Latest / Voices for Voices® / Power of a Dream: 16 Years of Sisterhood Against Domestic Violence | Episode 202

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Power of a Dream: 16 Years of Sisterhood Against Domestic Violence | Episode 202 · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: Welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast.
• 0:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: I am your host, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, justin Allen Hayes.
• 0:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us, whether you're listening or whether you're watching this particular episode, we couldn't do this without you.
• 0:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: If you're able to subscribe, share like comment, that would be very helpful to us to be able to share the wonderful guests with you and with people in Northeast Ohio, across the United States and across the world, and that is what we aim to do.
• 0:44
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're reaching 50 countries, 500 cities already today, and we can do this without you, and we thank you again for having the support of us at this time and again say thank you ten times.
• 1:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: So today we're going to be doing part two of a two-part series.
• 1:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: You saw last week our wonderful interview with Brenda Justice, who works with the Akron Symphony Orchestra but, more importantly, is the founding president and chairperson of Power of a Dream Sisters Helping Sisters Ministries, which is a 501c3.
• 1:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: And we are going to continue our conversation and move into a couple fun topics.
• 1:46
  Justin Alan Hayes: Maybe One's more funner than the other and again, thank you for joining us, brenda.
• 1:54
  Brenda Justice: Thank you again.
• 1:55
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, so let's start out talking.
• 2:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: Okay, so, Power of a Dream.
• 2:01
  Justin Alan Hayes: You have a.
• 2:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: How does the programming work?
• 2:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: I guess for Power of a dream.
• 2:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: You have a.
• 2:05
  Justin Alan Hayes: How does the programming work, I guess for power of a dream well, how has it now?
• 2:12
  Brenda Justice: how has it ended up?
• 2:13
  Brenda Justice: yeah, okay, yeah, that's been a process but, um, this is um, we, um, power of a dream sister, helping sisters, ministries, we, we have different groups under our umbrella, okay, and those groups address different areas of domestic violence and how we deal with them.
• 2:33
  Brenda Justice: Okay, our first one, which we've had from the very beginning, is called Cherish Cherish, the woman that God has made you.
• 2:41
  Brenda Justice: And I just want to say also, also, although we are started out as a women's group, we do not um, we do not um, well, we always accept everyone, regardless, regardless.
• 2:57
  Brenda Justice: So, men, you're also invited as well, because you never know, those topics might be for you as well.
• 3:01
  Brenda Justice: So I just wanted to say that, because sometimes people think it's only for women and uh, no, domestic violence is domestic violence and addresses everyone.
• 3:10
  Brenda Justice: But um, cherish cherish, woman that god has made you, um, and that is for persons that have gone through domestic, right there in the middle of domestic violence, trying to get out, trying to find self, or they are have already gotten out.
• 3:26
  Brenda Justice: Now, where do I go next?
• 3:28
  Brenda Justice: And and also addressing the different things that led up to them going through domestic violence, because a lot of times we're not aware of what led to domestic violence and and how to get out of it and how to proceed forward.
• 3:40
  Brenda Justice: And then we have another group called the Women's Forum, taking Care of Thy Wonderful Self.
• 3:47
  Brenda Justice: Our chairperson is Nadine Minister, nadine Bates, and it's all about self-care, women and persons having self-care.
• 3:58
  Brenda Justice: We do it three times a year and we've had different people come in on the psychological part of it, as far as taking care of your health.
• 4:07
  Brenda Justice: There's different things that we have addressed in that area.
• 4:11
  Brenda Justice: We also have the Everyday Brother.
• 4:16
  Brenda Justice: Now we just finished our second year with the Everyday Brother.
• 4:22
  Brenda Justice: I thought that you know it's for those men who are abusers or former abusers or been abused, because when you address the men, you know, oh, I know they're bad, I just know they've been the abused ones, I mean the ones that have been abusers, and it's not always that way.
• 4:49
  Brenda Justice: It goes both ways and people need to be open-minded about that.
• 4:52
  Brenda Justice: You know, don't just look one way.
• 4:55
  Brenda Justice: I thought that it was.
• 4:58
  Brenda Justice: I like the everyday brother.
• 5:00
  Brenda Justice: I don't need lawyers, I don't need people that have big names, I don't need that.
• 5:04
  Brenda Justice: We need the everyday brother, the one that we see walking down the street, the one that has a story to tell and and maybe this is a way for them to let other brothers know how things work, so I thought that I could proceed on.
• 5:18
  Brenda Justice: Then I found there's more to it than for men.
• 5:20
  Brenda Justice: I am a woman so it's a little bit more difficult.
• 5:23
  Brenda Justice: So I have a male.
• 5:25
  Brenda Justice: Our male facilitator is Demond Secession and he's also my advisor for that group.
• 5:32
  Brenda Justice: And so we've taught, we've addressed, we did self-care for men.
• 5:35
  Brenda Justice: This year we also addressed the end of the year with sexual domestic violence.
• 5:41
  Brenda Justice: You know we had a gentleman that did that from Kent State.
• 5:46
  Brenda Justice: He was an advisor for that and we addressed a lot of things.
• 5:49
  Brenda Justice: We also did the mental.
• 5:52
  Brenda Justice: We touched base with the mental with Robert Hunt in the beginning of the year with NAMI.
• 5:56
  Brenda Justice: He's the president of NAMI.
• 5:57
  Brenda Justice: So we addressed a lot of things.
• 5:59
  Brenda Justice: We even did some scenes so people could see how to react back and forth.
• 6:02
  Brenda Justice: And then we do so many things.
• 6:05
  Brenda Justice: It's such a crazy year for us.
• 6:07
  Brenda Justice: But we also have in October we have our domestic violence workshop.
• 6:11
  Brenda Justice: We do it every year.
• 6:13
  Brenda Justice: We've been in existence 16 years.
• 6:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: That's what I knew was over 10, so that's 16.
• 6:20
  Brenda Justice: And so every domestic violence we do our domestic violence workshop.
• 6:25
  Brenda Justice: But it's not just domestic violence in general, it's domestic violence in different areas.
• 6:33
  Brenda Justice: This year we did child abuse, One year we did elder abuse.
• 6:37
  Brenda Justice: Next year we're doing handicap abuse.
• 6:39
  Brenda Justice: You know, sometimes we do physical abuse, sometimes it's all different types of facets of this and I think people just narrow it down.
• 6:47
  Brenda Justice: But in addition to that, we have people come like from different areas.
• 6:51
  Brenda Justice: We have someone from CASA come from the juvenile courts.
• 6:54
  Brenda Justice: We have someone from the prosecutors come.
• 6:57
  Brenda Justice: You know, prosecutor Elliott came one year before he became the prosecutor.
• 7:02
  Brenda Justice: We have different areas and different that we address, but we always end with testimonials and also we have a brother, george Head, that does our self-defense.
• 7:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: Okay.
• 7:16
  Brenda Justice: And self-defense is applied to, whatever the topic was, is how do hand like this year coming up handicap how do you handicap people stay?
• 7:27
  Brenda Justice: I used to help defense people never addressed those things.
• 7:31
  Brenda Justice: We think outside of the box.
• 7:33
  Brenda Justice: That's what we do, because I it's nice that we can talk about it.
• 7:38
  Brenda Justice: We can talk, well, you can talk to your blue, but what you're going to do about it you know, and those, and I mean we also had one.
• 7:45
  Brenda Justice: We were just one year with the blind.
• 7:46
  Brenda Justice: People don't realize what the blind is going through.
• 7:50
  Brenda Justice: And some people one lady, I mean one lady was blind because of domestic violence.
• 7:53
  Brenda Justice: You know, we've had all this.
• 7:55
  Brenda Justice: And I had another lady that uh um, because you know, when we did a general one of just the physical part of it, we had the one lady she had her husband throw an acid in her face and she's had over 60 some surgeries, you know, and now she is an advocate, of course, but you know those kind of things, people need to tell their story.
• 8:22
  Brenda Justice: And I had one lady come to our meeting that her boyfriend had hit her so hard in her chest it broke her chest bone, but she didn't leave him, you know, because of fear.
• 8:34
  Brenda Justice: Fear is the main thing for domestic violence.
• 8:38
  Brenda Justice: And then, of course, you know, as you know, with all these things going on, we try to do fundraisers.
• 8:44
  Brenda Justice: Fundraisers are probably the worst part of this for me, because it takes a lot of effort.
• 8:50
  Brenda Justice: We always start off with a fish fry at my house, so we did the fish fry, which started to be more of a community thing for us now, and then we just do different things, raffles and different things of that sort, and of course the big one is the six, our Six-annual black tie affair that we have, and we always do it at the Akron Women's City Club.
• 9:12
  Brenda Justice: You know, so we.
• 9:14
  Brenda Justice: But it's just so hard, you know it's hard to get people involved, and and there's also so many organizations that I found out this year Everybody's having a gala, everybody's doing some kind of fundraiser, and it's all around the same month by the time December comes.
• 9:30
  Brenda Justice: Oh, I'm sorry, or they have a preference.
• 9:33
  Brenda Justice: People don't realize that power of a dream.
• 9:36
  Brenda Justice: Although we are a small organization, we're, we're mighty yeah at the same time, we still help others and I think, um, I think they, in a way, sometimes people judge you.
• 9:47
  Brenda Justice: They don't understand how hard it is just to get to where we're at.
• 9:51
  Brenda Justice: It takes a lot of work and a lot of perseverance.
• 9:55
  Brenda Justice: You have to be ready to persevere, and so I've been trying my best, and I have an exec board as well.
• 10:02
  Brenda Justice: Do you mind if I say who they are, because they've been so loyal to me?
• 10:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: no please.
• 10:08
  Brenda Justice: You know everybody doesn't always agree, but we come to an agreement and that's what I always say, because I have to be very open to hear what other people have to say.
• 10:17
  Brenda Justice: You know, although I might not always agree, but sometimes I'm not always correct.
• 10:22
  Brenda Justice: And so my vice president, who's been with Power Dream for 16 years, is Minister Nadine Bates.
• 10:30
  Brenda Justice: We also have my sister, carla Portis.
• 10:34
  Brenda Justice: She's also our corresponding secretary and our outreach person as well.
• 10:41
  Brenda Justice: She loves people and you can always count on her.
• 10:44
  Brenda Justice: She's very loyal and she's also the co-chair for the Cherish group, okay, you know.
• 10:52
  Brenda Justice: And, by the way, cherish meets every first Saturday of the month.
• 10:56
  Brenda Justice: We take a break.
• 10:58
  Brenda Justice: We're going to be from March through December.
• 11:02
  Brenda Justice: Okay, because it's a lot of work.
• 11:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, it is.
• 11:08
  Brenda Justice: And at this point we have programming, basically.
• 11:10
  Brenda Justice: And then we have Nancy Jacobs she's also a co-chairperson and Artelia Mayfield, she's our member-at-large, and Anita Young is our member at large as well.
• 11:25
  Brenda Justice: So if I forgot someone, please forgive me, but we do.
• 11:35
  Brenda Justice: And then we have our advisory board.
• 11:36
  Brenda Justice: We have Ophelia Averitt, we have David Sika, we have Robert Hunt and we have Martha Dr Martha Banks.
• 11:41
  Brenda Justice: So those are my, that's my support team, you know the head ones.
• 11:46
  Brenda Justice: And then, of course, we're always taking members, as you know, as much as we can, and we also ask for those who are ready to volunteer, please be willing to do that for us.
• 11:55
  Brenda Justice: So you know.
• 11:56
  Brenda Justice: So that's what we basically.
• 11:58
  Brenda Justice: Basically, that's what we're doing.
• 12:00
  Brenda Justice: You know, we're just busy.
• 12:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: And to really take what you said, talking about fundraising events, there's so many organizations and they're doing such great work and we try not to be competitive like in the corporate world, where we're like oh, here's our competitors.
• 12:27
  Justin Alan Hayes: But what we're finding and I'm sure you are as well we all have competitors, even if we don't know it, if it's not verbalized, that for every dollar that an individual has, if they've been donating to an organization for 10 years, well, come year 11, they're going to donate to that same one.
• 12:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: Right, and that's something that I've had to work on.
• 13:03
  Justin Alan Hayes: Just internalizing.
• 13:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: That's something that I've had to work on.
• 13:09
  Justin Alan Hayes: Just internalizing, not comparing our organization to an organization that's been around for 50, 60, 100 years, like Yip Nami, and to really start to try to grasp how to reach individuals where they're at, knowing that Akron Children's Hospital and certain ones are just like St Jude's and Shriners.
• 13:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: Everybody's doing incredible work and it's much needed.
• 13:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: But the fundraising part is probably the toughest I would agree part is probably the the toughest.
• 13:51
  Justin Alan Hayes: I I would agree, and you and I and anybody who's leading an organization is the point person.
• 13:53
  Justin Alan Hayes: Many times, if not always, we don't get paid like.
• 13:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: We don't like if you donate a hundred dollars or twenty dollars out of times it's not like we're just putting that in our pocket no, no, not at all it's going into programming, it's going into what can we do?
• 14:08
  Justin Alan Hayes: you know next year?
• 14:10
  Justin Alan Hayes: Right, you know we were coming up short this year and and so I think, just making making sure an organization is a 501c3, while individuals are looking at organizations, that should be like the first thing that there's, uh, but I mean there's, there's a lot of great foundations that are out there, but they might not be a 501c3 and it may be a family foundation which we right, I gotta watch you know speaking about certain right, right certain terms and certain things and foundations is is one of those, but there are.
• 15:00
  Justin Alan Hayes: That being said, there are organizations whatever you want to call them that they're in existence for the family oh yeah, and so that family is like oh well, we do this one thing a year but uh, and you know, we've found a lot.
• 15:20
  Justin Alan Hayes: There's just so many foundations and they're getting.
• 15:22
  Justin Alan Hayes: It just seems to be a popular thing for individuals whether they're an athlete or entertainer.
• 15:29
  Justin Alan Hayes: It's like, well, we got this foundation and then the money goes there, and then they have, you know, family members on the board and then they start divvying up the money that way, as far as like a tax, so they don't get taxed on the money.
• 15:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: So for the individual or individuals out there, the organizations that are looking for you know, sponsorship opportunity.
• 15:50
  Brenda Justice: Oh my gosh.
• 15:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, power of a dream, voice for voices.
• 15:56
  Justin Alan Hayes: You can't go wrong with that and I know you've had supporters.
• 16:02
  Justin Alan Hayes: Like I said, you wouldn't have been able to be in existence for 16 years if there weren't supporters, and the number one supporter it's you and I.
• 16:12
  Brenda Justice: Right, Exactly, Totally.
• 16:14
  Brenda Justice: And you know.
• 16:14
  Brenda Justice: You know we do this programming because I and you believe, we both believe so much in what we do, and I don't know about you, but when it comes to financial support of what we do, if we don't have it, it comes out of our pocket.
• 16:31
  Brenda Justice: Exactly, and I wasn't going to address this, but you know what.
• 16:35
  Brenda Justice: I think that it needs to be addressed because we just started actually at least me feeling that we are qualified for what is expected of us, to apply for a grant.
• 16:47
  Brenda Justice: And people say, oh, they could have done this.
• 16:50
  Brenda Justice: Oh, why didn't they do this?
• 16:51
  Brenda Justice: Well, we're not ready.
• 16:52
  Brenda Justice: You have to be ready and you have to have things in place.
• 16:57
  Brenda Justice: I'm not going to just you got to be responsible for that money and make sure it does what it's supposed to do, and so and so we did get one grant last year.
• 17:06
  Brenda Justice: We got one grant last year, and then I started to apply.
• 17:11
  Brenda Justice: This time I said, well, we're set up to the point now, but it's sort of like a programming.
• 17:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 17:19
  Brenda Justice: You know we have speakers that come in for all of our groups.
• 17:22
  Brenda Justice: Sometimes it's just people that have, sometimes it's the testimonial part, but whatever it is, we're helping and we're trying to get to that awareness of domestic violence.
• 17:32
  Brenda Justice: But this year we started doing the grants and because now we're doing the grants, you know your pockets get a little weak when you keep doing this.
• 17:43
  Brenda Justice: Right, you know what I mean.
• 17:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: You talk about inflation and then the politic being an election year, a national election, where some individuals maybe that's where maybe some of that money went and I read some research that election years are like one of the hardest years to be able to obtain, because it doesn't.
• 18:09
  Brenda Justice: It doesn't, yeah, it's gone.
• 18:11
  Justin Alan Hayes: I mean it doesn't make me feel any better about this situation because to your point.
• 18:16
  Justin Alan Hayes: We're reaching into our, our own pocket and I it and I I've I've stated it publicly many times about our organization I've put and it's not the gloat or anything, but I've put over $100,000 of my own money over the course of it.
• 18:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: Bless your heart.
• 18:36
  Justin Alan Hayes: And if I didn't have that, I wouldn't be able to go.
• 18:40
  Justin Alan Hayes: You can't do anything.
• 18:41
  Justin Alan Hayes: You can't do anything.
• 18:41
  Brenda Justice: You can't even accomplish your goal.
• 18:43
  Justin Alan Hayes: No.
• 18:46
  Brenda Justice: And, in addition to that, it's hard to get sponsorships because, you know, I personally I think they're looking at the, the big organ, you know corporations, organizations or whatever it may be and when you're the low person down here, it's like what do you do, different than what they do?
• 19:04
  Brenda Justice: But everybody can't.
• 19:07
  Brenda Justice: Everybody can't help everybody, that's right.
• 19:09
  Brenda Justice: One organization can't help everybody.
• 19:11
  Brenda Justice: You got to spread it a little bit so that they can, because sometimes it gets too big, you lose the little ones, you know, and they and they might go back.
• 19:19
  Brenda Justice: You don't want that to happen.
• 19:22
  Brenda Justice: So they have to understand that we are just as important, you know, and and I and I truly believe that god didn so they had to understand that we were just as important, you know, and I truly believe that God didn't put this in my mind and feed this all to me, because he fed it to me, you know.
• 19:34
  Brenda Justice: Yeah, it started off with just power, and I was listening to Whitley Phipps and I was sitting in my chair and I was like, and then the dream power of a dream came up, you know, and then it was a building process for me.
• 19:47
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 19:47
  Brenda Justice: You know, and it's not something that I just said, oh, I'm just going to do it.
• 19:51
  Brenda Justice: It's scary to do this.
• 19:54
  Justin Alan Hayes: It is, you know.
• 19:55
  Brenda Justice: It's very scary and it's like is anybody really going to come to my meetings today?
• 19:59
  Brenda Justice: Or you know what are you going to do, but you know what are you going to do.
• 20:09
  Brenda Justice: You know, but you know what I we do to.
• 20:10
  Brenda Justice: Also, I want to add this and we have our meeting, so sometimes we notice that it is a little bit low in numbers.
• 20:13
  Brenda Justice: But now I facebook live because I found that some people come on, some people are ashamed right you know what I'm saying, and they're ashamed and they don't want everybody to know their business and they might, you know, be known or whatever it may be, but they can still listen to us and it's recorded and I put it on YouTube and I'm pretty sure that you've been in a position where you probably had to teach yourself a lot of things because we can't afford to get a professional videographer or photographer or whatever it may be.
• 20:42
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, for all the programming.
• 20:43
  Brenda Justice: Yes, but thank God for Google, so I've learned a whole lot of things.
• 20:48
  Brenda Justice: You know, I do my own grants and you know, and we have somebody on our board that reviews them for me, so, but that takes a lot of time.
• 20:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: It does.
• 20:58
  Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, oh my gosh.
• 20:59
  Brenda Justice: You have to break that.
• 21:00
  Brenda Justice: Oh, it's just, it's just something.
• 21:02
  Brenda Justice: And you just said is this correct?
• 21:03
  Brenda Justice: You go over, you go over, you go over and it's like, hmm, okay, you know, you just have to be so correct.
• 21:09
  Brenda Justice: And then you never know when you get some of these grants.
• 21:11
  Brenda Justice: Sometimes you have to take care of the money beforehand, Right, you know people don't look at that.
• 21:18
  Justin Alan Hayes: No.
• 21:25
  Brenda Justice: And I'm like that means I better have my savings together, because otherwise know we can't help accomplish this.
• 21:28
  Brenda Justice: So it's so many fences of.
• 21:28
  Brenda Justice: Isn't it something amazing how things happen.
• 21:29
  Brenda Justice: Even my, I think my team doesn't even realize how much it takes to do these things.
• 21:34
  Brenda Justice: You know because somebody said well, why don't you just ask, tell us about that, you need to do this.
• 21:38
  Brenda Justice: A operational cost, cost, just operational cost every month, although we don't have a, a location, a don't have a location for what we do.
• 21:49
  Brenda Justice: We do a lot of things from the library or from the community center, but that takes money too.
• 21:57
  Brenda Justice: It takes ink, paper, all these things, stamps, everything.
• 22:04
  Justin Alan Hayes: It takes a lot of time and people look at the one thing like, oh, everything, it takes a lot of time.
• 22:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: And people look at the one thing like, oh, it's just a stamp or five stamps, but it's the accumulation of stamps plus ink plus paper, plus rental fee, and it's like and that's just a small thing.
• 22:20
  Brenda Justice: Then you look at it and you're like, oh wow, because, just like when we did our black tie, I had to think about some things.
• 22:26
  Brenda Justice: I wanted to have a photographer again, but I said, ladies, you will take your self, your, your cell phones out and you will take pictures.
• 22:34
  Brenda Justice: Yeah, because we cannot.
• 22:35
  Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, you know I can it's just, as I mean as far as quality wise, it very.
• 22:42
  Brenda Justice: I mean, that's what we do a lot, and google has it so that you can fix them up and everything.
• 22:46
  Brenda Justice: So I'm like I'll deal with that, and then we couldn't have a DJ this year.
• 22:51
  Brenda Justice: But plan B A friend of mine brought her, you know, had a list of Spotify.
• 22:57
  Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 22:58
  Brenda Justice: And we had you know we did our.
• 22:59
  Brenda Justice: I do believe in having live entertainment though at some point.
• 23:02
  Brenda Justice: So my friend and he's also my company, that's um kenny mccorvey.
• 23:06
  Brenda Justice: He did a lot of like piano music to set the mood right you know.
• 23:10
  Brenda Justice: So we still had a wonderful evening.
• 23:12
  Brenda Justice: It might and we could, you have to cut where you can cut and um, but mainly it was like it was very hard, you know, and the program booklets, that's another story, isn't it?
• 23:23
  Justin Alan Hayes: yeah, I, I mean even just brochure, I mean exactly anything like well, just paper and ink, oh yeah, but how you can't just like the brochures one, no, like I want to this print so many is for this, and then we'll come back and visit again.
• 23:38
  Brenda Justice: You know that's what I do, like that one there and then.
• 23:41
  Brenda Justice: But I do my own brochures, you know, and I did my own program booklet.
• 23:45
  Justin Alan Hayes: Because you have to learn you can't depend on people to do things for you, because nobody has that, that passion and feeling that you have exactly and it comes back to nobody is gonna be as bought into the organization, the mission, the programming, as you and I and I found that too where it's like, wow, there's people in there that want to be involved, but I'm afraid they might take an idea here or there.
• 24:21
  Brenda Justice: Not while I'm.
• 24:21
  Brenda Justice: You know that's so true, and I hate that.
• 24:25
  Justin Alan Hayes: I don't like to kind of verbalize it, but then it's like well, who else is going to do it then?
• 24:31
  Justin Alan Hayes: And then that's just extra work on myself.
• 24:36
  Brenda Justice: Hello.
• 24:39
  Justin Alan Hayes: And it's, it's, it's a lot, and I think that for individuals, just watching and listening any organization takes a lot of time and attention.
• 24:49
  Justin Alan Hayes: But you look at these, you know larger organizations.
• 24:52
  Justin Alan Hayes: They have staffs of like a hundred and they have volunteers that have been volunteering for years and years and they have, you know maybe, different locations.
• 25:06
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know different locations, different cities.
• 25:07
  Justin Alan Hayes: They've grown to be able to do that, but you have to have people to do that, because you're just one individual.
• 25:14
  Justin Alan Hayes: Right, right, it's like why can't be in Chicago and Miami or New.
• 25:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: York City.
• 25:17
  Justin Alan Hayes: I gotta be here, and how am I gonna find out if they're doing what they're supposed?
• 25:23
  Brenda Justice: to do and give them a budget.
• 25:27
  Brenda Justice: It's very serious here.
• 25:28
  Brenda Justice: Yeah, this is serious, you can tell, because they have to remember too.
• 25:33
  Brenda Justice: We have a job in addition to all this.
• 25:36
  Brenda Justice: Right to be able to do it.
• 25:40
  Brenda Justice: Yes, and so you know, you have family, so we have a lot of things going on in our own lives that we make time for what we feel that you know has been put on our heart.
• 25:48
  Justin Alan Hayes: You know, and I'm just going to mention this to you, Nobody's listening or watching, just you know people all over the world.
• 25:59
  Brenda Justice: But you know we were talking earlier before we came on and you know we were talking talking earlier before we came on, and you know we're talking, I, you know, I know many times, sometimes people don't want to come to meetings because they don't want to hear what has to be said.
• 26:12
  Brenda Justice: And and I was telling you about my, one of the one of our facilitators was speaking for our black tie and it was on, you know, it was on a testimonial that he was inspired to speak about because of our guest speaker, which was Teresa Stafford from Hope and Healing, and, um, I was so amazed and I'm still amazed, I just want to bring it up again I'm still amazed of how people can judge and how people, um, are afraid to hear what might be in their own homes.
• 26:47
  Brenda Justice: I just think that, as I don't think we should judge anybody, I don't think we should put ourself on a platform and think that we're better than anybody else, because we're not.
• 26:56
  Brenda Justice: Everybody has done something, everybody is doing something, and that's what I'll say there.
• 27:02
  Brenda Justice: And but you know, and nobody's perfect, you know, give people a break you don't know what they're going through and try to empathize with that person, because it's not fair.
• 27:15
  Brenda Justice: And when they address some situations at the black tie.
• 27:18
  Brenda Justice: You know, I had someone call me about it and they say, well, they're representing you, brenda, you know.
• 27:25
  Brenda Justice: And I said, and to myself, and so are you.
• 27:28
  Brenda Justice: So it puts me, it gives me another mindset because you have to accept people for who they are.
• 27:36
  Brenda Justice: And then I had another call the other day and you know, everything might have been fine but you know, maybe they shouldn't been talking about what they were talking about.
• 27:43
  Brenda Justice: It was okay for the speaker to talk about, well, the Well, the speaker's talked about it, so they can talk about it too.
• 27:48
  Brenda Justice: And why should I shut anybody up when somebody needed to hear that and somebody needed to be released from that?
• 27:56
  Brenda Justice: So I just feel that when you have a guest speaker, I let them be who they are and I don don't judge you because I don't want you to judge me right well, we're getting super close, so, and so I just wanted to thank you again for part one, part two, we'll have you back and, uh, potential podcasting collaboration with the organizations.
• 28:21
  Brenda Justice: Yes, yes, some fun fun things, yes, so thanks.
• 28:23
  Justin Alan Hayes: Fun things, yes, so thanks for joining us, thank you.
• 28:26
  Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us, our watchers, our viewers, our listeners, until next time.
• 28:33
  Justin Alan Hayes: I am Justin Allen Hayes, founder and executive director of Voices for Voices, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.