The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Stephanie Leech And Dr. Garrett Wood Joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

Stephanie Leech, Program Manager at Charlottesville Scholarship Program, and Dr. Garrett Wood of Old Dominion Animal Hospital joined Alex 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. Welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex. This is Xavier. We're very excited to have you joining us on a beautiful, looking morning here in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's a little chilly, but it's beautiful. It warms up. It warms up, though. Yeah, absolutely. But chilly is good, because it's an excuse. Oh, yeah. To grab your coffee con leche, get into your cozy place,

and watch some Today y Mañana. So there's always a good reason to watch. Well, yeah. Listen, I mean, in the the morning no matter what time of of you know what what time of year it is un café con leche comes in really handy exactly yeah it's just it's just a question how hot do you really want it i mean if you want your ice to try it yeah you can do that yeah i'm not a fan of that but you can certainly do it kind of waters down the milk and the coffee it does i don't do it but i like to give people the option, you know. I see.

You're giving people the option to do that. Okay. Yeah, I try to be open-minded so that if people want to watch Today and Manana with an iced cafe, I'm not judging them harshly, at least not too harshly. All those cameras we have all over the place, we're going to catch you, though. And Alex is going to say, really? Exactly. So as you can see, I'm here with Xavier. We're just going to be back on. And Alex is going to say, really? So as you can see,

I'm here with Xavier. We'll be back on with you. I know it's been a few... Been a few weeks, yes. I think so, yeah. I was with a combination of my... One week I had laryngitis, and the other one, I think, I just played hooky, I think. Yeah, something like that. Something like that. It happens every once in a while. So we have a great show lined up for everyone.

We're going to be joined shortly in the show by Stephanie Leach. She's the program manager at Charlottesville's scholarship program. And then later on by Dr. Garrett Wood from Old Dominion Animal Hospital is going to be joining us. Of course, love being here on the I Love Seawall Network set. That's right. And don't forget to subscribe.

You did it out of order. I did it out of order, yeah. Share, like, and subscribe. Share, like, and subscribe. Was it like, share, and subscribe? Exactly. That's your usual. That doesn't mean you can't subscribe first and then like and share, is it? You could.

You could subscribe first. Not like. Heck, you could subscribe and then never. Never like it? Like or share. I just would never know that you watched the show. So if you want to shout out. So like is more important.

Like and share is more important. Because then I get to give you a shout out. Which is exactly what I can do now. I can give a shout out, for instance, to Sophie B. Vallely for liking today's show. I can give a shout out to Dr. Elizabeth Irby for liking the show this morning.

I'm surprised she likes the show, really. She likes one of the two co-hosts. She's kind of partial to one out of the two at least. Of course, a couple other thank yous to Emerging Financial Services for being our presenter and to our great partners at Pratic Series Insurance,

Matias, Yon Realty, and Forward Adelante. Thank you all for partnering with us and thank you all for tuning in this morning. I don't know about you, but I'm excited to jump in. Like I said, it's going to be a good show, and there's going to be good information coming here today, so I'm excited.

Absolutely, absolutely. So without further ado, we're excited to welcome to the show this morning Stephanie Leach. She is the program manager at Charlottesville Scholarship Program. Stephanie, thanks so much for coming on this morning. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here. We're glad to have you. I say that now, you wait. You have to save your Stargazer questions, then it goes downhill from there. I'm ready. So for those who, because I know it's been, last year we had on Charlie from the Starship Program, so it might

have been a little, so maybe start by telling the audience who may not know about it what is charlottesville scholarship program and how did you actually first get involved the charlottesville scholarship program was actually started with an initial 250 000 gift from the city council with the um with the goal of providing low and middle income residents of the city an opportunity to attend postgraduate post high school or post-secondary let's go that with that post-secondary educational programs and that could look like four-year degrees or two-year degrees or vocational training or professional certification

programs so that was the original goal and And since 2001, we've managed to send 188 students through post-secondary educational programs, which is amazing. And over that time, we've grown our endowment to well over a million dollars at the same time we've given away over 960 000 to those 188 students that's terrific yeah it's um it's a huge gift to our community to our families to our students and um i became involved because i am I grew up in the city of Charlottesville. I attended Charlottesville High School and went to college and graduate school here. And I've seen my whole life the difference that post-secondary education can make in someone's life, in their siblings' lives, in their parents' lives. It's just life-changing, and I'm so happy to be involved with it and to share the good

news about it. And sometimes that's what you need. Sometimes it's just, you're this far away from going to college, and that gift says, thank you. I mean, I can now afford to be able to go to the college of my dreams or desire and make myself what I want to be. A lot of times we are that kind of last difference between okay I'm going to have to take out a student loan

versus having it completely paid for because the students are savvy. They know how to cobble together several scholarships if you can't get the one that paid the full ride. And a lot of times because of how we operate, we are that kind of that last piece. I say we in the sense that I also volunteer. I'm privileged to volunteer on the board for the Star Wars for Star Wars program.

We are that kind of last piece that says, okay, this is what you need to push you into a place where you don't have to take out as much student loans. You might not have to do as much of that work study as you thought you had to. That's right. And for many of our students, not only do we make the difference between we kind of cover that gap that they need financially, but we might make the difference in them kind of cover that gap that they need financially but we might make the difference than being able to choose one school over another that they really prefer right for the for the studies that they plan to do absolutely so you

know what's good about this though um because one thing i always say is sometimes the problem is that we just we don't know what's out there right So it's great that you're on here because I, you know, I hope that by you being out here, there are people out there that can listen and say, hey, there's still an opportunity for me to apply for this particular, you know, scholarship. So maybe you can tell us a little bit about, you know, how that works and if there's a deadline, when is the deadline? Absolutely, I can. And I'll preface all of this by saying that applicants have a much better chance of getting an award from the Charlottesville Scholarship Program than they do if they're competing against students for a national scholarship. So I encourage them to do that.

To apply for local awards. And the beauty of these awards is that mostly these are local donors giving to this program. So the community really is making an investment in our winners. So when's the deadline? The deadline to apply this year, it normally would be March 1st, but we've pushed it back this year to April 1st to allow applicants time to get their submission summaries back from FAFSA, which is a free federal form that anyone who's planning on going to college, whether it be two-year college,

four-year college, can apply to fill out. And they will be able to find out through that form what sort of assistance they might be eligible for, whether it be loans or grants. And colleges use the information from that form to decide what additional institutional aid they might be able to offer a student. So that information is really important to students and families as they make decisions about where a student will go to college. And it's also very important to us because we do only provide these scholarships to low and

middle income applicants so we need to have have that information to verify a family's income and then the rest of the application process is really quite easy I mean if I'm correct the whole, can it be done online? Absolutely. The entire thing can be done online. And anyone can find out eligibility information and how to apply information by simply going to our website, which is seavillscholarship.com. Everything that you need is there. And there's a very simple link, which will take a potential applicant to an online scholarship portal, which is run by the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation, which houses our funds for us.

Okay. They can very simply establish a username and a password, just like you do for everything else. And once you do that, you can work through the steps of the application, which basically is providing us some simple contact information, telling us which of the various types of scholarships that we offer you would like to be considered for. We ask you to write a very brief personal statement so that we can learn about you and why you want to go to college and why this makes sense for you and why you need help.

We ask a couple more questions to get at a little bit more of people's personal stories, if there are things they want to share about challenges that they've overcome or why they're pursuing the particular path that they're pursuing, they can tell us that. We ask for a transcript from high school or from college because we do accept adult applicants. Oh, wow. Yeah.

We ask for a recommendation from a non-family member who knows you well, so it can't be your mom or your dad or your aunt. Usually it's a guidance counselor or a teacher, but it could be somebody that you worked with in a volunteer capacity. That would be absolutely fine. And we do ask for that FAFSA information. It's a submission summary which is spit out once your FAFSA form is processed. You'll automatically have access to that and be able to provide it to us. So it's a it's a very easy process. It doesn't take long. We don't ask applicants to write a tome but we do want to find out about them.

Yeah. Now, so do they, so first they have to fill in the federal application? I mean, so that's important, right? So that has to be done first. Can they just do your application or they have to kind of be in tandem? How does that work? They do have to be in tandem. We do give applicants the option of providing the most recent federal tax form for whomever it is in their life that claims them as a dependent. So that is an acceptable substitute. So if for some reason you're behind on the FAFSA or you weren't able to get your summary statement, you could provide that instead? Absolutely. And the state of Virginia provides an alternative to FAFSA because there are some people who, for one reason or another, are not

eligible to complete FAFSA. There's a state equivalent and it works pretty much the same way and students will know once they start the FAFSA process whether they need to fill that one out instead. So it's really quite simple. Yes. And literally, when somebody says go to cbostarship.com, you scroll down, giant boxes.

Apply, accept, renew, depending on where you are. Oh, so you can renew, too. That's interesting. Let's talk about that a little, because it's very neat the way it works. It's a program. It's not just here's your scholarship money. We'll never talk to you again or see you again in a lifetime. It's a way that you can still be connected with the program through each of the four years. We talked about the renewal, how that kind of works. Yes. The scholarships that the CSB,

that's how we refer to it in shorthand, that we offer are renewable, which means that a student can apply. And if they go to a four-year school, for example, over those four years, they could receive up to $13,000 toward the cost of their college education. And those awards typically start with a first year amount of $2,500. And then students renew every spring. And all that means is that they screenshot their transcript from the school that they're attending. They write me a personal statement to let me know what they've been up to, what have been their challenges, what have been their successes,

how they've managed to balance all of the important parts in their life because we know that college students aren't just college students, they're also sons and daughters and siblings and friends and oftentimes employees. So we know that they have lots of responsibilities and we want to hear about all of it. And then we ask about your finances. Are you able to cover the costs of attending your school. And we know that those costs just aren't tuition and books. That's true.

It might be bus fare or gas for your car or insurance for your car or food or lab fees. So we ask about that, not because we want to pry in anyone's business, but because we're trying to keep a handle on how much does it actually cost to go to these various schools and how much of a difference does a CSP award make to a student's ability to pay those costs. Yeah. Well, does information like that kind of helps to gauge, okay, because it's always that balance between helping more students and increasing the size of each scholarship. And so in the past recent four years, that size has gone up. And it's gone up in part because of the information we get when students renew and say, hey, things are more expensive. We need to increase the size of the scholarship in order to make sure it's still filling that need.

And so, yeah, and each time you renew, you get 500 more. So it's 2,500 the first year, 3,000 on your first renewal, 3,500 on your next year, 4,000 on your last renewal as for the four years that you're in college. So each year you renew,

and it's literally just you send the information, how are things going, and because it's important to know what we don't want, right, is kids saying, oh, man, I had a really lousy first semester. I'm not even going to, you know, I'm going to just drop all communication and drop out of school. Because maybe if you communicate with us in the renewal between the program and the navigator which we'll touch on, your mentor, there's ways that maybe we can

help them. So not just, here's your money if you drop out too bad. It's what can we do to make sure you're still in touch with the program and the program is still in touch with you. So the renewal is kind of an incentive to do that because it's not onerous. It's not like you have to write another essay

and prove that you're worthy of continuing to be a scholar. You just have to provide the very basics. And the basic GPA is... It's a 2-0. It's 2. So in other words, if you can hit that 2, you will be renewed. It's not as though you're

being judged all over again compared to anyone else. It's just a way to keep in touch and then say, here's your renewal, plus 500 more than you got the first time. That's right. And that communication piece is so important because we know for many of our students, this is the first time they've been away from home.

Yeah. And many, many students experience a very rough first semester. We know that. But we don't want our students to hide from that. We want them to tell us about it. And if we can and we're able, we will work with them to figure it out. And, yeah, so particularly for many of our first-generation college students, that first semester is even harder, is even more challenging. They know no one. That's right. No one can tell them, oh, this is what you need to do,

or if you're having trouble, this is what you should do. So it's just so important. And it's a big difference going from high school to college, because in high school, I remember they tell you everything. Don't forget next week, you've got this coming. Don't forget you've got a test coming, et cetera. And then you go to college, and the first day it's like, I hope you guys read the first chapter, because where did it go? It's like, which book was I supposed to get? That kind of stuff. That's right. So for anybody, like you said, if they haven't had the experience where their parents went or their siblings

went, that first time is like, wow, I mean, I'm on my own here. I really have to buckle down and try to figure out how to get through this. And the first semester can be very difficult for that reason. It can. And for the vast majority of our students, they do figure it out. We encourage them to take advantage of all the resources that they have at their school and the extra resources that we provide for support, for encouragement, for tutoring, for assistance, for mental health assistance. All of those things are important, and we encourage them to take advantage of all the

resources that they have, both at home and at school. Wow, this is a great program. Unbelievable. It really is. It really is. You mentioned adults. Can you still be an adult and or going to a non-four-year college and still apply? Absolutely.

So we have several categories of applicants that we accept. The first one is high school seniors that are attending a Charlottesville City Public School high school. And that could look different for different students. For the vast majority of our applicants, they attend Charlottesville High School. But we also have applicants who attend an alternative education program, such as Lugo McGinnis or Ivy Creek, or they're in a hospital education program or a homebound education program for one reason or another, as long as those applicants live in the city of Charlottesville

and attend any of those Charlottesville City public school environments, they are eligible to apply. But to move to our adults, we accept Charlottesville City Public School graduates or GED recipients who still live in the city. If they want to apply for a scholarship, they can. They're eligible. You could have graduated some time ago. Maybe you didn't immediately try to go to college, but you still graduated from a Charlottesville public school and you still live in the city limits of Charlottesville. You can apply.

And it doesn't have to be a four-year school. No, absolutely not. And we do sometimes have current college students who have maintained legal residency at their parents' house in Charlottesville and they graduated from CHS maybe two years ago, three years ago, whenever, and they didn't apply for one reason or another, they are eligible to apply, and they do. Wow.

And then we also accept applications from adults, other adults, who work for the city of Charlottesville or who work in the Charlottesville City Public School system, and it doesn't matter where they live, and it doesn't matter where they graduated high school. So if they work for either of those two, either our municipal government in one capacity or another, or our school system, they can apply.

And all of these awards are for undergraduate programs. And those programs could look different for different people. And we place no restrictions on that whatsoever. So an applicant might be planning on going to a four-year institution. It doesn't matter where, whether it's in the city of Charlottesville at UVA or whether it's in California. It does not matter. Okay.

They can attend a two-year school. Again, it does not matter where that two-year school is. And we support them if they do a two-year and then transfer. Absolutely. We'll support them through all. Absolutely. Two through four. So it's not as though if you say, I'm going to PVCC,

I get the scholarship, and after two years we're like, sorry, you're done. If you transfer to UVA then and finish your education you still get you can still renew that's right that money will follow and we do sometimes have students who attend PVCC for example have their tuition covered and we and but plan on transferring to a four-year school a more expensive for your school down the line we will defer their. We'll hold it for them if they don't need it at PVCC. Wait until they transfer to that four-year school, and then they can use it all. Wow. Yeah, so instead of

using $13,000 over the course of four years, you can use it just for the two years at the other school because your tuition was covered. That's right. And it could be a vocational school, like you want to be an electrician, a plumber, or whatever it may be. Absolutely. Because we know there are so many paths to success in your life, and we want to support them all and not

restrict them. And how do you raise funds for this? I mean, I know you started with $250,000, but I assume that, you know, I know you're, I think you mentioned the endowment is about a million at this point, but still you need to raise some funds. How does that work? We do. We do. Everybody's challenge.

That's right. So we're always looking for donations to support these scholarships. And those donations could come from individuals, couples, families, foundations, family funds or donor-advised funds at CACF in town, or they can come from businesses. And all of those are such important sources of support for our students because this is an expensive enterprise.

We want to support as many students as we can. And every spring when we review our new crop of applications, we wish we had more money. We could always give it away. There are so many worthy applicants with big dreams and solid plans to reach them. And yeah, so if anybody has money and is looking for a place to put it, you can go to.

And it's a charitable contribution, right? Absolutely. Yeah, it's a 501c3 charitable contribution. And to be clear, the endowment has grown, but the endowment is used. So in other words, the reason we're able to increase the size of the scholarship, we do use some of the money from the endowment. So it's not as though you donate and then the endowment just gets bigger and never gets used. It gets used in part each year.

But obviously what you don't want to do as a responsible 501c3 is drain the endowment just gets bigger and never gets used. It gets used in part each year. But obviously what you don't want to do as a responsible 501c3 is drain the endowment, and then you have nothing left at the end. So donations are key. And in particular, there's some new and interesting ways that I think small businesses in particular can get involved. And we've had one this year that has done that. We have. We have. We're so pleased and excited to be able to award a new scholarship the very first time this spring. It's called the Scarpa Arts and Design Scholarship,

and this is sponsored by, funded by, wonderful Scarpa. It's a lovely boutique business that is in the north wing of Barracks Road. They wanted to celebrate a milestone, an anniversary milestone in business by giving back to the community. And they decided to do it by funding up to $13,000 for a student who is pursuing an undergraduate degree and concentrating in one of these areas, fashion, theater, architecture, design or the arts. And their hope is that they'll be able to sponsor so much more innovation and creativity in our community by supporting students who want to pursue a career in these fields and can see themselves doing it. So often we're not sure whether pursuing a career in one of those fields is viable. Scarborough wants to send the message loud and clear that it is, and their success is proof that it is.

And we are just delighted to be able to offer this wonderful scholarship for the first time. So basically what you're telling me is a small company can decide that they'd like to sponsor a scholarship, but the scholarship has to be for a person that follows this particular route, right? So let's say it's a finance company saying, we want to sponsor somebody that's looking for a career in banking, finance, whatever it may be, right? And then that scholarship goes there, or maybe a mechanic says, I just want somebody that becomes an engineer or mechanical engineer, whatever it may be. So you can, as a small company, you just don't, you can actually, you can actually dictate what those funds should be used for.

Absolutely. Yeah. You can say, I want to support students doing a particular thing because, you know, I worry that students, you know, maybe would be discouraged from pursuing the arts if they don't have a stop. Sure, exactly. So you can do that. And the beautiful part is that you can think about it. I mean, so many small businesses, you're always looking for ways to say, okay, can I put my name on this luncheon or can I put my name on this event? Well, here's a way you can kind of put your name to something that is giving on a constant basis. For four years your name will

be out there and you're actually helping a student go to college. So it's not just a one night thing. It's an ongoing essentially an ongoing donation. And so it's literally just reach out to

Stephanie or the program to have that conversation. Yeah, it's a very exciting thing. And what a wonderful way for a local business to celebrate its business, to celebrate our community and the future of its business in our community. So I'm curious about something also. So what if a small company is very small, right? So they say, well, we can't literally afford $13,000 this year. However, if one person is a $13,000 program, we can afford two, three and a half, three and a half, three and a half, where you say, I'm willing to do that. Is that something that you'll take the company to say, yeah, I can give you two this year

and three and a half next year. Is that something they can do also? Okay. Absolutely. Wow. Okay. Because there are some small companies that maybe it's like- The key thing, I think, is the commitment.

Commitment, yes. For at least two rounds of it, because you don't want, as a star warship program, to say, we have this one scholarship, and in four years it's done forever. So Scarpa has generously committed to several scholars. So the key thing is we do ask future companies to say, yes, you can break it up, but you kind of have to commit to three scholars.

Gotcha. And that's what Scarpa has done, and we'll be awarding that, the Scarpa Arts and Design Scholarship, we'll be awarding that every other year. Because that's a comfortable level and extremely generous level of giving for Scarpa. So absolutely, we are absolutely willing to work

with a family, with a business that wants to sponsor a scholarship at whatever level might be comfortable to them. That's fantastic. Shout out here. Thank you to James Watson, great member of the community. Great member of the community for the program as well, watching the show this morning. Thank you, James. He asks for a good link to do it, and I believe people

can't share and donate, and people can donate, I believe, by going to the same SevilleStarship.com website. That's right. It's all there. Application information, donation information, navigator information, all of it is right there

on our website. Now, if a business wanted to reach out to you either for that or to say to their for instance there's a scholars reception that we do when the scholars receive their awards we host a dinner for them so that they can we they can meet the mentors that will be assigned to them they can meet some of the other people that are in the community and all the previous scholars, right? So we kind of host that and businesses can also donate to kind of sponsor that event, help us to put that on. This way we're not using, you know, endowment funds to do that, but we're still able to give these kids a good time and kind of celebrate the fact that they

won a scholarship. So if a business wants to either participate in that or talk about a named scholarship, what's the best way for them to reach out? They can reach out to me through the website. Our email address is right there. There's a phone number that's right there. And I'll be the one who's on the other end of that email or that phone call, and I would love to talk to them about that event

that you mentioned that we host each spring to celebrate our newest class of CSP scholars is just wonderful. We have the scholars. We have their families. We have younger siblings who attend. And over the years, we've noticed that as those younger siblings grow up they'll apply yep my sister yes applied and now i'm encouraged to apply does she want it oh fantastic it's such it's such a change maker um for for that family um to be able to send one or more of their children on to post

secondary education it's just it's the best night ever and we are absolutely we're always looking for for sponsors and we will absolutely recognize that support so that we're yes that we're're spending our funds on scholarships. That's terrific. We're also making a special night for the students. Exactly. So, Stephanie, this has been, as always, it's always an absolute pleasure to have you on. So just maybe recap quickly for us the deadline

and then where people need to go to reach out and find more information. Absolutely. So the deadline to apply this year is April 1st and that means I need your application, completed application by midnight, the end of the day on April 1st and you can find everything you need to apply and the link to our online scholarship portal at SevilleScholarship.com.

There you go. Easy. Very easy. Very easy. And Stephanie, it's true. If you press that little email button and have questions, or you're not sure if you're eligible,

or you want to know how to, Stephanie will answer. Yeah, this is literally the person we know who that's talking to. So it's very easy to get in touch and find out more so I would really encourage everyone to do that and talk to people you know if you know kids or families

and you're like well maybe they live in the Charlottesville talk to them and just let them know yeah exactly and there's lots of opportunities because like Stephanie said there's going to be potentially somewhere between 11 and 13 scholarships this year that we will be giving out because there are some special ones like the the Starpa art and design scholarship and then there's the the usual

ones we give out every single year so there's there's several opportunities out there this year so I would really encourage everyone everyone to to look out and be on the lookout for people you know. Absolutely. Thank you so much. We'll go ahead and swap here to our next guest. I will shout out next week we will be joined by the chair of the program, Charlie Rogers, also a great small business owner. That's right. Exactly.

He's going to be joining us to talk about the navigator portion of the program because each scholar is paired with a mentor. And he'll come and talk a little bit about how that works as well. So there is support even beyond the funds for the program. So we'll be on the lookout

for that next week. It's a great program. Great program. It is. And so from one great guest near dear our heart to another. Absolutely. We're excited to welcome to the show this morning Dr. Garrett Wood. He is from Old Dominion Animal Hospital. Garrett, thanks so much for coming on this morning.

You're welcome. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. So I think Xavier has passed the Old Dominion Animal Hospital. I know I have several times. Many times, yeah. And I believe it was founded by your father. So maybe tell us a little bit about the origin of it and how you first became interested as well in the veterinary field. So Old Dominion Animal Hospital got started back in 1982, so we've been around 42 years. We have always been a family and owned and operated business.

My dad graduated from University of Georgia in 81 and then came here practice one year at Georgetown another local animal hospital and then decided to open up his own clinic. He started in 82 at McIntyre Plaza and right where Seville Coffee is. And then spent about five years there growing the business. First, this second employee was my mom. So then we went from there to 1987. We built the building over on Preston Avenue. It used to be an old tire shop there on the corner.

And he took that building down and then built old dominion um growing it from there uh to about a three doctor practice um and i graduated in 2013 from virginia tech vet school um so when i came on i was the third vet replacing a vet that had been there about five years. And then my dad retired in 2015. Okay. That's kind of when I took over the business. And we grew it from there to six doctors in 2020. And that's when Dr. Allison Kramer, one of my other business owners, and I decided to buy a second location. So we bought a location out that was previously established as the Crozet Veterinary Care Center out there in Crozet off of 240. And so we bought

that building, did some minor renovations and then opened up a second location out in Crozet. We now have the both locations, eight doctors and about 40 staff. So we're now one of the largest animal hospitals in the area. Wow, wow. Did you know growing up that you kind of wanted to go into the field that your dad was in, or did you take a circuitous route to it? I definitely grew up in it. So, I mean, from the time I was like 10 years old, I was, you know, cleaning cages and doing things that probably not really getting paid, but, you know, just being around.

A lot of our clients even remember me being five years old running around the clinic, which, of course, I don't remember. But, yeah, so then through, you know, undergrad, I kind of focused on biology and then got really invested in working at my dad's clinic and became kind of, I worked my way up from kennel assistant to a true assistant and helping with surgeries and doing blood works and blood draws and things like that. And then after the four years at Virginia Tech, I got a bachelor's in biology and science. Went straight from there into the vet school at Virginia Tech, which I loved and kind of grew in that role there. That's fantastic. That's awesome. So what are some of the things for, because I know sometimes myself, like you have this vague idea, okay, animal hospital.

What are some of the things that you would typically treat that people would look to Old Dominion for? So we kind of are broad spectrum. You know, I think, you know, we think about a GP in the human world, but veterinarians can cross everything. So we do anything from dentistry to internal medicine. I have a proficiency in ultrasound, so I do a lot of internal medicine cases. We deal with cancer. I even provide, you know, we provide chemotherapy for pets. Oh, goodness. Wow.

A lot of end-of-life care. We also work with a ton of rescues. So about 25% of our business is rescues, and we give about 30% back to all those rescues every year. So they get 30% off of all their fees at the clinic as well. That's wonderful. So we really feel it's been an important role of Old Dominion as kind of a center for rescue help in the area as well. That's wonderful.

So these are people that find stray cats, dogs, whatever it may be, and those are what you mean by rescue, or is there a team of people that go around looking for them? Yeah, so we work with about 20 different rescues in the area. You know, I'll give you one example. HOUSE, which stands for House of Wood and Straw. It's an organization that focuses on low-income individuals that need housing for their pets outside. So they were either chained up outside but had no ability to get out of the cold weather, the rain, stuff like that.

So they'll go in, they'll build fences, they'll build housing structures for those pets as well as vet them. So they'll get them spayed and neutered. And so they can bring them into our clinic and we give them 30% off of all of their goods. So, you know, whether it be vaccines or spays and neuters, or, you know, obviously some of them are hospice cases where, you know, it is the best thing, you know, just to help them in any way we can. So I'm curious about something because, you know, here in Virginia,

you drive around, you always see cows and you see horses. Do you also deal with those type of animals? So we are truly a small animal practice. However, we do do exotics. So we have a veterinarian, Dr. Courtney Jagger, who's at our Crozet location, and she will see guinea pigs, hamsters, rabbits, birds, snakes even as long as they're non-poisonous. So she really does the whole gambit. I concentrate on cats and dogs and I go to both clinics. So I'm at two days a week at the Charlottesville

clinic and two days at the Crozet location as well as helping to run them as well where's the fifth day where are you that's what he's running them as well yes thank you uh Caitlin Weimer thanks for watching uh the show this morning appreciate you tuning in so for I mean I know and pets obviously can vary so and you know there's the exotic ones that probably need their own TLC i would think so but for generally speaking when people are thinking okay cats or dodgy what are things people can do just generally to make sure their pets are healthy you know that's not that they won't need you but in other words so that they they can give them a good quality of life and keep them on the healthier side. What are things people should have in mind from your perspective? Yeah, so I think the number one thing is having a yearly exam by a veterinarian.

We have 25 or more practices in this area, so there's lots of opportunity for you to be at all sorts of different practices in the area. But that physical exam is so much more than just looking at them. You know, it's also talking about husbandry, it's talking about what food or what medications they need to be on, and trying to guide you on flea and tick prevention and heartworm prevention. You know, a lot of people don't know, but we're actually a year-round state for both flea and tick prevention. Lyme disease, which is very endemic in our area, affects about between 10 and 15 percent of dogs in our area. So in their lifespan, about 10 to 15 percent will get Lyme disease. And it is preventable disease, you know, with a vaccine as well as,

you know, flea and tick prevention. We're close to 99 percent ability, you know, have that ability to stop that disease. It's not 100%, but it's real close. Lepto is another common condition in this area that comes from water, ponds, lakes, streams, swimming, Urbana River, right down there, you know, where all the dogs go to play. It's a pretty high risk area for lepto. The county over from us, Augusta County, is the fifth highest in the country for leptospirosis. And so it's really important, I think, vaccination. We can do a lot to prevent disease. Obviously, we can treat them once they have it, but it is much better to prevent than to treat. I'm curious with regard to, you know, had a pet um who passed away a few years ago but so for the for the fleas and the ticks right so i know there's medicine that you

give them for that right so my my question has always been because you know if the tick still attaches to it is is the menace such that the tick says oops i don't like this guy because he's got some kind of medicine or or is it when they bite him, it doesn't do anything? So what happens with the bite is that they actually take up the product. So, for example, Nexgard is an oral product. It goes into the bloodstream. And when that tick goes to take a bite, it actually kills the tick. So it actually will kill.

So when it falls off, it will die. Generally, your flea and tick products kill within about four hours with ticks and within matters of minutes with fleas. But they are you know with those oral products they are actually having to ingest the product so they do have to make that bite and take that blood sample. With your topical products some of them do repel but when you look at it statistically the oral products are actually even better at preventing disease yeah i always wondered that because i said you know the medicine how does exactly does it work i mean i know we gave it to chester but it's like how does it work does once in a while we still saw a tick on him it's like oh geez gotta get this guy out of here well and when you look at tick diseases most of them take anywhere from 12 to 72 hours of the tick being attached to the pet okay um to uh transmit the disease um and so if you can kill

them within four hours you're avoiding now if a dog gets 100 ticks all at one time yes there's still a possibility of getting you know a disease from that. But most of the time we can avoid that. Yeah. I mean, even if he went sniffing somewhere, usually it's one or at most maybe two that might find him. At a time you'd have to really get unlucky for him to do that. Are there, should you avoid certain like still waterways with your dogs in terms of having them swim in them and so forth? So, no, I think it's great. I'm very much pro let dogs be dogs. If they want to play in the rivers and streams, the lepto vaccine is great.

It's at 98%, 99% effective. So if you can get that vaccine and protect them, that's the important part. Then feel free please play you know we want them to be active and and definitely it's fun to play with the dogs in the water um some dogs you know get really wet and take hours and hours to dry so that's fun for the owners but so tell me so what exactly what is leptin disease so what does that do um so leptospirosis is a bacteria. It's called a spirochete.

It's a different type of bacteria. But what happens is, especially during the, pretty much from spring until fall, when the, especially when the water is lower. So when we have lots of rain, it actually moves lepto kind of out. But it comes from a lot of our livestock population. So when you look at the Rivanna River, there's a lot of cattle that actually, as you go upstream, do pee or drink out of around that water. So what happens is lepto then gets in the water population. And then especially as it gets hotter, lepto kind of gets the worst during the middle of the summer when we haven't had any rain and it's nice and dry. And, you know, the creek is only a few inches tall that water sits and then it what it does is reproduces in that water okay the pets go down to either swim or drink out of that water and

that's how they first get the illness do you have to ingest it or can it be does it go through their skin it does have to be ingested so they do have to lick it you know drink the water or I, playing in the water would be enough because obviously it's getting on their brains. But the issue with leptospirosis is the initial signs are actually just GI signs, so vomiting and diarrhea, which you can imagine the list of possible causes of vomiting and diarrhea in pets from eating things to obviously other organisms and food allergies and all sorts of things. And so the early signs are kind of inconspicuous, which makes it difficult to find in the early stage. By day seven of that illness, it actually

goes after the kidneys and liver and can go to shut them down. And by that point, then they're very sick, generally coming in very lethargic, not eating. And by that point, then they're very sick, generally coming in, you know, you know, very lethargic, not eating. And the challenge is just treating them at that point can be very difficult and costly also to the owner. Is it mostly antibiotics at this point or are there? Yeah. Okay. So generally they're on a couple of different antibiotics as well as going on IV fluids. A lot of those patients need to be hospitalized for multiple days with lepto. Lepto is about 50% fatal once, especially if you cannot catch it early. And so it is very treatable. I had a dog earlier this year that died of lepto that got the exposure

actually last fall and then ended up probably getting Lyme on top of that. And it was only a five-year-old dog and unfortunately did succumb to kidney failure from it. And, you know, it was an otherwise healthy dog, you know, five years old. So it is a disease that doesn't care how healthy you are. And so it's just an important, right, exactly. Important to get the vaccine, especially, you know, if you're going to have that exposure to water. Now, if you live in downtown Charlottesville and all you do is walk on the downtown mall,

left is probably not a problem. Maybe even Lyme isn't a problem. Absolutely. On that vein, like what are, having been a previous panel, what are kind of the signs or things where you should say, all right, this is not my dog eating a piece of grass and he needs to get it out of his system. I need to go see a vet.

What are typical, if it is for dogs and cats, what are the kinds of symptoms that you should immediately say, okay, I think he needs to see a vet? Yeah, well, I always tell owners, you know, you're your best dog and cat's ambassador, right? So, I mean, you know your pet. And, you know, so some of the cat's, you know, ambassador, right? So, I mean, you know your pet. And, you know, so some of the behaviors like, you know, hiding and cowering under, you know, sofas

or hiding and not wanting to be out and not playing ball. Like for a, you know, a dog that loves to play ball every single day, if they're like, nah, I don't want to today. Okay, why? And is there like not eating on top of that or GI signs on top of that? You know, we do have, there are so many veterinary clinics in the area,

but we also have emergency clinics in the area. If it's a weekend and there's not that many places open, there definitely are emergency clinics that will see you. So try not to wait until Monday because, you know, if it's treatable, then, you know, two more days may mean a life-threatening change to your pet. So, you know, try to get seen over the weekend.

And we do have some, you know, capabilities of that with our local vets. Absolutely. Emily Hollenbeck watching the show says, yay, Dr. G. So you got some fans. Got some fans tuning in there. What's it, did I ask, what's it been like as, because our audience always loves, you know, the time of the entrepreneur angle. What's it been like as an entrepreneur, like running a family business in addition to what you, obviously what you do on a day-to-day basis? Yeah, so the entrepreneur side is a lot of fun for me.

I really love the business side of veterinary medicine. I started, like I said, in 2015, kind of starting to run the business and learned a lot from my dad through the years, you know, so he helped to foster an environment where, you know, he would start to show me the books and let me see how things were running, you know, on a financial side. My sister, who is one of the owners as well, is the manager of the two clinics, so we've worked, you know, hand in hand over, she's been there about 14 years, um, as well as Dr. Kramer. So we kind of all three of us as the big owners kind of work together as a team. I tend to run more of the financial side.

Um, you know, I work with our accountant, um, as well. Um, but really, uh, love seeing how things kind of all are put together. I also am part of the Jefferson Area Veterinary Medical Association. I'm the president, which is our local veterinary medical association. So I love getting involved on a both local, but also I'm on the board of the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association, which is our statewide organization. So I also love to get

involved from that side. The other part I really love is mentorship. You know, we, I have housed about five different veterinarians that are in school that are trying to get done with their program. They have to do externships during their fourth year or third year. Two of which joined us for externships about a year and a half ago. And both of them are now working at our clinic. That's awesome. Fantastic. Dr. Adam Cirque and Dr. Sophie Vallely that you had earlier mentioned, they're wonderful and just joined our team. That's awesome. Yeah. It's always great to see kind of the family business, but then it's community business. Yeah, exactly.

Like giving opportunities to people and then the joy of seeing them stay on and become part of the community is a really amazing thing. We kind of, I mean, we love it ourselves in this area. So, Dr. Deer, what, if people want to learn more and find out about you, where's the best way to get in touch, learn more, find out? Yeah. So we have a website, so oldermenandanimalhospital.com.

My wife kind of does our lead of marketing and is our executive director, so she does a lot of the Facebooks and Instagrams. So that's not my gig, but she loves it and is very involved in that. So you can reach us there. Definitely I want to say, you know, any rescue organizations in this area, please feel free to reach out to myself, so Dr. Garrett Wood, or my sister Meredith West, who we really want to help you in this community. So if you have interest in wanting services at that discounted rate, we really want to be there for you.

The other thing I wanted to mention is not forgetting that one of the biggest avenues of a lot of our staff are assistants and technicians. There's a Blue Ridge Tech program over Blue Ridge Community College rock ran by dr. van Leer and we have right now three assistants that are in the tech program and so just looking at that as an avenue of growth for you know if you don't want it you know mentioning the scholarships from earlier yes you know that's a program that i bet you um you could apply for and they would help you know get you that finishing that degree interesting so we love to support also the assistants and techs in their their growth that's fantastic yeah no i didn't i had no idea it's true i mean i guess yeah with

eight doctors but if you said 40 total staff, like a lot of them are assistants, technicians, receptionists. So almost everyone, you know, pretty much everyone we employ is from locally from this area. I mean, there's very few that are outside of this area. A lot have graduated. So we have seven licensed techs between the two practices, three that are in the program, all of which graduated from the Blue Ridge Tech program, I think minus one maybe. And so, you know, we're really trying to both take and employ the people of this area. And really coming back to that family-owned business, we just love, you know, being able to be here for the community. That's fantastic.

I really appreciate the work you guys do with the rescues. Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, it's just so important, but especially just also many times, I mean, they're not, my wife's cat back in Montana, he was kind of the rescue, and they don't always come in the best of health, so it's nice to be able to kind of help them as much as possible, right? Get back to health so that then they can have a good and healthy life

when they finally, you know, if they're able to find a family and be not that they find a family. Yeah, they become part of the family. I mean, that's the thing about pets. I mean, they're truly part of the family. And then it can make all the difference. I mean, my wife, when she found her, when, you know, they rescued him, I mean, he was in really bad shape.

But just being in a good place, getting the care he needed, he's now 19 years old wow that's impressive and then he had been like mangy and like not in good health wouldn't eat much and now he's 19 and still growing strong because he got care immediately and he got a good family so it makes a huge difference yeah it does yeah we love helping rescues i mean that's you know by far one of the best things um about my everyday. So just being able to see dogs in our community, cats in our community. And, you know, there's so many good rescues in this area. You know, if you're looking to get involved in rescue work, I mean, there's so many options. You know, Howell's Project, like I mentioned earlier, Cat Action Team, which is a cat focused group. Okay. Dog, dog deserve better green dogs unleashed. Um, and then if

you have a specific love, you know, we have a Shelty rescue, um, beagle rescue, you know, greyhound rescue. So if you have a specific breed, you even love there may be a rescue. You could literally just work with German shepherds every day for the rest of your life. So, um, you know, I do really ask the community just to kind of get out. If you have interest in getting involved, reach out to us. We can definitely put you in touch with those different rescues and join part of their team,

help them out. There definitely is a high need in our area for that. That's fantastic. I really, really appreciate what you do. And again, it was olddominionanimalhospital.com. So literally the name of the business,

.com, very easy to get to get in touch with and is that also the place to go if people have an animal that they need to see it to see you to just to go to the website and find the content information there yeah so our we have email and our phone number on there and you know the with the two practices we have obviously separate phone numbers for each but we do have a phone number that runs both. So if you call the 1-888 number, it will actually send you and then give you a prompt to go to each practice so you can pick from there. Pick which one.

So, yeah, so we do have lots of options. Awesome. And it's neat. I mean, once in Crozet and once here, and that covers a big space, yeah. That's wonderful. That's fantastic. Well, Garrett, thank you so much. Thank you. I've learned a lot and

I'm so glad you're in the community doing what you're doing because it's important work. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Another family-owned business. It's beautiful. It's beautiful to see that, right? Absolutely. It was a great show today. I just want

to thank Kevin Higgins. He gave us an idea that I will pass on to the Star Warship program. Always a wealth of great ideas and comments watching the show, so I appreciate that. Next week we'll have on Charlie Rogers, another local family business. That's right, yes. He's the CEO

of ISS, Innovative Software Solutions, and he's also the chair of the Star Warship program. So he'll come on, talk a little about it. He's got a great story. We'll talk a little bit with him, talk to some navigators and mentors for the program. So looking forward to that. Always appreciate being on with you.

Same here. Love coming on the show, as you know. Thanks to everyone who tuned in this morning and gave us your questions, comments, likes, and shares. Always appreciate that. Of course, thank you to Emergent Financial Services for being our presenter. Thank you to Ms. Tia Sione, Realty Credit Series

Insurance for our amazing partners. Thanks to Judah behind the camera making it all flow. Thanks to I Love Siebel Network. We love being here on the set. Thanks to Xavier. Thank you, Alex. I don't know if it's you and me again next week or not, but we'll... I think right now, I mean, I don't think there's anything stopping me from coming here.

We'll find out unless you play hooky again. We will absolutely be seeing all of you next week. We look forward to seeing you then. Be sure to send us any other, you know, great family businesses or non-profits that you think would love to be featured on the show. We do not charge people that have them featured on the show.

It's free to come on. So we appreciate this. Anyone you want to share with us, then we can feature them on today, manana. We look forward to seeing you all next week. But until that time, as we like to close it out, hasta mañana. Thank you.