Speaker 1 00:00:05 Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast, brought to you by P G T I University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor, and I am your host.
Speaker 2 00:00:18 One of the things that stick out to me is in 2021, we started a 5K race. Okay. And the 5K is down in the Punta Goda Port Charlotte area, which as, as we know, a lot of your staff come from that area. Sure. PGT showed up with the largest group of
Speaker 1 00:00:33 People. Wow. Oh, nice.
Speaker 2 00:00:35 Yeah, it was really fantastic to see. And they were a raucous crowd there. Yeah. Yeah. They're a rowdy Oh yeah. Um,
Speaker 1 00:00:41 Yeah, we, We work hard. We play hard.
Speaker 2 00:00:43 Yes, they do. And I think they won a number of races, so that was pretty good. So that impressed me greatly, is that not only did they put their money up, but they also put their support there.
Speaker 1 00:00:53 On today's Clear Impact Podcast, we speak with Patrick Garin, President and CEO of the Loveland Center, located in Venice, Florida. Patrick shares how this organization serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. They offer an adult day training program that helps them become as independent as possible and live life fully. Our partnership helped them with products they needed when they added a residential facility. Our continued support allows them to continue this work of making a difference in our community. Good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast, and we are doing a series called Community Matters. And we are excited to just kind of showcase some of the nonprofits that we have helped link arms with over the years. And today in studio we have Patrick Garrin, who is from the Loveland Center. So welcome.
Speaker 2 00:01:42 Thank you, Sherry. I'm happy to be
Speaker 1 00:01:44 Here. Yeah, it's good to have you. Nice to meet you today. So tell us a little bit about you and then about the Loveland Center and what they do and who they serve.
Speaker 2 00:01:54 All right. About me personally, I am relatively new here to Florida five years. I came down in 2017 right after Irma. Okay. Did not have to go through that. And it came down to work at the Loveland Center and take on the role of the president and CEO there.
Speaker 1 00:02:10 Awesome. And so you've been initiated formally with Hurricane Ian just not too long ago.
Speaker 2 00:02:15 Yes. Yes I have. And I will tell you that hurricanes are nothing like the snowstorms we get in Buffalo. I can handle those. Hurricanes are a whole different animal.
Speaker 1 00:02:24 Yeah. See, I would argue that <laugh>, I would rather take my chances with a hurricane than a guaranteed snowstorm every year.
Speaker 2 00:02:32 Yeah. We'll have to talk about that later,
Speaker 1 00:02:34 <laugh>. Yeah. So tell us about the Loveland Center. I only know just a little tiny bit, so this will be informative for me as well. So I'm curious to hear more about your organization.
Speaker 2 00:02:43 All right. Well, the Loveland Center, actually this year is 60 years old. Wow. Yeah. We actually, yesterday celebrated our 60th anniversary. Congratulations. So we're very excited about that. We have been around since 1962. We were started by a, a group of families, families who didn't really like what the school system was doing for their family members who have intellectual and developmental disabilities. So they said, Let's get together and we can do better, and we can do something more for our, our family members to help them be successful in their life. So 1962, the Loveland Center was created. Since then, we've evolved, We've grown, We've started as a school. We kind of moved through the time where those people age through the school system, and then they moved into what's called an adult day training program. Okay. So here in Venice, we have an adult day training, uh, on East Venice Avenue, and we serve about 135 people there at that location.
Speaker 2 00:03:39 Over the years, we've also added in things like supportive employment services, residential services in-home supports, respite services, all to help individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities. Our mission is to live their life to the fullest. My thing is that we wanna help our individuals be as independent as possible. I wanna talk about that a little bit. Sure. Independence is people who look at me and say, Well, how can the person that you're working with who has full needs become independent? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we look at it and say, We celebrate large and small wins. So a large win is helping a person become independent where they don't need us any longer. A small win might be, I'm helping that person take some control of their life. Okay. I'll give an example. We have a young lady that we work with and we help her brush her teeth every single day.
Speaker 2 00:04:25 Okay. Right. So every day we help her brush her teeth and we hand over hand with her. Well, now she's able to actually take and initiate the brushing of her teeth on her own by coming and reaching out and grabbing a toothbrush on her own. She didn't do that before. It was just over time working with her that she is now starting to get that little bit of independence in her life. Oh, wow. And we celebrate that because that is exciting for her, because it was a big deal for her. Maybe small for you or I, but for her it's huge.
Speaker 1 00:04:51 Right. Wow. I take that for granted. I don't even think about that.
Speaker 2 00:04:55 Yeah. There's a lot of things that we take for granted that some of our individuals can't do, but we don't place limits on 'em. We say, Okay, what can we help them do? How can we help them reach that next step?
Speaker 1 00:05:04 Sure. Wow. So your staff is probably like occupational therapists and things like that? Right.
Speaker 2 00:05:09 We have a lot of direct support aids. We do have clinical services where we have occupational therapists, pt, speech, that help with setting up plans and working through different opportunities for people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But a lot of the times it's just our supervisory staff helping and understanding what does this person want. One of the unique notions about things that we do is every single person that we work with sets up their individualized plan. Oh. So we sit with them before we start working with them and say, What do you want Loveland to do for you? We take it and say, You're not here coming to us and saying, we're saying this is what you have to do, but what do you want from me? Right. And then we tell her a plan on what, around what that person wants. Somebody could say, I want you to help me become an astronaut.
Speaker 2 00:05:51 Okay. I can't help them do that. Right. But we could do is say, Okay, what do you need to do in order to become an an astronaut? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And one of those things that I've noticed by just watching movies is astronauts are pretty healthy. So we might set up a plan to help that person become healthy. Okay. And we take that little bit of a step and say, Okay, we're gonna help you become healthy. And then the next step after that become belongs to someone else. Ah. Because it's not my job to tell you No. But it's my job to say, How can we help you to do this? Oh, that's awesome. It's always very, very person centered. Everything that we do is about what does that individual want.
Speaker 1 00:06:25 That's amazing. Oh, I love that. What fun.
Speaker 2 00:06:28 Yeah. It's unique. Yeah. And I said person-centered. And it makes it a little bit more challenging for our organization because we then try to figure out what is it that every person does, and how do we then implement every single thing? Right.
Speaker 1 00:06:42 Wow. Oh gosh, that's a lot. <laugh>. And you have 135
Speaker 2 00:06:46 People, you said? We have 135 people in the Venice location, but we serve about 280 people across all four of our locations. So we have locations in Northport, Charlotte, Venice, and then Manatee Bradenton area. Wow.
Speaker 1 00:06:59 That's incredible. I can't believe I haven't heard of this. I guess it hasn't hit me personally. So I'm not connected to anyone with special needs, so I wouldn't necessarily know about it.
Speaker 2 00:07:10 Yeah, no, I get that a lot. Even in the Venice area where we've been here for 60 years, when I first came down five years ago, somebody asked me, I was having dinner down in downtown Venice, and they asked me where I worked and I told them and they were like, Where is that? And I'm like, Right down the road. So unless you have the need, a lot of times we're not known. Right. So it's great to have this opportunity to come and talk with you today and let people know what do we do.
Speaker 1 00:07:33 Sure. Yeah. That's amazing. I love that. And so I'm sure maybe even prior to your tenure there, but do you know the history or the connection to PTT and how long that's been happening? Be sure to tune in for upcoming episodes to help you understand the Fest station industry, what you need to know when buying windows and doors and other related topics. You can find out more about
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Speaker 2 00:08:05 You know, I'm not much of a historian. I can tell you from what I know, I know that Jeff CEO here used to be part of our board, and I actually believe he was the board chair at one point, but I didn't get to know him from my connection to what I do know, is that Deb Lipska? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, She was our board chair. She was on our board, actually was kind of the, I think she was the board chair when I first arrived. So I had a lot of time to work with Debbie. And then now Bob Keller is on our board also, and he's great advocate for our individuals and for the work that we do. PGT was very instrumental in development of our residential program. So we have the Nancy Dieter residences, which is a 42 unit apartment complex, affordable housing complex, located in Venice. And PGT was very instrumental by supporting us with the windows and doors in that building.
Speaker 1 00:08:53 Wow. Yeah. We're good about stuff like that. And I know our, all of our executives serve on non-profit board on some level in some fashion. So I'm not surprised to hear any of that. That's amazing.
Speaker 2 00:09:04 Yeah. It's exciting to have PGT involved. Everybody brings their own style. Right? Sure. So Debbie, with her background in HR was very, very helpful when I first arrived to work through some things that we had going on there. And then Bob actually sits with our strategic planning, and he's excellent about being able to forecast the future and look at things in different manners. And he's been able to help us as we continue to look to the future of what is Loveland going to look like in 10 years? He sits on that community to help us to identify that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:09:32 It's so important to have that outside perspective too, because you know, you're busy with the day to day operations and you're busy with the immediate, and sometimes it's harder to have that vision and to look ahead unless someone is saying, Hey, what does it look like? And then you're like, Oh, I need to look at that. So that's amazing. I love that. And so our partnership obviously helped with the residential area, and then the board obviously helps direct and guide the future of the organization. Are there any other ways that our organization has impacted Loveland Center?
Speaker 2 00:10:04 Yeah. One of the things that PGT does, and I don't know if a lot of people knows, is they're one of our annual sponsors. Okay. So every year they sponsor almost every event that we have, but they're also just as an annual sponsor said that we're going to be here to provide support for Loveland every year no matter what. Oh, nice. So financially, PGT actually does do a lot of sponsorships for us, and they provide some financial support for the organization, which as a nonprofit is a fantastic thing. Sure. When people want to come in and provide some financial support, because we're always trying to be able to fill those gaps where our funding doesn't quite meet the need of our individuals. It's great to see the support that PGT does have, because they don't not only sponsor things, they'll also bring a group of people to things.
Speaker 2 00:10:47 Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we might have an event where PGT came and they were a table sponsor, or they were an overall sponsor, but they don't just send their executives to there to sit at a table. They're bringing staff members, they're bringing groups here to our event. One of the things that stick out to me is in 2021, we started a 5K race. Okay. And the 5K is down in the Punta Goda Port Charlotte area, which as, as we know, a lot of your staff come from that area. Sure. PGT showed up with the largest group of people.
Speaker 1 00:11:20 Wow. Oh
Speaker 2 00:11:20 Nice. Yeah. It was really fantastic to see. And they were a raus crowd there. Yeah. Yeah. They're a rowdy Oh yeah. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:11:27 Yeah. We, We work hard. We play hard.
Speaker 2 00:11:29 Yes, they do. And I think they won a number of the races. So that was pretty good. So that impressed me greatly is that only did they put their money up, but they also put their support there. Right. We've had days where PGT staff member have come over and done like a day of caring and they've cleaned up some of our facilities, or they've taken on the opportunity to paint things or mm-hmm. <affirmative> plant grass or take care of some landscaping. So PGT helps not only just financially, but they are there with their heart to support the organization. Right.
Speaker 1 00:11:58 That's awesome. Well, and one of the perks about being an employee here is that we all get an eight hour allowance of volunteer time every year. So what that means is I don't have to do my job. I can go serve at a nonprofit somewhere. And even if that is, so like what I did last year, I worked on a Saturday at an event, I'm sorry, it was a Sunday. I worked all day at a Sunday event and then I took Monday off as a day of rest because I had given up my day of rest to go work this event. But I didn't have to squeeze that into my normal Monday through Friday. I had that buffer day, that eight hours of pto, or actually VTO is what we call it. And so that is an amazing perk, especially for someone like me who wants to volunteer, but I don't always have the extra bandwidth to do it between work and family and such. So it's nice that an employer can offer that kind of a, an incentive to their folks to go and volunteer is a great thing.
Speaker 2 00:12:56 That's an excellent concept. I'm gonna have to think about that for my own programs.
Speaker 1 00:13:00 Yeah. I mean, it's only one day a year, but still, if you have a big event, sometimes that takes a whole day and you need a lot of people to do it. So it frees me up to say, How am I gonna use that this year? So that's awesome. And so I have one last thing and I love stories and I think stories really help connect all of us to a larger picture. And so do you have any stories that you can share?
Speaker 2 00:13:23 Yeah, there's lots of stories of things that we do when we talk about big wins and small wins. Oh, I could talk about the individuals that we support all day. There's a gentleman who we work with came a couple years ago to our program. He did not have family. His family is no longer involved in his life, really was having a hard time just functioning in society. He just was really struggling because he was worried about everything going on in his life. Just had moved into a group home, came to us and he came to us five days a week and he really got involved in our kitchen group. So one of the things that we do is we have a commercial kitchen and we work on helping people learn skills and how to just function every day in life. And the kitchen and the cooking group is a group that we don't have a magic refrigerator, so they have to go out and shop.
Speaker 2 00:14:05 They have to go out, learn how to use money skills and social skills. So he became involved in that. He then kind of progressed and he started working in our cafe. And in the cafe, he really showed a real knack for the front of the house. He became one of our best servers. I was going to the cafe every single week. So every week he would come in and be like, Oh, Patrick, you Arnold Palm are right. I remember what you went out to drink. And so he would remember everything that we like to order. Well, we bring in outside organizations and outside restaurants. They come to the cafe for our individuals to practice being able to serve people. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and one of those outside organizations was a local country club. Okay. And they saw this person working there and they saw how well he did. And from that interaction, he was offered a job. Oh
Speaker 1 00:14:51 Wow. Yes. Oh, that's so
Speaker 2 00:14:52 Cool. So a person who was struggling in life got offered a job. Now he's working there three days per week. Okay. He actually took a couple days off of the day program cuz he has to go to work now. When I talked to him last, he said, Job's going great. He moved into his own apartment. He has supported living, he still attends our day program two days per week. And he still worked in the kitchen group, but he's able to now hold a job outside and have his own apartment. So that's a huge win.
Speaker 1 00:15:18 Wow. That's
Speaker 2 00:15:20 Awesome. It's great to see his independence be from what we have been able to help teach him.
Speaker 1 00:15:25 Sure. Oh, that's amazing. And so if people wanna find out more about Loveland Center, like whether it's a volunteer opportunity or a financial contribution, how do they find you?
Speaker 2 00:15:37 Well, they can go to our website. Okay. www.lovelandcenter.org. Okay. Or they can give us a call 9 4 1 4 9 3 0 0 1 6 and follow the prompts on the thing and connect with either our philanthropy team or our our administrative team at that time. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:15:53 Awesome. Anything else you wanna
Speaker 2 00:15:55 Share? Again, thank you for the opportunity to come here and talk to you about the different things that we do. And what I would like to say if those people who are listening is that even if you're not in this area and you can't help support Loveland Center, find a nonprofit in your area, it's a rewarding thing to do. The nonprofits always looking for volunteer help. We're always looking for financial help, but take that opportunity to really go and research those nonprofits and say, How can I help my community?
Speaker 1 00:16:20 Right. That's excellent. I'm a firm believer in giving back and being connected in community. That's why I was excited to do this series. So thank you for your time today, Patrick. It was great meeting you and learning about Loveland Center and I can't wait to get over there and help out sometime.
Speaker 2 00:16:33 Excellent. We happy to have
Speaker 1 00:16:34 You. Awesome. Have a great day. You too. Thanks.
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