ANNOUNCER: Tonight on Showcase with Barbara Kellar CEO and founder of Clever Crazes for Kids, Diane Dunkelman.

Stay tuned.

Showcase starts right now.

[music] KELLAR: Hi, I'm Barbara Kellar and today we have a very, very special guest, Diane Dunkelman, who is here with me today as a celebration, sort of, of our 18th year and to celebrate what she's accomplished in all these years.

And she's here to tell us about it.

So first, I just want to say that as a volunteer, Diane ran fundraisers like no one else.

She always said, "I promise little and I deliver a lot," which she always did.

Her fundraisers made the most money of any in the city, and we always said the gross is the net, because her personality was such that she got everything donated, so there were no expenses for a benefit.

It was all profit.

So that's how she became famous.

But then she segued into something else even bigger and better.

So, Diane, welcome to Showcase.

We've come a long way here.

DUNKELMAN: We so have.

Oh, my gosh, Barbara.

When I think back that it was 18 years when I got a call, would I do this again?

I said, "Only if you can promise me that I'll be back on Barbara's show 18 years from now."

KELLAR: Right, yes, exactly.

DUNKELMAN: So we have to keep ourselves in really good shape.

KELLAR: Yes, we do.

We've been doing this here.

We've been trying a lot.

Yes, yes.

Well, Diane, tell us what you were planning at that time.

DUNKELMAN: So it really is has come full circle that we are sitting here in your studio, your Emmy Award winning studio.

And the first event that I did for a new project was to benefit WCET, which is just amazing to me, as I thought about that driving down in the car today.

And of course, Connie Cousins was here and we had just a wonderful time together.

And you kept encouraging me that this would be a great idea.

So trying to think of what I love to do and what is exciting for me is to cover unmet needs.

What can we do when we realize that there's an unmet need?

And I really learned that little phrase from Procter and Gamble, but it's so perfect.

And there was nothing being done about women's health.

And when you think back, that was in '95.

So there really was not, it was just women were treated as little men, whether it was medications or exercise or really the opportunity to participate in your own well-being to start with, and then recovery, because we all know it's patch, patch, patch.

So women needed to be inspired to do that.

And I said, "Let's do an event for that," and we did.

And CET made way more money, I remember in those days they wanted to make $25,000.

And my gosh, Barbara, we made $125,000.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: And the women who came were so excited.

And they said, "There's so much we're learning, so much we're renewing things that we learned.

And my mom lives in such and such a city, and it would be so great to do it there.

And my college roommate and my sisters."

And before we knew it, we had sponsors who were willing to take us all over the country.

And eventually it was in 50 cities.

And I think, as you know, some of our friends in the black community were saying, "It's so interesting.

We love coming to Speaking of Women's Health, but our community has different, different ways of getting our health information.

And we would like to see if you could do that and present to the African American community."

And I said to my friends, "I just want to make sure that doesn't feel separate but equal," because since the '60s, right, I've been campaigning against that.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: And I remember as Yvonne Robertson was really taking a lead in this and her sister Teresa Henderson, so all friends of yours.

And we said, "Absolutely," you know, it's people tell you what they need and you deliver.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: So, we call it Celebration of Soul and Health.

And it took off and then it was the women from the Hispanic community.

So then we had expanded to doing one for the Hispanic community, Hablando de la Salud de la Mujer, which was speaking -- [crosstalk] KELLAR: You got your Spanish right in there.

DUNKELMAN: So it just grew, it took off and took on a life of its own, which I think happens when there's a need.

You just have to lead, follow, or get out of the way because it's going to happen.

KELLAR: How many years did you do Speaking of Women's Health?

DUNKELMAN: So we did Speaking of Women's Health from '95-'04, when there was an opportunity to transition Speaking of Women's Health to the Cleveland Clinic.

So Holly Thacker, Dr. Holly Thacker, who was the head of women's health at the Cleveland Clinic became the CEO.

And I still remain on as director of strategy for that.

Although you can't dictate from the grave.

And I am telling you, they have done such wonderful things.

Their newsletter is spectacular.

And I would encourage all of your listeners and then your listeners to share with their friends and family to look at that, Speaking of Women's Health Newsletter that the Cleveland Clinic does.

It's there's loaded with great information.

KELLAR: Yeah, and so then you segued into yet another career.

Tell us about that.

DUNKELMAN: So, it was really fascinating, Barbara, I think the opportunity came to me to say I wanted to do something for children.

And the reason was I began to learn that there were so many absences because the absentee rate was so high for little kids, I mean, elementary school kids.

And a lot of it was because they weren't healthy.

It wasn't just that they had a cold.

It was all the underlying reasons.

They weren't eating healthy.

They weren't getting their inoculations.

There were just so many reasons.

So I said, "Let's put something together," and we made a book.

And I took it down to the woman, who at the time, many years ago, obviously in '04 was the superintendent.

And she said, "Oh, my gosh, Diane, this is lovely, but don't give my teachers one more thing to do."

So I said, but it will make their students healthier.

And she said, "By testing time?"

And I said, "No, it'll take a little longer than that."

KELLAR: Right.

DUNKELMAN: So I left and I took the book over because at that time I had 10,000 books that we had printed and which seemed like not a lot because Speaking of Women's Health over the years we had 4.7 million books.

But 10,000 felt like a good start.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: I took it to Shannon Carter who had the Teacher Free Store.

And I said, "Shannon, could you use these?"

And she said, "I don't know.

Let's put them out and see what happens."

And she called me in a week, she said, "They're gone.

And can you get me 40,000?"

KELLAR: Oh, my gosh.

DUNKELMAN: And I said, without skipping a beat, yes.

Didn't know how I was going to do it, but the answer is always yes and then you figure out how to make it happen.

And so it just grew from there.

And we soon realized that there was an opportunity with the internet and how could we make kids healthy?

How could we present it in a way?

So the first thing I thought was, "Oh, well, before we do an internet, let's go out and we'll do the same thing we did for Speaking of Women's Health with all the conferences, right, and we'll start with a couple for kids."

Well, huge failure, big mistake.

KELLAR: Oh, really?

DUNKELMAN: Big mistake, because women who were coming to the conferences were making their own determinations what they did with their time, how they got there, what their opportunities were.

And they would take off a day of work, whatever it was.

Kids couldn't take off a day of school to come to something.

So it had to be on the weekends and, well, the conferences, those little mini conferences, I thought I was so smart, wrong.

I said, "I'll recognize that the kids will only have the energy and the capacity to really concentrate for a half a day."

We did it for a half a day.

Well, the kids who had the ability to get there because they had parents, were either they had things that they were they were already doing, they were doing soccer, they were taking violin lessons, they were going to Hebrew lessons.

Whatever it was that they were doing, their time was filled, so it was harder.

And the kids who really needed it had no way to get there.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: So I said, "Okay, return to base.

Let's figure out what this could look like."

And that's when we got to the internet idea.

KELLAR: Yeah, and the rest is history.

But we need to know the history.

Okay.

Tell us about that.

DUNKELMAN: So, I started looking for what information was there about health on the internet for kids.

And the only thing I could find was every once in a while there was a dancing blueberry.

And I said to myself, "No fifth grader is going to be listening to a dancing blueberry."

KELLAR: Right.

DUNKELMAN: So telling them, you know, to eat a healthy diet, yeah, eat a rainbow every day, right?

Okay.

It's a good idea, but you have to present things in a way that people have the ears to hear them, no matter how great your information is.

Nobody knows that better than you, that's why you have an Emmy and why you're a star, because you know how to present.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Thank you.

DUNKELMAN: Well, I mean, really and truly, I mean.

KELLAR: It is something you have to know.

DUNKELMAN: Yeah, I mean, that's -- Yeah.

And you are a leader in that field.

So I think you gave me a lot of guidance, honestly, in thinking about different ways to present to people.

People learn in different ways.

Some people are visual learners.

Some people are auditory learners.

Some people have more background, they've had more opportunities.

So we had to give a broad base.

So we started off with doing health.

We started off with, I said, "What are the kids doing?"

So, if they're not listening to dancing blueberries, what are they doing?

They're playing games.

They're playing games.

I was totally uninformed that that's what kids were doing, right?

And I looked at what the games they were playing and I said, "Whoa, this is every -- somebody, every one of the games is, like, somebody chasing somebody else with a chainsaw."

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: This is -- this is not a good idea.

But if games is what they like, games is what we're going to give them.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: So we went to educators and we used everything from states, all the state standards to some of the original Common Core that came out with math, which became really challenging to those of us who learned the old way of math.

KELLAR: Yeah, the new math, which is now old.

DUNKELMAN: Yeah, right.

Exactly, exactly.

I mean, it changes constantly.

And that's what really makes it exciting being involved with it is to watch the educational changes.

But really it was the teachers who told us this is what we need and this is how we need to have it.

And so we developed games around all of their core subjects.

But we didn't call it this is science, this is history.

No, we called it -- KELLAR: If you did, they would immediately run away.

DUNKELMAN: Isn't that right?

It looks like more schoolwork.

KELLAR: Yeah.

Right.

DUNKELMAN: So, you know, I mean, my team has always said to me, "Diane, please stop saying 'We dupe the kids into an education, ' it just doesn't sound right."

KELLAR: But you did.

DUNKELMAN: But we did, you're right.

So, these games became really fun for the kids.

And we took a subject matter and we called it a world, you and the world of money.

And then we could teach them fiscal responsibility.

Right?

Earn, save, spend, donate.

Right?

So teaching them the ethics.

Speaking of ethics, you will like this.

Some of these kids are just so smart that they could find ways around getting the points, and the points went toward prizes.

So they were competing for prizes, right?

And it was prizes that they needed: gym shoes, really quality gym shoes.

And we happen to buy New Balance and we buy all, they don't -- people don't donate it.

So we purchase all that and backpacks and hoodies to keep them warm.

Things that kids really needed as much as they needed the education, the physical things they needed to feel confident and able to just feel good about themselves.

Self-esteem is another important part of what we do.

I mean, if you feel good, you have a much better chance of learning something.

KELLAR: Absolutely.

DUNKELMAN: So, we thought about that so we would have you in the world of money, which was the finance that the teachers wanted.

We would have, we have you in the world of science.

But what goes into that?

It's not just science.

It's you and the world of how things work.

Right?

So that became physics.

And we decided, you know, look about -- Think about the fact that the physics kids don't -- They come to high school and they hear the word physics and they run like their hair's on fire.

It sounds so overwhelming.

So we thought, if we introduce the concept of physics in a fun way that they understand.

So we would say, "Have you ever seen a ballerina on her toes?"

Well, sure they have.

"Well, that is physics.

That's PSI.

That's pounds per square inch.

Have you ever seen a basketball player do a 360 where they turn and put it in the basket as they're moving?"

Right.

"That's torque.

That's physics."

So they get comfortable with it.

It's really about getting them comfortable and having all the information that they need.

Mind you, we don't replace, we're not going in there and replacing the school teachers.

What we are doing is enhancing what they're learning so that it becomes repetitious in their fun time.

KELLAR: And you have to repeat to learn.

DUNKELMAN: Yes, exactly.

And then the teacher said, "Well, wait a minute, we should use this in school, in class."

So, lots of after school programs use it.

The coordinators like to use it and they sign up.

We do not communicate with any of the kids because we're trustee certified, which means that there is no way that anybody on the outside can communicate with these kids.

Because somebody comes on, they say they're Suzy in the third grade.

You don't know who that is.

So we are trustee certified.

When the kids win prizes, we only notify the adults whether it's the teacher, the parent, the coordinator, who has registered these kids.

Kids can't register themselves because we're dealing with kids under 13 years old.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: So what we do have that is really from the beginning to the end is reading.

And it was John Pepper who said to me one day, my friend that's sitting in the airport.

And he said, "You know, Diane, when a kid can't read at a third grade level by the third grade, they have very little chance of being really successful, no matter how wealthy their parents are."

And I thought about that, and I looked it up and I thought, why is this?

Well, when you start to look at it, it makes perfect sense.

Kids learn to read through the third grade.

Beginning in the fourth grade, they learn by reading.

So if a kid isn't up to par at a third grade and the teacher, they come in and sit down in a fourth grade class first day and the teacher says, "Okay, let's open our books to page six and we're going to read."

And those kids have no idea.

They don't know how to read, so they can't learn.

So they get frustrated.

And when a kid gets frustrated, what do they do?

They act up in class.

And then before you know it, that's the path that they go down.

So we said we can start from the very beginning.

So it starts with not just letter sounds and it's all animated and all gaming, but also letter recognition.

We realized that, once again I failed.

I started with letter sounds, forgetting that they don't know letter recognition.

So we had to go backwards.

KELLAR: You had to go back.

DUNKELMAN: Then we scaffolded all the way up to 8th grade.

So we're pre-K through grade eight, and we scaffolded all the way up to predicate phrases.

So that's that's just how we have done this.

And we have hundreds of thousands of ways for kids to learn and play these games and score points.

KELLAR: And explain how that works so they get their prizes, which are amazing prizes.

I mean, they're real, really great, good stuff.

DUNKELMAN: They are, they are.

And so, we had -- We were talking about Speaking of Women's Health.

Right?

So when Speaking of Women's Health was transferred to the Cleveland Clinic, they started their own project and they didn't need the money because they wanted to really do it through their online newsletters.

So we kept the money and transferred it to a new project because, of course, a nonprofit, you don't take the money out.

It's not for you.

That's to hold the public trust.

Right?

So you can put it into another nonprofit foundation, which is exactly what we did.

KELLAR: Which is Clever Crazes.

DUNKELMAN: Which is Clever Crazes, exactly right.

So that's Clever Crazes for Kids.

And there are materials, we do a million now from the 10,000 that we started.

We now do a million of these and we call them activity books.

We don't call them workbooks.

KELLAR: No, no, no.

DUNKELMAN: Think about it, activities not work, no work.

So we do make learning fun.

And so we've gone to a million of those.

We give kids the backpacks.

So some of that money that was transferred that we had in a support foundation was able to be transferred to use for the education of these kids.

And so that's how we use that money.

And we don't raise money from the public because we have that money.

And my feeling is there's only so much money that the community can donate, that they can give to nonprofits.

And there are other organizations who need that money to exist.

KELLAR: Right.

DUNKELMAN: We were lucky enough to have that money.

So we are in okay shape and we don't have to solicit.

So I love the fact that the other organizations in the community can use any money that we might have asked for for their projects.

KELLAR: You don't ask, but you give.

DUNKELMAN: Oh, what a nice way to say that.

All right.

I'm glad this is on tape.

I'm going to -- I'll have that to carry out, one more thing you've given me over the past 40 years which we've known each other.

KELLAR: Yeah, well, the whole transformation of how you started with this little grain of an idea.

And I remember saying to the powers that be here at the station, "You know, my friend has this idea," and, you know, you know, and finally, there was a meeting to decide a fundraiser.

And I said, "Well, would you listen to my friend's idea for a fundraiser?"

And that's -- DUNKELMAN: That was exactly how it started.

KELLAR: It was how it started.

DUNKELMAN: Yes, and I thought it was such a great idea.

KELLAR: And so did I, but I wasn't selling it very well.

DUNKELMAN: Once they said yes, we Could have a women's health day, I decided that it would be really nice to let people know that we were doing this, because I had never done anything where we were engaging with the general public, right?

It was everything was for the arts or for civics, and it wasn't the general public.

But it was the general public who needed the information for that unmet need.

Right?

And so, oh, God, it was so funny, Barbara.

So we said, "All right, this is -- Has to get some attention."

So who did I call?

But may she rest in peace, Jackie Barrett Sant.

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: And Jackie said to me, Diane.

I said I wanted to prove in those days that good health could be egalitarian.

So we said, "Okay, we'll charge $25 instead of $200."

Right?

And we put it in the newspaper.

And well, she said to me first she said, "Diane, I don't do $25 and I don't do health."

And I was so devastated.

Here we'd been friends for all these years, and she'd written up everything.

And she said, "I'm going to send it over to my friend, Sue McDonald, who it has the Enquirer for Health."

I didn't even know we talked about health in the Enquirer.

I didn't know we had a writer.

She put it in the newspaper, and Jay Dunkelman was still alive at the time, and he was -- I always called him my paper clipper because he would get up before I did.

And not only did he have the section torn out, but he had it all clipped out.

And I got up one morning and nothing was clipped and the newspaper was sitting in front of me.

Now, I have to admit, it was below the fold, but it was in the front of the section and it said, "Women's Health Conference comes to town."

And I said to Jay, "Oh, darn, I knew I had a good idea."

He said, "Read a little more, Di.

It's this.

It's Speaking of Women's Health."

So of course, that first year you were so right that it was a good idea because, remember, we sold the tickets out in an hour down here.

KELLAR: Oh, and and you couldn't -- I mean, it was like frantic frenzy to get tickets and you had a goody bag that people had a hard time lifting.

Seriously.

DUNKELMAN: Well, I said to the sponsors who wanted to put something, a product or something that was useful to the women in the bags and we said, "No ketchup packets.

It has to be a full product if you're going to put it in the bag."

So that became heavy.

KELLAR: But lots of books.

DUNKELMAN: Right.

But we did say to all the women who couldn't get in that year because it was we had taken over a hotel.

And we had all the breakout sessions, and then we had the plenaries and they said -- I said, "Tell everybody who didn't get in, we're going to do it again next year.

They can have a 10% discount right now if they want to buy their tickets for next year."

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: Then it was just like all sold out, it was just done.

KELLAR: After a year, and that's when you became the rock star.

DUNKELMAN: Because of you, I became a rock star.

KELLAR: I have to tell this story.

So I'm coming, I'm entering the event, And these people are on their headphones and their microphones and they're -- And they're saying, "She's in the building, she's coming."

And I'm thinking, "Oh, my God, it's like Elvis.

Elvis is in the building.

Diana is in the building, and she's coming."

I mean, you were and are, oh my God, a superstar.

In those days you made your appearance.

DUNKELMAN: You know what?

Other people make you a superstar.

Other people determine how successful you're going to be.

And I have to say, probably my gift is the ability to seek out and find people who are a match, not a match for the project necessarily, but a match for your ethics, a match for your morals, a match for your intention.

Because if they're that smart, they really can learn what you need them to do.

But I learned that from Janet Reid.

So I like to say the universe gives you what you need.

You just have to have your heart and your head open when it lands in your lap and say, "Pay attention.

This is a good idea," and have the confidence to believe it's a good idea.

KELLAR: Tenacity though, right?

Tenacity is your middle name, you and Larry Keller, nobody would want you or he on them for something because you're going to lose.

DUNKELMAN: And who was my mentor, all the way through my career to my personal life, but Larry Keller, and you.

I mean, my goodness, how many times did we sit and discuss things?

And then Larry, of course, said, "Yeah, sure, I'll be on the board and I will guide you."

And we did laugh.

The last thing that Larry said to me at the foot of his hospital bed, hospice bed, he said -- I said, "Larry, our next board meeting is in December.

We are going to do Zoom and I know you'll be there, I'm just not sure where you'll be Zooming in from."

KELLAR: Yeah.

DUNKELMAN: He got a smile on his face and he said to me, because he knew how much I depended on him.

And he said, "You got this, you got this, you're fine."

And I got -- that felt so good.

And I got in the car and I started saying, "God Almighty, I'm 76 years old, I hope I've got this."

And then I said to myself, "You know what people have always said.

'Diane, it's not about your age.

You're never telling people what to do.

You're always asking them what to do.'"

Because the more information you have, you don't know what you don't know.

KELLAR: Yeah, and the people who you ask and they give love themselves for doing it, that was the -- That's the other amazing thing about the way you approach things and it's in the olden days when it was all about the asks, you were the supreme czarina of the asking because you knew how to make people, they were eager.

They wanted to throw money at you.

DUNKELMAN: Just run this tape at my funeral, okay?

[crosstalk] KELLAR: All right.

Yeah, no, you were.

You you were so upbeat and you know this is true.

People loved giving you money.

DUNKELMAN: I think it's people's basic nature.

I think people, I believe that it is people's basic nature to want to help, unless something has happened to them, and rarely it's because of something you've done.

It's usually because something that they're angry about in life.

And you can't change that.

You can bring them along.

Sometimes they just want to experience, but they're not ready to give yet.

And I think their basic nature is to want to give.

And I've just always believed that, and I think it's true.

And oh, gosh, I certainly don't have to tell you.

You and Larry have been so incredibly generous.

But, you know, with not only generosity of spirit, but with funding.

And every time you do something, you can't wait to call me and tell me that you've done something.

So you feel good about it.

And that, of course, is healthy.

KELLAR: Yeah.

You make your -- DUNKELMAN: It's good for your immune system.

KELLAR: And people, as you say, promise some but deliver more.

And when people would see what you had produced with what they had donated, they were thrilled because nobody was ever disappointed at, "Oh, gosh, you know, I gave them x dollars and this is what they did."

No.

Everybody was thrilled with what you do, and you just keep on doing it.

DUNKELMAN: Well, it's like Connie said to me when you wanted her to do this project, this first project of Speaking of Women's Health.

She said, "Well, we have to get $25,000."

And I said, "No problem."

And I walked out of there and I said, "I'm going to raise $100,000 for them."

We made it 125.

KELLAR: Yes, exactly.

DUNKELMAN: I have my own internal goals.

KELLAR: Yes, absolutely.

Thank you so much.

DUNKELMAN: I love you.

KELLAR: I love you too.

DUNKELMAN: I admire you and I appreciate you.

KELLAR: All right.

This was wonderful.

Thank you.

DUNKELMAN: Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: Join us next week for another episode of Showcase with Barbara Kellar right here on CET.

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