Welcome to “The Horse’s Mouth” with Tom McManus, live from Lynch’s Irish Pub. Sponsored by All Dry Services of SE Jacksonville, The Horse’s Mouth is a unique talk show where Tom’s guests sidle up to his bar to discuss the intersection of sports, business, and life. On today’s show, Tom talks with Todd Marshall of All Dry SE Jacksonville, Lisa Almeida of Freedom Boat Club, John Blanton of Fundacion Estrellita De Belen Corp, and Steven Papas of UF Health – Haley Brain Wellness Program.
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From studio three at buzz TV. It’s the Horse’s Mouth with Tom McManus. All right. Welcome into the horse’s mouth here at Lynch’s Irish Pub in Jacksonville Beach. Brought to our good friends at Aldridge Services of Southeast Jacksonville. If you’ve never been to Lynch’s, I highly recommend it. We’re in the back bar where they have a lot of events up front. Man. It’s rocking. They got music, they got great food, they got great everything here. So make sure you check out Lynch’s Irish Pub when you get a chance. Great show lined up for you this time around. Todd Marshall’s here. Who would have thought it? From all services, he loves hanging out at the bar talking shop, and we love having him. We’ve got some old friends, we got some new friends, and we’re going to have a great time right here at the bar. So let’s welcome in the panel. Lisa Alameda is here from Freedom Boat Club. How are you, Lisa? Great. You’ve been, uh, I remember when you had the first one. How many do you guys have now? Five hundred and thirty five, folks. That’s incredible. It’s so cool. Is it? Do you keep going? Like. Oh, yeah, you do. We got a couple locations, a couple other locations going on right now. So. Yeah, that is so, so cool. What’s the key? Do you have a key? I’m sure you have many keys to success, but what’s the key to the growth? I am just so passionate about what I do. Coding is in my DNA. You know, it just oozes out of me. And I want everyone to get on the water. Not. I mean, I don’t care. Join a boat club, buy a boat, rent a boat, whatever. Get on the beautiful water. Yeah. You were used to a water ski. Like competitively, right? Parents were competitive. They were competitive, I remember that. Yeah. So it’s just such a my passion and the dedication to be the right thing and and and the love for my city. I love Jess, no doubt. And it’s so smart. It’s so smart. Listen, I I’ll never own a boat because I won’t take care of it. Yeah. But what you offer is offers phenomenally. If you bring your stuff, you jump in the boat, you go do your thing, come back, grab your stuff, and off you go. Yeah, we’ve got the Saint Johns River. Yeah, the Intracoastal and the ocean. Yeah. And it’s like it’s an incredible opportunity for people. Do you guys target, like, big lakes, too? Like we like in the one hundred and twenty locations across the. Okay, okay. Well, cool. I just had a member send me a video in front of the, um, opera House in Sydney, Australia. Oh, no kidding. How cool. We have France, Italy, Canada, Puerto Rico. That’s awesome. Lisa. Mind boggling. Cool. Great to have you on the show. Todd Marshall’s back. What’s up, my man? Of course. Yeah, absolutely. So? So our boat is literally in the Marina Julington Creek. Uh, one boat over from where they keep some of their stock there, their fleet. And I’m always envious because these folks come back from partying, and they roll right up, and they get their stuff and they leave. Somebody else cleans the boat, takes care of the maintenance. Yeah. It’s just, I know it’s phenomenal. Normals need to have my head examined. Huh? One hundred and thirty five bulls. That’s awesome. Lots to do. They’re all great business. Just in the short time we’ve been here in six years, we’ve seen it grow. It’s a tremendous organization, even just at Jones and Creek. But. And the others I’ve seen as well. You’re doing a great job. A lot to be. It’s a great business and service for everyone. No doubt about it. All right. Let’s get to John Blanton from Fondation Rita de Berlin. Did I get that right? Close. John. How are you? You are helping children with, uh, with heart issues. Tell us about what you guys you and your wife are doing. So, um, my wife and I have a foundation that we help children with congenital heart defects. Um, my wife is a patient. She was born with one and, uh, got surgery, and she was six months old. Okay. Uh, lived sixty years and decided, you know, a few years back, we wanted to give back. And so we started out helping, uh, with, uh, some volunteers in Venezuela. We were helping kids in Venezuela. Okay. Recently realized that in order for us to keep our foundation moving, we need money. I mean, like, everything. And so start doing outreach here in Jacksonville to try to get funds. People want to help us here in Jacksonville. Okay. Recently got a grant from the city, which is awesome. Congratulations. Heck yeah. That helps us kind of do education advocacy, uh, assistance and everything for kids. You know, Jacksonville. But, you know, we we deal with kids, um, who have no in some cases, no chance of life. Uh, highest mortality rate for children is from heart defects in the world. Yeah, a lot. One out of every one hundred kids have, uh, they’re born, have a heart defect. It’s a crazy stat. And so, you know, we we try to help them do what we can. And good for you helping kids around town. And, you know, it’s an emotional thing, man. It has emotional. We lost some kids along the way. And you know it’s I remember every single one of them. Like they’re our our own guilt. So did is part of the the the organization. Like what do these kids need. Like you need money so they can have surgery to fix the issue or what’s the yeah. What’s the deal. So, I mean, if you understand heart defects, there’s a there’s a range of them, though, from like a heart murmur, which is relatively minor, can be fixed a flutter to like my wife, who was born without a tricuspid valve, requires significant surgery for huge shunts around her heart and all these other things. Yeah. And so those kinds of surgeries we’re not prepared to help with, but we also get kids in touch with other foundations. We get them in touch, like in Venezuela. We we link to other hospitals that can help them get the care that they need. Sometimes they don’t get their surgeries, but they get enough care to keep them around until we can get them to a foundation. Okay. We’ve helped kids go to Barcelona to get surgeries. Okay. Um, there are some organizations here in Jacksonville that help kids come to Jacksonville because, you know, the the UF Shands has one of the best pediatric cardiology groups in the country. Yep, I’ve heard that. So they help a lot of kids there. Uh, we know some doctors there. In fact, my wife is a patient for a while. Okay. There. So, you know, we’re we’re well connected. We have a local area. We’re well connected around the country as well, so we help out a lot of kids and you know, that’s great. And yeah, man, every life we save is a kid who may one day need be. That’s right. Something very special. Yeah. Maybe find a, you know, a way to fix things, you know? Crazy thing is, you know, John Fox, coach John Fox. Yeah. Of course. So you may remember, oh, ten years. He had a coaching the Bronco. Yes. He had to take a game up because I remember I remember he was undetected until he was sixty years old. Wow. And so that’s the kind of things if it’s crazy, there are people out there that have these defects that go on for years, right? I don’t know. I don’t even know it so well. That’s the kind of keep up the great work, man. I always love when people, like you said in my bar, and you’re helping people out there. It’s the best. Rewarding. No doubt. Steven Pappas is back from UF health. How are you from the Haley Brain Wellness program? How are you, brother? I’m doing well, man. What’s the latest? The latest and greatest. Uh, well, we’ve now have one hundred and ninety one veterans of first responders have graduated our free week. intensive outpatient program. We treat better as a first responders with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress. And, uh, we have something special coming up, uh, in the month of November, during the city of Jacksonville’s celebration of valor, uh, the city puts on multiple events. I think it’s over twenty events targeting military veterans and their families. And we are co-hosting UF health is co-hosting a brain health summit, uh, on November fifteenth from nine am to one pm. Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena. And what we realized about one hundred and ninety one graduates we had not a bunch of from Northeast Florida, Duval County said. We really wanted that with, uh, Eisenhower Clinic, Wounded Warrior Project. Okay. In numerous other, um, organizations that help heal the brain. And they can come in for, what, a free screening type thing. Yeah, they come in. Yes they can. We will have, uh, providers there. Okay. But they can learn about the various programs. We’re going to have free panel discussions so they can hear from providers on one panel from patients. Because I was a patient there. Right. I’ll be emceeing it. We have patients that are going to be nice. Nice. Important part is family members are going to be on a panel. And that’s like for me, the my middle daughter saved my life by talking me into getting the help I needed. That’s great. That’s great man. I’m taking a tough time to helping people out out there and there’s so many that need it. Oh, truly. You know, I think of I, I think of my my dad. He’s been gone a long time, but he had to have PTSD. He had to P.O.W. in World War two. Like they, you know, they never diagnosed any of that stuff. You know, there’s a greatest generation. Yeah. But even even first responders, you know, Jeff cop an old Jaguar. He’s a sheriff. He told me he goes, Tommy, you don’t you don’t have any idea the other side of the world. It’s like you can’t even imagine what they see. I was like, man, how do you deal with that? That’s like, how do you. The emotion, you know, like you’re happy. Emotion, which is great. You’re, you’re, you know, but you and you are too. But man, it’s like, how do you how do you manage the emotion. Yeah, they get it on a daily basis. Tom. Actually, I just left an event that the sheriff in Red Glacier put on. The sheriff has created a, an employee wellness for the JSO officers, and they named him in for they need him and we do treat them. I’ve been one hundred and ninety one. Um, we’ve had first responders JSO and JD. John, how do you manage your the emotional all that. But my wife runs the operations of the foundation so she gets a lot more involved with these kids. Yeah. So you’re the face I have to be the well I end up being the guy who has to solve her emotional problems because she’ll come home after work. Oh, I bet you know, a kid passed away, and she’s like, you know. So we had to learn to deal with this quickly because it was inevitability that we were going to have kids passing. Right. It’s it’s one of those things that and I learned this from an old friend of mine. She was a nurse. She worked in a children’s intensive care. She deal with kids who were sexually abused and who were, you know, just all kinds of stuff. Yeah. And she taught this. You you don’t disassociate yourself, but you you care enough to give them the best care that they can give. Yep. And so in that way, if you keep focused on how am I going to make their life as good as I can. Then you kind of just as it always runs out. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You focus on what good can you do as opposed to what is this person going through that’s dragging you down? So yeah, that’s. Well, it’s good for you. Yeah. No doubt. On the entrepreneur side, you know. Yeah. Think about the stuff that you, you want to give to. What I learn a lot about on this show, meeting folks like this is there’s more than you can possibly every time you think about. I like this cause. And this cause I’m really into this cause and what they’re doing. And then you meet somebody like this, and then in the UFL thing, too, and you think, yeah, well, there are so many things. They’re doing so well. Yeah. So many are different. I sometimes still though, I meet all these people and all all these other foundations. I always feel like, see, we’re not worthy. You guys do such great. Whatever. You’re very worthy because now you’re all worried. You can’t. I’ll tell you this as we wrap up. I’ve been here thirty years. I go to, I don’t know, a few, you know, charity events a year. Sometimes I’m. I’m seeing or whatever. It’s always well attended. I don’t care what the cause is. It doesn’t matter. Jacksonville always shows up for its people. And that’s what makes it special. It really does. And our. Shout out, shout it out. Our annual gala here on the first of November. Okay. We still have tickets available. You can go to our website heart.org. Okay. And get get your tickets. But yeah, we we have our gala once a year. It’s our big kill. Gala is always a way for people with money to kind of show off, but it goes to a good cause, right? Let him go off. I always make a lot of our money and make it rain. Yeah. So good. Good time. We’re we’re at the Jacksonville Country Club. Okay. So good food, good music. You know, Latins know how to party. That’s right. And know how to dance and party, that’s for sure. Dancing, John. Best of luck with that. All right. All right guys, thanks so much for being here. Go Jags huh yeah. Keep it going. No doubt about it. All right. That’ll do it for us this time around. Make sure you check out their profiles this conversation and I can’t say millions yet because we’re not there but thousands and thousands and thousands all at the Daily News Network dot com website. Till next time, y’all stay safe. Y’all be cool out there. We’ll see you right here on the horse’s mouth. At all Dry Services, we’re not just here to clean up water. 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