And all the 490, with Gretchen de Becker, Matt Killam, and Kevin Mullin all.

Welcome into the 419 powered by T presented by Whitworth Wealth Management.

I'm Kevin Mullin.

Gretchen de Becker, Matt killing.

I was going back to my name.

I did that for like two days, and then I said I was going to do it.

It was doing a little Tony the Tiger.

Yeah, I think it's I think it's just longer you.

It's really going to catch.

I think.

You know what?

I hope for your sake that if that's.

What if that's what you want.

Yes.

That's right.

I hope that's the case.

One of my one of my favorites.

One of my favorite insults is if that's what you want.

Like, just, you know, the like.

Oh, I like that for you.

Oh, I don't think that I say that all the time.

That's 100%.

That's it.

Say it to me all the time.

Yeah.

It's not like if you where you're wearing something, you have something like I love that for you.

So that's an insult.

Oh, yeah.

100%.

Shoot.

You should take it that way.

I'm texting them right now.

Yeah, yeah, no, I don't I don't think that's the kind of thing.

I think you're like, okay, we need to get a 15 year old in here to answer this question.

Well, no, I don't think we should do we don't say that out loud on the show ever again.

I mean, we talked about I regularly try to use as many cringe phrases with my kids as possible because it's fun for me.

Yeah, but I don't like when I hear that.

I don't think that's someone giving a compliment.

It's akin to like, bless your heart.

Like in the South, when they're like, it might be, this is good.

Okay.

Tell me.

Speaking of your kids, are they out of school for the summer?

Out of school for the summer?

What have you or what chores have they already started doing?

Well, we built a fence.

We had that.

So I think we talked about this.

We had this stone wall around the property.

And how big of what kind of castle are we talking about?

How do you how big of a home do you have to keep the black night at bay?

That's right.

Yeah.

That's what he wants you to think.

Yeah, right.

He loves that fence for you.

How what?

How big of a lot.

You need to have a property.

What's a property?

I think just a yard is a property.

Got it.

Yeah.

Did I say they said your property?

You said something that was ridiculous.

We just finished the fence around the compound.

Yeah.

Is there a yard at a property?

A significant.

If you're not.

I love that for you.

If you're not the kind of person I'm not allowed to say.

What of person says that because of FCC regulations?

Right.

So it's interesting.

I didn't realize that I paid yard taxes.

Yeah, it's by square.

It's by the I thought I paid property taxes.

They include your yard, man.

Weird, weird.

It's land.

And whenever I want to use.

Oh, it is.

It is land and property.

Property.

And I know that whenever I do play property taxes.

Correct.

One of my property.

Yes.

Whenever I. And so your property taxes.

Hang on, hang on.

No, no.

But you didn't.

Because I don't use conversational language from, I don't know, governmental prescription.

So that's something you might want to take for a spin.

I just I just love how quickly I was able to get Gretchen to counter name.

Who cares what she's.

Gretchen.

All right, we've got a we've got a great show.

We love it for you.

We do have a great show.

I love this for all of our all of our audience, listeners and viewers today.

Mike George is going to be with us today.

We'll talk about poverty management.

We'll talk about property management.

I want to see if he owns the property.

Let's talk about his property taxes I think is good.

She loves discussing Wendy Veggie from Ronald McDonald House, talking cork and pork, and then Matt Fosse and Cora Vanderburgh, talking film and art and state tax credits for doing some local work.

Great guy.

Matt, a professor at the University of Toledo.

So it's full candor.

Wendy and Matt, our friends.

I purposely did not say either one of their last names.

Yeah, well, because I'm not certain.

We've we've talked about this, that friends of mine that I have to suddenly say their name over a microphone.

Yes.

In that moment, I'm like, I love you.

And I've known you for a long time, but, I mean, I said your name wrong.

You did for the entire first season.

You said dad.

That's right.

It's pronounced dad.

Yeah.

All right.

We'll take a break.

When we come back, we'll talk with Mike George here on the 419, powered by wheat.

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Thank you.

Welcome back to the 419 powered by.

Thank you.

We're joined now by Mike George with Jenna Cross Lutheran Services.

Yes.

I was like, I'm going to get this right.

You're going to get it right.

It's mine.

Thank you so much for being here.

Sure.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

What?

So let's let's start with what is Jenna Cross and who is Mike?

George and God.

That's a lot.

That's a lot.

It is.

Jennifer is actually.

Jenna Cross is actually actually much older than me, which is old.

Jenna Cross was founded 165 years ago in Toledo.

And many people have never have never heard of us as Jenna Cross.

Our name has changed over the years.

But originally founded as an orphanage by a Lutheran pastor shortly after the Civil War, he saw the need to take care of kids.

That then morphed into him seeing the need to take care of older adults.

So for our first about 100 years, we were known as the Lutheran Old Folks in Orphanage home.

Politically incorrect, but explains exactly what we do.

Most organizations that I think are 100 years old plus in Toledo have names that you could not call them today.

Yes.

Exactly.

Right.

Like, I think about like, the ability center of the organization is just the original name, the lunatic asylum.

That's literally what?

Really?

Yes, sir.

Wow.

That's what.

Right around the corner from right around the corner from Gretchen's surname.

Yeah.

So?

So so.

All right, so that's where you started.

And then over the years, then we had several different name changes Lutheran Home Society and then LH, s and finally we landed on Jenna Cross meaning across generations because we serve children as young as six.

And then we we serve seniors.

We have a person in our Wolf Creek campus that's 106 and everyone in between.

Forgive my ignorance on this, but is how are you related if you are to Lutheran Social Services?

We aren't related to them, but we do get together with all the other Lutheran agencies quarterly to make sure we're not duplicating services.

Same thing.

And what's your role with Jenna Cross?

I'm the executive director of the foundation, and the foundation's job is to raise funds for Jenna Cross Lutheran Services.

And so this is a day programing sort of type facility location, but also residential.

Yes.

So we have different what we call ministries.

And our family in youth ministry is the one that takes care of kids that have washed out of foster care.

They live in youth group homes, which we run.

We have seven youth group homes in northwest Ohio, southeastern Michigan.

These kids, on average, have been placed 12 times before they get to us, and they've washed out of foster care.

So you might say, how can a kid wash out of foster care?

It's just not a good fit.

Sometimes foster parents aren't prepared for the issues that these kids have faced, so they could be any age.

They're not aged out there.

No.

They're there.

We get them as young as six, and they can stay with us through 18.

And if they're still in high school at 18, they can stay until they graduate from high school.

So we've had some kids that have stayed with us for 10 or 12 years.

We're the only home they know.

Jobs and family services of each county is responsible for placing those children, so they have the ultimate control over when the child comes to us and when the child leaves us.

But while they're with us, we provide intensive therapy, counseling, any medications that the children may need.

At one of our locations, we have an onsite school.

We house 27 children in one of our larger locations in Liberty Center and the Liberty Center.

Teachers then come and teach at our school at our facility, because these children's issues would not allow them to be in a large school setting.

Our other youth group homes are much smaller, and then they would go to the schools that are assigned to those homes, whatever district they're in.

It is.

I mean, it's wonderful that you guys are here providing these services.

Why?

Why are they needed?

Right?

Like what?

Oh, sure.

What is what's the the the failure.

The challenge.

What's happening?

What's the gap?

Yeah, that's that's needing an organization like yours.

So what we've seen is that the opioid crisis impacted many families in many different ways.

So mom and dad are either incarcerated or they passed away.

Grandparents either can't or won't take care of the child, and there's no extended family.

So they become wards of the county.

The county then places them in foster homes, hoping for a fit.

And when there's not a fit, they look for organizations like Jenna Cross to send the children to their at the risk of boring others.

But I'm fascinated by this.

You mentioned the services you provide, and they're all wildly sophisticated and take a tremendous amount of clinical expertise.

Again, I know this isn't something that most people would be interested necessarily in learning, but how is all of this facilitated?

You're talking about medication.

You're talking about sophisticated and high level of professional counseling given to you.

And the buildings themselves require maintenance for young adults that may have behavioral challenges.

How how does all this fit into a one page bubble?

The org chart.

Yeah.

Big bubble.

Yeah.

Fair enough for sure.

Yeah.

So our frontline staff, you know, the homes are staff 24 over seven 365.

And our frontline staff do incredible work.

Sure.

You know, they are licensed as needed, educated and trained as needed.

But then we also have ancillary staff that is on contract, like psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses.

There's an onsite nurse at each location to distribute medications.

So really it's the proverbial takes a village.

We have to connect with a lot of resources.

Think of our frontline staff kind of being the parents of the child.

So if there's an issue at school, the frontline staff will go to the school and sit down with the counselor and, you know, figure out a plan for for our children.

What's the connection to the Lutheran faith or the Lutheran ministry?

And as it relates to the work that you're doing?

I mean, Catholic Charities exist and they do certain things, but why?

And other religious charities?

But why are Lutherans have had they selected this to be in this lane, I guess.

I think historically with our families when she started that question.

Dot, dot, dot, what was it?

Yeah, yeah.

So years ago when we were founded, I think there was a particular carve out for caring for Lutherans, but that that has morphed into caring for the community.

You don't need to be Lutheran to accept our services, receive our services, work at the organization.

We are not financially supported by the Lutheran Church as Capital C. We do have Lutheran churches that send money to us, but we don't.

It's not like a perhaps a Catholic charity set up where there's a diocese that's supporting us.

So, you know, we we work on the revenue and the fundraising that we raise.

So where does all the funding come from?

Well, the kids get paid for by the county that they come from.

And then we run also 700 low income housing units on 12 campuses for low income seniors who would otherwise be homeless.

Wow.

Basically, so that is HUD housing, which is paid for by the government.

Those campuses are in northwestern Ohio.

We go as far down as Bucyrus over to a Khabur, up into Michigan, but mostly in northwest Ohio.

Anytime you see something with Luther in front of it, like Luther crest, Luther Woods, Luther House.

That's that's our low income housing units.

And those are paid for by by the government.

We have a three year waiting list to get into those low income housing units because as you may know, there's just a a lack of affordable senior housing.

So we provide help in that space.

And those seniors need to be able to live independently.

So this is independent living not like no.

Okay.

But we have the next step.

Okay.

So this is independent living.

We've had we've had you know Justin more on the program from area office.

I'm curious in like community partnerships, you know, obviously you and the other Lutheran organizations get together to make sure we're not duplicating services.

the other partners that you work with in the community to help make this stuff happen?

We have a very close relationship with Area Office on Aging Amanda Schroeder, who's our VP of that area facility, facilitates a great many connections in the community.

We work with our residents in the low income housing units to keep them living independently as long as they can.

So we will contact other agencies if someone's experiencing food insecurity.

We will contact an agency that can get them food.

So we have licensed social workers at those locations that are working with those residents, trying to keep them independent as long as possible.

Mike, how did you find your way to this to some degree calling.

This is not an easy gig.

No.

Yeah, I honestly, I had never heard of Jenna Cross before, and a recruiter called me and a warm story.

Yeah.

You know, your heart said hey.

Yeah, but how long?

Yeah.

How long, you guys?

Come on, come on, come on.

I was actually at the Greater Toledo Community Foundation.

I was there vice president of fundraising there and and got the call.

And it intrigued me because there's not many organizations that take care of people so young and people so old at the beginning of the lives and the end of their lives.

So to me, that was very attractive.

What does success look like for an agency like yours?

Really ultimate success would be, you know, us being out of business, but that that will never happen because unfortunately, there are more and more children facing the situation and more and more older adults that don't have a place that is more and more to put you on the spot for data.

But what does more, what does increase?

Sure, at our low income housing units, I mentioned a three year wait rate.

We turn away about 50 kids a month because we have no space.

So it's just exploding.

So those areas are areas that the community big C needs to figure out the answers to.

And then us as partners and the people who do work like what we do, have to be able to increase our capacity.

But all that takes takes funding.

We're talking with Mike George with Jana Cross Lutheran Services.

You mentioned greater to the Community Foundation.

You and I think met when you were working there.

They've provided some funding for you recently.

Yes.

Talk to me.

About what?

That what that grant was and what that's going to mean for for the kids in your care.

Sure.

The grant was for permanent furniture.

And you may say, as you did earlier, what is permanent furniture?

As you can imagine, our kids have been traumatized along the way and face a lot of behavioral issues.

One of the issues may manifest itself by outbursts, anger outbursts, at which time furniture can become a weapon to be flipped over, torn apart.

And this is on a very rudimentary level, very costly for us, but also very harmful for the children and the other children witnessing this.

So our staff did their research and realized there's there's furniture that can be permanently affixed to the floor, to the wall that that isn't easily destroyed or used, used as a weapon.

So they decided, let's try this.

We applied to the Greater Toledo Community Foundation.

They love the idea and have given us funding for our white House home to do some furniture there, so we're excited about that, to see how it works.

And if it works there, then we want to do it at all our youth group homes.

Is there any there's some good data to suggest that seniors hanging out with younger people is a good thing.

Is there ever any crossover programing between the people on either end of the spectrum of your programing?

Occasionally, many of our children aren't able to be in a large group setting like that.

Some are, and those that are get to do things like that.

You know, we were fortunate because we have a donor that realizes this, and she pays for the rental of urban air for a day for us to go in there, just our kids, all 70, 80 of our kids and staff, so they can just run and play like children, right?

We wouldn't be able to do that if Urban Air were open and and had other children there.

It would just be too much for our kids.

When you made the move to Jenna Cross, kind of what was the moment that that you realized like, oh, this is where I'm supposed to be.

And, you know, this is, you know, you said you wanted to be part of a more focused mission, but you said, this is this has now become your mission.

Sure.

I think it was the first time I visited our family.

New facility in Liberty Center that houses 27 children.

It was a former juvenile detention center, but it is now a large youth group home with the on site school children are there 24 over seven 365 when I toured that and I saw how the kids interacted with our staff as like like parents, children, I guess the light bulb went off for me, like, wow, this is just really incredible.

What does growth look like?

And I know this is probably a much larger question that I'm ill equipped to ask, but, you know, you you it's dependent on and as it should be, this is what your government should do, right?

Collect funds from people's properties, vast properties like Kevin's, and dispense it where the need is.

So moving forward, I don't know.

Is it as silly as you know, we're closing some Toledo public schools.

They have individual classrooms.

If you're do one of these and say one of these is ideally located, this would put our three year waiting list or allow for 25 less kids to be moved.

What does the stack need to look like to make one of those things a reality?

Sure.

I'll give you a real life example that has one recently.

Yes.

Okay, let me give you a fake example.

Unicorns.

And take the urban area.

Most recently, we worked with Sunshine Communities to purchase one of their group homes that they were no longer using, and we were able to add capacity for the use we can take so we can take more children.

And that was win win win for everyone in the community.

So it was a win for sunshine because they were able to sell their property to another organization.

That would be, you know, a similar type mission, taking care of people.

So, you know, for us it was great because the house was already set up to be a youth group home.

So, you know, that means we get to take that many more children each month.

We have about a minute left.

If you could tell us something great about the staff and the and the folks that that provide this care.

24 seven.

365.

Well, you know, from our seniors at our retirement communities like Wolf Creek and Napoleon are low income housing and our youth group homes.

It's that frontline staff.

I can't tell you it's not a job.

It's a calling, and it's a tough job.

It's a tough job emotionally.

It's a tough job physically.

You know, there's many times I leave, get my car and I'm tearing up, driving away, and I'm thinking, okay, you know, I was just there for an hour.

So, you know, they're prepared, they're ready, they're educated.

But nothing prepares you for that.

That smile on that child's face, or the older person who's so happy to be in a safe location.

How can people find more information on Jenna Cross Lutheran Services?

They can go to our website, Cross Lutheran Services.

They can contact me.

They can reach out via email.

We're happy to help.

We're happy to talk to people about our organization and our mission.

And we're happy to to share what we do in the community.

Mike, thank you so much.

Thank you.

Please keep us posted on as Things are happening with Jenna Cross.

Some ways that we can help get the word out.

We appreciate you being here and being a part of our community.

Thank you for taking back.

We'll talk with Wendy from Ronald McDonald House.

We're talking Cork and Bourque here on the 419 powered by what?

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Welcome back into the 419 powered by GT.

We're joined now by Wendy Bajaj from Ronald McDonald House.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

So we talk about all the time.

One of the things I love about Toledo is that every day I see ten people I know and I meet somebody new.

Wendy is one of those people.

People talk to you?

No, no, none of them.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, I see them, but they run the other way.

I just want to confirm police officers.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

No.

Wendy is one of those people that I had never met.

Ran into you.

Met you at an event, and then I think I saw you maybe every day for the next two weeks.

Isn't that crazy how it happened?

I'm surprised you haven't moved.

I cried.

Yeah.

Surprise.

You're back on the off chance that people have no idea what Ronald McDonald House charities is.

What?

Who are you guys?

Yeah.

So, you know the real McDonald House charities?

We've been around over 50 years.

It's a global organization.

And so I always like to start off by saying, if you see Children's Hospital, usually you'll see around McDonald House.

And so, you know, our mission is to care for those families that have a sick child.

Very simply said, we do a good job of meeting people where they're at.

So everyone knows the house.

Everyone knows you can stay there.

You can stay overnight.

Our house in Toledo has 28 rooms, but we do much more.

So we really try to, like I said, meet them where they're at.

So if they if you have a kiddo in the hospital and you don't want to leave for whatever reason, you can come over and just have a meal.

You can take a shower, there's a laundry.

There's an incredible history for Ronald House.

Until Ido actually produced a documentary that you can find on line, you can find it on the app.

To learn more about some of that history.

How did you find your way to Ronald McDonald House?

So I've been a nonprofit for quite some time.

I can't say how many years because I would show my age.

Right.

But yeah.

Yeah, just yeah.

And so I've done nonprofit work actually with folks with the disabilities for lots of years.

And then actually Chad Brigman, who you, you know, I assume and I know each other very well and worked together over 20 years ago.

And so we have always stayed in contact.

And I brought a team from a former organization to cook a meal.

And honestly, when I walked in, I knew that I wanted to be there.

It really was the case.

The round McDonald House has played a very important role, regrettably, a dear friend of mine in my family's life, and you and I have spoken about that.

But if you don't mind, walk us through a family gets introduced to Ronald McDonald House.

How?

I mean, there they're probably having one more traumatic experience in their entire lives.

Exactly right.

So it has to be fulfilling work.

But it's complicated, right?

So so you're in we, you know, like to say the worst state of, you know, your world right then and there with a sick little one.

We try to make it as easy as possible.

So we worked really closely with our hospital partners in the area nationwide and of course UTM.

See any of those we tried to get have them very familiar with us so they can refer families to us.

And it's a quick little process.

And usually within a day we can have a family at the house.

We don't run a lot of waiting lists.

We have 28 rooms, but, you know, people are in and out for pretty quickly.

We get people in and out as as needed.

And, you know, they come over to the house and we do a quick welcome because they just want to be there.

They want to put their bags in in the room and they want to be with their kiddo.

And so it's really all about, here we are.

What do you need, love?

Show you the space and, you know, go on and be with your child.

The structure itself is remarkably warm.

You were kind enough to give me a tour of the facility.

It obviously it's not home, but it's pretty close.

Out of curiosity, how are decisions like that that made.

I mean, how do you it's you're not ever in the people's space, no matter how much you desperately want to have an understanding from their view.

But how do yo make that seem more welcoming?

And I know some of it structural, but some of its cultural.

Can you talk a little bit about the training or the development of that conception?

Yeah, yeah, we have a really good onboarding process and we keep our we have our direct line staff, if you think of that, are called family services managers.

And so they're always dealing with the families, our volunteers.

We have over 200 volunteers.

Super important.

If you think about, you know, 12 1314 staff, paid staff versus 200 volunteers.

So whenever we onboard those folks, we are very much talking about trauma informed care, compassion.

We're talking about caregiver fatigue and what that looks like for us, you know, and just how this show is exhausting.

So I can understand the fatigue.

tired right now.

Yeah, that's that's the effect that Gretchen has on people.

Yes.

So we're doing a lot of that.

And we make sure that we arm our committees and our board with multiple diverse people, you know, former families, you know, experts in the area.

Again, those medical partners.

So we try to do our best and we do.

What's the the origin story for the organization?

Did the Kroc family, was there an issue that they that made them want to devote?

That's a great question.

Yeah.

So in 1974 was actually a Philadelphia Eagle that had a little daughter with leukemia.

And so he was tired of sleeping on the floor with, you know, in the hospital and said, there's got to be other families dealing with this.

And so he got together with the owners of the Eagle Eagles.

And then that's when the McDonald's honor came in.

And so they said, you know, can we collaborate, get some very smart clinicians on board and start something.

What does that look like?

And McDonald said, you know, sure, you can have the proceeds from the Shamrock Shake, which we still talk about today and we still are so lucky to have a quarter per shake that comes back to the house and connected.

Yeah.

And then you need to call it the round McDonald House.

So that's how it's affiliated and that's where where the name comes from.

Something to feel good about.

The Philadelphia Eagles and our McDonald's owner operators in the area are still very, very great into us and good to us and very involved.

So beyond the Shamrock Shake, one of the other ways that you guys raise money is through community events.

And you guys have got a fundraiser coming up.

We do June 11th, Cork and pork.

Very fun event.

It's at Centennial Terrace.

We have over eight vendors coming to share their best barbecue, main dish and side dish.

We have skittle bats playing.

We also have, if you don't know this person, Gus Keating, a little one that we discovered through acoustics for autism.

We were volunteering there as a group.

Ronald McDonald.

He's going to come open up for Scrabble.

So I'm very excited about that, that my kids son plays the guitar.

Right?

Yes.

He is incredible.

Yes.

And talk about, you know, family centered care, right.

That's what we do.

And just to circle that all back.

I'm super excited about that.

So Daniel Terrace is a great place for an event.

Yeah.

So fun.

Great stage out there.

So that should be amazing tended to.

So whether it doesn't matter we can't hold it.

And casino games.

Yeah.

Who are some of the food participants you have coming out.

So we have the village in.

It's going to be there.

We have Texas Roadhouse, we have Balance Grill, which is a new one, but they're getting a good spin on their barbecue flair.

Okay.

Riverside barbecue at Astrid Town standard casino.

Carlos and Shorty's, of course.

Just tried Riverside two weeks ago or so.

It's a great space.

Yeah, at Ostrich Town.

And really good food, too.

Yeah, but there's a competition to this.

Yeah.

Thank you for.

Yeah.

So it's going to be the best food.

The best.

I'm sorry.

Main dish, side dish and booth.

So the vendors get a chance to decorate, and we have celebrity judges.

If you need a backup, I will certainly purchase tickets to this event because of all the good work that you do.

But if you need a backup judge, call Kevin.

I am no, no.

He'll be busy tending to his own success.

He has known success in repeating contests.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

Yeah.

Not to brag, but you can probably tell by my physique that I know a lot about food.

And I was an expert at both cork and pork.

Okay.

That's right.

Yes yes, yes.

So yeah, we do have you're kind of alluding to celebrity judges.

So Jeff Smith will be there.

Michelle Dunn, who is.

She's eating it if you guys haven't found her people.

Stephanie.

Soldier who owns Byers public house.

Great.

She's incredible to us.

Yes.

Theresa gave her own.

Yeah.

Is going to be on.

And Derek Moore, who is also a food influencer.

All right.

So cool.

Celebrities.

Yeah.

So we shouldn't be offended that we're not asked next year as a YouTuber.

There's always next year if if one of them were to fall with their duties, I will be right there.

Theresa got her own to up her security because.

Yeah, right.

You're right.

Tell us something that someone might not understand or appreciate about the need of a of a of a family that that needs to stay at the house.

Most often people think that it's based on income and it's not.

And it's, you know, in that time of need, when you're in a crisis situation, it doesn't matter where you're at or how much you make or what you do.

It's really about just being with your child.

And that hotel stay is burdensome.

You know, going out to eat is is a problem.

No, I don't think I don't know anyone that can afford all that continual.

So it's important to know that it doesn't matter what you look like, who you are, and how old you are, where you work doesn't matter.

The round McDonald House is here to.

And does it?

Does it matter what the child's potentially hospitalized for?

It could be for any long term, long term, short term.

You could have a child.

You could live in Columbus and have a child that has an actor's appointment in Toledo, because we have so many great special specialists here.

And you're driving into town, your appointments at nine.

So come in the night before or spend the night at the house, wake up fresh, you know, have coffee and go to your appointment.

That's great.

You mentioned kind of your kind of early interaction with the house was cooking a meal.

Talk to me about that experience and opportunity for other folks to volunteer and support the work you're doing.

So I mentioned we have over 200 volunteers and that's part of that.

So we are committed to dinner every night of the year for families.

And so they sort of get to expect that, which is really one of the things we hear that they love the most.

And so groups can come in and cook dinner anytime they want.

Sign up.

It's very simple, always looking for groups to participate in that.

So if there's not a group that's signed up for dinner, you know, will cook, order food out, whatever that looks like.

And then breakfast and lunch is is something you can do as well.

It's not something that the families, you know, anticipate every day, but it's a plus.

And leftovers go a long way.

So if anybody ever wants to come and cook, we put it in the family fridge and you know it's ready for them because everybody has varying schedules at all times.

So the entire rest of the month of June is just going to be all barbecue.

Yeah, all the time.

So I hope you're ready for the summer.

I hope you're ready for barbecue, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I am the is the a McDonald House at Toledo Children's, the primary or only location in our region.

In our region?

Yes.

Okay.

It's a beautiful location.

Yes it is.

If you've not been, please come see me.

I'd love to give you guys a tour.

Wendy, it's now time for Gretchen.

Wacky quiz.

I'm going to ask you for rapid fire questions.

Okay.

Gretchen's going to ask you to describe Toledo in one word.

And then you and Matt are going to list the nine best things.

Toledo.

All right.

Question number one.

Would you rather have a pet dinosaur or a pet dragon?

What's the difference?

I'd rather have a dragon.

Sure, because it can fly.

Maybe fly.

Fire breathing small could fit in my pocket book.

Have you thought about this?

No, but I love I love winter.

So.

Yeah.

Okay, I like it.

Are you a dragon owner?

Not yet.

Okay.

Okay.

Have you ever had an imaginary friend?

No.

Dragon.

Obviously haven't.

I want one.

Are they here right now?

Yeah, right next to me.

Can you do any impressions?

No.

Okay.

Sorry.

We're going to make you do it.

There's no wrong answer.

We're gonna make Matt do it.

Okay.

All right.

And then what would make a good theme song to your life?

Good question.

I watched the Wonder Woman theme song.

I don't know, Gretchen.

I was going to sing it, and I stopped.

Whatever that is.

That's me.

All right.

Okay.

You're a wonder, wonder woman.

I like it.

Okay.

Do you have a dragon?

Of course.

She spins around and she has a golden lasso that makes people do anything.

Obviously.

What's the one word?

It makes people tell the truth.

Yes, it's the truth.

That's the truth.

And she has an invisible plane also.

Yeah.

And I just saw a clip yesterday where she was just yesterday.

Yes.

All right.

I got to hear it.

No, you don't live on Instagram.

It was like old.

I don't know what it was, but it was she, like, turned into a Wonder Woman.

And then she got skateboard and she was facing a car.

Wonder woman had to draw out this buffoonery.

She would throw that.

Wonder woman is.

I love this show.

My favorite because of her.

Can you just.

What is the one word you would use to describe the city of Toledo or the region?

I would say inclusive.

Okay.

All right.

We're doing your nine of your favorites right in the city.

I prepared.

Let's do this.

Metroparks.

Yes.

Thank you.

That's the show.

I'm sorry.

I say the tree houses last night.

I have to say it's truth.

Libraries in general, generally speaking.

Resources.

We have so many resources.

Am I allowed to elaborate a little bit, please?

Okay, so many resources for so many people.

I mean, free every day I'm finding out something new that we have that I didn't know that we have for families.

And it can be any age group.

So I love that we have great restaurants.

Yep.

I think it's reasonable to live here.

Price rise.

Universities.

I mean, I got to say the medical partners, Ronald McDonald House.

I have to say it too.

Yes.

Where am I at?

We're going to give you a we're going to close this round McDonald House.

You got nine.

Good for you.

All right.

Thank you.

Gotta go.

Wendy, thank you so much.

If people want more information on our website, Toledo, you can just call me up.

I hope you find me on Facebook.

We'll get taken care of.

What do you need?

What do you need most?

I would say, you know, volunteers just come to the house and get a tour.

Meet me, meet our team.

I promise that you won't be disappointed.

You know, and then we can talk about partnerships.

You know, as that develops.

Sure.

There's a there's a deep history.

We've had the folks from the LPGA on the show.

There's a deep history between the local tournament and Ronald McDonald House.

Yes.

What does that that tournament week look like for you guys?

Yeah.

So thanks for bringing that up.

You know, that's a really important thing because it's been around forever since we opened and since it started.

So it's pretty incredible to think about that history.

And so we are fortunately recipient of the charities funds that come from that.

So we're out there and we need volunteers for sure to man that hole reman the 10th hole.

That's part of our agreement.

So every day of the tournament we're out there and we need about eight volunteers.

So definitely openings for the weekend of that.

If anybody's interested in significance to the 10th hole.

No, not that I know of.

Perfect.

It's the lesser truth.

Yeah.

I got to be honest.

All right.

Awesome.

Thank you so much for being with you guys.

For everything you guys do.

Best of luck with caulk and pork.

June 11th.

Yeah.

June 11th.

Centennial terrace.

Find out more information on the website.

Yeah, let's do it.

We're going to we're going to this is going to be our audition to be judges next year.

Yeah.

And we're just going to show up and have opinions.

We're just going to give out awards.

Three people, three people eating behind a dumpster, as I do most weekends.

And you also brought incredible gifts for us.

We've got this wonderful coffee mug that Gretchen has already said that she will not put on set.

No, she's taking it.

Yeah.

This is wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for what you guys do in the community.

It's such important work, and we're excited to see your success this summer with a couple of great, big community events.

Appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

We'll take a break when we come back.

Matt Fosse and Cora Vanderburgh are going to be talking film, and I think Matt's going to try an audition for a job and see what happens.

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Welcome back into the 419 powered by GTM.

We're joined now by Matt Fosse and Cora van der Brook.

Thank you so much for being here.

You are local filmmakers.

Yeah, I'm local and Cora lives in LA.

Yes.

Yeah, that's pretty local.

Yeah.

Nearby coastal.

If you consider Swan Creek one of the coasts.

And I do.

But Cora's been coming back to Toledo to movies with us professionally, and it's become a real creative center for us.

That sounds like a home away from home.

So, I mean, I think when we talk about making films and someone says, I live in LA, it makes sense to me that you'd make films in and around your your hometown.

People don't think of Toledo as, as a place where films are being made.

What makes Toledo work and why do it here versus somewhere else?

And why is Gavin Newsom such a good filmmaker in Ohio?

Do you want to cover that?

That's not the show.

That's not the show.

Yeah.

The nice thing about Toledo is that there's already an existing community of filmmakers who are making their own work.

And one of the things that we're trying to do is build capacity and scale, that we can not only continue telling stories in and about and for our region, but attracting these Hollywood level, larger budget that have a significant, you know, X time effect on the local economy, theater and film, like we teach at University of Toledo.

It's collaborative and film is even a bigger degree.

You know, when you come to a play that has an impact on everyone who comes out to a restaurant or pays a babysitter, or pays for parking, or goes out and gets a really, you know, something nice to wear that night, but film even more so.

One of our biggest budget lines is food, catering and restaurants and hotels and these type of things.

And so the Ohio tax credit is making a place like Toledo more competitive in the national scale as productions moving away from Atlanta.

And then when we bring in Hollywood level talents, writers, directors, producers, I teach screenwriting up at Toledo Correctional, and we get some fantastic people coming in and suddenly they realized, wow, there's incredible locations here.

There's incredible people.

There's a civic structure that is excited and collaborative to make things happen and remove the obstacles.

And you can be in downtown New York to fill the dreams within just a few minutes.

And so we're trying to build that capacity of not only telling stories like method or our first film, Lone Wolves or Sunset Toledo, but also attract those larger films and then train a skilled workforce so that we can hire local people to, to be that creative village.

Our friends at Film Toledo certainly are taking part of the lead there, sort of taking a page from Cleveland and film Columbus and advocating at the state level for those credits.

I was very happy to see that you guys are taking advantage of those.

Are you finding on the ground that you're getting the reception that you would hope for from people, from people that want to either be in the films or help with the production and all that?

100%, I mean, the enthusiasm and the commitment and also the the quality of the the artists that we're collaborating with who are local is blowing my mind.

Yeah.

And and most of all, you know, I think post Covid post strikes in our industry, the industry has really changed and shifted.

And now more than ever, you can work anywhere in the country.

And also, I think audiences are craving seeing their their local right homes and communities represented in films.

And and I'm seeing that too with the people we're collaborating with that you don't have to be in LA, you don't have to be in New York.

And that's not the only locations where skilled, creative ingenuity is happening.

I would love to think that this is a byproduct or a temperature correction from potentially the AI movement, right?

So as opposed to I mean, the still photography at one time was considered to be the dawn of the apocalypse for painters, and then the Impressionist movement was born.

Yes.

That's my limited understanding of anything cultural other than this morning with you.

Yeah.

So I'd like to think that the warm flyover states are welcoming place, because it's a theme that people can relate to as opposed to the green screen.

Right?

Yes.

But there's a connection that's in studios right now.

The two of you are story of collaboration.

I am unfamiliar with it, but would you mind telling us, our audience, how the two of you met, why film brought you together?

And there's a friendship here, and there's a there's a clear kinship.

You can tell just by being near the two of you.

Can you talk to us a bit about that?

We grew up together.

We've known each other since middle school.

Okay.

We kind of.

We.

When did you start pronouncing match name correctly?

That took several decades, and it's still difficult, but there's just so many letters.

Yeah.

So many.

I am here for you.

Thank you so much for that.

I see you and I'm here.

Yes, yes.

But yeah, we moved into the same small town, northwest Iowa, Orange City around the same time.

Right?

We were new kids on the same day.

New kids on the same day.

That's a real.

That is.

Yes.

Yeah.

And Cora was the best actor in school and very talented.

And there's a famous play called Our Town where it's a real theatrical.

There's not a lot of scenery, and it's the audience, and there's a section in the part where the the lead, Emily, comes out and the stage manager says, here's some scenery for those who need it.

And a couple of trellises are brought out.

And so Cora played Emily.

She was Emily, and I brought the trophy.

So I supportive friends, very supportive.

But I have to say, I mean, he's beautifully underplaying himself as he always does, but he has been a creative muse for me my entire life, and he's someone who's pushed me.

I've always been an actor, but he's pushed and inspired me to be more than just that.

And he is an exquisite writer, exquisite director, and a very good actor as well.

And I've had the privilege of making work with him, and I think he was really a catalyst from just being a performer to actually creating and birthing work.

What's the what's the story in the film you are working on literally right now?

You guys filmed even late into last night.

So what what is the story of that film?

So method is a psychological horror film set in a small university's theater department.

A disillusioned acting professor casts herself alongside her students in one of Shakespeare's most bloodiest plays, Titus Andronicus.

But her rather extreme old school approach to teaching and acting pushes her and the young ingenue she's cast opposite herself into a spiral of rivalry and chaos and collapse.

Sounds good.

We I love horror, but I also especially love horror that uses the Dawn as a vehicle to tell deeper truths.

And it's a job that is really accessible to a larger audience.

So and it allows for ingenuity and risk taking in a way that's really exciting.

May I ask, in sort of the idea of rewatchable, what is the most rewatched movie in the horror genre in your catalog?

Oh, well, in my catalog, The Babadook.

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

I love The Babadook.

That is one that I often not only for the grounded and exquisite acting, but it being an example of a horror film that can be a metaphor for something deeper, I feel is a story about grief and the the exercising of grief.

And to me, it's it's a story that takes me somewhere and it's something that I aspire to in this film.

Are you both in it?

Did you both could you co-write it?

What are your roles?

We co-wrote it.

I said the story.

The story.

We we came up with this idea maybe ten years or so ago.

We were on the road to do a play.

We were touring on a play that we wrote that was talking about immigrant farmers in the Midwest, and we were touring a play about land transition of generation, family farms, these, these local plays.

And I had broken my leg and but it was the yes.

Yeah, yeah, it was a real commitment to me.

It was an unfortunate ballet accident with my wife, Abby Glenville, where I went to take a class with her, and I jumped up in the air and broke my leg.

But we had a show the next day.

And so Cora was driving and we were thinking of the dancer.

She must have thought just for a second, I knew I got the right guy right in this pile of this, this vile of rubble.

I think she was grateful as I was apologizing, as I was crawling out of the dance studio because I didn't want to interrupt the point class, but we came up with this idea of what would it mean for a production of Titus that goes off the rails?

Our first film, Lone Wolves, that we shot with madhouse films here, was more contained.

In fact, it's actually an echo of our very first film, which was a small hotel room we play.

We shot in Orange City, Iowa with like VHS cameras, because then you only have one location and you can control variables as you're learning how to do this.

And that was a good first foray, a good budget level.

And we were both in that in this case in this film, we, we I started writing, my core was doing some work and then she took over the last few months.

So I'm not I'm behind the scenes on this one.

I might be playing a cameo with Abby and his rescue dog, Arlo.

Maybe.

But yeah, the core is is directing and then has taken over the writing in a really masterful way.

So we wanted this to be a female focused female led team.

Were women were in places to make it all the primary decisions in spirit.

You know, we're in an industry where the doors are so traditionally shut.

We're trying not only to build and build our own door rather than wait for someone to open it, but also more meaningfully make sure that there's a table on the other side with with seats at it for people who aren't aren't having those seats.

And we're not necessarily giving those seats.

We're just we're building our own.

What's the goal to to to are you trying to get to stream?

Are you trying to get an independent movie theaters?

Are you trying to get you're going to sell DVDs on the street.

Like what's the what's the goal in today's marketplace of of your project?

Well, what will take team this?

I do think in the independent film world, you ideally want to level up each time.

And so like Matt said, our first project was more contained still really, I'm very proud of it, very proud of what we did.

But I think this next time, because I think we see this as our future, we want to continue to make work with our collaborators that we're creating, and also we want to continue to challenge ourselves.

So each so this project is a bit more ambitious, bigger cast, more locations.

And then honestly, yeah, we're in terms of our goals as we learn how this is a business.

And as we talk with local business leaders, people who either want to donate and participate on the non-for-profit side or investors, we understand that we're building capacity.

And so right now we're at a one to 2 to 3 x, kind of like beginning the path for this most likely will be because horror horror gets to be the hero.

That's the star is the.

So that that we have incredibly skilled people that have been focusing on craft rather than celebrity.

The will be the most marketable aspect when we take this to the market, and most likely it will either go to a sell market where someplace, if we're lucky, a place like A24 or Blumhouse, because there's a huge market for sub million dollar films in the horror space right now, but most likely with the relationships we've built started with Sons of Toledo and building through this now, you'll probably go through a festival where buyers will look at it there.

But the nice thing is our whole model is, rather than waiting of how do we build a structure to get it out there?

So I don't think that we'll have to be deeds on the street, but we're willing to do it if something just above that.

Yes.

Yeah.

My best friend growing up in Toledo and his older brother owned a production company in Los Angeles so we could spend a half hour talking about the market and which has changed to your point.

And he did me on.

Sometimes they make things for markets that are for India, Korea, things like that.

But there's something that you made mention of that of all the things you do that I have absolutely no way to relate to, some of it is your talent.

That's that's something I can relate to.

But when you talk about a project that takes ten years or shelving things in co-writing, I, the risk of outing myself is being intellectually deficient.

We have such an immediate outing yourself.

Okay.

Yeah, we have such an immediacy culture, right.

And getting things done quickly or something that we just want to be done.

Put it down.

Yes.

How do you work on something for ten years?

Put it away, then revisit it or work on multiple things at a time and give them your all.

Are you driving?

Then revisit something.

Because how does this work in your head?

Well, it is tricky psychologically.

I mean, I think one of the things I've had to learn to pull back is this feeling that I don't have enough time.

I think this art industry, really, especially as an actor and as a woman, perpetuates this idea that if you haven't done this thing by at least 30, you're irrelevant and should not even try.

And so I think a big goal of ours and has been to we have time, we have time.

And so if something is not flowing, we know it's there.

We're letting it gestate.

It's not dead.

It's it's it's always comes back when it's meant to come back.

My first short film, yes, yes, I, my BFF, was sitting watching.

We gave me an idea to create a little short film, and it literally sat on my computer for a decade, and then one day it was the right time to be birthed, and we were doing other projects at the same time.

But I think having also having a friend, a collaborator who will keep in contact with, keep in contact to even if that thing is just not flowing, we're doing other things at the same time.

Where do you physically keep your writing?

Do you do you have pieces of paper everywhere?

Do you have computer?

I got a computer stolen once when I was in grad school, so now I have a lot to make.

And it was kind of like Lawrence.

Lawrence of Arabia.

The first draft of that was left on a train and it had to rewrite everything.

So I don't think there's anything that was worthwhile in that laptop, but everything stored in both clouds.

And then I will also email if, if I'm in a process, because that same way, I want to make sure we can have our cake and eat it too.

If you're good at making cake, but you got to make sure that you're cooking and working on as many things.

So at any one time I'll have 3 to 4 plates that I'm spinning.

It's so interesting.

And then I'll literally move to different places in the house or different computers so that my brain are different or a different playlist of music.

We've got less than a minute left, and there's two heavy of a question to throw at you at this moment, but we'll force you for a quick answer here.

Matt, you teach at the University of Toledo.

Why is it important to teach the next generation this art?

I love teaching the University of Toledo because we as professors are making sure that we are trying to practice in our own creative lives what we profess in our studio, so that our students can trust us when we are asking them to take creative risks.

They could see us modeling and doing so as well said.

And I think in this current time, as we meet the challenges of higher education, the University of Toledo and particularly our department is trying to make sure that we can meet that challenge by focusing on storytelling.

We have a we are very different.

We have different budget levels and different aims than almost any other peer institution in the region.

AI can't tell original stories, it can only scrape what was from there.

And even more so is that we we are training Swiss Army Knife who are entrepreneurial, who can do everything.

And I think that's what makes us unique that our students are writing, directing, crewing, producing, building from the ground up.

And so there's some really exciting projects of how to be storytellers for and with and about a group of a place, and that's what we're working on.

And, Cora, thank you so much.

If people want to follow your project, where can they find the information, website, method info and on Instagram at Method Feature Film.

So guys, this is what it feels like to have talents that at this table who knows.

So unique.

Yeah.

Only take it 100 episodes.

We're going to take a break.

When we come back, we'll wrap up this Tuesday edition of the 419.

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Welcome back into the 419 as we wrap up a Tuesday edition.

Another, I think, perfect example of of what I love about this show is we've got folks that are doing serious, important work in the community.

Certainly as we look at Jenna Cross and Ronald McDonald House, they are addressing really serious needs and they're passionate people doing great work.

And so you love having them on, highlighting the work that they're doing and then having Matt and Cora, just the idea of, you know, there's so much conversation around brain drain.

This is a good example of brain gain, right?

Where we've got a talent from LA that's being imported into Toledo to work on a film you really can't have, you know, obvious, but you can't have one without the other.

You have to have arts and culture in our community.

If you missed any part of the show, you can catch it.

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