WEBVTT

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Good morning, good morning, good
morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome,

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and it's time now for community connection
right here on Cane one the wine

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that you Tristmas Charlene do. How
do you do? I'm just fine?

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And how are you? I'm great? And you brought friends? I did?

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Thank John B. How you doing? Tom doing super good? Now

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I understand we've got a really big, big, big, big big announcement

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coming up, especially since we're talking
about Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Everything's

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got to be big. Everything has
to be big. Yes, well,

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our focus today is on big events. But that's the way I tell you

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big. It's big. It's a
big event. John b And and Barbara

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are our chairs for this year and
we're really excited about that. And Big

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Brothers Sisters of Oklahoma was just awarded
the national Large Agency Alliance Agency of the

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Year. That's a big deal.
How does it really happen? Well,

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there's certain criteria you have to meet
in financial sustainability, quality of matches,

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and children served. And I think
there were forty eight Large Agency Alliance agencies

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that the Big brother Speceis of America
is split into like the small agencies,

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mid size and large agencies. So
we're in the group with Kansas City,

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California, Atlanta, Minneapolis, large
large agencies, and we have so getting

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the national recognition as Agency of the
Years, very very exciting and big.

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Yes. That and we have a
big waiting list too. I have thirty

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two children that are waiting. That's
really twelve of those are girls, the

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rest are boys. And we really
do need people to step up and decide

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that they would like to share their
time and their self with a young person

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in our community. This is great. Now we we got the big event.

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So John, these are big shoes. You're feeling here. It's a

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big job. Big So how big
is this big event going to be?

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Well, I hope it's huge.
Barbara and I were really flattered and honored

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to get asked to be in honor
chairs of this. I wish Barbara could

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have been here this morning. She's
a little shy getting in front of a

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microphone, but I'm happy to represent
her. But don't don't think for a

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second she's not a big part of
this helping us do this. But you

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know, I was thinking back.
You know, I've been involved in a

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lot of different noper profits over the
years. On I've not done a lot

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with I've supported, but not is
Big Brothers Big Sisters. Uh. My

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son, John Jay happens to be
on the board, which is I'm thrilled

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that he's contributing there and he loves
it. He loves the mission and he's

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told me more and more about it. But you know, sometimes the simplest

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ideas are the best, right.
I think when you have children that just

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need an adult in their life that
will, you know, be able to

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give you an example to them,
to take an interest in them, to

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show they care. And it's it's
powerful. It's powerful. And Big Brothers

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Big Sister has been around a long
time and their results show are you know,

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they they speak for themselves. They
had to. They always have a

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great goal for kid's Sakes fundraiser again
they reached their goal this year. It's

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amazing how well Bartlesville will step up
and support these kind of good causes because

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it truly is. It's it's very
worthwhile, very meaningful. When you support

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this, you're helping individual children.
And I will while I'm right now,

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while I'm thinking about it. You
heard the thirty two kids on a waiting

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list, and it could be a
little intimidating, thinking, well, I

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can't be a mentor. What do
I have to offer? Maybe you don't.

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But the fact of the matter is
it's just a little bit of time.

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It doesn't have to be a big, big event every time you do

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something with them big. You could
pick them up and take them to the

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grocery store with you, spend an
hour just talking to them in the car,

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ask them how things are going.
You know, it doesn't have to

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be just a huge production every time
you want to have a little time with

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your mentee. So people need to
remember that, and I think that the

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adults can get a lot out of
it as well. But don't be intimidated

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by it. Step up, call
the office, ask them about it.

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Learn and let's help these thirty two
kids that are on the waiting list if

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we always encourage it really is about
looking at the things that you do every

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day you could involve a child in
because we all have the same amount of

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time. We're not going to get
anymore, and so it's a matter of

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what we do with that time.
And it really is a few hours a

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few times a month, and it
makes a significant impact on that child's life,

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on the life of the family and
that child's family going forward, you're

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impacting future generations as well. And
as you said, the volunteers, most

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of the they come in thinking I'm
going to do something for this child.

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And you've heard it here Tom several
times when we have mentors that are talking

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about their mass relationships that they get
as much out of the relationship as the

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kid does. So it really is
something that is life changing for everybody.

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This is great. So what are
you waiting for? Folks? Have you

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been sitting on this idea? Get
off that perch and get stay out line.

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Let's keep going. We count You
can come to the Big Event and

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learn more about it. Tell us
about the Big Event. What is the

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Big Event? Hit show? What
do you tell them all about event?

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It's the twenty fifth anniversary of Big
Event as our fundraiser. That's big in

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itself and we when we started that
fundraiser, the only other gala in town

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was the Symphony Ball, So that
was back in nineteen ninety nine and now

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now there's one on every weekend,
practically good one. So our presenting sponsor

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is Sutterfield Financial. Nice and Anjeanette
and her Trio will be the entertainment for

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this year, and so what we're
going to do is kind of take a

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look at some of the themes over
the years that have been particularly you know,

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if you were there, you're still
talking about it kind of themes and

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just kind of do just celebrate the
work that we have done. So we've

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been archiving the pictures on our wall
so that we can do a digital so

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that to preserve them because we have
big pictures going back only to nineteen ninety

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nine when we became a satellite of
the Cult organization. But we have people

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who come in the office and they'll
be they'll find their match on the board.

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And you know, we've had littles
that have come back to the bass.

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We've had bigs come back that did
more than one one little. So

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so it's going to be a fun
time. Tickets to you go to big

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event. Bartlesville dot org is the
website. Sponsorship opportunities are still open,

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but you need to give me a
call because we want to make sure that

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you get all your sponsor benefits and
oh yeah, those are important. You

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know, I've been to a couple
of these big events with Charlie Big.

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That's just the beginning. These things
are wonderful. These are well planned out,

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These things are down to the detail. These things are just awesome.

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You walk away feeling like you're a
part of something, and then you become

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part of something if you haven't been
already, whether you're going to be a

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sponsor, donor, or perhaps even
a big and that's really how great these

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things are. And we're so grateful
for the community that steps up. We

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raised one hundred and one hundred and
fifty five nine in bowl, which is

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back to pre twenty twenty, pre
pandemic. It took us four years to

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recover from that, but you know, the community steps up to support big

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brothers, big sisters, and we
really do appreciate that. We really appreciate

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our sponsors, our individual donors,
our corporate donors, and our mentors because

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without them we'd have nothing. We
you know, I used to say the

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only two things that we need are
money and mentors, but then recently I've

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been saying we need three things.
We need mentors, we need money,

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and we need advocates advocates. Some
people will be mentors, some people will

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be donors. Everyone can be an
advocate. So if being a mentor doesn't

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fit in in your life at this
moment in time. But you can advocate

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for Big Brothers Big Sisters. You
can talk to your friends because surely you

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know somebody who would be a great
role model for a young boy or girl

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and just talk to them and say, hey, have you heard about the

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Big Brothers Big Sisters and have you
thought about being a mentor, and encourage

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them to to give at least give
us a call and find out the information.

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Great, you just say, give
a call or look at the website

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to a little bit too. If
that's for getting a little bit more information,

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then get the details from Charleyne.
That's always a good idea too.

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So where is the big event going
to be? Help? It is going

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to be at Hillcrest Country Club.
Again, we really like that venue.

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It's nice. I did I loved
it. Did that eighties theme? We

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did? Yes, that was fun. But anyway, that's a great to

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set up there and it's ideal for
what you're going to be doing well.

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And Cindy is so easy to work
with. Yeah, that's true. So

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it'll be at Hillcrest Country Club.
It's on August the tenth. Tickets are

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available, sponsorships are available. So
we encourage you to think about where we

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will be reaching out to past chairs
to see about some of them coming back

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since it is the twenty fifth anniversary, and that'd be great. It's really

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going to be a bit nostalgic for
some. For others, if this is

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your first time, it's going to
be an eye opener because you're going to

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say, wow, this is wonderful. Well why wasn't I a part of

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this before? And you know,
you've got to get those people have it

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out a V eight moment. But
you know, all the same, as

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long as you're on board, you're
on board. That's good. John.

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You've got to be just, you
know, ecstatic to be a part of

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this big twenty fifth thing. There's
no doubt about it. It's this,

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Yeah, I am ecstatic. It's
just it's such a great organization. As

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we've been talking, I've been thinking, and one of the proofs of that

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is just the longevity. How they
have consistently gained support in this community over

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all these years. And you don't
do that unless you're achieving, unless you're

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doing something worthwhile. And you know, it's a great national organization. They

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got great state support, it's got
everything it needs. And then of course

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what Charlene has done locally. And
I don't think Charlene really wanted me to

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mention that her retirement is coming up
thirty how many years? Thirty five years?

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That's really considering she's only, you
know, and forty. So this

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is a great opportunity to come in
not only for our twenty fifth year,

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but I think that we need to
we need this community owes it to Charlene

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to come out and for her final
big event and give her a big send

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off too, because with all this
national state support, it's still local and

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Charlene's the proof of that. And
she's carried she's run this organization beautifully for

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all those years, and we just
need to keep growing it. We need

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to find those mentors and can't raise
the money and advocate now now there's a

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thirdday. But I just appreciate,
well all you do, Charlene. Oh

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thank you. John. There's only
been that we've served Washington County for forty

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years, and there's only been three
directors, So Connie Lavoy was the first.

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There was a director for a short
period of time, like nine months,

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and I've been here for thirty five
years. So yeah, goodness,

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My Goodnesskes, Well, what job
well done? Because this ain't that's an

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understatement. First of all, getting
matches, getting the mentors, getting kids

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paired up, and then the bud
raising part of that bowling for kid's sake,

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my goodness sake that that usually takes
a whole staff of people. Charlie

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did it. We are the largest. We've always raised more for capita than

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anybody in the state, and we
probably raised more for capita than most of

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the bulls in the country. Wow, because we're raising I don't know,

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three dollars and ninety eight cents for
every person in the county. So,

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I mean, it's pretty dark good. That's a lot, that's all,

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and it's our highest was one hundred
and sixty five thousand. I don't know

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that we'll ever get back to that, because there's a lot of changing demographics

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and a lot of things that factor
into that. But then, as someone

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pointed out, I see really pointed
out, you're only ten thousand from that.

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Yeah, that's only ten one thousand
dollars, teams, what's the problems

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achievable? I think we're gonna get
that. Showing up sleepless nights, what

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the heck? You a couple more
sponsors. Yeah, so you know,

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it's it's one of the things that
that we're talking about at the state level

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is how do we get back to
our best year ever, the best year

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in fundraising, the best year in
numbers of children served. You know,

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we were poised for growth in twenty
twenty, and then COVID hit and sort

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of wiped out, wiped out that
for a while, and so now we're

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poised again and everybody is Oklahoma City
is already I believe achieved there. They've

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served more kids already than they did
last year. When we're only in June.

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You know, that's our goal.
We're only from serving more kids than

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we did last year, but we're
about twenty five from our goal for new

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matches. So we really you know, we hear the stories. We see

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the stories every day of the success
of kids that are doing better because they

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had a mentor so I just want
other people to engage in that. Well

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good once again. It's coming up
August the tenth. It's going to be

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at the Hillcrest Country Club. It's
the big event, the twenty fifth anniversary,

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and John B. Kaine and Barbara
are working diligently on getting this all

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together. Good luck. Charlene helps
a lot. But yeah, please,

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you know, anybody out there if
you have just figure out how it fits

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you and what you might be able
to do in any of these areas that

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could help This organization is it's it
really makes a difference for our kids in

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this community. It does. It
truly does Big Brothers, Big Sisters work.

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We find you on the world world
wide web. The website is Big

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Oklahoma dot org. If you want
the Big Event specific, it's Big Event

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Bartlesville dot org. Okay, we
can give you a call. Can't we

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tell that still works? You can't
nine one eight two one three four five

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two four and she answers it.
I know because I've called her. And

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you can get everywhere that you need
to just going to the main website,

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which is Big Oklahoma dot org and
click on events and you'll see all the

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events statewide and Big Events logo will
be out there, so it is very

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easy to navigate. And I don't
know who put that together, but God

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bless well. Kat Miller is our
marketing person and she is awesome. All

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the marketing materials you see that we're
using all came We're designed by her.

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She also got two awards at the
national conference this year for her marketing materials,

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and last year she got two awards
as well, So she's she is

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on the cutting edge. We we
are big brothers, big sisters of Oklahoma

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is on the cutting edge of several
things. So we're doing a great job

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statewide. We're doing a great you
know, we're doing a great job locally,

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but we can't do it without the
support of the people in the community.

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Let's all make a difference, folks. Let's all make a difference.

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Big brothers, Big sister John by
King Charlie do thank you very much for

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being with us today. Folks,
you have been watching and listening to our

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broadcast, our community connection right here
on Kate one, the one you trust.

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We'll start this morning with uns