Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Bebe Kleinman, CEO, Doctors Care

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Bebe Kleinman – Community Health Leader & Nonprofit AdvocateFor over 40 years, I have devoted my professional and volunteer life to advancing equity in housing, food, and health care for individuals and families in under-resourced communities. My career reflects a deep commitment to public health, social justice, and building resilient nonprofit organizations that serve those most in need.I bring a lifetime of experience advocating for low-income populations and working closely with public health systems. My leadership has required bold thinking, long-term planning, and collaborative governance—all essential to sustainable and innovative nonprofit impact. I have consistently prioritized equity, access, and measurable results while navigating the complexities of limited resources, stakeholder engagement, and policy influence.My strength lies in bridging sectors and guiding diverse stakeholders toward shared solutions. I lead with both empathy and strategic insight, fostering innovation, resolving tensions, and building consensus. I strive to help shape a visionary public health system—one that anticipates challenges, not just reacts to them—and works proactively to improve well-being across all communities.I currently serve in several regional leadership roles:President, Board of the Colorado Safety Net Collaborative, representing charitable health care providers statewideVice Chair, Arapahoe County Public Health BoardPast Vice Chair & Member, South Metro Community Foundation, supporting initiatives like the Tri-Cities Navigation CenterActive Community Member, Littleton Villagehttps://doctorscare.org/***********************************************************Judy Carlson is the CEO and Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group, where she helps couples create personalized, coordinated financial plans that support the life they want to live – now and in the future.As an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner, Judy specializes in retirement income and wealth decumulation strategies. She is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, licensed in life and health insurance, and certified in long-term care planning.Judy’s mission is to help guide clients with clarity and care, building financial plans that focus on real planning built around real lives.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/Investment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, a SEC Registered Adviser.The Inspired Impact Podcasthttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/the-inspired-impact-podcast-with-judy-carlson-interview-with-bebe-kleinman-ceo-doctors-care

Welcome to the Inspired Impact Podcast, where dedicated female professionals share how they inspire impact every day. Authentic stories, passionate commitment, lives transformed. I'm your host, Judy Carlson. Welcome to today's episode of the Inspired Impact Podcast. Today's guest is a woman with a big heart who has devoted the past four years. 40 years of her professional and volunteer life to advancing equity in housing, food, and health care for individuals and families and under-resourced communities.

She's the CEO of Doctors Care, and I am so pleased to introduce you today to Beebe Kleinman. Thank you. It's nice to be included. So, I mean, I don't know much about your background, but 40 years in volunteering and under-resourced communities, how did all this get started, Baby? I can't wait to learn. Well, you know, I had parents that were very engaged in community. My father and my mother volunteered a lot. My father was a pharmacist in a small town, and he was very involved in, this is, you know, 50 or so years ago, in drug abuse prevention. And I grew up in New Jersey, and my mom was very involved in, he had a, you know, a local store in a small town.

And my mom drove as a volunteer, the local ambitia. as her volunteer work. And yeah, so she's got great stories. She really is because she's written them down for us so we can share it for next generations. And it was just the kind of example that was joyful. My father ran for political office and this was during the years. This was so impactful that I come home from school and there'd be people walking in and out of my house down to the basement.

And in our basement, there was a phone bank. So this was before cell phones and all that. And there would be like 25 phones and volunteers sitting around these countertops. This basement was not renovated. This was like a cement basement, you know, with cinder blocks that my mom had painted in wild psychedelic colors. Oh my gosh. And I'd see these people walking in and out of my house, going down the basement, making phone calls, asking for people to have support. So I had a lot of that in my early years.

And I just wanted to do something that participated in community. And I have to say in some ways I had the luxury to make those kinds of choices. I married young. My husband was a scientist. He felt like whatever I wanted to do, I could do. And so for my early years, my first job, I remember graduating high school and I had two job offers the same week, paying just about the same amount of money. One was that I would work for a radio station, and I would deliver ads, I would do news story.

That was very small town, very small town. And the other job was to be a social worker for the state. And because I got my undergraduate degree in kind of a social worky field, I thought, I got to take that social work job because that's what I went to school for. So I guess I have to do that. And that put me in a, and at this point, we had moved to Wyoming, to a very small town in Wyoming. And so I took the social work job and right out of the gate, I helped mostly women at the time, it's a long time ago, qualify for food stamps and public assistance.

And I was responsible to investigate child abuse and check daycare centers for quality, all things I was truly not qualified for, but when you're in a small town, people just throw you into a job. And probably worked with families that had totally different life experiences from me. But I think what I learned from those times was to listen and not judge, that everyone is in a different place. And I have tons and tons of stories of women sharing their challenges and struggles. However they got there, I got to share in their stories. And so I spent years, a few years doing that. And then I ended up with it, I had my, I was pregnant with my first child, and I ended up taking a job at a hospital, mostly because it had no night work. And having a

baby and going on and investigating child abuse and sexual abuse and having a baby, it just didn't fit. So I went to work at this hospital. And it was, It was a daytime job. And then I tended to work more with older people, because more older people are in hospitals, doing discharge planning. And then we decided to move to Colorado for a whole bunch of reasons. And I started looking for a job. I had two babies.

And the first job that came open that wanted me was a job for senior services in Douglas County. And Douglas County at the time was very young. And they were just beginning to deal with senior services. It wasn't, Highlands Ranch had just opened. So there was no old people in Highlands Ranch. You know, there was old towns of Castle Rock and Parker. And so I started doing senior work and raising money because that's mostly what I, I feel

I'm probably most gifted at trying to raise money for social services. And I did that for a couple years. And I started getting involved with other nonprofits that did all different kinds of things. And at that point, then I moved to an organization, wonderful organization still today, called the Gathering Place, which is a shelter for women and children along Colfax. And I was back in the vision and the mission that really resonated with me, women and children in poverty, trying to move themselves out of poverty. And what I learned from that is we have such high expectations of women. We say, you have to raise children. and we're not going to help you much with daycare.

If you don't have family support, somehow figure it out on your own, how to feed your kids, how to keep them safe. And yet we don't really, we say just take on more. We don't say let go of anything, just take on more. And I learned so much from being involved in that without organization and the struggles that women had. And I just remember getting in my car at night, my kids were in daycare and rushing home and thinking,

I'm too tired to cook, but at least I have a job and I can drive through someplace where I was leaving women who were going to go back out on the street with their kids, who didn't have the luxury of driving through McDonald's or wherever. And it was just an incredible group of people. Still to this day, they do amazing work. And from that and meeting a ton of new people who worked in all different kinds of nonprofits,

it's I was given the gift of a fellowship to return to school to get my master's degree in nonprofit management, which would take me more on the administrative side, the business side of running an organization. And that changed my life, honestly. And from there, I did some other things and I ended up at doctor's care. So really, 25 years now at doctors care, I don't know where the years went, honestly. They just kind of zip by, you know. I think most women will say during a lot of the years of their life,

it has to move so fast to be able to have a job and raise kids. And I know I'm speaking to you and you really understand the stress and the tension of that period of time and the years. But being in this world allowed me to understand how valuable it is to work in this world, but also to volunteer for others in this world. And I just feel a real, again, it's a real luxury to be able to be included in dynamic, exciting change that the community needs. Still very focused on the needs of women and children, though today poverty is so much broader. There's obviously men raising children, and that's.

very important. There's grandparents, the number of grandparents I meet that are raising grandchildren, you know, stories I never thought much about in my early years I see today. So again, just trying to give children the best possible opportunities. So I tried to get involved in things beyond health care that are tied to health care that have an impact. on those populations. And doctors care gives me the freedom, I think, to be involved. It takes a lot of people. I had a long-term volunteer.

She passed away recently. But she, early on, like 15 years ago, she said to me, healthcare is a teen sport. And when you can build your own team, like many of us have, we have family and friends who help us build our team. But there's a lot of people that don't have a team. And so we have to build many nonprofits, build teams around people. And I just, that was one of the most insightful, I don't know, thoughts that anyone had ever shared with me.

And we often serve people at doctors care who have exhausted the teams that might exist for them based upon their own mental health or physical health challenges. And so our job is. to try to rebuild teams. Volunteers help be a part of someone else's team, not only in health care, but in so many other ways. I'm doing some work with foster youth. And these are young people who don't have a team. And the goal is to build volunteers around them. So they have a new team. I think we talk a lot about families that were born with and families we choose. And lots of times, you have to choose a new family. Yours isn't to your best interest or don't exist for you.

So I think that that's the joy of being involved in the nonprofit charitable world is that you can be a part of someone else's team and really make it different. So that's kind of how I got to where I am today. So doctors care isn't very descriptive. So tell me. a little bit more about the organization and who you serve. Right. Yeah.

So I was lucky enough to bump into doctor's care some 25 years ago. And my first meeting was with this physician. He's a neurosurgeon named Dr. Gary Van derrick lived in Greenwood Village, the Greenwood Village area, and practiced at Swedish and Porter. And that's during a time when he was building his practice that docs would move from one hospital the next. It's more exclusive nowadays. Health care has changed a lot. But I met him and he, 40 years ago, realized that people who didn't have insurance or who are low income didn't have a place to get health care.

And it was always a crisis. And because he was a neurosurgeon, kind of the top of the heap on the surgeon. He decided, and he was a very faith-based man. He decided that if he asked all the physicians he knew to work together and take some of these patients into their own practices, we could solve the uninsured problem in our side of town, not in the whole world, but just in this vision that he had. And he decided to have this organization. He was president of his medical society, the South Denver, South Rappahoe, Douglas, Elberg County,

so south of the Denver Line South Medical Society. And he decided that he would say to all the docs, we're going to do this. And if you don't want to do this, give me a call. It was before cell phones. And he went on a cruise and no one called him. And he said, look at this. Everyone wants to play.

And so created this organization. And I came in about 10 years after he started the organization. And the idea was that everyone would play. And he went to the hospitals. At the time, there were only a few hospitals down south here. And he said to the hospitals, okay, I want to do this. And if you want me to do surgeries at your hospitals, you're going to, you know, where the money is, you're going to want to help me pull this off.

And the hospitals were like, okay. So at the time, health care was. owned by physicians and they were, the hospitals were not as big corporate entities as they are today. And we went along and he, when he hired me, he said to me, look,

I'm going to work on this issue. We have got to solve the healthcare crisis. I'm going to work really hard. And I promise you, you know, in 10 years, we're going to solve this problem. So I said,

okay, you know, it's easy to convince. Yeah. And I said, okay. And so for the next 10 years, he advocated and,

fought and and beyond him, we ended up getting what is what we refer to as Obama Care, but the Affordable Care Act. And that found, that created space for people who are uninsured to be able to get some coverage. And it expanded Medicaid at that time. And so in some ways, he didn't solve the problem, but he took the issue in Colorado from being 30 or 35% uninsured people for us down to under 10%, 7 or 8%. And the hospitals benefited from that, physicians benefited from that. Yes, it's costly.

It's not the perfect solution, but it was what we could figure out. And every state had a little bit different solution. Some have better, some have worse. But this is how Colorado evolved. And doctors care adapted and evolved to provide primary care to people who were low income, focused pretty exclusively on those who qualify for Medicaid and those who were uninsured or uninsurable for whatever reason, whether they couldn't afford coverage or they didn't fit into the structure.

And so that kind of plugged along, as you know, know for the last 10 or so years pretty successfully. And then COVID happened, and that really blew some stuff up. And we added more people to the roles, but now we've taken lots and lots of people off. So doctors care has gone from serving about 8% uninsured to now we're back to about 28%. And with this new federal budget, we will probably see an additional 10% uninsured. mostly because people can't afford the cost of insurance. And even when you have good insurance, what you define is good insurance,

you're out-of-pocket expenses are still pretty high. And not everything is covered, everything that you may need, the meds you may need. So there's just more and more people who don't quite fit into the health care system. And doctors care is built over the, years to become inclusive of providing mental health services. And we work to help identify needs that people have, including what we call the social determinants of health, so food and housing and just basic community needs that people need. And that's how the organization has evolved.

What we have held strong to is our vision and to be inclusive of volunteers. That makes a huge difference. Volunteers are all through the organization from helping us scan documents to interview people and help them get on coverage. We have coverage volunteers. We have volunteers who call people up and say,

hey, do you need to come in and see a doc? When you're taking your medicine, can I help you find a specialist to volunteers, physicians and others who provide direct care to patients. So docs who have served in their communities in private practice or in hospitals for 40 years and then decide, you know, I don't want to do that full time anymore, but I still want to use the gifts that have been given to me. And doctors care really benefits from that level of expertise. I joked the other day, someone told me, and I don't know if this is an appropriate story, but I was talking to someone

about, someone had made a donation to doctor's care, and I was a generous donation, and I didn't know them, and I wrote them, and I said, would you come in for a tour? Could I, could we meet? And he came in, and he had worked his career as an accountant for Deloitte or something, I think was Deloitte. And then I was told that people have to retire really young from some of these corporate jobs, like in their early, early 60s. And I'm thinking, these people have a lot of talent still. It should be required if you're made to retire that you have to go on the board of a nonprofit and use your skill.

I was joking that if you retire and you still have so many talents and gifts, this is a way you need to give back to your community, continue to give those gifts. Not exclusively. And I don't want to make people do jobs that they were tired of doing. but if you have those kind of expertise, there's so much you can do. And he was very generous in his,

and he was sitting on some corporate boards, he said, but yeah, he needed to use his gifts. So I connected him to a friend who really needed that kind of help on her board, and I hope that works out. But it's stuff like that that people work their whole careers. They have a lot to give back. There's so much. talent and expertise.

And let's not waste that. I mean, yes, we still want you to have plenty of time to golf and play bridge, but there's still time in your week, I feel. I think most people just don't know how to engage. Right. Because their lives were so busy that they, so I feel like my whole career is about building bridges and helping people walk across.

Whether they can donate, whether they can volunteer, whether they can serve in some other way. I don't know. We have a group of volunteers that every year plants flowers at our entrance. And that's such a gift. I mean, I hate yard work. So anyone who says they're willing to do that, to me, that's really going above and to be honest,

because I hate that job. So I think that part of my, I don't know, not legacy, but what I want to be remembered for is, to really how many doors I can open for others and how many bridges people can cross. Because it's what brings so much joy to my life. So Doctors Care is a real, if not the best placement for everyone. It's a good example of how do you keep talent engaged in community. So today, Doctors Care still, we have a clinic.

We serve. We look like most clinics, except in addition to we focus a lot. lot on what we call the social determinants and helping families and individuals build teams. So they have people in their life that can help guide them back to a more secure and stable place. You know, I think your own story speaks to there's just hiccups in people's lives. And what if we can just smooth that out just a little bit? People want to be self-sufficient. When I hear that that kind of thought process that people are dependent or, no, most people really want total independence.

They want to live and take care of themselves and take care of their own children. But there's just often challenges that barriers that get in the way. And can those of us who, I don't know, have opportunity, smooth those things out a little bit. So that's what I think is really joyful for me is when I meet people who say, yeah, I want to figure out how to make my community, if not better, different than what it is. So that's what I think that Dr.'s care has allowed me to do. I sit on several other boards for just lots of different things. And I feel like I just kind of mush all that together.

I think many of us, and maybe this is how I've seen, my life isn't compartmentalized. It's more like a big mushy ball. And I put my family's in that ball and my work and my volunteer and my community. They all just kind of mush together. That's just kind of how I see it. And that's comfortable for me. I don't need it to be segmented so much. So I feel kind of lucky that that work.

for me. I don't know that it works for everyone, but it kind of works for me. Yeah, and family supportive of it. Yes. And my family is amazing. And I have two incredible daughters who are so successful in their own ways and their own lives and how I can support them and feel really blessed. And they're in Colorado, so I feel really blessed. That's really nice. No, it is really nice. I know. I feel really. I feel. kind of like that's really probably the most lucky thing I have is that they both settled here or I'd have to really think about where I needed to live. But why they live here and why my grandchildren are three miles from me.

Oh, really? I get to, yes, they're that close. Yes, and they're right close by. And I feel like they need me and they want me to be involved. Of course. So I feel very lucky. So that's kind of my. journey in a nutshell.

And I'm sitting here today going, how can I help others in their journey to satisfaction and success? And that's really what for me matters at this point. Yeah, it's interesting. Not only have you been forced to change because of things going on in Washington or COVID, but in order to be where you are today, you've had to do a lot of your own innovation. That's right.

Exactly. I kind of joke like when a political decision is made, I always joke like, I have a better solution. Why doesn't someone just call me? I take anyone's phone call. I have an idea. And yet, you know, so I think that what that says is not all of us are, you know, get to make all the rules.

That's right. All of us get to adapt to the rules and figure that. And so, but I joke constantly. anyone can call me. I'll tell you what to do. So I wish they call me. So I'll have some ideas. In your clinic when we were on our tour, there were big cabinets of supplies. Tell me a little bit more about those get there. So, you know, what I joke, it takes a village to deliver health care. So there's just different groups that step forward. Like on Friday, there's a group that I don't know where they get the millions of diapers. Now, you have to go pick them up. And so two of the staff went to at a box truck, a 10-foot box truck.

And they went to this site. I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the group. And they volunteers were there, and they filled to the brim this thousands of diapers in this truck. And we got to bring them back. And then we all got together and we emptied this truck, carried them down downstairs at doctor's care. And I walked around when they brought the truck in and I said to every staffman, anyone who can help. I mean, if you're delivering direct health care, please do that first.

But anyone else, and one of the docs, one of the volunteer docs, I said to him, oh, we're doing this diaper thing. And he says, oh, I don't have a patient right now. And he got up. And I said to him other duties as a sign. He said, well, I'm going to count this as my exercise, you know, because he was lifting boxes, you know, and moving box, taking his steps. I said, so we were joking that now we don't have to work out because we're, you know, moving boxes. diapers. So it's diapers. We had another group, a service group called Sertoma, Service to Mankind. It's a women's group called Dry Creek. And they put together, I had gotten donated these,

it used to be like fancy makeup bags, but they were like the size of like a computer would fit into it. But they were pretty. So someone had donated, I mean like a hundred of them. And this service group got together and they collected all this stuff from baby clothes. to rattles, to first toys, to first books. And they made new baby packages. So for every mom that comes in with a new baby, they get this like gift bag of like, yes, it was random, like a lot of random stuff,

but everything you'd imagine. And we put some diapers in there. Yeah. And I thought, like that's really fun. That is fun. We have a group of, I think it's the Republican women of Arapa County. They have a group that sits around and knits blankets for,

for newborns or for babies who come in and need a new blanket. So that's interesting. We have another group that collects hats and gloves in the winter for children. So when they come, a child comes and it's cold and they don't have gloves. We give out gloves. We have another organization called Reach Out and Read. It's a national organization. And it's books that have been prescribed by pediatricians to read to your children.

when a pediatrician gives a book to a family, a child that's age and language appropriate and says read to your children, it's prescriptive. Like take your medicine, read to your children. Because we know that children that are read to have better educational outcomes. So we have a group that does that. We have a group that gave us, I know this is a tough one, but gun locks and gun safes. And so when we interview families to say, do you have a gun in the house? is it locked? We give out free gun locks.

I don't know much about that. And so we have a whole cabinet that's gun locks and gun safes and other safety things like plugs, you know, like baby plugs that you put in the wall. So anything that has to do with family safety. I mean, I could go on. It just takes a ton. We have this food pantry that looks like a little library pantry in our, that looks like a little library pantry in our parts. lot and it was started by high school students and it continues and people drive up and put food in the pantry and then others and I've talked to both sides. I've talked to people donating food

and said thank you. I've talked to families who say to me, just a few things make a difference that I don't have to stand in line for. And so that's been going on for several years. So there's a million little ways that aren't that disruptive to your own life. participate. But that's, we have these cabinets and we built the clinic that there would be these cabinets about every 10 feet that would be used by other organizations. We have dental kits, so toothbrushes and floss and all that kind of stuff, because when we give that out, we say it's important that you brush your child's teeth. So for some of us who were raised to do all those things, it makes sense. But if you weren't, when providers have to say to people,

soda is not the drink of choice for children. But, you know, my kids come to my house and if I'm having a Diet Coke, guess what? Those grandkids, they just, that is the most important sip that they're going to have. That's all they want is a sip of that Diet Coke. And I know their mom is not supportive of that. But anyway, I joke about that. But, you know, everyone has different. different, we're raised differently and you have to have possibilities to show that there's a better

way. And so there's just a lot of other community groups that help us deliver care to families. And I feel so lucky to have those groups in our lives. I don't, I don't want us to be an organization that's stepping on other people's toes. Other people do stuff well. And let's better we're a partner with them. then that we take that on, that we stay doing what we do really well, staying focused on our mission, especially at a time where health care is being very kind of punched out a little bit. And so I'm hoping that we stay in our lane,

we do what we do well, and we can continue to do it for as many people who need us. So if a list, Listener wants to get involved. I mean, you've listed off so many opportunities for people. But what would you suggest for people who want to get more involved? Well, I'm always surprised. This always is shocking to me when I asked people how they found out about doctors care.

Sometimes they've seen an article in the paper and they'll call us that way. And that's great. But people more often than not will say, I just decided I had some extra time. and they go on something called volunteer match.com. I know this is bizarre. And we advertise, not advertise, we promote volunteer opportunities, as do many other groups on this thing called volunteer match.

So I've never gone on it myself, but I can't tell you how many people have said to me, I went on volunteer match. And I met a woman last week. She was coming through. She lives in Fort Collins. And in her volunteer years, year she helps older people figure out Medicare. And it's complicated. Medicare is very complicated.

And I thought, and she went on volunteer match and she saw that we help people do the same thing, but with Medicaid and with private insurance on the exchange. And she said, you know, I thought, I could help some more people. She's not afraid of insurance, which trust me is so complicated and such a nightmare headache, even just running our own insurance. And so she just said, I think I could help more people. And I said, but you live in poor calling. She said, it's true. I'm not going to come down all the time.

But we do a lot by telehealth, you know, online. We have computer systems now that make it look like you're in the office, but you're in your home. And so, you know, if you're not afraid of the computer and you say, I don't mind helping people, I could learn some new stuff. That's just one example of a volunteer who found us in what I considered a pretty random way and said, you know, I could do a little bit more in this area. And I thought that was just a wonderfully random. I talked to a doc.

I interviewed and I said, well, how did you find us? And he said, well, my wife was reading this little article in a community newspaper. And she said to him, you've retired. You got to get out of the house. You cannot be in the house all day long. I mean, you know, here's a guy who probably worked 60 hours a week and then doesn't know what he's, you know, so she said, you got to go talk to these people. So stuff like this happens. And so I encourage people to look first on volunteer match.

It's a painless way to just peruse. What, uh, uh, wait a minute. Okay. I think you're good. I got a phone call someplace. But anyway. So I thought, I just think that's a very soft way to open the door. It's beautiful. If there's a cause you care about and you can send some money, hopefully that organization reaches back out to you.

I know we do. We respond to everyone who sends us any amount of money. I saw something on one of your cards that says every dollar counts. I think that's like a tagline. That is a tag. tagline I use. That to me is every dollar counts. Over the years, we've had patients or patients' families send in a few dollars, and a few dollars for them makes a huge difference. It's meaningful. And we reach out to everyone saying, again, how did you find out about us? Why did you decide to give? What resonated? And so those are two very painless ways. But if there's some skill set that you have that could translate into supporting a nonprofit. I don't know the name of the organization, but there's an, I'm sure it can be Googled,

or an organization that helps people who may want to sit on a board of directors. And, you know, maybe that's a really great way to say you had this corporate life. You've been responsible for lots of people, for budgets, for human resources, for what And nonprofits can't buy all those services. We're built to work on a budget, pretty tight budget. So my board of directors has incredible talent. I feel very honored to have them all. And I say all the time, I can't buy that kind of.

We can't afford that kind of service. It's not in the budget. But if you get people who want to give in that way, that's a pretty easy way to get involved. and to value your long career, to be honest. So there's that. If someone's listening to this and says, oh, give them my, I have no hesitation. They can write me.

I can direct them. I can chat with them and say, what is it that you truly want to do where you want to be a part of? Over the years, something I learned really early in my career. I was at the gathering place at the time. and this attorney came in and he said and I was like, oh, an attorney, we always need an attorney or someone who could read long documents like that. And he said, but I don't want to be an attorney here. I want to read to children.

And I had to really step back and say, yes, that's important too. And let's have you read to children. Yeah. You know, so you don't want to force people because if you force people to do what they don't want to do, they're not going to last long. Right. And the best volunteer is one that sticks with you for a lot of years. You know, and it's really a part of who you are and what you do and the mission.

So that man came in every week and read to children. And it probably regranted him in his own life. For sure. So a blessing there. Very much. I did have a volunteer once early on who was in construction. And of course, I wanted him to fix stuff. But he didn't want to fix that.

He wanted to do something. So I really can honor that people want to do something different than maybe they did for 40 years or 20 years or whatever. But if you still want to do what you're comfortable doing, great. Maybe you wrote proposals your whole life and you like to write. Maybe you were in, I don't know, community relations and you don't mind writing press releases. I mean, there's just so much stuff that you could do. So anyway, that's a way. to engage. If people want to reach out to me, happy to chat with them.

That's great. You never know where that next gem is. And things come up every day because I'm involved in so many other organizations. I know organizations need talent. And so, you know, can I help you fit someplace? Great. You know, best to think through your own life and say, what's realistic for me, you know, can someone give four hours a week? That's a pretty good commitment. And yet, volunteers travel a lot, and I get that. But besides the travel, can he give four hours a week to something or six hours a week to something? What I find is you become a more interesting person. I have never spoken to a volunteer, think a volunteer who didn't come back with, I get more from

this than I give. Right. Yeah. I'm more interesting. because of it, I get to tell other people's stories, not just my own. So I think that that's the value. Right. Yeah. It's a beautiful blend, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, my dear, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for telling us. Yeah, sharing all your great wisdom and knowledge and experiences and career. Boy, it's wonderful. So, yeah, looking forward to our listeners. being able to hear more about your journey and doctors care. So thank you so much. Thank you, Judy.

Thanks for including me. Thanks so much for joining us for the Inspired Impact Podcast. To listen to past episodes, please visit theinspiredimpactpodcast.com.