00:00 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Hello my friends and welcome back. I'm very excited for today's guest. Today I have a good friend of mine, heidi Bartle, is here. Heidi is a mom, a wife and she's the founder of a charity called Be the Good in Colorado Springs, colorado. I wanted Heidi to come on to talk about the charity and how it's affected her family and what we can do as a community to get involved in our own communities and help our kids get involved. So, heidi, thank you so much for coming on today.

00:31 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

You're welcome. I'm happy to be here.

00:33 - Janae Daniels (Host)

So let's just start a little bit. Tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll jump into the charity.

00:39 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

I, as you said, I'm a wife and a mother. I have five kids ranging from 14 to 24. My oldest recently got married.

00:46 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Congratulations.

00:47 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Thank you. It's exciting. And then I have a son ready to graduate college, and then I have three in high school.

00:54 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Very nice.

00:55 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Busy and exciting time.

00:56 - Janae Daniels (Host)

I was going to say, yeah, high school had did. Have you found now that you don't have any littles at home? Was it harder when they were little or harder now that you've got high schoolers? What do you think?

01:07 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

I think physically it was harder when they were young, more physically taxing, but now the problems are bigger and more important and more life-changing.

01:17 - Janae Daniels (Host)

All the big stuff that affects the rest of their lives. Yes, so let's talk a little bit about um you started. How long ago did you start the Be the Good charity?

01:30 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

In 2017.

01:32 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Okay, so it's been a few years. Could you explain what Be the Good is, and does.

01:36 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

We are a small nonprofit but we try to do important things. Our biggest effort every year is a Christmas drive that we do to help individuals with clothing and gifts when they otherwise wouldn't have them. We also help seniors in nursing homes and residential living facilities with holiday banners. We produce birthday boxes which are really fun at food pantries and make a big difference. And we try to do different things throughout the year, like we hold a youth service activity every April. We have about a hundred kids come and help us with a variety of service projects, usually aimed at youth. So it's youth serving youth.

02:24 - Janae Daniels (Host)

I love that. How did you decide Cause you are, I've, you know, we've known each other for many, many, many years, since our kids were little. Um, how, in all of your busyness, how did you decide to start to start this nonprofit First? Did it start as a nonprofit, or did you just kind of start going and then it became a nonprofit? How did that work?

02:44 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

We just started going. My brother Eric and his wife Gentry in Mesa, arizona, decided one day that they wanted to help kids at Christmas and we actually borrowed their model of doing clothing and a gift to help them. We did not know what we were doing in the beginning.

03:04

I asked my husband if he thought I was crazy adding charity work to an already busy household. At the time my kids were six to 16. We were in the thick of raising kids and life was really busy, but we both really loved what we saw Eric and Jen doing and had participated a little bit in their efforts and we wanted to do the same thing.

03:30

So I kind of wanted a closed system. Eric and Jen went to elementary schools and just found families. That way we found Rocky Mountain Kids, which is a collection of group homes for teenage wards of the state, and we started by helping about 35 kids in the beginning. We helped them for four or five years and then we transitioned to helping people who were unhoused, unemployed, had more needs. The foster kids were very compelling and we wanted to help them because they had really hard lives. But the fact of the matter was they had roofs over their heads and they had three square meals a day. They didn't have to wonder about safety and things like that. So we kind of shifted to families who had more insecurity. In some of those areas we partner with Academy, district 20's Family Resource Center and Palmer High School's, or District 11's Palmer High School now. So it has grown.

04:44 - Janae Daniels (Host)

And, for those listening, those are school districts within Colorado Springs. So in about how many kids now are you and families are you like, for example, for this year? Are you helping?

04:59 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Right now we're sitting at about 163. Wow. It's grown a little bit from 35. We wish we could do more, but this feels like a good number for us right now.

05:14 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Is there a greater need than 135?

05:17 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Oh, we could do double easily.

05:19 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Wow.

05:20 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Easily, wow. Yeah, there are other districts who have asked for help, there are other agencies who have asked for our help in serving their people, and I think just from District 20 alone, which is known as an affluent school district, people are really surprised that we help homeless students in District 20. Yeah, but there are plenty to go around, so we could do a lot more good if we had more money.

05:54 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Yeah, I was going to say what kind of donations do you generally need to take, especially at Christmastime? Is it money? Is it clothes Like? What sorts of things do you gather and what do you give to the families each Christmas?

06:08 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Our goal, excuse me, our goal is to give each person in each family a shirt, a pair of pants, socks and underwear, a pair of shoes and a gift and the and those things we all. The school district works with those families individually, so we have sizes and color preferences and style preferences and gift ideas, so hopefully we are giving things that they really want and need.

06:37 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Yeah, as opposed to like oh, we got this. You know bunch of stuff from Goodwill and here you go.

06:42 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Yes, yes, I actually have strong opinions about that. We really want to give them things that they need and that they want that will be useful in their lives, a mix of practical and fun, have a touch of the magic of the holiday season, which is important, but also filling needs that they have. So the donations that we receive can be either those specific things we have a website where you can go and sign up to give the specific shirt that the eight-year-old boy wants, with his size and his color and whatever and you can do that in person drop it off on my porch or you can shop online. Amazon is great. You can live in Pennsylvania and send a red shirt, size eight, to my house. It's really awesome.

07:33

So we take physical donations like that, but monetary donations are also very helpful because at the end, when we have received all the donations, we have a cutoff date, which is December 10th this year, and there are inevitably unfulfilled requests and we take the money that we've received as donations and we go shopping and it's actually a lot of fun to go shopping for people you don't know. Yeah, and hold up this pair of pants. Do you think person 64B will love these pants? We have a good time.

08:10 - Janae Daniels (Host)

I love that Well, because your house turns into Santa's workshop in December. I, when I went to drop some stuff off I guess it was last year I'm like, oh my gosh, yeah it's amazing.

08:22 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

There are piles and piles and piles of. Each person has a stack of gifts and if, um, we've divided between two houses now because there are too many people to fit in my humble home, so there, but they're usually about a hundred people at my house, a hundred gifts for a hundred people at my house, and so there are are 100 stacks of presents all around the house. And then we have a super fun gift wrapping day where we take those presents and wrap them up and make them pretty and get them ready to deliver to the recipients.

08:58 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Now, do you take them to the families directly, or do you take them to another location and they drop them off to the families, or do you take them to another location and they drop them off to the families?

09:07 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

We've done a mix of both. By and large, we deliver to the schools because of privacy reasons, sure, so we never know their first and last names. They are just like I said. Person 64B is the one that we you know.

09:25 - Janae Daniels (Host)

that's how we identify them as we go, but I get pretty attached to those numbers.

09:31 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

They're real people to me, yeah, okay.

09:33 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Yeah, because they are real people. So okay, so you mentioned that you're like I have strong opinions about when people buy stuff from Goodwill and then they're like here yeah, let's talk. I want to explore those opinions, because this is a place to share strong opinions, if you feel comfortable.

09:55 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Well, my, my thought is just that you need to know what your target audience needs and wants, and if your target audience is cold, then blankets are a great idea. If your target audience is cold, then blankets are a great idea, but if your target audience lives in Africa, blankets maybe aren't what they need. I just read a great book called Doing Small Things with Great Love by Sharon Eubank, and she is a world-renowned humanitarian director of large organizations doing humanitarian efforts and she talks about, like tsunami victims receiving big drops of clothing, oodles and gobs of clothing, and they didn't need clothing, they needed shelter and they needed water, and so the clothing was rotting on the beaches.

10:56 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Oh my gosh, which adds more problems.

10:58 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

They were doing such a good service by sending clothing to Thailand, but it wasn't what they needed, and so then they just had another problem to deal with.

11:09 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Yeah.

11:10 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

And I'm not saying that we have the market cornered on how to how to do this Christmas thing, but we have. We have identified a few things and are doing them well, like making holiday banners for nursing homes. People at nursing homes are lonely and they miss their homes where they used to live, and they don't have as much involvement with the holidays and things. Facilities try, of course, and everything, everything. But we have found and have gotten feedback from residents of these nursing homes that having a little banner that just stretches across your doorway, that is decorated for valentine's day or something is, brings cheer in a wonderful way and it's a. It's a little gesture that is filling a need. And what we learned recently. We got a letter. I want to read this to you. We got a letter from someone who made a Valentine's banner and she was doing summer ones at this time, but she wrote this letter.

12:29

I've been stuck in bed since July. Focusing on making banners has been one of the main things keeping me sane while I try to figure out what is wrong. Even if one banner can bring a single resident the tiniest fraction of good that it has brought to me while making them, I will be over the moon. I'm already started on Thanksgiving. Thank you for the opportunity to be and experience the good. So in this tiny little way, we've nailed it. We found something that helps the recipients and it also helps the donors have a good experience. I just loved hearing from Erin Kelly If you're listening, we love you. So that's my strong opinion about giving the right thing. I love that.

13:23 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Talk about the birthday boxes a little bit, because I think these are really cool.

13:28 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

So a birthday box is just like a shoebox size plastic box. You can buy them at the dollar store and inside there's a cake mix and frosting, sometimes sprinkles and candles, birthday banner and balloons and then festive paper plates and napkins. They all go in this box. We distribute them to food pantries. Members of the community make them and then we take them around. Manager that birthday boxes restore dignity especially. Sorry, I get emotional about all these things as as we should get emotional so they restore dignity, especially to adults, who often feel forgotten on their birthdays.

14:29

She said oh, the tears of joy we have seen because of birthday boxes. That's amazing to me. That a small gesture. Each box costs about $15. That $15 can restore dignity to someone who feels forgotten on their birthday. In my affluent life that doesn't always feel affluent, but really it is not. Doing something for a birthday is unheard of. Yeah, there is always a celebration, there is always a cake. There is always a cake, there is always ice cream. We often have parties. That's how birthdays roll in a lot of society.

15:32 - Janae Daniels (Host)

But some people don't even get acknowledged in any way, and that's why we like doing birthday boxes.

15:41 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

How many do you generally do the food pantries generally want or ask for at a time? Oh, we usually. It seems like we usually deliver about 30 at a time. We just take them when they come. We don't always have a schedule. We don't have a schedule for when we deliver and how many we take, but they're always thrilled to receive them.

15:55 - Janae Daniels (Host)

So do you generally take them like once a month or about? How often do you take them?

16:00 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Maybe once a quarter. I would love to take them once a month, but we just don't get the donations as often as often.

16:14 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Yeah, one of the things that struck me is I kept, um, like I feel like God has called me to repentance in my life. Um, especially as I've studied the new Testament and the savior talks about clothing the naked and feeding the hungry and caring for the widows. And I thought feeding the hungry and caring for the widows? And I thought, well, I donate to my church, so that should be good enough, and not that that's not good right. For those who do donate to their churches, that's great. But for me, I realized what I was doing was donating and being like, okay, I did what Jesus asked me to do, now I can move on with my life. And then, when I heard about Be the Good, I realized like, oh, yeah, I donate to the church, but how am I actually doing myself physically, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. I thought I am really really falling short there and I needed, I need to do better. Um, because there are so many people in need and I have been given so much and the least, the least I could do is something like a simple banner or you know, which is not clothing the naked, but it's bringing cheer to somebody who feels lonely and sad, anyway. So so you inspired me because I'm like no, we are, we do a Christmas drive where people can come and shop, shop for their kids and um, they use points and um, and it's for those some who are unhoused and others who are just are in need or they're just struggling. It's just a tough time.

18:06

And what really struck me was how it affected my kids as they were restocking the shelves and they thought the stuff was super cool. Right, they were like these are really cool toys and these are really cool things. But my boys were really quiet on the drive home and I was like is everything okay? And they're like we have so much. And there was all of those people who had nothing, mom. And I thought, oh, I, we have got to do this more in the future. And unfortunately it was like towards the end of the season, like it was probably like five days before Christmas, that we were doing this. Um, how has how has doing be the good affected your kids, like, do your kids help with with everything?

18:58 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

They help with some things. It's not a perfect system, yeah, but we try to involve them in all the different steps. There are many steps that happen in our house and because it's in our house, it's kind of in their face. There's a lot. The last couple of days have been a little overwhelming and they've been asking questions a little bit about who we're helping and I have offered you know we're helping people who are living in their cars.

19:31

We're helping people who are recently re-established in an apartment after being unhoused, people living in an RV and they're cold and all they want for Christmas is a warm sleeping bag. So having conversations like that are impactful, and we especially like to take the kids shopping with us because they have a pulse on what a teenager likes. So I love taking my girls and saying what do you think about these jeans for a 15-year-old? You know Kate, you're 14 and Lexi you're 16. What do you think about the 15-year-old and know Kate, you're 14 and Lexi, you're 16. What do you think about the 15-year-old? And these fans are like mom.

20:19 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Not those.

20:21 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

No, let's get these instead, and it's really helpful to have their opinion and perspective. I really like doing that with them. For us, it's more about conversations than labor, necessarily.

20:35 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Yeah.

20:35 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Although the kids are excited to invite their friends to wrap presents this year, that's cool. It's a good opportunity for them to talk with their friends about what's going on and just get involved in service hours, and I love signing service hour forms for high school students. It's great that they're wanting to get involved.

20:57 - Janae Daniels (Host)

The high school students that have come to help. How have they responded? What's usually their reaction?

21:05 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

They're usually humbled by what they see and you know they each. Typically one person will take all the gifts for one person and wrap all of them together. Typically one person will take all the gifts for one person and wrap all of them together, and so they see the full list of what one person wants and they kind of go well, is this all the one person is getting for Christmas? Kind of comparing what their experiences on Christmas Day to what this person is, but really how excited this person will be to have anything at all under the tree. We had one family or one couple deliver gifts to a family and said there was only carpet under their Christmas tree and it's hard to imagine.

21:51

It's just so far removed from my own experience that I I don't know. My, my husband was recently laid off and so it's interesting to do this work in this space knowing that he is on the unemployed list where so many of these people are too. We're grateful to have severance and I think we'll be okay, but it's a little eye-opening and perspective-shifting to have some difficulty in our own life, some insecurity in our own life, to see, to maybe understand a little bit better what some of these families are going through. I'm actually really grateful for the perspective, even though it's scary and hard and I don't know what's going to happen. I'm grateful to be a little more connected to these families.

22:58 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Now during the year you also I know you've put out, um, you've put out messages to you know on Facebook and different things saying we need does anyone have bedded beds and bedding and things like that? Um, talk a little bit about that, what those needs have been and what you've seen.

23:17 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

A couple of years ago we had a family we were helping for Christmas who was unhoused and then two or three weeks after Christmas they were moving into their new apartment but they had nothing, literally nothing. They didn't have anything to sleep on. They had some clothes, but they didn't begin to have things for their kitchen or their bathroom or anything. So we put out a call, really just on Facebook and Instagram, to the community to try to rally some furniture and home furnishings for this little family, and people responded in an amazing way and they we got beds and mattresses and a TV and a table and chairs, dishes, appliances, a shower curtain. People brought garbage bags. They thought of everything. It was amazing.

24:18

We loaded up this huge borrowed trailer and hauled it with our Yukon. That was full to the gills of other stuff and, um, I didn't mention. But the mother in the family was deaf and so we brought an interpreter and her family and my family and hers unloaded that trailer We've moved people before and we knew what to do and we unloaded that trailer and loaded up the apartment and I was making the bed for the nine-year-old girl and she looked at me and said why are you doing this for us for the nine-year-old girl and she looked at me and said why are you doing this for us? She was just dumbfounded that someone would do something so nice. And I just said, well, it's because we love you. And she just stared at me.

25:13

She didn did that for two or three families that winter and it was such a neat experience to talk to the families and get little bits of their stories. And these are just hard working people who are down on their luck that you know. They lose a job and a few paychecks go by and then they're on the street because they can't pay rent. Or they decided to relocate and their plans to move fell through and so they're homeless, or they have housing but they have no money left to buy anything that goes in the house. So those were really neat experiences. They were difficult and stressful, but they were really neat experiences helping people move into new places.

26:03 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Have you? Did you ever see any miracles, or have you seen any miracles? You know, as you've been doing this, oh, a hundred, um, All the time.

26:17 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

We had one mom approach me a few years ago. You may have seen this on social media, but she asked us we had planned to give her kids Christmas gifts, but she asked in advance if we could maybe provide a Christmas tree, if we could maybe provide a Christmas tree, and we had never done anything like that before. So I just shot out a message on social media and asked for these things. She wanted a Grinch Christmas tree because her daughter, who is dying of brain cancer, that was her one Christmas wish. So within one hour, someone I barely knew donated a seven foot tall, skinny tree, just like the Grinch tree, tall and skinny.

27:02

And another woman who had just that very day we'd had a conversation about her joining arms with us in, Be the Good and working on everything together. She went to Hobby Lobby and cleared out their ornament section with all the Grinch ornaments. That tree was decked out. We delivered it and the family gathered around us and prayed and cried. That was their Christmas miracle and really it was amazing to watch it come through. It all happened in like six hours. It was just amazing. She texted me in the afternoon and I did the social media thing, and that evening I delivered everything that she asked for. That's a miracle.

27:53 - Janae Daniels (Host)

That is a miracle.

27:56 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

And it's maybe wouldn't be important to anyone else, but it was what Anna wanted, what she needed, what her daughter needed.

28:12 - Janae Daniels (Host)

And that's why the miracle happened.

28:14 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Because the one was taken care of. Yeah, when you were talking about the New Testament and the Savior's example, I was just thinking about ministering to the one. How important it is to reach out to one person. You know I have a collective of 163 people that I'm serving this fall, which is a lot, and I get overwhelmed. I have moments where I just have to stop and cry for a minute and then pull myself together and do my dishes and then move on. If I'm just thinking about the 18-year-old who doesn't have parents, who's living on his own, and his needs are so simple yet so expansive, If I just focus on him and what I can do for him, then it becomes much more manageable and much more beautiful. I remember he's a person, even though I don't know his name. Then it's better Love that.

29:26 - Janae Daniels (Host)

So how I was thinking about this, I actually brought this up to my sister. I said how do we find people that are in need? I mean, obviously I'm not going to go stand on a corner and be like I'm looking for people in need, right, like cause. I was like how would you find somebody like so for you? Where did you start Cause? You mentioned it briefly, but let's talk about that a little bit deeper.

29:53 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

We started by looking into this foster organization because I wanted something that was small and contained, and I just did research online and I called somebody and she called me back and we talked on the phone a little bit and we had an in-person meeting and then we moved forward with Christmas gifts for her 35 kids. What I didn't know is that she continued to do everything she normally did for Christmas because she didn't think we were going to come through. Wow. So when it came time the next or at Christmas time and we delivered Christmas for 35, she couldn't believe her eyes and had double gifts for everybody that year.

30:48 - Janae Daniels (Host)

I'm sure the kids didn't complain.

30:51 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Yeah, I'm sure, but it took some time to build a relationship of trust. That was an important thing to learn that we didn't have credibility going in Gotcha designation because the school district really wanted it Okay, Wanted us to be official and applying for grants. You have to be a 501c3 to get money from different organizations. Sometimes it's the only qualification. But when we shifted and went to the school district, the beautiful thing about that relationship is that they were established with people. They already had people too. They were basically a closed system also just much larger than 35 kids.

31:54

They were experienced. They are experienced and um, compassionate and very knowledgeable in that space and we just dip our toes in. We show up once a year and we work really hard for them and deliver a great product, but they're the ones with boots on the ground every day and all year.

32:18

Yeah, having a relationship with them has been a gift. We have really loved that experience. They're amazing, wonderful people who do really hard work. So if you're trying to get started with something, I would say find an agency that's doing what you want to do and volunteer with them first and then, if you see a way that you could expand or add to or whatever they're doing, then go your own way. That would be fine. But my experience of having partners has been very positive.

33:01 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Now what? What? You keep using the term open versus closed. Can you explain what those two terms mean?

33:08 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Oh, that just is a construct of my own brain, okay.

33:11 - Janae Daniels (Host)

I thought it was like official, like this is like a closed adoption versus like an open adoption no, just the.

33:21 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

The foster teens all lived in houses and they were numbered and everybody had information about them. I didn't have to go find people. It wasn't open-ended. That's what I meant by that.

33:40 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Gotcha, how old do you feel like for most families that have children to be able to serve in a really meaningful way? I mean, you younger kids could help with banners, right, but what age would you say would be the youngest that a child could help? I know I know some places like soup kitchens have like an age limit or an age. You know you'd have to be at least a certain age, but from the type of thing that you're doing, what would you say would be the minimum age a child would need to be to help with some of these things?

34:22 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Well, we have a volunteer who comes help wrap presents and she brings her large family every time and she has little kids that come and put their finger on the bow and put the tape on and she's amazing to bring her little kids to do that. That's just one thing, and banners are another thing. We've had great success with kind of the 11 and up crowd at our youth service days. The younger ones are a little squirrely and they get distracted and, you know, have a hard time sometimes, but the older teens really zero in on what they're doing and what's important. I don't know how much families involve their kids when they're donating clothes and gifts to the kids at Christmas. I get the sense that a lot of families do. They shop together and make those decisions together and that's really valuable. So I think it's just up to the family and the maturity level that they experience.

35:31 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Do your girls enjoy the shopping piece when it comes to this, or is that like oh mom? No, they enjoy it. Do your girls enjoy the shopping piece when it comes to this, or is that like oh mom?

35:38 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

No, they enjoy it Do they.

35:39 - Janae Daniels (Host)

And they like the friends yeah.

35:43 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

That's cool and we always go out for ice cream after which makes it even better when we, just outside, we go out for ice cream.

35:51 - Janae Daniels (Host)

And I was gonna say our youth group, the 12 and 13-year-old girls, came over on Tuesday to make banners and I got all the supplies and I laid it out and I was worried because normally they're super chatty and not super focused, but they were so focused.

36:11 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Oh, that's neat.

36:12 - Janae Daniels (Host)

The one thing I had to do, though, is I was like okay, you cannot take an hour on a banner. You have to like let's speed it up a little bit. Friends, we have 50 of these to make. So they so like oh, okay, got it.

36:27

And this, this one sweet 13 year old, was man. She cranked out like eight and they were beautiful, like they were. She hand drew and they I feel like it turned out so pretty and she's like I'm an artist, and I was like I can tell you're an artist and she's like they should like them and I'm like I think they will. So it was really. It was kind of adorable, so okay. So if and I'll put this in the show notes um, if people want to donate, to be the good here in Colorado Springs, or you again, you are, all of our communities need help, but if you're like I need to send it to a charity where I know that the money is not all going to, like the CEO of the organization Cause I think that's always a fear with charities is like we are all volunteers.

37:14 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

Every dollar and every gift goes straight to the people.

37:17 - Janae Daniels (Host)

That's what I love, because I think there's that fear of like. Oh well, you know, I, my, my mother-in-law, brought this up. She said you know, we, we adopted a child in Africa and we get their picture, only to find out that the child only got like half a percent of all of the money that was sent to them, like it was pretty abysmal. So if they do want to donate, to Be the Good, I'll put the link of the website so that they can shop for the child. Or is there an address listed if they want to send money, or is there a way to send money to help the charity? Like, what's the, what's the best way that people can help and get a hold of you?

38:00 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

So the website is bethegoodintheworldnet forward slash donate or forward slash sign dash up. If you just go to bethegoodintheworldnet, there are obvious links to where you go to sign up for Christmas gifts and where you go to donate money. You can use a credit card to donate cash, which is amazingly helpful. So if you're concerned that you're not doing your part by sending us 20 bucks or whatever, we would love your 20 bucks.

38:37 - Janae Daniels (Host)

It'll buy something good. We will put it to work Really quick. What's the biggest need that you've seen, especially this year?

38:45 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

thus far this year, winter coats and groceries. So many people are food insecure and they're hungry and they're cold and they live in my town. They're hungry and they're cold, that's it.

39:06 - Janae Daniels (Host)

What is a question that you is burning that you wish I would have asked?

39:14 - Heidi Bartle: Be The Good (Guest)

You know, I thought of this quote earlier today. It's on my wall, right there, I see it. I see it behind you. It says my life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds. That's from Anne Morrow Lindbergh. And when I put that on my wall, you know the end is to whom my heart responds. And then I wrote and that's okay. Sometimes it's really overwhelming to love people. It's really overwhelming to be compelled to help. One person can't do it all. It's okay. If your means are limited, if your time is limited, you can make a difference in small ways. That's maybe the biggest thing that I have learned in the last nine years is that small things make a big difference a big difference.

40:20 - Janae Daniels (Host)

Thank you, heidi. Thank you so much for taking the time to share a part of your heart and your life and the Be the Good charity. Mamas and papas can do more, and sometimes our efforts. I know when I had little kids they were more limited than my ability now that most of my kids are older, but if you can help this Christmas or help our kids learn to serve and to give, even if it's little, it'll make a difference. My friends, you are doing so much better than you think you are and you've got this and we will talk next week.