The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Tom Powell & Liza Borches Joined Jerry Miller Live On The I Love CVille Show!

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Tom Powell, Founder of Toy Lift, and Liza Borches, Owner of Carter Myers Automotive, joined Jerry Miller live on The I Love CVille Show! The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 ...pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Good Thursday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seville show. I've been looking forward to today's show for a couple of weeks. Tom Powell has lined up a 30-minute show. Liza Borges is in the house as well, where we're going to positively spotlight the toy lift. I can't believe I'm saying this. 35-year anniversary of the toy lift. And it takes a village to get to this point, and your ringleader of said village is Mr. Tom Powell, and he is in the house. We're going to talk about what this event means to the community. A lot of folks in this community call it the start of the holiday season.
Starting point is 00:00:43 No, not Black Friday. No, not Cyber Monday, but Toy Lift Friday, the start of the holiday season. Before we get to Tom and Liza, I'd like to give some positive attention to some of our partners, including the fantastic Vermillion family, a third-generation business. Charlottesville Sanitary Supply on East High Street. John Vermillion is just an absolute awesome guy. And Charlottesville Sanitary Supply is the type of business we want to support. on East High Street. John Vermillion is just an absolute awesome guy. And Charlottesville Sanitary Supply is the type of business we want to support. Just like Mexicali Restaurant,
Starting point is 00:01:10 our friends River Hawkins and Johnny Ornelas, the Old World of Beer location. If you have not tried Mexicali Restaurant, folks, you need to try it. It's a street art museum meets a music venue meets a cocktail bar meets Latin fusion cuisine cuisine and it is dynamite dynamite judah wickhauer behind the camera um every team needs a glue guy and judah wickhauer is our elmer's guy he does everything and he does it very very well judah if you can go to the studio camera
Starting point is 00:01:40 and welcome tom and liza to the show with a boatload of community members watching you guys. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Jerry. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. It's great that you guys are here. You're going to be a busy guy tomorrow. I've been busy all morning so far. I would imagine it's been a busy handful of weeks if not longer for you. I want to get into that. For the very few that don't know who you guys are, could you introduce yourself to the view in public? My name is Tom Powell. I'm the founder of the Toy Lift. Started 35 years ago this Friday. 35 years. That's absolutely amazing. I can't wait to unpack that. Liza, I think everyone knows you as well, but for those that don't, introduce yourself, please. I'm Liza Borges and president of Carter Myers Automotive here in Charlottesville and around the state of Virginia and a couple other states.
Starting point is 00:02:28 And we've been a really proud partner of the toy lift for a long time. And even with Tom as a part of our CMA family way back when. I love it. I absolutely love it. Tom, the show is yours. 35 years for the toy lift. My friend, put that in perspective for everyone. Well, the start was at my station.
Starting point is 00:02:47 I had the Exxon on the corner of 29 Hydraulic Road, and I was sitting with a friend of mine complaining that our children had toys in their closet. They'd opened the box the previous Christmas and said, thank you, and went on to the next toy, and they sat there in the box on play with, and I was griping, as most parents do, that there were children out there that weren't going to get anything, and he said, well, if it bothers you that much, do something about it, and came up with a
Starting point is 00:03:14 bunch of crazy ideas, from sitting on the roof of the Exxon building, to sitting on top of the Exxon sign, and all those were nuts, and then made a phone call to a local phone company here and told them what I wanted to do. And they said, oh, no, no, you can't get up in our bucket. That's only our people. So I called Virginia Power and got a hold of a lady named Claire Gillespie. I don't know if anybody remembers her. And she said, that's wonderful. That sounds great. I'll call you back. Click. And I went, well, that didn't go anywhere. And about five minutes later, a gentleman named Bert Joseph called me, long southern drawl, and said he wanted to understand, you need a bucket truck, where do you need it, and when. I told him, okay, we'll be
Starting point is 00:03:55 there. And he hung up. So we said, okay, well, we'll go from six in the morning till however long, it was good like a flagpole sitting, however long it took to raise 500 toys. So six o'clock in the morning, so however long, it was good like a flagpole sitting, however long it took to raise 500 toys. So six o'clock in the morning, we went up. By 10 o'clock, the grassy area in front of the station was covered with toys, close to a thousand toys. Then we collected new and like new. And I said, well, this will be over quick. And we stayed, decided to stay till 10 o'clock at night. And first year, we collected about a thousand toys. Second year was 2,000. The next year was 4,000. And then 8,000. It just kept growing and growing and growing. And eventually we took it on to where after the third year, we decided, well, we'll distribute these toys out to ourselves. And it was nothing against the Salvation Army who we were giving them to.
Starting point is 00:04:46 It was that to qualify for them, you had to be poverty level or below. And my idea was that I didn't care why the kids weren't getting toys. If mom and dad didn't know how to manage money, mom and dad had a problem of some kind, or just whatever was going on, it didn't matter. And I wanted to make sure the kids got toys at Christmas because I know you grew up I grew up hearing good little boys and girls get toys at Christmas well if they don't get them you can talk until you're blue in the face to try and explain that mom and daddy didn't have any money to give to Santa but
Starting point is 00:05:22 in their mind they've done something wrong that stopped them from getting those toys. And then I took it a step further as they would go to school after the holiday break and hear about all the wonderful things their friends got. And what are they going to do? They're going to say, well, I got this. When it happens, they got nothing. So you've just taught a child that if you lie, you can improve the way you feel. And I don't want any child to be placed in that. Plus, from the parent's perspective, I don't want the parent to think that they're being a failure for not being able to take care of their child. And I want Christmas to be like it was when I was a kid.
Starting point is 00:06:01 I remember the utter fascination of Christmas morning of toys and gifts and the family gathering and everything. I want it to be that joyous time it's supposed to be. And it's a great way of teaching children the old adage, it's better to give than receive. And it just, it grew from there and it kept getting bigger and bigger. And I remember the first couple of years that we were taking care of it ourselves of being out on Christmas Eve in my truck, downtown delivering toys at 11 o'clock at night, you know, knocking on people's door. And I have one story. I remember I was sitting in a parking lot downtown and police car pulled up behind me,
Starting point is 00:06:44 lights on. I got out of the car, and this cop walks up, beats on the window, and goes, what are you doing delivering toys? I said, are you out of your mind? And I went, what do you mean out of my mind? He said, you can't be down. And I said, but he said, oh, you're him. And I went, yeah. And so he said, well, wait a minute. Next thing I know, there are three or four more police cars. And he said, all right, come on. So I grabbed a bag of toys and went out the door. I started to knock on the door, and he steps in front of me
Starting point is 00:07:12 and bangs on the door with his flashlight. He goes, Charlottesville Police, open the door. And I went, oh, my God. I bet the stories you have over the years are pretty darn funny and heartwarming. The most touching one to me was I knocked on the door, and this probably 13, 14-year-old child answered the door. And he said, oh, wait a minute. He shut the door and we were just standing there going, okay.
Starting point is 00:07:40 And he came back and said, I had to get my brother and sister in bed. And I'm looking at the card going, okay, I only have a boy of four and a girl of five. I don't have an older child. And I said, he said, no, don't worry about it. He said, they need to be taking care of my brother and sister. And I said, where's your mom? She's at work at the hospital. I went, okay.
Starting point is 00:08:04 So we left the toys, and I looked at the people with me, and I said, where's your mom? She's at work at the hospital. I went, okay. So we left the toys, and I looked at the people with me, and I said, you all can take the rest of them. I'll be right back. So I went to Walmart and bought probably more than I should have and came back to the house, and I got back about 1230, maybe 1 o'clock, knocked on the door, and this lady answered the door, And I told her I wasn't. She just burst into tears.
Starting point is 00:08:27 And I had stuff for the older child. And she stood there and hugged and cried on my shoulder. And I did the same thing for a few minutes and then went on the way. But it's the blessings like that that you get by seeing that there are a lot of people that they're not going to ask for help right you know they will do what they've got to do make do with what they've got they just won't ask for help and having taken this and have it grow and honestly after the first year i thought well and that was fun and then a friend asked me he he says, you can do this next year. I went, I guess. 35 years. Liza, we'll get you involved here. Logan Wells-Claylow, thank you
Starting point is 00:09:11 for watching the program. Albert Graves on Twitter. Thank you for the retweet. The questions are coming in. We'll get to them in a matter of moments. What's the toy lift mean to you, Liza? So Tom is a part of our CMA family. He officially was a part of our CMA family running our quick lane starting in the early 90s. So pretty early on with the toy lift. He had been doing it for a solid couple of years at the Exxon station and then joined CMA. And there were a couple of things as to how we got so passionate about supporting it. One, when we have associates in our company who have a personal passion to make a difference, there's not a whole lot more rewarding than supporting them. And so when Tom joined our team, we immediately said,
Starting point is 00:09:49 how do we jump in and help? Where can we have the toy lift? How do we get our team involved? So that was kind of the beginning, was once we saw his heart and saw how much he gave back to these children in our community who had a need around the holidays. We wanted to be right next to him in it. The other piece of it is we've really moved to supporting the bike drive part of the toy lift. And we try to tie a lot of the philanthropy at CMA around transportation, because that's what we do, right? We sell and service cars and help people get where they're going in life through transportation. And a bike is a kid's first piece of transportation. It's oftentimes a gift that not many parents can afford. It's a big gift, and almost every one of us can remember our first bike. It was usually a Christmas morning, really exciting gift. And it gives that kid freedom to go visit friends, maybe bike to school, maybe be able to bike in the safer areas around where they live.
Starting point is 00:10:45 And so we really, a solid maybe a dozen years ago, took the focus from the toy lift to saying, let us help do the bike part of it and really drive that piece of those gifts for the children in our community. I absolutely love what's happening here. David Varel is watching the program. Sherry Wilcomb is watching the program. Comments are coming in for Tom over here. Judah's flashing the photos on screen. John Blair will get to your comment here on LinkedIn and your call to action for us on the show. He says that you guys are the absolute best in humanity and this community and what this community has to offer. We appreciate that, John.
Starting point is 00:11:21 And I'll get to the second part of your comment here in a matter of moments on the show. How about this one? And this is a question that came up earlier in the week on the show. How high are you up there in the bucket truck? And how much colder is it than at ground level in the bucket truck? Because, Tom, both Liza and I, she was on a run. I was walking the family German Shepherd. We saw some snow flurries this morning, Tom Powell. It can be a little chilly.
Starting point is 00:11:45 The highest we've ever been, I think our third year when we were at Albemarle Square Shopping Center, Virginia Power at the time was the bucket sponsor. And they got the wild idea of bringing a truck called the Condor from southwest Virginia. But he used to work on the high lines from the power plants, and it went 175 feet in the air. Wow. And they were having a ball with it, and I was terrified. And it was six below zero that morning at ground level.
Starting point is 00:12:19 And, of course, they obviously had to put it all the way up just to see what I could do. Is that a toilet record temperature-wise? That's a toilet record, six below zero. And I'd been up there for a couple hours. And back then, we had landlines. We actually strung up there. And the phone rang, and I answered and said, yeah, what do you want?
Starting point is 00:12:38 They said, how are you doing? I said, I'm cold, but I'm all right. I'm not as cold as I was. My hands were hurting earlier, but they don't hurt anymore. And a minute or so later, the bucket bounced and started going down. I picked up the phone and said, I'm not ready to come down. Oh, yeah, you are. And I got down to the ground. This rescue squad gentleman walked over and he said, give me your hand. I took it out, pulled my glove off, and he went, yep, you're done. That's what he means. When you stop feeling the cold, it's a problem, right? He said, your hands are frozen.
Starting point is 00:13:05 I went, no. That was the year I found out the way they fix frostbite in your fingers is put your hands in cold water. Really? I always thought you'd warm up warm water, and they stuck it in cold water, you may as well set them on fire. I thought I was going to go crazy. But it can get really cold. There been there have been years uh one year
Starting point is 00:13:27 at uh lowes uh mac mcdonald's on one side of the bucket i was in the other and it was freezing rain and we were coated in ice you've had some weather challenges yeah while we were standing up there and you know really move and crack the ice off of us. But we stayed. I've gotten to the point now where they give me about five minutes in the bucket, and then they say, okay, you're done, come down. I say, but I'm not done. You're done, come down. You've got to share that responsibility, Tom. You've earned that over the years.
Starting point is 00:13:58 It's fun. We've had everybody you can think of, governors, senators, congressmen, local business people. I could tell a story about George Allen's wife, but I won't. When she wanted to get in the bucket, she got into a little argument with the state police about she was wearing a dress, and they didn't think it was appropriate. But she got in the bucket. She won.
Starting point is 00:14:26 It's been a lot of fun. Liza, how about this? The community organizes and strategizes and galvanizes for an effort that in some ways is bittersweet. The bitter element is in 2024, in our community that we love so dearly, there's still thousands of children that do not have toys at Christmas.'s still thousands of children that do not have toys at Christmas. The sweet aspect of this is the communities rallying around these children
Starting point is 00:14:51 and these families to provide them with some good spirit and some goodwill and something to open on a magical day that we all love called Christmas. Put in perspective the efforts of the community, what it means to you, your company, your family, the team, and how we are in some ways making Christmas magic. You know, we were all mentioning earlier that the true win would be that we don't need a toy lift in the future and that we have a community that is strong enough that we have families who are able to live in a sustainable way and take care of their kids and feel confident that they're financially stable and financially free. But until then, we're going to
Starting point is 00:15:31 also know that we're blessed to live in a community where people care at such a high level. I mean, we truly here in Charlottesville couldn't be in a better place. Quite a few years ago, we started an effort at CMA to bring all of the car dealers together to support the toy lift at a higher level than any of us could do on our own. And I think that's a wonderful picture of what the toy lift does for our community and what Charlottesville is all about. That even though we compete every day in our industry with our different brands around town, we were coming together and making one donation as the local car dealers to the toy lift. Now that's evolved over years. We've had different people be a part of it. This year, Flow Automotive and Carter Myers Automotive together are making a $20,000 donation. We're each putting $10,000 in. It'll be our largest donation as local car dealers
Starting point is 00:16:22 to the toy lift and the history of the toy lift. And we wanted to be a part of celebrating 35 years and also making sure that as many kids on Christmas morning wake up with a smile on their face as possible. I love it. Justin Rowling watching the program. Dylan Arnold, Victoria Graves watching the program. A couple of radio stations watching the show. A newspaper, a TV station watching us here on the I Love Seville show. Give us some toy lift stories, some behind the scenes. Pull that curtain, Tom Powell, because one thing I know about you is you know stories, and you've got a lot of them.
Starting point is 00:16:56 We've had some interesting times. Rick Daniels, who used to be on 3WV. Oh, yeah. We were in, it's a bucket truck, had two buckets on it over at Lowe's before they built the Chick-fil-A there. And that's a funny story. And himself, the owner of Chick-fil-A said, oh, you can still have it here. And I went, no, I can't have a drive-thru in the middle of the toilet. And those Chick-fil-A drive-thrus are really busy all the time. They're busy all the time.
Starting point is 00:17:29 So we end up moving. But we were there one year, and we'd been up in the bucket about an hour. And we heard this, meee, boom, and all this white smoke came pouring out from Honduras. And Rick, who I found at the time, was absolutely terrified of terrified of heights. The only thing you'd ever see of him in the bucket was his hands. He was ducked down inside the bucket and apparently those bucket trucks were set up with a safety setup where if it lost hydraulic pressure it would drop about three feet and then lock and the the fun part was when it fell to three feet, you're kind of suspended in midair for a second.
Starting point is 00:18:07 You're like, oh, crap. And we were standing there and hung there. And they had to get two more bucket trucks over and bring them up next to it. And then we had to, it took us about an hour to convince Rick that he could climb from one bucket to the other, you know, 70 feet in the air. But that was fun.
Starting point is 00:18:27 And then we've had times where I know I got up at 3 o'clock in the morning one morning to see if it was snowing, and there was about five or six inches of snow, and Beth looked at me. She says, well, do those tents hold up that much weight? And I went, I don't know. So I got dressed, drove down there, and we knocked the snow off the tents with a broom. And 29 was covered in snow. Everything was just, I'm going, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?
Starting point is 00:18:56 And I put out a call on the radio. If anybody has a snowplow, if they'd like to come over and give us a hand, we could use your help. And then about an hour later, I'm looking, and here comes two city Charlottesville snow plows. And I look on 29, and there's state trucks going back and forth in front of Lowe's, clearing the road. And I went, they don't normally do that. And the city guy said, we got it, don't worry about it. And they plowed the whole lot, salted everything, said, we'll be back this evening. And it was good because they did because at daytime it warmed up enough, it melted.
Starting point is 00:19:33 And in the evening you could stand at one tent, wiggle your feet and slide all the way down to the other end because you just couldn't stand up. Jerry, you know what Tom has done for 35 years? He has brought out the hearts of everybody in charlotte so i'm looking at your sign saying i love seville and i think that that's what we see on toilet friday is there's there's no politics no there's no division there's no sides and and tom has brought out hearts in every person in our community for 35
Starting point is 00:20:04 years to have a collective effort one day a year. I can't wait for tomorrow. It is. It's the one day a year where, like Liza said, we compete all year long with each other. Coke versus Pepsi. Ford versus Chevy. All the different cars, you know, all down the line. But it's the one day a year we all go and all the radio stations
Starting point is 00:20:25 how often do you see every radio station and every TV station in the area all the car dealers all the opposing businesses and they're all laughing and joking and talking to each other and we're doing one thing we're getting toys for kids at Christmas
Starting point is 00:20:40 this is one of the reasons that I really love this we've talked on this show I've been in this community for 24 years. Came here as a first year at UVA. Went from college years to the young professional years to engaged, married, father of two. This is home. Will be home forever. I have seen in those 24 years part of the communal spirit unfortunately erode a little bit.
Starting point is 00:21:10 The first night Virginia is gone. The Dogwood Parade is not as engaged and significant as it once was. And the Dogwood Festival. Dogwood Festival. I mean, it was the talk of town. 24 years, we would have hundreds of people lining in front of the building on the Dogwood Parade. We don't have the fireworks show on the 4th of July.
Starting point is 00:21:37 And we tried to save it. Right, I know you did. I remember trying to do that. This and what you're doing here is community. And we need to rally around this passion for Charlottesville, this communal spirit, and try to duplicate it and scale it across the calendar year. And that's one of the things that I think is extremely special of what you're doing. Because what makes Charlottesville great and why we love seville is the community that's right yeah um anywhere you guys want to go on that i see the uh i know you got something to
Starting point is 00:22:10 say on this one last no i couldn't agree with you more um it is sad some of the things that are no longer but that actually opens the canvas for us to create some new things because sometimes we end up you know having tradition for the sake of tradition um but we have a lot of opportunity in Charlottesville to be creating new ones. Now, the toy lift is one that can't go away. Unless, of course, we can solve the solution and find the solution for not having kids in need in our community. And if there was one thing we could do together, that would be a big one. No, Jerry, I love what you said. I think while we have lost some of those things things there is still a heart in this community that is super strong absolutely and we just have to find those
Starting point is 00:22:50 different pockets to bring us together and on that note i hope that we see everybody tomorrow on toy lift friday over at the old mall which that's going to be an exciting at some point new and different development right um but there's also toy drop-off stations if they can't make it out to the mall i know that there's also toy drop-off stations. If they can't make it out to the mall, I know that there's a lot of businesses around town, ours included, where people can stop by today if they can't make it tomorrow. But what's the record, Tom?
Starting point is 00:23:12 How many toys? What's the record that has been collected? The most toys we've ever collected in a single day was a little over 14,000. Man! In one day. Unbelievable. And that was our last year at Albemarle Square.
Starting point is 00:23:26 We had the Minuteman Motorcycle Group. Oh yeah. Comes every year. County police came up to us and said, how many more of these are there? And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, they're lined up all the way back down to U-Haul. And he said, you got every intersection in town blocked.
Starting point is 00:23:42 I said, I, you know, I'm sorry, but, uh, you know, we had hot air balloons. We've had, it was almost a festival every year. Uh, COVID put a quash on that. We're slowly trying to get back to where we were, get people comfortable with coming back out. Uh, I know one year they told us that county police counted 5,000 cars came through in a single day. Now we've extended it. The main event is on Friday.
Starting point is 00:24:12 We take toys through Sunday. So we're there all weekend because some people just can't get there in the morning, can't get off work in time. Life gets in the way. So we tried to make it a little bit easier because we don't want to miss the opportunity for somebody to come out and want to give that donation. And we have 4,000 children that are here this year.
Starting point is 00:24:35 4,000 kids this year. So it's, in the last few years, it's fluctuated. It got as high as almost 7,000 during COVID. and we managed to pull that off which we still don't know how we did it but we did it Do you still need volunteers helping with that? We still need volunteers, you can go to toyleft.org and sign up for volunteers, we need folks the day of, not as many but it's really the weekend and the week after
Starting point is 00:25:03 where what you actually get to do is go in. We give you a voucher, which has, you know, boy age six, girl age whatever, and a wish list item. The wish list is a great thing we came up with where each child is allowed to select one particular toy that they want. We don't give video games and computers and things like that. But, you know, if there's one specific toy that you want. We don't give video games and computers and things like that, but if there's one specific toy that you want to get, and we will go to sponsors and use money that we collect to buy, make sure we have that one gift. So when Christmas morning comes, they get their wish list item, an additional gift, and we also give out educational books and board games. We make sure that each child gets that,
Starting point is 00:25:48 something that will keep them involved. You know, they're not just staring at a computer screen or something. I think, Jerry, that's why Flo and CMA do the monetary part because while the toy donations are great, having that one special thing on their wish list, being able to be fulfilled, and some of the educational pieces that I love how the Toy Lift has brought that in over the years. So that's where the cash donations can be really helpful too.
Starting point is 00:26:13 If anybody wants to stop by tomorrow and leave cash, I know that will be happily received as well. I love it. Gladly receive it. And you can go to, like I said, toyleft.org. You can click on a donation right there and all the different different types of venmo and all these different things you can get uh they take a secure donation right there and know that we have great partnerships with like walmart they've been a sponsor for years and years and years uh if we go in and spend two200, we get $200 more worth of stuff.
Starting point is 00:26:45 So they match us dollar for dollar. And it means a lot to be able to watch adults going, oh, looking at all the different toys going, oh, dolls, and just playing with stuff. It feels like Christmas just going on the tour through the mall when they have all of the toys set up tomorrow and they'll have them all organized. It's like an adult feeling like a kid on Christmas when you walk through there it's pretty cool if anyone wants to go check it out yeah you get to be an elf this is my
Starting point is 00:27:11 absolute favorite time of year and it's become even more of my favorite time watching the holidays through the eyes of our two boys I'm so grateful for Tom and Liza today. Toy Lift is the start of the holiday season in the Charlottesville area. And, guys, it's going to be a chilly one. Tom and Liza, we're grateful for your time today on the I Love Seville show. Toylift.org. If folks want to get involved here, please support. Just a fantastic communal effort, guys. Please, please, please.
Starting point is 00:27:43 Judah Wittkower, if you go to the studio camera, offer some instructions to our guests. We have some other items we've got to get to in our notebook. Thank you, Eliza, and thank you, Tom, for joining us today on the program. We're very grateful. And Judah, you can go back to a one. A lot I want to cover on the program today. I have a couple of programming notes that I need to get to at the 101 marker of our afternoon we have commonwealth's attorney joe plantania and charlottesville police chief mike kachis on the program on wednesday december 11th i'm already getting questions for those two gentlemen please send those questions to me and we'll relay a lot of them live on air. Take care guys. Thank you very much.
Starting point is 00:28:26 This was sent to me via LinkedIn from John Blair. It's an unfortunate story but we understand we have a large following so we are going to help with this effort. Unfortunately this morning three children were kidnapped from a bus stop in Augusta County. We are showing their photos on screen now. Everyone in Augusta County is doing what they can to find these three children who were kidnapped this morning from a bus stop in Augusta County. Please look at the screen for the photos of the three children that were kidnapped from a bus stop in Fishersville and Augusta County. We want to find these children. They were waiting up for the bus when a black four-door vehicle pulled up to the bus stop and took the children. Three,
Starting point is 00:29:20 last name Lewis, I would imagine three siblings, Judah. One of them is 10, a little boy that's 10, a little girl that's 8, and a little girl that's 6. Please help find these three children. Their photo is still on screen. Look at the screen now, please. Look at the screen now. Three children kidnapped from a bus stop in Fishersville in Augusta County. Let's find these children. Dan Pettit, hello. Thank you kindly for watching the program. Judah Wicker, do you have a two-shot ready? One for you. If not, no big deal. Items that I also want to get out of the notebook today. This community is one that I find absolutely fantastic. I love living here. I love living here. And I love living here because of the people, because of the quality of life, because the amenities, because of the restaurants, because of the music, because of the food, all the reasons you guys love living here.
Starting point is 00:30:26 We've highlighted on this show many times how we feel that there's an aspect of community that seems to be missing from the community that was there prior to COVID. And maybe it's part of that COVID collateral damage where that spirit has eroded a bit. Maybe it's just that the community is changing drastically and quickly from what it looks like socioeconomic wise, what it looks like with who's living here, who's moving here. But what Tom and Dave Fafara and the Toy Lift are about is about asking for help and folks rallying around that cause to help kids have toys on Christmas.
Starting point is 00:31:20 Think about what it would be like if you came on Christmas morning to your house and thought that Santa Claus did not visit your home and did not give you toys on Christmas. Some kids are going through that now. And that breaks my heart. So toylift.org, toylift.org, toylift.org. This puts things in perspective for me. Sometimes we are chomping at the bit, wondering what's going on with a football team or the basketball team that took it on the chin last night in Florida. Thinking about politics, talking about economic headwinds, scratching our head about the new zoning ordinance in real estate.
Starting point is 00:32:20 Wondering what elected officials are doing, what our bosses are doing, what UVA is doing wrong. But kids not having toys on Christmas puts everything in perspective. And I think the toy lift is fill and avoid and doing some special things. I'm grateful for Tom. I'm grateful for Eliza's time. We're back tomorrow at 10.15 a.m. with Real Talk with Keith Smith. Keith Smith is on a beach somewhere in, what, the Caribbean? With his fantastic wife, Yona.
Starting point is 00:32:54 Is it Neil Williamson and Ned Galloway tomorrow, Judah? I believe it's Neil Williamson, the president of, and if you could check, I don't know if that's a quick check you can do. Neil, I believe it's Neil Williamson, the president of, and if you could check, I don't know if that's a quick check you can do. Neil, I believe it's Neil and Ned Galloway tomorrow on the program. In fact, I have the Google Drive right in front of me here, J-Dubs. No, Woody Fincham and Candace Vanderlin. Ned Galloway and Neil Williamson the following Friday. So we've got some big-time interviews lined up for you.
Starting point is 00:33:24 We're grateful for your time, guys, on the I Love Seville show. Thank you.

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