Video Interview, Patty Hayes, February 22, 2013
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, so the first question is the hardest.
- I need you give me the correct spelling of your first
- and last name of how you want it to appear.
- PATTY HAYES: Sure.
- Patty, P-A-T-T-Y. Hayes, H-A-Y-E-S.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, and should we
- title you like former director at the GAGV?
- PATTY HAYES: I was former Youth Program Coordinator
- at the GAGV.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So if you could, let's just
- start out about the beginnings of the youth program
- here at the GAGV.
- Just talk to me a little bit about the development
- of that program, but more importantly
- the need for the development of that program.
- And I know you weren't initially at the beginning of it.
- But whatever you can do to put it into context for us.
- PATTY HAYES: Sure.
- Well, the beginnings of the GAGV youth group were, I would say,
- quite humble.
- At that time, the GAGV was minimally staffed, right?
- And so many programs that were happening
- were being run by volunteers with some staff support.
- And so the beginnings of the youth group
- was that it was very much volunteer facilitators.
- First, there was just two people.
- And then eventually, it would broaden out
- to a group of adults who had been screened
- and had stepped forward that they were
- willing to co-facilitate a weekly support
- group for young people.
- And so it was very grassroots.
- It was very minimally staffed.
- It was very minimally--
- I won't say supported.
- I mean, there wasn't a lot of resources.
- There wasn't a lot of resources for anything at that point
- when you think back to what life was like for young people
- in really the 1990s.
- And the group ran.
- Young people came.
- Adult facilitators supported them.
- Some of those young people then aged out.
- And they would spend a year or two away.
- And then they would come back as an adult facilitator.
- So they'd take a bit of a gap in there to get a bit of distance
- from the group.
- And I think a real important turning
- point was when the Gay Alliance received
- a grant from the New York State Department of Health.
- Tanya Smolinsky wrote the grant and had the foresight
- to think this money, which by the state
- was earmarked for non-HIV related health programming--
- and she really made the case that funneling
- the money towards the youth programs
- was indeed a health Imperative.
- And so when that happened at that point,
- I was one of the adult volunteers with the youth
- group.
- So every four weeks, every three weeks,
- every six weeks depending on who was on vacation or not,
- I would go co-facilitate the group often
- with my partner at the time.
- And so when the funding came up, the search
- began for a youth program coordinator.
- And it was initially a part time position.
- So the hope was that this individual
- would continue to co-facilitate the weekly group,
- but also build the volunteer base
- and be able to actually start doing some things
- outside of the group like case management,
- advocacy, maybe a little bit of crisis counseling.
- And a couple of rounds went by.
- And finally, I think by the third round, I had thought,
- you know what?
- Maybe I'll throw my hat in the ring.
- So that would have been the fall of '99
- was when they were able to implement with the funding.
- And so I started out part time.
- And indeed, I was doing some case managing.
- And I think just being able to tell the young people,
- there's something else besides this two hour a week
- support group, the needs emerged like that to the point
- where, within four or five months of me being hired
- as this part time staff, Tanya and I
- sat down with some of the other leadership at that time
- and said, part time is not going to cut it anymore.
- Because there was all the program development
- that was going on.
- But as word was getting out that there was now an LGBT youth
- worker, young people are coming to me
- that they're dropping out of school, because they can't
- take the homophobia anymore.
- Parents are calling me saying, my kid's getting bullied,
- my kid's getting harassed, I don't know where else to turn.
- Young people are coming to me after group saying,
- I'm couchsurfing right now, I've got nowhere to stay,
- I can't go home, I can't go home, I came out
- and the violence is too much, or the potential
- of violence, or my parents just told me I have to get out.
- And so by like May or June--
- so what was that?
- Like six, seven months later--
- I was working, I'd say, full time,
- but it was full time plus.
- And it seemed like it was a wise decision.
- Because the more I was there, the more the needs
- emerged from the young people, from their families,
- and from various agencies and not schools right off the bat,
- but teachers, and counselors, and more progressive vice
- principals.
- They were calling to access training and supports
- and emergency case management.
- And so within a short time, just getting
- that extra financial boost to be able to do some out of the box
- programming, things just blossomed and bloomed
- in ways that were really amazing, really truly amazing.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: How significant is it
- that a small, little city like Rochester
- can have such a very progressive, forthcoming youth
- group for gay and lesbian kids?
- PATTY HAYES: I think that's a complicated thing
- to think about, what made the youth programs, like what
- came together at that point and that time
- to make it so significant.
- I think it was so many things.
- I think part of it was the Gay Alliance
- was already established.
- The youth group was there.
- It had a good track record.
- It was again very small, very grassroots.
- But the Gay Alliance had a track record
- of doing different programming and the Empty Closet
- had a long track record of being around in the community.
- I think there was a lot of other church groups
- and professional groups that were just ripe, and ready,
- and hungering to support something,
- to jump on something.
- And I think also there's something very interesting
- about Rochester.
- Because with the businesses, it feels fiscally
- a bit conservative, but has this really long track record
- of being socially progressive with the Abolitionist Movement,
- the Suffragist Movement.
- And so I think there's something in the water
- here, that things just really came together.
- And I think that allowed the Gay Alliance and the youth programs
- not just to provide support to the young people,
- but to really be prepared to be a leader around LGBT youth
- issues whether it was again to schools,
- to other service providers.
- And at one point when I was here,
- there were youth programs-- there
- was an even longer standing youth program in Buffalo.
- There were some burgeoning youth programs in Syracuse
- and in the southern tier.
- And we had such momentum that I was
- able to pull together a network actually
- of all the people running LGBT youth programs from Syracuse
- over to the Canadian border and down to Pennsylvania.
- And we would gather maybe once a quarter,
- once every four months.
- And GAGV was one of the leaders to say,
- well, this is what we're working on next,
- or this is how we're looking to foster GSAs.
- And it was very gratifying to be able to partner
- not just with people in Rochester,
- but to really partner with LGBT youth providers
- in this part of New York.
- Because it's very different than running
- LGBT programs in New York City.
- It's a whole other ball game in this part of the state.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, talk to me about that a little bit.
- Why is it different?
- PATTY HAYES: I think it's a different social situation.
- It's a different economic situation.
- In a big city, I think you have more access perhaps
- to LGBT community.
- It's much more out there.
- I think especially once you leave an immediate urban area,
- the social conservatism goes up.
- And so for the youth programs here
- in Rochester, I had young people driving and sometimes
- from an hour or more away every week to get here.
- It wasn't just a simple bus ride or a simple subway
- ride that you might have in a big city.
- And not to say that's easy for the young people there,
- but there was a real commitment on the part of the young people
- to get here, yeah.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's backtrack a little bit.
- Even before it was formally developed,
- when it was just this grassroots volunteer kind of thing,
- there was a big risk being taken to put gays, and lesbians,
- and children together.
- I mean, there was the risk of really having
- a community backlash there.
- And so I just want to get your thoughts on that
- and if there was any backlash.
- What was the Rochester community's reaction to that?
- PATTY HAYES: I'll be honest.
- I can't speak to the earliest days.
- I can't speak to the earliest days,
- because I was actually eighteen, nineteen myself, right?
- So my recollections and my agenda at the time
- were quite different.
- But certainly by the time I had signed on, I was a young adult.
- By the time I had signed on as a volunteer,
- I think people respected the program,
- they saw its necessity.
- I think people were happy it was there for young people.
- But I don't know if it was as front and center.
- Certainly as with any youth program,
- there is a level of screening of the adults.
- Because you want to make sure that they're safe people.
- But no, there wasn't ambivalence,
- but there certainly wasn't the energy there.
- Or for the confidentiality and protection of the young people,
- it wasn't necessarily widely advertised programs.
- Because we needed and wanted to keep it safe.
- I think there was always a concern about,
- would someone with ill intention who found out
- when and where the group might show up,
- either to cause problems for the young people one
- way or the other?
- So I think there was a level of protection
- that caused us to want to keep it close at hand.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So talk to me about the experience
- of a meeting here, the experience
- of coming to the youth group from a youth point of view.
- What was it like?
- What was the camaraderie like?
- What were some of the things that were being talked about?
- Essentially, what was the impact that it was really
- having with these young kids?
- PATTY HAYES: Yeah, they were truly remarkable, they
- are truly remarkable, their courage and their bravery,
- their insight about who they were.
- And some young people--
- it was such a mix.
- Some young people were coming without anybody
- knowing they were there.
- And they had given parents or caregivers some--
- I don't know what they told them.
- I'm going to the library.
- I'm going to Joe's house.
- I'm going wherever.
- And they would come.
- And I had tried to always foster a very welcoming atmosphere.
- And I always tried to get some of the youth who
- had been around for a while to be
- on the lookout for a new member, in that I would have
- young people give a new person the tour of the space
- and have them orient the young person-- here's how group
- works, and this is our mission statement,
- and let me introduce you to these other people.
- Because I really felt the youth knew best what
- was what it was like for them.
- I had other young people whose parents called me desperate
- and said, my child's come out to me, I can see them struggling,
- I really think they need to meet some other young people.
- I want them to feel safe and have a place to talk.
- Because they might not, they're teenagers,
- they don't want to share everything with me.
- How do I get my kid to you?
- And with those parents, not only would I have the young person
- get oriented, but I would try and give the parent
- a tour of the space.
- And I would sit down with a parent.
- Because I wanted to make sure they had what they needed,
- not just that their child had what they needed.
- And I could say we talk about everything and anything.
- I really tried to foster that there
- is nothing you can ask me or say to me or any of the adults here
- who care about you that will shock us,
- surprise us, or make us love you any less than we do.
- And everything from very, very frank discussions about sex
- and sexual behavior to school issues, to family issues.
- Religion and spirituality was always a big one.
- Drugs, alcohol, homelessness, anything and everything
- was fair game as far as I was concerned.
- And when I first came on board as a paid staff member,
- the focus was very much a support group.
- And so we approached a lot of things like,
- oh, the young person is coming here for support.
- And I went to a Creating Change Conference one year.
- Actually, some of us on staff went pretty much every year.
- And I went to every youth workshop in the Institute
- that I could.
- And I met amazing young people in amazing programs
- in other parts of North America where
- they had stopped focusing on the support group portion.
- And they really took a youth development, youth empowerment
- approach.
- And I thought, aha, that's it.
- The support piece is just to get them in the door
- and get them grounded enough to go out there, and do the work,
- and do the activism.
- Because they're so bright, and so capable,
- and know much better than any of us
- what needs to be told to legislators, and lawmakers,
- and funders, and donors, and each other.
- And so I really tried to put more and more young people
- in charge of what are we going to talk about,
- who are the guest speakers we should bring in,
- we formed a youth advisory council, what do you guys want
- to do for rec, how are we going to make this work,
- will you give tours to the new young people.
- And that is when the numbers started to explode.
- The first year I was in, we were serving
- in the neighborhood of seventy to eighty distinct youth.
- And by the time I left a couple of years later,
- it was almost three hundred.
- And we're talking the span of like three, four years.
- And they cracked me up.
- They would crack me up.
- Because we would have the group, and they would get so excited
- when a new young person came.
- Because after the group, well, we're
- going to take you for coffee, or let's go over
- to Outlandish in Village Gate, and we're
- going to take you to the gay pride store.
- And they would come back and tell me, oh, we
- took so-and-so out and I gave them my phone number
- so if they need me.
- And that's exactly what I wanted to foster,
- that they stood up and took care of each other.
- That's what I wanted.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to focus a little bit more
- on the importance of this being a safe space for them,
- the importance that those young people walking in that door,
- particularly for the first time, have realized
- that this is some place I can be safe
- and some place I can be my self.
- PATTY HAYES: I think the issue of safe space,
- especially ten, twelve, fifteen years ago, was so, so critical.
- Because schools were not safe.
- Many young people's homes were not safe.
- And so when they came, some young people would come
- and they would change their clothes, they would--
- some of the youth who were genderqueer or trans,
- they would come and they would put on makeup or they
- would put on the clothes that they needed to where.
- All the youth could behave and engage each other
- in ways that felt much more authentic.
- They didn't need to fem it up or butch it up to try and pass.
- They could immerse themselves in a cultural context
- that resonated with them.
- They could get solace and inspiration from each other.
- And they could talk confidentiality
- about the things that they couldn't maybe even
- talk with their best friend about if they weren't out yet.
- And my hope was-- and it seemed that young people also got
- the sense that outside of the support
- groups, if the chips were down, that we would be there
- for them, that there was more than one
- occasion where I thought I was leaving work for the day,
- and I get this call, "Patty, I've been kicked out,
- I'm on the corner of this and that,
- will you please come and get me?"
- And the joke was the Paddywagon.
- Because my car was forever driving people everywhere.
- "OK, hang tight, are you safe right now?"
- "Yeah, I'm safe.
- I'll be in the coffee shop."
- "All right, I'll be there in ten minutes."
- And off we would go.
- And I would call my partners in other agencies, the youth
- shelters, or whoever the partner was that I needed to call.
- I have someone, can you stay open for me.
- I'm on my way.
- And I think it was also important for me
- to have a sense of safety for the parents.
- Because for the parents who were engaged with their child
- around their sexuality or their gender identity,
- they so desperately loved their child.
- But they weren't always even sure where to go.
- There was PFLAG.
- But some of these parents were dealing
- with really heavy things like taking on an entire school,
- taking on a panel of vice principals, and principals,
- and school psychologists, and all these people who
- are saying things about their child
- and placing blame on the child.
- And I needed to create a safe space for parents
- to know that they had equal access to me as well.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I had a question and it just
- went right out of my head.
- It was something that you said.
- It'll come back to me.
- So let's jump forward a little bit
- and talk about getting into the schools and the placement
- and development of GSAs and that kind of thing.
- Talk to me about being, I would say,
- one of the more significant steps of progress
- of getting into the schools and starting to get administrators
- at schools taking this issue seriously.
- PATTY HAYES: I think my strategy around schools
- was, by any means necessary, wherever
- there was a chink in the armor I was going for it
- or we were going for it.
- So I think it was a multilevel approach.
- So sometimes, it was the young people themselves.
- If I heard of young people through the group who
- were trying to get activated in their schools
- and mobilize in their schools, then I
- would try and spend time with them,
- support them, give them strategies, give them material,
- troubleshoot.
- A lot of times, it would be a school counselor, a teacher--
- maybe out, maybe closeted.
- Perhaps it was someone from Glisten who would say, hey,
- I think there might be a small group of people
- who might be ripe or trying to partner with Glisten.
- Sometimes, I would try to capitalize on
- if there was a problem brewing.
- And I would make myself available to support
- and consult on whatever the bullying or the harassment
- incident was.
- And I would try and not just work
- with the school around that particular situation,
- but then say, you know, if we did some other planning
- or we put some other things in place,
- we could get ahead of these things.
- So I can think of one instance with one school district
- where we had one or two staff people that we were having
- some contact with who seemed like having
- some openness to dialogue and perhaps bringing us in
- to do some training.
- And in the midst of these, I opened up the newspaper
- and there's a letter to the editor talking
- about LGBT issues and LGBT rights.
- And it's written by a high school
- student at this high school.
- And I thought, bingo, that's it.
- If I have this confident young person who's
- willing to put their name on a letter to the newspaper
- and I have like two or three staff members,
- so we called up those staff people and said,
- well, we're scheduled to come out there for a meeting.
- Is there any way you could arrange for us
- to meet with this young person?
- We'd love to meet them.
- And they managed to track him down and get him a pass
- to get out a class.
- And this young person was willing to meet with us.
- And so that was the start of saying, how can we support you,
- what's your vision like, do you have
- other friends who might want to start a club with you?
- Yeah, yeah I think I do.
- Great, well, did you know this guidance counselor?
- I wonder if you went to that guidance counselor
- if they would be or your faculty liaison, your faculty advisor.
- So it was super grassroots and was
- all about relationship at the beginning, all
- about relationship.
- I think the mandates in the legislation and all of that
- came later.
- We had to get a foothold through relationship.
- And some of the things we did later on
- were with Empire State Pride Agenda would have
- their annual legislative days.
- And I remember one year I think I had an entire charter
- bus full of youth.
- I look back now and think, oh my God,
- how did I have the energy to get forty young people
- on a bus across the state?
- And on the bus ride, I'm talking to them the whole time.
- Here's your talking points.
- And God love them, we would prep them weeks in advance in group.
- And some of those young people, they would go,
- and they would write their stories out,
- and they practiced them about what
- this is what my life is like in school, this is what
- happens to me on a daily basis.
- And they were so brave and so fierce.
- And I never had to say anything.
- Once we got to Albany and I let them loose
- and gave them their schedule, and I just said,
- you go get them, you make them listen to you.
- And they would go and they would tell their stories again
- and again to these legislators.
- Because we were so desperately--
- I look back now, and I think, I can't
- believe we had to fight to get sexual orientation included
- in anti-bullying bills.
- I'm like, what was that?
- And it was the young people who did the work.
- And then we would get back on the bus
- and they would regale me with their stories
- of tragedy and triumph.
- And I thought, this is it, we're training the next generation.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Somewhere along the line--
- this is kind of off the record--
- I seem to remember seeing like a news video or something of some
- of those kids.
- Maybe they were talking to (unintelligible) office?
- PATTY HAYES: Could be.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, I'll have to remember to track that down.
- I think it was probably a news clip or something.
- PATTY HAYES: And some of the young people would get sent--
- I mean ideally, the young people would
- get sent to the representatives from our district.
- But that wasn't always the case.
- Because the way ESPA organized it was they
- would try to send out teams.
- Because I was always bringing such a huge contingent
- of youth, they would often take youth from our program
- and say, well, we need youth to go
- to this person or that person.
- And the youth would know that in advance-- this
- isn't one of our legislators.
- But they would still go in and say, yeah,
- and I'm not from your district, but I guarantee you someone
- like me is in your district.
- And they were fabulous, they were amazing.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: You may have already answered this question,
- but I'm going to throw it at you anyways.
- Because it's the question that I had forgotten earlier.
- Was there a particular moment or situation that happened--
- you don't have to get into names or a lot of details--
- that happened and it really dawned on you,
- I'm really doing important work here?
- PATTY HAYES: God, there's so many.
- There are so many moments that it really
- hit me about the magnitude of what was happening.
- I think the trips to Albany to advocate and for youth to--
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Hold that thought.
- We'll wait for these people to go down the hallway.
- OK, I'm just going to back it up a little bit.
- PATTY HAYES: I think the trips to Albany always really brought
- it home to me.
- Because we were in this formal legislative context.
- And this was not like let's sit around and talk in group.
- This was like really high powered, pressured get in there
- with your elevator speech.
- I think the first time we held a Break the Silence Rally--
- so the Day of Silence was this annual day
- that was instituted--
- I can't remember where.
- I want to say California, but I'm not sure
- where it initiated--
- where students take a vow of silence in their school.
- And whenever they are supposed to talk,
- they have a card that they hand friends or teachers that
- indicates LGBT voices are silenced
- in our school every day.
- Therefore to bring visibility to the silence
- that LGBT youth face, I am not speaking today.
- And we had young people from all over different schools.
- And the first year, I tried to coordinate
- a more regional effort.
- I thought, OK, so how are we going
- to bring all these disparate schools together?
- And I thought, oh OK, we should have a Break the Silence Rally.
- And I think we had over one hundred young people
- from big schools, small schools, young people who
- had driven like thirty, forty-five, fifty minutes
- from their school to get to this rally,
- and have them sitting on the stage dead silent.
- And we had made these banners.
- And one young person walked across
- and there was a three, and then the second one
- and they were holding a number two, and then a number one,
- and then a bunch of youth ran out
- with this huge banner that said break the silence and everyone
- started screaming and yelling.
- And I thought, wow, every single one
- of these hundred-plus young people engaged
- how many teachers and how many other young people
- in their school.
- One of them touched how many hundreds.
- Yeah, so there are these events.
- And then there was, I think, the less public things
- that really made me realize how important the work was
- and how important the work was needed.
- In the time that I was there--
- sorry-- one of the young people who was quite an active youth
- group member committed suicide.
- And it was devastating.
- It was devastating to me.
- It was devastating to the adults with whom I worked.
- Because I think we all felt like how did this
- happen, how did this young person slip
- through our fingers.
- And those first days and first weeks
- were really dark and really hard.
- But I knew that this couldn't be a waste.
- This young person's life couldn't be a waste.
- Because there were other young people out there.
- And I think that that moment in time
- really galvanized for me why we needed to be there,
- why the Gay Alliance needed to be there
- why this program needed to be there,
- why my adult volunteers needed to be there,
- and why the youth needed to be there for each other, right?
- And the work went on, but with this new soberness.
- We still laughed, we still had a good time.
- The groups happened every week.
- Because by then, we had added groups,
- we were partnering with MOCHA, and there
- was all kinds of really wonderful things happening.
- But there was a new intensity.
- And a couple of months later, I brought the young people
- together and I said, "OK, we've got to start planning
- for Pride Parade.
- And so what do you guys want to do?"
- And I'm thinking they want to talk about floats,
- and they want to talk about what pop music they want to use,
- and who's going to wear which fabulous outfit,
- and it got serious.
- And they said, "We can't let this happen again."
- And a planning committee got formed.
- And they said, "This year in honor of this young person,
- we need to do something different.
- And we want to challenge the adults in this community
- to step up not just for our sake, but for their sake.
- They need to step up.
- Because we're tired of being the only ones in our schools
- and the only ones in our churches being out.
- We know there's out teachers.
- We know there's teachers and we know there's community members.
- And they need to come out.
- We can't be the only ones."
- And we found a corporate sponsor.
- I believe it was Bausch and Lomb gave us money for t-shirts.
- And they came up with the theme Code Red.
- Because they said this is an emergency.
- This is a Code Red.
- And it stood for Respect, Education, and Diversity.
- And they wore the shirts in the parade.
- And this was not like laughing and cheering.
- This was like a serious thing they were doing that year.
- And the posters they came up with
- were things like, "We're out.
- Why aren't you?"
- and really confronting the adults in the community.
- They needed to do it.
- I needed it to happen on the tails
- of this really terrible loss.
- And I think for the group there was
- a new depth to why we gathered.
- And now when a new young person walked in,
- I saw a level of care and a level of engagement youth
- to youth that was even more deep and more intense.
- Because it was real now.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: I need a quick soundbyte that puts the youth
- program with the GAGV in the sense of "one
- of the important programs that came out of the GAGV
- was the youth program" kind of thing,
- and the importance of that, just to set it up from that.
- Because a lot of this documentary
- as we get through it--
- GAGV is really the common thread through so many things.
- And so i want to make that connection.
- PATTY HAYES: Well, I think GAGV, at that point in time,
- was the only one who could organize and support the youth
- programs in the way it unfolded.
- Because the schools weren't prepared to step up.
- Legislatively, the laws weren't in place.
- Again, we were fighting for simple things
- like including sexual orientation
- in anti-bullying policies.
- So the laws were in young people's favor at all.
- Parents and families weren't necessarily in a position,
- either the family was a scary, dangerous place or maybe
- not a place where the young person could be out.
- Or if they were out and the family was supportive,
- the family was swimming upstream right
- alongside the young person.
- And again, GAGV was already established.
- It already had a track record of doing adult programming.
- It already had a grassroots volunteer-run youth group.
- So there was already the seeds there.
- And I think the youth program fit in.
- Because there was the community education project
- that Tanya Smolinsky was running so that when schools were
- ready to turn a corner and make a change,
- we already had the community education program in place.
- And so it was a comprehensive thing
- that we were able to provide not just to the youth,
- but to the community as well.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: So when you look at the work that
- was done in the previous program and the work
- that you personally did with youth programming,
- for future generations, how do you want history
- to reflect upon that?
- PATTY HAYES: Upon my work?
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Your work, the work
- of the program in general-- what are you most proud of?
- What is the message for future generations
- what they should know about the work that was done?
- PATTY HAYES: I think--
- and I said this back then, and I say
- this every day that I get up.
- Because although I'm not here in Rochester anymore,
- I still work with young people.
- They are amazing leaders in their own right.
- And I think what I would want the legacy
- to be of the youth program is that it took young people
- and helped shape and foster them not just leaders for tomorrow,
- they're leaders right now, right?
- That's what I want the legacy is not
- to say like, oh, these will be great people to tap
- for our board of directors or to tap for leadership
- when they get out of university or when they get their job.
- No, no, no, they're leaders right here, right now
- with ideas, and vantage points, and knowledges, and skills
- that the community needs right now.
- And don't underestimate them, don't patronize them,
- and don't sell them short.
- You need them.
- We need them.
- And the ones that we work with today
- are going to be even more spectacular tomorrow.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: We will leave it there.
- PATTY HAYES: All right.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Thank you very much.
- PATTY HAYES: Cool.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Probably want to get that microphone off of you.
- PATTY HAYES: OK.
- KEVIN INDOVINO: Just take it off.