April 14, 2025 • 30 mins
"You are invited to Harrisburg's premier charity event of the year. So, gallop out to the Battle of the Roses, Greystone Derby Day at the Greystone Public House in Dillsburg on Saturday, May 3rd. It's a day filled with food, games, a silent auction and plenty of amazing fashions. Proceeds support Veterans Outreach of Pennsylvania." www.greystonederby.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Sylvia Austin. This is Insight. It's a presentation
of iHeartMedia where we really do care about our local
communities and all our listeners who live here. You know,
for almost as long as I've been doing this program,
I've heard about local veterans in our area remaining homeless
after they came home from the service. And two things
I never knew about these folks were exactly how many
(00:21):
were pretty much living on the streets and the reasons
that they weren't getting the support that they needed. It
was pretty much beyond my comprehension as to why they
were on the streets, Why these folks who without a
second thought, were willing to lay down their lives for
all of us, and yet somewhere along the line we've
left them down while during my research, I found out
that in addition to a lack of housing, veterans face
(00:42):
several other challenges that include mental health, drug and alcohol abuse, difficulties,
finding a stable job, and a lot more. However, the
primary cause of veterans homelessness is a lack of support
and social isolation after discharge. You know, typically, many of
the issues our veteran's face or complex with one issue
(01:03):
being complicated by several others other than the obvious, we
must not only recognize but understand what fuels they excuse me,
fuels these issues. Yet there are organizations out there that
try to support our veterans, but even so, plenty of
them still slip through the cracks. I don't know what view,
but for me, that's BS and it's simply not good enough.
(01:24):
So whenever I could, I provided resources that I knew
to local veterans and their families because it meant a
lot to me, and I just come from praying and praying.
Then it happened about five years ago. I met a
gentleman who was not only familiar with what veterans face,
he understood what was behind their pain. And the best
part was nothing could be done about at that time.
(01:46):
But there's a whole lot nothing that's going to stop
this guy from his remarkable dream. I thought he created
a safe place two for combat veterans in our area.
But he's providing them with support and services they need,
and thereby he's empowering their lives since with strength and purpose.
That's a place that this man in vision has been
(02:07):
up and running since last summer it's a village of
fifteen tiny home surrounded at a community center for the
vets experiencing homelessness is called Veterans Grove. Now I know
his life is going to understand that. I'm gonna say this, Tom,
Tom Zimmerman, you are amazing, Tom. I love you. I
(02:28):
love you with us is the founder, as I said,
an executive director of Veteran's Outreach of PA, Tom Zimmerman.
And we're going to have another surprise guests a little
bit later. We're gonna talk to I'm not gonna throw
accolades at you, because I know you don't go for that.
You'd probably think that's big us. Just let me get
my work done. You knew about this. This was your dream.
And the thing that I remember talking to you through
(02:50):
the years is your vision was to put these veterans
through a process where they got everything they needed to
empower them and then maybe they come back to the
fifteen homes, to the Veterans Group and they support other veterans. Recently,
you had a gentleman graduate I think as one or two.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Actually we just had our second one on Friday.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Tell us about these guys without without you know, saying
you know they're named, what have they gone through?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Absolutely well, first of all, thank you Sylvia for having us.
And just a little bit of a correction here, I'm
not the executive director now, I am the co founder
and past chair. But Deb donahue is our interim executive director.
Forgive me, and that's okay, Deb, And we have a
wonderful team at Veterans Outreach. You know, I say this
(03:40):
all the time. It takes a village, and it truly does,
you know. And as you mentioned, there's a lot of people,
a lot of different reasons why our veterans are in
a situation they are, and there's great organizations out there
helping our veterans, but there's that fifteen to twenty percent
of our veterans that I cannot succeed in the infrastructure
in the organizations. And therefore, the Veterans Outreach of Pennsylvania
(04:04):
was created with our co founder Val Fletcher, who unfortunately
passed away in twenty twenty two. But it was our
vision to help those veterans who were really struggling, didn't
have the support system and didn't have a voice. And
we felt that if you were willing to sacrifice your
life for our freedom. You deserve better. So we are
what we say, the thumb to the glove to the
(04:26):
other organizations, and we all work together to end homelessness
among our veterans. And if you were willing to sacrifice
your life for our freedom, you deserve better.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I just wanted to talk a little bit about the
two veterans that have graduated. So the one, our first graduate,
was homeless for ten years and actually just needed in
what we call a hand up. He needed guidance, he
needed support, he needed to have the feeling that people
care and getting him on a path to understanding that
(04:58):
he was in control and that he could go through
this program and started taking leadership and started showing progress
and just went through the program very very quickly. Graduated
in December nineteenth, twenty twenty four, after five short months
of being with us, and went back to school to
get his counselor certification and also enrolled at HACK for
(05:22):
his HR degree and he got his certification I think
back in February, and we hired him and he is
working in a notice for full circle process. So just
to see where they come when they first get there
and with them not trusting anybody, not trusting the system,
(05:43):
not you know, being mal nourished, being not sleeping. There's
a lot into our program that we can go into
a little bit later about our processes and our phases
that we do and to see that we're making a difference.
And we just had our second veteran graduate and he's
been homeless on and off for the last twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And I believe that I just kept I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Now, So what happens is is that a lot of
them they give up, They give up, and but they're
taught how to live on land, they're taught how to
live in jungles, they're taught how to live, you know,
and so they do it because they can, and they're
just they gave up on the system. And our program
is one that takes a lot of work on their part,
(06:27):
and it's about holding them accountable. But we're seeing a progress,
you know what.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You talked about that kind of thing. And I know
that lot come home, the ones that have seen hell,
and the families expect a guy that left or the
woman that left to be the same person coming back
and back breaks of families, and that's another reason these
guys have no place to go where they going to go.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean, I agree. You know, we talked about the
veterans and about the homelessness, but it is it's you know,
every veteran is a son, or is a father or
a mother or you know, a cousin, and it affects
the whole families. And you know, one of the processes
(07:09):
that we have at Veterans Grove is reconnecting them with
their families. So although we had two veterans who have
gone through the whole program, we've actually had a couple
veterans already that have left the program a little bit early,
but they went back to their families and that was
you know, that's a win for us. So we look
at it as it's a very rewarding and challenging but
(07:32):
rebuilding the bridges to the family is key and essential
to the longevity of our veterans.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
What is also key is that therapeutic model. Can you
talk a little bit about them?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Sure? So this this model is actually was created by
doctor George de Leone from Columbia University in New York City,
and it was actually built for incarcerated people to transition
once they leave the prisons and move back into society.
But we customized it for our veterans with our great
leadership team down at VOPA, and it's a four phase process.
(08:06):
The first phase is creating the environment where we're going
to get them healthy. It is providing them a little
tiny home where they can sleep at night, somewhere where
they can feel safe and put their head on a pillow.
And we're finding out that our veterans are sleeping twelve
to fourteen hours the first three weeks because they haven't
had that in a long time. Second thing is feeding them,
(08:29):
you know, getting them and if you learn anything about
the school districts and our children, there's the backpack program
where school districts are now sending backpacks home for underprivileged children.
So it's been proven they can't study if they're not
sleeping or eating right. So it's the same concept. So
we have an industrial kitchen in our community center where
they eat together as a group. And then the third
(08:50):
thing in this phase one process is getting them in
front of doctors getting them healthy. So it's getting them
healthy with the medical tental eye and then and also
feeding and sleeping, and that's phase one. Phase one is
basically a forty five to sixty day process. And then
during that time, we're building trust, we're building relationships, We're
getting them the care that they need, We're getting all
(09:11):
the documents and paperwork, all the benefits that they deserve.
Phase two is what we call an individual service plan.
And with that individual service plan, we call an ISP
is where our clinical team will work with the veteran
and put a contract together with them to address the
issues that have caused them to become homeless and then
tackle those And what we do is we have a
(09:34):
two to one ratio, which means that we have two
veterans for every one clinical person and they're monitored either
daily or weekly, and we check in and as long
as they're making progress, they have a place to stay
and it's all free to them. It's about being accountable,
it's about working towards your goal. Phase three is starting
(09:55):
to consider employment, job opportunities, maybe going back to college,
working with the local communities, colleges, trade schools, all kinds
of different things. Maybe they want to learn a new trade.
There's construction companies, there's businesses that want to hire veterans.
So we're partnering up with local organizations and national people
(10:15):
like our friends that renewl by Anderson by upmc TE
connectivity construction companies like Pyramid Construction. There's some restaurant and
we're working with the culinary school at HACK. So that's
Phase three is getting them in front, having hr people
coming down, trading them how to interview. And in phase
four is getting them permanent housing, getting them to a
(10:36):
place where we can help them out guide them and
then come back once they graduate from our program, live
a life of dignity and pride they deserve, and then
come back and be a mentor like you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Well, you know what are most how old are most
of these bets? Are they? Like from the Afghanistan? There
are no World War two.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Vets there, right, that is correct. We've had some Vietnam
vets though, we had some vets that were in their
seventies and I think our youngest one is thirty four
right now. There's some from Desert Storm, there's from from
you know, Iraq, and there's none from the Korean. But yeah,
the oldest that we have right now is in the
Vietnam era.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I know that you're part of your program. Is you
everything specialized per person? Because everybody has different needs? What
do you think the most common thing they all share is.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
The common thing they most all share, I would say,
the need to feel that they're being seen and heard.
That they felt that their voice has not been heard.
They've been isolated, as you mentioned earlier, for so long
that you know that little voice that's inside their head
is the only one that talks to them, and to
give them feedback, to give them the respect to So
(11:51):
this therapeutic model is a holistic approach that you know,
there's pear support, there's structured environment, there's jobs that they
need to do making them feel wanted, and also that
they got a purpose. You know, I had a veteran
who said to me that I didn't have Every time
I went to bed for the last ten years, I
didn't care if I woke up the next day. But
now you give me a reason, and it's not about me.
(12:13):
It's about my other people to my left and right,
almost like it was when they were in the military
and they had a platoon or a unit, and these
people counted on each other and they know that their
brothers or sisters that were standing next to them would
die for them for the better of the team. And
that's what this.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Is brought back your I forget what her title is.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Angel, Yes, the clinical director.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
She is amazing, She is fantastic. Do these gentlemen, I
know they're scared. I know that we talked about pride
that the military has d they have an issue confiding
or working with a woman.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That is not so much as long as you respect
them and you treat them with respect that they don't
have issues with women that I've seen.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
What could she know? But we forget there are women
in the military.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That is true, and there is great leaders in the
military that are females.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And you know what else I love about your organization somehow,
someway there was some connection to the military. You're bored.
I mean, everybody's either been in the military. They understand it.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Not only do they understand that, they live it and
they breathe it. You know. That is It's one thing
that we all have that common vision. And for us
that haven't had the military experience, we've experienced it. On
the other side, where you mentioned about being a family
member of someone being in the service and seeing someone
going over and come back and being different when they
come back.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You know, when you and I first met five years
six years ago. Oh God bless him. He's going to
need five million bucks at least. But you still need
the money. But people don't realize that that was to
build everything. And we've been you mentioned, you know, by
Anderston Linda, who not only gave you gifts some kind
of money, the employees came. I'm just blown away about
(13:56):
with all these every time I'm on Facebook, there's time
with the check.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
However, we need lots more checks.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
That's exactly right, you do. And not only Linda, but
you have come up with this awesome event. And this
is where the superstar comes in. Tom Jason, you brought
with you to a Jason Viscount. He is the owner
of Greystone Public House in Dillsburg. This is your fourth
year sponsoring Derby Day, right yep, Okay, Now, I got
(14:24):
to tell you this upfront. My son lives in Florida.
He loves your restaurants. Every time he comes up before
it goes back, he's there a couple of times. He
had a big birthday party for me and everything else.
So everybody knows.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Well to you for the support.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, you know, I wanted to ask it. There's a
heck of a lot of nonprofits out there. Why this one?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Yeah, So when we started Derby Day, we really wanted
to see something local, but there were tangible outcomes that
anybody could see, Like we want you know, everybody does
these big national charities, but yeah, we're you don't know
where your dollars are going this. They showed us the insight,
(15:07):
They showed us the plans, like when they broke ground,
like everybody showed up for the break in the ground,
Like it was really cool, Like you can't have a
tour of the facility now, but it was probably like
the week before you're taking your first people in. I
took my dad who was Marine Corps, my parents, my kids,
(15:28):
and it was kind of cool. I bought my dad
a brick because you can do bricks and it had
the Yeah, so I bought a brick for my dad's
and my dad got to see his brick there. And
you know, all my kids actually donate their time. So
I have four children and my wife, and we all
donate our time if we're on the board or the
day of the event.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I love hearing that because I've always for years and
years and years, I'm saying we got to get kids
or whole families because you're teaching them out giving back
and it feels good.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
So my seventeen year old son got one of our
big donors this year. So that's a River River Wealth
Advisory Group. So he was talking to the owner of
that that company, and he goes, let's drive over and
look at it. So they actually drove and he looked
at it outside and came back and he actually donated
seven five hundred dollars because my seventeen year old son.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
So that's a I mean, really cool. So I think
I think my son's gonna be in sales then.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
But you know, all of us knows somebody out there
with some bucks and we can do it ourselves. But
before getting to that, I want to talk about Derby Day. Yeah, okay,
it's Sandelsberg.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yep, it's gonna be May third, right, all right, So
it is I go to a lot of charity events.
You get dressed up and you're you know, you make
your appearance.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, this is not.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
That type of This is a party.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So we always kind of say, hey, you're doing good,
but you're gonna have fun doing it.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Like people get dressed up to the tea.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And the Derby contest.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, we do this thing Persecco pop and you actually
pop it and we how far your courk goes and
we measure him and then there's a prize given for
the long. They give you a big stroll and you're
just drinking right out of the bottle. Like that's the
type of party is like it's you know, I grew up.
And the food John Gross does a great job. They
actually do a whole roll bar. But we have all
the type of Derby food. Oh the Hot Rounds, which
(17:24):
is like like chicken with bacon.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
And tomato and it has like a mornaise sauce.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
We do the Derby Diamond Bars, which is almost like
a peacom bar. We're gonna have like fried chicken this year.
I think we have some prime New Yorks like like
we go all out dessert tables. But and it goes
really till the Derby ends, Like we have food out there,
and I think the Derby runs with like seven o'clock
(17:49):
or six forty five, so right before it gets dark
and then.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so we have TVs and you can
watch the Derby. So it's it's really fun.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I mean you even have it. Readers shine right about it.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, yeah, it's under pavilion, you know, so Rainer Shine.
It's great. But you know, one thing Jason didn't mention
was the Mints, mid Julips, the drinks and all that
is included in the price of the ticket. It basically
starts around two thirty early in the afternoon or late afternoon.
I guess you should stay and as Jason mentioned, it
goes into the Kentucky Derby, which is typically runs about
(18:25):
six thirty, so everybody kind of clears out about seven o'clock.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Well, tell me about these prizes because the one Jehanne.
Every year I was there, they were fantastic, but.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Well it's they're actually silent auction items. So this year
we wanted to go all out. So the one we
actually have a bottle of Pappy twenty three. It is whiskey,
but it's one of the most salt out whiskey. Is
like Pappy used to only have Pappy twenty one, and
I think it's three years ago they released the twenty
(18:52):
three secondary market. It goes for about eight thousand a bottle.
So we got it through the uh lottery. Pennsylvania has
a lottery and it was donated. So what they didn't
pay that for but I think Pennsylvania only gets like
eight bottles for the whole state.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
So it's it's very rare.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
And we actually have a bottle to donate that we're
going to do on the silent auction, but we also
have another bottle that we're going to do a dinner
at my house that people can bid on yours.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
So you're gonna take. It'll be like fifteen or sixty.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
We'll probably do because I get seventeen shots out of
a bottle and I need one for me, so we'll
do sixteen.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
So that's how we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
What else? What else?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
What else do we have?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Well, Jason, this is Jason's uh with the with the
different prizes and so forth going on? Is General Wolf?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Oh yeah, General Wolf.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
He's he did this beautiful hay he does like Alaskan
tree milling live edge. It was like a secuterary board,
but it was like three different pieces that fit together.
And he comes in like, this guy's awesome because I
first met him because I had this big tree that
was one hundred and fift year olds died and a
buddy of minew him. He said, oh, the General come
(20:13):
out and mill it up and he'll give you a
slab and he'll keep the rest. And uh, I mean,
this guy is huge. He looks like he's a WWE wrestlers.
Like my mother in law, she kept on sitting down outside.
I'm like, man, she spent a lot of time outside
like a general Wolf.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And he last she goes when General Wolf coming back.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So he comes in.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
And he brings this board and he goes, Oh, I don't
know where. You'll probably get like two hundred dollars for
it or something. I think it went for like two thousand.
Like people were going nuts bitting on this board.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
It was huge. It was probably about four or five
foot when you put the two pieces three pieces together.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
But uh, he's actually not gonna be He's gonna do
another board this year. He's watching his grandkids this year.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I think his kids are going out of town so
they already minute to watching the grandkids.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
So he's not going to be able to come. But
the board will be there.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
You're gonna have somebody else.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
So I think they'll sylvia that on the website that
you can look and there'll be live bidding that if
you can't make it the day of the venom.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
There's some people I know that there's a catering for
twenty at your at your house that I'll be doing.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I already know.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
There's some people that want to bid on it, but
they're out of town, so they're going to bid online
on it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
You're not the typical silent auction items.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
We try and do a lot of stuff. We want
to do experiences exactly. We want to offer something that
money can't really buy, so you can't put a tangible
uh dollar value to it. We want it to be
this experience that just have it a little different than
what you would normally see at auctions.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I love it. I think it's wonderful. We'll talk about it again, Tom.
I got to ask you, as we said, the place
is built, it's going to continue need it, but now
you got to keep it. Now you have stuff, and
you had something called fifteen for fifteen what is that about?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
So we actually have on our website it is a
way that you can help out. And everybody says, I
don't know how to help, I don't know what I
can do, and we hope. I mean, no donation is
too small. We you know, five dollars, ten dollars whatever
you can afford. But we have a program that's called
fifteen for fifteen and basically what it is is for
fifteen dollars a month and it's a repeatable donation on
(22:27):
your credit card and you can sign up on our website.
Our website is www dot Veterans Outreach of PA dot
org and you sign up, you fill out the form
and it's basically one dollar for every tiny home. So
we have fifteen tiny homes and Veterans Grove, So for
one dollar a month for every tiny home, it's a
(22:50):
total of fifteen dollars. And if we get a thousand
people to do this, it's going to generate about one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars in come. Oh and our
budget actually is is in north of a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And realize they don't end.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
So I want to kind of get back to what
Jason was saying. You know, Derby Day were our fourth
time that we've been the beneficiary. In the first three
times they raised close to two hundred thousand dollars and
that helped tremendously with the construction of it. But now
it's that operation of keeping the doors open. It's a
twenty four to seven facility. That means that we have
employees and staffing there three shifts a day, seven days
(23:28):
a week, and that gets expensive. We have programming, we
have cost we have insurance exactly, and so you know
it is but it's it's a community. And I can't
say enough about Central PA and the support that we've had.
And Jason and the Grace doone. Derby Day is just
one of them. But General Woolf has been one of
our speakers for the last four years and does presentations
(23:51):
for us, so to know that he works with Jason,
I mean again, it's just that you know, sixth degree
of separation of vote.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Seriously, that happens, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, And another thing I want to mention is talking
about the expenses. But they run they use your money tightly,
like they're not just wasting And that's why I like
to see, like I want to see how much of
my dollar is actually being used on the project, and
I see the way that they run it and they're
not wasting anything.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
They're maximizing that dollar to the most.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think that's fantastic. Anything else, do you have the
bricks you can buy in the name of somebody in
your family in the military.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yes, So another thing, we have a Star memorial, and
within the Star memorial we have bricks. So we have
two different sizes. We have a four x four inch
brick and we have an eight inch by eight inch
the four inch by four inches two hundred and fifty
two hundred and fifty dollars and the five or the
eight inch by eight inches five hundred dollars. But on
our website again its Veterans Outreach of PA dot org.
(24:52):
Is a form a fillable form on our website to
complete the application. But there's a five hundred word essay
that we want you to talk about the veteran and
what that veteran meant to you as a family member.
And then one night a week we pick out a
brick and we read it to the veterans that live
there at dinner time.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
You should make a book out of it.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's actually the brick me and my sister bought my
dad and we took them up to see and the
bricks look great like my dad loved it. I don't
think I wrote an essay. I think I just put
like Stepafi or something on.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
You know, everybody's different and It depends if you want
to tell the story, you know, but it really does
affect the veterans that are staying there. You know, veterans
respect those veterans that serve before them, that serve now
and that will serve in the future. And that's just
a kind of a code of honor and that holds
a lot of credibility. And I know you mentioned earlier
(25:44):
Sylvia about there's a lot of veterans on our board.
There's a lot of veterans that are interested, but veterans
helping veterans. That respect is there right away, especially if
you walk the walk, then you can talk to talk well.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You know, Jason's mentioned about even as his kids. I
you know, all times you've come in here. The one
thing that sticks out of my mind about kids, and
is that little girl up in school col County kid
doesn't even live around here. And she raised money for
the vets.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Oh absolutely. I think she's done it now two years
in a row, and the first year was over five
thousand dollars and last year was four thousand, five hundred plus.
She bought gifts for all of the veterans at Christmas time.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
She did herself. She did it Wow, she's going to
be a heck of a leader, heck of a mom.
It's amazing. Tell me, guys, if there's any other opportunities,
how about volunteers. Here's the thing I always think about
these big events, who the heck's going to clean up afterward?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
So we do get a veteran out reach. They do
a very good job of bringing some volunteers. I think
your wife is organizing the volunteers this year. But we
do have a website and they can go on that.
There is an opportunity for sponsorship. It's a.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Derby. You think I would know because I actually made
the website.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
But you do everything but uh, opportunity to just donate
on there. You can still buy tickets and you could
even email us and say, hey, I just want to volunteer.
One thing that's really cool. Yeah, volunteers. We only you
only really work for like an hour of it, and
then you get to eat and drink for free. So
if you don't want to buy the two hundred and
(27:17):
fifty dollars ticket, you can volunteer and still come to s.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
You've got to be over twenty one.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Twenty one, Yeah, well.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
You can volunteer, but that doesn't mean you're going to
get booze.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, you're not gonna get booze.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, we still card everybody and give them a a band's.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
But yeah, I think that's awesome. Well, guys, listen one
more time. Let's tell everybody how it's really considered the
premier charity event in this area. It's a Greystone Derby Day,
Greystone Public House and Gilsburg Saturday, May third, And how
as Jason said, get tickets? Where do we if you
want more information or tics, because those tickets will real fast,
(27:51):
get off your rerun and get them.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
We're again them www dot Greystone, Deerby dot com.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Okay, and one more thing I wanted to ask quickly.
We're doing the Derby ap per, can you tell us
anything else that's coming up right around the corner. Don't
you guys have a golf outing.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
We do.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
We have our and it's actually a lot of the
events that raise money for us, and we do a lot.
And I know you mentioned earlier about you know, always
seeing pictures with me and checks and stuff, but it's
those organizations name Veterans Outreach as the beneficiary and they
run the organization. We help out. We volunteer. It's their program,
but our program are kind of a signature right now
(28:27):
is I think we're going on our fourth year for
our annual golf event and that is going to be
on Friday, August twenty second, and it's at Manada Golf
Course off the Grantville exit. It's a twelve noon shotgun.
It'll be up on the website soon. Sign up. Last year,
I think that we sold out like five weeks in
advance with the golf teams.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yep, yea.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
So it's just but it is a major, major fundraiser
for us. We want to continue that. We want to
make it different and unique and we just support. We
just love to support from Central PA.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
You feed off this, you love this. You'll never go home,
I mean where you have been. You said you're the
former of founder and you're the co founder actually a
former CEO. But what would you do if you weren't
doing this? You really, this is who you are. Tom
Tom zimmermand As I said, co founder and former board CEO,
Veterans Outreach of PA and the incredible Jason Viscount, owner
(29:21):
of grace Own Public House and Delsborg. Thanks guys for
coming in and I know your counts. Oh, thank you,
they're the best. Don't forget to catch Inside every weekend.
On one of our ten Ihearts stations, were on your
favorite podcast Now, I'm Sylvia last. This has been insight
Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.
Hi, I'm Sylvia Austin. This is Insight. It's a presentation
of iHeartMedia where we really do care about our local
communities and all our listeners who live here. You know,
for almost as long as I've been doing this program,
I've heard about local veterans in our area remaining homeless
after they came home from the service. And two things
I never knew about these folks were exactly how many
(00:21):
were pretty much living on the streets and the reasons
that they weren't getting the support that they needed. It
was pretty much beyond my comprehension as to why they
were on the streets, Why these folks who without a
second thought, were willing to lay down their lives for
all of us, and yet somewhere along the line we've
left them down while during my research, I found out
that in addition to a lack of housing, veterans face
(00:42):
several other challenges that include mental health, drug and alcohol abuse, difficulties,
finding a stable job, and a lot more. However, the
primary cause of veterans homelessness is a lack of support
and social isolation after discharge. You know, typically, many of
the issues our veteran's face or complex with one issue
(01:03):
being complicated by several others other than the obvious, we
must not only recognize but understand what fuels they excuse me,
fuels these issues. Yet there are organizations out there that
try to support our veterans, but even so, plenty of
them still slip through the cracks. I don't know what view,
but for me, that's BS and it's simply not good enough.
(01:24):
So whenever I could, I provided resources that I knew
to local veterans and their families because it meant a
lot to me, and I just come from praying and praying.
Then it happened about five years ago. I met a
gentleman who was not only familiar with what veterans face,
he understood what was behind their pain. And the best
part was nothing could be done about at that time.
(01:46):
But there's a whole lot nothing that's going to stop
this guy from his remarkable dream. I thought he created
a safe place two for combat veterans in our area.
But he's providing them with support and services they need,
and thereby he's empowering their lives since with strength and purpose.
That's a place that this man in vision has been
(02:07):
up and running since last summer it's a village of
fifteen tiny home surrounded at a community center for the
vets experiencing homelessness is called Veterans Grove. Now I know
his life is going to understand that. I'm gonna say this, Tom,
Tom Zimmerman, you are amazing, Tom. I love you. I
(02:28):
love you with us is the founder, as I said,
an executive director of Veteran's Outreach of PA, Tom Zimmerman.
And we're going to have another surprise guests a little
bit later. We're gonna talk to I'm not gonna throw
accolades at you, because I know you don't go for that.
You'd probably think that's big us. Just let me get
my work done. You knew about this. This was your dream.
And the thing that I remember talking to you through
(02:50):
the years is your vision was to put these veterans
through a process where they got everything they needed to
empower them and then maybe they come back to the
fifteen homes, to the Veterans Group and they support other veterans. Recently,
you had a gentleman graduate I think as one or two.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Actually we just had our second one on Friday.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Tell us about these guys without without you know, saying
you know they're named, what have they gone through?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Absolutely well, first of all, thank you Sylvia for having us.
And just a little bit of a correction here, I'm
not the executive director now, I am the co founder
and past chair. But Deb donahue is our interim executive director.
Forgive me, and that's okay, Deb, And we have a
wonderful team at Veterans Outreach. You know, I say this
(03:40):
all the time. It takes a village, and it truly does,
you know. And as you mentioned, there's a lot of people,
a lot of different reasons why our veterans are in
a situation they are, and there's great organizations out there
helping our veterans, but there's that fifteen to twenty percent
of our veterans that I cannot succeed in the infrastructure
in the organizations. And therefore, the Veterans Outreach of Pennsylvania
(04:04):
was created with our co founder Val Fletcher, who unfortunately
passed away in twenty twenty two. But it was our
vision to help those veterans who were really struggling, didn't
have the support system and didn't have a voice. And
we felt that if you were willing to sacrifice your
life for our freedom. You deserve better. So we are
what we say, the thumb to the glove to the
(04:26):
other organizations, and we all work together to end homelessness
among our veterans. And if you were willing to sacrifice
your life for our freedom, you deserve better.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I just wanted to talk a little bit about the
two veterans that have graduated. So the one, our first graduate,
was homeless for ten years and actually just needed in
what we call a hand up. He needed guidance, he
needed support, he needed to have the feeling that people
care and getting him on a path to understanding that
(04:58):
he was in control and that he could go through
this program and started taking leadership and started showing progress
and just went through the program very very quickly. Graduated
in December nineteenth, twenty twenty four, after five short months
of being with us, and went back to school to
get his counselor certification and also enrolled at HACK for
(05:22):
his HR degree and he got his certification I think
back in February, and we hired him and he is
working in a notice for full circle process. So just
to see where they come when they first get there
and with them not trusting anybody, not trusting the system,
(05:43):
not you know, being mal nourished, being not sleeping. There's
a lot into our program that we can go into
a little bit later about our processes and our phases
that we do and to see that we're making a difference.
And we just had our second veteran graduate and he's
been homeless on and off for the last twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And I believe that I just kept I mean.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Now, So what happens is is that a lot of
them they give up, They give up, and but they're
taught how to live on land, they're taught how to
live in jungles, they're taught how to live, you know,
and so they do it because they can, and they're
just they gave up on the system. And our program
is one that takes a lot of work on their part,
(06:27):
and it's about holding them accountable. But we're seeing a progress,
you know what.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You talked about that kind of thing. And I know
that lot come home, the ones that have seen hell,
and the families expect a guy that left or the
woman that left to be the same person coming back
and back breaks of families, and that's another reason these
guys have no place to go where they going to go.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I mean, I agree. You know, we talked about the
veterans and about the homelessness, but it is it's you know,
every veteran is a son, or is a father or
a mother or you know, a cousin, and it affects
the whole families. And you know, one of the processes
(07:09):
that we have at Veterans Grove is reconnecting them with
their families. So although we had two veterans who have
gone through the whole program, we've actually had a couple
veterans already that have left the program a little bit early,
but they went back to their families and that was
you know, that's a win for us. So we look
at it as it's a very rewarding and challenging but
(07:32):
rebuilding the bridges to the family is key and essential
to the longevity of our veterans.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
What is also key is that therapeutic model. Can you
talk a little bit about them?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Sure? So this this model is actually was created by
doctor George de Leone from Columbia University in New York City,
and it was actually built for incarcerated people to transition
once they leave the prisons and move back into society.
But we customized it for our veterans with our great
leadership team down at VOPA, and it's a four phase process.
(08:06):
The first phase is creating the environment where we're going
to get them healthy. It is providing them a little
tiny home where they can sleep at night, somewhere where
they can feel safe and put their head on a pillow.
And we're finding out that our veterans are sleeping twelve
to fourteen hours the first three weeks because they haven't
had that in a long time. Second thing is feeding them,
(08:29):
you know, getting them and if you learn anything about
the school districts and our children, there's the backpack program
where school districts are now sending backpacks home for underprivileged children.
So it's been proven they can't study if they're not
sleeping or eating right. So it's the same concept. So
we have an industrial kitchen in our community center where
they eat together as a group. And then the third
(08:50):
thing in this phase one process is getting them in
front of doctors getting them healthy. So it's getting them
healthy with the medical tental eye and then and also
feeding and sleeping, and that's phase one. Phase one is
basically a forty five to sixty day process. And then
during that time, we're building trust, we're building relationships, We're
getting them the care that they need, We're getting all
(09:11):
the documents and paperwork, all the benefits that they deserve.
Phase two is what we call an individual service plan.
And with that individual service plan, we call an ISP
is where our clinical team will work with the veteran
and put a contract together with them to address the
issues that have caused them to become homeless and then
tackle those And what we do is we have a
(09:34):
two to one ratio, which means that we have two
veterans for every one clinical person and they're monitored either
daily or weekly, and we check in and as long
as they're making progress, they have a place to stay
and it's all free to them. It's about being accountable,
it's about working towards your goal. Phase three is starting
(09:55):
to consider employment, job opportunities, maybe going back to college,
working with the local communities, colleges, trade schools, all kinds
of different things. Maybe they want to learn a new trade.
There's construction companies, there's businesses that want to hire veterans.
So we're partnering up with local organizations and national people
(10:15):
like our friends that renewl by Anderson by upmc TE
connectivity construction companies like Pyramid Construction. There's some restaurant and
we're working with the culinary school at HACK. So that's
Phase three is getting them in front, having hr people
coming down, trading them how to interview. And in phase
four is getting them permanent housing, getting them to a
(10:36):
place where we can help them out guide them and
then come back once they graduate from our program, live
a life of dignity and pride they deserve, and then
come back and be a mentor like you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Well, you know what are most how old are most
of these bets? Are they? Like from the Afghanistan? There
are no World War two.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Vets there, right, that is correct. We've had some Vietnam
vets though, we had some vets that were in their
seventies and I think our youngest one is thirty four
right now. There's some from Desert Storm, there's from from
you know, Iraq, and there's none from the Korean. But yeah,
the oldest that we have right now is in the
Vietnam era.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I know that you're part of your program. Is you
everything specialized per person? Because everybody has different needs? What
do you think the most common thing they all share is.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
The common thing they most all share, I would say,
the need to feel that they're being seen and heard.
That they felt that their voice has not been heard.
They've been isolated, as you mentioned earlier, for so long
that you know that little voice that's inside their head
is the only one that talks to them, and to
give them feedback, to give them the respect to So
(11:51):
this therapeutic model is a holistic approach that you know,
there's pear support, there's structured environment, there's jobs that they
need to do making them feel wanted, and also that
they got a purpose. You know, I had a veteran
who said to me that I didn't have Every time
I went to bed for the last ten years, I
didn't care if I woke up the next day. But
now you give me a reason, and it's not about me.
(12:13):
It's about my other people to my left and right,
almost like it was when they were in the military
and they had a platoon or a unit, and these
people counted on each other and they know that their
brothers or sisters that were standing next to them would
die for them for the better of the team. And
that's what this.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Is brought back your I forget what her title is.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Angel, Yes, the clinical director.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
She is amazing, She is fantastic. Do these gentlemen, I
know they're scared. I know that we talked about pride
that the military has d they have an issue confiding
or working with a woman.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That is not so much as long as you respect
them and you treat them with respect that they don't
have issues with women that I've seen.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
What could she know? But we forget there are women
in the military.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That is true, and there is great leaders in the
military that are females.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And you know what else I love about your organization somehow,
someway there was some connection to the military. You're bored.
I mean, everybody's either been in the military. They understand it.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Not only do they understand that, they live it and
they breathe it. You know. That is It's one thing
that we all have that common vision. And for us
that haven't had the military experience, we've experienced it. On
the other side, where you mentioned about being a family
member of someone being in the service and seeing someone
going over and come back and being different when they
come back.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
You know, when you and I first met five years
six years ago. Oh God bless him. He's going to
need five million bucks at least. But you still need
the money. But people don't realize that that was to
build everything. And we've been you mentioned, you know, by
Anderston Linda, who not only gave you gifts some kind
of money, the employees came. I'm just blown away about
(13:56):
with all these every time I'm on Facebook, there's time
with the check.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
However, we need lots more checks.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
That's exactly right, you do. And not only Linda, but
you have come up with this awesome event. And this
is where the superstar comes in. Tom Jason, you brought
with you to a Jason Viscount. He is the owner
of Greystone Public House in Dillsburg. This is your fourth
year sponsoring Derby Day, right yep, Okay, Now, I got
(14:24):
to tell you this upfront. My son lives in Florida.
He loves your restaurants. Every time he comes up before
it goes back, he's there a couple of times. He
had a big birthday party for me and everything else.
So everybody knows.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Well to you for the support.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Well, you know, I wanted to ask it. There's a
heck of a lot of nonprofits out there. Why this one?
Speaker 4 (14:47):
Yeah, So when we started Derby Day, we really wanted
to see something local, but there were tangible outcomes that
anybody could see, Like we want you know, everybody does
these big national charities, but yeah, we're you don't know
where your dollars are going this. They showed us the insight,
(15:07):
They showed us the plans, like when they broke ground,
like everybody showed up for the break in the ground,
Like it was really cool, Like you can't have a
tour of the facility now, but it was probably like
the week before you're taking your first people in. I
took my dad who was Marine Corps, my parents, my kids,
(15:28):
and it was kind of cool. I bought my dad
a brick because you can do bricks and it had
the Yeah, so I bought a brick for my dad's
and my dad got to see his brick there. And
you know, all my kids actually donate their time. So
I have four children and my wife, and we all
donate our time if we're on the board or the
day of the event.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
I love hearing that because I've always for years and
years and years, I'm saying we got to get kids
or whole families because you're teaching them out giving back
and it feels good.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
So my seventeen year old son got one of our
big donors this year. So that's a River River Wealth
Advisory Group. So he was talking to the owner of
that that company, and he goes, let's drive over and
look at it. So they actually drove and he looked
at it outside and came back and he actually donated
seven five hundred dollars because my seventeen year old son.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
So that's a I mean, really cool. So I think
I think my son's gonna be in sales then.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
But you know, all of us knows somebody out there
with some bucks and we can do it ourselves. But
before getting to that, I want to talk about Derby Day. Yeah, okay,
it's Sandelsberg.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Yep, it's gonna be May third, right, all right, So
it is I go to a lot of charity events.
You get dressed up and you're you know, you make
your appearance.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, this is not.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
That type of This is a party.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So we always kind of say, hey, you're doing good,
but you're gonna have fun doing it.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Like people get dressed up to the tea.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And the Derby contest.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, we do this thing Persecco pop and you actually
pop it and we how far your courk goes and
we measure him and then there's a prize given for
the long. They give you a big stroll and you're
just drinking right out of the bottle. Like that's the
type of party is like it's you know, I grew up.
And the food John Gross does a great job. They
actually do a whole roll bar. But we have all
the type of Derby food. Oh the Hot Rounds, which
(17:24):
is like like chicken with bacon.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
And tomato and it has like a mornaise sauce.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
We do the Derby Diamond Bars, which is almost like
a peacom bar. We're gonna have like fried chicken this year.
I think we have some prime New Yorks like like
we go all out dessert tables. But and it goes
really till the Derby ends, Like we have food out there,
and I think the Derby runs with like seven o'clock
(17:49):
or six forty five, so right before it gets dark
and then.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so we have TVs and you can
watch the Derby. So it's it's really fun.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
I mean you even have it. Readers shine right about it.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Well, yeah, it's under pavilion, you know, so Rainer Shine.
It's great. But you know, one thing Jason didn't mention
was the Mints, mid Julips, the drinks and all that
is included in the price of the ticket. It basically
starts around two thirty early in the afternoon or late afternoon.
I guess you should stay and as Jason mentioned, it
goes into the Kentucky Derby, which is typically runs about
(18:25):
six thirty, so everybody kind of clears out about seven o'clock.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Well, tell me about these prizes because the one Jehanne.
Every year I was there, they were fantastic, but.
Speaker 4 (18:32):
Well it's they're actually silent auction items. So this year
we wanted to go all out. So the one we
actually have a bottle of Pappy twenty three. It is whiskey,
but it's one of the most salt out whiskey. Is
like Pappy used to only have Pappy twenty one, and
I think it's three years ago they released the twenty
(18:52):
three secondary market. It goes for about eight thousand a bottle.
So we got it through the uh lottery. Pennsylvania has
a lottery and it was donated. So what they didn't
pay that for but I think Pennsylvania only gets like
eight bottles for the whole state.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
So it's it's very rare.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
And we actually have a bottle to donate that we're
going to do on the silent auction, but we also
have another bottle that we're going to do a dinner
at my house that people can bid on yours.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
So you're gonna take. It'll be like fifteen or sixty.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
We'll probably do because I get seventeen shots out of
a bottle and I need one for me, so we'll
do sixteen.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
So that's how we're gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
What else? What else?
Speaker 3 (19:40):
What else do we have?
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Well, Jason, this is Jason's uh with the with the
different prizes and so forth going on? Is General Wolf?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Oh yeah, General Wolf.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
He's he did this beautiful hay he does like Alaskan
tree milling live edge. It was like a secuterary board,
but it was like three different pieces that fit together.
And he comes in like, this guy's awesome because I
first met him because I had this big tree that
was one hundred and fift year olds died and a
buddy of minew him. He said, oh, the General come
(20:13):
out and mill it up and he'll give you a
slab and he'll keep the rest. And uh, I mean,
this guy is huge. He looks like he's a WWE wrestlers.
Like my mother in law, she kept on sitting down outside.
I'm like, man, she spent a lot of time outside
like a general Wolf.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
And he last she goes when General Wolf coming back.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So he comes in.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
And he brings this board and he goes, Oh, I don't
know where. You'll probably get like two hundred dollars for
it or something. I think it went for like two thousand.
Like people were going nuts bitting on this board.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
It was huge. It was probably about four or five
foot when you put the two pieces three pieces together.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
But uh, he's actually not gonna be He's gonna do
another board this year. He's watching his grandkids this year.
Speaker 3 (20:55):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
I think his kids are going out of town so
they already minute to watching the grandkids.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
So he's not going to be able to come. But
the board will be there.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
You're gonna have somebody else.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
So I think they'll sylvia that on the website that
you can look and there'll be live bidding that if
you can't make it the day of the venom.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
There's some people I know that there's a catering for
twenty at your at your house that I'll be doing.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I already know.
Speaker 4 (21:23):
There's some people that want to bid on it, but
they're out of town, so they're going to bid online
on it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
You're not the typical silent auction items.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
We try and do a lot of stuff. We want
to do experiences exactly. We want to offer something that
money can't really buy, so you can't put a tangible
uh dollar value to it. We want it to be
this experience that just have it a little different than
what you would normally see at auctions.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
I love it. I think it's wonderful. We'll talk about it again, Tom.
I got to ask you, as we said, the place
is built, it's going to continue need it, but now
you got to keep it. Now you have stuff, and
you had something called fifteen for fifteen what is that about?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
So we actually have on our website it is a
way that you can help out. And everybody says, I
don't know how to help, I don't know what I
can do, and we hope. I mean, no donation is
too small. We you know, five dollars, ten dollars whatever
you can afford. But we have a program that's called
fifteen for fifteen and basically what it is is for
fifteen dollars a month and it's a repeatable donation on
(22:27):
your credit card and you can sign up on our website.
Our website is www dot Veterans Outreach of PA dot
org and you sign up, you fill out the form
and it's basically one dollar for every tiny home. So
we have fifteen tiny homes and Veterans Grove, So for
one dollar a month for every tiny home, it's a
(22:50):
total of fifteen dollars. And if we get a thousand
people to do this, it's going to generate about one
hundred and eighty thousand dollars in come. Oh and our
budget actually is is in north of a million dollars.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
And realize they don't end.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
So I want to kind of get back to what
Jason was saying. You know, Derby Day were our fourth
time that we've been the beneficiary. In the first three
times they raised close to two hundred thousand dollars and
that helped tremendously with the construction of it. But now
it's that operation of keeping the doors open. It's a
twenty four to seven facility. That means that we have
employees and staffing there three shifts a day, seven days
(23:28):
a week, and that gets expensive. We have programming, we
have cost we have insurance exactly, and so you know
it is but it's it's a community. And I can't
say enough about Central PA and the support that we've had.
And Jason and the Grace doone. Derby Day is just
one of them. But General Woolf has been one of
our speakers for the last four years and does presentations
(23:51):
for us, so to know that he works with Jason,
I mean again, it's just that you know, sixth degree
of separation of vote.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Seriously, that happens, doesn't it.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yeah, And another thing I want to mention is talking
about the expenses. But they run they use your money tightly,
like they're not just wasting And that's why I like
to see, like I want to see how much of
my dollar is actually being used on the project, and
I see the way that they run it and they're
not wasting anything.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
They're maximizing that dollar to the most.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
I think that's fantastic. Anything else, do you have the
bricks you can buy in the name of somebody in
your family in the military.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yes, So another thing, we have a Star memorial, and
within the Star memorial we have bricks. So we have
two different sizes. We have a four x four inch
brick and we have an eight inch by eight inch
the four inch by four inches two hundred and fifty
two hundred and fifty dollars and the five or the
eight inch by eight inches five hundred dollars. But on
our website again its Veterans Outreach of PA dot org.
(24:52):
Is a form a fillable form on our website to
complete the application. But there's a five hundred word essay
that we want you to talk about the veteran and
what that veteran meant to you as a family member.
And then one night a week we pick out a
brick and we read it to the veterans that live
there at dinner time.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
You should make a book out of it.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
That's actually the brick me and my sister bought my
dad and we took them up to see and the
bricks look great like my dad loved it. I don't
think I wrote an essay. I think I just put
like Stepafi or something on.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
You know, everybody's different and It depends if you want
to tell the story, you know, but it really does
affect the veterans that are staying there. You know, veterans
respect those veterans that serve before them, that serve now
and that will serve in the future. And that's just
a kind of a code of honor and that holds
a lot of credibility. And I know you mentioned earlier
(25:44):
Sylvia about there's a lot of veterans on our board.
There's a lot of veterans that are interested, but veterans
helping veterans. That respect is there right away, especially if
you walk the walk, then you can talk to talk well.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
You know, Jason's mentioned about even as his kids. I
you know, all times you've come in here. The one
thing that sticks out of my mind about kids, and
is that little girl up in school col County kid
doesn't even live around here. And she raised money for
the vets.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Oh absolutely. I think she's done it now two years
in a row, and the first year was over five
thousand dollars and last year was four thousand, five hundred plus.
She bought gifts for all of the veterans at Christmas time.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
She did herself. She did it Wow, she's going to
be a heck of a leader, heck of a mom.
It's amazing. Tell me, guys, if there's any other opportunities,
how about volunteers. Here's the thing I always think about
these big events, who the heck's going to clean up afterward?
Speaker 4 (26:35):
So we do get a veteran out reach. They do
a very good job of bringing some volunteers. I think
your wife is organizing the volunteers this year. But we
do have a website and they can go on that.
There is an opportunity for sponsorship. It's a.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Derby. You think I would know because I actually made
the website.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
But you do everything but uh, opportunity to just donate
on there. You can still buy tickets and you could
even email us and say, hey, I just want to volunteer.
One thing that's really cool. Yeah, volunteers. We only you
only really work for like an hour of it, and
then you get to eat and drink for free. So
if you don't want to buy the two hundred and
(27:17):
fifty dollars ticket, you can volunteer and still come to s.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
You've got to be over twenty one.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
Twenty one, Yeah, well.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
You can volunteer, but that doesn't mean you're going to
get booze.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Yeah, you're not gonna get booze.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Yeah, we still card everybody and give them a a band's.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
But yeah, I think that's awesome. Well, guys, listen one
more time. Let's tell everybody how it's really considered the
premier charity event in this area. It's a Greystone Derby Day,
Greystone Public House and Gilsburg Saturday, May third, And how
as Jason said, get tickets? Where do we if you
want more information or tics, because those tickets will real fast,
(27:51):
get off your rerun and get them.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
We're again them www dot Greystone, Deerby dot com.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Okay, and one more thing I wanted to ask quickly.
We're doing the Derby ap per, can you tell us
anything else that's coming up right around the corner. Don't
you guys have a golf outing.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
We do.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
We have our and it's actually a lot of the
events that raise money for us, and we do a lot.
And I know you mentioned earlier about you know, always
seeing pictures with me and checks and stuff, but it's
those organizations name Veterans Outreach as the beneficiary and they
run the organization. We help out. We volunteer. It's their program,
but our program are kind of a signature right now
(28:27):
is I think we're going on our fourth year for
our annual golf event and that is going to be
on Friday, August twenty second, and it's at Manada Golf
Course off the Grantville exit. It's a twelve noon shotgun.
It'll be up on the website soon. Sign up. Last year,
I think that we sold out like five weeks in
advance with the golf teams.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Yep, yea.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
So it's just but it is a major, major fundraiser
for us. We want to continue that. We want to
make it different and unique and we just support. We
just love to support from Central PA.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
You feed off this, you love this. You'll never go home,
I mean where you have been. You said you're the
former of founder and you're the co founder actually a
former CEO. But what would you do if you weren't
doing this? You really, this is who you are. Tom
Tom zimmermand As I said, co founder and former board CEO,
Veterans Outreach of PA and the incredible Jason Viscount, owner
(29:21):
of grace Own Public House and Delsborg. Thanks guys for
coming in and I know your counts. Oh, thank you,
they're the best. Don't forget to catch Inside every weekend.
On one of our ten Ihearts stations, were on your
favorite podcast Now, I'm Sylvia last. This has been insight
Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.
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