Christina: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Taking the Lead podcast where we empower people to be unstoppable. I'm Christina Hoeppner with my co-host Timothy Kuo, and again, we have our wonderful guest host. Alyssa, Otis, Alyssa, thank you again for filling in
Alyssa: Anytime. Anytime, you know,
Christina: Leslie's out at these conferences and doing all these great things for Leader Dog.
So, you know,
Alyssa: it's nice to have me here here while she gets to be in sunny
Christina: Florida. Yes. Yeah, I am a bit jealous about that. Yeah. But you know,
Alyssa: it's fine. It's fine. I'm happy to be here. So whenever you guys need. . Yes.
Christina: Well, it could be in, could
Dave: be in the
Timothy: eighties where she's
Dave: at
Alyssa: right now. I know. Oh my gosh. So she was sending me photos yesterday.
Is this what a boss should do? No. So send her, uh, employee photos of them at the pool.
Christina: Yeah. She's like, Hey, , I'm done with my day of conferences,
Alyssa: going to the pool. Yeah. And I'm like, well, if you need anything, I'll have my computer. I'll be ready to do any work you need me to.
Christina: Oh, man. I am so [00:01:00] jealous. I know.
You know, and then Timothy, you're going on all these vacations. Which is fun and exciting and I'm just here. I'm just here holding down the fort. Yeah. Someone has to, someone hold the Michigan weather . I have no choice. I guess somebody's
Dave: gotta
Timothy: do it. I know somebody's
Dave: gotta do it. Christine, we elected you.
So
Alyssa: it's
Christina: a big job. I need to plan a trip soon. I have no. Trips planned at the moment. I think it's because last year was so trip heavy in my life. Mm-hmm. , like my sister got married, I would like, I had like three or four weddings that I would, but they, I had to travel for each one.
Alyssa: So yeah. That's a, and weddings take up a lot of time.
Yeah, I mean, I had a wedding last week and that I went to, it was one of my best friends weddings. and my husband was in it. And I mean it was a whole weekend event. Yeah. I mean it was, it was nonstop. So
Christina: this year I was like, I'm not planning anything. No.
Alyssa: Stay home
Christina: yet. So I'm sure though I'll do some last minute things.
Cause that's what I always do. I'm always like, I need to get outta here. Yeah.
Alyssa: a little Airbnb getaway. Yes. Yeah. Come on down to Georgia. [00:02:00] Yeah. Hey, Timothy says his house is now an Airbnb for, I got that trailer. Yeah. . Oh yeah. Crazy trailer. The trailer.
Christina: Yeah. Uh, we
Alyssa: can
Christina: Living the life. Yeah. I always say like, in the winter, I need to take a trip to somewhere like warm and sunny.
Mm-hmm. Because we really hear Michigan, we haven't seen a lot of sun.
Alyssa: It gets sad for like six.
Christina: Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's so sad. It's gray. She's gonna have one of
Alyssa: those lights
Dave: in
Alyssa: those, you know what, in her office. You know what? I'm seriously thinking about it. One of our apprentices has one of those lights, and it really does bring up the whole instructing department, the whole training department.
They love it. Really? Yeah.
Christina: I have, I know friends and stuff that like will start their day, like that's the first thing they do is turn on that light.
Alyssa: The alarm clocks though, I've seen. Will get brighter as the day, you know? Oh yeah. As it lights up like a sunrise. I don't know if that would wake me up.
Christina: Yeah.
You know, I mean, I get up super early, so it's like really dark out cold. Yeah. Well you gotta get to the gym cold. Yeah. So I'm like half awake for half my morning. I like go to the gym, half [00:03:00] awake.
Alyssa: I think that's kind of the. The way to do it. Yeah. Because get there before your brain wakes up.
Christina: Yes. That's what I have to do.
Mm-hmm. , because if I'm there when I'm awake, I'm gonna be like, I don't wanna be here. I get that. I
Alyssa: used to do a four 30 workout. Same reason. Yeah. My, my brain would be off and I'd be halfway done before I was
Christina: awake. Yeah. And by the time I'm done, I'm like, oh man, I feel great. Mm-hmm. , I'm ready for the day time to go to work.
Yeah.
Alyssa: Um, that's so funny, isn't it? Well, and while you're at work, you might run into our guest today. Um, today is our guest. He's a leader, dog team member, and he oversees giving through corporations. Yeah. So
Christina: Dave Ban is the director of Corporate Relations and he's been with Leader Dog since 2017.
Timothy: Hey Dave, it's great to have you on our podcast today.
Can you tell us what got you started with Leader Dog?
Dave: Yeah, Timothy, thanks for having us on this morning. I really appreciate it. This is fantastic. I really enjoy listening to the podcast and truth be told, I hadn't really listened to very many before this, so I really appreciate the work you're doing and exposing me to this wonderful world of podcasting.
Um, I got [00:04:00] involved with Leader Dog, uh, simply cuz they found me. Um, I was, I've been in a sales environment my entire life and Leader Dog in an attempt to establish a, a means of alternative revenue. Developed a program called Harness the Power of Leadership and, and frankly, they needed a salesman that was comfortable in the for-profit world going into the C-suite and selling that to executives.
So they found me and brought me on to sell, harness the power of leadership and support a leader. Yeah, I will
Christina: have to say, so I, Dave is in the marketing department as well, and when he told me he didn't know what a podcast was, I thought he was joking at first . He did not know what a podcast was. So I'm gonna throw you under the bus a little bit there.
that's where I'm most
Dave: comfortable. That's perfect.
Christina: Define . But, um, Dave, so you just mentioned harness the power of leadership. I got to go to one of those, which was super cool. It's such a different way of a leadership training than we've, like I've ever been to. Can you tell us a little bit about it without going too much into detail, so we're not giving
Dave: it all away?
not gonna give it away. No way. Not for free anyway. Yeah, exactly. [00:05:00] Um, yeah, harness the power of leadership. I, it's, it's a true leadership development program. It's, it's really not for dogs. And we've had some folks that are blind go through it, but it wasn't a program designed specifically for people that are blind.
Um, it's a true leadership development program and it's actually taught and led by some folks who are blind, uh, who are executives who came to us from the business world. Tho these gentlemen, uh, their names are Bus and Jeff one or the other, uh, presents this program. Each time we. Um, they will explain how they actually use this leader dog on a day-to-day basis and how well the communication and leadership tools and techniques they use with their leader.
Dogs are the same tools and techniques good leaders use at the workplace. It's really remarkable how the skills transfer. . And I think what makes the program so powerful and so effective is people have a natural curiosity about leader dogs. They wanna know how colorblind dogs know what color traffic lights are.
The secret is that they don't , but we,
Alyssa: I was gonna say,
Dave: wait, you know, they don't, I can see Alyssa starting to shake a little bit. She's like, wait, they don't, you don't tell people that, do you? ? But that's the whole idea here is that we're teaching people communication. We're giving a really, really cool analogy.
You know, we say it runs up [00:06:00] and down the leash, the communication that you're giving. And so in, in that, you're receiv. So we teach people how a leader OG actually works and how those tools can help them be more successful in the work environment.
Christina: So did this start when you joined the organization or was this, did you bring this to the organization then?
It started,
Dave: I came to the organization because of the program. Okay. So this was a program that was actually kind of pioneered by one of our former board members and also a client. He was kind of doing this informally. Somebody at work asked them how his leader dog worked. He told them that he was trained by a group called Leader Dogs for the lined up in Michigan.
He lives down in Atlanta. And he explained a little bit about what that means, how to offer guidance that actually means something. How to develop a reward and recognition system that's gonna have an impact on the dog. How to look at yourself first if something goes wrong and clarify instead of correct.
So when, when this person explained all that, people around him started thinking, gosh, this will help us in the business environment. So he brought that back to Leader Dog. They agreed, decided we should turn this into a program and let's hire somebody to go out there and sell it. And that's how I came aboard.
Christina: Yeah. And it. So cool. Like I have never, I've been to [00:07:00] leadership things and other organizations I've been a part of and it is so different and I'm not gonna give anything away because I think it's something you need to do yourself and experience, because I've never looked at leadership in that sort of way.
Um, so an amazing program, Dave, like, who can be involved in this and like, Is the process of, Hey, I want to bring this program to my employees.
Dave: Yeah, I mean, we, we've customized this program on a regular basis. You know, our off the shelf, you know, kind of standard program, if you will, is typically kind of a full day.
It usually starts around nine, usually ends around four, and it's usually done either at our campus or any location of your choosing. I always say, if you're in Metro Detroit, it's really cool to come see us at our campus, but if traveling's not an option, we can certainly come to you. Um, we also make this program viable for whoever we're presenting to.
So we've done this for literally the C-suite executives. We've did this for a group of only CEOs at one point. We've also done this for individual contributors, people who are emerging, leaders who have a desire to enhance their leadership skills because leadership's not a [00:08:00] title. It's a mentality. It's a way you carry yourself.
So we've had people of all walks of life from different stages of their career come in and find value in the program. That is
Christina: very
Alyssa: cool. Yeah, and I mean, companies and organizations can partner with, with a variety of people. Why? And what do you think makes partnering with Leader different or, or more beneficial perhaps than, than some others?
Dave: You know, at the, at the current moment, inflation is out of control. We don't know what's, I think the stock market's gonna correct. There's a lot of uncertainty economically right now, and I'm finding that a lot of corporations are, have a, have a genuine desire to support their community, to support non-profit organizations.
They also have a disgenuine desire to train their employees and, and, and enhance their abilities and, and basically protect their career, but also protect their ability to, to be an asset to the organization. And I think what's happening for a lot of organizations, given this uncertain market, They're almost having to choose, you know, we're not able to support a charity anymore because we really need to train our employees and we need to, you know, to secure our future.
I think what's [00:09:00] really unique about Harness the power of leadership and the offerings that Leader Dog has is you can do both. You can get a world-class training, you know, for your employees that's gonna benefit them for years to come. I had somebody approach me. Just a couple of weeks ago and thank me for getting her a job.
I didn't even remember this person being , getting really candid with you. Yeah. But she attended harness the par of leadership five years ago, and she said she thought about those lessons every single day in her job interview and she credit it for her for getting that job. So I think the lessons are very relevant.
I think employees really enjoy it, but it also helps support the community as well too, because the fees you're paying for training are actually going in support of a fantastic nonprofit organization.
Christina: That's amazing. And you don't think of that when you think of nonprofits. You don't think. Giving leadership training.
Alyssa: Yeah, but it's, I mean, it's a revenue source that seems to be a win-win for both an organization wanting some leadership training, and it helps leader Dogs for the blind continue our
Dave: mission. Alyssa, you'll love this. People ask me all the time like, harness the power of leadership. That's so weird. I don't understand.
I thought you guys were leader dogs for the blind operative word being dogs. Don't you guys [00:10:00] train dogs? When did you start training people? Oh man.
Alyssa: What? Question. I get that question all the time. It's, this is a people business that happens to have dogs. You know? I, uh, it's, it's such a mix, but I could understand people asking you that all the time.
Christina: Yeah. And Timothy, I mean, you are a client, so mm-hmm. , you know, hearing this, what, what is your react? Uh, have you heard about that Leader dog does this? No, it
Timothy: tell tell me. It's like it's out of the box. I would never think of something like this that the leader Doc could do. It's just just another way of they get revenue in for the, for the organization.
That just sounds absolutely great. Cause it's a win-win for everybody.
Christina: Yeah, definitely. and Timothy, I mean, you've trained at Leader Dog and so we're doing, you know, training not only for our clients and helping them, you know, live a life of independence with white cane and a guide dog, but we're also doing it for corporate.
Partners as well, which is super
Dave: cool. I think what's interesting too, and when we, you know, so often when we [00:11:00] do a program, whether it's harness the Power of leadership, or I go into a corporation and speak to the group, I would venture unofficially, you know, my guest to be 95, 98 maybe, maybe higher percent of people don't know who Leader OG is, and most have never had a meaningful conversation with somebody who's blind or visually impaired.
So I think. Other interesting avenues of whether it's a, you know, a harness of power leadership type program or just a corporate partnership that we develop. We're exposing probably 90 plus percent of employees to Leader dogs for the blind. And most of the time these people have no idea who and what we are.
And they often are even looking for a charity to get behind and they don't know how to find one. So there's a lot of benefits going into these corporations. Yeah.
Christina: And. I guess is, is there a certain type of corporation that you would say like, yes, this is the type we want? Or is it anybody
Dave: It's, it's anybody that has a passion for helping, you know, I wouldn't even say a passion for Leader Dog because we'll get them passionate about Leader Dog
That's not hard. That's not hard. That's, that's, that's, we don't have many assets, but the ones we do are kind of cute and are on four legs, so they usually help us get someplace. Right. [00:12:00] So it really, any kind of corporation, we just want people to know who we are. I always say that leader dog needs more than anything as ambassadorship.
So we want people to know who and what we are and, and typically speaking, people get behind us once they learn about us. So really any kind of corporation's a great candidate for us.
Christina: Um, David, I have to know you meet so many different people. I've met a couple of our corporate partners with you and that sort of stuff.
So what is, I guess, your favorite part about, you know, connecting with these corporate
Dave: partners? I think they say those who can't teach. So I love to teach and talk about Leader Dog. That is my absolute favorite thing to do. I love to give tours. I love to present and get in front of people, uh, and just, you know, town hall lunch and learn style, you know, style presentations.
Let's talk about Leader Dog. Let's get your questions answered. People wanna know how they clean up after the dog. People wanna know how dogs know again, what color traffic lights are. They want to know how they get to the, you know, navigate O'Hare airport. You know, they wanna know all these things.
There's this inherent curiosity and I. Sharing, you know, the answers of those questions, you know, with these folks. I love seeing the light bulb go on above their heads about how cool that is. I love seeing [00:13:00] their passion build. I love hearing their stories of going home, you know, and talking to their, their, their spouses, their children, and hearing their reactions.
I mean, that, that part is, what does it for me, is it's talking about leader dog, quite honestly.
Christina: Yes. And I know everybody at Leader Dog. I loves to talk about Leader Dog, so Oh my
Alyssa: gosh, , I was training the guide dogs and now I can honestly talk about them for days. Right. Years. I feel like it's, uh, whenever I don't know what to talk about.
Just talk about
Christina: Leader Dog. Exactly. And I guess, so we have different events and that sort of stuff. So do corporate Barners, are they a part of our events or how does that all work with Corpor?
Dave: Yeah, corporate partners are a major part of our events. Uh, we, we sell sponsorships, um, like, like anybody else would and like any other event would require.
Um, and so the, the partnerships that we get through those sponsorships and with these corporations are essential both to the health and the success of the event, and also to the health and success of Leader DOCGs for the blind. So, you know, our community partners are, are essential, you know, to basically everything that we're doing, [00:14:00] including those events.
They sponsor the events, they advertise at them. Um, they also attend the events. They bring clients, they bring vendors, they, they. , are there an instrumental piece of what makes these events so fantastic? Quite honestly,
Christina: I recently ran in that frozen Paul 5K that we did and it was so cool to see our corporate partners there.
They like were so involved and yeah, wanted to be a part of the mission and helping out. So it was really cool to see like not it one, it was cool to see so many people Oh, past. So many people came up to our table and who didn't even know they wanted to come to a run, and they then came up to our table and I answered.
I was there as a runner and I still answered so many questions. So it's cool that so many people are learning and so many even. , there were corporations that were volunteering as well, so it was super cool to
Dave: see. Yeah, I think that Leader dog and like a lot of other charities, you know, we are, we're in a position to help, um, in, in a rather unique way.
I think a lot of corporations, I think people don't always realize that when a corporation [00:15:00] offers matching gifts, I, I would consider that an employee benefit that they want. The corporation wants employees to use, they want their employees to make gifts to charities of both time and money. They want them volunteering, they want them making those, those, uh, annual gifts or recurring gifts.
So I think that we're in a position to be a resource to our, our corporate partners in any way they want us to be. And in, you know, you're thinking about the Frozen Paul that was presented by an organization called Trico, and their marketing team got behind it and found all these creative ways of, of branding the event.
I mean, they had branded, you know, styrofoam cups for coffee, you know, because it was a cold morning. You know, things of that nature. They really try. Find ways. And I think that's also what makes a great partner, is a partner that's trying to find ways of supporting the organization and because they have a genuine interest to do so.
Timothy: Yeah. What makes you feel like you're really involved with Leader Dog when they're coming at with their ideas outside of what you're thinking about and that makes 'em part of the family a little bit more special?
Christina: Yes. And Timothy, as a client, I, how does that make you feel that, you know, there are people outside of Leader Dog that are so passionate about Leader Dog and wanna.[00:16:00]
Well, that
Timothy: just gives me a great feeling because, I mean, being blind is tough and tough enough, and knowing that there's people out there who really, genuinely care about people like me, just, you know, it, it's just, it's just great. And, uh, and, and they do it voluntarily. They don't have to do this, and they come out, do it outta their own pockets, and that's just great.
Alyssa: It is great. And then Dave, I know that obviously you work with corporate partners, but you also have a sidekick that sometimes helps you out with some of, uh, your events and some of your other stuff that you do with your corporate sponsors. Let us know a little about your coco.
Dave: I have to tell you this, I went to the Sherm Conference, society of Human Resource Managers, and I was there for a few years in a row exhibiting with cocoa.
My, my canine ambassador, she's at my side most times. One of the subsequent years I was there, I was walking into the, the facility checking in. I had my bags, you know, still in my hands around my shoulders. And from across the atrium, this person yells. Coco and he comes running over. He gets down on the floor, he's petting Coco, he's having a blast.
[00:17:00] He stands up, he sticks his hands out and he looks at me and says, I forget your name, . Oh,
Alyssa: always. Of
Christina: course, of course. Always. So what is a Canaan ambassador? So you have Coco, she's a what kind of
Dave: dog? Cocoa was a cross. She's a, a lab and a retriever cross. She's yellow, she's six years old. Was raised in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in the penitentiary down there.
And her job, I always say is to be, be, be pet, make friends, and mm-hmm. generate smiles and, and help people fall in love with Leader Dog. You know, people, you know, it's, it's a bit of a mixed message. I agree that, you know, you don't typically pet or even really acknowledge service dogs, but, you know, I've been in enough organizations where people really want that and, and, and.
Coco can kind of serve as our bridge, you know, to those dogs. You know, she can kinda, yeah. That's her job. Yes.
Alyssa: Her job. It's not, it's not gonna ruin anything if she gets pet. Yeah. So
Christina: basically a Canyon ambassador, she was in training at one point. Mm-hmm. , yes. And then got pulled to. Act as a canine
Dave: ambassador.
So I'm a dad, so my dad joke is that she was career changed at the tail end of training. Oh, . Uh, because . But yes, she [00:18:00] had, uh, I think it was a third ear infection towards that tail end of training. And that then the doctors thought that may have been chronic. And, and as we all know, we're not gonna issue a dog to somebody that has no medical issues, even if they're relatively.
Like Samir infections. So, uh, she got almost all the way through training and now makes a fantastic canine ambassador, even does blindfold logs for corporate partners all the
Alyssa: time. That's great. Yeah, we get to use our canine ambassadors for different events. Uh, you've probably seen them wearing their green vests.
We have 'em at Bark and Brew and at Dinner in the Dark and all of our great events used for photos and just like Dave was saying, somebody to pet and, and fall in love with Leader Dogs. So it's a great program and we thank you for housing one of our
Christina: ambassador. Yes. And someone had once told me when I first started that green means go, green means, so you can't pet any other dog unless it's green and then it means go.
So go ahead and yeah, that's, that's
Alyssa: great. Yes, I love it. I've even seen cocoa has her own little, um, what do you call 'em, baseball cards. Oh, she does. Oh man. Where it's got her little bio on them and we can [00:19:00] pass 'em out to people.
Christina: Why did I don't have one of those? Oh, thank you. Dave just handed Oh, as Dave handed me, one just handed me one just to walk you guys through this a little bit.
It has her picture on the front and it says Coco and what she is, and it has her birthday. Her favorite toy activity tree. I mean, oh, they're adorable. It, it's like she's a star.
Alyssa: Yes. These ambassadors are something special.
Christina: Whoa. I never knew this, Dave. I've seen cocoa. Every week she's famous because she's always in the office.
Yeah, man. Now I know.
Alyssa: Now you know, you're learning something new every time now.
Christina: I know. Yeah. Super cool. So Dave, I mean, you almost have cocoa. You don't have cocoa with you today, which is surprising. But you have her with you almost every single day. So she is literally like your coworker.
Dave: She truly is.
She's, it's very infrequent that people see me without her , you know, it's, it is. It is fun. It's, it's fun to have that piece of identity. And you know, I hear a lot of times our clients talk about that, that, you know, the dog is, you know, becomes part of the identity. It becomes an icebreaker. It becomes an [00:20:00] entrance into society.
We talk so often about our clients feeling isolated and how the dog. You can really correct that. And, and I, I feel like that I am a part of that because that's how it is for me. People stopping me all the time, wanting to talk about Coco, talk about leader dogs, talk about their own dogs, really just engage, you know, so she's a great ambassador and does her job well.
Well, and
Alyssa: I'm sure that same thing's happen to you, Timothy, where now that you've got Glacier, everybody's like, oh, glacier, oh, there's Timothy holding on right there. right
Dave: there. Yeah, that's, you know, it's Glacier first. It's only, but is that a problem? I
Alyssa: don't know. Question.
Timothy: Uh, not really. .
Christina: Yeah, so I was so excited when Timothy came to visit and I got to meet Glacier.
Oh, I know. I mean, I was so excited to meet you, Timothy, but
Dave: here goes, just kidding. I
Timothy: can feel the appreciation of it.
Dave: Thank you. You're so genuine, Christina. You're so genuine.
Christina: Hey, you know
Alyssa: the podcast is where her truth comes out. .
Christina: Yeah. Tim, the, I was so excited to be, No, you know that. You know
Dave: [00:21:00] that.
Timothy: I was excited to meet you too, Christina.
So .
Christina: Well, this is great. I mean, so, okay, if there's a Corporal Barner listing or someone that works somewhere and is like, man, how do I even, where do I even begin? How do I get in contact with Dave and. More so Coco . How does this all work?
Dave: It should be Coco and dave@dog.org. Yeah. I'm gonna start signing everything with just a pop print, you know.
There we go. Call it a. You know, our website is, is very robust, you know, and so, you know, there's ways to get involved. I think it even says that at the top of our website, you know, ways to give or ways to get involved. And underneath there there's some information on how to, and you know, how to, where my contact information is and how corporate partners could.
But the reality is, is if you wanna partner with Leader Dog or just get involved with Leader Dog, just learn about Leader Dog. That's ultimately where we, what we want and where we usually start. I, I can't tell you how often I just go in. There's no money associated with it. There's no expectations associated with it.
I just go in and just tell people about Leader Dog, you know, [00:22:00] be a part of a, a larger all team meeting or a town hall type meeting and just answer those questions can cause I think people genuinely wanna know, and they, especially if they're in this area and have spent their whole life seeing these dogs training in and around their community, they have that curiosity.
um, we're there to meet them on their terms and it doesn't have to be overly developed. It can just be exploratory at the beginning.
Christina: Yeah. And you know, our corporate partners, you know, they feel that too because all of our services are provided for free to our clients. So they're really helping our clients live a life of independence and.
Helping us to not charge a dime. Mm-hmm. for anything for our clients. You know, they come and stay on campus, we fly them in
Alyssa: everything. Food, everything. Yeah. I mean, even in our o and m program, we give everybody a cane if they don't have one. Yeah. Obviously a guide dog. Give 'em a guide dog. .
Christina: Yeah, so our donors, cuz we don't get government funding.
Either, so no government, our donors really, really mean a lot
Dave: to us. I think that's a, a relatively unique position to be in. I think that people think [00:23:00] charity, they think fundraising, they think donations, but I don't know that they realize that most charities have a, a core revenue source. They get insurance money, they get assistance from the government.
They may even get discounted fees, but still fees from their clients. Leader dog is a hundred percent funded through donations. I mean, it's literally the community's decision to keep leader dog operational. So I love going into these corporations and, and sharing that with them, because again, they do wanna help.
They do wanna make a difference, you know, and if their job is such that they don't feel like it's having a tangible impact on somebody else's life, this is a great way for them to have that impact that they've been searching for.
Timothy: Most people like me who's on disability check or couldn't afford a dog or the training for a cane.
So I thank corporations for doing all this. It's, it's made an impact in my life and
Dave: thousands of others. Well, I know that the impact, you know, AAA is our presenting sponsor of Dinner in the Dark, which is our upcoming event here on March 10th, and they talk all the time about how they're. I think they went into it with the intent, or at least a goal of trying to change people's lives in the leader dog community, maybe in the blind community as a whole.
But they often say how often [00:24:00] their lives were changed, at least as far as they can tell. Even more so, I mean, the, the impact leader dog had on them and their team and their, their mission as an entirety, you know, in its entirety has been remarkable and it's, it's amazing to. Their entire team get behind at, you know, aaa, the auto club group's team coming to Leader Dog, volunteering at summer camp, coming to our events.
They volunteered, I think, at every event, whether they were sponsoring it or not. Mm-hmm. , um, since they've been involved with Leader Dog. So it's, it's really about that passion that gets developed and again, it's, it's fun to see corporations get behind that. Yeah.
Christina: Very cool. And David, thank you so much.
Sharing all of this great information today and you know, if you are a corporation and wanna get involved, you can head to leader dog.org, like Dave said, and they're under, you know, the ways to get involved. Tab Corporate Partners or just give us a call as well. And, um, we will get you connected. But thank you so much also to our listeners.
For listening to the Taking the Lead podcast, I'm Christina Heppner with host Timothy [00:25:00] Kuo and our wonderful guest host, Alyssa Otis. We hope you enjoyed learning about Dave, and please join us next week as we continue to dive into the world of blindness.
Alyssa: And if you'd like to learn more about applying to Leader Dog for our services, you can head to leader dog.org or call us at (888) 777-5332.
Don't forget you can reach us at taking the. At leader dog.org with any questions or ideas. If you like today's podcast, make sure to hit subscribe and check us out wherever Podcasts Stream.
Christina: This season of the Taking the Lead podcast is brought to you by a longtime supporter of Leader Dog, the Mary P DL Hallan Foundation.
As you may know, generous donors like this one make it possible to achieve our. The Mary P DOL Hallan Foundation supports the study of mathematics and mathematics education. For more information about our generous sponsor, visit their website at
Dave: www.dolhallanfoundation.org.[00:26:00]