NEOs. And
we'll talk to all about that when we come back from these brief messages.
This is being Frank. I'm your host, Frank Labono. Will be more,
will be back with more intelligent conversation right after these brief messages. Hudson
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We're back, well at least I'm back. Hopefully you're back. It's being
Frank. We're the only way to be is Frank. I'm your host,
Frank Lagono, and we're talking to brandeios Castro from the CEO of Juannio and
their wonderful new innovative program Brick It Again, where they're refurbishing old legos,
making them new again and for sale to provide employment for some of their clients
and also to make a little bit of money. We want to talk a
little bit about how people can get in touch with you again. I think
it's important if they have need of your organization as a family member, how
can they get in touch with you? If they want to be involved with
Bricket Again? How can people follow you? You must have a Facebook page,
Instagram, etc. Let's let's give them all that information. Hold on,
everybody, get a pencil, write this down because we don't have any
graphics that we can, so let's give it to Randy please, so you
know, you can definitely get in touch with us on our bricket again dot
org website. There's a way for you to contact us there. You could
also call our main campus at eight four five seven zero eight two zero zero
zero. Those are great ways to get in touch with us. You can
all so visit our Juanio dot org site. So it's www. Dot Janio
dot org and any one of those means will put you in touch with us
and we'll be able to help direct you whether it's you know, looking you're
looking to you know, get somebody employed and have us, you know,
work with you on that, or you're looking to donate to us. You're
use legos that are probably sitting in your basement growing dusk. This is a
great opportunity for you to help us build futures brick by brick. Now,
I understand that's a great little play on words. They're almost as clever as
being frank almost any point. I understand there as a contest involved with the
donations of the legos. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
So not only are people doing good, they're going to get good. Yeah,
So if you come in and you donate to the store, you have
an opportunity to win a wet Raffle prize. So one of the prizes is
for donating products, you can win tickets to Legoland. And then we have
another prize that if you come in and make a purchase, you can you
can win a chance for a birthday party at the store. So cool.
And what's in the future, What's what's the next You have the next Bricket
Again somewhere in the recesses of your mind. What can we do. There's
a couple of ideas that are brewing. I mean, you know, it
would be nice to open up a second Bricket Again store at some point,
maybe in the future. We have a couple other ideas that I don't really
want to share at the moments. I don't want Toyboy stealing them. But
there's a lot there's a lot of ideas that have been brewing around Juana on
how we can get more people to work and continue the programming that we're doing
there. So when they come to Fruition you'll join us again and absolutely we'll
talk about it again. In the meantime, again, I have to thank
Diana Hess and also say that Neil Richter says, Hello, they go back
a long ways. That's a little frightening to me, especially Diana if she
knows rictor that long. So be afraid, be very afraid. Anyway,
Randy, I want to thank you on a serious note. We had some
fun tonight, but you're doing a great job. I've been there on a
number of occasions. It's a fabulous organization. And this is what you do
is you know the right things, the right ways, with the right people
for the right people. If that makes any sense to anyone. I really
we really appreciate you having me on the show, and you know, we're
so grateful to you and the community for your support because we need that in
order to continue doing what we're doing. Well. We call it intelligent conversation,
and I have to add, at least I have very intelligent guests like
yourself that carry most of the conversation. We'll leave it at that. Of
course, we like to give a special thanks to our listeners who take the
time to give us a voice in their lives. Remember we offer a fresh
topic every week and you can catch us wherever and whenever you get your favorite
podcasts. Remember that's apples, Spotify, a heart radio speaker and all the
rest, and of course you can check us out on our Facebook page.
Before we go, let me leave you with our last two little tidbits.
This one is from Teddy Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, and I think I always
try to pick something that's a little apropos appropriate for our conversation, and this
is do what you can with what you have where you are. I'd call
that pragmatic and practical. We've got some great music from a good friend,
Tim O'donohu and the TMU band. The song I really like. It's about
the hard working immigrants who built this country, and it's called Central Line.
I'm your host, Frank Labona or we hope to see you on the next
being Frank, We're the only way to be, is Frank you? A
song of my cee. Our country became great only built railroads. The author
of this song is named Jo Harm. She holds the ancestors built the railroads
for me west coast towards the east, my legal Irish and the grant ancestors
build the least towards the west. The math Comtory top songs about that untaste
right. This is the people Store in San Francisco. I'm set behind play
A time had come then you don't want mine? No one has to play
all s strove the line. I made it through my fear away. What
would make any hand for it? Ten miles A with a friendly he ain't
together, stroke no wrong staying away to line. This is Hudson River Radio
dot com.