Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / Building Kidz with Vineeta Bhandari: Combining Academics and Performing Arts with aim to reach One Million children through a Network of Nonprofit entities, Franchisee-led & Corporate Schools

Transcript

Building Kidz with Vineeta Bhandari: Combining Academics and Performing Arts with aim to reach One Million children through a Network of Nonprofit entities, Franchisee-led & Corporate Schools · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of Inspired Stories, where leaders
• 0:07
  share their experiences so we can learn from their successes,
• 0:10
  how they've overcome adversity, and explore current challenges
• 0:13
  they're facing. Welcome to another edition of
• 0:18
  the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their
• 0:20
  experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired
• 0:24
  by how they've overcome adversity.
• 0:26
  My name is Anthony Cotespotti and today's guest is Vinita
• 0:29
  Bhandari, Founder, CEO and CMO of Building Kids Worldwide,
• 0:35
  where she upholds a collaborative culture among
• 0:38
  franchisees, staff and schools. Building Kids is a franchised
• 0:44
  early childhood Education Center with a presence in multiple
• 0:47
  states. Their vision is to leverage a
• 0:50
  global presence of preschools and nonprofit partnerships so
• 0:54
  they can provide a world class early childhood education for
• 0:58
  one million children. They believe that performing
• 1:01
  arts are an essential part of this process as it provides
• 1:04
  substantial enrichment and the facilitation of social,
• 1:08
  emotional, cognitive, and motor development.
• 1:12
  Now, before starting in the early childhood education space,
• 1:16
  Vinita gained tremendous experience at reputable
• 1:18
  companies such as Sun Microsystems, Levi Strauss, and
• 1:22
  Murdoch and Associates. She combines those experiences
• 1:25
  with her BA in Finance, MBA and Marketing, and her graduate
• 1:30
  certification in Early Childhood education as she leads Building
• 1:35
  Kids Growth. She's not all business though,
• 1:37
  as she stays attuned to the needs of children and parents
• 1:40
  and focuses heavily on the curriculum enhancements, ongoing
• 1:44
  training of her team, and she remains active and corporate
• 1:48
  social responsibility. Their website is building
• 1:52
  kidsschool.com where kids is spelled with AZ instead of an S.
• 1:56
  So building kidsschool.com. Now before we get into all that
• 2:00
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 2:03
  Add Back Benefits Agency, where we offer very specific and
• 2:07
  unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and
• 2:09
  fiscally optimized for your bottom line.
• 2:12
  One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per
• 2:16
  year in extra cash flow by implementing one of our
• 2:19
  programs. Results vary for each company
• 2:21
  and some organizations may not be eligible.
• 2:24
  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
• 2:26
  AD Back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
• 2:31
  CEO of Building Kids School, Vanita Bhandari.
• 2:34
  I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
• 2:38
  Thank you so much, Anthony, for having me on your podcast and
• 2:41
  your company. Absolutely.
• 2:43
  So Benita, you started out in corporate America with a number
• 2:48
  of really notable companies. How did you find your way to the
• 2:52
  child care industry? Very good question.
• 2:57
  I am actually proud to say that God put me on this path.
• 3:05
  It was an unfortunate situation. My daughter was diagnosed with
• 3:09
  type 1 diabetes when she was three years old and at that time
• 3:13
  I was working with Murdoch and Associate as a consultant, going
• 3:17
  to different hi tech industry companies and ensuring that the
• 3:22
  financial systems were set appropriately.
• 3:26
  Given that my daughter was diagnosed with a chronic disease
• 3:31
  where she needed constant attention, I chose to quit my
• 3:36
  most favorite job and try to be home with her soon.
• 3:42
  I realized within the first three months that it wasn't
• 3:46
  really beneficial for my daughter just to be around me
• 3:50
  and for me who had always had stimulation and worked and had a
• 3:54
  career to be home with her. So my mind started to churn and
• 3:59
  I'm like, what can I do where I could have a happy medium where
• 4:02
  she's also around her age group and I'm also feeling like I'm
• 4:07
  making a difference in her life and other people's life.
• 4:11
  And that's when the idea incepted of opening a preschool.
• 4:16
  It was a long journey as far as intensity.
• 4:21
  I had to quickly open because my daughter Sabrina wouldn't have
• 4:26
  been able to enjoy the services or benefit from it for too many
• 4:31
  years because then she would go to elementary school.
• 4:34
  So I rushed into getting my education because I had zero
• 4:38
  idea about how to run a preschool.
• 4:41
  I didn't understand child psychology.
• 4:44
  So that's why my first goal was to fully understand what does it
• 4:48
  really take? How do I understand the child's
• 4:51
  mindset? By the way, I gained a lot of
• 4:54
  personal benefit from doing that because parenting became a lot
• 4:58
  more easier and better for me. So I got my certification in
• 5:05
  early child education. As I was doing that, I was
• 5:08
  starting to look for different places and found out that it's
• 5:12
  not the easiest thing in this world to find a location that
• 5:16
  Department of Social Service would approve.
• 5:19
  So Long story short, finally found a very small location in
• 5:24
  Pacifica, CA and opened the first school for 30 children.
• 5:29
  So that was my main reason of shifting gears from corporate
• 5:33
  world to going into the preschool industry was because
• 5:37
  my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and I wanted to
• 5:41
  spend time with her, quality time, and yet make sure that we
• 5:46
  were still doing something for the community to help the rest
• 5:49
  of the children. So how long from idea to 1st
• 5:54
  opening your doors did that take?
• 5:57
  I would say total of about seven months.
• 6:00
  Wow, that's fast. I mean you had to get your your
• 6:04
  certification and you're looking for locations and setting up the
• 6:09
  business plan and the corporate structure and hiring people and
• 6:12
  getting the facility set up and renovated for all this.
• 6:16
  I mean seven months is is pretty fast turn around.
• 6:19
  It was, it was a lot of work. I'll be honest.
• 6:21
  I used to drive around pretty much 8 to 10 hours a day looking
• 6:25
  for locations. I went through brokers, I went
• 6:29
  online to look for different commercial spaces that were
• 6:32
  available, work with Department of Social Services to get their
• 6:36
  idea, tap onto their knowledge base and to help me expedite the
• 6:41
  process. So I got all the information
• 6:43
  that was needed to identify a location that licensing would
• 6:47
  approve because we are governed by Department of Social and they
• 6:51
  have a lot of regulations that we need to comply with.
• 6:57
  And so working in parallel with trying to get my education,
• 7:01
  understanding the industry, finding a location, equipping
• 7:05
  it, it all happened in about seven months because I know my
• 7:09
  daughter was at the school for about a year and a half after.
• 7:13
  So she then graduated to leave for elementary education to
• 7:17
  another school. And so she was with me for about
• 7:20
  good 18 months. Help us better understand what
• 7:24
  your corporate background was and how those skill sets may
• 7:29
  have been helpful in you starting building kids.
• 7:33
  And I'm again, very glad that you asked that because when I
• 7:36
  was trying to switch my career, my family was not in favor
• 7:40
  because there you are professional, you've done
• 7:42
  marketing and finance and you're going to early childhood
• 7:46
  education. That's just doesn't seem like it
• 7:49
  makes any sense. And I said it doesn't make sense
• 7:52
  from professional perspective. It makes a lot of sense for
• 7:55
  personal perspective. I want to make sure I'm there
• 7:57
  for my daughter. So what I did at the corporate
• 8:01
  word, it really helped me. I didn't think so in the
• 8:04
  beginning to be honest, because it was a whole new industry.
• 8:09
  But as I was doing my first school, I realized having that
• 8:16
  business sense, having the financial understanding of AP
• 8:19
  and L, knowing how to look at different reports was really
• 8:24
  helpful for me to run the school cost effectively.
• 8:29
  And today after all these years, our company promises or I
• 8:36
  wouldn't use the word promise that that's actually incorrect.
• 8:39
  We show in our FDD that our profitability is about 25 to 30%
• 8:47
  versus 15% average in this industry.
• 8:51
  Wow, that's. The reason for that is because
• 8:55
  over the years I used my financial experience to optimize
• 9:01
  our cost to ensure that we were spending in the right areas for
• 9:07
  the right reasons and ensuring that, for example, payroll is
• 9:12
  our biggest cost. How do you optimize the staff
• 9:15
  schedule? And that came from my experience
• 9:19
  being a manager at Sun Microsystem, where I had a team
• 9:23
  of eight people and we used to have our team come in at
• 9:28
  different times to be able to support our customers based on
• 9:31
  where the equipment was. So having that knowledge really
• 9:35
  helped me optimize our payroll dollars and therefore increase
• 9:40
  the profitability. So knowing financial systems was
• 9:44
  really helpful for me to ensure that we were reaching the
• 9:48
  optimization. Not only that, having that
• 9:50
  marketing knowledge was amazing because I was able to advertise
• 9:55
  and market to generate leads to come as, as parents to our
• 9:59
  school effectively and naturally help because we were fully
• 10:03
  enrolled in the first school in probably 2 1/2 months.
• 10:07
  It was a smaller site of 36 children, but in 2 1/2 months,
• 10:11
  to be able to enroll 36 children was a big deal for me.
• 10:14
  And then those parents who wanted to bring their kids to
• 10:17
  our school were asking for, oh, is there another site where we
• 10:21
  can bring our children to? Because there was a huge wait
• 10:23
  list, which is what prompted me to open the second site.
• 10:26
  And then as a independent owner or entrepreneur, I was able to
• 10:34
  open 11 sites that I managed by myself with the help of some
• 10:39
  regional directors and so on and so forth, A great team of
• 10:42
  people. I've always been very blessed
• 10:43
  with excellent individuals who have really been very supportive
• 10:48
  and helped me through this journey.
• 10:50
  So I feel like my background from corporate world really
• 10:55
  helped me with marketing, finance, customer service,
• 10:59
  learning how to understand different personalities, working
• 11:02
  with them accordingly. And that was very critical and
• 11:06
  in my journey to be where we are today.
• 11:09
  That is a powerful suite of experiences to draw from.
• 11:12
  I had the pleasure to talk to the founders of many childcare
• 11:17
  centers. And there the beginning part of
• 11:21
  your story is somewhat similar to what I've heard from several
• 11:24
  other owners where they had a personal situation where, you
• 11:28
  know, they started the child care center because they had a
• 11:30
  child that they wanted to be around and that, you know, they
• 11:32
  wanted something to do and something to build.
• 11:35
  But where your story is a little bit special, a little bit unique
• 11:38
  is in the the corporate experience that you brought to
• 11:42
  the table. Not only did you have finance
• 11:45
  experience which has helped you to really optimize the
• 11:48
  operations and the profit margins of the business, but
• 11:51
  that marketing side of things is incredibly powerful as well.
• 11:55
  Like you said, as you open a new center within a couple of months
• 11:58
  to be, you know, completely full is amazing.
• 12:02
  And you know, to how quickly was it that you opened that second
• 12:05
  facility, Bonita? We opened the second site in
• 12:09
  about a year and three months, OK.
• 12:12
  And then what was the? Times they acquired in other
• 12:14
  sites, it was already operational and they wanted to
• 12:17
  get out of the business and that actually became our business
• 12:20
  model to acquire versus to start grounds up.
• 12:25
  Today we are not just acquiring, we also offered the opportunity
• 12:29
  for our franchisees to do grounds up, but that's a lot
• 12:34
  longer process versus acquisitions.
• 12:37
  And for all the ones that I did, they were all acquisitions and
• 12:41
  there were people who were trying to get out of the system
• 12:44
  because either they were retiring or had a personal
• 12:47
  challenge, whatever the reasons were.
• 12:49
  And I thought that was the best way to go about expansion
• 12:55
  because it was a lot shorter time frame and there were
• 12:58
  certain challenges that when you open from grounds up versus when
• 13:03
  you acquire those challenges are a lot easier to deal with.
• 13:07
  Yeah, you've already got some infrastructure there.
• 13:09
  You've got a building, you've got a staff, you've got some
• 13:12
  processes that you may come in and change, but and you've also
• 13:15
  got clientele. Exactly.
• 13:17
  Yeah, it's a big. We just would take over and
• 13:19
  rebrand it to the. Lincolns yeah.
• 13:21
  And so you ended up, you opened your first one, you acquired 10,
• 13:26
  so you got to 11 that you were managing by yourself with a good
• 13:29
  team. That's quite an undertaking.
• 13:32
  I mean, you went from startup mode to within a few years
• 13:37
  you've got several locations that you're operating.
• 13:41
  You know, having talked to a lot of business founders, not a lot
• 13:45
  of people sort of make that transition from startup mode to
• 13:48
  being able to be more of a manager in growth mode.
• 13:52
  And I think again, this is probably where your corporate
• 13:56
  experience became really helpful because you had worked in these
• 14:00
  big corporate environments. So getting to scale and sort of
• 14:03
  putting those layers and the that that extra infrastructure
• 14:07
  in place that's necessary to support a bigger company was
• 14:10
  probably second nature to you. Yeah, it definitely helped, I
• 14:15
  must say that. OK.
• 14:18
  So, OK, so you've got 11 centers and then at what point did you
• 14:21
  decide to move into the franchise model?
• 14:25
  So one of the parents who I knew from when he was a 6 year old
• 14:33
  kid and I met this kid through my friends, even now a adult and
• 14:39
  he brought his kid to our school virtually.
• 14:43
  He fell in love with what we did and said I would like to
• 14:46
  support, help consult. If you want to grow, I'm there
• 14:51
  for you. And I thought that was a kind of
• 14:53
  a great idea because I wanted to go into companies and apartment
• 14:57
  complexes and I felt like I was limited with my time.
• 15:01
  So I kind of I had that conversation with them to see if
• 15:05
  we could grow with his support. Just then another individual
• 15:12
  talked to me about this business sounds really fulfilling because
• 15:18
  you're making a difference in children's life.
• 15:20
  And so between those two individuals, both happened to be
• 15:24
  engineers with big companies. One is both of them are now
• 15:28
  partners and one of them is Sanjay Gahani, who worked for
• 15:34
  Xilinx for many years and he joined hands along with Singit
• 15:38
  Karamjandani, who was also an engineer and worked for NVIDIA
• 15:42
  at the point. And so the three of us got
• 15:44
  together and we said we have big dreams, how do we get there?
• 15:50
  And just by opening centers ourselves may not be the best
• 15:55
  route because our vision was to to help one million children.
• 16:00
  How do we do that? We wanted octopus arms.
• 16:05
  How do we get the octopus arms was that's when the idea
• 16:08
  triggered that how about if we became a franchisor and there
• 16:13
  are these individuals who might be really, really helpful and
• 16:18
  they will have their attention and focus because it's their own
• 16:21
  business versus hiring people in order for them to be successful.
• 16:27
  I think that kind of the idea triggered really well in all of
• 16:30
  our minds. And in 2014, I believe we
• 16:34
  started the process, 2015 we became a franchisor and we
• 16:41
  really think that was a great move because we've been able to
• 16:44
  support many more children through these different
• 16:48
  individuals who are also equally passionate about helping young
• 16:52
  children, especially because these are the formative years,
• 16:56
  they're a lot more important than the college years.
• 16:58
  That's what research is saying because that's when the brain
• 17:01
  development happens. Major part of brain development
• 17:05
  happens was early five years. And so we feel pretty good about
• 17:10
  the fact that we became a franchisor for those reasons.
• 17:13
  And today we have A50 plus operational sites and about 20
• 17:19
  plus more to open and we have great teams here to help us
• 17:25
  accomplish those goals. That's amazing.
• 17:28
  So you mentioned about the same time you were having the
• 17:31
  franchise conversations that you were interested in going into
• 17:33
  companies and apartment buildings.
• 17:35
  Did I hear that right? That was the original thought,
• 17:40
  but when we decided to become a franchisor, we realized that the
• 17:45
  companies to get into companies was really tough.
• 17:49
  You have to go to HR and HR would that have to talk to the
• 17:52
  management. The process was really long
• 17:55
  versus US marketing to individuals who wanted to open
• 17:59
  where they were located within their own demographics and they
• 18:05
  understood those really well. And so we realized that it might
• 18:09
  not be a bad idea to go ahead and start opening in different
• 18:13
  areas versus in companies. The thought was if you open in a
• 18:17
  company that you already have parents coming there or work,
• 18:20
  it's convenient for them and so on and so forth.
• 18:23
  But to get through that door was very bureaucratic.
• 18:26
  So we realized very quickly that that would be a hard process to
• 18:31
  go about doing. Now we are in.
• 18:34
  Recently we signed an engagement where we're in an apartment
• 18:36
  complex and there's one in Florida that we're pursuing.
• 18:39
  So going into apartment complexes or developments is a
• 18:45
  lot easier and that's what we are shooting for.
• 18:49
  And has one of those locations opened yet in in an apartment
• 18:52
  building? The one in Hayward, CA will be
• 18:56
  opening in November. OK, I'll be really interested to
• 18:59
  hear how that goes. I mean, how convenient for
• 19:01
  parents on their way to work. Here you go.
• 19:04
  And on their way home from work, you know, it's it.
• 19:07
  It could not be more convenient. It's not the least little bit
• 19:09
  out of their way, right? So you have a goal of helping
• 19:15
  1,000,000 children. That's a pretty audacious goal,
• 19:18
  Anita. Where does the drive for that
• 19:20
  come from? That drive came from There is a
• 19:24
  lot of less fortunate children around the globe and how do we
• 19:31
  help them? Do we help them academically,
• 19:34
  giving them food, shelter, whatever else that we can do?
• 19:39
  So we wanted to touch the lives of the million children.
• 19:42
  And that came from the fact that I come from India and I came
• 19:49
  here at a very early age. But as I was growing up, I saw a
• 19:52
  lot of poverty and felt like, how can I give back?
• 19:57
  I moved to the United States when I was 16 years old and
• 20:01
  those memories were still pretty strong when I saw children on
• 20:04
  the streets or in the slum. Not having the basics, not
• 20:08
  having food to eat or roof over their head.
• 20:11
  And those thoughts were very fresh in my mind and I thought
• 20:16
  how can we support them? What else can we do?
• 20:19
  So part of Building Kids Worldwide, we have an entity
• 20:23
  within Building Kids Worldwide. Not only we reach the children
• 20:26
  through our franchisees, through our corporate schools and give
• 20:30
  them the academic exposure or performing arts exposure, which
• 20:34
  is an integral part of our system.
• 20:37
  We also have a nonprofit organization within our company
• 20:41
  that helps children around the globe.
• 20:44
  We have free schools in Africa as well as in India and
• 20:48
  different initiatives within those countries.
• 20:51
  And we do a lot of scholarships. Within the United States, we
• 20:54
  have lots of initiatives such as the toy drive to touch the lives
• 20:58
  of children, such as a warm coat drive, victims of natural
• 21:02
  calamities. Recently there was a big
• 21:05
  hurricane that hit Florida. So we send clothing, we send
• 21:10
  funds, we send medical supplies to these children so that they
• 21:14
  can be feeling healthy again, feeling like they have the roof
• 21:19
  over their heads because they their home got totally
• 21:22
  demolished. So things of that nature, those
• 21:25
  are the routes that we take to reach to many, many more
• 21:28
  children across the globe. Oh, that's terrific, Vinita.
• 21:32
  I'm curious to hear a little bit more about specifically what
• 21:35
  you're able to do for the kids in Africa and especially India,
• 21:38
  where a lot of this inspiration first came from.
• 21:41
  Are you establishing schools for them?
• 21:45
  Are there, I don't know, food drives kind of kind of paint a
• 21:48
  picture for me a little bit. So starting with Africa, we have
• 21:52
  two schools there and they provide education, we provide
• 21:57
  clothing, we provide medical supplies and food.
• 22:03
  Recently we engaged with them and providing transportation
• 22:07
  because when I was talking to the people that run the centers
• 22:12
  over there, I was told that the girls who were walking to the
• 22:17
  school, 6 out of 10 girls were raped on their way to school.
• 22:23
  And that truly was heartbreaking.
• 22:27
  And so we, we have now engaged with them and providing
• 22:30
  transportation as well. That's great.
• 22:33
  For India, we have three different initiatives. 1 is
• 22:37
  exactly the same like what I told you for Africa.
• 22:41
  We also provide transportation to children who are going to be
• 22:45
  who do get picked up from some areas and they're brought to the
• 22:50
  school. Parents are just so busy with
• 22:52
  bringing food to their table that they don't even know that
• 22:56
  these kids were picked up and taken to school.
• 23:00
  So during COVID, it was interesting that we were doing
• 23:04
  long distance learning and we were sharing curriculum over the
• 23:07
  phone. The parents who were home also
• 23:10
  learned basic ABC because these were uneducated parents.
• 23:15
  And that that just brings a huge smile on my face because we
• 23:18
  never anticipated something as such, right?
• 23:22
  We never anticipated that it's going to help the parents as
• 23:24
  well. But I'm very touched by the fact
• 23:29
  that the long distance learning really help parents, not only
• 23:34
  the children. So those those sites provide
• 23:39
  education materials, clothing, medical supplies and
• 23:43
  transportation. The second initiative we have is
• 23:47
  for disabled children of all ages.
• 23:50
  We started this program called The Beginning, which is Aram in
• 23:54
  Hindi and they take the younger children also who have
• 24:00
  disabilities, where we have teachers who are qualified in
• 24:04
  working with special needs children and we provide them the
• 24:09
  environment. We provide them the tools that
• 24:12
  are beneficial for them to learn and grow from those tools.
• 24:18
  So for example, certain children learn really well with musical
• 24:22
  instruments because it calms them down.
• 24:26
  So children who have autism or ADHD, those are the things that
• 24:33
  help them deal with their day-to-day challenges.
• 24:37
  And then some of them are physically disabled where they
• 24:40
  need wheelchairs and such equipment.
• 24:42
  We provide funding for that as well.
• 24:45
  And the third initiative that we have is for, I'm very proud to
• 24:50
  say that I met this lady a couple years back who herself
• 24:55
  was sexually assaulted by a gang when she was 15.
• 25:00
  And she came out in the open and said I'm going to help these
• 25:07
  other women be vocal about it and not hide behind closed
• 25:11
  doors. So she started this big
• 25:13
  movement. And right now as we speak, she
• 25:17
  has a big institute in Hyderabad where she has got a lot of
• 25:21
  government support. And they basically rescue
• 25:27
  sexually trafficked children across the globe and provide
• 25:31
  them shelter and food and clothing and all that.
• 25:35
  What we do as building futures, we provide the we provide the
• 25:39
  counselling support. So we have got medical
• 25:42
  professionals at that institute that counsel with these children
• 25:47
  who have been, you know, mentally affected by such
• 25:54
  incidents in their life and to get them to be to feel normal,
• 25:59
  to bring them to normalcy. So we provide that sort of
• 26:02
  counselling for those children and we cover all those costs.
• 26:06
  So those are the different initiatives we have across the
• 26:09
  globe and locally, like I said earlier, we do different drives
• 26:13
  to touch the lives of many other children as well as do
• 26:16
  scholarship programs for parents who cannot afford to send their
• 26:19
  kids to our schools because it's, you know, there is a
• 26:23
  tuition to it and some parents can afford it and the others
• 26:26
  can't. The ones who qualify for our
• 26:30
  scholarships, we provide them free education only because we
• 26:33
  feel every child has a right to get the best education and get
• 26:40
  the best environment. That's all really tremendous.
• 26:43
  Vinita, how are you funding all of this?
• 26:47
  We donate 25% of our profits. Wow.
• 26:51
  To building futures. So building Kids worldwide has
• 26:55
  the profits and 25% of our profits go to building futures
• 26:59
  and building futures funds are used to fund all these
• 27:03
  initiatives that we have been working on for the last seven
• 27:06
  years. Wow, that's that's a series of
• 27:09
  tremendous stories there. All the work that you're doing
• 27:11
  in all these different places, the way that you're helping so
• 27:14
  many different kids, and then the way that it's all being
• 27:17
  funded are from the profits of your for profit childcare
• 27:21
  centers and so. We don't do any fundraisers.
• 27:25
  And fundraisers as well. You take some.
• 27:27
  Outside fund. Or you don't do any fundraisers.
• 27:30
  This this is all from internal profits.
• 27:33
  And so this is another reason why your finance background is
• 27:38
  extremely valuable by being able to increase from the industry
• 27:42
  standard of 15% to about 25% profit margin.
• 27:46
  That gives you the space to then be super generous with those
• 27:50
  extra profits and be able to help these kids around the
• 27:52
  globe. Yeah, so.
• 27:56
  Obvious reward is we feel so privileged to be able to do
• 28:00
  that. It is for us that we do it
• 28:03
  because we feel really good about it.
• 28:06
  Yeah, we're privileged to be able to help those.
• 28:09
  Children just hearing the stories lights up my heart.
• 28:11
  So I I have to imagine as being the one responsible for all
• 28:14
  this. It's it's just got to make you
• 28:15
  glow inside. Yeah, to see the happiness on
• 28:19
  these children, because I visit these initiatives frequently and
• 28:23
  when I go see these children and the smiles on their face and the
• 28:27
  way they talk, children who are really shy, who couldn't even
• 28:30
  speak are now singing the end, saying, doing math, writing
• 28:36
  sentences is just the biggest joy that one can.
• 28:40
  No, that's terrific. So going back to the franchise
• 28:43
  opportunity for a moment, obviously your franchisees are
• 28:47
  getting the benefits of all the fine tuning that you've been
• 28:52
  able to do to the business model over the years that allows the
• 28:55
  profit margins of the centers to be higher than what is typical
• 28:59
  in the industry. What else about the opportunity
• 29:02
  is attractive to your franchisees?
• 29:06
  Sure, Great question. We offer a very flexible model.
• 29:11
  And when I say we offer a flexible model, that means that
• 29:16
  if someone wants to open a small site of 30 to 40 children, it
• 29:22
  requires much lower investment versus someone who wants to open
• 29:28
  a larger center which may require a much higher level of
• 29:31
  investment. Besides that, we are not set on
• 29:37
  having a building that looks amazing.
• 29:41
  We believe in providing an environment, be it a world class
• 29:48
  facility or be a small church, but within that church or a
• 29:53
  world class facility, what we believe is important, the
• 29:57
  education that we provide, the exposure that the children give
• 30:02
  and how are they getting that exposure.
• 30:05
  So going a step further, providing the flexible model and
• 30:12
  opportunities to all different kinds of people, whether they're
• 30:16
  engineers, doctors, architects, we have, we have franchisees who
• 30:21
  come from all different walks of life.
• 30:23
  So it's not that oh, someone needs to have educational
• 30:25
  background. They could be an engineer, they
• 30:29
  could be AIT professional, they could be a doctor.
• 30:33
  So point being, you can come from any background.
• 30:36
  You can open any size of school. You can be in a world class
• 30:40
  facility or a church or a small commercial site.
• 30:45
  Our model offers opportunities for everybody and it's not that
• 30:52
  unlike some of the other competitors, which is great that
• 30:55
  they have that business model. We require a minimum $1.5
• 30:59
  million investment. So our model doesn't require any
• 31:04
  such dollar amount. Of course, there's a minimum
• 31:07
  because you need to have invest certain amount of money to open
• 31:10
  a small site, but we offer that flexibility.
• 31:14
  Not only that, I feel like the differentiators that we have in
• 31:19
  our system are really what makes our franchisees successful and
• 31:26
  the differentiators or the approach that we have towards
• 31:29
  providing education is very unique.
• 31:32
  And I can get more in detail if you want me to, but I hope I
• 31:36
  answered your question. You did.
• 31:37
  But yeah, I would like to hear about how your approach to
• 31:40
  education is unique. So we integrate performing arts
• 31:45
  into our academics because we believe children learn best from
• 31:50
  singing, dancing, having a playful environment.
• 31:53
  So instead of teaching them ABC just like normally, we will
• 31:59
  teach them musically. We will have music classes in
• 32:02
  their routine, we have dance classes in their daily routine,
• 32:07
  we have theatre classes in their daily routine.
• 32:09
  So not only that they get specific education in all three
• 32:14
  discipline of performing arts on a routine basis, but our
• 32:18
  customized curriculum is stitched in with performing arts
• 32:22
  because it's in our DNA and that's very unique.
• 32:26
  Along with that, our environment has learning through life
• 32:29
  experience. Now someone might ask what is
• 32:32
  learning through life experience?
• 32:34
  Basically, we have structures in our environment that are based
• 32:37
  on different concepts. These concepts are chosen by the
• 32:41
  franchise. We have many different concepts.
• 32:44
  So for example, one of the concept is emergency services
• 32:49
  and in that concept we have a fire station, we have a
• 32:54
  hospital, we may have a police station.
• 32:58
  What we are trying to do is teaching these children in case
• 33:01
  there's an medical emergency, in case there is a fire, how do you
• 33:06
  deal with that? And what we do is we give them
• 33:09
  exposure to it, we teach them all about it and then we wrap it
• 33:13
  up with a show. So they become characters of a
• 33:16
  fire department, they become a cop.
• 33:19
  And we have vehicles for like a fire truck, big life-size
• 33:23
  vehicles with all the bells and whistles.
• 33:26
  So they have the fire horn and things that children would love
• 33:30
  to engage in. So they get to feel what does it
• 33:34
  feel like a fireman? And they say, oh, when I grow
• 33:37
  up, I want to be a fire Marshall or I want to be a fireman.
• 33:40
  I want to help people or I want to be a doctor or I want to be a
• 33:43
  nurse. So it kind of channels their
• 33:46
  life goals as well as give them the exposure and learn about
• 33:50
  those things that are very important in one's life.
• 33:54
  So create an environment where the there are these life
• 33:57
  structures children go in and if they want to be a doctor, they
• 34:01
  have a stereoscope in there, they have a table and a chair.
• 34:04
  Children pretend to be a patient, doctor, nurses and so
• 34:07
  on and so forth. And it's playful, but yet it's
• 34:09
  increasing their vocabulary. They are getting the confidence
• 34:13
  to be a certain character and then after they've learned about
• 34:17
  that team in that concept of emergency services, we wrap it
• 34:21
  up. Like I said with the show, the
• 34:23
  performing arts gets integrated in their day-to-day learning
• 34:27
  along with learning to life experience in an academic
• 34:30
  environment. If I can put it all together, so
• 34:33
  so. Does does sort of incorporating
• 34:37
  the performing arts in all of this help encode those lessons
• 34:42
  in the students brains in maybe a different and more permanent
• 34:47
  way or more lasting? Way, absolutely.
• 34:51
  It definitely does impact in a permanent way for a very long
• 34:57
  time, for lifelong basically. So the approach of teaching is
• 35:01
  very different. The approach of teaching is
• 35:04
  playful in a manner that really develops them cognitively and
• 35:08
  hits a side of the brain that otherwise wouldn't be tapped on.
• 35:12
  Because exposure to performing arts basically says that the
• 35:15
  neurons that weren't there before that may not develop if
• 35:19
  you're not giving exposure to performing arts will develop if
• 35:22
  you do. And once that's developed, all
• 35:25
  the neurons are developed, the research says that chances of
• 35:29
  them finishing college are much stronger.
• 35:33
  Chances of them becoming a doctor or engineer are much
• 35:36
  stronger, so that's why we have the integration of performing
• 35:40
  arts and learning to life experience throughout their
• 35:43
  daily routine and they get exposure to a lot more than just
• 35:46
  learning ABC12 threes. And on the surface, it seems
• 35:50
  really smart to me because, you know, little kids in particular
• 35:53
  have trouble sitting still and sort of learning in a more, I
• 35:56
  don't know, controlled and traditional environment.
• 35:59
  And if you have them up and moving around and interacting
• 36:02
  and participating, it seems like that's a great way to sort of
• 36:06
  put their, you know, mind than body wiggles to to a good
• 36:09
  purpose. Yeah, they're young, they're
• 36:12
  very little, right. How to keep them engaged, how to
• 36:15
  have make sure they're having fun, all that is important.
• 36:18
  So when I was customizing this whole program, there were things
• 36:23
  that my daughter was exposed to and or not exposed to that she
• 36:27
  did in her preschool before we opened our own that I did not
• 36:32
  like particularly. And that was TV time.
• 36:36
  They would put on ATV and children would sit there and
• 36:38
  watch TV or they would have three hours of outside play.
• 36:43
  To me, a child needs a lot more than that and they can grow to
• 36:48
  be more educated and better individuals if given exposure to
• 36:54
  other things besides watching TV and playing outside.
• 36:58
  I want to go back to something you were saying about the
• 37:00
  flexible model for the franchisees and that, you know,
• 37:04
  you don't have to have a specific background, You know,
• 37:06
  you don't have to be a doctor or teacher.
• 37:09
  What are the characteristics for the qualities that you're
• 37:12
  looking for in a franchise? What makes somebody a good fit
• 37:16
  for you and vice versa? First and foremost, we are
• 37:22
  looking for someone who has got business accurate so they can
• 37:27
  come from any walk of life. But if they are able to
• 37:30
  understand how does a business work, if they have basic
• 37:35
  knowledge of what needs to be done, that is the marketing
• 37:40
  effort. That's the customer service
• 37:42
  aspect. So when we do the calls with our
• 37:46
  potential franchisees, those are some of the things that we're
• 37:49
  looking for. And outside of that, we don't
• 37:53
  want people to come in just for money.
• 37:56
  Like this business offers great rewards financially, but if
• 38:00
  that's the only purpose, that's not what we're looking for.
• 38:03
  We would want them to be passionate about what they're
• 38:06
  doing. We want them to know that
• 38:08
  they're making a difference in children's life by being in this
• 38:12
  business. And if they're passionate, then
• 38:14
  they'll do a great job. If they're doing it just for
• 38:17
  money, then their heart is not into it.
• 38:19
  And for us, that's really important.
• 38:23
  Vanita, what are some of the most common concerns that you
• 38:25
  see parents have when starting their kids in a new school like
• 38:29
  yours, and what can you tell them to help put their mind at
• 38:33
  ease? The common concern that when I
• 38:37
  was running the centers was safety and parents really want
• 38:43
  to ensure the facility is safe, the staff that's there is going
• 38:47
  to be nurturing and caring and so on and so forth.
• 38:50
  So the one thing that I realized from the get go was we need to
• 38:54
  make sure we have keep that access that nobody can just walk
• 38:57
  in the door. We have emergency access to the
• 39:03
  hospital or to the fire department and so on so forth.
• 39:08
  If there's an intruder, what do you do?
• 39:10
  How do you lock the door? So we have got double door
• 39:13
  entries in most of our schools. So basically safety to me was
• 39:17
  one of the bigger concerns, along with the fact that a lot
• 39:21
  of parents thought like me, what are you going to be doing with
• 39:24
  my child throughout the day? I do not want to live.
• 39:28
  Leave them in your school if you're just offering babysitting
• 39:31
  facility because I can bring a nanny at home.
• 39:35
  The environment had to be very nurturing, cognitively
• 39:38
  developmental as well as safe. So our schools basically focus
• 39:45
  on a lot of those things that initially I realized parents
• 39:49
  would like to have me as a parent wanted for my kids.
• 39:53
  I've been given a lot of exposure to performing arts.
• 39:56
  I used to do lots of Shakespeare plays.
• 39:58
  Both my kids went to schools that also provided performing
• 40:02
  arts. And I realized that that's
• 40:04
  something that parents really love about our schools.
• 40:07
  So having that environment where the kids are getting exposure
• 40:10
  to, not just. Academics, not just play time,
• 40:14
  other aspects of what will make their child learn for life and
• 40:19
  be successful was another thing that parents are concerned
• 40:22
  about. So that's how we have developed
• 40:25
  our program. We have evolved from where we
• 40:27
  are to where we are today, not just from expansion and number
• 40:31
  of units, but how our program continues to enhance the
• 40:35
  services that we provide. Danita, I'm curious, how is
• 40:39
  California's shift to making transitional kindergarten part
• 40:43
  of the public school system affecting how you approach
• 40:48
  business in the state of California?
• 40:52
  And I'm glad you asked that because that's been a challenge
• 40:55
  for the past two years now and it's continuing to be a
• 40:59
  challenge. So there's a few things that we
• 41:01
  are doing. We are converting some of our
• 41:06
  schools from being highly focused on preschool to also
• 41:10
  providing infant toddler care and that's working well
• 41:15
  financially. But given my personal passion
• 41:20
  about education and other things along with education we have, we
• 41:27
  are planning to add enrichment services to our sites with who
• 41:32
  currently have a fixed cost. So not adding anything to their
• 41:37
  existing expense line items, but utilizing their space and
• 41:43
  offering enrichment services such as tutoring such as art
• 41:47
  classes, performing arts classes and the like to deal with this
• 41:52
  challenge of UPK. Not only that, we are actually
• 41:56
  grouping together a lot of preschools and filing a petition
• 42:01
  to see if you know Gordner Newsom is going to think about
• 42:06
  changing some of these policies that are set in there.
• 42:11
  We are hopeful and I think the next election is going to be
• 42:15
  very telling as well. How would you propose changing
• 42:19
  the policies? This is really interesting.
• 42:22
  We are going to be working with a bunch of schools to file the
• 42:26
  petition and see if the government would.
• 42:29
  So some of the other states have the government contribute to the
• 42:34
  private schools and say we don't have enough space.
• 42:38
  We are going to use your space and do the funding to you so you
• 42:43
  can house all the children that would have gone to the public
• 42:47
  school. But because we are limited in
• 42:49
  space, then we will utilize your space or they would just
• 42:54
  continue the subsidized care that most states have.
• 42:58
  And that is there are entities within each state that provide
• 43:02
  funds to schools where we can provide the education and the
• 43:07
  care to the less fortunate children and who don't have the
• 43:11
  means to bring the kids to our school.
• 43:13
  And those are the ones that go to public school, but they will
• 43:16
  continue to provide the subsidy support.
• 43:19
  That's that's one way of working with our local authorities to
• 43:24
  see if they can provide the support.
• 43:26
  Along with that, what I've noticed is a few of our
• 43:31
  franchisees have told us that children who left to go to
• 43:34
  public school are mostly coming back.
• 43:37
  And the reason they're coming back is because the quality of
• 43:41
  care, the academic exposure, the safety is not there because the
• 43:49
  system is so different. So if you can imagine
• 43:52
  preschoolers who have bathrooms close to their room where they
• 43:56
  are now have to walk a whole hallway to get to the main
• 44:00
  bathroom. There's so many accidents.
• 44:03
  So that's one one thing along those lines is safety.
• 44:07
  When children are walking a huge hallway, they have a habit at
• 44:12
  this age to stray. They go in different directions
• 44:15
  and in some cases I've heard where children walked away into
• 44:19
  the parking lot from the hallway.
• 44:22
  So the safety factor is a big concern.
• 44:25
  Then the qualifications of these staff.
• 44:29
  So the elementary school teachers are not qualified to be
• 44:32
  ECE teachers. So now they have teenagers
• 44:36
  watching these young children who have no academic background
• 44:40
  to be around this age group. And they're basically after they
• 44:45
  go in the morning hours to the preschool, they're in an after
• 44:49
  school program that has no agenda, that has no curriculum,
• 44:54
  that does not give them any learning experience or fun
• 44:57
  experience that children thrive off of.
• 45:00
  So parents are not happy with the after school care because
• 45:05
  they're teenagers providing the care.
• 45:07
  So those are the different challenges that the public
• 45:11
  school system is facing while they're providing preschool care
• 45:16
  and doing the UPK. So it's not where if 10 kids
• 45:20
  have left, all 10 came back, two of the 10 have come back.
• 45:25
  But I feel like in the long run, maybe we'll have five or seven
• 45:28
  come back because more and more people are going to be out there
• 45:32
  of the care that's provided. And the education that's
• 45:35
  provided in public school is not the same as the private school.
• 45:39
  These are the young children. They're not high schoolers where
• 45:42
  they have the habit of, you know, or elementary school
• 45:45
  children where they have the habit of going home and opening
• 45:48
  a book and making sure they're learning.
• 45:50
  These are very young children and they're very impressionable
• 45:53
  age. So given the safety, the
• 45:56
  nurturing, the academic exposure which I feel and a lot of our
• 46:00
  franchisees feel and a lot of the parents are feeling is not
• 46:04
  providing the same level as the private school or as other
• 46:09
  competitors that we are. Providing, Yeah, plus now you're
• 46:13
  layering in the enrichment services to make your private
• 46:17
  offering even more attractive than the public school offering.
• 46:21
  And the other thing I urge you touching upon there, Bonita, is
• 46:25
  you know, the difference between your staff versus, you know,
• 46:29
  some of the staff that's available in the the public
• 46:31
  school system. And you know, having talked with
• 46:34
  lots of business owners, it's still a pretty tight labor
• 46:36
  market. I'm curious, what have you found
• 46:40
  some success with in terms of both recruiting and retaining
• 46:46
  good team members? How do you go about that?
• 46:50
  Yeah, great, Great question again, how do we hire and how do
• 46:54
  we retain? So we have got ads running and
• 47:00
  different platforms. We also have word of mouth.
• 47:05
  We also offer referral bonuses and so on and so forth for
• 47:08
  people who come through the door.
• 47:10
  And if they are not, if they don't have the education
• 47:14
  background that they need for this particular industry, we
• 47:18
  actually fund their education. Oh wow.
• 47:20
  So we send them to school and we pay for it.
• 47:25
  So there's a lot of individuals who want to either switch fields
• 47:28
  and then they have a bachelor's and then we were well educated,
• 47:31
  but they want to work in this industry.
• 47:33
  So we and we encourage them and we bring them on and as they're
• 47:38
  getting the training, they also get the education background.
• 47:42
  Then they're fully qualified to work with us.
• 47:46
  Besides that, we provide routine training.
• 47:49
  We have in service days a few times a year.
• 47:53
  And then as far as retention goes, we believe that Building
• 47:58
  kids is a place where they feel they're joining additional
• 48:02
  family members. We are their extended family.
• 48:05
  How we do that is because we care.
• 48:08
  We care about their personal life.
• 48:10
  We want to make sure they have a personal work life balance.
• 48:13
  We give them a lot of days off, whether it's during Christmas
• 48:18
  time or summertime or holidays. We give them routine increases.
• 48:25
  We and those increases are hefty and then we want to get.
• 48:30
  I've learned this over the years and attended many seminars as to
• 48:34
  what keeps an employee happy. And the one thing I've learnt is
• 48:38
  it's not the money or it's not the coffee that you buy them,
• 48:42
  it's the performance appraisal that you do on a routine basis.
• 48:46
  So we make sure we do performance appraisals every six
• 48:50
  months and do high five boards that are words of appreciation
• 48:57
  for anything that they've done. You know that is worth
• 49:00
  commendable. Besides all the other stuff that
• 49:03
  everybody does, which is buy them food, have a nice
• 49:07
  environment, pay them for the medical, dental, 401K, all the
• 49:11
  benefits are there. So given that we follow the
• 49:15
  industry norms for all the benefits holidays, the two weeks
• 49:21
  additional off that we give is also very well appreciated by
• 49:25
  our staff members and caring for them.
• 49:28
  If they have a situation and they need a month off, we're
• 49:32
  happy to give them that month off because they have a personal
• 49:35
  situation. So treating them like family
• 49:37
  members, I believe has really helped us sustain a lot of
• 49:41
  employees. And I say this with pride that I
• 49:45
  have staff members here from day one.
• 49:49
  Oh wow, which is 2003. January is when we had opened
• 49:54
  doors. Over 20 years ago.
• 49:57
  And we have at least 25% of the staff still there.
• 50:01
  Oh my gosh, that's incredible. That's not something you
• 50:06
  typically hear in most businesses, particularly in the
• 50:09
  childcare industry. It's a hat.
• 50:11
  Socks And I have people who come here and say, Anita, if you
• 50:14
  ever, ever sell this business, let me know what you're going to
• 50:17
  do next because I'm just following wherever you're from.
• 50:20
  Thank you that that's such a such a blessing to have.
• 50:23
  That's quite that's quite a testimonial and endorsement.
• 50:26
  Want to continue their journey with?
• 50:28
  Us, Yeah. Vinita, what's maybe a
• 50:30
  particular challenge either personally or professionally
• 50:33
  that you overcome and some of the lessons that you learn going
• 50:37
  through that? The professional challenge is
• 50:41
  that I work endlessly and I feel that that's impacting definitely
• 50:48
  my health and my time for my family.
• 50:53
  My husband is amazing where he totally understands that if I
• 50:58
  don't go home till late night, at night he would never question
• 51:01
  why are you late? Why is dinner not ready?
• 51:04
  So I feel blessed that that's something that I don't have to
• 51:07
  deal with, but I know that it started to impact my health.
• 51:13
  My stress levels are really high.
• 51:15
  And how I deal with it is I tried to schedule some retreats
• 51:19
  every now and then and try to get my walks in throughout the
• 51:23
  day. So those are the ways that I've
• 51:26
  learned to deal with my stress level and challenges that I'm
• 51:30
  facing. But other than that, I think
• 51:33
  it's so rewarding in so many ways that I feel like this is
• 51:39
  the life I always want to be in. I don't want to shift.
• 51:42
  I don't want to change. So yeah, I'm pretty content with
• 51:47
  my life and those challenges. I figured out ways to deal with
• 51:50
  it. Vanita, what's a fun fact most
• 51:54
  people wouldn't know about you? Something interesting.
• 51:58
  What they don't know about me or would like to know about.
• 52:02
  Me either one. One fact that people may not
• 52:07
  know about me that I love flying.
• 52:10
  OK, when I was growing up, I learned how to fly a plane and I
• 52:14
  still wish that someday I'll have the time to continue that
• 52:19
  hobby. I would call it now in the
• 52:22
  future sometimes. I just have one more question
• 52:25
  for you, Vinita. But before I ask it, I want to
• 52:27
  do 2 things. And for those listening today,
• 52:29
  if you like today's content, please hit the like, share or
• 52:33
  Subscribe button on your favorite podcast app.
• 52:36
  I also want to tell people the best way to get in touch with
• 52:38
  you, Vinita. What would that be?
• 52:43
  The best way to get in touch with me would be through my
• 52:46
  e-mail and that is Vinita at buildingkids.com.
• 52:52
  Terrific. Now last question for you, I'm.
• 52:54
  And in that e-mail, it would be great if they could in the
• 52:58
  subject matter, they could say podcast, there you go.
• 53:02
  Because little context. We all get a lot of emails and I
• 53:04
  don't want to feel like I'm ignoring anybody.
• 53:07
  I want to make sure that I have been able to answer if there's
• 53:11
  anybody who wants. To there you go folks, anybody
• 53:12
  that wants to get in touch with Vinita, make sure you put
• 53:15
  podcast in the subject line so she is sure to pay attention to
• 53:19
  it. She gets a lot of emails, very
• 53:21
  busy schedule and so that's a way for you to kind of float to
• 53:23
  the top. So last question for you Vinita,
• 53:26
  I'm curious what do you think are the big changes that are
• 53:30
  coming in your industry? What?
• 53:32
  How do you think? How do you see things evolving
• 53:34
  in the next few years? Are you asking me if there's
• 53:39
  challenges that I I? Changes big What big changes do
• 53:44
  you see coming in the the child care industry?
• 53:49
  As far as and you already talked about it, the UPK was the
• 53:52
  biggest change that we had to experience in the past 20 years.
• 53:56
  We went through a session like I said or COVID and we felt like
• 53:59
  we were standing strong. UPK definitely has had had an
• 54:04
  impact, but the way I look at it is public schools were always
• 54:08
  around from elementary onwards and yet there were private
• 54:13
  schools that were doing really well.
• 54:15
  People, a lot of schools have wait list for elementary, middle
• 54:20
  school and high schools because you know they're so good that
• 54:23
  parents want to send their kids to private schools.
• 54:26
  I feel that the change that we are going through now will
• 54:30
  actually be better for us because a lot of parents will
• 54:36
  realize that free is not always good.
• 54:40
  Free cost their child development.
• 54:43
  And if the child is not going to develop, we're impacting the
• 54:47
  future of our leaders, the future of our country.
• 54:50
  So this is a very young age, and it's a very impressionable age
• 54:58
  where I feel that this change of UPK will actually help us in a
• 55:04
  very positive manner because they will be able to see the
• 55:07
  difference between public school as well as private school and
• 55:11
  private schools have always been there.
• 55:13
  So I feel very confident that this particular change will not
• 55:17
  impact any other change. I've not noticed in the 21 years
• 55:21
  that has been challenging for us to deal with.
• 55:25
  There was recession, and during recession we had offered free
• 55:29
  care to parents there who lost their jobs and stuff.
• 55:33
  And so that worked out really in our favor.
• 55:36
  Wow. And parents came back wanting
• 55:39
  to, you know, have more kids just so that they can bring it
• 55:43
  to our school. I, I have emails showing that,
• 55:47
  you know, one of the fair fathers said, I had two of my
• 55:50
  kids go to your school. I'm missing coming bringing my
• 55:52
  kids to your school. I want to have another child so
• 55:54
  I can just come back to building it.
• 55:57
  I mean, it was something that I'll never forget in my life.
• 56:00
  And so we have been able to deal with big challenges as such,
• 56:04
  market conditions, people losing their jobs, COVID and we're
• 56:10
  still standing strong. So I don't see any change that
• 56:13
  will impact our industry in a big way or building kits as
• 56:18
  such. You've definitely shown some
• 56:21
  resiliency already, Vanita. I want to be the first to thank
• 56:24
  you for sharing both your time and your story with us today.
• 56:27
  I really appreciate it. Well, thank you so much,
• 56:30
  Anthony, for giving me the opportunity.
• 56:32
  I appreciate it too. Folks, that's a wrap on another
• 56:35
  episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
• 56:37
  Thanks for learning with us today.