Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Karen, maybe when you go to edit, you can come up with some sound effect that, like, says that it's an emergency pod. Like a very special situation that we decided we had to get on and talk about something going on. And I'm sure there's. Maybe it's an opportunity to even expand your editing skills to sound effects. Maybe for this, the sound effect should be. Because, you know, they have that type of sound effect, which is the turning of a wrench.
Like when somebody's fixing something, there is such a sound effect.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: All right, I'll see what I can find.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: We can look into that later. The reason that we might think that a sound effect is relevant. Why don't you tell her?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: What about a car honking, given what we're about to talk about, like a beep beep thematic, because that's our theme today.
So we are doing a quick little emergency episode here because we want to talk about an issue that came to our attention recently. And while we have sort of a microcosm event occurring in our caregiver world, it's probably truly an example of what the bigger picture is. So let's go back to Latrice, our lovely caregiver. She's been on the pod twice. We know that latrice is a 10.0 human who really is committed to caring for our aging loved ones. And she does a beautiful job in caring for our mom and friends, moms and other people that she's been taking care of forever.
But like probably a lot of people in that caregiver world, she lives paycheck to paycheck. And in addition to taking care of her mom, she has a job at the Coney island restaurant and a real hustle. And I noticed this hustle from all of our caregivers. They're going from this to this to this to this, because that's how they make their living.
And yet they face struggles that. If you or I were facing these struggles, we might have people who could help us out. So the biggest struggle Latrice is currently facing is a massive struggle, especially in the metro Detroit community, and that is that she does not have reliable transportation, and we don't live in a public transportation area. We live in a place where if you do not have a car, you can't get anywhere.
And I don't know the exact history behind what happened to Latrice's car. She had an old car that had a lot of issues, and it's been basically in repair for months. And she'll get it back and it'll work for a minute and then it doesn't work. She's throwing a lot of good money after bad trying to fix this car. But in order for her to get to work, she's taking Ubers or she's asking people to drive her.
And Uber back and forth to her home will eat up most of what she's making during the time she's working for us for a certain shift. And it's also not a reasonable way for someone to be getting around. And in addition, I have plenty of people who want to hire Latrice to care for their loved one, but also to take that loved one to appointments, whether it's doctor's appointments or activities. And she can't do any of that because she doesn't have reliable transportation.
And so I decided that I was going to take this issue on, see what I could do. So I started a GoFundMe campaign. I'm going to put the link in our notes for this show.
And I put it out there Monday, Monday night.
And between Monday night and this morning, which is Wednesday morning, we had a lot of traction. We raised almost $1,500.
And that's a beautiful start.
But that's not enough to put Latrice in a reasonable used vehicle.
And so I'm at a loss. I'm stumped. What now? And we're focused on Latrice and what we can do to help her and our immediate needs. But it led me to think about the bigger picture of people who do the yeoman's work of caring for our loved ones and also needing some help and care of their own.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Well, and it got got me thinking that, you know, at first, when I started down this senior care road, one of the first things I did was do a little senior care ride business just to kind of get to know the senior community and help out and understand what the needs were. And there are a lot of seniors out there who can't drive anymore, but they haven't gotten rid of their car, need help going to places and have yet to find a good place where all of these people can get together, where there's some type of gig economy exchange between seniors who need help, seniors who have cars that could lease it out or at least allow their caregiver who cares for them to drive it around for them.
And maybe beyond the actual moments when they're caring for them, and is that something that's out there that somebody has available that we could also tap into for this specific situation? With Latrice. But maybe we start a little community that gives that a try and sees if there's this community gathering that can happen that simply helps distribute transportation needs across these independent contractors who, a lot of them, the definition of independent contractors, they're their own employee. They don't work for a big agency, which is beneficial in the sense that they get to make a little bit more money because they don't have the cut that the agency takes. But they're also in charge of their own benefits, in charge of their own transportation. And these things are difficult. If, like, if someone like the trees has a big electrical problem with her car, which she has, all of a sudden, it can be thousands of dollars. And then what do you do? And then you have to decide, do I want to try to find the money to pay for that and to keep this car going a little bit long?
I, you know, is hopefully is less than getting into whole new used car situation, or do I cut my losses? And this is the struggle that she's been. She's been dealing with. And we're just trying to find a way to help her out. So we thought we'd come on and bring this issue up, see if anybody wants to obviously contribute to the GoFundMe. But that would be great. But also if you have any leads as to where we can. Because even if there is the money, at least that gets her going for a little bit, we gotta find a car. And we would love it to be within the network or the community or in a situation where it can also help somebody else that she takes that car and starts using it and starts delivering services. Someone. So that's the goal here.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And think about. There have gotta be so many seniors out there who have a car sitting in their garage. They're not using it. They shouldn't be using it. They shouldn't be driving anymore. And then we have the other side of this coin, which is we have people who are taking care of those seniors and.
And they could use that car. Or maybe there are people in the community who have access to car dealers or used cars that are reliable. But I feel like we are recognizing the struggles of. Yes, as you say, these independent contractors, that there is a whole community of people who are working really hard to make our lives better, and in many ways our lives easier. I mean, if I were fully in charge of mom's care, I wouldn't have a life of my own. I would really be struggling. It would be really hard. And so to find caregivers who are compassionate and generous with their hearts and their spirit and reliable. I mean, listen, Latrice could have just said, yeah, sorry, I can't come to work. I don't have a car.
But the fact that she's hustling to get to and from our job and other jobs so that she doesn't disappoint the people who are relying on her, that's a really big deal. She can't be alone in this. There have to be so many people who are in the same situation. And it really leads me to look at our community and the people who are really working hard, paycheck to paycheck. And then one setback, a car, a big setback, changes the trajectory for them. Latrice should be working full time. Listen, I love that she works at the Coney. She brings mom tortilla soup that mom loves so much. But she shouldn't be working at the Coney. She should be going from home to home to home, caring for people. And I know that she could be doing that 40 hours a week if she wanted to. But without transportation, reliable transportation, that's not going to happen.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: All right, so let's keep this short and sweet. You guys have heard the call. We'd love to hear from you. Please reach out at all the various ways you can reach out. Ifitsnot1mail.com is the easiest. We're going to end the notes, put a link to the GoFundMe page. We're also going to put a link to the previous episode that we had Latrice on. Thank you so much for listening and hope we can get somewhere with this.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Yep, we appreciate it. And by the way, I just want to give a shout out to everybody who has helped us so far. I cannot get over the warmth and generosity of our own community, our social media network. Who are the people who have Contributed to the GoFundMe so far? We're incredibly grateful for everyone's compassion, and we need more. So keep it up.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Indeed. All right, folks, we'll talk to you soon.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Instead of ending today with a song from mom, we are going to end with some clips that we recorded from Latrice when we interviewed her for the pod early on.
And here you can understand some of the incredible gifts that she has as a caregiver.
Please enjoy.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: So the first week, I was like, oh, I love this.
The residents loved me, and that's how I got into caregiving. 19 years old, and I've been doing it ever since. I have came across so many great families. I've came across so many great people as a whole. But when you work in this field, I tell people you have to have a calm, loving her because you won't make it far doing this if you don't.
You have to have a calm, loving heart. You have to. One day I really want to venture off and take a leap on faith and just do this full time, though.
And.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Well, you should because you work for yourself.
[00:10:42] Speaker C: I do.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: And that must feel pretty good. It does, but also scary. You don't know where your next.
[00:10:47] Speaker C: I don't know where my next person is coming from. And I mean, I really like meeting people, like families that recommend me. Of course.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Right. But that must happen all the time.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: It does. And that's how I got a lot of my families from recommendation, you know, so hopefully one day I won't have to wake up and go to the con anymore.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: I think that that day has probably arrived for you.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: They will be because they love me too. But.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I want to. What a curse that everyone.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: I want to eventually just take care of my little cute ladies and men
[00:11:31] Speaker B: for the rest of my life.
