Latest / Conservation Stories / Paddle, Fish, Heal: Heroes on the Water and the Power of Community

Transcript

Paddle, Fish, Heal: Heroes on the Water and the Power of Community · Conservation Stories

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Hello, I'm Dusty Timmons with Conservation Stories, and I recently was afforded the opportunity to go to the Hunt Fish Podcast Summit held outside of Houston and interview a number of venturing people for the conservation stories that you'll be hearing over the next couple of weeks. Included in these are people from all walks of life that are involved in conservation and charitable organizations that I feel will be really interesting. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I enjoyed recording the interviews for you. Good morning. I'm here with Camille Null. She's the director of Volunteer programs for Heroes on the Water, where she leads a national strategy to support and empower volunteers who deliver the therapeutic kayak fishing experiences to veterans, first responders, and their families. Camille, tell me a little bit about Heroes in the water and where it came from.
• 0:52
  Speaker B: So we started in 2007. Our founder, Jim Dolo, Air Force veteran and retired Air Force and American Airlines pilot. He also did a lot of volunteering for the center for the Intrepid Brooks Army Medical Center. He came and took a kayak fishing school for my husband, and it resonated with him and helped him. So he went back to Brooks and asked direct therapists if you we could take a group of guys down. The difference between those guys on we took them down to the coast. A lot of really good kayak anglers at the time came and volunteered their time, and we took them out. Friday night was quiet. Not a lot, you know, not a lot of conversations had. By Sunday, we couldn't shut everybody up. They were acting as easy unit. They were picking on each other. They were encouraging each other. The rec therapist came back on Monday and said, what did you do to my boys? And Jim panicked. And she says, no, no, no. She said, they're. She goes, I haven't seen them this excited about being here or being together. So they're picking on each other, they're encouraging each other. They're excited about what comes next, he said. And. And the only thing different is y' all taking them out and introducing them to what it feels like to be out on the water.
• 2:22
  Speaker A: That's incredible. When you, when he founded the program, was there an emphasis? I mean, you said he'd volunteered quite a bit prior to that. So it's just been has dealing with disabled veterans and first responders something that's been always been kind of in his brain. He just found a good outlet for it.
• 2:42
  Speaker B: He felt like he was very, very fortunate that he came out of the service hole and he flew C130s.
• 2:53
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker B: And so he Had a really good perspective of what could have been. And it was something that he was very passionate about to making sure that our veterans knew that they had support. And some of them struggling, helping them find what they needed to function in a civilian world, because that's hard for them.
• 3:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, I have some friends that are veterans and that's one thing that they, you know, we don't talk about it a whole lot. It's kind of one of those things that if you're, if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't talk about it. But one of them is a really good friend of mine. He's like, you know, the thing about it is he said, whether you come out whole or not, he said there's always something you're dealing with. And he said, whether it's something as simple as going from a very strict regimen in life to all of a sudden there's nothing out there. You know, you don't have, you don't have reveley getting you up in the morning or anything like that anymore. And he said, he said it's. You don't realize how much you fall into a pattern of just the uniformity and you fall on that. And then once that's gone, he said, you know, it's. He said for some guys it was, he's. For him, it's fairly been fairly easy. But he, he tells me, but people he deals with, his buddies that were in the service with him that are, he's like, man, he said, you gotta like really, you know, relearn how to do things because it's not. He said, he said, you know, you think it's the same, but it's not the same. And so just having that ability to have somebody to lean on and, and help through seems to help a good bit. Now. How long have you been. Obviously, if you're in. If it's a kayak based organization and your husband taught kayak classes and stuff like that, which I, I'd like to take some time. That sounds like good. That sounds like a good time. But how long have you been in it?
• 4:49
  Speaker B: Have you in.
• 4:51
  Speaker A: In a kayak, like in kayak fashion?
• 4:53
  Speaker B: Since duo. Recreationally, since the early 2000s, so probably 2002, 2003. Professionally, I went to work. I started. I was a paddle sports buyer for a retail store and then for 12 years. And then I went in 2017 I went to work for a kayak manufacturer and then in 2020 I went to work for Heroes on the Water.
• 5:22
  Speaker A: That is very cool. The, the program. Tell me a little bit about the growth of the program. If you started in 20, you started in 2020. What did you tell me? 2007. I'm sorry.
• 5:34
  Speaker B: That's okay.
• 5:35
  Speaker A: It's, you know, it comes in one ear, it goes out the other and it doesn't get caught in the middle. There's not a whole lot between the ears to slow it down on the way out. So you have to forgive me that. In 2007, you start that. It's just that, you know, first you had, you said, had the started with a small group. What's it growing in? What's the growth curve of heroes on the water look like?
• 5:53
  Speaker B: So we probably add about, I think last year I added eight chapters. The year before that it was 10 chapters. But through attrition we lose some.
• 6:06
  Speaker A: Right.
• 6:07
  Speaker B: We are completely volunteer led. So each of our chapters has a group of volunteers. I asked that it before, you know, just to help spread the responsibilities. And life happens. Yeah, life happens. And it's to no fault of their own, you know, that they just couldn't continue and there wasn't anybody to step up and take over. Obviously our first choice is if we move into a community, we want to stay in that community and serve the veterans and first responders in that area. But it doesn't always happen that way. And we're a small staff. Limits we have. There's only three of us that run the ball ops department. I'm the director and I have two volunteer coordinators that work for me. And we manage all 55 chapters to the tune of about 3,000 volunteers a year.
• 7:13
  Speaker A: Wow, that's a lot of volunteers.
• 7:15
  Speaker B: It is a lot of volunteers.
• 7:17
  Speaker A: That's a lot of moving parts. And when you go, when you go and you. A new chapter opens, do most of the new chapters come by people that find out about it and contact you and say, hey, we want to start a chapter here?
• 7:30
  Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. We get a lot of it, word of mouth. We've got some from the guys that do our therapeutic program. So we'll have to back up in a minute and talk about the two different programs. But our therapeutic program like at Brooks Army Medical is actually contracted with the DOD and we work directly with the record therapists that are there. So we provide a weekly on the water event while they're in treatment.
• 8:02
  Speaker A: Wow.
• 8:03
  Speaker B: So we work with the active duty. We work with active duty there. And we don't know, they may be transitioning out, they may be going back, you know, but we wanted to introduce them to kayak fishing as a way to reset, relax and find some calm as part of their transition. Either way.
• 8:32
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 8:33
  Speaker B: You know, either way sometimes like you said, we, we. They struggle with the transition from regiment to not. This gives them an opportunity. We want it to be part of their life lifestyle. And I don't care if it's kayak fishing, I don't care if it's golfing, I don't care if it's equestrian, you know, taking care of horses, whatever. They need to find something that gives them that calm, that reset that, hey, let me let go of everything for just a few minutes so I can go back and be who I want to be with my family, my friends, my co workers without having to put a pill on it.
• 9:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, just being able to clear out the noise and it's got, it's. It's amazing how when you go out in nature and it's quiet and all you hear is the wind and the birds and you hear, you know, you. It's odd that that silence would be. Get more silence, but the way that that has a calming effect and just washes your brain. It's just quiet and you just like deep breath and go. It's the most amazing white noise anywhere is nature.
• 9:49
  Speaker B: And we've watched. This is one of my favorite parts is when you put somebody new out on a kayak and you push them out and they go out and they just hit it just right. You watch. Excuse me. Watch their shoulders just drop.
• 10:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:08
  Speaker B: And they kind of lean back in the sea and it's like, oh, this is it. This feels good, you know?
• 10:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 10:16
  Speaker B: And that's the beginning of them discovering the white noise that is being on the water. On the kayak. Fishing is great no matter what, but a kayak is so, so quiet.
• 10:30
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 10:31
  Speaker B: That you're just floating there and it's, you know, the same. Hear people talk about floating on their back in the pool, you know, and the water plugging their ears and everything. Same kind of concept, you know, it's just that being out on the water. We have a study that we've done. It's a peer reviewed study, we call it Operation Early Impact. And the results are 95% reported an increase in stress management skills. 94% reported improvement in their personal relationships and 94% reported how programs helped them be more mindful. So having this to prove what Jim knew about in 2007, me and one of the other guys that are director of therapeutic programs, him and I have been with Jim from the beginning and knew what Jim's vision was. And one day Jim wanted to be able to say that a doctor could write a prescription for paddlefish heel. And we're this close. We lost Jim in 2019 to a heart attack, but he. I keep in touch with his wife quite a bit, keep her up to speed on what's going on. But I know he's watching over us and I know he's proud of what we've accomplished and the structure. Running a non profit is not easy for anybody no matter what your mission is. And you know, everybody, everybody has great causes and great missions. So standing out among Koheno is, is, is hard, but we're very passionate about giving back to our veterans and our first responders. We brought the first responder craft crowd in in 2017 and recognizing that there's a difference between, there's a difference between what they do and the type of trauma that they experience, but it doesn't. The end results are the same.
• 12:59
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:00
  Speaker B: And as a life of the homicide investigator, I can tell you that the outdoors kept my husband sane during times that most people would have gone crazy.
• 13:15
  Speaker A: That wouldn't be it. I heard that, you know, most human, most, most people have, I think it was something like four traumatic events in their life. And they were talking about first, you know, first responders may have four traumatic events per shift.
• 13:29
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 13:30
  Speaker A: You know, and he's like, you know, it's, it's not, you know, you're, you know, you may not be getting shot at, you may not getting blown up or anything like that, but, you know, it does not take that to rise to a level of trauma that can affect your psyche and how you, how you function. And, you know, it's the. We don't, you know, there's, it's. To me, it's better now than it was when I was a kid, but we still don't appreciate the sacrifices that a lot of our first responders make. Um, we always think, well, you know, it's a job that they chose, you know, they're going to do their job, you know, and you see an ambulance go by and you don't think anything about it. But when you start meeting people and you start realizing, you know, it's a, it's, you know, it is, it is a job that you pick. But by the same token, though, there's, you know, everything's got sacrifice that you have to make for it and some of the sacrifices are pretty, pretty hard. And to see what, you know, organizations like Heroes on the Water have done is it's it's very fantastic. It's heartening for me to see that, you know, hey, you know, people are starting to realize you, let's support these guys a little bit more than we have in the past. And you know, let's not just let everybody suffer and be suffering silence and just go on with it, you know. And it's not that, you know, it's not that everybody needs to sit down across with a therapist, but if you mean, if you have an outlet. I mean, the most therapeutic things I've done don't necessarily involve talking to other humans.
• 14:58
  Speaker B: And I think that's, that's the part of the message that we need to get out. The first responder community. When they hear therapeutic kayak fishing or they hear, you know, paddlefish heel, They get their, you know, they get their shoulders up around their ears. Yeah, I don't want to do that. It's, it's just fishing. Nobody's going to force you to talk. We just want you to feel, we want to get you out on the water. We want to take you fishing on a kayak.
• 15:33
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:34
  Speaker B: What you get out of it beyond that is, is bonus. We just want to take you fishing. If you meet a neighbor or a friend, you know, a fellow veteran or a fellow first responder that may become your fishing buddy, maybe, you know, y' all may meet out on the water or at an event and next thing you know y' all are going fishing every weekend. You know, you're helping each other out. We don't talk about this a lot. You're building your phone tree, you're building your support system. You're getting back into a community or depending on where you're coming from, a new unit.
• 16:18
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 16:19
  Speaker B: A new tight knit community of like minded people that enjoy doing what you do.
• 16:27
  Speaker A: Yeah, that, that community, that, that interaction is so, you know, humans are very, you know, we're very social. You know, we're, you know, we, we run in groups. We run, you know, tend to, to, you know, there's outliers and everything, you know, but it's kind of, it's ironic. I was thinking the other day that with my job in agriculture as a, you know, running the vineyard, I can go and not see two people. Like I see my wife in the morning and go to the farm and I'm on the farm and my, it's not, it's not way outside of town, but it's outside of town to be in the country. And so I sit out there and I'm out there by Myself all day and it's me and my dog. And during the day I've gone, I get back home and I've seen the people in the cars that pass me by as I'm driving. Maybe I talk to the person at the convenience store where I get a cup of coffee in the morning and then I've seen my wife again in the evening and that's maybe who all I meet. And you know, I always kidding myself that, you know, that, you know, I would be perfectly happy just, you know, just be by myself. But when it really boils down to it, you have to have that human interaction and you have to have. And so many human interactions are built with common interest and, you know, having that common interest. And I mean, organizations like Heroes on the Water, it's, it's interesting to me because it's not something that I would ever think about in my little pea brain and. But then when you hear somebody like yourself explain it, you're like, oh, that makes perfect sense. That would be awesome. That would be an amazing organization. I mean, it's kind of like when somebody invents something and is making millions of dollars off of a widget and you're like, I could have done that. Like, yeah, but you didn't.
• 18:10
  Speaker B: Exactly.
• 18:11
  Speaker A: But talk about the two branches of Heroes on the Water. You talked about the therapeutic side of it.
• 18:17
  Speaker B: Right. So I'm the director of volunteer programs. So I work with all the volunteer led chapters. The other side of it, our program is called our therapeutic program. These are programs that are contracted with either the DoD or the VA and we're working directly with recreational therapists at VA facilities or military hospitals or so. And I will get this wrong, but MWRs, I think are more SRUs or Soldiers Recovery Units. These kind of things have rec therapists, occupational therapists and all that. They're, they're assigned to that unit for time for a treatment. We're part of their treatment. We work with the rec therapist. And one day a week for 10, 12 weeks or every other week for 10 or 12 weeks, we provide our program, our kayak fishing program. We have a contractor shows up with all the, all the equipment, everything, and puts these guys, these soldiers or these marines or these veterans, out on the water for four or five hours. They have lunch together in the afternoons, our standard outline, and gives them time on the water, introduces them to the, the water before they transition out. Yeah, and we have had several that have come from our therapeutic program. I say several. A few that have come from our therapeutic program moved Back home, wherever home was, and said, you know what? I miss it. I want to start a chapter here. I just did one last year for Louisville in Louisville community, Kentucky, that he came out of Brooks Army Medical center in San Antonio and he said he's on a hundred percent oxygen or oxygen 100% of the time and carries around a tank with him. It never slowed him down. He figured out how to put the tank in the back of the kayak, go down the river. When he got home, his family said, you know, this is something we did together while you were in treatment. You know, we, they all missed it. So they started a chapter in Louisville.
• 20:43
  Speaker A: I'll be there. Yeah, that is amazing. It's, you know, that, that's one of the things that can, you know, it, it doesn't take much to keep to, to keep the, keep it going, keep the excitement going in that thing. And it's amazing to watch the impact that you can have in someone's life doing that. And you know, that's the, the,
• 21:05
  Speaker B: you
• 21:05
  Speaker A: know, they'll say everything is, everything is done is done selfish, you know, and even when you're doing something for somebody else, you're kind of like going, man, I feel so good when I do that.
• 21:14
  Speaker B: I, we all tell you, most of us, most of my volunteers will tell you they do it for the veterans and the first responders, but they get just as much out.
• 21:23
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Speaker B: And I know watching our volunteers work, it is a passion for them, but you watch them blossom. A lot of them are themselves veterans or first responders, and especially in the first responder community, I see them do better as a volunteer than a participant because it, and, and I think it's just the way they're programmed.
• 21:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:58
  Speaker B: They're in, in a lot of program to serve.
• 22:01
  Speaker A: Right.
• 22:01
  Speaker B: No matter what the capacity is, they're, they're programmed to serve.
• 22:05
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that's that there's a lot to be said for, for that. And you know, getting, you know, it's improving by giving back. You know, it makes a big difference in, in people's life and just the ability to give them something else to focus their mind on and you know,
• 22:23
  Speaker B: and understanding where they're coming from. Yeah, that's a big part of it is understanding where they're coming from, knowing how to communicate, you know, with them and being able to introduce them to something that, you know, can help them in the long run. Focus on their mental well being, you know, and give them a community.
• 22:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, that, that sense of community is something that my buddy that Is a vet, is a veteran, said that's the one thing that you lose that you don't realize. You know, you lose that sense of community. And you had this whole ranch, this whole thing that everything revolved around this community. And then you get out and all of a sudden there's nothing there anymore.
• 23:08
  Speaker B: And they're afraid to. To talk about certain things or say certain things.
• 23:13
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 23:15
  Speaker B: Because they don't know how the civilians are going to take it. You know, they got into, you know, they were comfortable with the way that they. The things they did, the things they said, the way they acted in that military or first responder world. There's a reason they come congregate together. Have you ever notice when you move into a subdivision that it's either no cops or all cops?
• 23:46
  Speaker A: I did not notice that. But there's several of them that live in my neighborhood.
• 23:50
  Speaker B: They have a tendency to gather because they're comfortable with each other. And that's why we do. What we do is to if. If you're no longer in the service and you've just come back home to someplace you've been away from for 12, 20 years, to be closer to family at home. Everything's changed. Nobody knows who you are in this version of you.
• 24:20
  Speaker A: Right.
• 24:20
  Speaker B: So we want to bring them a chance to meet other people in their community that are like them.
• 24:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:28
  Speaker B: And have similar experiences to them. And it was a safe place to hang out and just be.
• 24:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 24:36
  Speaker B: And being out on the water is a common denominator that is, I mean, that's a win. Win for everybody. Yeah. With our 55 chapters, we cover everything from, you know, cold, rainy stuff up in the Northeast, you know, but Northeast, Northwest and all along the coast and a little bit in the Midwest. But it's, it's getting them out. So it's. You want to go freshwater fishing, wanna go saltwater fishing, you want to go striper fishing. You know, we cover it all and it's up to help. Getting them out on the water to, you know, to hang out.
• 25:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. Just getting him out. That and I'm sure that, you know, when the, the founder, your founder of this. But, you know, it's obvious that when you have the desire to do something and then you have an interest that you enjoy doing and the ability to take that interest and tie it in. Talking about having lost him and in 19 and that he's looking down and I have no doubt you're right. I mean, because, you know, he's up, he's up there thinking, you know, this Is great.
• 25:55
  Speaker B: He planted the seed. We just took it from there.
• 25:57
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 25:59
  Speaker B: He laid some beautiful groundwork for us. And you know, at this point, it's like every other non profit. We want to continue to serve. When we do our therapeutic program with the VA or the dod, it's at no charge to the government. We provide that program to them completely funded by us. Wow. Same thing goes for our volunteer programs. Our volunteer programs. Each of our chapters do fundraising and community outreach within their community and are supported by their own community. Most of our chapters are self supporting. So a lot of our fundraising and our stuff goes through our therapeutic program and to help get equipment for the chapters to get started. You know, this is something that we need. Partners winning corporate funding. We need community partners.
• 27:07
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 27:08
  Speaker B: You know, if you're in San Antonio, you're in Dallas, you know, we've got chapters up in those areas that go out and check them out. Just go, go to event, watch what they do, watch the results, watch some, watch it, follow them on Facebook. Most of them are great. About posting pictures and videos, I love to tell you, you mentioned something about the impact. One of the guys that works for me, Jason Austin, I love to tell his story. He was our poster child for a lot of years and he's so passionate that he came back to work for us. But Jason was blown up. Typical. And I hate to say this because it's sad, but it's not a unique story.
• 28:03
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker B: In a Humvee, driving down the desert, got blown up. He spent 900 days in the hospital.
• 28:12
  Speaker A: Oh my God.
• 28:14
  Speaker B: Died multiple times on the table. But they brought him back and he came home. His home life wasn't what he expected it to be when he came home. And it wasn't easy for him to transition and he was about to make some really bad decisions when his phone rang and one of our Florida volunteers called him and said, hey, a friend of mine told me you might want to go fishing. You might be interested in going fishing with us. So why don't you meet us tomorrow? Me and a couple of guys are gonna go out. I'll bring all your gear, I'll bring everything you need. Just come on, let's go. And he rethought his decision for the day and went fishing the next day. Come home after that fishing trip, sold all of his guns and went and bought a kayak. And he'll tell you his self. That phone call saved his life. And if we can have. And most of our volunteers will tell you, there's multiple stories like that out There, we may never hear them all, but we don't stop calling. We don't stop reaching out, because you never know when that next one is going to be. Just at the right time.
• 29:39
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's not gonna make me tear up and cry here. The reason it hits so hard is my buddy that is a vet, in the last, I think, three years, he's had two of the guys that he served with that took their own lives.
• 29:55
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Speaker A: And, you know that. And he's. It's really interesting talking to him about it because it. I mean, it's hard on him.
• 30:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 30:06
  Speaker A: You know, it's. That's.
• 30:08
  Speaker B: What could I have done better?
• 30:10
  Speaker A: What could. Exactly, you know, what can I do? What can I do? You know, and the most recent one was, I guess, was. I think it was last year, and I'd met the gentleman that did. And it never, you know, when I talked to him, he was. When I met him, he'd come out and we just, you know, kind of hung out and just shot the breeze and, you know, it was really cool.
• 30:29
  Speaker B: Guy.
• 30:29
  Speaker A: I like, you know, I like the guy, but we got back and went through some personal struggles, you know, with the family and with his wife and kids and stuff. And, you know, he just. It just added up. And, you know, there's so many servicemen and women that do take their own lives in that stuff, and it's. They get into such a bleak space that there's not any, you know, that they. Do you think that that's an answer, you know, and I've been super fortunate in my life that I've not had, you know, I've not had a lot of friends and stuff that have gone through that kind of. That level of depression and stress and in life that. That became an option for it. But when in talking to my buddy about it, he's like, you know, he said, I don't know what I could have done. He said. I called him. He said, you know, I spoke with him on the phone frequently because. And then as soon as I could tell, but, you know, I could tell it was going down, so I started calling him more, and he said, nothing. I did help, you know, I was like, hey, get. You know, get off. Get out here and come spend some time with me. You know, quit hanging out there where it's, you know, where it looks bleak. Let's get you a change of scenery, whatever, you know, but he couldn't, you know, and, like, at the end of the day, you know, and I worry about my friend every now and then. Just because stuff like that hits everybody else as hard as it, I mean, that's, I always said that it's a long term solution to a short time, short term problem, but when you're in the throes of that stuff, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't seem like it. You can't see anything, but you don't see anything but black. And that's why it was so exciting to hear about what Heroes and Water is doing. Because it gives a ray of sunshine, it gives an outlet for it. It's terrible.
• 32:26
  Speaker B: It's not especially when it hits home. And that's, like I said, that's. It's why we do, it's why our volunteers do what they do. It's why we're all passionate about what we do, is because we can't save everybody, but if we can save one or two and give people the tools, and that's our job, is we give our volunteers the tools they need to do what they do in their community. They're the ones with the heart and the soul for the mission. They're the ones that are reaching out to those in their community. They know their community. They know the veterans in their community. They know the first responders. So that's why we have our, we just like. So we just provide them with the equipment, the program and the structure to do what they do so well.
• 33:30
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Speaker B: And so you know, for listeners out there, if you look around heroesonthewater.org we have our map. Go to locations. You can see where all of our chapters are. Each dot if you click on it, it pulls up their webpage, their individual webpage talks about where they fish, how they, you know, the area that they serve, all of their contact information. So say San Antonio. You pull them up, it's going to have their event list, it's going to have all of their information on it and their email and how to reach out to them. We support your local volunteer. That's the biggest go out and volunteer. If you've got a chapter near you or if you want to be one of those people that gives back, call me. That's my job.
• 34:31
  Speaker A: You get to hurt all the cats that volunteer.
• 34:33
  Speaker B: I do, I do. But one of the. I love to hear one of my first questions when I talk to a prospective volunteer is so first, how did you hear about us? Second, why? Why do you want to do this? What's your why? And often gets to stories like what you just shared, you know, a brother or a sister or a friend or a neighbor. They've been personally touched in some way or another or personally called to give back to that community, and they want to do something. Don't have to be a kayak fishing expert. We do ask that you at least find somebody in your community that is. But, you know, we do for safety reasons and things like that. But yeah, it's. It's a very rewarding to watch the difference between before and after getting out on the water. It is. It. I. I have a story. We do a lot of women's events because women's veterans have in. First responders have a unique situation in some cases. So what we do is a lot of our chapters will do a women only event just so it gives them a safe space to be. And we were doing one of. I was attending one up in northwest Arkansas, and I had this woman show up. Never been on a kayak before. She was a Navy veteran, terrified of the water. And she was in her early 70s, late 60s, early 70s. Her husband had passed away. She was just getting back in finding the community. And she was involved with the women's veterans group in Arkansas. And so they talked her into coming out. We put outriggers on her kayak, got her all settled in, pushed her out on the water, and that's the first time she had been on the water since she was in, like, basic training.
• 36:49
  Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
• 36:51
  Speaker B: And she just absolutely terrified of the water. But she went out there, sucked it up. She said, I really want to do this. She paddled out to another group that was in the middle of the lake, turned around and came, came back, and the smile on her face was everything. She was still a little nervous, but so proud of herself that at that age, she took that chance and she overcame a fear and went out and did it. The confidence that she had coming back off the water could make a difference in her life from that point on. And, you know, as we grow older, you know, you start thinking about that just because you're in your late 60s, early 70s, 80s for that matter. If you can learn something new, you can conquer a fear. You want to keep doing that because it keeps you engaged, it keeps you moving and keeps you sharp. Well, some of these guys, we don't want them giving up at that point. Vietnam veterans are the ones that I love to spend time with. They aren't getting in a kayak. Yeah, they're not getting a kite. But they can come up, sit in a lawn chair on a. On a bank, like what we have here, Podcast Summit. You know, they could Sit on a bank with a fishing rod they could sit on. We have, I've seen some of them with fully rigged out wheelchairs, with rod holders. I don't care how. Find your community. And if that's the way that you can get involved, then get them out there.
• 38:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that is such an amazing, I mean, it's, there's so much good that you're doing in it and I appreciate, you know, I can speak for myself, but I think I speak for a lot of people that are going to listen to this podcast. Thank you very much for everything that you've done, for everything that you've poured into it. And it's because people like you do the things that you do as you're, you know, in, at that stage of your life when you could be doing a lot of other things. It makes, it encourages and it gives us everybody else that's going into that stage of life, like, hey, you know what? I don't have to not do this. I can, I can go do something that's something that's good, something that's, you know, most people, you know, I always joke that, you know, if I had to go back in time, I would find something that from the time I got out of college for 20 years was going to be the most, you know, that's like, hey, what are they saying is going to be the most proper thing? And I do 20 years for money and then I would do the rest of my life for everything else, for passion. I just block it off and just, and just do that. But the fact that you've taken the time to get involved in an organization and to build the organization and continue to grow it and do so much good for the people that are, that give so much to our society, you know, regardless of how anyone feels about military, what they, you can't deny the sacrifice.
• 40:01
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker A: You know, that's the thing that can't be. You can complain about, you know, whoever is elected, you can complain about, you know, whatever policy you want to, but when it comes to the guy, you know, that, you know, in a lot of cases, 18 year old men and women, you know, kids, you know, I remember, you know, my kids are moving into 25 now, so 18 was seven years ago. But I remember thinking, you know, I remember signing up for selective service at 18, you know, having to go to the post office and fill out the card and everything like that. And I was, you know, I didn't really think about it at the time because that's just, you know, you just Something you did. But then when I saw my kids going through and doing that, I'm like going. But they're just little kids, you know, and you know, and then in, you know, the sacrifice that we ask of people and you know, there's got to be. We all as a society have to be more like you and be willing to say they gave up this. I'm going to help them go on the next chapter of their life and help them make the step to the next, to the next phase and so they can keep going with it. So how can you get. What is your website again?
• 41:13
  Speaker B: So it's heroesonthewater.org heroesonthewater.org and they go back. We have a phenomenal team. Our volunteers do the bulk of the mission. You can reach out to any of our chapters on our website, Heroes OnlyWater.org you go to what we do or locations or whatever. There's multiple places. When you get to the map, it's a map of the United States and each blue dot represents a volunteer led chapter. If you click on it, it will pull up. You can also scroll down below the map and click on the link. Either way.
• 41:51
  Speaker A: Either way works out well.
• 41:52
  Speaker B: Either way.
• 41:53
  Speaker A: So changing the subject and trying to lighten the mood just a little bit because I'm saying I'm still fighting back deers over here, but. So what kind of kayaks do you use?
• 42:07
  Speaker B: So we use a couple of different brands, partners that we work with in, in the kayak world. Jackson Kayak is a, is a partner of ours as well as native watercraft. Both manufacturers have been very supportive of our program. And so the majority of them, they're all sit on tops. Some are more stable than others. But for the most part, most of our boats are stable. We look for things that are universally stable depending on, you know, no matter what, no matter who gets in there, get bottled. A lot of our chapters will do 35 inch wide, sit on top, basic structure that brought holders and then a couple of tandems so that if a mother or father or somebody shows up and wants to bring a child, highly encourage family participation and they can show up with that. If you have somebody that is, you know, I hate to say disabled, but it doesn't have full function of some part of their body. Yeah, there are ways we have adaptive equipment that we can get for the chapters we use pedal drives a lot for those that can't paddle. So I mean it's just, you know, we'll figure out. We have a fort, a Fort Worth police officer, female police officer that was shot in the line of duty, and she was paralyzed, and she's in a wheelchair, and we got her out on water, and she said it was the first time in a long time she felt normal. Yeah. Because she was able to do something, quote, normal. Yeah. And she had to have somebody help her, you know, but we got her in the kayak, they paddled her around, she got to fish just like she did with the. Her dad when she was younger. And it brought back memories, it made her smile, and it gave her community she was comfortable with. To me, that's a huge win.
• 44:22
  Speaker A: That is a huge win. That is a fantastic win. So. Well, I appreciate your time. And God almighty, I say. I swear, every time I think I'm over it, I basically burst into tears again. But. Well, I want to thank you for all that you do and what you've done for the. For the community, the, you know, the veterans and. And first responders as well. And if I do buy a kayak, I will buy a Jackson or. Or a native window, and I'll make sure that I let them know that the reason I'm buying this is because they support heroes in the water. But, you know, I live in a place that's bereft of open water. A lot of times, you know, there are some places I can write it down, but, you know, but it's so amazing. You know, I'm just. It's been such a blessing to talk to you.
• 45:16
  Speaker B: Well, thank you for having me.
• 45:18
  Speaker A: I really did appreciate it, and I thank you so very much for what you've done and what you. What you continue to do.
• 45:25
  Speaker B: We're part of a great team. Jim started it, and we've just. Just continued his drive and his mission. And we're very fortunate to have some phenomenal volunteers who love to serve.
• 45:39
  Speaker A: Well, they're led by a good volunteer.
• 45:41
  Speaker B: Thank you.
• 45:42
  Speaker A: Thank you very much for taking the time to be with me today.
• 45:45
  Speaker B: Thank you.