Latest / Corpus Christi Originals Podcast / EP99: Joaquin Rangel, founder of Joaquin in2 Inclusion
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_02: What's going on, y'all?
- 0:00SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the Corpus Christi Originals podcast where we highlight people and ideas and movements shaping the coastal band.
- 0:07SPEAKER_02: Today I've got uh someone whose work hits community in a different way.
- 0:10SPEAKER_02: He's an advocate, an educator, a nonprofit founder, and he's stepping into the corpus team with purpose.
- 0:16SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about the founder of Joaquin 2 Inclusion, Mr.
- 0:20SPEAKER_02: Joaquin Rangel.
- 0:21SPEAKER_02: Uh he's been pushing for better support for kiddos with special needs.
- 0:25SPEAKER_02: He's organizing shows here in the Coast of Band and he's got the uh AM Hate Week energy ready to go.
- 0:31SPEAKER_02: Joaquin, welcome to the show.
- 0:32SPEAKER_00: Hey, thank you for having me.
- 0:33SPEAKER_00: Really appreciate it.
- 0:34SPEAKER_00: Very excited to be here.
- 0:35SPEAKER_02: Cool, man.
- 0:36SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I met you at the Waqeen to Inclusion two years ago.
- 0:39SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it was before that El Nino was out there.
- 0:43SPEAKER_02: And uh and then your show.
- 0:45SPEAKER_02: I hadn't been to a show in the years, bro.
- 0:47SPEAKER_02: So I went to the El Nino show and then I went to yours.
- 0:50SPEAKER_02: I I I like heavy music to begin with, but I really wanted to go to that one because of the what it was for, you know, like uh I guess kids with autism, like you know, autism and stuff like that.
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:02SPEAKER_00: So special needs as a whole is what we do.
- 1:04SPEAKER_00: If you see our logo, it's got puzzle pieces inside of it.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: That's primarily because I have two little siblings that have autism.
- 1:11SPEAKER_00: I've got multiple cousins that are on the spectrum, so that's the closest thing to me.
- 1:15SPEAKER_00: But our whole thing is helping children with disabilities across the board.
- 1:19SPEAKER_00: That's just the one that's a little bit closer to my heart.
- 1:21SPEAKER_02: That's so cool, man.
- 1:22SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I I think I was diagnosed with ADHD or ADD, like in middle school or something.
- 1:27SPEAKER_02: Yeah, dude.
- 1:28SPEAKER_02: And so I was like, Yes, let's do this.
- 1:30SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
- 1:30SPEAKER_02: He because you you grow up in the school system and stuff, and it's you sometimes it's rough for us, you know.
- 1:36SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got diagnosed as an adult with ADD, and I was like, Oh, this is why I can't sit still and why like I would knock out work super fast, but once it was done, I was like, dude, I'm having such a hard time just sitting here, yeah doing what do I do next?
- 1:48SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
- 1:50SPEAKER_02: You say, and then too, like sometimes I have a habit of like starting stuff and not finishing it or whatever.
- 1:54SPEAKER_00: Yes, like yeah, running the nonprofit is super cool with with ADD because I'm always creating new projects, so there's always stuff to do.
- 2:01SPEAKER_00: Um, albeit right now it's becoming a little too much going on at one time.
- 2:06SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think with the ADD, it kind of kicks on a superpower where it's like there's 10 different tasks, and because there's so many different tasks, I always have something to do.
- 2:15SPEAKER_00: So if one of them gets a little like dull or something, I can just jump to the next thing, work on that, and then go back and just the you know, the way the ADD brain works, it just flip-flops, it's all over the place, and I can do that with the work.
- 2:28SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
- 2:28SPEAKER_02: And then sometimes it's like uh I have all these things and I'm very passionate about them, but sometimes it's like getting started, like, okay, I need to work on this, uh, and I don't want to.
- 2:37SPEAKER_02: But once you get in the flow, you're just like, oh, okay, I'm this is it right here.
- 2:40SPEAKER_02: Uh that's cool, man.
- 2:41SPEAKER_02: So um I guess uh introduce uh Bill can uh let's see, what's so for the listeners in Corpus, uh, how do you describe uh who Joaquin Drum Hill is?
- 2:51SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm uh just a guy from Alice.
- 2:54SPEAKER_00: I live in Austin now, um, but lived in Alice, graduated from over there, went to Texas, hook'em, uh graduated from there in 2018, was working over there, doing uh I worked my way up a company that taught kids how to fly drones and build robots.
- 3:10SPEAKER_00: Started out as a teacher, returned to the guy that had created the company and told him, like, you're sitting on a great idea, let's make it a a whole business.
- 3:18SPEAKER_00: Um, we launched in Houston, we launched in Dallas, we had launched in San Antonio.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: Um, the summer that I left, we had just launched nationwide.
- 3:26SPEAKER_00: Um, I was then told to oversee more area and take a pay cut.
- 3:32SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Are you sure?
- 3:34SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yep, I'm sure about it.
- 3:35SPEAKER_00: So I quit uh August 31st of 2023, and then started the nonprofit September 1st of 2023.
- 3:44SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'm just the dude from Alice who somehow ended up with this doing lots of live music shows, doing the nonprofit, making sure that children with disabilities have a quality education, someone who likes to fish, big fan of doing that.
- 3:58SPEAKER_00: Uh, when we finish up, I'm gonna go to Portland to go stay at my uncles.
- 4:01SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 4:01SPEAKER_00: When I'm driving across to the bridge, Indian Points right there.
- 4:04SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go throw my my lure a little bit and go and hang out.
- 4:07SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that's me.
- 4:08SPEAKER_02: Man, I gotta, I gotta say, man, you guys from Alice, dude.
- 4:12SPEAKER_02: I don't know what's in the water out there, man, but all of y'all, like the all the people that most of the people that met from Alice, like totally exceed my expectations, bro.
- 4:22SPEAKER_02: Like, really, man, it's crazy, bro.
- 4:24SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, we got uh Marticos Lial is gonna be on tomorrow, another truck driver friend of mine, dude.
- 4:30SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know what's gonna uh surge.
- 4:32SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes, like a lot of people.
- 4:34SPEAKER_02: I'm like, dude, you guys are really uh I had there was another guy in the mariachi band in Alice and stuff like that, uh like the high school or whatever.
- 4:42SPEAKER_02: And man, you guys are I don't know, you guys are awesome, man.
- 4:45SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Alice, dude.
- 4:46SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I appreciate that.
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: I feel like when I meet people and they know where Alice is and I tell them I'm from there, their first response is ooh, yeah.
- 4:53SPEAKER_00: Like, no, no, no, I promise, like we're it's it's it's a good spot.
- 4:56SPEAKER_02: No, man, for real.
- 4:58SPEAKER_02: Yeah, really.
- 4:58SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Alice.
- 4:59SPEAKER_02: You guys, uh I mean it's it's amazing what you guys are doing out there, and and even just like you're you're talking about your business that you guys built and stuff, like dude, it's it's amazing.
- 5:08SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh what so what's this the story behind uh creating walking to inclusion?
- 5:13SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so like I said before, um, I was told to take on more hours for less money, was not gonna do that.
- 5:20SPEAKER_00: Absolutely not.
- 5:21SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I had been sitting on this idea for a while, going around the state and getting to work with kids teaching them how to fly drones and robots and whatnot.
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: Just saw that a lot of kids with disabilities were not treated very well.
- 5:35SPEAKER_00: Um, I'd be in the classroom before it was my time to start.
- 5:38SPEAKER_00: I'd see teachers get kind of frustrated at the kids.
- 5:40SPEAKER_00: The kids would then get frustrated at whatever that whoever that kid was.
- 5:44SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the times teachers just didn't respond very well.
- 5:48SPEAKER_00: And I'd ask them afterwards, like, hey, I noticed when Jimmy was doing X, Y, and Z, you you did this.
- 5:54SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not saying anything to get mad at you, just want to know why did you do what you did?
- 5:58SPEAKER_00: And the most common thing I would hear is, well, I don't know what to do, no one's ever shown me, which I thought was crazy.
- 6:04SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you mean no one's ever shown you?
- 6:07SPEAKER_00: Um, so our like I know we have a lot of the shows and do all of that, but our whole thing is we have these inclusive learning labs that we do.
- 6:13SPEAKER_00: And what these inclusive learning labs are is it is a learning lab that teaches teachers how to better run classrooms that have kids with ADD or autism or CP, Down syndrome, all the different things.
- 6:26SPEAKER_00: Classrooms are pretty overcrowded now.
- 6:28SPEAKER_00: And with that comes inclusion, which we're all about, but it's it's hard.
- 6:33SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to do that.
- 6:34SPEAKER_00: So we're just trying to help teachers better run those classrooms and not just telling them what to do, like, oh hey, if X, then Y, but also giving them therapeutic equipment to use in the schools.
- 6:44SPEAKER_00: Um, do you know Dull Children's Hospital in Austin?
- 6:46SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
- 6:47SPEAKER_00: So that's uh it's real big children's hospital in Austin, a lot of great minds over there.
- 6:52SPEAKER_00: We collaborated with some of their physical therapists and occupational therapists over there with tools that are easiest for someone to learn how to use that have the highest effectiveness, so that we can show teachers like, hey, if you see that your student that you know is a runner has a lot of energy or whatever, that they're about to maybe go through something, here's the body sock, this is how you use it.
- 7:13SPEAKER_00: Or here's a sensory swing, this is how you use it, or whatever tool it may be for that student, not just telling them what to do, but giving them stuff to do.
- 7:21SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 7:22SPEAKER_00: And that's that's yeah, that's what we do.
- 7:24SPEAKER_02: Man, do you feel do you ever feel like it's it's like there's so much that to where you're like, man, this is even a making of an effect?
- 7:33SPEAKER_02: You know, do you know what I'm saying?
- 7:35SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because it you know, do you know what I'm saying?
- 7:37SPEAKER_02: How do you what what are your thoughts like towards that?
- 7:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah, every morning.
- 7:40SPEAKER_00: It feels like there's too much to do, not enough to be able to do it.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's just one step at a time doing what we can to try to get everything to happen and to work.
- 7:50SPEAKER_00: Um most schools have sensory rooms which already have all of this equipment.
- 7:55SPEAKER_00: Super cool.
- 7:56SPEAKER_00: None of the teachers know how to use it, or most of the time, a pair is the one that takes the kids to the room to use it anyway.
- 8:01SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 8:01SPEAKER_00: So even just being able to show the pairs what to do or the teachers what to use, like that is also huge.
- 8:08SPEAKER_00: It's just the it's a slow process, takes some time.
- 8:11SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be making uh all of our inclusive learning labs are now gonna be online, hopefully by May or June, so that teachers can sign on, get their eight hours of CPE credit.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: Teachers, if you're listening, it's eight hours, it is free.
- 8:24SPEAKER_00: Um, we will hopefully have that rolled out by May.
- 8:27SPEAKER_00: We should start shooting those videos in January or February.
- 8:31SPEAKER_02: Man, that's cool, bro.
- 8:32SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
- 8:32SPEAKER_02: It's it makes me think about like you can't change what the person thinks or you know about it.
- 8:38SPEAKER_02: Um, that's the thing that I guess that they that's the thing that gets me, because you want everybody to want to fix this, you know what I mean, or help solve the problem, you know.
- 8:47SPEAKER_02: Uh man, so you shared that you have symbolies in your family um inspired in your miss your mission.
- 8:52SPEAKER_02: Uh, how did that shape everything you're doing now?
- 8:55SPEAKER_00: I it just means more.
- 8:57SPEAKER_00: Um, my whole heart is in it.
- 8:59SPEAKER_00: Like when I was doing the the drone robotics thing before, like I was doing it because there was a huge money potential.
- 9:06SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
- 9:07SPEAKER_00: There, I mean, there probably is a money potential in this.
- 9:10SPEAKER_00: If there is, I haven't found it yet.
- 9:12SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's just more drive, more desire to make things happen.
- 9:16SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 9:16SPEAKER_00: First year doing this, I probably spent like$10,000 of my own money to keep the stream afloat and making it happen.
- 9:22SPEAKER_00: This year we're at a break-even, which is really nice.
- 9:25SPEAKER_00: Um, I think most people, after looking at their bank account after two years and seeing that it's just going down, would be like dang, bro.
- 9:32SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
- 9:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's rough, man.
- 9:33SPEAKER_00: Uh, but like, heart's in it.
- 9:35SPEAKER_00: I know that we're trying to make a difference.
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: I know we're trying to do some big things.
- 9:38SPEAKER_00: It's just it's a slow process, but we'll we'll get there.
- 9:42SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
- 9:42SPEAKER_02: That's good.
- 9:43SPEAKER_02: Good for you, man.
- 9:44SPEAKER_02: Good for you.
- 9:44SPEAKER_02: Uh uh Wow.
- 9:46SPEAKER_02: What when you stepped into the nonprofit world, uh, what changed your what changed you the most?
- 9:53SPEAKER_02: Because it was a nonprofit before not with the drone, not really, right?
- 9:57SPEAKER_00: No, that was for profit.
- 9:58SPEAKER_02: So when you got into that world, I mean, was it was it like was it shocking?
- 10:03SPEAKER_02: Like what what were your initial thoughts?
- 10:06SPEAKER_00: It was ha so the the company I was with before we built it from the ground up.
- 10:10SPEAKER_00: It was a startup, moved from just the teacher to vice president of operations, and it it didn't feel like too big of a change at first because it was building a new business.
- 10:20SPEAKER_00: It's right, right, right.
- 10:21SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's figuring out what you do, how you're gonna do it, what the different things are.
- 10:25SPEAKER_00: I I think the hardest part has been switching from the sales aspect that is on a for-profit business, where it's hey, you give me$50 and then I come in and I do this class and I teach your kids how to fly these things or build this robot.
- 10:39SPEAKER_00: Whereas now it's like, hey, you give me$50 and I go help this kid that you don't know.
- 10:45SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of disconnect there, um, which I don't blame anyone.
- 10:50SPEAKER_00: I know times are tough.
- 10:51SPEAKER_00: I know that it's hard to like find money for things, but it it's been it's been different going from like you pay money, I give you the service, versus you pay money, I go take the service to someone else.
- 11:02SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
- 11:03SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's that's kind of been the biggest eye-opener and change changer of things is figuring out how to navigate that like B2C to like B2 someone else.
- 11:14SPEAKER_02: Wow.
- 11:15SPEAKER_02: And you're a 501c3?
- 11:17SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
- 11:18SPEAKER_02: What's what's that?
- 11:19SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh that's like what is it?
- 11:20SPEAKER_02: What is that?
- 11:21SPEAKER_00: So a 501c3 is a public charity.
- 11:24SPEAKER_00: Um, so just like like any nonprofit, it's just a different uh like indicator of what you are.
- 11:30SPEAKER_00: So we're a public charity that's not allowed to participate in political things, is kind of the interesting main part of it.
- 11:37SPEAKER_00: So we're allowed to help out however we can.
- 11:39SPEAKER_00: Um, as per written, our our our paperwork when we submitted, our paperwork was super vague when we submitted it, because we don't just help special needs kids, right?
- 11:47SPEAKER_00: Like we've had a we had a school supply drive show back in July at House of Rock.
- 11:52SPEAKER_00: School supplies are for everyone, they're not special needs specific.
- 11:55SPEAKER_00: We've done clothing drives, we've done food stuff.
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: Um our paperwork's super general.
- 12:00SPEAKER_00: So, but as long as we're helping the public, we fall under the 501c3.
- 12:05SPEAKER_00: We just can't do anything political.
- 12:07SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
- 12:08SPEAKER_02: Wow.
- 12:08SPEAKER_02: And like when people mention that too, I it makes me think like taxes.
- 12:12SPEAKER_02: Like sometimes they say you don't have to pay tax.
- 12:14SPEAKER_02: I don't know, I don't know what all those stipulations are.
- 12:16SPEAKER_02: That that's what comes to my mind, and it makes me think of like churches and stuff like that.
- 12:20SPEAKER_02: Uh, but yeah, how did you feel when you when you got that, man?
- 12:23SPEAKER_02: Like, was it something you were striving to get?
- 12:25SPEAKER_02: Like, we need to get this, or like I want to get this, like what was that like?
- 12:29SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the paperwork process was not too difficult, to be honest.
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: I hired this thing called Swift Filing.
- 12:36SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're the ones that I was collaborating with to make sure that it was broad enough to let where we could do anything, but our mission was what our mission is.
- 12:45SPEAKER_00: Um, we also we were sponsored when we first started out under another nonprofit.
- 12:50SPEAKER_00: The other nonprofit is called Eagles Fly Advocacy and Outreach.
- 12:53SPEAKER_00: They're out of San Antonio.
- 12:54SPEAKER_00: It's also my aunt's nonprofit, so it was kind of easy.
- 12:57SPEAKER_00: So we were operating under them for maybe about four or five months.
- 13:01SPEAKER_00: Um, just because it takes time to get your paperwork, they got to send it to the wherever they send it to.
- 13:06SPEAKER_00: I didn't fill it out, so I don't know.
- 13:08SPEAKER_00: Uh they had to send it to wherever and it went to wherever, and then it came back over to me, and that's kind of how that worked.
- 13:15SPEAKER_02: You mentioned you use uh like a system or whatever.
- 13:18SPEAKER_02: I I talk about AI re often.
- 13:20SPEAKER_02: Do you use AI at all as far as like a chat bots or anything like that?
- 13:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I I have to.
- 13:26SPEAKER_00: I know people are probably gonna push back on that just because AI, like it's taking all of our water, the D cell plants here in Corpus, all of that stuff.
- 13:33SPEAKER_02: How's that?
- 13:34SPEAKER_02: Wow, yeah, I hadn't heard that.
- 13:35SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so AI uses a lot of water.
- 13:37SPEAKER_00: I'm I don't know if y'all have servers over here, but it uses an insane amount of water.
- 13:42SPEAKER_02: You're talking, I'm talking about artificial intelligence.
- 13:44SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 13:44SPEAKER_00: You're talking about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: To keep the servers cool, it uses a lot of water, and not every company recycles that water.
- 13:51SPEAKER_00: So you like you type in the chat GPT.
- 13:54SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're one of the recyclers.
- 13:56SPEAKER_00: I'm guilty of using them.
- 13:58SPEAKER_00: Um, but you type in a chat GPT, whatever it is, it sends you whatever you get back, and that could have been one or two bottles of water that are kind of now gone.
- 14:07SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's weird.
- 14:09SPEAKER_02: That's a weird way to think about it.
- 14:10SPEAKER_02: I'm not understanding what you mean, bro.
- 14:11SPEAKER_02: What?
- 14:12SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, it's just to keep everything cool, keep everything go like the actual server cool from overheating.
- 14:17SPEAKER_02: Oh, I gotcha.
- 14:18SPEAKER_02: The actual computer that holds all the data.
- 14:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 14:21SPEAKER_00: However, however that part works, like yeah, that's what that's what that does.
- 14:24SPEAKER_02: No way, bro.
- 14:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but yeah, we we use AI.
- 14:27SPEAKER_00: I probably do the job of like four or five different people um by myself.
- 14:32SPEAKER_00: So I have to have the AI stuff to keep everything together, and like so I I can't afford to pay and other people to come onto the team and do other stuff at like the capacity we're at, right?
- 14:42SPEAKER_00: So cheat and use AI to be able to do the different things.
- 14:44SPEAKER_02: So use it as a tool, maybe more productive fat productivity faster.
- 14:49SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 14:49SPEAKER_02: That's how I see it too.
- 14:50SPEAKER_02: It's cool, man.
- 14:51SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so that's your origin story.
- 14:53SPEAKER_02: Uh so we're gonna um talk about the not uh the impact of the nonprofit, man.
- 14:58SPEAKER_02: Um, so break uh J12 down for us.
- 15:01SPEAKER_02: Uh what do you provide for parenting?
- 15:03SPEAKER_02: Actually, you talked about that already.
- 15:04SPEAKER_02: Um, you got talked about the learning labs.
- 15:06SPEAKER_02: Uh, what's one story that really captures why your work matters?
- 15:15SPEAKER_00: This one, not kid related, um, heavier story, a little bit more recent.
- 15:22SPEAKER_00: Uh we're working with a woman who um Alex from El Vogel actually passed to us.
- 15:28SPEAKER_00: Um going through a hard time, borderline, homeless whenever we met with her, helping her get some resources.
- 15:36SPEAKER_00: Um, all of the resources fell through, weren't working.
- 15:40SPEAKER_00: Um, we're we're still working with her, but through the connections from like Texas UT connections, we have um a place for her to stay in Denton.
- 15:51SPEAKER_00: Um she should have gotten a phone call earlier today about getting her out of corpus and in the Denton to evade homelessness.
- 15:59SPEAKER_00: She's uh she's medically disabled and unable to work because of that.
- 16:04SPEAKER_00: Um so she took medical retirement because of the disability.
- 16:08SPEAKER_00: And yeah, that was that was pretty big because like for two weeks, I was it everything kept getting worse and worse and worse for her.
- 16:15SPEAKER_00: And it was like, dude, I don't know like how to help.
- 16:18SPEAKER_00: Like whenever we first came on, I thought it was just something just hey, here's the purple door.
- 16:23SPEAKER_00: Hey, here's so and so, but it's it's turned into so much more than that, and it looks like there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel.
- 16:29SPEAKER_00: Oh so that's kind of been the the biggest thing because like helping kids is great.
- 16:33SPEAKER_00: I love it, helping the teachers is great, but uh there's just something different when it's like an adult who you know is probably like a few bad instances away from their life being over.
- 16:44SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
- 16:45SPEAKER_02: So crazy, man.
- 16:46SPEAKER_02: And like even thinking about homelessness, like there's a lot of people with disabilities and stuff like that out there, man.
- 16:52SPEAKER_02: Wow, wow, wow.
- 16:53SPEAKER_02: Uh uh, so what's the biggest challenge you face when trying to bring uh inclusion into the classroom?
- 16:59SPEAKER_00: Uh money just because it's expensive to not the running the learning labs isn't expensive, right?
- 17:05SPEAKER_00: We can go over there, we can do that for free, right?
- 17:07SPEAKER_00: Talk to the teachers, but actually getting them the equipment costs a lot.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: Um, having the word inclusion in our name, which is a DEI thing, is a little bit of a hot button topic in Texas at the moment.
- 17:19SPEAKER_00: Um, so we have kind of that's why we're trying to digitize everything too, so we can kind of like not have schools potentially be under a microscope if we do anything.
- 17:27SPEAKER_00: Um, but ultimately it's just like we don't want to run the learning lab unless we can pay for the equipment if you don't already have it.
- 17:35SPEAKER_02: Wow.
- 17:35SPEAKER_02: So money-wise, wow.
- 17:37SPEAKER_02: So man, how do you go about?
- 17:38SPEAKER_02: I guess you put on shows and stuff like that's how you go about getting the money to come in.
- 17:42SPEAKER_00: All the shows are what help us raise money.
- 17:44SPEAKER_00: Um, we we were applying for grants for a while.
- 17:47SPEAKER_00: We haven't done that in a minute.
- 17:49SPEAKER_00: Um, we any well we were applying to government grants because those ones have such a huge number attached to them.
- 17:54SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
- 17:55SPEAKER_00: We quit doing that.
- 17:56SPEAKER_00: Now we're just doing either stuff that's local to the state of Texas or local to cities.
- 18:01SPEAKER_00: Um the Texas Bar Fo uh Texas Bar Association recently gave us a pretty pretty nice grant that's gonna go towards digitizing all of our stuff.
- 18:10SPEAKER_00: The city of San Antonio, because we're we're we're statewide.
- 18:13SPEAKER_00: Um, the city in San Antonio had recently gave us a grant to be able to feed families over there with what we do.
- 18:19SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
- 18:20SPEAKER_00: Um, we're hoping for a music grant from the city of Austin.
- 18:22SPEAKER_00: Corpus, if you're listening, y'all want to give us a grant, please do.
- 18:25SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, yeah, man, for sure.
- 18:28SPEAKER_02: Wow, uh that's that's amazing, dude.
- 18:30SPEAKER_02: Wow, I had a thought there, man.
- 18:32SPEAKER_00: Uh I feel that all the time.
- 18:33SPEAKER_00: I yeah, I have a thought.
- 18:34SPEAKER_02: It's like, ah, went away.
- 18:37SPEAKER_02: No, oh, networking, dude.
- 18:39SPEAKER_02: So how important is is because I talk about this too often uh and the importance of it.
- 18:44SPEAKER_02: How important do you feel that that is in what you're doing as far as getting your word out there, having people wanting to donate and stuff like that?
- 18:51SPEAKER_02: Is that important to you?
- 18:52SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
- 18:52SPEAKER_02: What are your thoughts on that?
- 18:54SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, networking is super huge, not just with the nonprofit space, but in general.
- 18:59SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know how it is everywhere, but I know like in Austin, it's kind of shifting towards it's not like what your GPA is and stuff like that.
- 19:06SPEAKER_00: It's becoming more like what who do you know?
- 19:09SPEAKER_00: How do you fit in over here?
- 19:11SPEAKER_00: Did you make friends with someone when you came to your interview?
- 19:14SPEAKER_00: Um, things are just shifting from like the what's your piece of paper to like how do you fit in over here or what network do you have that's already over here?
- 19:21SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 19:21SPEAKER_00: And the same thing with the nonprofit space.
- 19:23SPEAKER_00: Like, we do super cool stuff, we help a lot of people, but if we don't network, we don't meet people, we don't become friends with other nonprofits or businesses or anything like that.
- 19:32SPEAKER_00: Like, we really can't do much.
- 19:34SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 19:35SPEAKER_02: We got to be part of the community, it's just part of being in the community.
- 19:38SPEAKER_02: Nick Lopez, he says, doing a good deed for everything and everyone, uh, not only in corpus, but other areas as well.
- 19:44SPEAKER_02: Mad respect, man.
- 19:45SPEAKER_02: Keep up the great work, says Nick Lopez on YouTube.
- 19:47SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Nick.
- 19:48SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
- 19:48SPEAKER_02: You know, Nick?
- 19:49SPEAKER_02: I do I maybe he's another metal fan, bro.
- 19:52SPEAKER_02: Uh, he loves metal, like he loves he's in the scene totally.
- 19:55SPEAKER_00: We probably had him at a show then, or maybe I've had him definitely.
- 19:58SPEAKER_02: Well, he's gonna co-host with us tomorrow on uh with Marcos.
- 20:00SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was on the the last uh show with when El Nino was on here, he was guest co-hosting.
- 20:05SPEAKER_00: Nice.
- 20:06SPEAKER_00: Uh I I saw you post about that the other day.
- 20:08SPEAKER_00: I don't names I'm not great with faces a little bit better, and I can't see the face right now.
- 20:13SPEAKER_00: So if I saw the face, maybe.
- 20:14SPEAKER_00: Oh right.
- 20:15SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I remember seeing the post that you you have like a new co co-host is gonna be doing stuff for you.
- 20:18SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
- 20:20SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
- 20:20SPEAKER_02: Uh he's out there.
- 20:21SPEAKER_02: His daughter, his daughter's doing she she did like a music performance, and he put posted something about her on there.
- 20:27SPEAKER_02: So real good dude, man.
- 20:28SPEAKER_02: Uh wow, that's awesome.
- 20:29SPEAKER_02: Um, let's see, we got 20 minutes in.
- 20:32SPEAKER_02: Um, so as you expand into Corpus Christie, what's your vision and uh what could uh walk in two become here in Corpus Christi?
- 20:40SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we want to be able to impact all of the schools, make sure that the kids at all of the schools are getting the best education they can.
- 20:48SPEAKER_00: And like when you help the kids with disabilities, it doesn't just help them, it helps everyone as a whole.
- 20:53SPEAKER_00: Like I said before, classrooms have a lot of teachers in them.
- 20:56SPEAKER_00: It's really easy for them to get overwhelmed in those classrooms because of a handful of students.
- 21:02SPEAKER_00: And if you have something readily available that you know how to use to manage your classroom, yeah, it makes it a little bit easier for you.
- 21:09SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of the other things we do also is we do parent meetings.
- 21:12SPEAKER_00: We're hoping to start doing those at a higher rate than we have been.
- 21:15SPEAKER_00: And those parent meetings, we do them in English and in Spanish.
- 21:18SPEAKER_01: Wow.
- 21:18SPEAKER_00: And those are just letting parents with kids with disabilities know like what's an R, what's a 504, what's an IEP.
- 21:25SPEAKER_00: We have all of that stuff on our website already in the blog section.
- 21:27SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 21:28SPEAKER_00: Um, but sometimes it's just like, hey, like your R meeting is when you meet with the school and they're gonna make an IEP, which is the plan for your student, or the 504, which is kind of like an IEP, but a little bit different.
- 21:39SPEAKER_02: Like a like a like a lesson plan, study plan for the student that the that the I guess the school puts on for them, or yeah, and and and a lot of parents just they hear these acronyms and it's like, oh yeah, like that's what I'm thinking right now.
- 21:50SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like it sounds really crazy, but if you just like break it down a little bit, it's not at like an RZA meeting, and your IEPs, your individualized education.
- 22:00SPEAKER_00: Plan 504.
- 22:01SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that stands for because those are all numbers.
- 22:04SPEAKER_00: But that's just like another plan for the student and telling them what they are and how they work and what accommodations you may or may not get.
- 22:12SPEAKER_00: Um, like having ADD, maybe your accommodation is you you get to sit in the front of the class instead of the back because you're gonna get more distracted back there.
- 22:20SPEAKER_00: Um things like that.
- 22:21SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
- 22:21SPEAKER_02: If a parent in the coast of Ben uh needs help today, what's the first step that they they should take?
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so get on our website, go to our contact page, you can send us a message, and we'll be able to talk with you, help you with whatever it is that's going on.
- 22:35SPEAKER_02: Um what's what's the website?
- 22:36SPEAKER_00: Uh ji2.org.
- 22:38SPEAKER_00: So letter J, letter i number two.org.
- 22:41SPEAKER_00: You can type that in.
- 22:42SPEAKER_00: It'll pop up.
- 22:43SPEAKER_00: Our con if you're on mobile, just hit the drop-down menu and our contact thing will be there.
- 22:48SPEAKER_00: If you're on your desktop, you'll see contact on the top icons.
- 22:51SPEAKER_00: You can do that, send us a message and we'll we'll help out however we can.
- 22:55SPEAKER_00: Or if you wanted to read up a little bit first before reaching out to us, if you go to the blog spot or the the blogs we have on there, we'll have um all of that information on there as well.
- 23:06SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's an easy to easy website to remember, ji2.org.
- 23:11SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 23:12SPEAKER_02: Awesome, man.
- 23:12SPEAKER_02: So you're saying right there the cut the contact form on the menu, like if you're on, so make it smaller, Maya, so they can see what the menu looks like.
- 23:19SPEAKER_02: Um, like just make the that's okay.
- 23:22SPEAKER_02: What okay, okay.
- 23:23SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so the contact is right there, right?
- 23:24SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's cool, man.
- 23:25SPEAKER_00: And then if you scroll to the bottom, you'll find our blog page.
- 23:28SPEAKER_00: And that one.
- 23:31SPEAKER_00: There you go, it's a little heavy on the icon.
- 23:33SPEAKER_00: All the way to the bottom.
- 23:35SPEAKER_00: And then you can hit blog under info.
- 23:39SPEAKER_00: And then that one has just like different things on there.
- 23:43SPEAKER_00: Um, see our school to prison pipeline.
- 23:44SPEAKER_00: We're doing some stuff with Bear County to keep kids with disabilities out of um out of the uh juvenile system.
- 23:51SPEAKER_02: Um, that's huge.
- 23:52SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and if you go a little bit further down, we have our R IEP 504 requesting accommodations, things like that.
- 23:58SPEAKER_00: That way parents can go and access it and see what's going on.
- 24:02SPEAKER_02: That's dude, that's that's huge right there, man.
- 24:05SPEAKER_02: Dude, you got a big heart for this, dude.
- 24:07SPEAKER_02: For real, man.
- 24:07SPEAKER_02: Like not a people, not a lot of people would would want to do this stuff, man.
- 24:12SPEAKER_02: Uh, that's amazing.
- 24:12SPEAKER_02: Well, what's the relationship like with this with the school, like the ISDs and stuff like that?
- 24:17SPEAKER_02: Because I know obviously they're they gotta get involved.
- 24:20SPEAKER_02: You gotta get involved with them somehow.
- 24:21SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so strong-ish.
- 24:23SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of the schools that we've that I used to work at, they're also a little hesitant right now with us being a DEI nonprofit.
- 24:32SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a lot of uncertainty there on what we can or can't do, which is why we're just trying to digitize everything so people can access it on their own.
- 24:40SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to like promote or we don't have to be at the school for whatever reason.
- 24:44SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 24:44SPEAKER_00: Um, there's been a lot more uncertainty with how to like approach us currently, which is which I get.
- 24:52SPEAKER_00: Um it is what it is.
- 24:53SPEAKER_02: So right, right, right, right.
- 24:54SPEAKER_02: That's just how it goes, man.
- 24:55SPEAKER_02: Uh now, besides nonprofit work, uh, you're also you've also been moving around the coast of bin with events and shows.
- 25:01SPEAKER_02: Obviously, you got one on the 28th, right?
- 25:04SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have one, yeah, November 28th.
- 25:06SPEAKER_00: We have uh Shattered Sun and Zombie King, who is just on here.
- 25:09SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
- 25:09SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have them playing at Brewster Street, should be a fun show.
- 25:12SPEAKER_00: Uh doors are gonna be at 6, and we have Excess starting at 6:30.
- 25:17SPEAKER_00: Those guys are from Alice as well.
- 25:19SPEAKER_00: We have another event over here Monday, December 8th.
- 25:23SPEAKER_02: Yeah, comedy event.
- 25:24SPEAKER_02: That's cool, bro.
- 25:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it should be super fun.
- 25:26SPEAKER_00: Tanya Lee Davis is gonna be filming while she's here.
- 25:28SPEAKER_00: So if anyone has any recommendate recommendations of what to do, shoot those our way.
- 25:33SPEAKER_00: Um, she's gonna be staying here, I think, three nights, because I told her there was a lot to do.
- 25:38SPEAKER_00: Um, come to Corpus for a little bit longer.
- 25:40SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, people come out to the show Monday, December 8th.
- 25:43SPEAKER_00: It'll be at the AM Corpus Christi Um Performing Arts Center.
- 25:47SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, that'll be that'll be fun.
- 25:49SPEAKER_00: And it'll be a good way to get Corpus on the map.
- 25:51SPEAKER_00: Like, she's got 3.2 million TikTok followers and she's filming a TV show.
- 25:55SPEAKER_02: Like, and it's at the Performing Arts Center, right?
- 25:57SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, that place is nice, yeah.
- 25:59SPEAKER_00: Super nice, it's really nice.
- 26:00SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the the person that booked her, um, he or she had booked her at the Beltonian in Belton, Texas, which is just north of Austin, and she sold that place out when she had her.
- 26:11SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 26:11SPEAKER_00: So I I think hopes are that we'll sell out.
- 26:13SPEAKER_00: I don't know how big the Beltonian is compared to the AM Performing Arts Center, but the hopes I'm assuming to get as many people as possible, bro.
- 26:21SPEAKER_02: Wow, amazing.
- 26:22SPEAKER_02: Man, so what uh so real quick, uh, you're talking about so these are like heavy, like hard rock, heavy metal bands, bro.
- 26:27SPEAKER_02: Yeah, is that is that the music that you like?
- 26:29SPEAKER_02: Is that why you well obviously right?
- 26:31SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 26:32SPEAKER_02: You chose that style.
- 26:33SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm all over the place with the music that I I listen to.
- 26:36SPEAKER_00: Um, but it seems like rock really just has the the biggest hearts when it comes to the people in the venues.
- 26:43SPEAKER_00: Um, when we first started, I wanted to do a two-step into inclusion.
- 26:46SPEAKER_00: Oh and we had uh Bart Crow ready to go for a concert.
- 26:51SPEAKER_00: And we're like, oh yeah, like sweet, we we got a number.
- 26:54SPEAKER_00: Let me go find a venue.
- 26:55SPEAKER_00: I couldn't find a country venue for less than like$10,000.
- 26:58SPEAKER_01: Wow.
- 26:59SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, let's not do that.
- 27:01SPEAKER_00: Uh reached out to Casey over at House of Rock, and they gave us a good deal, got some bands together, had Shattered on the show for that very first one, and it kind of just took off from there because everyone super supportive about the cause in that scene.
- 27:14SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 27:14SPEAKER_00: Metalheads are some of the nicest people you're ever gonna meet.
- 27:18SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I it makes me think about like the connection between like uh heavy music and people with ADHD and stuff like that.
- 27:24SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
- 27:25SPEAKER_02: I I just really enjoy it, man, especially stuff that it's like constantly changing music-wise.
- 27:32SPEAKER_02: And I mean, they'll give me I listen to other stuff too, but it seems like that's the stuff that I lean on.
- 27:36SPEAKER_02: And I wonder if there's a connection between that, you know.
- 27:39SPEAKER_02: That's cool, man.
- 27:39SPEAKER_02: Uh, so how how do these events uh support the uh the mission?
- 27:43SPEAKER_02: I mean, I guess you talked about this.
- 27:44SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so those are just how we raise money.
- 27:47SPEAKER_00: We don't really get we we've just started getting some grants to do different things.
- 27:51SPEAKER_02: So how I'm sorry, how old is the we are almost three years old?
- 27:55SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, two years old.
- 27:56SPEAKER_00: I'm not great at math.
- 27:57SPEAKER_00: Two and a half, almost three.
- 27:58SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
- 27:59SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so uh so I'm sorry to cut you off there.
- 28:01SPEAKER_02: So you're doing so you just started doing these shows, and how does it help with the mission?
- 28:05SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's just to help us raise money so that we can put pump money into doing the different things and getting everything together, marketing materials to be able to like tell schools like, hey, look, this is what we're doing.
- 28:15SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, because a lot of the times just the phone calls don't work.
- 28:19SPEAKER_00: Um, like daycare centers could also be stuff at daycare centers, but daycare centers super busy, schools super busy, where if you want to talk to someone, it's kind of hard.
- 28:27SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so but being able to put a Google ad, whenever a teacher types in like CPE courses in your me, we get to pop up so they can get their hours for whatever it may be.
- 28:37SPEAKER_00: So cool.
- 28:37SPEAKER_00: Yeah, being able to feed the kids and doing stuff like that helps pay for that.
- 28:41SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've seen, but we're sending a special needs child and their parent to Texas football games this year.
- 28:45SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 28:45SPEAKER_00: Uh, we just had a kid from Alice go to the Texas versus Arkansas.
- 28:49SPEAKER_00: Yeah, seen that.
- 28:50SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need to.
- 28:50SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh Serge was handing out the tickets.
- 28:52SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 28:53SPEAKER_00: He did it there, House of Rock.
- 28:54SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 28:54SPEAKER_02: That's cool, man.
- 28:56SPEAKER_02: Uh, yeah, it makes me think about like, so is this your first comedy show?
- 29:00SPEAKER_02: And what what made you decide to do comedy shows now?
- 29:03SPEAKER_02: It seems like that there's that's where some of the audience is, you know.
- 29:07SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it it's it's funny.
- 29:09SPEAKER_00: I had originally reached out to his name's Michael Glatzmer, he's a comedian as well, but he manages Tanya Lee Davis.
- 29:16SPEAKER_00: I did not know this when I first reached out.
- 29:18SPEAKER_00: I first reached out for Aaron Belial.
- 29:20SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 29:20SPEAKER_00: Um, do you know who that is?
- 29:21SPEAKER_00: He's the mute comedian that uses his phone to tell jokes.
- 29:24SPEAKER_00: Oh, I seen him.
- 29:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 29:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 29:26SPEAKER_00: Every everyone knows him.
- 29:27SPEAKER_00: Uh, I reached out for him, and he was already booked around some of the dates we were looking at.
- 29:32SPEAKER_00: And Michael was like, Hey, you know, I know you're looking asking about Aaron, but I've got Tanya Lee.
- 29:37SPEAKER_00: She's wanting to do some shows in Texas.
- 29:39SPEAKER_00: She's these are her social numbers.
- 29:41SPEAKER_00: She's filming a TV show.
- 29:43SPEAKER_00: Do you want to work with us?
- 29:44SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 29:44SPEAKER_00: I was like, dude, she's filming a TV show, all this impact, like that's huge for us.
- 29:49SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, we want to work with her.
- 29:50SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 29:51SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I originally reached out for Aaron Belial.
- 29:53SPEAKER_00: We're still hoping to do something at some point in time, but ended up with Tanya Lee.
- 29:58SPEAKER_00: It's been great so far.
- 29:59SPEAKER_00: Her team's great, she's super cool.
- 30:01SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 30:01SPEAKER_00: Show should be great.
- 30:02SPEAKER_02: Oh, dope, man.
- 30:03SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
- 30:04SPEAKER_02: Uh, so how do you blend entertainment, community, and advocacy in one event?
- 30:09SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean, really, like when the music's being played or the comedy's being told, like, we can't really come out there in the middle of like Shattered Sun or Zombie King's bed and be like, hey guys, I know one singing right now.
- 30:20SPEAKER_00: But so just reminding people in between like what this show is doing, how it helps at our second annual Rock and Two Inclusion.
- 30:28SPEAKER_00: Uh, right before Zombie King went on, told everyone our impact of like how many kids we fed, how many kids we got close to, how many parents we were able to work with, how many teachers and all that.
- 30:38SPEAKER_00: So just reminding them that you're not just I mean, you are there for the music, right?
- 30:43SPEAKER_00: But like you being here is also for this, and we can't do any of that without you supporting these events.
- 30:49SPEAKER_02: Oh man, dude, that's that's huge, man.
- 30:51SPEAKER_02: You guys support this, man.
- 30:52SPEAKER_02: I I really want to support this.
- 30:53SPEAKER_02: Uh I did last time around, man.
- 30:55SPEAKER_02: And wow, it's so awesome what you're doing, man.
- 30:58SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it, man.
- 30:58SPEAKER_02: Man, speaking of shows, culture, and energy.
- 31:00SPEAKER_02: Uh, let's get into I guess some fun stuff.
- 31:02SPEAKER_02: We're talking about AM Hate Week.
- 31:04SPEAKER_02: What's going on there?
- 31:05SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's Rivalry Week across the country.
- 31:07SPEAKER_00: Um, Michigan has Ohio State, Egg Bull is Thursday as well.
- 31:12SPEAKER_00: No, Friday.
- 31:13SPEAKER_00: That's Mississippi State, Mississippi, um, or Ole Miss.
- 31:16SPEAKER_00: And then you got Texas, Texas AM.
- 31:18SPEAKER_00: It's Rivalry Week, it's hate week.
- 31:21SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just I so I also help with one of the Telgates for Texas.
- 31:24SPEAKER_00: The burnt ends Telgate, I help with them.
- 31:27SPEAKER_00: Um, Rick Vasquez, he's our main guy.
- 31:29SPEAKER_00: He's actually behind the pancake factory in Texas.
- 31:32SPEAKER_00: I don't know if do you know what that is.
- 31:33SPEAKER_02: Sounds familiar.
- 31:33SPEAKER_02: That sounds cool though.
- 31:34SPEAKER_00: So that that's what pays the NIL for the the uh offensive lineman.
- 31:38unknown: Wow.
- 31:38SPEAKER_00: So he was a minor NIL?
- 31:40SPEAKER_00: Yeah, NIL.
- 31:40SPEAKER_00: So, like the you know how the players get paid now?
- 31:42SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, yeah.
- 31:43SPEAKER_00: So it's like yeah, players get paid.
- 31:46SPEAKER_02: When did this happen?
- 31:47SPEAKER_02: Holy smokes.
- 31:48SPEAKER_02: Two years ago, two years.
- 31:50SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 31:50SPEAKER_00: So him and uh some lawyer friends created the framework for that.
- 31:54SPEAKER_00: The what they created is what basically the rest of the country's been using because the framework was already created and it was approved.
- 32:01SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh yeah, I'm I'm I'm under him, help with the different things.
- 32:05SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start cooking Thursday night, probably about eight o'clock at night.
- 32:09SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do, I think, like 10 or 12 briskets, uh 16, 18 pork butts.
- 32:14SPEAKER_01: Holy smokes, you can do all that, bro?
- 32:15SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have a big barrel smoker that we use for the games.
- 32:18SPEAKER_00: Cool.
- 32:19SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'll I'll finish up about seven in the morning with my part, go home, take a nap, and then come back for the certain spot y'all post up at?
- 32:26SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 32:26SPEAKER_00: We're uh we're we're on campus.
- 32:28SPEAKER_00: So the Joe C.
- 32:29SPEAKER_00: Thompson Conference Center or Joe C.
- 32:31SPEAKER_00: Thompson Conference Center, if anyone knows where that is.
- 32:33SPEAKER_00: Um, it's right behind the Longhorn City Limit stage, which is where they do the pre and post-game concerts.
- 32:39SPEAKER_00: Um, we're we're right over there in that area.
- 32:41SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of tents set up over there.
- 32:43SPEAKER_00: Takes about three and a half minutes to walk from DKR from where we are.
- 32:47SPEAKER_00: Like we're we're on we're on school grounds, like right on school grounds.
- 32:52SPEAKER_00: We have all the food, all the beverages you may want.
- 32:56SPEAKER_00: Uh, that sounds like fun, dude.
- 32:58SPEAKER_00: So super fun.
- 32:58SPEAKER_02: That sounds like fun.
- 32:59SPEAKER_02: Well, so what's your connection?
- 33:00SPEAKER_02: Well, you went to school there, right?
- 33:02SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
- 33:02SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
- 33:03SPEAKER_00: So I I went to Texas, big football fan while I was there in postgrad as well.
- 33:07SPEAKER_00: I used to do all the free tailgates, and one of my buddies was like, dude, I know this other one, like it's it's super cool.
- 33:12SPEAKER_00: Come on.
- 33:13SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh, I don't know.
- 33:14SPEAKER_00: Like these ones are free, and that one's$30.
- 33:16SPEAKER_00: He's like, No, no, it's worth it.
- 33:17SPEAKER_00: Went over there, and I mean, just you don't get like great brisket at the free tailgates.
- 33:23SPEAKER_00: You don't get you don't get like this amazing food.
- 33:26SPEAKER_00: You don't see them cut it right in front of you at the the free tailgates, and like the drinks of choice is are pretty amazing as well.
- 33:33SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 33:33SPEAKER_00: Um, so I saw that.
- 33:34SPEAKER_00: The main guy that runs it, Rick, was having a bit of a hard time doing it all by himself.
- 33:38SPEAKER_00: And I was like, hey, well, I have a background in operations.
- 33:41SPEAKER_00: Let me come on, let's organize the season before it even starts and do all the different things.
- 33:46SPEAKER_00: And started with that.
- 33:47SPEAKER_00: Um, last week we smoked a whole pig for the uh for the Arkansas game.
- 33:51SPEAKER_02: Had you done that before?
- 33:52SPEAKER_00: No, well, so we had someone else smoke it.
- 33:54SPEAKER_00: One of our one of the guys on the team, he's uh just became part of barbecue Austin with rodeo Austin.
- 34:00SPEAKER_00: Um, so he was like, Oh, I part just became part of this, I'll smoke it.
- 34:04SPEAKER_00: It's like cool, I get to sleep, awesome.
- 34:06SPEAKER_00: Uh but yeah, so I mean we we go all out, lots of fun, lots of people over there, lots of good food.
- 34:11SPEAKER_02: Sounds like Austin's gonna be home for you.
- 34:13SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah.
- 34:14SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know, maybe most of our work is here in Corpus, so it would be nice to eventually come over here, like a little morbid, but I know I want to die in Corpus.
- 34:23SPEAKER_00: Like I want to die by the water.
- 34:25SPEAKER_00: I want to be fishing, doing all the different things.
- 34:28SPEAKER_02: Has it always been like that for you?
- 34:29SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh like to like want us to stay here because you're from Alice.
- 34:33SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 34:34SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
- 34:35SPEAKER_02: Has that always been something of yours?
- 34:36SPEAKER_00: Or no, when I just recently came about, or maybe in the last six, seven years, when I when I was first in um when I was first in Austin, I was like, dude, I'm never going home.
- 34:47SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not gonna be over here over here ever.
- 34:50SPEAKER_00: Um then my dad moved uh to Cal Allen maybe when I was I don't know, 19, 20.
- 34:55SPEAKER_00: Grandparents moved over here when I was 21, or they were already living in Corpus, they went to San Antonio for a bit, yeah, but moved back.
- 35:02SPEAKER_00: So I would come back and visit a little bit more, go fishing a little bit more, visit Sedhill, fish a little bit more.
- 35:07SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
- 35:08SPEAKER_00: Um and it's just that's kind of how I relax and unwind.
- 35:11SPEAKER_00: Because if I have my phone with me, I'm working.
- 35:14SPEAKER_00: And if I'm on the water, I don't want to take my phone out because I don't want it to fall in the water.
- 35:18SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where I get to relax and just enjoy everything.
- 35:21SPEAKER_00: Chill out.
- 35:21SPEAKER_02: Uh oh, oh yeah, Nick is a Longhorns fan.
- 35:24SPEAKER_02: He's been there for some games.
- 35:26SPEAKER_02: He said we'll be out there for the game Friday.
- 35:28SPEAKER_00: If you're free, come by the Tellgate um Surlyhorns.net or dot com.
- 35:33SPEAKER_00: You'll be able to pull up their website and you'll see the Telgate thing on there.
- 35:37SPEAKER_00: Tickets a little pricey for it, but it's because of the amount of barbecue and uh drinks we're gonna have.
- 35:42SPEAKER_02: Yeah, sounds cool.
- 35:44SPEAKER_02: Does any of the hate week energy make its way into your events or content?
- 35:49SPEAKER_00: Um, not on the not on the uh the nonprofit page, not on there, but on my personal page, yeah.
- 35:57SPEAKER_00: A lot of it on there.
- 35:58SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean Ravalries run deep for one of our shows.
- 36:02SPEAKER_00: I have a coupon code on there of OU Sucks that gets you five dollars off a ticket.
- 36:07SPEAKER_00: Uh so if you're buying a ticket for the Austin show for some reason, OU Sucks, five dollars off.
- 36:12SPEAKER_00: Um, sports kind of determines my mental health.
- 36:14SPEAKER_00: So yeah, big into the football.
- 36:16SPEAKER_00: A lot of that bleeds into my personal like page and whatever, but the nonprofit try my best to keep it uh without.
- 36:22SPEAKER_00: If you pay attention to our posters for the events that we do, you will see an Easter egg that references Texas football in all of the posters.
- 36:30SPEAKER_00: It's just really hard to find them.
- 36:32SPEAKER_00: Yo, that's so cool, man.
- 36:35SPEAKER_02: Rapid fire, what's the best tailgate food?
- 36:38SPEAKER_00: Brisket.
- 36:40SPEAKER_02: Yeah, brisket's king, right?
- 36:42SPEAKER_02: Uh best mascot.
- 36:43SPEAKER_00: Uh Bivo.
- 36:46SPEAKER_02: Worst fan base experience.
- 36:51SPEAKER_00: Man, the so I haven't been to very many away games.
- 36:54SPEAKER_00: Home games haven't been too bad, but I went to the Alabama game.
- 37:00SPEAKER_00: Alabama fans were great, but their students, which I'm sure it's like that everywhere, were just kind of obnoxious.
- 37:07SPEAKER_00: And it was like, dude, like we're just literally not talking to you.
- 37:10SPEAKER_00: What is going on there?
- 37:12SPEAKER_00: Uh most painful loss.
- 37:16SPEAKER_00: Probably Florida this year, because that took us out of contention to more than likely make the playoffs.
- 37:21SPEAKER_00: Because I knew we were gonna more than likely drop Georgia.
- 37:24SPEAKER_00: So that that hurt that and the last year when we lost to Washington.
- 37:27SPEAKER_00: I was at that game.
- 37:28SPEAKER_00: And seeing that we could have taken in the overtime and just didn't do it, that that wasn't having it.
- 37:35SPEAKER_02: Uh, bold prediction for this year.
- 37:39SPEAKER_00: For sports or for the nonprofit?
- 37:42SPEAKER_02: Whichever, whichever is best for you.
- 37:43SPEAKER_02: I mean, whichever you think.
- 37:44SPEAKER_00: Either but either or for sports.
- 37:49SPEAKER_00: Um, this I guess this season's already about to be over, but manning for Heisman in 2026-2027.
- 37:55SPEAKER_00: Nice.
- 37:55SPEAKER_00: Um, and then as far as the nonprofit stuff goes, I I think that by the end of this upcoming year, we will have a solidified base that we're able to help from El Paso to Houston and then all the way up to whatever's above Lubbock.
- 38:08SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
- 38:09SPEAKER_00: Amarillo, all the way down to the Arkansas.
- 38:10SPEAKER_02: That's amazing, man.
- 38:11SPEAKER_02: Well, man, best of luck.
- 38:13SPEAKER_02: Uh so uh so that's is that the is that the biggest are those the biggest goals uh you want to accomplish this this upcoming year?
- 38:20SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we just want to be able to make sure that like teachers are getting the resources they need.
- 38:23SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's pretty huge.
- 38:25SPEAKER_00: We get we get a grant from Google to run ads on there.
- 38:28SPEAKER_00: Wow.
- 38:28SPEAKER_00: So once this thing is done, we're gonna pump a lot of that Google grad Google ad grant money.
- 38:33SPEAKER_00: Dude, that's awesome.
- 38:35SPEAKER_02: Wow, how did you how did you come across that?
- 38:37SPEAKER_02: Did somebody find y'all or did you ask like ask around?
- 38:40SPEAKER_00: Oh like you know what I mean?
- 38:41SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just typed in marketing grants for nonprofits on Google.
- 38:44SPEAKER_00: Yo, and that was the first thing that popped up.
- 38:46SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 38:46SPEAKER_00: So if you're a nonprofit, uh you can apply, you get ten thousand dollars a month in Google Ads.
- 38:51SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, once once we're ready to go with everything, we're just gonna run an ad for the the inclusive learning lab online, put like eight, nine thousand dollars a month in it.
- 39:01SPEAKER_00: We still need a little bit to make sure that our events can pop off and whatnot.
- 39:04SPEAKER_02: Is it true that there's like like so many grants out there that people don't even know about?
- 39:08SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, yeah, there's so many grants out there.
- 39:11SPEAKER_00: Um it's the the the thing about people not knowing about them is that sometimes when you find them, they've already closed.
- 39:17SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, there's a lot out there.
- 39:20SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's cool, man.
- 39:21SPEAKER_02: Uh what's one thing Corpus Christi can do right now to support your mission?
- 39:27SPEAKER_00: Show up to the events, come to the events, let us know that our work matters.
- 39:33SPEAKER_00: We don't do a lot of like email campaigns asking you for a straight-up donation.
- 39:38SPEAKER_00: We try to give you some sort of product for come for supporting us, most of that product being shows or entertainment and some sort of thing.
- 39:46SPEAKER_00: So just show up.
- 39:47SPEAKER_00: That's all we can ask for.
- 39:48SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.
- 39:49SPEAKER_02: So people can find you on the ji2.org website, correct?
- 39:53SPEAKER_02: Um, is that the best place to find you?
- 39:55SPEAKER_02: Is there anywhere anywhere else they can look to find you?
- 39:57SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we're on Instagram and on Facebook, uh, just walking into inclusion on Facebook.
- 40:02SPEAKER_00: You type it in on Instagram, we're also the only one that pops up.
- 40:05SPEAKER_00: Nice.
- 40:05SPEAKER_00: Um, but you can find us on there.
- 40:07SPEAKER_00: You can find my personal page using my first name and my last name, uh walking on hill, and we'll pop up.
- 40:11SPEAKER_02: That's cool, man.
- 40:12SPEAKER_02: Uh, is there anything you'd like to share before we go?
- 40:15SPEAKER_02: Um, because we're we're trying to I'm sorry, that was that was like a cold.
- 40:20SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
- 40:20SPEAKER_02: We're about to wrap up for mine.
- 40:22SPEAKER_02: Is there anything you like to share?
- 40:24SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't just everyone come to events, support everyone else, to crawfish for a cross.
- 40:29SPEAKER_00: We weren't selected for that one, but they do great things for nonprofits as well.
- 40:33SPEAKER_00: One of the nonprofits they're helping um is to is is kids who age out of the foster care system who don't have homes still.
- 40:40SPEAKER_00: Uh, they help them find homes.
- 40:42SPEAKER_00: I don't remember the name of it, but just just support, support however you can, support music, support nonprofits, such amazing talent over here.
- 40:49SPEAKER_00: Yeah, support where you can.
- 40:50SPEAKER_02: Awesome, man.
- 40:51SPEAKER_02: So, this is the uh Hispanic goodbye where I say goodbye and then I ask you some more questions.
- 40:55SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
- 40:56SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering about the the prison.
- 40:58SPEAKER_02: Was it school to prison thing that you had on your yeah, yeah, school to prison prison?
- 41:01SPEAKER_02: Can you tell me more about that?
- 41:02SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the school to prison pipeline is kind of just the a pipeline people talk about where schools, predominantly title ones or your poor schools, those kids end up in prison in some one way or another.
- 41:16SPEAKER_00: Um, at a or at a higher rate than you would in like your affluent schools, right?
- 41:19SPEAKER_00: Kids with disabilities, primarily ADD, ADHD, and dyslexia, end up in the system more than everyone else.
- 41:25SPEAKER_00: Because if you have too much energy or you're dyslexic and you don't know that you are, you just feel like you're dumb or whatever you may feel.
- 41:34SPEAKER_00: No guidance.
- 41:34SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it could be anything, yeah.
- 41:36SPEAKER_00: Any of those factors.
- 41:37SPEAKER_00: Yeah, any of those things just making you feel like, man, like I'm not good enough because I don't know what I'm doing.
- 41:41SPEAKER_00: I can't read or whatever it is.
- 41:42SPEAKER_00: Those students tend to lash out the most, they tend to act out the most.
- 41:45SPEAKER_00: They want to be like the class clown, which is fine.
- 41:48SPEAKER_00: Like everyone likes your class clown, they're funny.
- 41:50SPEAKER_00: But sometimes those behaviors change from things that are, you know, more or less okay to things that get you into trouble.
- 41:57SPEAKER_00: You start going to the principal's office more.
- 41:59SPEAKER_00: Now you're labeled as a troublemaker, now you're fighting, now you've gone to juvie.
- 42:04SPEAKER_00: Once you've gone to juvie, you you're kind of already in the system.
- 42:08SPEAKER_00: So you your likelihood of ending back into it goes up even more.
- 42:11SPEAKER_00: So our work with Bear County is to try to we're we're working with a bunch of nonprofits over there and with the with the Bear County um juvenile probation department to come up with ways to impact schools to make sure that kids don't end up in juvie.
- 42:26SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man, dude, that's awesome.
- 42:28SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it seems like Bear County's like one of the hugest ones too in Texas.
- 42:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, yeah, because you have so many low-income schools in San Antonio, and there's a lot of lot of gang problems and gang violence over there as is.
- 42:40SPEAKER_00: And if you have students who just feel like, dude, I'm not good at school, like why would I even try?
- 42:45SPEAKER_00: That's only gonna make it a little bit worse.
- 42:47SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, dude.
- 42:48SPEAKER_02: Wow.
- 42:48SPEAKER_02: Well, man, we're I'm rooting for you, man, for sure.
- 42:51SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
- 42:52SPEAKER_02: Guys come out, support, support uh walking to is it what is it, walking to inclusion, right?
- 42:56SPEAKER_02: Yeah, walking into inclusion, walking into inclusion, and that's the name of the name of the nonprofit.
- 43:01SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
- 43:02SPEAKER_02: Walking in, walking into inclusion.
- 43:04SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 43:05SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's cool, man.
- 43:06SPEAKER_02: Yeah, support these guys, man.
- 43:07SPEAKER_02: You guys, uh, but yeah, thanks for coming on the show, man.
- 43:10SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to see if I have any more questions before you go, man.
- 43:13SPEAKER_02: I I really like uh what you're doing and just hoping for the best, man.
- 43:17SPEAKER_02: And hopefully you get some more shows out here and people support and people see what you're doing.
- 43:22SPEAKER_02: Hopefully, people see this podcast.
- 43:23SPEAKER_02: You know, if I share when I share some clips, you know, hopefully you'll get some some some drum, some, some uh, you know, some drumming going.
- 43:30SPEAKER_02: So but thanks for coming on, Joaquin.
- 43:32SPEAKER_00: For sure, man.
- 43:33SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
- 43:34SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
- 43:34SPEAKER_02: Yes, sir.
- 43:34SPEAKER_02: Are you guys?
- 43:35SPEAKER_02: All right, so Joaquin, so uh yeah, so check back uh check out the show this uh Friday, November 28th and December 8th.
- 43:42SPEAKER_02: Uh follow Joaquin into inclusion and support the movement towards uh better inclusion for kids in our communities uh in Texas.
- 43:51SPEAKER_02: Uh this has been another episode of the Corpus Christi Originals podcast.
- 43:54SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Hesusi Ladio, and I'll see you on the next one.