The Business of Giving

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a k u and v studios original program.

Unknown Speaker 0:03
You're listening to special programming sponsored by the cars marketing Chamber of Commerce. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents, the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:29
With the world Maamar people live and live the whole world

Unknown Speaker 0:35
Welcome to the business of giving podcast. My name is Guy Dawson and I am the founder and executive director of the cause marketing chamber. And we are an organization that brings businesses and nonprofit organizations together to create synergistic relationships that benefit both parties in the community. The business of giving podcast highlights both of these pillars of the community with this platform. If you want to learn more about what we do at the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce, cause marketing chamber.com This valuable show is made possible through the generosity of our series sponsor solar up an energy solution and conservation company specializing in solar and battery storage systems, including solar panels to learn more about them, Seoul up.com It's always great to be in the saddle and behind the microphone here at K u and v 91.5. bringing you all the business of giving podcast. Having these incredible relationships with for profit and nonprofit businesses creates unique opportunities for me to bring my friends into the studio to talk about the things that they do. And there is a woman who is visiting us today who I have known for several years. She is extremely passionate about the nonprofit organization that she is a leader of the name of that nonprofit is called wailers creation, foster adopted youth training of the arts and one of their taglines is foster adopt and mentor. Welcome Miss Latoya Kern with wailers creation. Ooh,

Unknown Speaker 2:17
what an intro. I love it. Hi, guys. Thank you for inviting me.

Unknown Speaker 2:24
It is so wonderful to have you here. litoria You are a definitely a community activist and someone who is very committed to the success of our youth. And you know, something that I've discovered through the work that we do at the cause marketing chamber, as well as the types of shows that we've been bringing to our audiences here with the business of giving podcast is our youth plays a really prominent role in the cause marketing community. I guess, because I guess we all have this, this innate connection with young people understanding the importance of creating better lives for them, the significance of how that is, can really impact their futures as well as the way that it impacts our society as a whole. And we have people like you who are out here, really in the trenches, mentoring young people trying to help them live better lives. This is what the work is all about. So such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Wow,

Unknown Speaker 3:27
you get it? You know, like I'm done. That's you. You said the whole interview.

Unknown Speaker 3:34
I know you have a great story to tell, will you share with us what wailers creation does.

Unknown Speaker 3:40
So wailers creation got started in Washington, DC I moved here from DC in 2018. And coming to the Vegas area I have been passionate about working with kids in care and and foster care kids in foster care, particularly children who are older. That's That's my forte, working to make sure that the kids that I'm able to connect with have a better life aging out of foster care. So weightless creations focus is to provide awareness to our communities we'd like to we like having lots of events, just to invite people to come out to do fun things. And while you're doing fun things we want to, you know, take the time to stop and say look, did you guys know that 50% of the kids living on the streets homeless population are from pumped from the foster care system? You know, did you know that our kids have a lower high school graduation rate did you know so? So we'd like calling a bench where we are educating people about the tremendous need for foster foster parents, adoptive parents and mentors. And as we educate our communities, we have been doing this for years and came to the realization that we need to work directly with our kids. So then we after working with whalers for a while, we decided to stop educating people about the need, and then to start concentrating and bringing the youth that we are talking about into our effort. And so we started, we decided to start with what I am most passionate about is the art. I love the art, I grew up in the art, My undergraduate degree is in media, and performing theater art. So I, my very first program, which was creation was dedicated to what I know and what I love. And so we started a program called, um, history on stage and now it's called the I'm on stage, foster adult mentor on stage. But history on stage. The purpose was to provide youth young people, the skills, knowledge and information about working in the art working as producers and directors and find the answers and, and in front of the scene behind the scene, you know, all of it, acting, writing, directing all of it, we teach all of it. And we had the opportunity to put our first, our very first show that we've ever created and did was a play. And we got to have this play in front of Victoria row. And Victoria, Raoul is a former foster youth who is a Hollywood actress. So she gave us our pat on the backs and said, you know, we're doing the right thing. But she's encouraged us so much, to keep it going. And from, from the art, we ended up doing the, we ended up doing culinary and media art. So everything that I love doing is what I just teach kids to do.

Unknown Speaker 6:51
What a great way to get involved in something in terms of supporting others is that of course, most people start nonprofits or become a part of a nonprofit organization that resonates with them, where there's some type of a connection. And when you talk about the arts, it's interesting to see that you're really connecting from two elements where I think we're having a lot of challenges in this society nowadays. Number one, a lot of the arts programs that existed getting we were younger, coming up through school, or a lot of those have been eliminated. And I mean, you could take I remember when I started learning how to play what was it, I think it was the cello first, and then I tried the violin, and I did the drums, I'm not a creative like you are, but I was at least given the chance to be able to try it. Yeah, and so many of those programs have been eliminated. And as your The other aspect that I think is also so important in the work that you do is, is the youth and how many of those who are in foster care, live difficult lives and, and the thing that you touched on also is that you are really into helping older young people. So maybe you could talk more about that I know that maybe the the vision that a lot of people have of a child being in foster care, or possibly being adopted would be a younger child, but you are dealing with kids, when you say older, where does that start?

Unknown Speaker 8:23
So we we'd like to focus on on children who are 14 to 24 years old. And I say, children at 20 at 14 because your brain is still developing until you're 25. So even though you know we have a bunch of 2223 24 year olds walking around their brain is still developing. And, and so for me, I still think of them as children, although they are not, you know, but from 14 to 24 is a population that we focus on. And for that very reason. Because most people when they think of becoming a foster adoptive parent or mentor to a child, they think of the younger children, because, you know, people have a tendency to believe that it's just easier to work with younger kid. The but the greater need, in my opinion, is working with those children who are about to age out and kids who are preparing to get older and older and older. Because because they're aging out and because you're about to be young adult, we need people to consider opening up their hearts in their homes and their times to be an advocate for these young people so that they can help guide shape and direct their trajectory. So to help change the lives to put them on a tract of success. The last thing we need is our kids who are in need of health, not being able to get it from anybody. And so we try to make sure that whatever of our services, our kids are in need of that we're able to connect with because you know, I can't speak for all, you know, 3000 children that in care, an n n plus, you know, because we have you know, 10,000 more that's not in care, but still need the love and guidance of our community. And my little thing that I like to say all the time is, you know, let's make Vegas a strong youth community. And making Vegas a strong youth community means we're focusing on our young adults, our young people to help them transition from their their adolescence, teens, childhood life into adult in a positive way, knowing that there's lots of support, and lots of love here with them. And they can reach out to us to help them even navigate their way and or to support them in a kind of way that we can. And

Unknown Speaker 10:51
of course, is any nonprofit organization, you have specific programs that you've developed that help you to accomplish your mission, again, you're you have this specific demographic of, of children or young people, I again, when you talk about people being in their early 20s, and still not being fully developed as adults, I think that that is something that is not recognized enough in society, is that just because a person becomes 18 years old, and we categorize them as adults, that there's so much more mentoring and nurturing than a person and developments even at that, even at these more advanced ages, being older than a than a young person, but I'm sure there are programs that you have, of course, that help you to achieve the mission of making these young people's lives better.

Unknown Speaker 11:46
Yeah, so one of the things that we are concentrating on and doing is job skills training. So we meet every we meet weekly, to provide opportunities for kids to partake in learning more about various job skills, I have the kids for like three weeks out at any given time. And we just go over the basics, we talk about the things that employers expect you to know, do, you know, put your phones away when you when you walk into your job and or on the job, be courteous, be polite, arrive on time, you know, don't don't cause a lot of conflict in a workplace. And if there is conflict, how do you handle conflict? So even even financial literacy, like you know, we can you get this money coming in what do you do not you have this money coming in. So I have the the young people coming into me every Tuesday, and we pretty much meet from four to five 415 to 515. And we do it virtually. So any young person that's interested in knowing how to be prepared for employment, we do that. And then in addition to training them for those three weeks, we assist heavily in helping them find helping them secure employment. So and then, after our three weeks of training, you know, that's, that's the best, this is what you just need to know to go to work. But if you want to get skilled in a particular area, then we have other programs that you might want to continue to learn more about, like our radio station, you might want to come and be a part of our learning initiatives for the radio station, you might want to learn journalism, how to create a magazine how to write edit, photography, layout design for a magazine, and culinary, you might want to learn how to work in a restaurant or the food industry or learning how to cut meat, whatever it is that you're interested in, in those areas, in particularly, we can help you with, we even have a partnership with with other people that are allowing our kids to learn about how to do slight small home repairs. And, and you know so so it's a it's a combination of all types of skill days. One of my board members is a digital marketer. And so we are teaching digital marketing, her big thing is if you go through her course, then you are able to start your own business. That's that's her big forte for kids. She wants him to be independent. So yeah, so those are the types of things that we teach. And whatever a kid interests is, you know, have a young lady who is interested in becoming a marine biologist. And so if there's anybody out there, that's a marine biologist, I love to connect you with this young lady, because that's what she wants to do. So we try to find mentors to match a kid's interest, even if it's not an area that we teach. We still try to find adults that they can connect with that can help them with that career goal.

Unknown Speaker 15:01
I am speaking with Latoya Kern she is with wailers creation a wonderful nonprofit organization that is doing incredible things to support the youth here in Las Vegas. And you're listening to the business of giving podcast sponsored by the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce sold up and its channel partners are providing complimentary solar to local charities supporting for Hope link transitional housing properties, feeding pets of Volunteers of America, and opportunity village, their founder sits on the board of Nevada Conservation League. Also wanted to make an announcement, the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce is hosting a cause in business education event on Tuesday, March the 19th. At 6pm This event is going to be held online. A woman named Heather staff gherkin. She is the co founder of SAF kin consulting brings her expertise to the table offering valuable insights into the art and science of securing grants for businesses and nonprofit organizations. Topics that Heather will discuss include where to look for grants and ensuring a good fit preparation tips for grant writing and technical tips and common mistakes in grant writing. If you want to learn more about this event, it is for free, cause marketing Chamber of commerce.com. Or excuse me, that is incorrect cause marketing chamber.com. Under events to learn more about this really impactful event that's going to be coming up nonprofit organizations, fundraising is always something that is top of mind awareness. And as well for small business owners. Figuring out how you can have access to more capital through grants is something that could really benefit a lot of you out there. So cause marketing chamber.com. For more details. Also, we've been announcing this incredibly fun event that we're going to be having October the 19th through the 26th of 2024. We're going on the first annual cars and business cruise through the Hawaiian Islands, it's going to be a great opportunity for you to network with professionals. We're going to do service work on the island of Maui. And we're going to do a lot of things together. But of course, there will be plenty of time for you to enjoy being on a six day seven night, a Hawaiian cruise if you want to learn more. Or if you want to join us, we'd love to have you come along with us proceeds from this event, by the way, we'll support nonprofit organizations, if you want to learn more about what we're going to be doing on this cruise info at cause marketing chamber.com or cause marketing chamber.com. And I'm back with litoria Kern here at K u and v 91.5. Jazz and more for the business of giving show. A couple of seconds ago you were talking about these programs that you've developed, which is a big suite of things that you use to support young people to again to position them to live better lives to be more successful, how do they acclimate to these programs that you offer them.

Unknown Speaker 18:21
So a lot of it is word of mouth. And kids that we've worked with in the past, it is building relationships with organizations that work with children, and working with the schools and churches. So we try to make it known to our community that we're here to serve. And that we are able to provide job skills training and job skills employment to young people, you have to be 16 for us to help you find a job but the job skills training starts at 14. And like I said, it's a virtual training. And we have employers that are you know, always calling and looking and I have employers right now that's that, that need young people to take different types of positions. And so we invite people to reach out to us if they have a young person who is interested in working and so you know, they if they want to they can always reach out to us by a telephone up a telephone call or visiting us on online. And whatever a young person's need is whatever a person's desire is we've definitely tried to make those connections with the employers that we have working with us and we're always looking for employers that want children who are already pre trained, ready to go to work for you.

Unknown Speaker 19:45
Right and I know there are so many people out there litoria Who love mentoring me being one of them. I mean, I love being in business and everything that goes with that, you know running a profitable business that allows me to be able to support my life. If in, in the people who work with me, but the mentoring aspect that you're talking about the possibility to be able to influence or perhaps change a young person's life just because of they get a chance to see an example. You know, children are so impressionable. And I mean, we hear stories over and over. And I'm sure you have many stories that you've heard of people who really impacted the lives maybe of some of these children who've been going through the programs, and you can literally, they can literally be planting seeds that are going to be in these children's lives, for the rest of their lives can really influence their futures.

Unknown Speaker 20:39
Yeah, that is so true. As you're saying that I thought our two kids in particular that have come through my training, one, we have a culinary arts, and we were we have these kids that we provide food safety certifications, training, too. And then we help them get their cards so they can work in the food industry. And I have this young man, and that that course is like 12 weeks, and I had this young man that came to me and he just had a really high level interest in cooking. And after he graduated from my program, he went on to a culinary art school. And today he is running a restaurant and not Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach in Virginia Beach. And I'm just so proud of him. And I always call him baby chef because he was you know, he's still a baby. But he was so had such a high interest in being a shop. And today he is and another young lady that I met. She was very, I presented at this conference. And she walked up to me after my presentation has said that she wanted to be a part of what we were doing. And just to kind of my arms falling in love with her worked with her a lot. She ended up coming on board and working with whalers. And so she's my unofficial adopted daughter. Not the paperwork, but in my heart. And anything I do you know, she's definitely a part of my world. So she ended up becoming Miss Vietnam, DC. And when she was relinquishing her title, you have they walk down the aisle, and they are the voices are talking about their year. And so when she was walking on her last walk, she said that she was so proud to be where she was at because of the young because of this mom that came into her life and changed her life because she was like a completely different person when I met her through the person that she you bought to. And she said, I'd like to be to meet my mom, and she said, Latoya, please come on stage and want me to work, please come on stage at night. And I'm like this, I'm like, what? So I walk on stage. And I'm like, bawling, I'm crying my eyes out. And then we exit the state. And people like paparazzi, like taking 1000s of pictures of us. And you know, today she works for the Maryland Governor, advocating for foster kids. And she she credit, you know, her changing her life because I came into her life. So it's, you know, people like that, that we get to be change makers. And you know, and mentoring is so, so, so important. And even though she's not my biological daughter, or my adopted daughter, officially, she's my daughter, in my heart and in her heart you but not tell her, but I'm not her mom. And so that is my daughter, and I'm super excited. I'm so proud of her and her accomplishments. So when you were talking about mentoring and changing people's lives, those two in particular came into my mind,

Unknown Speaker 23:50
the success stories really, again, having an impact on a young person's life. I know that there were many adults, and I was never in a foster care type situation. Growing up, I had my parents but I can't there are so many adults out there just little things that they said to me, that seemed insignificant at the time. And the next thing you know, you're 35 years old, and all of a sudden, your your teacher from the eighth grade said something like you just never know, when some word of encouragement or just your your belief in a person could stimulate them going down a completely different track than they were on. And that's the value of mentoring. I know that's something that's really important to you and you guys have lots of events that we do share about some of the events that are coming up. So

Unknown Speaker 24:41
we just partner with the Clark County Library District and we were all over North South East West. I'm doing storytime reading we have a character called lovey bear and lovey bear on does know reading and dancing and talking to kids and encourage Kid and lovey bear passes out love bears to our kids, we, the Children's Foundation was a huge support because they were able to donate a lot of stuffed animals and we took the stuffed animals from the from the Children's Foundation and to pass those out as well. And so besides the library district, we were having a event that count that came up, actually just yesterday, and that's our youth higher. It's a just a community event, bringing kids out bringing the community out to come and talk about jobs and signing up for our classes. And it's a free barbecue for the community. So come out and and everybody was eating and having a good time with that playing games outside. And we have a talent competition or talent showcase coming up soon. We have a run, walk a 5k run, walk coming up. And it's going to be like a neon, run walk you're going to happen at dusk, or dawn Have you want to say that so it's nighttime a little bit and in the different colors, the run walk to benefit the organization. And then last but not least, there is a heart of gold family Heart of Gold gala happening on December 7 at the Arn Hotel. So we're like super excited about all these events coming up.

Unknown Speaker 26:27
Right just great opportunities for the community to connect with the children in the program to bring more notoriety to it. And by the way, a wailers creation I made an announcement I think a couple of weeks ago was one of the most recent organizations to become members of the cause marketing Chamber of Commerce. And we're just so so thrilled to have you become a part of our tribe and so excited and want to continue to support your success and for those in the community who might want to be volunteers or might want to give to your organization how can they connect with

Unknown Speaker 27:00
anybody interested on have the opportunity to visit our website? And our website is whalers like a whale in the ocean whalers, w h a l e, r s, Dash creation.us can go to our website, come to an event. And or 702-235-5490

Unknown Speaker 27:29
Yes, and an organization like whalers, creation is really doing a lot to better children's lives. And there's so many different ways that you can contribute. I know litoria discussed many, many different ways you can I mean, there's the volunteerism, the mentoring, financially, so yes, wailers creation to support an organization that that truly is giving back to our youth, which is our future. There's no way around there. We're not going to be here forever. And there's always going to be another generation of children who are coming up in us supporting making their lives better is so so important. Thank you again for being a part

Unknown Speaker 28:08
of the show today and You are quite welcome. Thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker 28:11
We always want to remind you that you can listen to the business of giving podcast on a lot of different platforms, specifically Spotify, Apple podcast, and Amazon music, as well as at K u and v 91.5. FM. Of course, we've got social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and LinkedIn. And we always want to welcome you to tune in to the business of giving podcast here at K u and v 91.5. FM. The business of giving podcast was brought to you by soul lips underwriting of our series, I hope everything in your life is going well. And always want to remind you to give and do business for good. See on the next.

Unknown Speaker 29:17
Feel the weight of the world on my shoulder. As I'm getting older your people get older. Most of us only care about money.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai