The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Dixie Aiken, Andrea Jacobs & Conan Owen Joined Michael Urpí & Nickolas Urpí On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

Dixie Aiken of North Acre Life Enhancement and Andrea Jacobs of Sin Barreras & Conan Owen of Sir Speedy joined Michael Urpí & Nickolas Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Today and Manana. I'm Michael, happy to be joined by Nicholas on this very cloudy, rainy day. But as Alex would like to say, it's a perfect day to grab a café con leche. I would go double shot café con leche, in my opinion. I probably should have done that this morning myself. But we'll see if we can make it on one shot of espresso. Luckily, I got Nicholas here with me, so that should give me a nice bump. Yeah, because I had a shot of espresso this morning. only won no i always do a double oh you always do double

he's always one step ahead yeah and triple sometimes when i go to go heroes because they make the triple and that's you like to get the was it danilo specials yeah that's called that's what it's called the danilo special yeah or cafe danilo if you just mentioned danilo's name they'll just exactly yeah so that's that's a perfect thing to do today. Go to Gorgio's, get a nice Danilo special, and watch them today, manana. A triple shot, yeah. And then watch it. And as always, we are happy to be presented by Emergent Financial Services,

sponsored by Craddock Series Insurance, Matisse Young Realty, and Faba. I know we always, like Pops usually likes to go, please always like, share, and subscribe to the show. We're going to have a fantastic row of guests today. I'm really looking forward to it. We're going to be joined shortly by Dixie Aiken from North Acre Life Enhancement.

And then after that, we're going to have Conan Owen from Sir Speedy as well as Andrea Jacobs from Simperera. So we got a packed house today. Nick did a good job. We got a packed house. I filled it, as well as Andrea Jacobs from Sin Barrera. So we got packed house today. Nick did a good job. We got a packed house. Yeah, I filled it up as much as possible. Yeah, shout out to everyone who,

because actually Sin Barrera's reached out to us, so shout out to them for that. I appreciated that. Sorry about the miscommunication, because we had a bit of miscommunications, but we finally got them on the show. The important thing is that- In time for the C-Vilson program.

It's not the journey, it's the destination. I mixed it up. I know. The important thing is they're here now. In time for the Seville Suburban. It's not the journey. It's the destination. I mixed it up. I know. I made that on purpose, but that's the important thing is they're here now. I was like, there's something wrong about that. I couldn't figure out what it was. I'll run with it.

All right. What about you? I think we're ready to kind of jump to our first guest. I'm ready. All right. We are very happy to be joined by Dixie Aiken. Thank you so much, Dixie, for joining us today. Thank you for having me.

No, it's an absolute pleasure. So before we kind of begin can you tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what inspired you to start the North Acre? Yes so I my name is Dixie and I grew up in a household where holistic and more traditional medicines were always the first go-to. So if you have a cold, you're going to eat more onions, apples, cranberries. You've got a headache, you're soaking your feet. And then pharmaceuticals was always the, okay, if you absolutely need them type of thing. So I grew up with that mindset.

And then working in the mental health field, I have seen a lot of individuals and families who have really struggled with wanting to use more holistic and traditional methods, but not knowing how to or how to even begin asking their providers about it. And I had my own experience with being in a very toxic work environment, which caused me a lot of emotional and physical ailments. And I was able to use my knowledge and my skills of more traditional homeopathic methods of healing myself. And at that point in my life, I was like, okay, do I even want to, I was leaving this toxic work environment, I was like, do I even want to stay in the mental health field? And I was connected with somebody who was doing wellness coaching.

And that's when I began to think, okay, if I could somehow bridge this gap of using more holistic traditional healing with what I know as far as like cognitive behavioral, you know, treatments and stuff, you know, that would be something that I know that people are interested in doing. So this past year, I took a leap of faith and started North Acre Life Enhancement. Wow. And when you say wellness coach, what exactly does that kind of refer to? Well, wellness coaching can mean several different things.

It can mean there's different programs that you can take. Some wellness coaches focus on nutrition and exercise. So I do do some nutritional coaching because there's a huge link between the gut and emotions. Others, you know, they will just work on stress reduction. So I do a little bit of a combination of those things. All right. And your holistic approach, how does that get incorporated into the emotional wellness coaching? Well, I have always been big on not just looking at the individual.

So I take a holistic approach, literally, of looking at, okay, what's going on in your family, your work, your environment, finances, you know, are you spending time doing fun things for yourself? So I look at the whole person, and then, because a lot of people, they do think, okay, holistic. They think of herbs and minerals and stuff. That actually was my kind of person. Which I do include essential oils and Bach flower remedies in working with clients. But it is really looking at the entire person and then incorporating those more traditional methods of healing, such as the nutritional coaching, the Bach flower remedies, which have been around for 100 years. I also do energy healing with clients and crystal healing.

So it's a lot of different things. So the energy healing, is that what you talk about with the crystals? It can be used in conjunction with the crystals, or I practice Reiki, which can also be incorporated with sound therapy, which is something I'm hoping to get started, or it can just be used individually on its own. And I also saw on your website you do

do you also do yoga yes so the yoga is super fun because it is for little kids so currently yeah so currently i am teaching a yoga class at culpepper parks and rec for four to nine year olds and i've been doing that since january And it's so much fun. Because the kids, I mean, school is so stressful for children. You know, they are tasked with following, you know, the standard learning. You know, they've got to sit still a lot. and then just the stress that they face with, you know, safety in schools. And I have worked with a lot of kids where that has been a big issue, you know, is they don't feel safe or they feel like they are just being misunderstood. So being able to teach the kids at a young age how to breathe and do mindfulness, you know, I've had some great stories where a girl came back and she told me that she taught one of her friends during a fire drill how to use the bubble breathing that she had learned that week.

So, you know, it's really exciting to see how that they're using it. So what's bubble breathing? Bubble breathing is you take all of your negative emotions or intense emotions that you're experiencing, whether it's fear or anger, and you imagine you're blowing it into a bubble. And then depending on how big that emotion is, you make it that size of a bubble, and then you just let it float away. So you're getting it out of your body because i always tell clients that emotions aren't bad that it's how we handle our emotions because emotions are just chemical and electrical impulses so you have to get it out of

your body somehow so just having that act of just breathing helps kids you know imagine that they're actually getting it out. Do you focus more on do you change how you approach having adult clients versus children clients? How does that work? Definitely. Because kids emotionally are not developed as much as adults. Right. And, you know, their problems aren't the same as an adult, too.

So, yeah, I definitely look at each client individually and then set up, you know, how I approach them that way. Interesting. Okay. So when a client or potential client reaches out to you, kind of what's like the first step you kind of take them through that? Like I'm interested in this wellness coaching. What are the first steps that you take them through? Well, I always do a free 15 minute

consultation. Uh, that way I can get an understanding of what their goals and needs are to see if it's an appropriate match. appropriate match because I am not a licensed therapist. I do hold credentials in Virginia that allow me to do certain things, but I want to make sure that they understand that I'm not licensed. So there might be some clients that I need to refer to somebody who is based on the significance of their issues or needs. So I want to make sure that they're getting the right type of treatment and they understand what I do.

And so we just have a conversation of what it is that they're trying to improve and how long they're wanting to work with me. And then we just develop a plan from there. And what are some of the biggest challenges you've noticed your clients have been facing, whether it's stress-related, anxiety-related, fear-related? I'm kind of curious as to what kind of you're seeing in trends in people. It's definitely stress and anxiety um and has significantly increased since um the pandemic um and just knowing how to make social connections

has also um been something that i've been working with with my teen clients. And even some of my adults just knowing how to make those connections, and it's like we forgot almost, you know, after being in the pandemic. But a lot of people, you know, everything has changed in our world, how everyone approaches working and spending and visiting, you know, and even interacting, you know, in social situations. And that seems to be where the stress and anxiety is coming from. And what are some pieces of advice you would give to people that are struggling with that? I always tell people that you need to start slow. So if you have some social anxiety, don't go to a concert right off the bat.

Go to something small. Because the more you do something, the less that anxiety is going to be there. So find something that you like to do. Maybe if you are into writing, start going to a writing club at the library. And then, you know, build up from there. So take small steps because one of the biggest reasons people fail with their goals is that they forget to develop those small steps.

And they just try to go full speed ahead. So when you approach it and take the little, the little steps, you can be more successful. Now I have a question for you. Cause I know it's one of the things about holistic. That's great. Is that of course it covers everything.

As you mentioned before, what do you, how do you handle if a client comes in and it's like, I don't want the nutrition piece because I like eating, you know, 10 pounds of bacon for breakfast and I'm going to stick with it. Like, how does that, do you still try to work with that client

or do you have to try to, like, compromise or get them to compromise? How do you play that kind of situation? Well, and I think, you know, know because the client they have the right to choose you know whether they want to follow what i'm telling them or not right so i always you know that's when i would be well let's look at some other things that we might be able to do okay is you like bacon but what's the what vegetables are you eating what fruit are you eating like where can you add other things or decrease other things? Because that's the other reason why people fail at goals is because they're trying to create these goals that don't work with them.

So I definitely want to create something for the client where they're still going to be able to enjoy the things they love right but still be successful okay got it yeah because we run into that with finance too where like people come in and they're like they don't want to change some things and it's like we're trying to tell them no no financially yeah we gotta make some adjustments here yeah and usually what ends up happening is by making those other small changes, they'll eventually come to the point where they're like, you know what, I really do need to stop eating all this bacon, you know, so it's just a natural flow, but you can't approach it as, well, you got to do this right away, and again, it's those small steps, and sometimes it, you got to go beat around the bush a little bit and go around in a circle, but eventually you get to the center.

You know, I hope you don't mind if I kind of circle back to something you said earlier that really caught my attention. It was the gut issue thing. Because I had read multiple people kind of starting to try to investigate whether that's how that's related to kind of our emotional being. Why do you think, just out of curiosity, your opinion as to why the gut is so important that we need to kind of keep that in check and how it affects us emotionally um when we are developing our brain and our vagus nerve our and our stomach are all created out of the same tissue and there's like 90 of our neurotransmitters that are formed in our gut so like you have dopamine that are formed in our gut. So like you have dopamine that's formed in your gut. And all these other neurotransmitters that are affecting your mood and whether or not you are becoming anxious or depressed. So when your gut health is off,

then it can cause you to not be producing and communicating with your neurotransmitters correctly. Interesting. I wonder if maybe that's where the idea of comfort food came from. People are depressed. I need to eat something I really like and it makes me happy. Yeah. And when you think about it,

think of all of the sayings we have. It's like my gut instinct or I've got butterflies in my stomach. We have all of these little euphemisms and sayings that are linked to emotions in our gut. And especially with little kids, when little kids get upset, that's usually when they're like, I got a stomach ache, I got a stomach ache. So, you know, they don't necessarily have a sick stomach ache, but it's their brain and their gut communicating with each other. Interesting.

The first thing I thought of when you said that was yellow-bellied coward. I don't know if that's the same one. Too many cowboys will be like that. Yeah, it could because being fearful and not being confident. Think about whenever people are really stressed, you ever notice it messes up their stomach? They're like, oh, I can't eat right now. I'm too stressed.

So it's kind of like, oh, that's interesting how there's sort of that kind of relationship there between. One thing I did want to mention before we let you go, too, is that are you a CIC graduate? Yes, I am. Yes, I am. What was that experience like? Because we're great friends here, big promoters of CIC here.

I was able to participate in the first Culpeper Orange County CIC group, and it was an amazing experience. They had lots of wonderful people that individual group and just being able to sit down with other entrepreneurs that were not necessarily in the same field and just to see how everybody is approaching their small business. And then on top of it, CIC has so many great benefits once you complete the program as far as, you know, helping you with marketing. They have all sorts of different events where they link you with other professionals. So, yeah, it was phenomenal. I totally recommend anybody who is able to take the class, do it. Awesome. That's wonderful. And before I let you go, I do have to say congratulations because you were voted, what was it, the 2024 best of Culpeper. Yes. I won. Thank you. Yes. I was awarded the best life coach in Culpeper, which was super exciting. And I just hope that I can continue that running streak for next year.

I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. So for those interested, what will be the best way for them to contact you? I do have, I have Facebook and Instagram at Northacre Life Enhancement. And then if you want to schedule with me, you can go to heal.me forward slash Northacre Life Enhancement. And that's where I do all my scheduling and have all of my offerings listed.

Yes. Dixie, thank you so much for coming on. Yes, thank you for having me. All right. You have a wonderful day. Thank you. All right. So now we're going to kind of transition. We transition. Thank you, Dixie. Thank you so much for coming on. Yes, thank you for having me. All right. You have a wonderful day. Thank you. All right. So now we're going to kind of transition.

We transition. Thank you, Dixie. Thank you for coming. I'm going to tag her business in the comments for anyone who is interested. Tagging her Facebook. And especially I think at today's age, I think what Dixie was saying too, post-pandemic, I think there's a lot of stress and anxiety going around society. And you can kind of feel it sometimes.

And I think emotionally, a lot of people, if they're thrown off pandemic, and even post-pandemic, it's sort of like, I guess maybe initially we thought that you would just be able to, oh, my life resumed. Yeah, it was sort of like you paused the movie and then just hit play, but it didn't feel like that. I felt like

in reality, you kind of skipped the chapter. And now it's just sort of like you're just trying to play catch-up. Yeah, the was sort of like you paused the movie and then just hit play, but it didn't feel like that. It felt like in reality you kind of skipped the chapter, and now it's just sort of like you're just trying to play catch-up. Yeah, the social bonding thing that she mentioned, especially with, like, I've heard that a lot from parents. Yes, and especially, I think, for children and probably teens during that era, sort of like you'd lost kind of a year of your life, and now you kind of go back, and it's just like, wait a second, what do I do? How do I do this? And like I

said, it's like it just feels like, I think for a lot of kids, they're just kind of trying to play catch up. And now suddenly it's like, you know, we're four years now removed from the pandemic, but it kind of still sometimes feels like it was yesterday. Yeah, but if you lost two years of critical development when you were a teen, that's a lot. That is true, yeah. Teen or children, yeah.

Anyway, we're switching to a new guest. Yes, now we've got two fantastic guests. We doubled our fantastic guest number. We're happy to be joined by Conan Owen from Sir Speedy, Charlottesville, as well as Andrea Jacobs from Simbares. Thank you both for coming on the show today. Our pleasure. Thank you for having us. So, Conan, I'll start with you.

Tell us a little bit about Sir Speedy, kind of of what you do and how you kind of got involved. Well, I got involved because COVID killed the business that I ran for 20 years that was hospitality based. And the franchise was for sale. It'd been in the market for about 32 years. And both between my small business and my wife's small business, we had been customers of all the products that Sir Speedy provides, though we didn't necessarily buy them from Sir Speedy. And my background in management consulting kind of led me to analyze the opportunity in the market. And I saw just tremendous upside, even though most people would consider printing to be a dying, consolidating industry. What I've quickly found out is more than half our revenue and the biggest part of our growth is in non-paper based printing. So things like signs, banners, the step and repeat

backdrops you have here. We do swag. So anything, basically anything you can put your logo on, we can provide for you. And so I saw a great opportunity with that. Also, the other thing is just really pushing people to a local source. Because most people have seen the ads on TV for 4imprint and folks like that. We all buy our raw materials from the same suppliers. It's just a matter of who you're having decorated. So the ability to have something produced locally or at least sourced locally,

because Sir Speedy has a great network. There are over 100 locations nationwide, and anything I can't produce, one of the bigger centers. There's a massive one down in Charlotte. There's a big one in Nashville. So there's always somebody to lend a hand. So like we did these giant 21 foot banners for the Seven Society for graduation.

Our printer can't handle them that big, but our friends in Charlotte can. Charlotte's not that far. It's not that far, so we get everything in two day delivery for anything that we can't produce in house. We moved to a new location last month, and we're celebrating our two year anniversary of

me taking over next Tuesday, October 1stst and we're having an open house to show off some of our new capabilities we have a garage so we can do vehicle wraps and decals now we can do small batch t-shirts on-site so if you just need two or three t-shirts for you know a bachelorette party you don't have to order 50 of them, like a lot of places do, but we also do large batch. We just did, what was it, 150 t-shirts for Sin Barreras for the Sabroso Festival

that they're going to be selling there. We also have done a lot, either by choice or by necessity, I've had to replace every piece of equipment that came with the business, except for two, and I've added a couple. So I put about a half million dollars into the business in the past two years. So we can now do, you know, we can do things like holographic decals. Is a big part of our business. A lot of wall murals that are, know you know a lot of interior decor that's done

on textured or smooth vinyl floor decals window decals wall decals so that's really where the growth is you know I don't think of it as a printing business I think of it as a branding and marketing business now I went to Darden many many years ago so I look at it from a business perspective and a business owner's perspective. Traditionally, printing has been considered kind of a blue-collar industry where you're just fulfilling orders. But really what we're doing, the way I look at it is coming up with solutions to your marketing and branding issues. That was exactly what I was going to follow up on because I noticed on your website

you had an emphasis on the marketing. When it comes to branding, do you help people? If you're coming and saying, listen, I want to start this company, but I'm kind of confused about a logo, do you help people with that as well? Sure. We have two graphic designers on our team, and we're actually creating a logo this very afternoon for one of the Darden student groups. But we've done them for businesses as well.

And that's a big part of what we do is there isn't, for better or for worse, Canva has turned everyone into a designer. But working in Canva is not the same as producing files for production. It's one thing to produce an Instagram post or something for your website that's very low resolution. But to create something that you can print out on a four by eight foot sign is a little trickier. So now that we have our new space, we have a nice new conference room where we're going to start hosting some lunch and learns. So our graphic artists will be working with folks from our clients or potential clients to help them navigate how to prepare their files better so that they don't end up incurring a lot of design fees where we have to correct

some of the things they do. So how does that process work? Like they come to you and they're kind of like, I'm looking for a logo design. Do you want like the client to come with kind of like ideas or do you try to say, hey, you tell me what business you're in and then you try to come up with ideas? We've done it both ways. Usually people have like a color scheme in mind or obviously a name for the business. Sometimes there's a slogan that goes with it. So we'll kind of work with that and incorporate that into the design elements and usually

generate three or four proofs. But then also people will come to us and say, okay, I want a business card. Here's my logo and here's my information. And it's not just putting it on a white background. We'll come up with a lot of different options. Same with things like letterhead and mailing. One of the pieces of equipment we bought was we have the only full bleed envelope printer in Charlottesville.

So you can print off of all four edges of the page and make some really eye catching things especially now as we're going into fundraising and appeal season for non-profits you're going to see some really interesting envelopes show up in your mailbox because this fall we're doing a free

upgrade to show off our capability so anyone who does a mailing campaign with us can get the free upgrade on full off our capability. So anyone who does a mailing campaign with us can get the free upgrade on full bleed envelopes. Wow. Awesome. Nikki, did you have questions for Andrea? Well, I was going to say, like, tell us, you know,

swapping over because one of the reasons they were on together is that, of course, there was the work together with Seville Sabroso, but tell us how you got involved with Sin Barreras and a little bit about Sin Barreras, if we could. Yeah. So I personally got involved with Sin Barreras about a little bit about Sin Barreras if we could. Yeah so I personally got involved with Sin Barreras about eight years ago when I found out that they hosted a Latino festival because they have been doing it now for 11 years. I found out about the festival four years into

them hosting it and I was very surprised because I originally come from Houston, Texas which has lots of festivals throughout the years so I was I was very very intrigued I originally come from Houston, Texas, which has lots of festivals throughout the years. I was very, very intrigued and wanted to get involved in helping them continue to host the festival because it's so important for our community. And in those eight years, I've just watched the festival grow and grow. You had mentioned being at Ix Park. We were pre-COVID. We were at Ix Park. We outgrew Ix Park. And then after COVID, we were at Washington Park. We were pre-COVID. We were at X Park. We outgrew X Park. And then after COVID,

we were at Washington Park. And we have outgrown all of the parks in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. So this year we are moving to Ting Pavilion to hopefully allow more sponsors and more comfort for our festival goers. And I know usually, I think my parents and I went to the Sobroso last year, and it was pretty incredible because you had like the dancing, you had a lot of like different food trucks. And I was curious, is that kind of all going to be there this year as well? Yes, yes. Sivo Sabroso is a annual Latin American festival of music, dance, art, and food. So we try to bring in diverse, small Latino business owners to come in and help support us.

This year we have double the food trucks and food table vendors. You'll have cuisine from Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica. So if you are a foodie, all the good places, if you are a foodie all the good places if you are a foodie and just come down it's nine hours of dance and entertainment you can bring your lawn your picnic blankets your lawn chairs there will be seating available there so and just hang out with us for nine hours and if i'm correct too last year did you weren't there also like kind of vendors kind of selling clothes is that also going to be there as well oh yes we doubled our artisan vendors as well so we will have vendors representing uh guatemalan uh art artistry uh i think uh mexican artistry as well as some peruvian uh artistry so lots and lots of different

choices for art goers dancers musicians, musicians, lovers of Latin music. Do you have a list of any of the musicians? Can you give us a hint of who's going to be there? Yeah, we have a lot of music fans out in the audience. Yes, yes, we have representatives from Peru. La Casa de Cultura de Peru is coming. We'll have

a young lady showing us some Venezuelan traditional dancing, as well as Raices Ecuadorianas for Ecuadorian representation. Panamanian traditional dancing will be coming out. For Peru, we'll hear some Grupo

Tanjuancillon for Peruvian tunes. Grupo Atrapado will be there for Mexican lessons. And if you want to learn to dance a bachata, foreign players will be there teaching and providing a lesson in bachata, which is a Dominican Republic dance, as well as we'll have Mexican folkloric dancing from Villa Sabrosa,

who has been supporting us for many years. Is anyone doing the Argentine tango or no? No, not this year. But if you know a connection, maybe for next year we can bring them on. Is anyone doing the Argentine tango or no? No, not this year. But if you know a connection, maybe for next year we can bring them on. Well, I'm going to look just to watch because I love when people do the tango and they do it well. Or the salsa. It's amazing when the talent is just unbelievable when you watch. It's more fun to watch than it is for me to do it.

Yes, yes, for sure. And, of course, our closing band this year is going to be La Machina from El Salvador. They're going to be bringing their Central American cumbias to close out the festival. A what? Central American cumbias. What's that? A cumbia is a style of dance with lots of drums and, like, cushions. Riveting.

Okay. Yes. So please come. They'll start at 7.30 and finish the night off till 9 30 and then dj ole will be dropping some tunes uh in between and afterwards to help close out the festival so what time does the music part start uh well the music part starts about 4 30 4 30 uh in the afternoon if you're looking for live music before then you'll have a lot of traditional folkloric dancing from peru bolivia and ecuador interesting and those some of the dances because

last year i remember the women were wearing these like beautiful dresses they were kind of like white with all these patterns is that is that what that is yes yes you're gonna come and learn a little bit about each country and their traditions and what we bring to central uh central virginia wow that's incredible i remember that was a big hit with a lot of the little girls because they were all all in awe of those like beautiful dresses and all the women kind of doing this yes they're so beautiful yeah the detail on it is amazing it's amazing how much the latino population here in charlottesville has evolved over i've been here 20 years now and And when I first came here, there were maybe a dozen Mexicans from Veracruz.

And now almost everyone I speak to is from Central America. And my family is from Honduras. And I can talk to people who literally grew up down the highway from us. And it's been really interesting to see that. And there's a Honduran restaurant here in town. And there are a couple that are owned by Hondurans, but they call themselves Mexican restaurants. I don't think people equate exactly what Honduran food is compared to Mexican food. But it's really interesting to see how that has evolved over time.

The Latino community has grown enormously, I think, at Charlottesville. Even if you just feel like the past five years, it has grown enormously. I mean, every time I ask you a question, you're like, well, we're doubling this, we're doubling that. I'm like, already you kind of see the influence. It's like it's almost doubling for Latinos. Well, I mean, just think about the fact that NAREP chose Charlottesville to be the center of their new Central Virginia NAREPs,

the National Association of Hispanic Realtors, just for those who aren't familiar. They chose Charlottesville to come here to put their Central Virginia location over Harrisonburg or Enrico. And it's like, that's a big deal. So it's like the Hispanic population is growing.

It's funny because you mentioned the Hondurans with the Mexican food. And meanwhile, we're heroes. They're serving Cuban food, but they're from Nicaragua. It's all great. It's so interesting

because the cultures are different but very similar in some ways and not in others. And so it's great something like Sabroso because you can compare

and contrast the different South American, because the problem with a lot of, I guess, and it's not just an American thing, when you grow up in a certain place, we tend to just group other cultures. Italians just tend to look at

the Americans in South America, and in America we're like South Americans, and they're all so different it's completely it's it there's a there's a nuance to everything even though there can be similarities between them for sure yeah our depth here is like very very robust and people just don't realize that there are just like the states are different when you go from Tennessee to Montana. It is the same for Latin American countries because within them

they have states in which you have traditions that don't get discussed. I love having this festival to allow and give the opportunity to those generational people to come out and share that information with us. We're blessed in Charlottesville to have such a diverse group of Latinos

because, I mean, you were just going through the list. It was like Venezuela, Peru, El Salvador, obviously Mexico. Guatemala. Guatemala. I mean, it was like already, it's like, wow, that's huge. Yeah. Yes. A quick question about, so just for the people who are interested in going, right,

the organization, is it all going be um like food trucks in one area all in the ting or is it going to be along the downtown mall how is it going to how's it going to work a very good question yes it will be all in ting like similar to like fridays after five how they have it so we'll create like a food truck alley over by seventhth Street. There will be our food table vendors kind of mixed in within our sponsors and our artisan vendors to kind of give people a good flow of traffic and meet lots of people because we want everybody to meet our sponsors, we want everybody to meet our artisan vendors as much as possible and support those small communities. And of course, we'll have a table for Sin Barreras because Sin Barreras being the hosting organization there,

it is very important to understand that Sin Barreras brings all of these cultural programs to Charlottesville, along with welcoming programs, health services, and educational programs to empower our immigrant families to be able to navigate things in this country, you know, information, and that will be prudent for them to be successful in this country. Absolutely. So where's the best place for people to get tickets for the Sobroso Festival? Yeah, you can go to Ting Pavilion. They have access to our purchasing platform as well as Civo Sabroso on Facebook.

I will note that the pre-purchasing is closing tonight at midnight. So if you can't get your tickets today, we will be selling tickets at the door on Saturday. Okay, perfect. Interesting. And one thing, you mentioned the growth with this realtor putting their, or the realty group is putting their headquarters here. Because there's such a boom in this, one of the things that I've been working on this summer, and we hope to release it in January, is we're creating and publishing a Latino business directory. So there will be an opportunity. We're going to be working on some posters to put up in some of the major retailers around town

so people can just go with their QR code, go online, register their business, country of origin, and we'll organize it like yellow pages and we'll publish it in English and Spanish and distribute it free throughout the community. Wonderful. That's great to hear. Great to hear. Now, so have you had businesses sign up already for it? Not yet. We haven't officially released it. We've done a lot of the legwork in terms of figuring out, you know,

how are we going to structure it in terms of the different categories, also figuring out what are going to be some of the points of distribution for this because, you know, there are also some of the cultural issues of, you know, register your business. Right. No, of course. Yeah, and that's part of the reason why we're going to be at the festival is to kind of, you know, register your business. Right. No, of course. And that's part of the reason why we're going to be at the festival is to kind of be able to talk to people and, you know, find

out where some of these folks are. Because one of the things of course is in the Latino dominated industries is so much of it is mobile, whether it's food trucks or home services or building services. There isn't a storefront. There isn't a bricks and mortar we can go knock on the door

other than some of the mercados in town. And also working with some of the mainstream businesses, for lack of better words, in terms of sponsorships and their ability to address this market. CNF Bank has a Latino outreach account manager, which is the first that I know of in the area. And places like Sherwin-Williams is sponsoring the T-shirts for several. Because we have a lot of people in the trade industry.

And I was in there the other day to get some paint for my office, and everyone behind the counter spoke Spanish. That's amazing. So, you know, so part of it is, you know, not just registering the businesses, Where are the places that Latinos can go and find folks like me that can walk in and get a consultation in Spanish and figure out how they're going to wrap their food truck and answer all the questions that they want. It just makes it that much easier. You bring up a great point because I think

that's one of the things that when we first came to Charlottesville, my father, Xavier, was happy to see was the fact that Latinos were more, were integrating more vertically along the business chain. So there was more, it wasn't just that they were opening up storefronts and restaurants, they were also opening up suppliers, being suppliers. They were in services, they were in insurance, they were doing not just the business, they were doing also what the business required. So seeing Latinos start spreading up and down the vertical integration chain for businesses is really, really essential

and important, especially in this country, because that's how you get such a successful, vibrant community. So it's really great to see, and the fact that having a directory like that would be really interesting, I feel like. Is Simba,

are you working together with Simba on that? Yes, I have worked with Conan and his team on giving him some, because I have started a list of Latino-owned restaurants, because like I say, I've been working on the festival every year, so I try to bring in different restaurants every year, not just to give every Latino small business an opportunity to showcase their business at the festival,

and also just to diversify right like I said like each of our countries has states within them so even though I say there's Mexican cuisine but you don't know if that's from Veracruz you don't know if that's from like Mexico City you don't know if that's from like Cancun you know because like all the flavors

are so different and so so again like just trying to I had started my own list and so I've been working with Conan and sharing that list with him so he can start also networking with them and you know getting the community comfortable with the idea that we need to support each other

as much as possible and get our businesses out there and let the community know we're here you know we like the support and we'd love sharing our information and our traditions with the community here we're here. We like the support, and we love sharing our information and our traditions with the community here in Charlottesville. Fantastic. Well, best of luck to both of you.

So before we let you both go, Conan, I'll start. I actually have one more question for Andrea. Is there a next step for Siebel's Arbosa for next year? Are there plans? Because we've grown to downtown mall. What's next? Well, this is our first year at downtown mall so the idea would be to continue to stay at downtown mall, though

yesterday while I was at NBC29 they put the bug about going to JPJ. So, if the Latino community is up for scaling up again, we might be maybe in the next five to ten years we might be able to move up to

JPJ kind of status. But for right now, Sin Barreras, we are, this is our first year charging for the festival, which is also a little bit of a shock to the community. Moving to Teen Pavilion is not a cheap

project, and so this year we tried to keep the tickets affordable for families. We kept kids 12 and under free, teenagers 13 to 17 at $5, and adults at $10, which we thought would be reasonable to help us continue to afford and create the operations that we need to host such a cultural festival here in Charlottesville. I might be in the minority here, but I know sometimes the weather

can make these events difficult, but I kind of always prefer outdoor events. I don't know why I like the fresh air. It feels more lively when it's outdoor versus kind of inside. Yes. But I don't want to deter you in case you guys are growing. I mean, like I said, we could also, like, come stretch down the downtown mall, like how, what is, what is, Tom? Tom Tom Festival. Absolutely. So maybe we'll just consume the rest of the downtown mall as we grow. I was going to say, most festivals you see, whether it's Mexico, Europe, everywhere,

they're always, like, they line the street and they just do the whole, I don't know. They take over the whole town. Yeah. That would just turn Charlottesville. I've seen, like, videos of the feast day of santa rosalia and palermo and it's just like it's just like exploding and like there's fireworks and just the whole street is just consumed with floats and people and like i'm sure the downtown mall has plenty of space to stretch out along yes maybe we'll come they could use the downtown mall can use some live-in. Yeah, they could use it.

I'm sure Greer would love it. Yes. The downtown community has been amazing in accepting us and allowing us to come and host this festival this year. Wonderful. Wish us luck that everything turns out great. The weather is going to be beautiful. There we go.

It's already clearing up. Before I let you both go, I think it's going to be a blast. There we go. It's already clearing up, so we're getting ready. Perfect. All right, so before I let you both go, Conan, I'll start with you. What's the best way for people to get in contact with you or reach you or find you in case they're interested? The best thing to do is just go to our website, sirspeedysharlottesville.com. There you can request a quote. You can upload files.

There are no file size restrictions like you get sometimes with the email systems. So if you've got a monster file, you don't have to put it in Dropbox or anything. You just go to our website, upload it. It will ask for all your information and we can usually get you a quote within the same day. And they don't call us Sir Speedy for nothing. So most things get out the door within 48 hours. By the way, that's a great ‑‑ the name was like so catchy to me, like so speedy. Yeah, that is a, yeah. And Andrea, if people want to know more about Sin Barreras, where's the best place to kind of look?

To go to, if you want to know more about Sin Barreras, you can go to SinBarrerasCharlottesville.org to find out about their programs. If you want to know more about the festival, Civil Sabroso on Facebook has the up-to-date information as well as the ticketing link, and Teen Pavilion also has the ticketing link. And just to remind folks, the pre-purchasing is closing tonight at midnight,

so if you don't get your tickets today, we'll be at the door selling tickets, and we look forward to seeing you. Perfect. Thank you both so much for coming on. We really appreciate you joining us. Yes, thank you. Thank you.

The festival sounds like it's going to be a blast yeah i know so many cultures that's what i love is so many different cultures it's like it you would think it's overwhelming but it's not like it's just fun last time um last time mom and pops and i went last year it was kind of like it was great first of all it was packed it was almost like so packed like i'm not surprised that they needed that's not surprised they needed a bigger venue. Because everyone was kind of walking around like this. And you had the food.

But, man, we went to the Repas on Wheels truck. And we got a Repas. It was delicious. Our friends from Sombreros, Lucrecia and Bernardo, had the Sombreros truck open. I think they were making snow cones or something like that. So it was fantastic. And it was packed. And it was, I mean, I'm not lying, it was packed. Yeah.

You know, we saw Virgil there. I ran into him. Oh, yeah, Virgil. Yeah, it's good to see him. Yeah, I know a couple people already that are determined to go this year and check it out. And everyone should definitely check it out. $10 is not a bad fee for a Demi. And it's like if it keeps it going, it's a great way to support Cinderella

and to keep something like Sabroso happening. Yeah, and like Andrea was saying, Ting Pavilion, I'm sure it's not like it's free, you know, and it's not cheap, I'm sure. So in the end, it's like, you know, if they had to expand to a bigger place, they probably had to pay more versus maybe at the park, I don't know

if it was free or not, but at this point, yeah, so it's good to support, you know. That's pretty great. So, speaking of support, next week we actually have Edward, let me get this in my memory, Edward Herring from the Charlottesville

Sister Cities Commission come on the show. So that should be interesting. I think the Charlottesville City, the Sister Cities Commission works with Haiti, was it? Yes, I believe that he is coming on specifically about a Haitian connection. I can double check, actually. Well, that's alright. I booked him a couple months ago. We've opened

up the doors, and now the viewers are like, oh, let me check out the show next week to see what exactly happened. Oh, so he's actually talking, so he said that from his email, he says, we have four active cities and one inactive. Besancon, France, Poggioacchiano in Italy, Weneba in Ghana, and Huehuetinango in Guatemala. Oh, okay.

So we'll see what... I'm interested to see what he has to say. He didn't tell me what specifically he wanted to talk about, maybe just the commission itself. Interesting. But I kind of left it vague and didn't go into that because I wanted to get into that with the interview. Exactly.

We just wanted the interview. So now our viewers can kind of be enticed. It's like, oh, okay, all right. Let me check out this show next week. Let's see what exactly... Because every once in a while we do that. We'll have a conversation before the show starts with one of the guests, and then we'll be like, oh, that's a great story. Could you repeat that

in five minutes? I know sometimes we have reviews that's happening. Yeah, we do that, and it's like, oh, this is great, but sometimes it's hard to not jump right in when they show up, because we have such a good time with our guests. And I know, I don't want to forget before we go up, any people liking the show

or watching? Because usually when I do it with Xavier, which is what happened last week, neither Xavier and I, well, Xavier has Facebook, but he actually doesn't really know I use it. And I don't, so what happens is people watch the show and I always feel bad because I'm like, oh man, someone might have liked the show or was watching

and I didn't call them out. Alex is very good at that. Yeah, Alex is. Since you're here with the computer. I completely forgot to do it. You were playing pinball the whole time. No, we were not playing. But thank you for Greer.

Greer Kelly from Friends of Siva was watching. She said, great job, Earpies. Greer comes on later today. She's coming on in a couple hours. Absolutely. Good luck. She had a great show last week. Yeah, it was a lot of fun, her show. She's doing a great job. She's coming on in a couple hours. Absolutely. Good luck. She had a great show last week. It was a lot of fun, her show.

She's doing a great job. She's killing it. So, yeah. And thank you all for watching. So, before we kind of hang up, again, I'd like to thank our sponsors. Obviously, our presenter, Emerging Financial Services. Our sponsors, Craddock Series

Insurance, Mateen Serial Realty, Faba obviously as always a big thank you to Judah behind the camera for managing all these guests and everything Jerry for allowing us to be here on the show thank you Nicholas for being my partner in crime today, it was a good show it was good, yeah

we'll see what comments Alex and Xavier had I'm sure they wrote down a whole booklet of like oh you didn't do this right or that right. Well, we'll just ignore them and I'll just book us on the show again and be like, oh, we're going to do it our way. Sounds like a plan. Sounds like a plan. So thank you again, as always, to our viewers for making this show possible.

We look forward to seeing you next time. But until then, hasta mañana. Thank you.