Business Innovators Radio - The Inspired Impact Podcast with Judy Carlson-Interview with Jeanette Reynolds, Executive Director, Miles 4 Madison

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Jeanette Reynolds is a passionate advocate for inclusivity and community empowerment. Miles 4 Madison is a non-profit organization dedicated to building inclusive parks in communities and providing recreational opportunities for everyone. As Executive Director, Jeanette has been instrumental in creating impactful initiatives in her own community.Miles 4 Madison has grown into a thriving organization. They host an annual 5k run in Sterling Ranch in the fall and provide recreational opportunities for families with children who may have a disability.When not working, Jeanette can be found watching Duke basketball or training for her next RunDisney event.Website: https://www.miles4madison.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miles_4_madisonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/miles-for-madison/*************************************************************Judy is the CEO & Founder of the Judy Carlson Financial Group. She helps her clients design, build, and implement fully integrated and coordinated financial plans from today through life expectancy and legacy.She is an Independent Fiduciary and Comprehensive Financial Planner who specializes in Wealth Decumulation Strategies. Judy is a CPA, Investment Advisor Representative, Life and Health Insurance Licensed, and Long-Term Care Certified. Judy’s mission is to educate and empower her clients with an all-inclusive financial plan that encourages and motivates them to pursue their lifetime financial goals and dreams.Learn More: https://judycarlson.com/Investment Adviser Representative of and advisory services offered through Royal Fund Management, LLC, an 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-jeanette-reynolds-executive-director-miles-4-madison

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 passionate advocate for inclusivity and community impact. She has quite a story, and I look forward to what she's going to share. Jeanette Reynolds, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Judy.

I'm excited to be here today. Well, let's start by telling our listeners a bit about your journey. Okay, well, I guess my journey really started when my daughter Madison was born. Everything before that was my life was typical. I was raised in Colorado with two brothers in a nuclear home with, you know, a mom and a dad and got married and did all the things you're supposed to do in the right order. And then on our one-year anniversary, my daughter was born. Wow. And everything, you know, was typical and normal.

And four months later, so in January, she was four months old. she started having seizures. And we couldn't figure out what was going on. And we took her to the neurologist. And, you know, the neurologist looked at her and says, she's fine. You know, there's nothing wrong with her. She's fine. Take her home.

And we took her home. And she continued to have seizures all night long. And so I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to order an MRI on her. And we'll go ahead and we'll do an EKG on her or an EEG on her. and see what's going on, just, you know, just to make you feel better, but she's fine. And went home that night, waiting for the neurology appointment the next day and thought, oh my gosh, what is she has epilepsy? And in my head, that was scary, very scary.

Yeah. Turns out she did have epilepsy. But on top of that, she had a rare genetic. brain deformity called listencephaly. And what that meant was she didn't have any gyrie in her brain. And so she wasn't going to be able to learn anything or retain any knowledge. And they told us that she probably wouldn't live to be two years old. So take her home and love her and do the best she can't.

Okay, sorry. Did they send you home with some ways to help the symptoms? No, not really. They kept us in the hospital a couple days because not that they could do anything, but they wanted to make sure that we had social workers in place. Okay. Mentally, we could handle the diagnosis and, you know, kind of get a care team in place and the hospice type of situation in place.

But I'm stubborn. And I don't necessarily listen when people tell me something. Okay. So I took her home. And instead of putting her in a hospice situation, I decided, you know what? I'm going to get therapists and I'm going to get home health and I'm going to do what I can. Wonderful.

And we gave her everything. We took her everywhere. We got her enrolled in schools. You know, we got her in IEP. We took her to Anchor Center for blind children. We took her horseback riding. We took her swimming. We took her everywhere we could.

Because in my head, it's like, well, she only has two years. I'm going to give her everything that I can give her. I'm not going to keep her in my house with us. and just wait. So two years came and went and went. And she was healthier than ever. Other than having seizures, she had, she was a perfect little girl. She was healthy.

She never got sick. You know, she couldn't talk or walk or sit up on her own, but she would smile at you. Wow. I didn't do she was there? Yeah, for sure. So we kept her at home. Fast forward, you know, she stayed at home and was good until she was, you know,

24 years old. Wow. We proved everybody wrong. Right. And she did have a severe form of Lysenceencephaly. She was a more severely disabled. child, I think that most people that we came in contact with were used to dealing with, therapists and schools and nursing.

You know, she had tons of issues. But I still think that had we not taken the approach we took, she would not have made it the 24 years, but we were determined that she was going to be healthy and happy and do everything that we did. Wow. The strength of character that you have, Jeanette, through all of this. My goodness. There have been good days and bad days, believe me, even through all of that. And I think Madison enjoyed everything. She loved taking vacation. She'd love to go to the ocean. She loved amusement park rides. She just loved living. Wow. Well, and bless you and your family for just taking her with and expecting she's just

going to enjoy it and have a great time and the smile on her face just said it all. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, we were, you know, we were fortunate. You know, we had the financial. financial ability to, you know, to be able to do these things and take her places. And I understand that not every family is, is as lucky as we were. But when she, when she did pass, it was, it was, it was hard. She had gotten sick. She had gotten pneumonia and, you know, she never really recovered. She kind of hung on for about 18 months. Wow. Jeanette. Wow. So did the pneumonia kind of start it? It did.

You know, she ended up, you know, catching pneumonia. She had sepsis. She congestive heart failure, just all the things. So the last 18 months were pretty hard. Yeah. Because you were caring for her still in your home. Yeah, I cared for her 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Oh, wow.

We never had. We never had anybody else come in the house. Okay. Oh. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So, but after Madison passed, you know, and you go through your grieving process.

Right. I realized, you know, seeing other kiddos in Madison's situation and how fortunate we were. We wanted to try to make sure that other kiddos had those same opportunities and experiences that we did. Yeah. So my son and I actually started a nonprofit called Miles from Madison. Okay. And it was just going to be a fun run we did in our new community to raise some money to maybe send some kids to camp or, you know, provide some playground equipment, you know, something. so kids could get outside.

I understand when money is tight, recreational activities are kind of the first to go. Right. You know, when you have to make choices, that's kind of the first thing to go. Yeah. So, you know, we were hoping that, like I said, maybe we could send a couple kids to camp. Yeah. So we went through all the paperwork. We started the run in Sterling Ranch.

We're able to have about 200 runners that first year and grow some momentum. And that turned into us now being able to be bigger and better as Miles from Madison. So we have changed our goal a little bit to now we are building inclusive parks in Douglas County. Wow. Yeah. When Madison, when Madison was growing up, we had to drive nearly 40 miles to get her to any sort of inclusive park. And of course, this was a completely different day and age. Sure. You didn't have maps on your phone. You couldn't Google things to see, you know, where anything was. So it was kind of trial, trial and air go to a park and say, no, this doesn't work. Nope, this one doesn't work. Nope, this one doesn't work. until we finally found one. There may have been some closer, but we never found them.

Okay. But just to be able to take her to do typical things, you know, a 40-minute drive back 20 years ago. And we all know that the further parks are away from you, the less likely you are to go. Right. So we wanted to make it so all communities had at least an inclusive feature in their neighborhood Park. Okay. So you say an inclusive feature. I'm not sure most of us even know what that would be. Yeah, I know that ADA, which is a wonderful organization, the Americans with Disability Act, has made parks ADA accessible. Unfortunately, all that means is that you can get to the park.

there is a ramp or a curb cutout or something enabling enabling kiddos in chairs, wheelchairs to get to a park or adults with walkers or whatever to get to a park. But once you get to the park, it doesn't guarantee you that you can use anything at the park. Which is great in theory. However, a lot of people still end up on the sidelines,

just kind of watching their typical bodied peers. Yeah. Having fun. Yeah. You go to a park and you'll find surfacing. That's wood chips or pea gravel. And you just can't push a wheelchair through there. And even adults with mobility issues have a hard time watching, you know, watching

grandkids with that kind of surface. So the most important part is the surface. Okay. We are working to get the, it's called a port in place, a PIP surface. It's kind of a rubberized surface that is soft, but chairs can go on it. People can walk on it without, there being tripping hazards. And then the playground pieces themselves, you know, we're working on getting ramps installed so kids can get up to the slides. swings where even bigger kids can be in a swing that may have less upper body control, but they can still be in a swing.

You know, we're working on different surfacing. So even if kiddos can't get out of their chair can still have that movement, it will be on a surface that's bumpy that's different. So it feels bumpy or a surface like that. We have in-ground trampolines where they can go on that and kind of get that bouncy feel. Wow. There's actually a lot of really cool things that are out there. It's just a matter of they're expensive.

Yeah. And getting them installed in parks when you don't have someone asking is very hard. Yeah. Well, and you got out there and experienced the world. with Madison, but a lot of people, they do. They just seclude themselves in their homes. Right. So they just don't even consider that there might be another option.

Yeah. And I think it's easy to be invisible when you have a disability or when you have a child with a disability. It's very easy to hide. Yeah. Wow. That is, you know, honestly, that's probably more common than it should be or needs to be. Right. Right. We didn't do that. No, you didn't.

We took her everywhere. And if it didn't work, we would ask questions of why it wouldn't work. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, there's only so many hours in the day and so many times you can ask, but, you know, you keep asking and eventually people will listen. Yeah, that's a really important question. why isn't it going to work? Yeah. What's the problem here and could there be another way or an alternative way? And we have found in these last few years of hosting Miles from Madison,

you know, it's more a matter of people just didn't know. No. And we don't really get a lot of pushback anymore. It's more, oh, yeah, I'd never even thought about that. Right. But I know when we first moved into our community here, the reason we moved into where we live now is we bought into the vision. It was going to be a walkable community where we could, we didn't have to load her up into a car. We just put her in a wheelchair and walk and grab something to eat or grab an iced tea or, you know, walk around the neighborhood.

but the parks, even when we first moved in here, were not accessible. And they opened a new park shortly after we moved in, maybe six months. My daughter had passed by then. But in that park, the surfacing was wood chips. And the commissioners came to a meeting in our community, and it's like, aren't there requirements for this? And, you know, who do I talk to? And that's kind of how all of this started.

So now in our community, every part going forward, we'll have at least one inclusive element. And we have championed an all-inclusive park in Sterling Ranch that is set to open in June of this year that will have an all-inclusive playground. It will have a zero-entry pool. It will have a field. where typical and atypical kids can play soccer and basketball and do all of those things together.

Yeah. Oh, so important. Yeah, I think, again, it's easy to keep your kiddos at home when they don't fit what others see as normal. Yeah. But when you go out and play, that child. just becomes your friend. It's not the kid in the wheelchair. It's, oh, Joey is, you know, we're going to play with Joey. It's not Joey in the wheelchair who has to sit on the sidelines. It's, you know, we're all going to play together. And parks are the best, the best place to do that.

They sure are. You know, differences and empathy and all of the good things you want your kids to have, all those good qualities you want your kids to have. Yeah, I mean, I even think about not only the child that's disabled, but all of the kids who are observing how that disabled child is able to play and the impact that that's going to make on all of those kids' lives for their future and their future relationships, everything.

I mean, the beauty of the multiplication of all of that is amazing. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. You know, when we would take Madison plays You know, she was just treated like she belonged there. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And that's what we want for everybody.

Right. So tell me a little more about this all-inclusive park that's opening in June. And how can people learn more about it or get involved or participate in it? Because I'm thinking that, you know, kids who aren't just. may gravitate toward a park like that. It's going to be a great park. The park itself, the whole, the entire park will be eight acres. Our area of the park is, I want to say something like 14,000 square feet.

I can't remember exactly how big it is. But it's going to have zip lines and swings and slides. And like I said, the in-ground trampoline is going to have spinners. We are going to host, we're working, we're partnering with a couple of organizations and we're trying to host some play dates for a better word where we have mentors and mentees working or playing on all the equipment together just to enjoy the park. Yeah. Did you say a zero entry pool is going to be part of that?

Yeah, it'll have a zero entry pool and we're Miles from Madison is going to be purchasing a little like beach they call them beach wheelchairs, but a little chair that you can roll right into the water so you don't have to get into another chair to be put into the water. You can kind of just pull your child right into the water and take them out that way. Madison loved swimming. Wow. It was one of the things that, you know, she was able to, even though she couldn't stand on her own, she could stand in the water. just because of the buoyancy of the water. And water therapy is so good for everybody, even the older adults. Right.

Wow. So good in your joints. You mentioned something about fundraising to send kids to camps. So tell me a little bit more about the camps. Yeah, right now, We've been sending kids to Easter Seals camps. We have also just begun sending kids to hypotherapy, which is horseback riding therapy, which is a therapy that my daughter did as well.

And insurance does not generally cover it. They've gotten better, but they generally don't cover it. So we're able to send a couple kiddos to hypotherapy this year with our fundraisers. we just we're I hate saying we're kind of all over the place but we're looking to find out what's working for your kid

what's working you know what do you need from us yeah because the things that insurance pays for you know we're going to let insurance pay for it yeah so it's these

it's these less traditional therapies that we're trying to fund. And I hate using the word therapies because they're more fun. But this past year, we, we sponsored sensory swim for kiddos. So we hired, we paid for an OT to be at the pool. And she would work with kids that came in and their parents to give them exercises that they could do or show them to play with them in the water. Even kids that may have been a little more afraid of the water. you know, just kind of expose them a little bit. It was a quiet. We, the pool was kept more quiet. The lifeguards didn't use their whistles. We limited it to, you know, 20 or 30 people in the water at a time. We didn't really do splashing. And it was an hour a week. And I think, I think the people, the attendees really got a lot out of it. So we're hoping to do that again this next year, along with like the play. We're going to do a lot.

once a month kind of play program at the playground. We're going to try to start an adaptive basketball league, not league, I guess, games in our community, just to expose some kids. Yeah, that's great. I mean, what a great way to just get started. I don't think you're all over the place. I just think you're continuing on your journey of learning and helping. And you just never know where that's all going to go.

go from what you're telling me you've already, you know, tapped into so many different avenues and resources already. Yeah, we're trying. It's been, you know, it's just, you know, Miles for Madison, like I said, we've been around for, this will be our fourth year coming up. It's just my son and I, we both have regular jobs as well. So there is, you know, we are still kind learning as we're going. But we're trying to help as many people as we can. Obviously, through a park, we can help hundreds, hundreds of kids and families at one time.

Yeah. So that is our big push. Right. Yeah, that makes so much sense. Now, a couple times you've mentioned my son and I. So in the whole scheme of things, when was he born and how did he interact and acclimate and become such an advocate. Yeah, my son Cal, he was, he was born four years after my daughter. So we were in the midst of taking her to therapies and out and about every single day. So he, very, very young,

had to kind of learn to go with the flow with us. Yep. I can remember giving birth to him. And two weeks later, you know, we're off to take Madison to therapy, you know. Right. He would, he would, my daughter had those little anti-tippers on her wheelchair and he would help me, he'd push on the anti-tippers and he would help me push her into, you know, school or wherever we were going that day and help me load her and unload her as best he could. Growing up, you know, he would read her stories and, you know, he was, he was very protective. Wow.

And he is really, after she passed, he is really kind of taken the mantle and gone off and running on this. I don't think we would be where we are now if it wasn't for him. I probably would just still be feeling sorry for myself. What a remarkable young man. man you've raised there, Jeanette. And despite all of the things, he's a different person because of the family he grew up in. And all of those character qualities that he has today and as they were developed along in the years, yeah, he's a remarkable young man.

So you didn't coddle to either one of your children over the years. And what a, you know, a testimony and a role model for, what can be with your family and your children? Yeah, we, you know, he didn't see us treat her any differently, you know, than we treated him, honestly. Sure. And I won't say it was all, you know, champagne and roses. It was, it was tough.

And, you know, I always tell Cal that he had the best and the worst of, he had a sibling, but he didn't. And he was an only child, but he wasn't. Okay, wow. You know, we had a lot of fractured vacations, you know, so it was, you know, there was definitely some adjusting that he had to do as well and, you know, some things that I'm sure he looked at his friends and like, oh, hmm, that's, that's not us. I guess we'll never have that.

That's different. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Well, what an incredible young man in support he is for, you. your Miles for Madison nonprofit. And a vision, he probably has a vision too as you continue to learn and grow. And I mean, there must be sort of what you would consider to be an unending amount of

information to gather and learn about taking the horns in this little family of yours bigger and better. Yeah, definitely, definitely. He handles the whole. bunch of the stuff that I don't want any part of and vice versa, I think. Good team. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And my husband as well, Michael, you know, he's, he does his best and he's out there trying to help where he can as well. But, you know, he also, like both of us, you know, has a full-time job. And, you know, there's only so many hours in

the day again. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. It's a remarkable situation. Well, So people want to come to the all-inclusive park in June. They want to get more involved. They may have a friend, a relative, someone in their own family who could benefit from learning more about the inclusivity, get to know you better, your mission, participate, help. What are some things that you would recommend, Jeanette, for those people who might be interested in that? Well, the part, we are hoping to have the ribbon cutting on the park on June 7th. And we would love to have everybody out there. We want this park to be enjoyed by all.

So we are hoping to have a concert that night. Ice cream. We're going to make it a big to-do on June 7th. Okay. And the park is in Stirling Ranch. It's Prospect Park. It's kind of near the Safeway off of. rampart road.

But yeah, that's going to be our first thing coming up. After the park is open, then we're going to be able to start the inclusive play group. And, you know, we will be looking for families that want to come and participate, volunteers who want to help us run that. And if you have a kiddo who may benefit from an inclusive park, and in that kind of situation, we would love to hear from you and we can work together.

Yeah. And all that information will be on our website. It's not yet because we don't have the firm date of when everything can start. But our website is miles for Madison.org. And you can also follow us on Instagram at Miles for Madison. And there's a four in there,

a number four, Miles with the number four. number four. How did you decide that? Miles four Madison F-O-R was taken. Ah, there we go. That's a good. Just had to pivot a little bit, right? Yeah.

And it actually worked out well because our main fundraiser is a run. Yeah. And this will be our fourth year of the run. And we're trying to see if we can do an actual, instead of a 5K, we're trying to do a four-mile race since it'll be our fourth year. We're trying to figure that out if we can figure out a good route for that. Okay. That's cool. That run will be September 20th this year.

Okay. And we need volunteers and sponsors and runners and vendors and vendors. Any way, anywhere. All right. That's awesome. One thought I had as I was listening to you, how many parents of kiddos who are going to benefit from an inclusive park and situation can learn themselves about how to help their children enjoy the park or the water or the different ways that, you know, because I'm not sure a lot of parents really know

how to help their children enjoy. and you just plowed forward and you did it and you learned with Madison. Yeah, we did. We just, I said a lot of things we just made it work. We figured it out. We didn't have a lot of experience. We didn't have a lot of guidance. I think that's more readily available now than it was.

My daughter was born in 94. So we've learned a lot since then. But at night before, information was just hard to come by. Right. Yeah. Wow. Well, my dear, you have anything else you want to share? Otherwise, this has just been a fabulous conversation.

Thank you so much for taking your time and weathering through some, you know, difficult things to share and tears and all of that go along with it all the time. So thank you so much, Jeanette. No, thank you, Judy. We appreciate the opportunity to get word out on what we're talking about. All right. Thank you. We'll wrap this up.

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