Igniting Hope and Joy: A Conversation with Nicky Nash of Kids Up Front (S6E20)

In this landmark 20th episode of Season 6, we're thrilled to welcome a truly inspiring guest, Nicky Nash, the Executive Director of Kids Up Front. This extraordinary charity based in Calgary has been changing lives, one experience at a time, by offering deserving kids opportunities they would otherwise miss.

Nicky shares the powerful and transformative stories that unfold when children are given the chance to participate in enriching experiences, from attending cultural events, sports games, to educational opportunities and beyond. Listen in as we explore the impact of these experiences not just on the children, but on their families and the community as a whole.

Whether you're a parent, educator, volunteer, or anyone passionate about making a difference in the lives of children, this episode is sure to uplift and inspire. Join us as we delve into the heart of Kids Up Front and uncover the magic that happens when we prioritize children's access to experiences that can shape their futures.

Don't miss this meaningful conversation about the power of opportunity, the impact of community support, and the transformative potential of charity. You won't want to miss it!

And don't forget to check out our Spotify playlist "The Guestlist" to listen to the songs shared by our guests (and hosts) as top-shelf ear candy. Nicky adds a few more to our eclectic (and pretty fantastic) playlist
👉🏻Check it out here:  The Guestlist

Transcript

JP Gaston: 0:10

Hey everyone, it's JP just letting you know to get ready for The Biz Dojo jam at tailgunner brewing this Thursday, June 8. There'll be an unforgettable podcast, hip hop vibes from Mark Logan and dance rock beats from the steadies. It's gonna be a party all night long, great networking event. There'll be the musicians, Olympians, business owners, entrepreneurs, leaders, all sorts of incredible people. And it's all for a great cause the Calgary food bank, so don't miss out. Make sure you grab your tickets. There's still a few left. Get them today. Just head over to the biz dojo.com or send us a message on social and we'll see you on Thursday, June 8 tailgunner. Brewing. I just noticed that your phone case in your

Seth Anderson: 0:55

cup flurries? Branding. Yeah.

JP Gaston: 1:00

It's branding, except there's actually no branding on the phone case. The purple implies Yeah, it says smart ish.

Seth Anderson: 1:07

That's branding itself. I guess in retrospect, I should have got the purple Air Force ones, but I didn't see. There was just the orange.

JP Gaston: 1:16

Did they have like a wall? And there was like, smart, smart ish.

Seth Anderson: 1:21

Smart last

JP Gaston: 1:23

year like Oh, go

Seth Anderson: 1:24

with smart. I just ordered it off Amazon and I liked it because it had the built in card for Yes. That was my decision making matrix.

Nicky Nash: 1:33

And the one with the purple. Be like you nailed it.

Seth Anderson: 1:36

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Just on brand on brand. That's what we do here. This thing got loose. It's like slowly.

JP Gaston: 1:51

It's no, it's a bottom. This one. This one that? Yes.

Seth Anderson: 1:57

Yeah, that's very keep you around. That's his mic stand special.

JP Gaston: 2:00

It's not because I get you. Because mic stands. It's my contribution here.

Seth Anderson: 2:08

Welcome to The Biz Dojo, live ish, from Braco furniture and brought to you by beyond the beaten path for all your creative laser engraving needs be on the beaten path.ca. And we are joined today by Nikki Nash, Executive Director of kids up front. Yeah,

Nicky Nash: 2:28

thank you so much for having.

Sean Mills: 2:30

Thanks for being here.

Seth Anderson: 2:30

It's an honor and welcome. Welcome to the dojo.

Sean Mills: 2:33

You get the pleasure of joining us in the most comfortable recording studio that we had all season.

Nicky Nash: 2:39

It is really comfortable.

JP Gaston: 2:41

Halfway through this episode, this isn't gonna be snoring. 45 minutes before people sorry.

Sean Mills: 2:47

We just need to we just like to make people feel nice.

Seth Anderson: 2:50

Yeah. You know, that's what we're all about here.

JP Gaston: 2:52

For our listeners. If you hear a gene in the middle of the episode, that's the recliner going. Yeah. Exactly.

Seth Anderson: 2:59

Perfect. So Nikki, why don't you tell us a little bit about kids up front. I'm I know JP here a longtime supporter. And I just kind of got tuned in you guys a couple of months ago after we had Jason Ribeiro on the show. But yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey. Yeah, kids,

Nicky Nash: 3:15

a friend is a local charity that actually started in Calgary, back in 2000. So around 1999, there was like a local businessman named John, who went to a local sports game and saw a lot of empty seats and, and thought these seats are, you know, could be filled with kids who would absolutely love to be here and don't have the opportunity to because they either can't afford it or are facing other barriers. And he was like, how do I connect all of these unused tickets to all of these deserving kids. So he started kind of floating the idea to some local businesses and some philanthropists around town and, and everybody loved it. And they got it going. And they were working off I think John's kitchen table for a while, until they really got it going and got the charitable status. And so he had started here in Calgary, launched officially in 2000 is when they got their charitable status. And then since then we've actually expanded across Canada. So locations in Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Halifax. Very cool. Yeah. And since then, I think, don't hold me to this number, but I'm pretty sure. Currently we're sitting at close to 645,000 tickets distributed. Wow. Just in Calgary.

Sean Mills: 4:28

Good for you guys.

Seth Anderson: 4:29

Yeah, that's awesome. With amazing.

Sean Mills: 4:32

So with this much growth, and for the charity, can you just talk a little bit about like, what specifically it does for the kids or kind of how it involves the kids because I mean, kids are obviously the most important part. So ABS I just like to hear a little bit about kind of the, you know, what goes on for them and what their opportunities are and what you guys do? For sure.

Nicky Nash: 4:51

I think that probably the biggest question we get is like how do we find our kids and families? So a lot of people are not familiar with our kind of our ticket distribution process. So how that works is we actually partner with 150, other social sector organizations and government organizations. So things like schools, other charities, like Big Brothers, Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, women's shelters, you name it, schools, Child and Family Services, all of those types of organizations that, that serve families and kids that, you know, need our opportunities. So rather than us qualifying, you know, hundreds of 1000s of kids and families, which would be a lot of a diminished administration, we work with our agencies, and they find us the kids and the families that can kind of best they know their kids best and, and connect our opportunities to them. So that's kind of how the distribution side of it works. So we have ticket contacts within all of the different organizations. So we actually have over 600 contacts on that list. And they help us connect us to kids and families who really need the opportunities. And in terms of the types of experiences were wildly wildly widely known, sorry, for our kind of sports side of things, because that's, I think, our bread and butter, but what a lot of people don't I think connect us to all the time is the arts and culture piece, which is so, so important. We actually have huge theater partners. We work with theatre, Calgary, Alberta theatre projects, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Calgary opera, you name it on the art side, we likely partner with them storybook theater, a lot of the you know, younger serving theaters as well, vertigo. So that's a side of our program that a lot of people don't connect us with all the time, but is is equally important. And also, you know, that's a huge part of our program. It's just the the venue's can't hold as many seats as the other guys. But it's all important because you never know what's going to connect with a kid, you don't know if they go to a hockey game or a football game, or maybe they go to see the opera for the first time, what's going to ignite kind of a passion within them and open up doors and ideas that they didn't have before. So that's a bit about the experience side. And then we also do experiential stuff as well, which I think a lot of people don't know. So we host a ski trip every year, where it's completely barrier free. So we actually bust the kids out. We always provide you know, breakfast, lunch, snacks, lessons rentals, like everything start to finish so that all they have to do is show up that day. So it's completely barrier free. And I would say probably 90% of these kids haven't even been to the mountains before in person. So it's a really magical day, it's been one of my favorites. We've been doing it think since 2013. And that one came really directly from a passion from one of our donors who just came to us and was like, I know, I really love skiing. And I know there's a lot of other kids that don't even know that this is, you know, an opportunity or something that they might really love. And he was like, What can we do to get this going. And we're really agile organization, we're really small. So we can turn these things around pretty quickly. And, and you know, our mission is so open, it's really just providing enriching experiences to kids. So that leaves a lot, a lot of things open. And we can make a lot of things happen, which is really fun. So the experiential side, we've done cooking classes, we've done the ski trip we've done, you know, we've done job shadows before, which are really cool. We had a young lady one time go to a theater opportunity. And she was fascinated by the theater makeup, and was like, had never really thought of that before as like a profession or just as an opportunity and was like, we had her teacher contact us and ask, can we set her up somehow to like, connect with this person that does theater, makeup, and we so we ended up setting up a job shadow with for a day with this young person and, and she was just like completely blown away. Like, this isn't a career opportunity for me that I'd never even thought of before. That came from just that one experience. So you just like never know what's gonna connect with somebody. And really, like, you know, they could find their passion, they could find the career path, or they could just really have a fun time for a few hours and forget all their worries. So it's a little bit of everything. Sorry, I just went on for a really long time. But it's like, I could keep going and going. I

JP Gaston: 9:05

remember my first experience in the mountains as the whole reason I moved out here, like just that magical moment when you get out there and you're just like, wow, this is this is nature like I need to be closer to this, I need to be more involved in this. And that's I can only imagine for kids who live this close, like many of them live right here in our backyard and they don't get a chance to go out there like that. I can see totally how that would be life changing because it certainly was for me.

Nicky Nash: 9:32

Oh big time and like you think about how many of us use the mountains as like respite and like a time for like us to go and like relax and many of them don't have that opportunity. You know, it's something that's not super easy to get to. Although nature's free, you still have to get there. And a lot of the activities associated with winter sports can be really expensive and a lot of barriers involved. So that's where we come in. When I remove all those entry, park and do all of it right you have to eat open err. Yeah,

JP Gaston: 10:01

exactly. So you've got the you've got like the kids side, we've also have this like massive volunteer side. Tell us tell us more about the volunteers and like, what sorts of things that that they get involved with?

Nicky Nash: 10:12

Yeah. So we're really small team at kids up front. So we're actually right, only three staff right now. And we make between last year with 17,500 experiences, usually pre pandemic, we're around 30 35,000 tickets a year. And we've always been like a team of three or four. So small staff, so we rely heavily on our volunteers. We probably have, I would say close to 160 570, like pretty active volunteers, which is mind blowing. I think that's so unique to Calgary. I don't know, I've never lived anywhere else other than a quick study abroad to Denmark. But you know, Calgary is just so unique in that way that I just like feel like it's ingrained in the culture like to give back and to volunteer. And it's like community is such a big piece of like who we are as Calgarians. And kind of the how the volunteer program came up was a few years ago, when we had gone to the Saddledome and kind of the some of the guys over at sea second said, you know, you also have all these empty suites, sometimes that companies can't go they can't, you know, find a host all these things, how do we bridge that gap and fill these suites full of kids? And how do we ensure the suite owners feel comfortable? You know, these things are very expensive? How do we make sure that everyone feels comfortable giving us the suites and that we can provide a really great experience for our kids and families. And that's when we came up with the sweet ambassador program. So it's actually where we train a volunteer to be kind of our eyes and ears at every Saddledome event. They host the families in the groups in the suites. Because we are such a small team, I was practically living at the Saddledome ambassador program launch. I'm pretty sure I knew everybody by first name for a while there. And they're like, Oh, you again? Yeah, I'm like, Yeah, hates me. And then we're like, I think we need some help, we need to put a call out to Calgary and say, like, hey, let's do this. And it was a good way to like I said, make sure everybody's felt comfortable. Not only the suite owners, but also our families, because many of them haven't been to the Saddledome let alone a suite experience, like where do you go? What's the food involved? Like? How does that work? All of these questions, right? So we wanted everybody to feel comfortable. So we put the call out. So we actually do our own internal training to make sure that the suite ambassadors know the ins and outs of like, what's, what's our expectations, what's the rules? What are all these things. And then we also provide the tickets to the Sweet ambassador as well. That way, if a family can't go last minute, then the sweet Ambassador still has them. So we can find another group and connect them really easily. And now we get probably well over 200 Sweets a season. And so there's always opportunity there. And we've had a suite ambassador at every single one of those suites. So that's like 200, just right there. times, you know, so we've been doing it since 2013. So that's one of our biggest opportunities for volunteers. And it's awesome, because you can also we encourage our volunteers to bring their kids, which is fairly rare for a volunteer opportunity. You know, sometimes people are like, I want to volunteer, but I barely see my spouse, and I barely see my kids. And like if I go volunteer, that's even more time away. Whereas we encourage them to bring who they want to bring. Obviously, there's things we need to check first to make sure everybody's good police checks, things like that. But we encourage people to bring a friend, a spouse, their kid, and have that experience together, which is also a really great opportunity for the kids to like get as a volunteers kid going, they get to see kind of their their parent or their mentor or whoever there it is that they're going with, that volunteering is like an important thing to do and why it matters and get exposure to that, which is really cool. So that's the big one. And then the other one is just volunteering to help out at our events, fundraising, or maybe their events that are with our kids and families. So we have like what we call just a general volunteer list, which we just send out any opportunity and every opportunity to and people just kind of volunteer when they have time. None of our volunteer opportunities have like set days or times or minimums or maximums, like it's very flexible. People can help out when they can and if they can't No big deal. So we have some suite ambassadors that'll take one suite a year and some that take 10 So it's totally up to whatever works for for people.

JP Gaston: 14:21

Yeah, I remember my I think my first involvement was, aside from donating my first actual like volunteering involvement was 5050 game. Yeah. And and the 5050 sales. Yeah, walking around the concourse, which was like, I've done sort of that stuff before, but like it was just a different experience telling people about kids up front and we know what organization they're supporting. And like actually getting the word out there. It was a it was an interesting experience. It's very different.

Nicky Nash: 14:48

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we used to do a lot of the 5050s I think it's changed a little bit now just with technology and having them available online. Like I think that's changed a bit. But that was a big part too, is like If we needed I think you need like 30 or 40 people to help you. And we're like, we're a team of three, like, we need help. So that was another thing that sparked like the, you know, the need for having volunteers on the roster and of course, our border all volunteers as well. Which is, which is incredible. And like I said, probably close to 170 volunteers and, and a lot of them are pretty active and in the office all the time, and they're really an extension to our team and our family. And we really couldn't do it without them.

Seth Anderson: 15:30

Over the years 1000s of kids and families that you've helped out, are there any stories that kind of stand out of like, inspiring dance,

Nicky Nash: 15:38

there's so many, it's hard to pick to pick the CD always like is a big one because that one was like I started at that kid's friend in 2012. And then the ski trip started in 2013. So it was one that like I was part of like getting going and, and helping to organize right at the beginning. So that was a really cool one. There was one kid in particular on the first first annual ski day that I just really connected with we like skied together all day, he was just like super resilient, positive, like just had a good connection with him. And I actually was like, I'm gonna email the teacher and just tell him like how great this kid was. And he was just in it. Like, he just wanted to be there. He was so excited, just like living for it was, you could never tell that he had been through anything. Like he was just so positive and so great. But anyways, I decided to email the teacher and just say like, you know, this kid was so great. I really enjoyed the day, just like really stood out to me. And she replied back saying you'd never, she said, That's so great to hear. Because you'd never ever understand, like, how much pain this kid's been through. He was actually homeless. With his two brothers, they were living out of a van living out of the food box at school taking food from the food box at school without anybody noticing. And finally, think it teacher somebody like stumbled upon them like and it was wintertime and like notice, they were just like in the van. And realize very quickly, like they've been living there for a while. And, and obviously got all of the proper agencies involved and to get them safe and get them into a home. But yeah, that one was that one stuck out to me because it was like such a lesson for me that you never know what somebody's going through. And even though that this, you know, this kid had been through so much, this experience was still so fun for him and just like let him I guess relax and like enjoy the day and just like Forget about all that for a little while. That one stood up to me and that kid like, that's resilience. Yeah, I still tell that story a lot. We had a lot of different events, because I think that one I was like, came home immediately to my husband was like, I don't know how we're gonna do it. But we're adopting these two boys. We're doing it. Yeah, he's like, you know, there's processes and proper things that needs to happen. Like, we can't just do that.

JP Gaston: 18:02

You got like, 60,000 a year with the kids like let's Yeah, maybe not take them on right away here.

Seth Anderson: 18:09

Did you know what happened to that kid in particular?

Nicky Nash: 18:12

I actually don't. But I know that I did follow up just to like, make sure that they were safe, and everything was good. And the teacher did let me know that they had some family members that had taken them in and, and were not, you know, they didn't know what was happening. And they didn't realize the parents had abandoned them due to addiction. And they did end up in a safe loving home, which was really good. And that that's, that was the only follow up that I got. But that one really stuck in my head.

Sean Mills: 18:42

Yeah, I think there's something to be, you know, there's something interesting about that, too, with with this charity, and specifically. And I mean, there's I guess there's two things that I wanted to talk about is one is there's got to be it takes a special person like yourself, and it takes a hard there have to be some hard boundaries on not taking work home with you. In those situations. So like, there's, there's got to be some tough emotional days at times, just kind of knowing what you know, having the inside track, but it's also it's also a really kind of unique thing where you're giving kids experiences and not stuff. And I think that often the scapegoat, when it comes to giving kids is just give them things and they'll occupy themselves while in kids in these situations, in in tough situations that I've found over the years is that by giving them experience, you kind of give them the opportunity to see a window and what life could be like or could potentially is like under the proper care and guidance and and finding passionate things. And I think like the interesting thing is is now we've kind of shifted maybe from sports to the arts and culture a little bit where I mean even I even noticed with some family members and some kids that kind of in my social network that There's more involvement in kind of the, in the dance in the acting in the kind of the social environment type things, versus you just you're a kid, you play hockey, you're a kid, you play soccer, you're a kid, you play baseball. So it's the diversity of experiences is starting to evolve a little bit more sickness significantly, but it's something that I support to locally in a couple of different areas is just the opportunity to get kids a break from their situation. And just to kind of know that, that provides a little bit of hope. So that's kind of a just for those listening, let's, uh, look for those charities that maybe provide that opportunity, especially this one.

Nicky Nash: 20:41

No, I appreciate that. And I think these experiences are so important. Like, we all can't just sit in our, you know, in our trauma and our and our negative, I guess, experiences in life all day, every day, we all need respite, we all need an outlet, we all need something. You know, that's kind of like Northstar to be like, You know what, life's not so bad. There are positive things out there. And there are people that care about me. And there are things that I can go after in life that are gonna, you know, provide happiness and joy and and sent me you know, maybe set a direction life that I hadn't thought about before. It was just like that the theater makeup one, as an example was like such an eye opener for me, because you just never know what's going to connect with somebody. That's why, like you said, the diversity of experiences is so important, because our kids are diverse. And they are all passionate about different things. And, and, you know, we run a wish list for that purpose, because all the tickets we're getting in might not necessarily be what every single kid wants to do. So we always encourage our agencies to send us wishlist requests for things that maybe we aren't offering. Because we don't know what we don't know. And kids often are way ahead of the curve than we are. So we encourage them to send in those wishes, requests. I remember one time we got a request for the cat show, which I didn't know there was a cat. Yeah, and it was like,

Sean Mills: 22:04

yeah, the cat show dog cat show. Okay, I'm gonna probably need some details, right?

Nicky Nash: 22:09

Yeah, it was like, it was years ago. But it was. And that one stood out to me because I was like, I've never heard of this. But I'm like, let's try and get this kid to this catch. And it was at a local community hall, I think. And it was literally like all about cats. And this kid had a passion for cat. So we found a way to connect with organizers and send the kid and we got the best thank you card we've ever got from this Cattrall. And we had all like, kind of were like making fun of it a little bit. Like, what is the catch? Oh, we want to know more about it. What is this? And then we ended up sending it and it was like the most meaningful thing. So you just never know what's going to connect. And everyone's passionate about different things. I bet every single one of us sitting here all are passionate. Passionate about the cat. Yeah.

Seth Anderson: 22:51

There isn't one he'll be hosting. Yeah.

Nicky Nash: 22:53

I think we've had reptiles before too. Like there's, there's lots of different things and, and Calgary has so much to offer. And you know, that's why that wish list is so important. So that they are, you know, the kids in the families are also teaching us where to go or who to reach out to and what opportunities we should be providing. So that's an important one, for sure. Well, there's

Sean Mills: 23:13

opportunity not not only for the kids, but for the mentorship aspect from, you know, from your volunteers. You know, there's always opportunities for mentorship in any way, shape or form. So, you know, it's kind of provides a road an avenue for both.

Nicky Nash: 23:26

Absolutely. And I think, you know, we have we partner with a lot of mentorship organizations, and they utilize our experiences to connect with their littles and, and with the people that they're mentoring. And, you know, a lot of kids that are living potentially in care, you know, or in a shelter, like, you know, it's nice for them to be able to get out with the people in their lives that they look up to, and maybe not everybody has, you know, a super healthy home environment for it. So for them to be able to get out and spend time with people who are meaningful to them and to have that respite in that time to just be a kid is is so crucial to their health and their mental health.

JP Gaston: 24:05

Like I know how much I get out of like, even just going to a sporting event but something I've been doing for my nieces and nephew has been buying them experiences instead of getting them stuff at Christmas, in part because I've seen my sister's basement they don't need stuff. Yeah. Giving them experiences is way better, but I don't know there's there's just something about those experiences like it you think about a kid who happens to be in some form of shelter or care and like, I get so much out of going to a hockey game or going to a play or whatever. I can only imagine like for someone who's in that situation where that doesn't even seem like feasible. They're just trying to survive they're trying to enter you know, get food on their plate make sure that they've got a roof over their head. That would be like such an amazing experience. No, almost no matter what it is.

Nicky Nash: 24:53

Yeah 100% I think I say all the time that you know we're not the end all be all charity. I don't think any charity is but we're all like a piece of the puzzle. And we're all a piece of the pie. And together, we are making a huge difference, like, in a full way. You know, we not we don't provide the basics, like we're talking about, we don't provide food, we don't provide shelter. But I always say that we provide nourishment of the Spirit. And like, to me, that's so, so important. And I think especially through the pandemic, we all realize what it was to be socially isolated. And like our families have been living that far before COVID. And so we now all kind of understand that piece, and how important it is to for connection for community for in Richmond. So I think now more than ever, people like I feel like really can connect with what we do in a in a really meaningful way.

Seth Anderson: 25:45

And correct me if I'm wrong, too. I think when we chatted before you guys also facilitate some experiences too. Yeah, we do.

Nicky Nash: 25:51

So we have a program called Kids Count, which is exactly what the ski trip falls under the cooking classes, things like that. We have actually, for the last couple years, we've run a curbside concert series every summer. So we provide concerts for families, where they get to come and it was outdoor, primarily just because of restrictions and things like that. But now we're moving it. We're changing it a little bit this year. But we provided concerts kind of all summer long. So kids had something to do now that's, you know, during, when school's out. And it was all partnering with local musicians. And we also provided like food and activity booklets and we like to always like make things a little bit full circle, so they have something to take home. So the activity booklet has like education pieces about music and different ways to connect with music and crayons and things like that. So when they get home, they're like, Oh, that was awesome. And then they get like another experience at home to like, learn more about music, and maybe the artists they just saw and different things about that. So we do a lot of those types events throughout the year. Yeah, and we really, it's just like, based on the passions of our donors, and the wishlist requests that we're getting from our kids. So if we're like all somebody who's like really into circus, we're going to figure out a way to get them connected to that. We did a carnival last year where it was like actually introducing girls into different circus activities, which was really cool. We worked with greenfields theatre. And that was like, mostly driven by the passions of a couple of wishlist requests. And we made that happen. And that was a really cool that we're bringing back this year. So like I said, we're really agile and can make many things happen. And so if someone out there has an idea, or, or is passionate about something and wants to get that out, you know, to some kids, we're definitely interested. And a lot of people don't know about that piece of our program, they just think about the tickets, which is our definitely our biggest and you know, our founding program. But the experiential side and the kids count side is is equally important and and growing.

Seth Anderson: 27:57

Shawn, you can you can come learn how to build a golf cart Bay.

JP Gaston: 28:03

I love the extension into the home because like it takes it from being like this experience we sent you to this one time to, hey, this is a thing that can happen in your space.

Nicky Nash: 28:12

Totally. And we wanted them to be thinking about other ways to connect with those experiences. So if it's music, like how can I do that at home? Or what are some resources I have available, available to me locally or at home or at school? To bring it more full circle? And we're looking to do that more with our events? Like it's great to send all of these kids skiing for a day. But how do we keep them skiing? How do we remove the barriers if they want to go again, if that passion is ignited, so we're definitely looking into that. And that's the direction that we're heading is to, to bring a more full circle once somebody does find a passion wants to keep pursuing that. And of course, we have partners that can make some of those things happen. But if if there's opportunity for us to you know, to connect those dots, then I think that's that's kind of going to be the next phase of, of kids are fronton and programming wise, like where we're headed mazing

Seth Anderson: 29:04

so for people who want to get involved with all the wonderful things you just talked about, what's the best course of action or best avenue for them to do that?

Nicky Nash: 29:12

Yeah, I would say just connect with us. On our website, kids that from calgary.com. You can connect with us on our social media, we're pretty active there as well. I think pretty much all of our handles are kids that for INCOG because Calgary is too long so kids ever encountered and then you can always just drop by our office or connect with us about volunteer opportunities, I think, you know, becoming a volunteer is a really great way to kind of get introduced to our team and to what we're doing and to see things firsthand. So I would encourage that as well. And, and, yeah, we're open and we'd love to chat to people,

JP Gaston: 29:46

I will say even passively volunteer and just get the emails because some of the some of the emails that you send to me that are like, hey, we need help at Beer Fest. I'm like Beer Fest now you've got totally

Sean Mills: 30:00

as well, and just to be clear, too, so for the so you can volunteer, you can donate tickets, you can donate funds towards tickets and events and things like that. So those are all opportunities that exist in kind of whatever platform that you can that you can offer as a as a donator, or potential person who wants to get involved.

Nicky Nash: 30:17

Yeah, and I think an important message too, is that with the tickets side of things, people are always like, Oh, it's probably too late. So they don't like call us or check in. But we can take tickets up to 2pm on the same game day, so we can turn things around pretty quickly. And then for weekend events, typically Friday by noon. So yeah, we're agile can turn things around and get kids in the seats and out to different experiences. And of course, just would encourage people to also donate things to like Sue passes and arts and calls culture opportunities. Those are huge. And probably the number one requested thing from our kids is like local attractions and things like that. So yeah, lots of different ways to support and we're happy to chat with you.

Seth Anderson: 30:59

Great, amazing. So I guess we'll get you out of here on our bonus soap works. Question of the Week. Question of the season. What is your favorite song?

Nicky Nash: 31:13

Oh gosh, probably anything by Miranda Lambert. But I would say probably heart like heart like mine by Miranda Lambert or anything by Randy Travis.

Seth Anderson: 31:23

Randy Travis. Yeah, that is new. We have not

Nicky Nash: 31:26

got a little country into your playlist.

JP Gaston: 31:29

We had a little bit of country but still waiting for Brahms. The waiting for someone who can bring up something classical.

Seth Anderson: 31:38

You can you can find said playlist with all of our season six guests favorite songs on Spotify called season six. The guest the guest list is probably like 30 songs on there at this point.

JP Gaston: 31:50

I think there might even be more than that. Awesome.

Seth Anderson: 31:53

There'll be some Miranda Lambert and Randy Travis now so thanks for joining us today Nikki. This was absolute blast.

Nicky Nash: 32:01

Thanks so much for having me. It's awesome.

JP Gaston: 32:07

Don't forget you can join us this Thursday, June 8 at tailgunner brewing for our live season finale. All for a great cause. Check it out at the biz dojo.com