It's too easy to say no today. So, we really are about trying to encourage and move people towards finding a way to say yes. Thinking about your why. [music] How can I help others? Like whatever it is, your life will seriously start to change through and through. He was just a good person and he treated everybody with kindness [music] and respect and was who he said he was.
You You're all about why. How do people tell the why and how do you keep legacy alive? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get In, the show focused on the Hooser State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. This episode is brought to you [music] by Cluster Truck, the pickup and delivery kitchen, born right here in Indianapolis, just like this podcast. Let's [music] start with the best part.
Use code get in at checkout for $5 off orders of $25 or more. Cluster Truck delivers when hunger [music] strikes. Late night cravings covered. Family dinner, easy. Office lunch, of course. From handstretched pizza and house-made [music] mac and cheese to fresh tacos, salads, the menu runs deep and everyone finds something they're craving.
[music] Plus, they have four locations in Indianapolis serving everywhere from Fountain Square to Westfield. Order now at clusterruck. com. [music] And who knows, your food might even show up before this episode ends. And let's truck on into the episode. My guest today is [music] Chrissy Edgington and she is a Butler University graduate, brand strategist, cause marketer, and the president of Indianapolis based My Y Marketing.
Chrissy is also the co-founder of Project 44, an incredible organization honoring the life of Andrew Smith. They're also helping build awareness to help all patients needing a life-saving cure, helping them find an available match on the registry. 10 years after Andrew Smith's passing, Project 44 is using basketball partnerships, storytelling, and one simple cheek swab to build awareness for the NMDP bone marrow and blood stem cell registry, and give more patients a fighting chance at finding a match. Today, we're going to be talking about the life and legacy of Andrew Smith and Project 44, the amazing things y'all are doing, and your 10year anniversary. Welcome to the show. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. I'm I'm just going to give the warning. I'm I'm just feeling that this might be uh an emotional ride that we're about to go on here and I'm all locked in for it. All right, let's do it. Yeah, there's been a lot of emotions over 10 years, I'm sure. Uh where does this story really start when it comes to Project 44 and Butler basketball?
So, Andrew Smith was a member of Butler's back-to-back final four teams, 2010, 2011. And um you know, his nickname on the court was Moose. He was number 44. are this gentle giant, this huge presence of just kind of um you know solid energy constantly. Um and he really was an integral member of those teams. when he graduated um that later that year moved overseas to play professionally in Lithuania and he discovered a lump on his neck um about 6 months after moving there.
And long story short, ultimately it ended up being um leukemia. And so when he and Samantha came back to the states for treatment um the two of them pretty immediately started their advocacy work for the bone marrow registry. And part of that was that obviously Andrew needed a match. Um, but Andrew is a white Caucasian male of European descent and the registry is really strong in that demographic. But their doctor told them at the time if it were Samantha needing a match who's half Thai, half quarter Irish, um quarter German, she'd almost definitely die waiting because the registry simply doesn't reflect diversity in ethnic makeup, which is a critical component to bone marrow transplant, blood stem cell transplant. Unlike other types of transplant would come down to blood type.
For example, this is based on ethnic diversity and makeup called a HLA marker. And can your family Yeah. So about 30% of the time a patient has a family member who's able to donate and be a match, which is great, but that also means that 70% of patients have to rely on the generosity of a stranger. Well, that's really interesting. I guess when you think about it, like you think of your parents, uh, like they don't have the same That's right. You know, like about half Thai and quarter Irish, you like that comes from somewhere.
Yeah, totally. So, it's usually a sibling or maybe a cousin because you're kind of coming from the same genetic pool. Um, rarely it's a parent. So, you know, if you're an only child, that's probably it. You know, that's you're not likely to find one. Yeah.
On the registry. Yeah. But you're from Europe, so that's better for you. Yeah, that's true. They're born, you know, in terms of your ethnic makeup, a genetic makeup. So, um, so yeah, 70% of patients typically rely on the registry for a match and within that, so as we started looking at the numbers going back to kind of how things went down.
So, um, Andrew was really fortunate to find a match. Um he did have a transplant. Unfortunately, it was unsuccessful ultimately for him. Um but it did give them a few extra months during the holidays and you know time to really have some of those last memories and time together that they had you know just kind of taken for granted before that. And um as far as project 44 and our mission is concerned, most importantly really started kind of rallying the troops and especially those members of those of those teams um including coaches and players and staff um around the cause and making people aware about what's going on, how they can get involved and how they can keep championing the cause after Andrew was gone. So we lost Andrew in January 2016.
Um it was kind of a full circle the worst perfect storm for me. I had just left my sports marketing agency having been there for about 12 years and started my own agency. Butler University was my first client. So I was working with Butler in the marketing department about 2 months before Andrew's passing and was kind of this perfect intersection of my experience and strength in cause marketing sports and athlete marketing to say hey there's a platform here and even though Andrew is not anymore there's something that we can do as a university to really move people around what he ultimately was about. So, Project 44 was started as a marketing program between Butler University and we actually leveraged um Trip or or Blue Two at the time. I think it was Blue Two um the live mascot positioned him as a national ambassador for what was then called Be the Match, now NMDP.
So, it was uh Blue Two and Robin Roberts were the two national ambassadors for Be the Match. And that's really how we started right before March Madness that year. Um, and that would have been just after Andrew's passing that 2016. Yep. Exactly. Oh my gosh.
So now you talk about really I don't know what if you believe in something bigger or you know where those where those ideas lie. But I would say if you are. So Samantha continued her advocacy work um through Andrew's passing and those early days and that's when she and I actually met and got to know each other. Um, but she held a a registry drive at Andrew's celebration of life and all the teammates signed up and pretty much anybody in attendance who was able signed up and out of that drive, Chase de Gaulle, Andrew's teammate from those back-to-back teams and literally his bench neighbor, you know, um, was called as a match 3 months later and he matched with a 2-year-old boy named Degan Scott who's dying of blood cancer. I'm going to cry. Yeah.
Oh my gosh. So Sam, we'll talk about it in terms of, you know, being in really, really deep depths of, you know, grief, having just lost Andrew, trying to figure out how to kind of regain household chores, you know, and the monotonous things that need to be done after having spent the past, you know, number of months in hospital. And she gets a call from Chase, says, "Hey, you're not going to believe this." And lo and behold, he goes through the process. He is actually a match. He does donate.
And um that ultimately became the story and the fuel that propelled Project 44 from a marketing program to a standalone 501c3. We took that story and pitched ESPN. Tom Raldi came and did a long form feature on us. And that just I mean, you talk about put the cart before the horse. we were, you know, sharing our story on every national sports platform at that point. Um, and just have had incredible media partnerships since then.
Um, and it's really kind of been easy because obviously number one, Andrew was a champion and nobody can argue that and number two, Andrew was the kindest, most selfless person anybody had ever known. So, so going through that, you know, you're a Butler alum. Yeah. So, obviously watching those those teams, how do Andrew's teammates and classmates and people, you know, that might have seen him around campus, how do they remember Andrew? I've never seen anything like it before. And, you know, people obviously see me in connection to Project 44 wearing the logo or the merch or whatever, and they know that they can come up and talk to me about it.
Every single time I'm out with Project 44 branding on somebody, if not multiple people, come up and share stories with me about their interaction with Andrew. And the really awesome part about it is that most of them are just kind of, you know, a nice interaction, which tells me that through and through he was just a good person and he treated everybody with kindness and respect and was who he said he was, you know. And I it's like so refreshing. I think sometimes in this world you see the opposite and to get to work in an organization that's based on that kind of values is incredible. And there I mean there's stories of just stopping and talking to somebody's kid or stopping and you know helping with somebody with their bags or you know just truly being a good human. So, how involved are those teams still?
Like, this is a piece where I think that that legacy is a really difficult thing to preserve. Yeah. Uh especially 10 years later when there's new teams and new faces and new players and people that might not have been there for for what it was like at that time. Yeah. How do the players and the university still honor that legacy? Obviously, you know, project 44, like that is the mission and people who know that are all about it.
But with new faces coming in, with new people today, 10 years later, that's a such a great question for so many reasons. As you know, NIL has changed the face of college athletics in my opinion more ways than I could have imagined, you know, even a few years ago. Um, but you know, these kind of legacy teams of four year, fiveyear rostered players don't exist anymore. And so, you know, those folks in terms of the teammates that were on Andrew's teams are incredibly, you know, supportive and involved. Um, they participate in annual events and share our stories and call and, you know, Well, this would be Okay, so like for people that don't know, cuz not everyone is a huge sports fan. Yeah.
Like Butler basketball in the late 2000s, early 2010s was the real deal. Not again. No, you know, we're not gonna we're not going to split hairs about like current standings or anything like that, but at this time, two back-to-back final fours for a school of I don't know, 5,000 kids, 8,000. Yeah, I think we were like 4,200 at the time for undergrad, you know, like this is a really incredible run. You have a local guy, maybe people have heard about him, his name might be Gord, like, [laughter] you know. Yeah.
So Gordon was part of that team. Um he was a junior. That was God, I was at that game. Um, that was tough. It was maybe one of my favorite Indian memories, but not quite. We'll get to that point later, right?
Um, but if it would have gone in for sure. I mean, we're Hooser or the Horizon League. We're the Horizon League, you know, who's that? So now you, you know, you fill out your bracket and you've always got those teams of who is this person, you know, where are they from? I mean, literally, I remember being on vacation. Yeah.
And like wearing my Butler t-shirt and people be like, did you go there? You know, like I was some kind of walking celebrity. They've never heard of us before, you know. So, we had these teams go I mean, the first one going so far into the tournament and then to the final four and then to the final game in Indianapolis. I mean, it was you can't write anything better than that except for if the shot falls. I still say I think it would make a really great Disney movie, you know, where it doesn't fall.
Yeah. And you learn about character and you learn about the lessons of life, you know. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like looking through uh the roster of that cuz it was 2010, right? Yeah.
So that would have been was Andrew a sophomore? He was a sophomore. Yeah. So So like this is the crazy part to me. I'm just going to like read really quickly. Uh Cooko, Ellitzville, Newcastle, Brownsburg, Connorville.
Oh, one Snville, Georgia, Yorktown, Fort Wayne, Lexington, Kentucky, Homewood, Alabama, Noblesville, Indianapolis, another Newcastle, Tampa, Florida, Freeport, Illinois. This is a Hooser team. Yeah. Like these are led by Brad Stevens. The Hooser. Absolutely.
[laughter] Shout out. Go Tigers. Depue by NIL. This is a homegrown for the most I think I had I had four or five out of state. The rest it's built on instate. Who's your kids?
Yeah. That make this insane run. Yeah. Um at the height of like Yeah. Going dancing and March Madness and and it's wild. And then they do that what two years back to back.
Yeah. Back to back. Crazy. And we lost Gordon during that time, you know. Like that's so you talk about like character that doesn't happen if those team members aren't just leading character, you know, I mean they're still to this day um talk with any one of them at any time, you know, and they're absolutely happy to take a phone call or show up for, you know, whatever we ask. And they mean it.
And they made that commitment to Andrew while he was living and they live it every day still. And so since then, you know, so 10 years down the road, we still continue to have an incredible relationship with Butler University. They've been amazing partners to us over the years. Obviously, kind of having been born there. We no longer live there, but that's always our home for sure. Um, and we've been doing our annual game every year except for COVID um since then.
And then last last year actually we expanded our partnership into an athletics overall engagement with project 44 and you know they they allow us access to the team you talk about I mean yeah so our age range of recruitment we can't start talking to people until they're 18 years old. So the folks who are able to join the registry now were eight when Andrew passed away. They don't know who Andrew Smith was, you know. Yeah. And so our ability to storytell and keep his legacy alive is is critical for our mission. Yeah.
And and just like the importance of you know taking the swap being on the registry, you know, and like helping I don't give life to whether it's like a 2-year-old kid or someone another, you know, college athlete that graduates. It's like which all signs would point to a superior like a a top-of-the-line professional athlete. Like this can this can affect anybody, you know? Oh, 100%. Yeah. And and that's just uh what I think is is wild.
And it's awesome that those teams again like in the in the age of one and done and the age of you're here today, gone tomorrow, on to the next NIL deal. to have a group of of young men that were on this team because I mean, wasn't uh Grant the athletic director? He was on the team, right? And Ron Nored, our now head coach. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
They were both on the team. And so it's like, so imagine that it's like the now head coach. You pull up to do, you know, a charity game or whatever it is. And it's like, you know, I think it's sometimes when you're like legacy events or whatever, you like it starts to be more about the organ. You just stop forgetting about the people behind it. Yeah.
Like this is why this is important. It just means it means more. And you as a storyteller being able to tell the story of like someone who walked around that campus and was kind and well respected and you know worked really hard and and sometimes you just you know an unfortunate strike of luck happens on that and now to be able to make a difference and within 3 months a teammate from that team got called like that is crazy. It's crazy. Like talk about just like really hammering it home of like I don't know the why. You're all about why.
Why is your thing and so why why is this such an important or why is legacy so important? What whether it's you know project 44 or whether it's you know any other philanthropic organization like how do people tell the why and how do you keep legacy alive? I'm really glad you said that because part of going back to kind of our inception and when Sam and I started working around building this organization and peeling back the data to understand well why why is finding a match with European descent so much more likely? Why do ethnically diverse patients have such a harder time? What's the deal? Well, turns out the registry in Europe, DKMS, it's actually a global registry, but that's most um profound in Europe.
In Europe, it's part of their culture. It's just the way things are. That's what we're told over and over and over. It's just how they do things. So, people turn 18 there, they join the registry. Said, "All right, well, what do we do about that here?"
Well, I guess we just need to try to affect a cultural shift. Okay. like all right that's what we're going to try to do. So basically what that means for us and to your point about you know multiple causes you know blood cancer thankfully in the grand scheme of things only affects you know a smaller part of the population. It could also affect anybody, right? Um, but in terms of the number of causes that need support, I'm not going to sit here and tell you today like you should support us instead of Alzheimer's or breast cancer or, you know, Luke Garri or any of these things.
They all need support. And so, in our minds, in order to kind of affect that cultural shift, it's inspiring a culture of yes. So, we really are about trying to encourage and move people towards finding a way to say yes. It's too easy to say no today. You keep walking, right? You say, "I'll get to it later."
You, you know, delete the email or scroll past the post or whatever it is. It's just too easy to say no. And so we're really trying to hit hard with our messaging around, you know, the I how powerful the idea of yes is and what that ripple effect can create, you know. So I think in terms of legacy, that's ultimately how I would summarize Andrew's legacy as a whole is he was a person about yes and figuring out how to just say, [music] "Yeah, sure. We'll do that." Today's episode is brought to you by our friends at Bloom Rank.
If you're in Indiana and own a Shopify store or a home [music] services business and you're annoyed with chat GBT and Google's AI recommending your competitors over you, you need to give them a call. We trust them. Neighbors [music] trust them and we think you should, too. For Get Indiana listeners, they're offering a completely free website rebuild with your first month working with them. Find out if you qualify by reaching out [music] at bloomrank. com/get-in.
Now, let's get back to the show. I think that when it is a family member or your best friend or whoever, it's way easier to be like this is going to be your thing. Like you're going to go all in and be about. How how has I mean you've been doing this now over a decade, but I would say like your connection is through Butler, but it's not like, you know, you were best friends and it's not like so how and why do you continue to pour into Project 44? Like what was the stickiness about it for you? Yeah.
Um well I always say kind of at the right place at a terrible time. Um so my background is in sports marketing. Spent over a decade um working with athletes and brands and teams and properties um building strategy and you know partnerships and facilitating events and all the kinds of things. And as I moved further in my career and that really got really um personally aligned with cause marketing specifically and um athlete branding and so when I left the agency ultimately and um went out on my own added Butler as a client it was and that's kind of it's at the crux of my business my Y marketing which is it stands for make it worth it which means we're not going to just take the easy road. We're not going to dial it in. and we're not going to do what everybody else is doing.
We're going to stop and really critically evaluate what can we do here to make it last, you know, and to make it worth it. So, um, you know, I think had I not been there at that time, it probably would be as as most organizations would treat it as, you know, a newsletter, an email that goes out and condolences and thoughts and some content around it, which is great, but we felt like there was more that could be done. So, um, you know, that's ultimately how I got involved in kind of this program development role and I fell in love with the people and the cause and the partners and, um, selfishly, it's just really great work to get to be a part of. So, um, you know, Sam and I co-founded the organization. Um, she and I have served as, you know, exe part of the, um, executive committee during that time. But project 44 is now a client of my YY marketing.
So I get to like really pour into all the things I want to do where before it was like, oh gosh, this is all the time that I have, you know, I'm able to do and we're trying to kind of piece things together. It's really, you know, it's the um kind of a perfect scenario for me. Yeah. At this point. Yeah, absolutely. Uh th this year marks the 10 year anniversary.
Yeah. and uh one there were two pretty special activations that happened this year uh that honors Andrew Smith and Project 44. Take me through what did the city of Indianapolis do to honor Project 44. So we had been it's kind of been a pipe dream of ours since the very very very beginning. Um, and the number 44 shows up for us all the time. Um, in unexpected ways originally, and then we just got really used to knowing that 44 was going to show up in one way or another.
So, one of those being obviously if you're familiar with Butler's campus, 44th Street runs right through the back end where the student housing is. And so we had talked in those, you know, the first couple years, early times of, man, it'd be pretty cool if we could get that renamed Andrew Smith Boulevard or Project 44 Street or something, you know, that was like Google says this matters, you know, in terms of geography. And um, you know, things come and go and um, you know, priorities move on, but some things stay. And so as the final four was coming back this year, that was a conversation that we really ignited with the university again to say, "Hey, remember we talked about this a long time ago." And um Jonathan Pervvis, who heads up um advancement and marketing for the university, has been incredible to us. And he said, "I think that's really great.
I think we can do something with that. Let's let's see what we need to do." Um, and a perfect example too of, you know, kind of a myy conversation where the Butler team said, you know, 40 44th Street's a little out of the way. The streets are kind of in disrepair. You know, it's not the most beautiful section of campus. Why don't we give you a prominent location on campus that people will really see that, you know, really matters to the university and um really help with exposure to the cause.
And so now, um, project 44 way is the renamed street in front of Hingle, uh, Hingle Fieldhouse. So if you're coming kind of down Sunset Boulevard and kind of, you know, veer to the right, you're going to come right up on Project 44 Way, like the road that goes in front of So District Tap or Chattam Tap. Chattam Tap right there on the corner. um Lake Road, Chattam Tap, and then um you know, the student union um is kind of right up there and uh Hinkle right behind it. So truly, I mean, you're just kind of walking up onto history and there we are right in front of it. Um there Andrew is appropriately so.
And then we have permanent signage right below that, too. That's kind of the um the celebration. Andrew Smith Way. Andrew Smith Way. Wow. Okay.
So, so Andrew Smith way is like that that curve. Yep. Where 49th turns into Sunset? Yes. Yes. Like where 49th comes this way and then it curves right there and like the wreck is right there.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm following I run over there a decent chunk. Um so that was kind of the first thing um that we were able to get done with the city. And I mean they were so awesome.
You know those are one of those things that's like man this feels like it's going to be such a uphill climb, you know, to get this done. And we got the right people um working on it with us. Visit Indie, you know, sent a couple emails on our behalf and um got to the right people and they're like, "Yeah, sure. What do you want? When do you need it? When's it going up?
Do you want to come install it? Do you you know, all of these things that were just like, "Oh my gosh, that's so cool. Thank you so much." You know, um and so, you know, that was a big kind of um check mark for us of something that we had wanted to get done. and um the other and again really you know in our tenure campaign we were trying to be really thoughtful and mindful to leverage the sports tourism strategy in the state and so obviously hosting final four again um 10 years since Andrew competed no I'm sorry since he passed co hosting the bubble was 10 years since Andrew competed so that was originally kind of our plan was that we're going to try to do these things during that time and you know that was co so you know these things kind of start to snowball with each other of course and we were able to get um so April 4th so 44 as you would write it is project 44 day [clears throat] and um we're able to get a proclamation from the mayor that um April 4th is project 44 day for the city of Indianapolis.
So, pretty cool. And it will probably almost always line up if not exactly on, you know, March Madness Final Four. Yeah. Like final four, like Project 44 day, April 4th, typically somewhere around national championship final four games being played. It was on the final four this year. I mean, that's pretty cool.
Yeah. Yeah. It was awesome. That's so special to be able to, I don't know, continue this legacy over a decade later. Um, and to impact lives like you're one, you're impacting lives on the side of like being generous with your health, you know, like people who are whether you're a college basketball team or you're an individual listening to this podcast and you're like, you know what, I'm healthy and I can swab the inside of my cheek and I can make an impact in someone who might have gotten the toughest news of their life, a 2-year-old that's trying to battle rare cancer. Yeah.
Like, you're impacting both sides. you're helping people, you know, beat this terrible disease and you're also teaching people to be more generous in their outlook. And I think that that, you know, a lot of times there is just a lot to be said of getting exposed to different organizations and just learning about generosity. Yeah. And learning about compassion for your neighbors and your teammates and your campus friends and the whole nine yards. Too often I feel like in uh I'm going to get a little I'm going to get a little preachy here for a second, but too often I feel like people hear it's all about me me, my views, my likes, my this, my that, my network, my net worth, my freaking blah blah blah.
And it's crazy how your life starts to change when you start thinking about your why. Yeah. Right. Like how can I help others? Yeah. How can I serve better?
How could I be a better friend? family member, husband, son, father, daughter, like whatever it is. Yeah. Your life will seriously start to change. Yeah. Because it's wild.
So that's kind of you're hitting on kind of the the marketer in me now. And we do a ton of cause marketing and for two reasons. I mean, it's a win-win. And the first and most important is it's the right thing to do. If there's something you can do to leverage a platform to affect a cause for the better, you should do it, you know. And the second thing is it wins because it works.
And people want that. They need that, especially in this world of like, what have you done for me lately? How many impressions did this post get? Or how many followers did you have? Or what was your contract to show up at this event? As soon as that's done, it's gone.
Yeah. Nobody cares about it anymore. It's I don't care where you are in the orbit of that movement. It moves people. It changes people. It certainly changed me and anybody who's been part of the, you know, the movement along the way.
So, yeah. Um, cause marketing I think is I hope I hope I hope um it's we're going to start to see more move in that direction because you know I just saw Kim Kardashian's new Baseball Moms show come out, you know, and it's like that ain't it. That ain't it. You know, I have kids in youth sports and that's what sports is becoming. But if we and you know, I just kind of pivoted into sports. Sports is a platform that I believe is almost unparalleled in its ability to bring people together and affect change.
So, you know, that's why I'm passionate about being in the sports space. Um, but if we're not careful, it's going to get away from us quickly. You know, private equity and the money and the transactions and, you know, and so this cause marketing space, especially in sports, I think is just it's It's where we need to be. Amen. Well, the final thing I want to talk about uh before we get into our Indiana segment of the show is what you guys are doing with the the Project 44 uh podcast. Yeah.
And the Finding 44, is that what it's called? Yep. It's called Finding 44, Spotlighting Champions for Change. And so, um the whole premise of that is kind of what I was saying in terms of inspiring a culture of Yes. Um, so Larara Overton has been our our host. She's she's so great.
She's the best. Um, just in every way. She's another person who anytime somebody has something to say about Lara is so genuine, you know? I mean, she's the real deal. I we uh she works out at the gym that I work out and we're in there getting the early morning. Are you on the tread next to her?
Uh, sometimes she hits it way often than I do. I'm like, how do you run with a mug of coffee? I don't understand. I don't I think she has like a gimbal built into her arm that just keeps it stable, right? Classic. Yeah.
So, um obviously Lara has an incredible network. We Project 44 have a really great network, but um we bring guests onto the show. um some of which have been immediately part of project 44 and bone marrow donation either as a patient or a donor or a family member um or a clinician um to really talk about their experience with the disease or with the treatment. Um, and other times we bring on kind of celebrities or ambassadors um, from around the city or around sport who represent other causes um, and just kind of give them an opportunity to share their platform. And we kind of, you know, riff on the nonprofit space and how we try to affect change within our indiv individual um, sectors kind of and, you know, just kind of spread some love that way. So yeah, we're going to be I think gearing up for season two.
Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Champions of change. Yeah.
When you listen to some of these stories of nonprofit leaders and people that are it's just spectacular. Like there's one side of you know the entrepreneur story of building your business and you know making a billion dollars and like that is cool and I like that. Yeah. But I also go out there and listen to the people. It gives me such great perspective to hear the people who value success on how many lives they changed. Yeah.
And it's like like again we live in this I'm like preaching today but you know you think you live in a time where it's all about dollars and cents and how much what have you done for me lately and how much have you made versus like the people who really get fired up every day to go out there and like they base their success off of lives that they're impacting is so cool and I have like the utmost respect for those individuals. Yeah, it's that's been kind of wild for me as a business owner especially is to like I have to reccalibrate my brain sometimes because my default is impact. That's how I'm driven and the vast majority of people that we interact with on a daily basis are driven the same way. That doesn't mean that money is bad, but it does mean what are you doing also? You know, money is not enough. Yeah.
and you know how you're using those resources and that network and you know creating ripple effects. I think that's that's got to be it at the end of the day. Uh I totally agree. Wow. Uh we've come to the part of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana. So this question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart.
They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homejart. com. My question for you, why do you call Indiana home? Well, um, I came here from Columbus, Ohio to go to Butler. Met my husband there.
Um, he played soccer at Butler and he's born and raised in Washington Township and then moved, you know, one township over for Butler. Um, we raised our kids. That's North Central. Yeah. Do you go to North Central? Yeah.
There you go. There you go. Uh, and we live half a mile from there now. Yeah. So, it's interesting. I think I always had thought that I would move away after graduating.
Um, I love the ocean. I love the mountains. I love outdoor adventuring. Um, obviously we don't have the bigger things here, but we have lakes and rivers and trailways and, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I think at this point now, Indiana is home because of the communities and the people and the neighborhoods and the culture that exists here. And knowing that we're raising our kids in a space where a they can be whoever they want to be.
There's, you know, immediate access to any kind of career, any kind of trajectory, any kind of impact they want to have, they can have here. Um, activities are great. I'm a sports girl, you know, so what more could you ask for, you know, in Indie? For sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, and I think there is it's become a little bit of a cliche, you know, whatever who's your hospitality, but it's cliche because it's true. It's so real. People wouldn't say it all the time if it wasn't true. That's right. Yeah. So, um, that's why Indiana's home for us now.
Amen. I love it. I always love people who are Hoosiers by choice. Yeah. You're not from here. You're a Buckeye originally, but you know, you come and then Indiana just wraps it arms around you and you're like, "Oh, wow."
I'll tell you, I was going for I played volleyball um in high school and I was coming for recruiting visits. I went to um to visit a school in Florida. It was the middle of December and it was beautiful. And we did our workout and then we went and laid out at the pool and had this like state-of-the-art, you know, student center and all the things. And then I came to Butler a few weeks later and it was like seting and just blowing sideways, freezing rain. And my mom's like, "What are we doing here?"
You know, I'm like, "I don't I don't know." You know, and we came away from those and I ultimately obviously chose Butler and it just felt like home. There was something about it that I just knew was like that's where I need to be and I feel it every time still I step foot on campus. Yeah. especially this time of year. I agree.
Oh, I love that. That just fires me up. There's just something about it. And you can't really describe it, but there's, you know, that was almost my answer of there's it's not there's not something you can name in it. It's the feeling, it's the air, it's the smell, it's the, you know, emotion you carry in this space. I don't know.
It's just Indiana. Yeah. Okay. this question. Uh, this is going to give you the opportunity to highlight a place that more people need to be talking about. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
I'm a volleyball player and I play beach volleyball. And there's a organization that's been around since 2018. Um, but just opened a brand new state-of-the-art facility in Westfield earlier this year. It's called I Beach and it is Indy's in and Indiana I believe only public stateofthe-art beach yearround beach volleyball facility and we're talking about so it's part of Westfield Collective or you know in partnership with Westfield Collective there right adjacent to Graham Park um there's four indoor courts outdoor courts so we're truly talking yearround beach volleyball and you If you've ever watched and fell in love with Field of Dreams, that's literally the experience. You drive up for now at least in the summer. It's lined with corn fields.
So, you're playing under the lights at night surrounded by this, you know, majestic corn field. The sun sets there. I mean, I'm telling you, the skies of I Beach are like nothing else. And so, it's adult leagues, juniors training. They're turning out. I think now they've got about a dozen athletes who have gotten SC college scholarship to play beach volleyball from Indiana from the corn fields of Indiana.
I think that is just such a story, you know, like yeah, I beach is it and you talk about like a community there. It is like you walk up and it's, you know, shoes off, chill, you know, let's go. Okay, that's a good one. I've never had that one before. So, that's I love it when we get a new one that no one's ever said. Yeah, I beach.
I'm all in. Okay, next. This is where we get new guest ideas and learn about other people in Indiana who are doing inspiring things. Who's a Hooser we need to keep on our radar? Someone who's doing big things. I I'm sure that somebody's mentioned this person before, but um Yousef Berin, the founder of Epicurion, is somebody who I think is really leading the charge in kind of the indie culinary movement.
um especially in um diverse demographics and the immigrant population specifically. So, you know, Yousef um and Ariel, his business partner, um own Jador Pastry. They've founded this Epicurian food festival and they are really kind of uniting this immigrant chef community and making it accessible for folks to know like, hey, we're not all tenderloins here, you know, like there's a lot more you need to be eating and experiencing. And at the center of it is a human component. So I think that's he's somebody he's such a, you know, a rising star, a gem. We're We're lucky that he's a Hooser.
I'm excited to see what he's gonna do. Wow. I have never seen this. The Epicurion. Yeah. Oh, you got to talk to Yousef.
Yeah, he's Oh, that food looks looks good. Looks definitely different than pork tenderloins for sure. Looks really good. Totally different. All right, we have our final question. This gives you an opportunity to think about what really embodies being a hooer.
What does it mean? like what makes you feel just uniquely proud to live in the state of Indiana and call this place home? When you close your eyes and think about it, what is your favorite Indiana memory? The way you just put it, probably I would maybe answer it a little bit differently than what I came prepared to answer it with, but maybe it's true. Okay, so my senior year of college, um I was living out my dream. I had um an internship with the Pacers and I was writing for pacers.
com and got to know the players and the staff and you know um the coaches and everybody pretty well during that time and that was the year of the brawl by the way 2004 2005 so it was kind of crazy the palace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I didn't start till January, so that happened.
Um, I think November maybe was the brawl. But anyway, that was Reggie's last year. And Eastern Conference Champs. I grew up a Reggie fan. I was a hooper as a kid. And um I had never been to a Pacers game.
I had never been to an NBA game before being here cuz everything in Columbus is Ohio State sports. So that's it. you know, like we went to Buckeye games all the time, but had never been to a Pacer game until I got that internship and, you know, was able to work every game night and do, you know, pre and postgame interviews with the guys and just really was like living in my dream at that moment. And I was at I was in Reggie's family suite for his jersey retirement. And that was like just chills through my entire body like what am I doing here? How could this like I mean as a little girl just like shooting and shooting and shooting in my busted driveway, you know, now I'm here experiencing it in this seat.
It was wild. That was really wild. So that is a hell of an Indiana memory. Yeah, it was pretty cool. It was pretty cool. But I would also say to rival that in terms of being proud, it was also being in the stands for that 2010 Butler National Championship game and it almost fell and it didn't fall.
And I'm still proud of that team and of being there and hold that memory like so dear still, you know. So that just be different. Like I can't even explain. Uh, I mean actually a lot of people probably could like any IU fan, any IU football fan, like from the worst team, the most overlooked team, the most like, you know, nothing to then a national championship. Like I I feel like they're obviously on the wrong side of it for Butler, but like IU fans can like relate to like the feeling of your team just being in a game. Like I mean I felt that way when uh when IU beat Ohio State in the Big 10 Championship.
I was like, so my whole family went to Ohio State and they would be calling me like, "What's going on with this Hooser team?" I was like, "I don't know." You know, cuz they beat him early, too, in the year. That was wild. But imagine if the national championship game were at Lucas Oil. If that if that Hooser team won the national championship at Lucas Oil, imagine what that would have been like.
And that's what the Butler game was. It was a home game. It was a home game. Oh, it was insane. I get chills right now just thinking about the the streets would have just been swarmed. Oh my god.
And it wouldn't have been for IU and it wouldn't have been for Purdue and it would have been for Butler. Yeah, that's been the the beautiful part of being a Bulldog since the beginning is I mean I think everybody loves Butler. Why not? You know, if you went to IU, you got a you know something on your shoulder about Purdue and vice versa. But yeah, no one in Indiana is like, "Oh, I mean there, you know, there's a little tongue and cheek about it, but it's not like we're not anybody's rival, you know." Yeah.
We're Indiana sweetheart. So Indiana sweetheart. What are they? The Cinderella story. Cinderella. Indiana Cinderella.
So true. Uh I love it. It's been so fun getting to learn more about Project 44 and you and all the work you're doing with Cause Marketing and the whole thing. It is uh it's incredible. I think to keep to keep a business as well as to keep a nonprofit like a charitable organization around for a decade so impressive like that takes serious heart. Uh and so if people want to get involved if they want to you know uh sign up for the registry how can they do that?
Yeah. So you can find out anything you need to know at project44. org not. com that's a logistics company. Um, and if you want to join the registry, you can text project 444 to 61474 and that'll send you a registry link. Um, you can follow us online at join project 44.
Um, that's our social media handle. And um, we've got an information sign up on our website. if you want to, you know, join the team, if you want to get on the registry, if you just have questions, if you want to host a drive, we've got something for everybody there. So, project44. org is probably your best best spot for any of those questions. Heck yeah.
Well, we appreciate you coming on, sharing the story. Uh, it's it's incredible stuff and u and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much, Nate. Appreciate it. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at [music] Sweetwater.
If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tok, Nate Spangle. [music] Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hooer State great. We'll see you next time here on Get