Al is the co-founder of Secret Families, which just over two weeks ago provided over 10,000 Christmas gifts to 2,000 kids whose families couldn’t afford them in their community of Muncie, Indiana. Their Army of 2,200 volunteers, more like elves in this case, make it all happen on a single Saturday in only 10 hours!
How many families did you provide Christmas for this year?
Three hundred and eighty five families, approximately two thousand children.
Okay, how many gifts per kid? Typically three, five to six. That's two thousand kids, five gifts. That's ten thousand gifts.
To twenty two hundred rolls of wrapping paper, two hundred and fifty rolls of tape. I bought one year on eBay or a printing company that was going out of business. I bought thirty thousand gift tags. Thirty thousand gift tags. They're in one hundred to a sheet. We just used up the last one of them this year. It was so big, it was crazy, and I paid twenty five dollars for him. It was awesome.
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an inner city Memphis. And the last part it unintentionally led to an oscar for the film about our team. That film's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits talking big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather an army of normal folks us just you and me deciding, hey, I can help. That is exactly what big Al Holdron, the voice we just heard has done. Al is the co founder of Secret Families, which provides all of those Christmas presents for families who can't afford them in his community of Muncie, Indiana. There should be a Secret Families in every area of our country. And I cannot wait for you to meet Big Al right after these brief messages from our center sponsors. Okay, guys, this story was really recently recommended to us by an Army member named Meryl McKinley, and Meryl, thanks because Big Al's awesome. But because it's such an awesome Christmas story, we had to break our usual protocol, which is we bring guests to Memphis or I go to the guest, and we do in person interviews because I just feel like face to face conversations are more compelling. But because we got this information late, we just didn't have time to do this interview in person, so we did do this one online on Zoom so that we could quickly edit it and sneak it in before Christmas. So this episode might sound a little different than normal because of the challenges of clear conversation over zoom, but Big Al's big personality more than makes up for it, and you're about to hear that. And guys, y'all really keep sending us stories and ideas at normalfolks dot us. Your programming of this podcast has been incredible, So let's get started. Al Haldron an interesting dude. Thanks for joining me, Al, how are you.
I'm doing great, Bill, Thank you for the Thank you guys for your time and for the interest. It's pretty cool stuff, man, It's gonna be a great conversation. I love it.
Well, what you do is pretty cool stuff, and the timing of it is obviously appropriate and topical. But before we get to while we're talking to you and the very cool thing that you do, which i'll i'll tease is, uh, it's secret Santa, right, that's.
What he's called secret families.
Secret families, well, secret families, and I'm sorry, I've done that three times. My family out at Christmas, we do what's called secret Santa. And so it's it's my wife, it's my wife, me, the four kids, my mother in law and father in law, my mother, my uncle, my sister in law, my brother in law, and I think that's it. There's ten eleven of us. And so what we do is we say, everybody spends one hundred bucks max, and you have to buy a pair of socks, household item and a book. And you can only spend one hundred bucks. So you could buy an eighty dollars book. So now you got aye, a four dollar pair of socks and a sixteen dollars household item.
Right, you can mix up probably a good will buying a toaster.
There you go, perfect. And then and then we and then everybody shows up with their three gifts unmarked, puts them on the table and we have three rounds. So round one is book. So everybody chooses one gift from the book pile. And then right, but here's the thing. It rotates upon opening it. So when I open my book gift, now I've got my book. Now the next person to open they can either keep their gift or take mine from me. You're absolutely And then it goes all the way around and it's called it's called secret Dirty Santa. And I got to tell you Christmas Day at my house ends up people throwing stuff at each other half the time because everybody wants one game.
Great, No, no, nobody wants you know whatever for the soul. Yeah, whatever it is, that's that's it.
And I mean somebody made by somebody who may spend five bucks on a book and night out a house, so the the quality of each item varies dramatically, and everybody anyway, it's a blast. And so we call that Secret Santa. And so when I see secret families and think Christmas, the work you do it is not anything like what we do.
But that common terminology, that's the secret Santa. And you know what, it all applies. But the game is still the same, and that's what we love about it.
That's that's it. That's that's it.
That's all right.
Enough about me.
Where do you come from?
Where'd you grow up? Tell me where you came from?
Here? This is I actually grew up in monsey Is County seat, and I grew up in a little town literally attached to it, but just ten miles north of Munseie, Indiana, Eaton, Indiana, population five thousand people. My dad and everybody in that town all worked at one of the two General motors plants that were in were keyword we're in Muncie. One is now well both of them are completely non existent. They don't exist and the buildings are even gone. But it was a little small community up there, and went to Delta High School, So I'm a local kid. Other than I've been here my whole life. I'm sixty one, been here my whole life and had a four year stint in Milwaukee with a business that I owned up there, and then came back here and started her family, and you know, the rest is history.
So you're a Midwest, mid.
West Indiana boy all day long. You name it a little basketball and big basketball, and you're in Indiana. I go basketball, absolutely are Then well I'm a uh yeah, who's your who's your by state?
I you?
I you fan? Are you basketball fan? Notre Dame football fan? So we always have and most of us have split allegiances. Ball State is a is in our community, and we're always Ball State fans. We go to those games. But I grew up as a Bobby Knight fan and grew up with Notre Dame football, So you know.
Kind of doesn't get any more Midwestern than that.
Oh god no, and uh uh one of our friend arms length friend is Matt Painter, who's ball state or I'm sorry, who is produced basketball coach currently. Uh so, and he grew up he was an old Dell to high school guy. You know, it's funny. Everybody we say the world, eventually all is connected to Muncie. Eventually it's you know, it's not Kevin Bacon, it's Monsey, it's a That's that's how it rolls. So and Bill, we're gonna come back. You're I'm gonna throw something at you. I'm going to challenge you at the end of our conversation with your secret, with your secrets, and because I have something to throw.
At you, so well do it now? What is it?
Quit doing that? Yeah, there's eleven dollars. Everybody throws a hundred in the hat. You go to the local whatever, meer, Walmart, whatever's close to you.
Audit stop. Yep. You can't challenge me yet. You can do it at the end because I don't want to. I don't want our listeners to know yet.
Oh great, I know. Then we'll do it at the end of it'll play it, it'll play better there. Yeah, yeah, I got an idea for you.
So Okay, so you're a Midwest guy born and raised. Yeah, blue collar type community, just good Midwest community, and you go off to Milwaukee and start a business. But then you come back to Yorktown, which is just outside a month see, basically Munsie area.
That's that's where home. I live in Muncie. My business that I own, the collection agency that I own, currently is in Yorktown, but I live in Muncie, right.
So so it's interesting because obviously being here you're involved in a in philanthropic work and you know you you you wouldn't be we wouldn't be highlighting your story without that. But your profession is a collection agent, and I find that interesting and candidly. I own a business. I've had bad accounts, I have used collection work. But I think guys in your industry, you know, get a maybe a bad rep because it's the dreaded bill collector guy, and the dreaded bill collector guys often seen as an evil villain in the process of credit. But the truth is when people spend money on credit, whether it's a credit card or writer or bad check, or enter into a business arrangement that they don't pay off the bank or whatever, those bills have to be collected and the business that extended that credit is out the money unless they're able to receive it. And people that do what you do are a valuable spoke on the will of business. But we've certainly heard of the predatory, overly aggressive collection tactics. And then, like any industry, there's good and bad. Just briefly tell our listeners what you do on a daily basis and how you approach it.
Sure the company antlest Services based here out of Yorktown. We've been here. We were in Mensie Dover County area since sixty seven. My group is the second group to own it, and we bought it from a couple older gentlemen. And we work with medical a lot of medical property rental goodness you in the dental industry, and so you know, and you're exactly right. There is good, bad and ugly in our business, as there is within the industry. We think we're in that good side of it. A lot of times. Sometimes it's an oversight, sometimes it's intentional that people don't pay. But we always say, hey, our clients like to get a paycheck on Friday too. You got the services, you took the services you just didn't pay them. What if somebody did that to you, how would you feel? And you know, just having that conversation, a little bit of guilt, I mean, doesn't hurt and is usually the best way to collect. And then at that point they may have a circumstance that payment arrangements or needs. So but that's what we do. We really are calling people. As soon as we can get them out of debt, their credit is going to go back up and they're going to be in a better circumstance because they're not robing Peter to pay Paul all the time. So sometimes all we're going to do is we're going to focus individuals into let's get this paid off. Then let's pay this off. Then let's pay this off. And that's that's really what we do. So we we sometimes are more like their mom and dad because maybe they weren't taught appropriately, and that's what we end up becoming sometimes built.
So that's what you do for a living. You collect, You collect money for organizations who have provided a good or service to people who haven't paid them, and you try to respectfully and civilly collect that money. And that's it. And you know what that's not a bad thing. That's just a spoken the will of business.
Yep. Everybody needs. Everybody needs that, someone's got a If somebody doesn't pay, then the business is closed and everything shuts down. And that's just reality.
So in those things, so you're not So you're not the grim reaper debt collector that we've all grown to learn to fear. And oh gosh, don't call me at my job, and don't call me at midnight, don't threaten me. It's not that.
No, we're more we're probably more heavily regulated than anything in the world. In then medical, then FDA, you name it, Federal Trade Commission. They do not play around you screw up in our industry. You go to jail. You pay a fine automatically, and they're going to take everything you got and you go to jail. So you do not mess with those people at all. We run and we play, and the good companies, the good companies are in business. Everybody else is in the sing.
Sing how many people in your company?
Ten?
Ten? So we're not talking about this massive organization dollars smiling for dollars. I get a small, family run business where you make a good living and that's what you take. That's it.
And I can run down to the gas station and buy everybody and carry back everybody in my company at coke in about twenty minutes.
I got it.
And that's a small business, that's.
What that's that's a so a Midwest. So the whole point is it's an army of normal folks. What's more normal than a Midwestern guy who likes Notre Dame Purdue. I you lived in Milwaukee, return to York time. Mundsey, Indiana has a ten person, small family run business making a good, honest living. There you are, Bill.
We've always I've always made a quote, always say comment the Holdron family. We are six point five on every scale that you can imagine.
That's hilarious.
We do everything at six point five. We are we are. We are not brilliant at any one thing. I'm about a six point five guys you'll ever see. And if you want to come and sit on the deck, we'll buy you a cold one. And if you need a Makers and uh it's it's Makers and uh Makers and coconut cherry life saver. Uh that'll make you happy. And one in a while after a long week, you need one of those on a Friday evening or just six point five. We don't drink the big bourbon.
We drink a couple than four. I love it.
It's a good day.
It's hilarious.
Oh it's so true, so true.
So your friends call you big Al.
Big Al that that's a third grade nickname. It's stuck. I am a big dude, big guy. When you go up six two two ninety, they call you big Al. It's stuck, and it is a term of endearment. We always laugh. Bill. If someone walks up to me, if they call me Al Holdron or mister Holdron, I know that they don't know me and they're trying to sell me.
Something well, and and mister Holdron is probably above a six point five. Big Al is dead on six five.
Big ol six point five all day long. And if somebody walks up and says I need to see big Al, I know they've talked to one of my friends. They've got permission to do that, or all my friends that it's funny. A lot of people, and a lot of these people that work with in some things we're going to talk about here in a little bit, they only know me as big Al. They have no idea what my name is, and as far as I'm concerned, don't care. It makes no different. Mission is important. The details are not. They're not.
Tell me about your wife.
Yeah, Oh my gosh, the reason that we get up in the morning. Coolest, classiest thing you'd ever meet. And I still am amazed that she deals with me well.
She Chris is apparently attracted to six point five.
She loves six point five fifth grade teacher Selma Elementary. Classiest, coolest thing you will ever meet in your lifetime. And I mean that so sincerely. I'm going to blow how many years we've been married, but it's going to be We're going to say thirty five plus puts me in. I believe it's around thirty eight. Bill, I really don't those details. With everything you'll find that I don't have. I have a dear friend, Jason May, who's a state farm agent here in town. He's a brother by another mother, Okay, and he has always made a comment that eighty seven percent of everything that I say is true and the other thirteen percent he just can't remember. And so you just make it up to fill in the holes and build the mortar to build everything else. And boy, that is probably as true as anything. There's just too much in the memory. There's too much on the hard drive, so I have to erase something to have room to add something in. But I know Chris is taught there guy thirty six some years, some elementary fifth grade teacher, just phenomenal. She's now been there long enough. She's teaching students' kids.
Yes, she's on second generally.
She's on second and and with some just remember we're in a rural area. Sometimes it's third generation. It was an early breeding schedule.
That's great.
It just is what it is, and that's and she is. But she's phenomenal. And this whole the thing, what we're gonna do, what we will talk about. All of this came about because of her. And there's a story there that we'll get into.
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Two girls? My oldest has our first grandchild and has just bought a house across the street from us. So grandma is out of her mind. You can't but fifty yards, and I'm going to have to apologize to the one neighbor because I believe the grandchild who's eleven months old. Now the grandchild and my wife are going to beat a pat where a hog path in their yard, going back and forth, and now she can go see her literally just walks over and goes, you guys, go somewhere to the movie I Got the Kid. It's the oldest Katie Katie is twenty.
Eight, got It, and second daughter.
Maddie as married, lives two miles from us. So then they're set in their homes and that's great. We love that they're not going to live in California and Australia. We love them being that close. Maddie let me see, graduated six sixteen, twenty five, got it?
So you got you and Chris married forever, Katie twenty eight, Matty twenty five, all living a month. See, normal folks doing normal things, living a life. And your wife one day in December of early December of two thousand and four, which we're talking that's nineteen years ago. Six years don't mean much to you, came home and said, let's not buy presents for each other this Christmas. Let's do something different.
Tell us that story, Yeah, Bill, the story goes. I was on the local school board, which is where Maddie and Katie and Katie's husband all teach currently, so I'm in the world of educator. They all teach in the corporation that I graduated high school from, and they all graduated high school from. I came home from a school I was on the school board back in the day, and I came home from a board meeting, and the deal was that all the principles would send out a sheet for any family that needed help it and you would check the box need Thanksgiving meal, Christmas meal, Christmas presents, whatever else you had comment area. They would check that, and every person in the corporation, no matter what their financial situation, would get one of these sheets. We got one personally, we got one, and you just throw them away if you don't need them. If somebody didn't, they turn them back in. They were supposed to get him approved of the board before they send them out. He did not do that, a brand new principle. He sent them out, got them back. The one he submitted had a family on it already filled out, so he submitted it after the fact. So he caught a lot of flat caught a lot of hell for that, and I just happened to have it in my board packet. I came home, she said, al I need to talk to you for a second. The girls are in there. She goes the girls and I've been talking and she said exactly that. She said, what do you think about buying me for Christmas? She goes, by the way, I don't need another sweater. I said, okay, well that takes out across. Now I'm down to zero ideas. And I said, well, by the way, I don't need another sweater either. She goes, how much money is in your sock drawer? Said, I don't know. She goes, go check the builders. An old envelope in my socker have been there forever. I don't know how old it is. It's over twenty years old. And whenever we come back from a if we go away for a weekend, or we go on a vacation, whatever cash that I have in my billfold, the game is I just take it, change and everything and put in that envelope, and then at Christmas, for years we would just take that, divide it, and that's what we would use to buy each other something for Christmas. It could be seventy dollars or a thousand. It never I went there and I pulled it out, hand it to her. She counts it real quick, and I mean it's ones and five twenties and now maybe one hundred in there. There's five hundred and fifty dollars in there. That number is going to come back again to us here in a second bill. There's five hundred and fifty dollars in that envelope. She said, I think we should quit buying each other Christmas presents with that money, and don't buy each other anything else now, And let's go out, and why don't you call one of the schools and get a family. See if they can give us a family, and let's take that and go buy them Christmas. We're like, all right, we can do that now. The next day we get a snowstorm of about thirteen inches of snow. She takes the five hundred and fifty dollars and I said, I think that's a great idea. I said, I've got one. I went to my board packet, pulled it out, and Bill, it is the girl that I grew up next door to and eating the little ten I grew up my entire life till I was twenty two years old. That was literally the girl next door and her husband had just died of cancer, and her daughter is in my daughter's fifth grade class who rides the bus with her.
Hey, they don't have enough to have Christmas.
They don't. She's a registered nurse, so they had their they're paying their bills, but the cancer took all of their money. So they're just getting by month to month till things, you know, until time. He just died the month before, so they decided that. I said, here's one call HERNDA and ask her if we can help her. And she called. They were ecstatic and said I didn't know what it was going to do for Christmas. I just don't have the extra money. And we said we got it. My wife takes a list from her. That next evening, as we're driving to Meyer in the freaking snowstorm. We get to Meyer, we're the only people at a store which is like a Walmart for those that don't know what am my grocery and clothing and cosmetics and everything else store. We're the only people in the store. There's five of the employees sitting on one of the belts of the checkout trying to figure out whether they're going to have to sleep there that night or not, or they should close the store to this twenty four hours then and go home. We walk in, kick the snow off, and go oh Lordy. They're like, what are you guys doing here? And I said, we have these lists. They go, We're in. So the Meyer family, the Meyer employees, were our first shopping family ever. They went with us. We shopped quickly. For everybody. We spent exactly five hundred and fifty dollars. Actually we spent five hundred dollars. There was three kids, two kids, and then the whitest surviving wife we took. We spent four hundred dollars or four hundred fifty dollars. We took the one hundred dollars, bought a Meyer gift card so they would have Christmas dinner, and that started the whole thing. They came home, the girls wrapped that stuff all night. The next night we went took it to him, dropped it off. This whole thing was supposed to be done.
Is this including a Christmas tree? Everything?
Yeah, we had a We had the worst looking artificial Christmas tree that we were going to give away to Goodwill and buy a new one. And I worked. I went out in the shop, one of my shops and made a new stand for it. And we had a couple strands of lights. So we took our old Christmas tree, the bags of presents, the Meyer gift card, and my wife had an old bible and she stuck the Meyer gift card in the bible, and that's what we took to them, and that started.
That's well, tell me her this. This lady's husband died thirty days before this, right after probably a long illness. Not only are they not having gifts and the celebration of Christmas, but they're also probably still dealing with a great deal of sadness and loss that they haven't completely moved beyond.
Right. It was awful. He was a great guy. He had small engineery pair out in his garage and he worked on mowers and anything small, any weed eaters and that kind of stuff, and was phenomenal. Everybody in the community went to him. Everybody out in that area all used him. He was quick, he had it done. He was inexpensive, and he really made a nice living doing it. So they lost his income, but there was nothing, there was no extra, there was just yes, it was just pitiful. And so they're dealing with all that grief.
And so and so, how when you showed up with a tree and presence and the gift card, how were you greeted, and I mean not that pointing of a question. I'm certain they were happy to see you, but people that need things at Christmas, certainly they're happy to get the things. But whatever led people to not having enough money to handle Christmas, there's almost always trauma and loss behind all of that. So my question is, you know, did it even dawn on you that you were filling holes more than just the holes under a tree?
Nope, no, adult, Your point is exactly exactly correct in every situation that we've had that we've delivered to after that, And I think we get caught up sometimes and we forget that point, Bill, that we get caught up in doing what we do, just getting the stuff to them, because it's such a crazy thing now. But no, I think we thought about it after the fact. But after we all quit crying, both their family and my family quit crying after ten minutes, we were actually able to function. Because it is as soon as you walked in the door, she starts going. Because I don't think they actually thought we were gonna come, because yeah, I mean I haven't known her, I haven't seen her for twenty years. You know, she's thirty eight year old. You know or thirty six year old, you know, adult. Then I knew her as a child, but we'd lost touch. And I only knew her because i'd heard that he had passed away and that I forgot. I didn't even know they were husband and wife for and they lived within a mile of us. I didn't even know they were husband and wife because whenever I if I dropped something off, possibly for him to work on, she wasn't there. She was at work. I didn't even know that was her last name. So it was a total surprise. So, yeah, the whole emotional thing and the trauma, and they've all had some kind of trauma, job, loss, husband, lost, fire, we've had We've dropped four We've served four families this week because we call them fire Bibles. They have a gift card and a Bible and them a gift card and a Bible that we just take to them when they have that fire. They just need to get out. And they didn't get a new pair of shoes, some jeans and a sweatshirt. I mean, they're just trying to survive at that point. So we've had all that happen literally within the last six days.
So here's the thing. That was a great Christmas for you guys, and you and your daughters. Your daughters were part of it. Y'all wrap the gifts together in the garage and you went and did this. But that was in two thousand and four. Yeah, what happened in two thousand and five.
My brother in law and I want to give you a great quote, Bill, I mean, you guys love great quotes. Yeah, and Big Al's got more of them than you can handle. You haven't got enough time. You give me twenty four hours, you'll need twenty five. Givers are not born, they're taught. What we did to finish your answer your question? What I didn't know? What I didn't know that we were doing what Chris and I were doing. Girl, Thank goodness, my children have at least one great parent and then they also have me too. What we were doing, we were teaching Katie and Maddie to give. And that's what people do. They follow their parents, They watch mom and dad, they watch their grandparents, and they will emulate that with their lives. I think they struggle if they don't see that ahead. That's what that's what this thing has all become. So sorry, ask me that next question. Ask me in two thousand and five, two thousand and five.
So first year, when this comes home, you get the money out of the SOT drawer, you do this thing. It ends up being for someone you knew that you didn't even know what was going to be. Yep, you kind of happened into that because you were on the school board and you happen to have this information. It just got thrown together in three days. You did a wonderful good thing for a person your community. But that's not an organization, that's not an effort, that's just a one off. But then the next year what.
Happens well, and to continue with that first year will the rest of that story. Is my brother in law, his name's John Neeman, just a great person. My wife has just one sibling. John comes in the night that we're getting ready to take the presence. He goes, I want to go with you. This is your one, this is your one. So it was going to be one family. And so John is vice president of Super Value Foods and based out of Well, it was Osco Drugs around here and then super Value Foods restaurant in drug stores and he was living out in California. He comes in for Christmas, and he stays with us. John comes in. John has a credit card that you can buy a home with. Okay, all right, and I mean that literally, the limit on that credit card would have bought our home. He could have walked up and swipe credit card, walked out, and he said, he goes, I one in, I one in, Get everybody in, Get everybody back in the van. Find me another family. I'm in. We're going to do this again. And we go back and do it again, and we found another family that happened to be at our church. We called our pastor because it was on the weekend called the Passion, and he goes, oh, these guys are struggling. The mother is blind, the father had lost his job, and the two boys were first coming to our church. And then the parents came later on King Bircherd and they were not going to have Christmas either. So we go on his credit card. He said, I'm in for the whole family, and he takes a credit card and we go back spent the same We thought that number works, so we spent another four fifty five hundred dollars, took the balance of it, got him a meer gift card. For food and we went Now this one we ding dong d dashed him. We went up. They didn't know we were coming. We didn't have permission. We just knew some things from the pastor that they needed and we didn't have time and didn't want to interview him. Pastor said that the father probably would not accept the presence, so we had to spoof them. So we went up, rang the doorbell, left the presidence, no tree this time, left the presidence on the doorstep with the Bible with the gift card, and then ran like hell back to our cars, and everybody dug in the cars and we took off. And they never figured it out. The boys came and helped, I think couple of years later with when when the event, they finally figured out who did it based upon what they had heard we were doing leaders, But they didn't figure it out for a couple of years, which was perfect.
So so year one, year one is these two.
These two, and then year two, the two thousand and five, the word got out, it's a month. He's a is not a small town, and we have a arge university here. But it also everybody's connected. We always say that where I when I was in high school. I either said I was related to them or I dated them, you know, one of the two. Well, it's the it's the biggest small town you've ever seen.
Everybody's us, you know, you know, you know how there's parts of the country that actually both of those are true. But that's all enough.
Oh absolutely, it's a little it's about five hours from here.
Way you related to them and you yeah, that's yeah, yeah, they but that's another show.
That's another show. The the the next year, what happened was that just via church and just via some conversation, the word got out, the word got out and that we had done this and I was involved with and I had people coming to our house saying, we won in. How do we get in? How do we do here's a check for five point fifty. Why don't you talk to all of our friends? And then the next year it's seven, then it's twenty five, and here we go and that's it. Literally had There was no money, no administrative costs, no nothing involved, no advertising. It was literally word of mouth, just to some friends and they all then were the first teams that came and have been involved with us since day one. That next year, the third really family that we were going to serve, and he is on our board now. His name's Chris krabtres And Photography, a local photography business here. He came to me and said, hey, I think you need to put a name on this. And it was originally going to be called Secret Dads, and that was what he had talked about. I said, but we're really serving families. He goes, all right, secret families. And what he had he had someone working for him that was struggling but was too proud to ask. So he gave me the money. And he knew that I knew this person's mom. He gave me the money. I gave it to her, the mom, and was not allowed to tell the mom, I'm sorry, the mother of the lady where the money came from. He didn't want her to know that the employer took care of They wanted it to come from me. So all of a sudden, I am the conduit.
Okay, once again, secret families.
All day long, and we have to keep it secret. And that's what he said, give it to her, but keep it secret. And that's where it all came about, was that we were going to do all this anonymous all the families that we served, Bill, we still I'm the only one that knows who they are. That's that's the reality.
We'll be right back. So what year did this thing become quote Secret Families? How many years? In?
Probably about three years in Bill, Okay.
So yeah, So from this first idea that Chris had that you and your family pulled off, that your brother in law fell into that year, then you then you do a little more and then after year three, going into your four, you have a thing now and it's a grassroots thing called Secret Families. And the idea is this, each family we're going to raise five hundred and fifty dollars for and we're going to provide them a Christmas tree, about four hundred dollars in gifts, about one hundred dollars gift cards so they can buy and prepare a true Christmas meal.
And it's a tree if they choose.
And it's all anonymous.
Yep, absolutely not.
And it's not only the givers are anonymous, but even the receivers are anonymous. So it's one not to elicit on the giving side. Hey, look at what wonderful things I'm doing for people. Pat me on the back. It's anonymous. So the people that are giving it or doing it simply to do some good, and they're doing it for people that they don't really even know who they're doing it for. Because the receivers, we don't want you to feel embarrassed or any of that. It's so the whole thing's anonymous, on both the giving and receiving side.
Absolutely, the bility, all the families. And I would tell this to any of your listeners, which are immense as I have done a little research. Wow, totally amazing. And I tell you that I don't want to be remiss. I'm very honored that you even talk to me.
I know exactly.
I know it's what you do. But dude, is I love people. Love success stories. In this program, it's a success story because you care about people and you go do things for just folk and do that is unbelievable. Son, got to doubt. Yeah, we got to smooch you up a little bit. Here. We're gonna be buddies in the deck. My god, I know you, Yeah, I know, I like you.
Here.
The families we serve, the filter we have built is every family we serve has to come to us exclusively from a school principle schools and for anybody out there, if you ever want the best filter to make sure you're serving a need not a want, that is a school counselor and or school secretary. They know more than anybody about a community.
Now that is really interesting because you know, in sales, you always want to get you always want to build a relationship with the gatekeeper all that.
That's what it's all I have.
Right, and that's what we call the secretary of the guy that does the purchasing or has administrated assistant. But if you build a relationship with the because the gatekeeper is really the one that the information. The gatekeeper is typically someone who you don't think of as an integral part of an organization, but so much information flows to that gatekeeper that if you want to sell somebody in a business, if you get a relationship with the gatekeeper, you will ultimately get the audience you need to go sell something. And so that's not a bit. But what you just said is really interesting. You're saying that school secretary, they're the ones that are getting the absentee lists, they're the ones that are getting the parents' calls, They're the ones that are patching through this person in social services to the principle. They're the ones that really do know that is so interesting.
They see the kids coming into school. Of see, because the kids go right to a classroom in an elementary right, so they have a relationship with their teacher. They have no relationship with any other teacher in the school unless they had them as a teacher, so they would only have a fifth grader, would only have six relationships with forty teachers. The secretary is commonality with all forty teachers. They all report to her, they all vent to her. She is the gatekeeper for them to get to the principal. When they're throwing a fip because there because something broke in their classroom, they go to the secretary. They don't go to the principal. The secretary then either just tells the janitor to go fix it, or if it's a major issue, she takes it up the line to the principal. They also talk with They're the ones that when the kid got in trouble or and when that kid comes in if they don't have the right shoes or they don't have a winner coat, that secretary is the point guard. She distributes the problems to the people that can fix it, so they know. She goes to the counselor and she goes, oh, the counselor says, this family's got problems. She goes, No, their parents are just idiots.
The secretary know.
She knows that's because she talked to him on the phone. The counselor may or may not have talked to him the phone. They're dealing with the kid at the school. The parents called in and cussed out there. The secretary, Dad's just an idiot. She's like, I don't need anything. He's got that he in here. And she also she knows who within those schools. She knows the parents that are having affairs. She hears it all. So they are that point person. They give us the list and then at that point, now here's the thing. We know that ninety eight percent of everything we knew is serving in need. Two percent will be a want because they buffaloed somebody, they got through, they get they buffaloed that secretary. We miss those. We don't care. It's not my place to judge, it's only my place to serve. I collect the money in good faith, distribute it in good faith. I'm just the point guard for Jesus.
But your people that you serve, you get all of them through the information you receive anonymously. Yes, through the secretary and the guidance counselors at the elementary school.
Yeah, that has been.
That has been. That time has taught you that's the best filter.
It is. And we started right. We did it from the get go. We just knew that it was a good and said, oh, it's a good filter. I take it. I took this year probably over one hundred phone calls, which is typical to me because I'm very transparent with my information, my email addresses out there. I get emails and I have families trying to put themselves on the list, or they're trying to put their sister on the list, or they're trying to put their neighbor, or they know somebody that needs help. I don't need help finding people. I got. I can find all the families I want. It's just at what layer am I going to quit cutting? And we try to cut only when it has need. Anything Anything below that nee level, we're in. Anything above that, we're out. And I tell you, they go, well, you know, I just I had we'd spend all the money on this, and I said, you're not. You don't fit that. Not only that, I don't want you to put it on the on the list, because how do I know that you need something? You say you do. But if I walk into your house and there's a one hundred and five inch big screen hanging on the wall with the kids playing the PlayStation, you're out, all right, Sochel.
You collect them through these means and you have that's a lot of stuff. How many okay, yeah, how many kids? Just quick answer on this one, yep, because it's a second question coming that I want to hear a lot about. Sure, how many? How many families did you provide Christmas for this year?
Three hundred and eighty five family, approximately two thousand children. Okay, that's just that's just in Mike County. We have seven other affiliates also.
Okay, how many gifts per kid? Typically you have three five to six. That's ten two thousand kids, five gifts. That's ten thousand gifts to.
Twenty two hundred rolls of wrapping paper, two hundred and fifty rolls of tape. No bows because they get torn off. I bought one year on eBay or a printing company that was going out of business. I bought thirty thousand gift tags, hold it, thirty thousand gift bags, one hundred doze sheet and I and I, my god, we just used up the last one of them. This year, I've had twenty almost forty. Oh my god, it was so crazy. God and I paid twenty five dollars for him. It was awesome.
But the but the model OWL is you get together on one day. Yeah, you wrap this stuff and you deliver the next.
No, it is all done in one day for.
Three hundred and eighty five deliver one day.
We start shopping at six o'clock and by four o'clock I'm at a restaurant having a rabbi.
Okay, all right, but hold on, Yeah, how many people does it take to wrap? Buy, wrap, and deliver from six to four, ten to twelve thousand gifts?
Twenty two hundred in the largest largest one day charity in the state of Indiana. Happens in Delaware County, not in in Monsey, not in not in Lafayette, not in Indianapolis, Evansville or Fort Wayne. In Munsey, Indiana, I have we assemble twenty two hundred people last Saturday and that is, we have twenty five tree team trees tree teams out delivering trees. So we set up two hundred Christmas trees, decorated Christmas trees for families. I have seventy two wrapping teams of ten people each. I have seventy probably plus shopping teams of ten people each, all shopping at the same time. I have twenty six delivery teams out delivering, and we take over a Toyota dealership. They shut down a car dealership for one day on a Saturday, the only place probably the United States that happened. These gots. Now not only that they shut it down, but sold ten cars that day. I just want to say, and that all happens at the same time. Besides people we have.
Why did they shut down the car dealership?
Well because he because they had people trying to come on the onto the lot. And what do you usus facility? We wrap and deliver out of their facility. It's right across the street form of each other. So I'm going to give you the rat here's the rabbit trail. So seven hundred people. They put me in a lift, a man lift in the front of Meyer because I can't talk to everybody. There's seven hundred people at the registers, all crowded around this man lift to give them the instructions on how much we're going to spend per family or per person. So we give them all the instructions. We welcome them, I cry, I tell a story, blah blah blah, every bdy collapse a little bit. We all go okay, we're ready to go. And then these teams, seventy teams with ten people each launch and they literally look Meyer looks like it's been robbed when we're doing so, I drop one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in four hours in one that's just in the one Meyer store here that we're shopping at. So there's seven hundred people go out and everything is put in bags. So we have these big bags that I could put you in, and we have these big mile Our bags. Every bag has a somebody's name on it. We buy for all children and everybody in the half. Grandma's living in the house, Grandma gets a present. We don't want the kids to say, Grandma, were you naughty? Did you not get a present? Everybody gets a present. So everybody has a bag. They're all rolled up. Five everybody has a bag, and then there's five shopping lists rolled up with rubber bands around and there's a family number. Nobody knows the last names of the family, but al Holdron. That's the secret part. So that way people shopping, they could be shopping for their neighbor. We don't want them to know that. They pull those bags out and then they have a shopping list I've had. I've got thirty ladies who have interviewed every one of the families. Three hundred and eighty five families all got interviewed prior to that. So we have an interview team, we have a data entry team, we have an IT team that does all the routing of all these together. That's all done prior to that makes up one hundred hundred and fifty people. So then it comes over to us. We have all these We have these big bins of these ABCD and E. Those are all our deliveries that go out and they deliver three. They take three families at a time to deliver. So the shopping goes on. We come through ten shopping lanes and they're lined up behind them for twenty yards of carts behind each lane, checking out, and we have a team of people that do nothing but swipe thousand dollars gift cards. They just stand there and swipe cards and check them out. If the people go over the limit of eighty dollars a person, the people coming through the line, we either have to remove a gift or they take out their credit card and they swipe it. They can buy as much for anybody as they want. They make up the difference themselves, yes, and if they don't, they put something back. I've never put anything back, and items a difference they these they raise their own mind than that they don't give to me. They may have sponsored a family with me for five point fifty, but they come with their own credit card. And I have people that spend probably over probably one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars because they if they think the lady should have a new pair of boots and they're one hundred bucks and that's over our limit, they just sweat. They don't care.
And so from there, all this stuff goes to this dealership.
Yep, it all comes out.
Now.
I have twenty friends with trucks outside of Meyer lined up in front, and those drivers never get out of their truck. Now we're only driving one thousand yards, but it's across the road and over to toy Toyota. The bag all these bags come out as a family, they get checked off, they get put in a truck by a Ball State baseball team. They load the trucks. The trucks drive over. We have another Ball State team unloads all the bags and they're set up in rows by family numbers one through fifty up through three point fifty through four hundred. Outside. They're staged outside and then inside in the showroom. They have cleaned out the entire showroom. There is twenty six to thirty wrapping teams. We have three shifts of two hours each inside the dealership. That's another three hundred people per shift inside wrapping presents. And then they wrap for two hours and we throw them out and they have to go and then they leave and then another shift comes in. We have so many people wanting to volunteer, we have to do it in shifts to build more places for them. So they wrap all the presents, they get put back in the bags, they tie up the handle, and then the Ball State golf teams, men's and women's golf teams and another local high school baseball team carry them to the back to the service area. They get restaged again for deliveries, and then the delivery teams. Twenty six delivery teams come up, take three bag, three families, and they're off delivering. They deliver. They make five runs of three bags each and they go out and deliver. All of this is going on at the same time, so meyer trees are being delivered, packages are being delivered, others for later deliveries are being wrapped. All the teams are moving on all these bags. So we'll have twenty two hundred bags that we have and they're just a big, large, clear garbage bags that have people's written named them. Plus there's a team of seventy people that came the Thursday night before that mark all the bags. Somebody has to put those names in the bank. So we take over a church gymnasium and those people on tables come with with I'm surprised they're not all high when they leave because all that sharply smell is going on out there, and build the next night after that. The other thing that people get now they get a box. They get a toiletry box that has toilet paper paper, towels, shampoo, and then there is a group of thirty people that come over to another facility and they packed four hundred of these boxes. So every family gets toiletries for the month or maybe a coup razors, shampoo, deodorant and all that, and that was added later on, so that that's an add on to the things that we give them. That's the game, that's the that's the rabbit trail goes on. So this goes on and then at four o'clock we're sweeping up. We wrap everything up, and then the tradition is I take my entire family. My family is not allowed to thump their chest, be proud. Sort three hundred and sixty four days and twenty three hours a year. We don't don't we don't want to talk about it, we don't brag about it. We just raise money. I have to raise all that money in six weeks every year. They just work. But one hour when we're done, when we go to dinner. This is my immediate family and my wife, my two girls, their husbands, my little granddaughter. For one hour, we talk about how freaking awesome we are. We celebrate for the deal. We talk about one hour and I mean, everything's on the table and we're at a restaurant and there is and we're at the boys or whoever would like to have a drink. That's fine. We order, rabbize and we talk about how freaking great we are for one hour. And then when it's done, when we get up from the table, it's a new year and we start all over again. But we do not allowed to talk about that. You need to be humble about this. We give glory, We give glory to God. We get we're there to serve Jesus that day. That it's all we do, and that's who we you are. But one day, that one hour I asked for. I asked for one hour to just talk about we killed it. We're freaking awesome. You've got. If you don't celebrate once in a while they're there, you're not working toward anything. There's got to be a little bit of a celebration. And we're hugging and high fiveing, and everybody in the restaurant's wondering, who the hell are these guys, and they're nuts. That's the Holder and family, and it's funny we did that. As a tradition. There's a gentleman in the back. I've got several teams. Bill, there's three or four teams. I call them sloppers. They're my sloppers. And what they are, they're groups of guys that really don't want to be assigned to a job. So what they'll do anything I ask there a lot of most Sometimes that's I could you just go give McDonald's and get me a coke? I haveing anything to drink all day? And they they run down and they come back with some apple pies and that could you go set this one tree up that got forgot Johnny didn't get his bag and got kicked under a table. Can you run that across the country, across the county? I shouldn't say and drop that bag off. They just do whatever. They fill all my holes for me. There's one of those gentlemen who he happened to be at the restaurant with his wife when we were there all eating that one year and we got ready to leave and the bill was paid. We paid a two hundred dollar bill on that, and we didn't know who he was. I didn't know he'd done that. I finally had to get the waitress to you know, through charades to figure out who he was. And actually she went and pulled his credit card and told me his name, and I knew who it was then at that point. Now he said, I hear you looked me up because the gal told him. Next I met him in the restaurant, I said, big gal one who was buying the meal. And I'm like, so now he just comes up and we called the two hundred dollar handshake. So now as he's leaving that evening, he walks up and he's got two one hundred dollar bills. When we shake hands, there's two hundred dollars in my hand. He said, just buy your family dinner. I appreciate you you allowing me to be involved with something we never did anything philanthropy whatsoever. Thanks for allowing me to be involved with this. It serves me much better than any of the families you serve. That answers a question you asked earlier. And I think that our volunteers are much more blessed than anybody any family I've ever taken a gift.
To, well, I have said a thousand times. The payoff to this kind of work is you get a thousand times more out of it than you put into it.
Oh, there is no doubt. And that's a low number. I think a thousands, even a low number. Year you are so, you're so right.
We'll be right back. It's interesting that Indiana has a city or town called Santa Claus Indiana.
Yeah, absolutely, down south. Yeah, and if you ever get a chance to go, it's crazy.
Well, and you're six two two ninety. I'm just wondering if Big Al and Santa Claus, Indiana and Muncie are somehow in this weird cosmic Twilight way combined. Because Al, for so many children in your community, you are Santa.
Claus's I'd say that's probably a fair statement. We had a great story this year that's continuing and you're gonna love this bill.
This is this may be the story of all Christmas stories. Actually, they'll end up making a movie of this. Sometime. You'll be involved with this. You'll be right in the middle of this, or should be there. We have We have a gentleman who I did not know growing up, and played tennis in high school with his brother, who is the best.
You played tennis in high school. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but that's a whole wow.
Yeah, Big big. That's probably the biggest tennis player. We can play. I can play my daughter, Maddie, my youngest, played collegiately for all of that. Nazarene say you that's that's not six point five, but in high school it was six two to twenty.
I got you a little more mobile and.
A little uh, a little fewer sugar cream pies, which is that's fair enough. I need to and I need to send you a sugar cream pie.
Have your du to uh No, but I'm certain I would love it.
We would you would love it. Well, X makes him over in Winchester. We'll we'll get some of the mail to you. You'll give me all of that. The the story goes. We have the coolest Santa Claus. I mean, this dude looks like Santa Claus. I mean I actually believe he is. I think he just moonlights as the parts manager at a Chrysler dealership on the side. But he has come every year, probably for ten years, and he just comes and he's in full battle mode. I mean he is. He is it, and he is he is the part. He never breaks stray, he never breaks it, even with adults. He talks. It is unbelievable. So he always just randomly picks one of the delivery teams and goes out on believe me, those fifteen families of kids. So he is the first guy up with a bag of presents over his shoulder on their doorstep. Dude, it is so cool. So this year, we have a family that's living in a facility called Christian Ministries and they have a couple apartments upstairs, and it's just that they provide food and clothing to homeless and anybody can just walk in during the day get a meal and that kind. They have these two really really nice apartments up above the second story of this building. That was one of the families we're going to serve. My oldest daughter, Katie. I get an email from her as she's doing the data entry. The callers put a special note and stapled on it and said you may want to call this lady. Okay. He's like, okay, she called her. The little boy is nine years old. The only thing that he asked for for Christmas was a Santa outfit. He wants to be Santa Claus. That's it. No other presence know nothing else. They end up buying other things too, just but really they didn't give anything else in that So Katie. I told Katie, I said, you get on Amazon and you buy one. It doesn't matter what it costs. She goes, Dad, we always have a budget. These my girls are real followers. Dad, we have a budget. I said, you have a budget. I have no budget. I do what I want. You remember who that? She goes, Oh, that's right, you're the dictator. I just thought that was on the first Saturday in December. I said it is. And in this conversation, I said, buy a nice one. I don't want some paper, cheap thing. I want a good one. So she did, found one very reasonable, had it shipped to our house, put on my credit card. The way we go. So we have to do some moving around because Santa's got some commitments middle of the day, so it's got to be on the first delivery route going out. So we flip flopped some stuff around. I usually screwed it up a little bit, and so Santa goes out, He's the first family delivered. So I'm going to have my Santa deliver it. Because this little boy believes, he absolutely believes Santa Claus delivered a Santa suit to Junior Santa. And see, we don't have pictures of any of these families that we've ever delivered to because we're not We don't we have We would have to get permission from the schools and families, and we don't want anybody to know who they are. So nobody's allowed to take pictures. If the family asked for it or allows it, or takes a picture, they can sign off on it. But we don't even ask them. But this little this, this lady I asked. I called to the mom and said, would you be okay if we had some if we took some pictures because Santah wanted pictures with him with and she said, oh, absolutely, we don't care. That's that's no problem whatsoever. So we have pictures with him delivering that Santa. And the kid ran right in, took his clothes off, put the Santa suit on, come back out. So there's Junior Sanna with the big Sannah. The mother calls me yesterday, she said, mister older, and I said, yes, she goes, I have a request. My son has asked me something and I know that it's and the kids standing right there. So we have to her and I have to have this correct conversation. And she goes, it's about Sanna. I said, oh yeah, I said. She goes, how busy is he? I said, well, you know, this time of the year, he's got elves making presents and you know he's got he's got me on speakerphone with this little boy, I said. I said, I don't know. We delivered some he had to get some alfalfa the other day for Hey, the reindeer like alfalfa, so we had dropped some. We had dropped some hay off to him, and you know he's got he's working with all the elves and they're all kind of crazy and you know, so we're playing this up for this kid. I said, well, why do you ask? She said, well, my son would like to have milk and cookies with Sanna Bill Bill dude, winter chicken dinner. I don't have.
I don't.
I haven't got better stories than this. So I so I called Sam and Santa and he is at.
The at the part store. You called Santa over at the part store.
Yeah, you know your ram might need a you know, might need a head gasket, right, So, so I said, Santa. He goes, yes, he said, I said, junior Santa would like to have milk and cookies with you. He goes anytime, he said, I will take I will whatever you want, just tell me when and wear And because he's he really has a lot of gigs this time of the year in the evening, yeah, and the weekends. And he goes, no problem. So we've set it up. So she's calling Sanna to set it up, and we're going to a local caffeinery coffee shop to have and they're going to come and he's kind of the kids coming in his suit and Sanna is going to be in a suit and we're going to a caffeinery to have hot chocolate and brownies or cookies or whatever the kid wants here sometime next week now.
And this is a boy. This is with out secret families that wouldn't have even had a.
Tree, wouldn't even have it, wouldn't have a Christmas tree. They they've got Christmas tree, They've got Christmas. It's just him and her mom. In one moment, I'm sorry that's doing. She has an older son. There is one older son that's not in the house. I mean, he's nine years old. Wouldn't have had anything whatsoever because they're living in a place that takes care of homeless. So this kid will tell this story for the rest of his life. And now you unbelievable.
Twenty five hundred volunteers all in one day, spending about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars on one day, serving two to three hundred families every Christmas, all because Chris came home one day and said, ow, get the money out of your shop drawer, and let's not spend it on sweaters that we don't need. Let's exact some measure of kai for a single family. And all of that has led to how many families have had Christmas because of this organization.
Today I went through and I knew you were going to ask that question, so I did a little matt and this is what we would refer to as out math. Remember the eighty seven percent, Yeah, I got it, Okay, eighty six hundred families.
I know that I know that we're outside of the RIBBI one hour Holden's are allowed to admit they're above a six point five meal, So we're going to have to break into that for the purposes of the show. Eighty six hundred families out have you have you have, you and Chris and your family looked yourselves in the mirror and really thought that maybe the North Pole is in Yorktown, Indiana.
I hope it's here and everywhere else. We just hope that it catches fire. You know, it's caught fire here with seven counties here around. See one down in Lexington, Kentucky, because he owns the car dealership that he closes down. And Bill Gates, who owns that dealership, home dealership in Richmond. I think Bill owns six dealerships. The dealer he was at, he was up here they were scouting us because he knew this was going on. I didn't know who he was. I tried to get him to go over and pick some paper up because he was standing outside. I didn't know he was the owner of the dealership. I'd never met him. Said he did. Him and his crew went over and picked all the paper up, throw in the trash can. And then the general manager come and said, I'm an introduce you to mister Gates. I said, I'm sorry. He goes, I'm no better than anybody else. He goes. I said, he goes, We're going to do this next year. Down in Kentucky. We just came up to We've been following He followed me all day. I thought he was a stalker, and know what I knew he was. He said, We've been following you all day taking notes because we want to know how to do this? Can you come down and teach us? So that we went down and taught him, but he.
Said along those along those lines, ol, how do you raise the money? We have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year worth the gifts. Yeah, at five hundred and fifty bucks pop.
We have a couple of fundraisers. We do play a little Texas hold them, which is great. So we'll poker tournament run in the back of a photography studio, which is great. Have a gentleman who, in honor of his brother who passed away, who was a provost at Ball State, Bob Morris. Rick Morris, his brother runs a golf tournament and that raises some bill. All of our money comes from sacrificial giving, and we ask our goal is we want four hundred families. What we ask are for adults to quit buying presents for each other, just like Chris and I did, and take the money that they would spend on each other and give it to me so I can go take care of one family. If I get four hundred families to give up the adult buying, buy for the kids, give up the adult buying, and give me the money, I have no funding problem at all. We actually have a moratorium on giving. No company or one individual is allowed to sponsor over five families a year.
Why do you do that.
The reason we do it is because there's other charities in the community that are that are going broke, and I want to spread the wealth. And I think there's so many other charities that do a lot of other great things, not just at Christmas, other time. If they give all the money I the story goes I had a hand me a twenty five thousand dollars check. Then I returned and I asked him to write me a check for twenty seven to fifty and to go to ten other charities and give them each twenty five hundred dollars. And he did that because they needed the money. I don't want it all if it all comes from one place. If I have one company give me fifty thousand dollars and they're not able to help me the next year because things don't go well, or they go out of business, or private equity buys them, or they just sell. I can't replace that, and I've already asked for that many families. I can't replace that fifty thousand. But if I have one family. We lost my mother in law this year, Well I could replace her by finding one more family to sponsor a family. But if she'd been giving me fifty thousand a year, I couldn't replaced it. And I'm in trouble. So I like to build. I like to build am I like to build things that have white bases that aren't very tall.
Yeah, you went broad rather than deep all day long, and that's what we're and and you're also asking people to be philanthropic elsewhere, not to be a hog of all the money, which is also amazing.
Absolutely, and that's and we want so that we may be the only charity in the world that has a limit on what you can actually donate, and we just want to We want that gets more families involved. That which is why I see I have a volunteer problem, But it's not lack of I have so many people coming to me. We shut down, they shut down our website taking registrations for volunteers in August. As a matter of fact, we could open it up for a week and it would just be full. I got people screaming at me. I don't have a spot to put them. I say, just help me raise money. The money raising is the is the hardest of all because see, we don't start until October. I don't get in everybody else's way up when it comes October, though, you have to get out of my way. And when you know, when I start shoving, I shove pretty hard. But you got to come to me. Now. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta step up and play right now. I don't. But the rest of the time you worry about the other organizations that function somewhere else. When Secret Families comes around, I do ask for my turn. Mh.
We'll be right back.
H H.
So why is this not scalable in every community in the United States? It is?
It is, And I teach them all. I teach them. It's simple.
How do people How do people find you to learn? Uh?
They they're just gonna call me, call me or email me. It's Ahldron at Atlas collections dot net. They can go out to uh Secret Families or our secret Family's website is typing Secret Families dot com. You can pull that up and my phone numbers are there. You can call me and they can reach me at seven sixty five seven four four three six ' nine and we'll teach them. It's a simple system. Initially, they don't need a lot, they just need some the base of what to go do. But it is absolutely scalable. We do it by counties because that gives everybody a defined geographic to work in. I don't solicit money outside of my county. We think local should take care of local. Also, because I've got all these other secret families, I don't want to reach into those counties and I could. I've got clients from my business I could reach in. If those people come to me. If I and I have some of my clients, they say, well, I want to give to you, I go no, give to Blackford County or Grant County. They're in your county here. Let me connect you with the guy that runs that area and we just drive them to their months. He should take care of Monsett. And when we do that, if everybody did that in every community, that would be good That's what I was going to tell you. Bill, Don't do the secret. Don't do the secrets anymore. Take the eleven hundred dollars from the eleven go sponsor to families, and go do what I just told you to do. That's what you go do.
I think I'm gonna have to challenge my family how much like Chris challenged you those many years ago.
They love it. They will love it. And here's the thing, being who you are and the and the and and just I mean, if you lived in if you lived if you lived in Muncie, dude, we'd be we'd be dear friends. The personality, the personality is attractive as hell. I'm just telling you we would be. We would we'd be shooting at the range. We'd be shooting at the range, and probably a little golf being played. I would imagine it would be. It would be we'd add you into the We'd add you in the circle. It would be freaking awesome. But I got to tell you a quick secret. You'll love it.
I have played in the state, regional, and national championships in ust A team US myself No what oh, I love it. And I am six foot and a half and about two sixty. Al, can you imagine the two of us playing together in adult doubles.
I'm telling you we would scare you.
It would be five hundred pounds a lot.
That's a lot of beef on one side of the bat. Dude, Oh my god. And here's the thing. If we I guarantee you, if we can't beat them on the court, we can beat the crap out of them after the men they have no Oh my, And you know what the great thing would be walking out there. They'd be like, dude, we're gonna we're gonna run those two big boys to death. And then all of a sudden, when they get schooled, they'll be like going, what the hell happened?
Well? And if we and if we played on clay, can you imagine what we would do to a court running around on it for two sucks? I guarantee you to resurface it.
Oh, I guarantee you. You hear something deeping in the background that need the truck bringing the extra load in. He's backing it up. He's backing it up right now.
Oh my god, I agree, Al. I think we get along this, my friend. I got to tell you something, you know, you have done exactly what we're begging people to listen to and challenging people to do, which is not only join an army of normal folk, but how you've created your own little muncy army of normal folk that one day a year get together twenty five one hundred people and make Christmas what it should be for verifiably deserving and needy families. And I got to ask families get on their feet. Do you have served families come back and then become volunteers in the organization for others?
Yes, actually they're back.
Is that not the greatest part of the whole story?
And see, I don't know who they are because I don't see them. I don't deliver the presidents to them. I'm just the general. I'm directing traffic around, I'm pulling volunteers and putting them here and filling holes.
And so what do they do? Come up and say, thank you for what you did three years ago. We're here to give back.
Yeah, you served my family over the twenty years. You've served my family. Three years my husband was abusive to me. We lived in it, we were living in Christian ministries, we were living our One guy come up and said I was awful to my family. You served my family while I was living at the Munsie Mission because I was a drug addict and I didn't want my kids to see it. So I went to live at the mission until I got clean, and then I came back and helped and now here I am back, reunited with my wife and my family. But you saved my bacon while I was going, I was off doing this, just or kids coming and saying, you know, all of a sudden, it's been twenty years. So we served the kid as a ten year old. He come back, you know, as a twenty five year old, sponsored a family on his own with his wife. Introduced me and said, oh, these guys brought us Christmas one of every five years. We sponsor a family every year. Now I had no idea who he was.
Unbelievable.
So it make you feel, oh my god, Well you mean when I quit crying, then I walked outside when the guy at Coke walk around the side of the dealership, everybody thought it went around there and he used the bathroom, you know, to the bathrooms were full, and I'm like, you got to leave me alone. You got to give me big al needs two minutes here I got to get it together, and it's like an He's like, and the kid goes, I didn't mean to make you manage it. You didn't make me mad, you made me proud. Thanks so much. But my guysh, I just yeah, you just you hear those stories and you just but it doesn't usually doesn't catch up with us till the next day. Then we're at home, we're having dinner and we're telling the stories that Christmas. Like, she goes, did you see Bill that he been looking for you for an hour? Because I'm like a fart in the whirlwind, you know that day, run all over the place trying to get I always tell people you want to talk to me, you go to walk with me, because we're just moving from one point or the other. But yeah, Bill, that's what it's all about, and it really was. Here's the thing. The guy that we serve, the kid that we served, wasn't being taught by his parents. He got taught by secret families how to give. Now we've ended the cycle. All I'm trying to do. All we want to do is break the cycle, fill the hole, be the be the one year get out of jail free card, and then have them move on. My goal is that we have no families to serve. I hope. I'm trying to work my way out of job. I don't want to do it. I want to be out, but we know right now that's probably not going to happen.
So big Al president and co founder with his wife Chris of Secret Families, well co founder, I would say, I think Chris has to get the credit. It was wouldn't have started with her out her idea first, absolutely correct and secret families changing lives and making Christmas better for deserving and needing families in Northern Indiana, and an operation that is scalable can be done in any community. And all you got to do is contact big Al. Big Al, you're a phenomenal guy. I thank you for joining me, and from the depth of my heart and from all of those in Northern Indiana, Merry Christmas.
You too, my friends, Honored to know you, honored, honored to know you too. You're the best. I love you, Thank you, Thanks for joining us anytime.
And thank you for joining us this week. If big Al Holdron or another guest has inspired you in general or better yet, to take action by Doe dainty to secret families at Secret Family. By providing a secret Christmas to a family in your community, or starting a secret Families in your community, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us, and guys, I will respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Become a Premium member at normalfolks dot us. All these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Merry Christmas, everybody. I'll see you next week.