Creating a Non-Profit: From Corporate Life to Global Nonprofit Founder with author Alicia Demetropolis | Ep #168

Second Act Success Career Podcast
Season 1 - Creating a Non-Profit - From Corporate Life to Global Nonprofit Founder with author Alicia Demetropolis | Ep #168
Episode - #168
Host: Shannon Russell
Guest: Alicia Demetropolis
Transcription (*created by Descript and may not be perfectly accurate)

[00:00:00] Speaker 4: Are you ready to quit your nine to five job and start a business of your own? Well, you're in the right place, my friend. Welcome to the Second Act Success Career Podcast. I am your host, Shannon Russell. I am a former television producer turned business owner, career transition coach, and boy mom. My mission is to help you produce your best life.

This podcast will teach you how to get from where you are now to where you want to be and how to build a business that fits your life and lights you up. Let's get started.

Hello, and welcome back to Second Act Success. I'm your host. Shannon Russell.

Have you ever daydreamed about leaving your job and starting a non-profit volunteering as much as you can and giving back to your community. Well, my guest today did just that Alicia Demetropolis. This is the author of the book Drowning in Now: A Search for God and Humanity at the top of the W orld,

which documents her [00:01:00] three month odyssey in Nepal and the struggle she encountered there, all of which led her to form her nonprofit. The Global Humanity Initiative. Her nonprofits primary focus is to help rescue homeless and abandoned elders from the streets of Nepal and Guatemala. She and her team worked to give these elders a new family is safe place to live. And unconditional love for the rest of their lives. Alicia will let us in on how she decided to leave her corporate successful career and venture down this new path in the nonprofit world and how she is truly making a difference. let's get into it. This is Alicia Demetropolis.

Okay.

[00:01:42] Speaker: Alicia Demetropolis, thank you so much for being here on Second Act Success. Whoa, what a story you have. I'm so excited to dive into it.

It's really nice to be here. It's really nice to finally see you after, you know, our, our introduction. 4. 45 in the morning in Kathmandu, Nepal.

[00:01:59] Alicia: [00:02:00] Um, thank you. It's good to be here. Well,

[00:02:03] Speaker: let's talk about that. So we were introduced by, , a friend, Kim Benoy, who I was on her podcast. She was on mine, I think you were on hers. So she was like, oh, Shannon, you have to have Alicia over on your show to share her story. So let's get into it. Where did your crazy career begin?

[00:02:22] Speaker 3: So my father worked for Eastman Kodak for 37 years and I grew up, I'm the youngest of three girls and our parents really, really emphasized my mom, especially my daughters are going to have a career because we grew up in the era where women didn't have careers. So they really pushed education and they pushed a career and I went the way I thought I was supposed to.

I worked for most of my 30 plus year career. I worked for a big major global corporations like fortune 500 companies. And, that's what I thought I was supposed to do. And I got a [00:03:00] master's degree in international business and finance because it interested me.

There were some things going on in my life where it, it made sense to pack it all up and leave and I did. I, I packed it all up. I quit the corporate world. I remember telling one of my coworkers. If I ever, ever talk about going back to work in the corporate world, I want you to remind me of this story because there's something happened in the last month.

[00:03:31] Speaker 3: I gave 1 month's notice and then I was going to pack and move out here to the Olympic Peninsula. And he's reminded me of that once when I said, you know, sometimes I really miss the corporate buzz. He goes, no, and he reminded me of the story. I told him, the area that I worked in was global corporate recruiting in a division of HR most of the recruiters had a moral compass.

And we were the few people in the company that had a moral [00:04:00] compass. And I got tired of being thrown under the bus and I packed up. I left the corporate world. I came out to the Seattle area. at the time. I was a competitive bodybuilder.

And a certified medical exercise specialist and I worked with people who had injuries or who had diseases or who were recovering from something that was my specialty and I moved out to the Seattle area and started my own practice and went to work at gyms and then I became a nurse's aide.

when to work with people who are moving on to the next adventure end of life care, basically. So I was just kind of doing all this stuff and keeping an eye on corporate world when it didn't discuss me and I always have this. Urge to go to Nepal. it was a very irrational urge, I ended up finally getting a chance to go in 2017, [00:05:00] and I volunteered with a Nepali NGO that said they had an elder care program.

We say a lot of things to get other people's money. I discovered that we have this impression of other countries, and especially third world countries and old world countries. And we think that they're taking care of their elders and their, their children.

You know, they're living in the home with them and the, and the parents are being taken care of, and it's just one big happy family. And what I found when I got to Nepal is that the elders were being put out in the streets by their own children. They were being abandoned by their children when they left the country.

and no one wanted to admit it was happening. to this day, to my trip last year, not my trip this year, because I've learned to keep my mouth shut. The officials will tell me there are no, there are no old people living in the streets. No, there aren't. Yeah, there are. No, there aren't. and so in 2017, having taking this winding path through the corporate world, getting my master's degree in international business [00:06:00] and finance.

doing work with people who are dying. I ended up forming a nonprofit

[00:06:07] Speaker: the Global Humanity Initiative.

[00:06:10] Speaker 3: our mission is to improve the lives of homeless and abandoned elders through food and housing support. And that's the simple fortune cookie. Response. The reality, Shannon, is we help to rescue these abandoned elders in Nepal and Guatemala and we take them to one of the elder care homes.

We support. We give them a new family. They're a safe place to live and unconditional love. And we support those elder care homes as long as they. Provide our standards of care. We have 1 in Guatemala and 1 in Nepal. As long as they provide our standards of care, they will always have our support. And if that means coming out of my own personal pocket someday, so be it.

So, when we talk about reinventing ourselves, I don't know if I could say I reinvented myself. I think I just took everything that I had been doing. All along and [00:07:00] put the little pieces together into, okay. Yeah. A new shape. So That's the really weird, long winding story of how I got here.

[00:07:10] Speaker: what you just said about you taking those pieces, it was there all along and you took all those pieces and put it together because even when you worked in corporate for 30 years, you were working in HR, Helping people having that moral compass and and I'm all about finding that thread because I really do believe there's a thread that connects our whole life together and you found that when you decided to get into bodybuilding and Work on your health and then started helping at assisted living and end of life care so inspirational What was that trigger, I guess, that made you say, I am going to form a non profit, and I'm going to set up these locations in Guatemala and Nepal that will truly do the work that it says it's going to do?

So when

[00:07:55] Speaker 3: I went to Nepal, I was put in an elder care home that didn't really [00:08:00] qualify as an elder care home. It was a toxic environment. it was just a really bad situation. And it became apparent to me really early on that the nonprofit or the NGO I was working with simply didn't have any other place for me.

But during the course of that first month,

We had a 15 day holiday called Dushane, which is the holiest two weeks and in Hinduism. And during those two weeks, I got on a bus packed with a bunch of Nepali women. I mean, sitting everywhere. They're sitting everything you imagine in Asia, they're sitting next to the driver on the hump in the front, all over the place.

We're all, we're just packed in this bus. we went to this, temple dedicated to the goddess Kali. Dr. Kali happens to be in Farping, Kathmandu, right outside the city. And on the way back, we passed this banner on the street that said Senior Citizen Nursing Care Home, [00:09:00] Farping. And I'd been thinking the entire month.

I'm going to have to find another place to go because these guys don't have another place for me. I'm going to have to make my own way here. I can't rely on them. And I had to wait until Dashain ended. I committed to the end of Dashain because everything shuts down. So that was the end of the total of one month that I would be staying there.

during that month, I was emailing different places in English and saying, this is who I am. This is why I'm here. This is how long I'm here. I'm here for a total of three months. And this is what I do. Do you need my help? the only place that responded was the young man who responded in English from the senior citizen nursing care home in Furman.

And so when I had my meeting with the NGO, I said, look, this, these are the places I found. This man has responded and said, he needs my help. So. Yeah. If you want me to stay with you, you've got to make these arrangements and we worked [00:10:00] out a deal that came out really well. But that's how I started in farping.

And while I was there, I met with the young man who's running the place and I made a comment about the roof in the dormitory. And it's rotting and there are pigeons living in it there's mold everywhere. It was, it's just, it's an all natural country. So things rot. And I said,

I can help you find funding if you need to build a new roof. And he says, And I'll never forget this. No, Didi, which is the Nepali word for sister. we really need a new roof. We really need a new wash facility. Because the one that we have was damaged in the earthquake and it could fall over any day.

so Shannon,

this is the facility that had two rooms. It had one with a, with a shower wand and hot running water during the summer. And a little kind of pseudo semi automatic washing machine that I used from time to time. And then the other side had the [00:11:00] pan toilet, which is a hole in the ground with cement we use it every day, all day, every day. The, the old people are in and out going to the bathroom in and out. And I'm in there and they go in and they wash up and I go in and I wash up and, and I do laundry. And then I stopped after he said this, and I got back to the elder care home after meeting with them.

And I took a really good look at this facility and it's like this. And on top of that, the way the water systems work in Nepal is on the roof and I'm talking 15, 000 gallon water reservoir. They're the size, almost the size of a grand piano. They're just Massive.

That's on the roof of this building. That's leaning. He was telling me, you know, we really need to build a new one. And I have the, I have the drawings and I have the estimate. I'm like, okay, well, you know, can't be that much.

And before I left for Nepal, when I was just packing everything up and going to Nepal for three months, Friends and family just started sending me money to [00:12:00] support me, just to pay, help pay for the trip, help pay for my bills while I was gone, just out of a gesture of goodwill. And when I looked at the estimate to build the new facility, it was within 5 of the amount of money I had collected, and I'm sitting there staring at this, and I hear this voice that says, the money was never yours.

[00:12:22] Speaker 3: I'm like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm going to be broke by the time I know I had to rebook the second leg of my plane flights. All this has gone wrong. No, no, this is no. And I just kept hearing this voice. The money was never yours. The money was never yours. So a few weeks later, I transferred the money to myself.

In Nepal and the Western Union wire transfer fee was 4 and 99 cents. Wow. Meant to be. And I donated the money to rebuild the wash facility and it came out beautiful. By the way, you don't even, it's [00:13:00] unbelievable. and I remember being in a car with. A nurse I knew and she thought my nonprofit was donating this money and I said, no, I don't, I don't have a nonprofit.

This is my money. And she says, well, then you should have a nonprofit. I'm like, well, okay. And it just dawned on me. could do this. it wasn't going to be easy, but I had nothing to go back to. The gym I was working at closed. I had no job. I had nothing. And I really didn't have a choice, Shannon. It was like all the signs in the universe were telling me, Oh, guess what you're going to do now?

So that's how we started in farping. And then during the pandemic, I wanted to expand. My board members had a lot to say about that when I told them that I wanted to expand. because it just felt like the right time. I am, I have a different business mindset. When there's a crisis, a lot of other businesses contract.

And sometimes that's the perfect time to expand. If you know what you're doing from a business standpoint. So I found this elder [00:14:00] care home in Escapulas, Guatemala. It's run by four nuns. It's run by the Congregation of Martha and Mary, so hey, trustworthy, they don't take a salary, they take really good care of them.

so now we're in two locations. One end to the other, Asia, Latin America, Central America.

[00:14:18] Speaker: These little decisions you made led you to now helping people so much in two different countries and you're running a nonprofit and. I just want to know how was setting that up? Because I think a lot of my listeners are trying to figure out their second act and what they can do.

And it's always every, well, a lot of people's dreams to volunteer full time and do that, but then how do you pay yourself and all that? How did you take that leap into it? And what was the process like in starting a nonprofit?

[00:14:50] Speaker 3: Starting a nonprofit can be surprisingly easy. Growing it from ground zero is excruciating. I'll have the luxury [00:15:00] of having one of my older sisters specialize in nonprofit accounting and finance. She works like, the multimillion dollar nonprofits, the really big ones. But it was, it was really awful on me.

I mean, she answered a few questions for me, but if this was going to be my nonprofit, I knew she didn't have to tell me. I knew I had to do the work. the Internet and if you're opening a non profit, the IRS is your friend. They have a whole lot of information.

it can be very confusing, but if you just read the fine print in each of these forms, you figure out you're not just a 501c3, you're also under a separate division that clearly spells out what kind of non profit you are. So you have to find that and it's a big decision because once you put it in writing, it feels like that's it.

You can never turn around and go back. It's not true. I filled everything out. I submitted on my forms. I had [00:16:00] heard horror stories about people that waited 3, 4, 5 months. sometimes eight months or a year. my approval from the IRS came back in 30 days. Wow. And I texted my sister and she said, it's a sign.

I'm like, Oh, geez. All right. Now I'm really in it. Yeah, you are. It's official. Now I'm really

[00:16:21] Speaker: in it.

I just figured I could start this nonprofit, and I knew I wanted to provide housing and food support.

[00:16:27] Speaker 3: And the one bit of advice I can give to anybody who's thinking about Second Act. And thinking about a nonprofit sit down and decide what's important to you and what you're passionate about and stick to it. in the beginning, our mission also included funding girls education and supporting impoverished children.

I did that to try and make. Other people happy when I talked to them about starting a nonprofit. And it really was in the back of my mind, a cash grab that I could get more [00:17:00] donors if I did this. But the reality was it isn't what we wanted, what I wanted. And my board was very clear. What do you want?

So finally, after a year, I sat with my board and I said, I only want to work with elders. I don't, I don't want to do any of this with kids. Everybody's working with kids. There's a lot of work to be done. They're great people that all these nonprofits that are working with children and children's education and women's empowerment.

It's great. No one's working with the elders. No one's working with these people who are being told, I can't afford to feed you anymore. And they're 90 years old. they're being kicked out of their own home. No one's taking care of these people who are left in their own homes when their children's move out of the country.

In Guatemala, they just leave their parents at the hospital abandon them in their own home. no one's sticking to just food and housing for these people. So a year in I made the pivot to focus only on us. That wasn't very hard. so that's my advice. [00:18:00] But from there, you've got to be prepared to do the work.

You've got to be prepared to go out, ask for help. You've got to be prepared to stay at it, week after week, month after month. And believe in what you're doing because if you don't believe in what you're doing, no one else is going to trust you.

[00:18:15] Speaker: I love that advice.

Well, I think that's great. I love that you stuck to your guns and you niche down into what you really believed in. Cause you're right. These stories you're telling about these elders as Heartbreaking and something that I had never known existed. So I think you bringing awareness to it is incredible.

And now you have these investors. You have your board. You have this nonprofit. How often are you visiting the facilities? Are you back and forth to Nepal and Guatemala quite often now?

[00:18:45] Speaker 3: So, thanks to the pandemic, I didn't go for a few years. I was originally there in 2017. I gave them the money to rebuild the facility.

I went back in January of 2019, visited, [00:19:00] saw the new building was shocked. Mm hmm. Visited again in October of 2019, and that's when the light bulb went off in my head for the sustainable food program, and then last year, 2023. I was there for 2 months. and then I went again this year.

\ I've gotten to go to Guatemala. I was supposed to go last year, but,

I'm on my way to the airport and the text messages started to come in on. What's up? And they said, you can't come. It's not safe. There were riots. There were. Police actions. There was blockades. There were tons of peaceful protesters. The president of Guatemala had decided he didn't want to leave office and he was going to stay.

And so the people of Guatemala said, no, no, no, we got to vote on this. you're leaving. So I had to cancel my, my plans at the very last minute, last year finally got a chance to go this year. Also with any business in any [00:20:00] nonprofit, you're not just looking at donations. You're not just looking at can I get grants?

You have to look at other ways to honestly generate revenue. , and in 2019, I was in Chicago. And I went to Kris Kindle Market, which is this huge Christmas market, bazaar And there was a guy there selling goods from Nepal.

I walked up and I said, how much for that bell? And he said, 48. I went, the equivalent of like 3 and 50 cents. And he's charging 48, and he can do that.

So last year, I went to Nepal, bought a bunch of stuff, packed it in a really big suitcase, overweight, carried it home, sold it, all the money went right back into the eldercare homes. Went to Guatemala, bought another big ugly suitcase, packed it full of stuff, overweight, brought it home.

So that's what I do also when I'm there. I'm buying goods from specialty organizations, organizations that [00:21:00] employ disabled people or women's cooperatives. You know, if I know it's fair trade, if I can see who's making it. And I can see who you are 95 percent of the time I'm going to buy it, but the bells, you know, they're mass produced.

Um, and I'm not selling my bells for 48, by the way, I'm selling them for a lot less and I still make plenty of money. that's, that's another thing that I do when I'm there is I support these. These very worthy local organizations and bring everything home, sell it, and everybody knows that absolutely 100 percent of those proceeds goes right back into one of our elder care homes.

Any of the administrative fees are handled either through donations or they just come out of my pocket because that's not the way to run a business, but that's how I'm doing it right now. and again, if we're talking nonprofit, some people understand the concept behind I'm going to give you money, and I know this is what you're going to do with [00:22:00] it, and I trust you.

There are people, they just don't donate. They're just not donors. However, lots of them would love to buy a 30 bell, knowing that all of that money is going right back into the elder care home, or they'll buy a cashmere shawl all the proceeds are going back into the elder care homes.

, there are two different ways to reach the same ending and you're showing possible grantees that you have alternatives. You can raise revenue in different ways.

[00:22:37] Speaker: You are so scrappy, Alicia.

Like just figuring that out you're getting to that same end result. You're bringing money in and you're bringing money in to help these people in these eldercare homes. And that's the end goal. So you're reaching it.

I want to talk about your book because this book is really incredible. Drowning in Now, A Search for God and Humanity at the Top of the World. Tell me about this book and [00:23:00] what it was like to write about your experience in Nepal.

[00:23:03] Speaker 3: I spent the first eight months after I got back, I just basically. Downloaded everything from my brain, put everything into a big Word document, all the emails, all the journal entries.

I went back through all the photos to, you know, match up descriptions, make sure I was remembering everything and I just put it all in one big document. And the reason I did this because before I left, I was talking to a friend of mine. another amazing woman. she helps people write their memoirs.

And she said, well, you're keeping a journal while you're gone. And I said, yeah, probably. And she goes, well, let's publish your memoirs when you get back. And I just started laughing when she didn't, I'm like, oh, Ronnie, oh, you're serious. And she said, yeah, I'm serious. I said, you, you really think I'm going to have something to say?

[00:23:53] Speaker 3: She goes, I believe in the message. That you will bring back. so I've downloaded everything. I spent eight months just putting everything [00:24:00] together and I got done. It was 500 pages, single spaced in my Microsoft Word. It was over 500. And of course, you know, I'm a writer.

And everything that happened was important to me. , I wanted this book to be about everything. and looking back, it really is a no brainer. It really was supposed to be about why I was there to begin with. And that first moment I sat with that homeless man and what I experienced as a tourist.

On the street from other Nepalese because I was sitting there talking to a homeless man who clearly wasn't Nepali. Maybe he was from India. I don't know. I don't care.

[00:24:38] Speaker: But

[00:24:38] Speaker 3: what I experienced and the hostility I experienced, it was supposed to be a book about what's really happening there. so now I'm pleased to say the book is 82, 000 words.

Only so don't be scared. but you know, you, you write something and I had an editor and she was coaching me as, as we went through the process [00:25:00] and you think it's good. You think it's an okay book by the time you're, you're done getting to the end of the writing process. You're kind of sick of it. But it turns out it's okay. I'm getting good reviews. People actually like it. And it makes me feel good because I want people to know what's going on. And I also want them to know, just be nice. Just be kind. We're one human race. Really. I mean, why spit on the homeless person in the street? That could be you.

You know how many people in this country are living paycheck to paycheck. They lose their job. They have one medical crisis. They're on the street with them. Just be kind.

[00:25:38] Speaker: Well, I think that's amazing. I don't know how you got it down to 85, 000 words. I am in copy edits for my book right now and mine's only 55, 000 words.

So just the fact that you went, I'm very impressed. and I love that you're getting good reception from the book. Are you, thinking about writing more? [00:26:00] Because you have so many stories. What are your thoughts for your next

[00:26:03] Speaker 3: part of your journey?

First of all, the book is available at Amazon or in your local bookstore. I'm really big on supporting my local bookstore, Pacific Mist Books here in Squim. If you come to Squim, Washington, please visit. So please shop local. If you really want to buy the book, please go to your local bookstore, have her order it.

She can. It's available through Ingram. so I. Cut out a lot of sections on these experiences I had with dogs, which sounds weird, but the people who have read those stories about all these experiences I had with dogs there and everything going on, they were disappointed that it got cut out of the original.

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking I need to do something with all of that. However, I think my next, oh God, I can't believe I'm saying this out loud. Say it.

[00:26:54] Speaker 3: I think I'm supposed to spend three months in Saudi Arabia. Really? [00:27:00] Yeah, I feel like there is business there I need to close out. And the next book would be from that.

[00:27:07] Speaker: Okay.

[00:27:08] Speaker 3: Um, That's going to be huge in terms of spiritual growth and emotional growth for me.

if I swing it, that will be huge.

[00:27:19] Speaker: Would you think of opening another? Elder care center or helping an elder care center there in Saudi Arabia. Is that one of your goals or just to explore and have that growth?

[00:27:29] Speaker 3: have that growth.

you know, we're in a Hindu country and we're in a Catholic country, and I'd love to be in a Muslim country. but my target is third world countries.

[00:27:39] Speaker: Yeah.

[00:27:39] Speaker 3: So Saudi Arabia isn't quite on the list, whereas Croatia wouldn't qualify. That's true. Um, my ultimate goal for the nonprofit, I look at the UN statistics and I look at how the population is aging and the sheer volume, I think it's 125 million people will be over the age of 85 [00:28:00] in 26 years.

I have forgotten my numbers and most of them are going to be in third world countries. Yeah. Yeah. My ultimate goal for this is to go into these countries that have been hard hit by man made or natural disasters, either they're still recovering from a civil war. Guatemala is still recovering from their 36 year civil war, which the U.

S. So I either civil war or a tsunami or an earthquake, I want to be able to go in there when it's safe and find these homeless elders. Do they have family? Do you are due diligence? Do they have family? Are they living someplace? Is someone looking for them? If not, let's get them to a place of safety.

Let's build a home, take over a home, find people who can staff it, and Set them up with a sustainable food program to cut their their food expenses and support them. And that's my big, big goal that I hope to achieve [00:29:00] in the next three years, five years, three years.

[00:29:04] Speaker: I love that.

It's the Global Humanity Initiative. I'm going to link to everything in the show notes. , it's such important work you're doing. I'd love to wrap up the conversation just by asking you, what is one piece of advice that you would give to someone who, maybe it's nonprofit, maybe it's starting another type of business.

Just. Someone who wants to start a second act. They want to leave their corporate job and do something that they're passionate about. What is some advice that you would give that person? Best

[00:29:32] Speaker 3: advice I can give someone is advice that I read in a dear Abby column years ago. And it's something I tell myself.

She answered a letter from a woman who wanted to go back to school. And she was being encouraged to go back to school. And she said, but Abby, in four years, when I graduate school, I'll be 58. And Abby's response was. And how old will you be in four years if you don't go [00:30:00] back to school?

it's so easy to say, I'm too old. Okay, fine. You think you're too old. Do it anyway. There's a certain amount of wisdom that we get to. We get to share that with other people. You've got all this experience behind you. You just feel like you're too old because you're focusing on the number.

You're But you've got this experience and you've got this wisdom have faith in yourself as hard as it is. Have faith in yourself. And okay, one last piece of advice. I know you only said one, one last piece of advice. When you start to question yourself, when you start to get imposter syndrome, because a lot of us do have imposter syndrome, I remind myself of what other people say.

I remind myself of how other people view my work. I go back and I read all my feel good emails and open up the little cards that come with the checks. Some people still send old fashioned checks and I remind myself that [00:31:00] other people see the good that I'm doing. ride that high for a little while until you get your bearings.

But so what if you think you're too old? No one cares. Some of the most successful men started their business when they were in their fifties and sixties. Why are we different? We're not Just go out there, put the pieces together, share your wisdom, you'll get there.

[00:31:25] Speaker: Like you said, or like Dear Abby said, you're going to be that age no matter what, and why not be doing something that you're passionate about, that you're making a difference at that age.

And, I always like to say, on every birthday, we're so blessed to be that year older. Because think of the women in our lives who have passed at a younger age. I had an aunt who passed away at 35. Just wrecked our family. And I think about that, like, wow, I am several years older than that now. And how blessed am I every year?

So instead of being like, Oh, I'm too old for this. [00:32:00] There are other people who haven't had the opportunity to live at this age and do things. So we owe it to them. To make the most of the ages that we are and continue to be

[00:32:11] Speaker 3: absolutely. And there's so much more life to live if you think you're too old to start a second act.

Okay. Go out and buy yourself a coffin. Just go start planning for it now because you've got a good 40 years left. Yeah. 35, 40 years left. Imagine the good you could do in that time. The adventures. Oh my God. The adventures.

[00:32:31] Speaker: Look at what you are experiencing and the lives of the people you're touching.

I'm sure that some of the locals in Nepal and Guatemala are crying their eyes out when you leave because you're not there. Right? I love my family. like my family in Nepal. I bet. And you're just bringing so much love and positivity and, just giving them what they need it's just so much good.

And I'm so honored to have you on here to share your story and to get to know [00:33:00] you and really all of your amazing work. So I will be sharing everything and I encourage Anyone who's listening to Donate, I'm excited to go and check out the Global Humanity Initiative's website myself. I really just am very proud to know you and for all the work you're doing.

[00:33:15] Speaker 3: Thank you.

[00:33:16] Speaker: Well, thank you so much. , I'm just excited to see what you do next.

[00:33:19] Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us. I hope you found some gems of inspiration and some takeaways to help you on your path to Second Act Success. To view show notes from this episode, visit secondactsuccess.co. Before you go, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a single episode. Reviews only take a few moments and they really do mean so much.

Thank you again for listening. I'm Shannon Russell and this is Second Act Success.