An Army of Normal FolksCharmaine Solomon: HIPsters — Hugely Important People (Pt 1)
Charmaine is the founder of My Possibilities, which serves who they call HIPsters (hugely important people), otherwise known as adults with disabilities, with a real college experience that they wouldn’t otherwise get. They started with 10 students and now have 675 students!
I think we had about three hundred and fifty people in that building, Holy Christ, within a year. And that's why I said, we've always had a Waitliss. So within the first year we wet three hundred and fifty and I think we were only we had four hundred was Max in that building. So we had that building for four years and then we bought another derelict building.
If nothing else speaks to the need and the beauty of what you're doing. You went in one year from ten to three hundred.
Forty seventy three hundred.
Ten to three hundred in a year in a line that means parents and people were begging for something. So how many people on this campus now.
Six hundred and seventy five as Yes.
By Gosh, welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in Inner City Memphis. And that last part somehow led to an oscar for the film about our team. That movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I sincerely believe our country's problems are never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people and nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Y'all. That is us, you and me seeing a place in need and deciding, hey, you know what I can help. That's what Charmaine Solomon, the voice you just heard, has done. Charmaine is the founder of My Possibilities, which serves who they call hipsters, hugely important persons otherwise known as adults with disabilities, a real college experience that they wouldn't otherwise get. I cannot wait for you to meet Charmain right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Charmaine Solomon, Welcome to Memphis.
Thank you so much.
What did you get here this morning? Did you yeah?
Ten minutes ago?
Ten minutes ago, yeah, straight off the flight?
Yep?
Did you fly from Dallas?
Dallas?
Yeah? Okay, Well that's not bad. It's an American director.
Right down here and no issues today.
Well, welcome to Memphis, and thank you, thank you for joining us. And you know I've been around. I do a lot of business in Texas, and I've been around a lot of folks from Texas. You don't sound like you're from Texas.
I was born and raised in South Africa and came to America through my husband's employment.
How many you win.
In ninety nine and so we came here. We went to London for three years in ninety six to ninety nine, and then we've been in Dallas in's nineteen ninety nine with the Cadbury Schweps dr Pepper company. My husband was an executive with them. That's what brought us to Dallas.
They've got doctor pepper down in South Africa.
No, Cadbury's had a whole portfolio of drinks. Doctor Pepper is just the business here in Texas. That's what brought us here.
I got it. So what did he do in South Africa?
The same? My husband has been in human resources forever and ever, on the strategic side of human resources, you know, where these companies buy out companies all the time and then they make mergers and acquisitions and all this kind of stuff, and he comes in to do all the people things behind that.
I got it. So have you worked outside the home before?
Oh? Yeah, I've always worked.
What do you do?
I started off in human resources myself.
Well, I guess you and your husband just know how to handle people.
Well, you would think so, but not always people are people, right, So I started off in human resources, and then through my son's accident, I went back to study to become a therapist. Now I think when you're in human resources, you're doing therapy anyway.
So that's right, that makes sense. So Charmaine, we're going to get to for everybody. Charmaine is the founder of My Possibilities in Plano, Texas, which is just north of Dallas. Really it's all well, actually it's just all become a massive, sprawling metroplex from Fort Worth all the way up through North Texas. Now I think Plano, North Texas, and we'll get to obviously what my Possibilities is and the phenomenal work that it does. But I think we need to unpack a little bit of history to get there as to why even why you even started with my possibilities. How many children do you have?
I have four? My husband and I in a blended marriage two and two made four and we were like, no more.
That was it. That's a South African Brady Buncher.
That's enough.
That's enough.
I mean, you do the math.
Yeah, And so their ages are.
So my oldest son is forty two, and my youngest Kyle, who's the adulthood disabilities, is going to be thirty eight.
Thirty eight, yes, wow, thirty eight to forty two and two in the middle they're pulled up in there.
The same They were all the same age.
Yeah, okay ours two ours are twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven, twenty six. So we weren't blended. We made them all together.
But it was yeah, I know what your house was to look, yeah, because they all the same age, and especially when the adolescens.
So that's it. You know, grew up in South Africa, Mary, have a family, moved to London, moved to Dallas, good careers, going on, this beautiful family, and then something happens and you have a son more special needs? Correct, how'd that? How's that tell us about that story?
So you know, my son wasn't born a person with a disability. I was involved in a car accident in South Africa when he was a baby and he sustained a head injury in that accident and that's what changed his trajectory and actually mine too. So that's how we realized. Actually at the time, we didn't realize how complicated. It was, but we found out over the years to be able to do that. So that's how we Krl is now. Carl is now thirty eight years old. He's a person with an intellectual disability. And you know, these kids are inspirational. They give you a different perspective on life. They make you change your lives. You know, when Karl was born, I was on maternity leave, and you know, I had a company car I was a regional manager and I thought, oh, you know how you think life is good, life is great, and then in seconds your life can change. And up until that time, I will tell you that I didn't notice a person with a disability. I never went to school with somebody who had a disability. But boy, that world just opened up to me quickly. That whole veil just fell apart, and suddenly there were people with intellectual disabilities all around me.
How old was Kyle when you left South Africa?
He was probably ten.
So at what age did you start to notice the disability?
Probably in the beginning. I noticed a little bit, but they would say it to me. I Alwa's just delayed. You know. He was a bit slower to walk, and he was a bit slower to talk. They would say, he's just you know, Milestone's are slower children, regret. But at age five, the gap began to change. When you were thinking about school and thinking about Peers's age, we began to notice the big difference between that, and so that's when we noticed at age five that it was really the gap was why. And you know, my son is visually impaired as well from that accident, so everybody would also just his visual impairment, that's why he's so he's later. But at age five it became very clear that there was something else going on.
I'm going to ask you a question now because I have a very personal relationship to the question. Sure, but I think it's very important our listeners feel what you feel and felt what you felt, and understand the drive and the passion for my possibilities. What age was Kyle, when you first noticed people looking at you differently?
Oh, my gosh, right from the get go, right from after the accident, before the accident. No, but straight away people would be looking at me differently, and they would be I wouldn't be as included with all the other babies and the mummies and all of that kind of stuff. It started very early to say that there was a different journey for me compared to the traditional children. Having had a traditional son, and you know, you have playdates, you get invited over the mummies and all that kind of stuff. Not so much. It was very different from the beginning.
Did you Did you vocalize that?
Not really, you know, you just look at it and you just go, well, okay. Then I mean, what do you say to someone, Gosh, why don't you include me because I have a child with special needs? And it's a silent conversation. It's not even something that people say, it's just things that people do. They sort of step back, they don't call you as much. It's not like it's a conversation. It's just a withdrawing that you see people do around you. It becomes very lonely.
Actually, that was my next question.
How does that feel very lonely and very isolating, because actually it's a lot to deal with when you have a child with an intellectual disability. I mean it's twenty four to seven, especially when they're young and older, it's lonely and it gets difficult. Sometimes you just want to talk to someone and say this is hard, but you don't get to do that opportunity as much.
How did your husband handle that reality?
Well, actually, my Carl's dad is not my current husband. Actually, shortly after the accident, and shortly after all the stress of this young child, we divorced. Our marriage ended and it wasn't The man that I'm married to today is not my son's dad. That all fell apart immediately. I mean it was fragile to begin with, but that stress just put it over the top.
Sorry, I mean, do you know the data on it. I know it's really high. The divorce rate for people who have a child with disabilities.
I think it's eighty.
Yeah, the stress is immeasurable, unbelievable, and oftentimes the misplaced guilt and the conflict that results from that guilt oftentimes leads to a blame game that.
Just tears people upon correct And also sometimes you're just like, I've got so much to deal with. I really don't need to deal with the other stuff. I'll rather deal with one thing as opposed to the other. That was certainly for me. I'm sure.
What is your husband's name.
My current husband is Larry.
Larry, So Larry willfully married a woman knowing what he was getting into he did. What a fine man.
Yeah. And actually when when he first proposed to me, I was like, Nope, we're not doing this. I was like, no, we're not doing this. No, I've got this child with special needs and you know what, his dad couldn't cope with them. How are you going to cope with them? I mean, he's not your biological child. And he just said, we'll figure it out. And you know what, Actually, the other little brats were much more difficult to deal with, and this young man, you know what I mean, they were much more difficult to deal with than our child with special needs. And so we were able to figure that out.
So describe what there is to quote deal with?
I think well, from an emotional point of view, I mean, it's difficult to see your child different and not being able to do all those things that other children can do, right, I mean riding a bike. My son will not get well. I hope he gets married one day, but I don't think so. He will not be able to have children, he won't be able to drive a car. Those are hard. You know. I've got friends whose children are the same age as mine. They are married, they have children, they can drive their own homes. That's not the journey for my son. And that's hard, right, That's a loss that you deal with. And then the second part is they themselves. It's hard to see this child struggle just with daily things. And then you do the math and you start saying, I'm not going to live forever. What's going to happen to my vulnerable adult? What's going to happen to him? We're not not here anymore. I mean that's a hard part for any parent to be thinking about it. I Mean it's hard enough when you've got traditional children, but when you have that are so vulnerable, you think to say, well, what now? So there's so many there's many complexities of emotions and thoughts and feelings, and it doesn't go away because you're with them twenty four to seven.
Right. Functionally, where's Kyle Like, I'm a great level?
Yeah, So because he's now out of school, Carl can function very well independently. His vision is the most restrictive thing for him. But he's a smart young man. He's funny, he likes music. And for me, my journey is less complicated than some of our other parents, right, because some of our other parents their children are much more complicated than Kyl. Carl is behead, really stable, he communicates, So our life is easier, but it's it's still not the same. It's still different to be able to do that. And you know, Karl's got this wonderful brilliance about music. He can tell you whatever it is from the first bar of that kind of stuff. So you celebrate those victories to be able to do that. But Carl will never be able to live independently without supervision, and so that's always what does that look like going forward? So that's why we work so hard.
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first, the Army currently has forty five premium members and we're trying to grow that to one hundred. If you'd be open to becoming one, we genuinely appreciate it. By becoming one, for ten bucks a month or one thousand dollars a year, you can get access to cool benefits like bonus episodes, a yearly group call, and even a one on one phone call with me. But frankly, guys, it's not about all that. Premium members help us to grow this army that we believe our country desperately needs right now, so I hope you'll think about it. We'll be right back. My beautiful wife, Lisa, who've been married to for thirty three years, my first date after months of begging her to go out with me months, I went to pick her up. And I grew up in apartments and things like that. And I drove up to this forty four acre home, a home that sat on forty four acres, is beautiful land behind it, and this gorgeous Williamsburg property, just beautiful. And drove up this very long driveway. And the closer I'm getting the house, the more and more nervous I'm getting because I'm thinking, this girl, first of all, is gorgeous and out of my league, and clearly these people are out of my league. And I'm just driving up, thinking, oh my gosh, what the heck is going on? And I go to the front door, and this beautiful woman answers the door her mother and says, Lisa will be right down, And she said, how are you? Where are you from? Small talk waiting for Lisa come down, And midway through that conversation waiting on my first day with Lisa, peers around the corner of the den into the foyer this dark headed, brown eyed, big grinnin kid named Ben. And when Ben walked up to me and reached out his mutton joint to shake my hand and say hi, I'm Ben, it was very clear that Ben was special. I had no idea what he was, not a child with Down syndrome, but he certainly was different, which you know. In high school I was part of the Key Club, and every once in a while we would go like bowl with some of the kids with special needs and stuff. So I'd been real folks, but not intimate at all. And at any rate, went on a date and one thing led to another, and Lisa and I got married, and so I have had thirty three years thirty four years with Ben. He was four or five, that's incorrect, he was eight at that time. I have taken Ben Christmas shopping to Radio Shack. He loved radio Shack, and that's something I have been to special Olympic events. I have visited him in one or two or three of the homes in Kentucky and Austin, Texas. Actually the Brown School, if you've ever heard of it. Yes, yeah, we have vacationed with Ben. We have been out to eat with Ben. We have been Ben has just been an integral part of our life. I will never forget the first time I took Ben to Walmart because he always liked to go for rides and walking through just hours minding our own business, doing our shopping and the stairs, and how little it made me feel. And it took me, I mean, embarrassingly, it took me some time to get over my insecurities about being in public.
And how people stay.
Can you identify with.
That, Oh gosh, unbelievable, even going through an airport. You know, we travel just like you do with Kyle. I mean, it just people stare, People are rude. I mean, it's amazing that people feel that comfortable to stare at something another human being like that. These are just human beings. And so it's difficult and as you say, I mean, and also you just want to think. You want to say to that person, Colley, really do you need to stay that hard? If you're that curious? Would you like to come over and have a conversation or can I help you with something? You know, it's really it makes you sometimes it gets so blatantly uncomfortable that you really want to get up and say something, but you don't because I mean, why would you cause this unite?
Well? Because you have more class than the people stare exactly exactly, So, Ben, I would say, is a fourth grade level functioning person. He can he certainly can hold conversations. He more than enough. He loves gadgets like you know, sunny PlayStations and stuff, and he's into that. The thing I've learned about Ben, I learned this many years ago, but I still hold it dead him hard is Ben is interesting because he is high enough functioning. He's low enough functioning to be visibly and audibly different. If he walked in here, everybody would know he was special needs. But he is high enough functioning to know he doesn't fit. Is still a human being with the soul and emotions and desires and wants just like you and I.
And he's different because everywhere he goes people treat him differently. Right, you know, in some I never want to say that my son's disability or his visual impairment is a blessing sometimes because sometimes he doesn't see that because it's he's not that visually. You know, you have to be quite close to him to be able for him to be able to see. So sometimes it's such a blessing because he actually doesn't see some of that, but I see it, and it hurts me as his mother, because I know if he could see that, it would upset him. Because he's similar to men. He knows and he's sensitive. He's not he you know, he may have an intellectual disability, but he understands. He understands emotions, He understands what people say. He understands the tone that in which you speak to him, and he knows when you're speaking to him in a condescending tone or you're speaking to him differently. He knows that. But sometimes when you're in a public place and someone is doing that, I am grateful for the fact that he's visually impaired because he doesn't get to see it as much as I do.
As Kyle, ever voice to you or some type of inclination or communicated to you in any way that he was unhappy with his life.
No, never, no, never. I remember from a young boy, I would just see him giggling in his bed and I would like, what is he laughing at it? And it would be some little bird, you know, chirping on the window, still outside and he could hear it. And Kyle is the happiest of the boy in the world. He has no he doesn't let anything get in his way. And that's the most remarkable thing about him and all the other hipsters of my possibilities. These guys, they don't let their disability get in the way. They don't feel sorry for themselves. He just gets on with it. He's happy, He goes ife. He is hungry, and you don't give him food. That's a whole different story, right, He gets angry big time, but the rest of the time life is, you know, he loves and it's the and I think for me, the simplicity of his life. He wants his food, he wants his friends, he wants his music, he wants his room. Don't mess with his room, but just those basic things, and he's as happy as anything. And for us who have everything, it's often never enough. Right.
So for those of you listening, there's a little insight into what life with the special needs person is. And it is interesting because until they're eighteen, there is typically some type of school or school environment. Even if you try to mainstream or even mainstream schools that have special needs class work or special needs classes that in our experience, got you through eighteen, correct, was that your experience?
Actually in Texas, you can go to school to the year of your twenty first or twenty second birthday.
Actually, I think that's the same intimacy.
Yes, up until the year of your in school, if you're in public school, you can go to the year of your of your twenty second birthday.
Yeah. But the point is there's a plan.
Exactly, and there's a place they have.
A place they have the happiness. It's wrong, there's people around them, correct, But twenty two is only a third to only a third to twenty five percent of one's life. And I don't think people understand candidly the depth of despair that parents go through. When when does when those those last couple of years start approaching, Because the question then is now what I say? And you don't want to These are living, breathing, thinking, emotionally feeling human beings, and although people look at them very differently, until you've had a relationship with a special needs person, you will find you will understand very quickly the depth of their real emotion. And to put a twenty three year old in front of a TV and turn on it and say sit here all day and then go to sleep and repeat for the rest of your life.
It's just criminal.
But it's what we do.
Yes, we do, and it's we put them out to retirement age twenty two, right, and we just forget about them or that's the that's the philosophy, is that oh, well they can just be they fine, they don't have or they're not going to miss anything.
And that was your experience.
Yeah, that's exactly what happened. Age twenty one. We go into the last odd meeting. They're like, oh, so, I mean, what are you going to do with Carl. I'm like, I don't know, what can I do with Carl? And the same thing back, I don't know what And so they give me some little list with that head names on and I went out and did some homework and I was even more depressed by that because the places that I went to, I was just devastated to see the states of the facilities that they were in. They were in some back room.
It almost feels like the scene out of one Flow over the Cocaoinile.
I promised you. It felt like institutions and it smelled badly. It smelled, you know, of urine, and I was like, I wouldn't even put my dog there, and there's no way that I'm going to put my child there. And that began the journey. All I remember thinking, I'm going to get a bus. These people are coming with me. I don't know where they're going, but they're coming with me because I can't leave them in this place.
I remember the same, not verbatim and certainly not with your accent, but almost the same. My mother in law, Peggy Ben's mother. I remember her same anxiety, her same stress. What am I going to do? And the options are few, exactly and honestly, and I you know, minus the drama of the movie One flo Over as a cuckoon us, but if you think about an institutionalized, barred up place with seats and a TV in a corner and a bunch of people sitting around doing nothing, staring at that TV, that's what these places feel like to me.
And they were not, I mean, and it's not even a decent facility. It's like a little back room somewhere.
We'll be right back.
I mean, you know, we live in Texas, so we still have a state school, and I don't know why. Somebody invited me to come to the state school to come and see if that could potentially be an option for my child. I remember going to visit that state school and I was like, Oh, my gosh, exactly what you're describing, except that everybody was highly medicated. And so I was looking at this and I was like, you know, that's how they, I guess, do compliance is with medication. I was like, what is this? How is this? How is this even allowed to be a thing that we do. These are human beings. They have the same ones in designs and needs as you and I. Why would that be denied to this population? And it's a silent population. Nobody says anything.
I want to share with our audience. And you may or may not have heard this, but you probably do. You're far more of an expert at this than I am. But I once asked about the medication and the answer was, there's five or six staff. There's seventy or eighty people here, and when they have behavioral problems or outbursts, we can't handle them, so we just dumb them down with MUDs. And then the question is, well, why in the world are they acting out well? I don't know. Let's forget special needs. Everybody listen to us. Take your two or twenty three year old child and stick them in that environment and see if they don't get frustrated pretty quickly exactly, And see if they don't start acting out, And see if they don't start start acting out on their own frustration and boredom and all of that. It is no different. These special needs people. Don't think they don't know what's going on. They do, they do.
And also the lack of dignity, you know, you take that piece as well.
The dignity is such a good way.
That somebody is touching you, you know, doing all these things to you, and you can't say yes or no. It's just done. I mean, can you imagine. I don't think I would do well. They'd have to medicate me too. I mean I wouldn't do well with that kind of stuff. So no, it was it was really a hard I mean I just remember thinking to myself, oh my gosh, I am so depressed. What am I going to do? I'm working full time. I mean, I'm a career person. I've always worked. What am I going to do? Because you know, at school and we said well, what happens when the bus stops. Because the bus comes in the morning, it brings them home in the afternoon. You can manage working when that happens, But what happens when that goes away? And that was you know that that's what happens when school's over.
And anxiety sets in, frustration sets in. And then we ask ourselves, knowing all this while, would parents put their kids in that spot? Well, if desperate, if you're making a living and barely hanging in there, and you have a special needs child, especially if you're a single parent, what other option do you have? Even though it breaks your heart?
And what I came to understand is that people had become kind of like, it's kind of like the same thing. You just get used to this, this lack of service or this this well, this is what there is really and people have become quite okay with that. Even parents had come to the point where they're like, well, they resigned themselves too that this could potentially be the only place for them. And you're like, really, how does that happen? You think, oh, well, this is the only thing that they can do, and you need something to help you, So you're going to take this, and you kind of settle for that. I was so surprised to see that people would even be okay with that, if they would settle for something like that. But desperation, right, you need to work, you're a breadwinner, or you know, the child is a lot to handle all the time. You need a break. I can see why people are forced into those situations.
But you weren't having it.
Oh no, the Good Lord made me very stubborn, and so that's part of that's part of the thing is stubbornness.
So I want to read these numbers. There's two hundred and fifty thousand in North Texas with an intellectual and or development. This development, it's really IDD two hundred and fifty thousand in North Texas.
And that's an old census report there, or that is not the most current census report where that data comes from.
Only eight percent of adults with IDD are employed in the community. Nationally, it's not good either. Only fifteen to twenty percent correct. Fifty two percent of adults with the cognitive disability leave high school without a diploma. Sixty two percent of parents of adults disabilities do not have a plan for the future, and that does not. Don't take that as the parents aren't thinking about it. It's just there's no option.
It's options.
And so you said, na, we're going to do something different, and that became my possibilities and this thing I love. What began as a vision of three months looking for a better future for their children has turned into first of its kind continuing education and job placement program for adults with intellectual and development disability in North Texas aim to give adults with IBD the chance at a higher education and an opportunity to let their untapped possibilities shine. That's what began. That was your vision. Yes, so tell me about the beginning and that and how easy that was.
You know, nothing came easy. It was hard. We had no money, we didn't know what to do. And there was so much criticism as well, you know.
From the cared that okay, here's a squirrel, I'm chasing up a tree. I read that when you when you when you were looking for a building, that when people found out you were going to be trying to teach people beyond high school and get them job readiness for special needs folks, that people didn't want to rent that to you because that was what. I guess I was going to screw up the neighborhood.
I don't know, I don't know what they were thinking. But yes, we could not find anybody that release us a facility that we could start.
We went criticized for even the criticize. Explain that, who who was criticizing you? And why?
Well, a when we first started the school district, who were like, what do you guys know about this? To start something like that? So we had that whole life exactly where their caring system knows better than the correct so what do you know? What do you know about that? And then some of the other parents because what we were trying to do wasn't what they wanted for their children, so then it was a selective few or something like that. So it's so interesting because it's such a need and the portfolio of people that we serve are so large. There's space for everybody, but it's that deficit model that says, there's nothing out there, so I'm just going to take everything that you know I wanted my way, And you're like, well, it's for the great of good. It's not just for one, it has to be for everyone, right, And so that was the interesting thing to be able to do that. We went to churches to ask them your big you know Texas has got megachurches on corners, and said, listen, you've got these big buildings. During the week, those buildings stand opened. You think you could give us some space. Nope, not a mission, not a ministry, nothing like that.
And we were like, why it is this?
So we really struggled to find a vacation.
Why was it? What were the excuses given?
I'm curious one was that. The one in particular was it was not their mission. And you're like, really, it's human beings. The church is not that mission. And you've got all these vacant buildings that you could use during the day, Why on earth would you not? I mean, we were willing to pay for it. It wasn't we going to you know, it would help the church, but nope, wouldn't do it. And we went to multiple churches. They were not open to it. Again, I think it's our population, right. They were concerned about the risks because that's what everybody. They don't say it to your face, but indirectly they're talking about the risks because I think there's so many misconceptions about people with special needs. Often mental health and people with special needs are tied together, so when people are thinking of somebody with an intellectual disability, they're actually thinking about people that have serious mental illness and have those kind of things. So I think those were some of the things that we had to do because we had to fix up those stereotypes to say, Gosh, these guys have an intellectual disability, they're not dangerous people. They are loving and kind and just want whatever. So we had to do a lot of education. So I think it's that misperception between mental illness and someone with a disability. I mean, that's a huge difference, right.
And finally you found a crappy building with wires hanging from the roof.
Absolutely and a gentleman in Houston had a daughter that had special needs, so he understood and allowed us to use this building. But it was an old, dilapidated building. I mean, the wires were hanging down from the ceiling, and he was like, okay, you can take it, but then you'd have to fix it up. Was this Plano in Plano our very first location, and so we were going to fix it up. I put my therapy office in the back of it because we couldn't afford the rent. So that we could offset some of the rent, I subleas some of the space. And we went to a community and said, hey we could In the middle of a winter, were sitting there with blankets, no lights on. Hey, this could be the future home of my possibilities. But can you help us? And that's when that community started to come around us, I can do paint, Shirman. There was a gentleman networked for Sherman Williams. Hey I could do the paint. Hey, I could do the carpets, Hey I could do this, I could do that. And so we began to think, Wow, this could be a potential to do this. And the owner of the building was so sweet to do a graduated least for us so that we could get on our feet and to be able to start and do this kind of thing stuff. So we had to fix up this building where to paint it. My first media ever is me and my son cleaning the most horrendous male toilets in this building. It was just disgusting, and there somebody snapped us and there's a photo of him and I cleaning up the male bathrooms. It was the most disgusting thing we've ever experienced. But again, when you start something, you have to be willings to put all that sweat equity and do everything that you need to do. And we had to raise money. We had to raise two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to get the doors open.
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Charmaine Solomon, and you don't want to miss part two that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country and it starts with you. I'll see in part two
