Episode 15: Interview with Romi Lassally and Julia Reitsma of Ready to Succeed (Los Angeles, CA)

From the University of Pennsylvania's field center for children's policy, practice and research, I'm Johanna Greason, and this is the Aging Out podcast. The show that explores the pathways, resources, and relationships that empower older youth and foster care as they navigate the journey into adulthood. We'd like to extend special gratitude to our dedicated faculty, staff, and student interns whose unwavering commitment and passion bring these important conversations to life. Together, we're striving to ensure that every young person, aging out of foster care, finds meaningful connection, lasting resilience, and real opportunity. Please stay with us. My name is Jasmine Burke, I'm a master of social work intern at the field center for children's policy, practice, and research, and I'm very excited to be recording this episode. We have two guests joining us today, Frommie LaSalle and Julia Ricewell. Frommie is the co-founder and CEO of Ready to succeed, an organization based in Los Angeles California that supports young people who were previously in foster care by providing career advising, skill building, mentorship, and financial support to guide students from college to career. Julia is a love nurse scholar of the program and is now supporting the organization as the grants manager. Welcome to you both. Thank you so much for participating in our podcast series, how are you both today? So excited to be here. Yeah, doing really well. Thanks for having us. Of course. Thank you for coming on. I'm really excited about today's episode. So to start off, for those who may not be familiar, would you please first tell us a little bit by yourself and how you came to connect it with the foster care system? We can start with you, Julia, and then move on. Yeah, sure. So yeah, I am from the Central Valley of California, near Yosemite National Park, and I was raised by my immigrant, Dutch father, and my Portuguese mother, and I was raised on our family dairy form, actually, along with six other of my siblings. And I feel that the earlier part of my childhood was very innocent and very pure in a way. And unfortunately, in 2008, during the financial crisis, our dairy farm, that my father had immigrated to the US to continue the family legacy, was going bankrupt, something my father you know, sacrificed so much for. And having seven kids under his care, under his, in my mom's care, was just a lot of pressure. I think he fought a lot of shame, and along with other dairy farmers and business owners, my father unfortunately took his life during that time as he was losing everything. And so this was like the, I guess, on start of what soon led my siblings and I into foster care. A few years later, my mother's, you know, mental health challenges just exacerbated taking care of a seven kids between the ages of two to 14 at the time of my dad's death. So my freshman year of high school, I started to just finally realize that this was not, this living situation with her was not as stable, healthy or safe situation for development really. And so I took it upon myself to actually reach out to CPS and try to find some support for my mom and us. And so fortunately, it wasn't a smooth process, we were instantly like kind of ripped away from her, which was traumatic and then thrown into foster homes. And I was just 15 at the time and very vulnerable age as a freshman in high school. And I remember a distinct moment I had looking into the mirror in the bathroom of this really run down foster home I was in, I was so like distraught and just felt so raw. And I looked myself in the mirror and looked myself in the eyes and I made a vow right then and there to come back to be a part of the change of the system and how things are operating because it was just so devastating to be in the system. It was in some ways worse than being in care with my mother. And so I asked myself, where are all the adults at? How is this happening? How is this okay? How is the foster care system so destructive? And so fast forward a bit, I worked hard to get into UCLA and new education was a possible ticket out of this tough card I was dealt. And so eventually I did work hard and I did get a ticket to UCLA which was such a dream for me and I left at 18 and I knew that this was important for not only myself but for my siblings, I'm the second oldest of us seven. I wanted to let them know that they could have power to change their future and their destiny. So I set off to L.A. very different from the form that I was raised in and yeah I've been a few years in UCLA and met Rommie. Thank you for sharing such a personal journey, I mean those are really tough positions to be in and I'm just really impressed that you have this courage and this desire to be like a powerhouse of change. The foster care system from your personal experiences. Rommie, do you want to share your experiences and how you came to tend with the foster care system as well? Sure. Sure. Well, thank you, Julia. It's interesting hearing you talk about your personal experience which obviously I know about it and I think my connection to the foster care world ecosystem really was on a much more intellectual basis. I knew prior to this work and this chapter of my career I worked in entertainment and I also had started up a pro bono sort of mentorship career advising program and I had worked with different college access groups and youth development organizations and I initially learned about young people who'd been in foster care who'd been homeless or systems impacted and that it was a pretty rare like almost referred to them as superheroes like a group of young people who had made it to college overcoming incredible, incredible obstacles but there were so many more they faced when they were on college campuses and I knew about that but I listened to Julia and I my partner Pat McCabe and I started 10 years ago because we both had recognized this problem but it's people it's the people like Julia and their experience. This is why we didn't even know it at the time. This is why we do the work and this is why we stay in the work and this is why we are so committed to making sure that people like Julia who by no fault of her own you know had to go through this with her siblings and it sounds so tried to say you know move from survival you know surviving to thriving but look at Julia like all you I'm going to cry I'm going to cry at the beginning you know all you have to do is look at her and hear her and see you know this smile on her face she brings every day and the biggest heart I've like I've ever experienced over almost 10 years that we've known each other so that is how I came to be involved it was very circuitously I had worked in entertainment as I mentioned I was Swiss not the path I thought I was going to follow and I'm so glad I did. Yeah no it's touching how emotionally like how connected you are to this cause. What do you think led to the decision to found your own organization like what was it that you saw that was like no I need to do something different that's already existing. I didn't want to start my own nonprofit it's hard to start an nonprofit I had no experience working in nonprofits but I knew it was very hard I knew about the fundraising and I frankly I tried I went to other organizations and said I have an idea to do something around mentorship internships I really want to make sure these young people have some sort of social capital I know they don't have inherited networks like my own children did. I think I can do something about that I live in Los Angeles I have this incredible partner he too lived in Los Angeles we knew it's such a huge network that we wanted to leverage for good and other nonprofits just a great idea but we don't it's not really in our strategic plan to do that or we just don't have the bandwidth to do it and so we thought all right let's just give it a shot and and people did say you know no one's done this before there's no playbook for this so you're going to be kind of fixing the plane while flying it and we really have been although I feel very stable right now I feel like we've been coasting at 30,000 with a lot of external factors but we built a really wonderful organization with a staff of almost 25 and 10 years of of impact and learning and more learning and poor impact absolutely yeah that was an interesting observation to talk about like social capital and I have that something that's often I think with population like YouTube with left foster care doesn't mean that they don't have right we have support from our parents and we have a little bit of So privilege in that sense that often does not come across to youth who went into foster care. So I'm glad that that was a good cornerstone of trying to put that into your foundation. Julia, what was part of your decision to be a scholar who already took succeed? How was that a path that you went on? So I found RTS ready to succeed through the Brewing Guardian Scholar Program, which is a program for former foster youth at UCLA. I actually didn't find the Guardian Scholar Program until I was a junior, so my freshman in sophomore year was really -- we're just incredibly difficult for me with little to no support whatsoever, navigating college as a first-gen student. And so when I finally did get connected to Brewing Guardian Scholars, the beginning of my junior year, I immediately took a workshop held on campus for resume building. And the two people who were posting and presenting this workshop was Rommie and Pat, the co-founders. And I'll, yeah, I'll mention this, and I'll never forget this moment almost 10 years ago when I just -- it was my first -- really felt like one of my first -- yeah, first time receiving support in that way. It wasn't just any resume workshop. It was specific for former foster youth. So I knew that Rommie and Pat were there, not just for any student, but for us. And that was a very powerful moment for me to realize that people like Rommie and Pat exist, people who care, and people who see us and realize what we're going through. I feel like I lived most of my life up until that point just, like, unseen, trying to hide my story and status as a former foster youth, trying to fit in. A lot of my peers had, like, parents and so much loud support it seemed around me. Right. So something you don't want to talk about, you know, you don't want to -- it's kind of embarrassing to talk about because you don't really have much to talk about when it comes to family. And so when I saw Rommie and Pat, I was just, like, overtook by, yeah, emotion that these people cared. And I think that -- and we all had a very special moment there where we were able to tear up when I think them from the bottom of my heart for being there. And then that was a start of a very fulfilling, almost 10-year relationship now. I mean, yeah, I guess, to answer your -- to loop back and answer your question of what interested me in that, that was just because I really needed help. Yeah. I noticed a lot of my peers were landing, like, internships and scholarships and just -- they kind of seemed to know what they were doing, you know, during college and afterwards and they had these great plans. And I had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying to survive, really, and make it through college. And I figured, okay, the anxiety of not knowing started to eat up at me. So I figured, okay, I should probably rush up my resume and try to get a job. So that would look good. And so, yeah, I started to get connected to RTS and just -- they made all the difference in my life with support. Yeah. I love that thank you to get back to a -- Rami said it, where it's like going from surviving to thriving. I think they really did help you thrive in that setting. Yeah, thank you both for being so vulnerable and sharing your stories and how they brought you to this work. And I'd love to hear more about ready to succeed. So what does Ration do to help youth and foster care prepare for independence? Julia, do you want to start again? Yes, I'd love to. So RTS, essentially, they serve the population of former foster youth who have come out of the system when, you know, once foster youth leave, once they're 18 or maybe 21 now, once they exit the foster care system and there are no longer the government's problem or the government's not really, you know, liable for them anymore now that they're a legal adult. Most of the time is just like they don't have anywhere to turn. Like their circumstances haven't changed. It's still lack financial capital, social capital, support, you know, they've actually just -- they're a very traumatized -- they can be a very traumatized population and now, but now they're 18, now they're age somehow changed, so they're on their own. And so it's not enough time to just figure life out at that age. And so that's what RTS -- RTS, you know, was formed to fill this gap of support of people just like falling through the cracks of society really. And so, yeah, so RTS really, it feels like they've been like the one-stop shop for getting your life on track once you age out or graduate or during college and after college. And so all the things I had no idea to get started on, which was like building a career, getting experience, networking, and so on. It just made me so anxious and insecure to even try to attempt to solve these problems by myself and with no, like, no adult support, it just made me feel like, yeah, so bad. And so RTS, you know, they helped me with really everything I needed. They paired me with a mentor, they helped me network, they helped me by professional clothes so I could feel, you know, proud of myself and have pride in showing up into a workspace. They provided me with connections to work and to try to find a good internship. In my junior year, I found, yeah, an internship that just gave me so much experience, you know, to finally throw something on my resume that was more professional and not just service work. A lot of former foster youth have to work in jobs that provide them with income like fast because they don't have the ability to have maybe their parents pay for their housing or different expenses that are required for different internships that maybe aren't paid or opportunities, you know, they just need money because they're providing for themselves and they have to, you know, put food on their table. So they don't have a luxury to always want, even have a connection to get into a great internship, but to be able to, like, sustain themselves during it. So our RTS, you know, they helped provide me with a stipend for an opportunity that didn't pay. They'll gain the experience and they'll have to say no and continue to do service work. And so, yeah, so they just helped me with everything and above all else, I've mentioned the physical material, like clothes and, you know, the job and the experience and networking, but I think what made the biggest change and impact for me was the power of the belief they had in me. But that is the most powerful thing I think RTS offers is believing in their scholars, seeing them and making them believe in themselves too, that powerful effect. You know, all of the resources are so helpful, but at the end of the day, if you don't have someone in your corner, adding on you who believes you can succeed, then it doesn't matter then why would you go and chase the goal? And so that has been the thing that's transcended everything for me, is like, power of belief. And so the mentorship, everything, just prepared me to be ready for the work for. So when I did, you know, graduate at that point, I had already had an experience through internships, I gained either through RTS or them helping prep me through networking. And I remember doing 10 of different mock interviews with Lucy and my mentor Amy and Sarah. And I was just so prepared. I felt very prepared. And so I did land a job after college, but without that support, I don't know what would have happened. I think it would have taken a lot longer to find stability. Yeah. This is just a really valuable experience and I love that it's so multifaceted. It's not just, hey, let's get you this one internship, or let's just get you some clothes for an interview. It's like, let's build you from the ground up, build your resume, make sure you have the financial support to be able to build it the way that you want to, and the emotional support. I think that sometimes is overlooked and how much, like you were saying, the power of the belief that RTS has in its scholars to be like, hey, we believe that you can do this. Let's get you to a position where you're able to succeed and be thriving, really. Yeah, and I'd like to add a bit more on some of the services. I mean, I could just talk forever, but-- Please, yeah. One of the very important resources we have or programming, we have is Project Dorm Room. So this program basically, they set up students moving into college who are former foster youth with, you know, betting and school supplies, pillows, toiletry, all the things you would need, you know, to feel like comfortable grounded and just like like you have like a place of your own, you know. And a lot of former foster youth including myself, we one, like don't always have the means to provide and buy those things for ourselves, which doesn't help us, you know, succeed if we're feeling like we can't even, you know, have comfortable sheets and so on. But RTS also, through that program, helps participants or scholars move into their dorm room too. 'Cause there are our scholars and students who just don't have anyone to help them move in. I know moving for me for so long was just such a honestly dramatic reminder of the lack of support. I have these pivotal milestones of moving into your first place. And for many people, they can be exciting, you know, as they should be. But for a lot of like our scholars, they're just a reminder of what they don't have and that they can be kind of alone. And so this is such a celebratory event where, where scholars get to pick out what they want, they get help impaired with a group, a moving group, to help them with their dorm setup. And they just, it's such an important, like, start to their journey into college and feeling empowered and taking care of. Yeah, it's just like, it's really, I'll never forget just that experience that I've had and then also my younger siblings have had as well. Because there's been five other rights on this who are also either been a scholar or an alumni now or are currently in the program. So I just have been able to see the impact of being there for them, like, what RTS has done. Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's easy to forget, like, calling moving traumatic. Like, I think we hear a lot about how fostering having to move from house to house and placement to placement. And you forget, like, how truly traumatic it can be to up and go so often. And almost I hadn't, like, picked up the dots on what that feel like to then do it again for college where you're kind of now on your own 'cause the foster care system has left you at age 18. But I like that he talked about how it's like, it changed from being a painful reminder to a more powerful position. And because you're getting on time to meet, right? You're getting on time to choose things from the product dorm room. You're getting on time to choose how you want to move in. So I like that it changes. Hopefully it changes the emotional aspect of it a little bit. Yeah, it really does. Yeah, that's good. Ramy, anything you wanna add to that one? Well, Julia did such a great job of describing really everything we did. And you happen to mention, you know, it's good that we don't just do one or two things, but we did start with one or two things. But always, I think when we started, we thought about what's the outcome we want and what do we know? We know that as you both talked about graduation, really getting into college, really exciting, but we know for us to use a lot of hurdles to overcome that people aren't thinking about. Graduation also, really exciting, really terrifying. So we actually worked, we thought about that outcome. We thought, okay, great. Make it through college, get a degree, but as Julia mentioned, be able to hit the ground running. And what did that mean to us 10 years ago? What does it mean to us now that students need to have, yes, get, you need that degree. It's just really important to have that, just to say you've graduated. I mean, the world is changing, that may change, but these students had made it there, so we wanted to make sure they graduated. And we wanted to make sure that they had the experiences and Julia mentioned the internships, the networks, which is what, you know, and social capital was truly the cornerstone of what we were doing is we know how important. It leads to everything, access and opportunity. So we thought about that. So we thought you need the people, the experiences, the confidence. I think I honestly, I mean, one thing I really have learned is that that's first and foremost, you know, the belief, the things, the emotional part of it, is it's not something we necessarily set out. We were very pragmatic. Like they need to graduate, they need to graduate ready, they have to be competitive, and they better do it fast. Like we had such urgency was, we've always felt urgency. We still do feel urgency, because we knew, you know, my kids could both, you know, I've three kids, they could all come home, sort of figure things out if they didn't have a job right after graduation. And most kids don't, I want to just remind everyone. And we just knew these scholars were not going to have that. So we thought, what do we have to do? And then we just reverse engineered it. So we initially thought, as Julia mentioned, the mentorship, you know, the career advising, again, Julia mentioned, we hosted that first resume workshop. We've since hired an incredible staff of career advisors. So we know that career advising, you know, right? Kids aren't going to career centers. I'm sorry, I did, I probably do this work because I spent a ton of time in the career center on the floor going through notebooks, that's how old I am. I just was, I was frankly very nervous about life after college, while I was in college, which I'm having one of those aha moments. That is why I think I was very focused on what's going to happen after, oh, we better do it while we're there. A lot of programs, unfortunately, and I know we may get to this later, but when I think of one of the solutions to this is career advising earlier. We start in software year, and we stay with students. Our scholars are alumni through at least one year post-grad. So it's now taking up to a year for young people to find jobs. And so we better, that is the most vulnerable time. And most likely we'll keep extending our program beyond the four years. And we are doing that with our incredible alumni network, Julia being part of that. And what we're seeing is this beautiful, virtuous cycle of our alumni coming back and becoming those models and mentors and near peer advisors to the scholars that, to me, is the biggest surprise of all and will help us be sustainable. But I'd say we really have five pillars. And it's hard to talk about such a holistic program, but we really focus on, as Julia mentioned, the career advising, which is one-on-one in workshops. We have network building and social capital building. And it's not just here, not how to do it, but here's how to do it, why it's important. And here are the people. Like Pat and I said, we have huge networks. We are doing, as we set up, to do leveraging those networks for good. And it's just a win-win for everyone. People love to talk about themselves and their careers. So it's worked out very nicely. And then people, we start building these relationships. And this rapport starts to grow. We can't always predict how that'll happen and who it will happen with, but it does happen. And it's really a beautiful thing when it does. And then those people open doors and provide those opportunities and access, which then leads to our third piece, which is the internship placement, and then, as Julia mentioned, sort of the social and emotional and mental health support, which there's a long list, everything from therapy, as much trauma and form care of her, our staff, as well. We're making sure that our whole ecosystem is staying as healthy and on top of things as possible. And we think of wellness, too. We're not just thinking of, we try to be very strength-based and think about wellness with all of our scholars and our staff. And then the money, the financial support, we've always started with sort of an emergency fund. But I think within six months, these aren't emergencies. These are just basic necessities, life. And I'm happy to say that our financial support has grown from sort of an ad hoc as needed emergency fund to a dedicated scholarship fund. Our basic needs fund were committed to $5,000 a year for each dollar, for at least three years. Wow. Hi, Helm. I'm like, I'm just so impressed. The drive that you have to help the population and to get the scholars-- like you said, it's not just like, let's get them to college, and get them into college, but you have a whole life after college, and how do you get to the career you want? And it's clear that you see how much of a need there is for wraparound services outside of. If people in current economy, you're not getting a job in the first half or two after graduation, you might need support for their year, two years, and what does that look like when you're in a program like this? So yeah, I think it's amazing. You would have these like five pretty strong pillars within RTS. Thank you. One thing I'll add on to what Rommie shared is from my perspective of experiencing this support is at many universities, it can be so difficult to even access the resources they have, navigating one the university, and when you have 1,000 other things going on. And two, I remember when I desperately needed counseling and therapy when my freshman year of college, I was feeling for the first time, like severely experiencing depression after I moved in and was navigating everything alone. And I didn't know how to handle it. And the wait time to get into, in front of a therapist, was like a month. I needed help sooner than that. And as Rommie shared, the services they have are particularly tailored for our population. And they know what we go through and so on. And also, I'll add that the stipend that ready to succeed offers our scholars now, like financial assistance is so important. I remember in college, not having savings and not having-- before I met Rommie and got connected to RTS, I didn't have any adult that I felt like would catch me if I fell. If I got sick, if I literally just had the flu or broke a leg, I don't know. Like I didn't have anyone. I always struggled for so long to know who to put down for my emergency contact. Um, nice, you know, that has had been an issue for a while. And so what I'm trying to, I guess what I'd like to point out is when someone is in survival mode and they don't have a safety net, it's incredibly challenging to succeed and perform because you're, you know, your old survivor brain is always thinking about the scarcity and the fears and we're always like in fight or flight. And so it's so, I think it's truly so incredible to be able to be given those basic necessities of like some savings to know, okay, if you like, if you do get sick, if you have an emergency, you're not going to like, you know, be out on the streets or have to get into credit card debt, you have that. And it was something about calming those fears, like my head was always racing with those fears. I couldn't focus on school with all that uncertainty. When that's finally like late to rest and you have some calm and you know, you have a net of RTS and your mentors and savings, you can finally like just take a deep breath and like focus on what you want to do and actually succeed. But being in constant fight or flight mode, you can imagine it's incredibly distracting and hard to thrive if you're always coming from that place. And so RTS truly helped me find like balance and calm. And yeah, I just, it's tough to even put into words just how powerful that is. Yeah, I really want to hide that for our listeners at like how, like you said, like how hard and challenging this to succeed when you're in survival mode, especially for someone who's left just traumatizing situation or is very particularly vulnerable after leaving foster care and that having an organization that understands that understands the uncertainty and then works to support and pull you out of that uncertainty is like just so invaluable. Wow, yeah, thank you. I think you really both for sharing how the program works and supports youth with foster care backgrounds pursue higher education. I want to move forward to our next question, which is what do you think the foster care system can do better to improve outcomes for youth ageing on a foster care? And now, Rami, you kind of started a little bit with about career advice. I do want to talk more about that as well. Sure. As I mentioned, I do think starting earlier. So if you are talking about, I mean, there's so many things we could talk about with the foster care system, but I'll stay in my lane with youth who've aged out who are in college, which is very niche, but I would say make it a little easier to find some of the resources maybe on campus. I mean, we've always just gotten around the system. I have to be honest because we knew how hard it was that we thought we were going to provide this sort of add-on service. So, but I know schools are starting to think about how important graduation is. So if they should start thinking about career advising earlier, I mean, we have our program director, Gina always talks about there should be a freshman seminar about it. Like, let's start thinking now as freshmen about not just our majors, but like what's what are career options? What do I have to think about? What's an internship? How do I get an internship? So I think just earlier advising earlier exploration would be one of the things that would be incredibly helpful. I think more collaborative, moving off-campus, a little bit more collaboration. I want to sort of shout out the right-way foundation for providing the grant to us. How this all came about, I mean, it's such a testament to great collaboration. The fact that we were one of the grantees with a significant grant of $50,000, I'm really proud to say that. It was, I'm sure, very competitive and that is enabling us to keep doing what we're doing and recruit more scholars each year or right in recruitment season. And we'll be probably taking at least 42 new RTS scholars, which is up from last year. But yet, it's probably half of what we'd like to be taking, to be honest. There's real demand. So I'd say, collaboration across the board, whether with funders and organizations coming together, it's sort of unusual for a direct service organization like right-way to have done what they did, taking on an awards program. And we're just lucky that we were in a position to become recipients. And so collaboration, I think, across the board with direct service, with people who are working on policy, we spend a lot of our time building out our partnerships, working together, convening as much as we can, learning from each other, sharing best practices. So I think those are two big things that I would say could be changed to just increase, you know, better outcomes. Absolutely. I know, like, in this line of work, especially with nonprofits, budgeting can be a hindrance when it comes to getting the work done and getting the program going out there. As you said, you want to be able to help more youth and help more students, but sometimes that's kind of becomes a problem. So it's inspiring to hear, like, prize, like, the fire award from the right way, when this aging out, like, award can just kind of change the trajectory of the work that you're doing and bringing someone onto staff. I know Julia has become a grants manager because of the position of this, of being granted this grant. And, you know, it can help make it even more successful. Julia, I'd like to hear kind of your ideas as well, about what do you think the foster care system can do to improve outcomes for youth aging out of foster care? Yeah, so I guess some of the, you know, solutions I've bought about in the past have been just even, maybe even starting earlier than college, if possible, with, like, basic, basic classes of how to adult 101, so that the whip lash of when they're kind of just when they leave, when they exit the system so, like, starkly, like I mentioned, not being so in the dark. Because I mean, the truth is, in the reality, is that these programs, like, guardian scholars and our program, like, our services through ready to succeed, it's not just, like, a quick handoff from foster care to ready to succeed. There's oftentimes, like, for me, it took two grueling years to find ready to succeed. And so, I think more of a handoff, I know there are certain things put in place, but easier transition, and then also, yeah, just, like, more workshops for these populations, whether they're foster youth or those kids who are first generation, there's so many different groups, you know, that have different labels, but a lot of them kind of have similar stories where they lack support, and they lack the education and resources to get to the next step. And so, I think even beginning senior year of high school, having support cohort programs of, like, anyone after school can do this, like, who wants to learn about networking and resume building, and how do you apply to college? I mean, I had to do that all alone, and that was, you know, miracle I got in UCLA without help there. And so, I think starting even sooner would be helpful, because the truth is, a lot of foster youth are always thinking about that, and it's, you know, there's a lot of anxiety wrapped around what to do, and they don't know what the next step is. And so, yeah, definitely more resources in high school, and then I also feel that, like, stepping aside from actually the system, I would say, you know, we need to focus more, not just on services, but more of, like, building a community. And so, it's not just services RTS offers, we're a community, a strong community of reliable adults that offer support and guidance, and a lot of us in this RTS community become friends, you know, and lifelong, we have lifelong connections, like, my connections with Lynn and Elizabeth Freeman, like mentors of mine that have been the most, like, consistent adults in my life, checking up on me regularly for over seven years, just without, you know, a pause. And so, things like that, like, we need community, we are people, this is, you know, this is a humanity problem, right? It's everyone's, I believe it's society's duty and obligation to show up for us foster youth, and for those falling through cracks in society, I mean, we're all this nation's children in a way. And so, tragedy is inevitable in life, right? And so, I feel that if someone has the time, if they have finances, if they just have time, if they have expertise, there's nothing you can't do when it comes to supporting and volunteering and giving, I guess, adding value to your community. So, I guess I'd love to have, like, a call to action for any adult out there that has, like, the time and resources to, you know, volunteer, like, help someone move in. Like, are you a lawyer? Maybe provide some expertise to different, you know, scholars when it comes to networking or navigating law school. There's just so much you can do if you don't have a dollar, you know, if you don't have finances to donate, there's so much more, and it's just so giving to, to give, right, and to support others. It's been, like, I'm now a mentor to a former foster youth, and it's so gratifying to be able to be there, such a privilege to be able to be there for her. And so, I get a bit fired up when I talk about it. So and then one more thing I would like to add is just like for I think it'd be really important for employers to connect with, to tap into the foster youth talent. I mean, there's so much untapped talent in our population. We're an extremely resilient group that have really surpassed all odds and barriers to possibly get to college and then graduate. Like my peers who've been graduated and particularly those from RTS, they're all doing phenomenal work and are stars at their company because there was a seat for them and someone saw their potential. And so I think a lot of organizations, it would be amazing if they could find a way to make more opportunity for those who maybe won't always resemble another candidate who's been given a clear road on how to get to an internship and have more career exposure to connect to ready to succeed and other orgs like us to be able to see how you can volunteer and just try to connect with our population. So yeah, those are a few ideas of many I have. But yeah, I feel like this all of these issues long-term, we really need the community as a whole to pull together. We can't just be ready to succeed or a few nonprofits here and they're like, we only need you like care, right? We need to come together if we're ever going to like solve or alleviate the issues within the system. Yeah, thank you Julia. I'm like really inspired by the words that you're using. I just, you know, your lived experience obviously informs a lot of your position. But I love the call to action to society because it's not just the few of us who work within child welfare systems for the foster care youth. It should be on everybody to kind of help and help us more in population in a way that they can and you know, not everybody has the financial resources, but people have time, people have their expertise, whether it's, you know, their jobs or just kind of what they know in the community. I think it would be so helpful to help populations already so resilient that can benefit from a little bit extra of a community support. So yeah, thank you both for telling me the kind of the impact that the award has had on ready to succeed and your ideas for how to improve the foster care system. I just have one more question where we wrap up, is there any final advice or the resources that either of you like to share before we end the podcast? In one thing, Julia brings up a great point sort of at a high level that I've, Pat and I, my partner and I really feel like we are, you know, the foster youth are our responsibility, you know, these are like, they're our children, but I do think people find it's hard as Julie was talking about, it's hard to find resources on campus. It's, it is sometimes hard to figure out what to do. The problem seems so big and overwhelming. So I just discovered a great organization called For Others and I think it's For Others.com and they're actually working to aggregate. There are other people doing this as well, but aggregating the resources state by state, California and LA are not on there yet, but they will be soon. And I think their idea was let's put these resources on. People can search by state and their thought was like there's five things, click on one of these things just to know where to begin. So I think that's really important and I know people are doing some innovative work to and creating platforms and just sort of corralling all this great. There are incredible resources out there. It's just hard had you find them and had you kind of deploy them and how do you get involved. I think what we decided to do was make it simple. You know, like Julia said, if there's someone who's a lawyer and again, it comes back to a path and I originally thought we know so many people doing so many things, we have students who want to be lawyers, we connect them with lawyers and it can, it's, it doesn't have to be a huge commitment. It can be one conversation that can truly change someone's life. So I'm hoping other organizations will find a way to do what we're doing, which is just make it easy for professionals to sort of plug in and you know, you can be a big brother big sister and that's a fantastic program but a much bigger commitment and some people don't have that time. We've been able to access people from early 20s to, you know, retirees who just, it's such an easy way to give back and pay it forward or however we want to say it, but it's such a win-win for on all sides. So that's just one thing I want to, I wanted to add. So really for anything from you, Julia? I mostly just want to thank you and the right ways aging out, yeah, initiative and just for having us and giving us an opportunity to, you know, create more lasting impact through this grant and also to get the word out about, you know, this cause and or mission and just want to also just want to think ready to succeed really, they've made Ramy and ready to succeed and everyone involved my mentors. They've changed my life so drastically and given me the ability to be here today to then actually create change through my lived experience and in preparation for this podcast I was thinking about if I could sum up this mission in a few words what words would come up for me and I thought about just human connection really and the power that's here like yes we want to break the cycle of foster care but if we think about how foster kids got here I think about you know like foster kids have essentially not only been abused but they haven't been loved they haven't been shown love they haven't been given the mission that are the message rather they haven't been given the message that they're worthy and that they're capable and that they're important and if anyone has kids or loves anyone so I'm hopefully everyone listening you can understand like if you could take a second to imagine like how that might feel as a foster kid your earliest memories are so important when developing your profile of your personality and who you are in those beliefs you have at a young age so that said I just when you think about supporting foster youth and ready to succeed please think about this population all they need is connection truly connection someone to believe in them a friend they need to be shown love and that showing of love and compassion can show up in many different ways like I've mentioned it could be a phone call informational interview a donation of you know a physical donation and so on so I mean it's truly a privilege I think we all get to be a part of this mission and just thank you again ready to succeed and we're all me so much really I'm the biggest fan and I'm so excited and just excited to be a part of this mission now working out ready to succeed and just feel yeah really positive and optimistic for where we're going ahead yeah oh thank you both so much it's just it's clear how much joy there is in working in this sector for both of you and to you just kind of radiate this like happiness about the work that you do thank you so much for talking with me today congrats once again on your fire word from the aging out did you want to add something Julia oh yeah and Rami I'm not sure if you wanted to talk a bit more about the 10th year anniversary we have going on yeah I mean I do want to mention that it's in Julia the fact that we've been together for 10 years is so incredible but it's a thing that we're celebrating 10 years is really it's it's a huge it's certainly not my accomplishment it feels like it's everybody's it's the you know a community project it's really looking at students like Julia as she mentioned all of her siblings we've impacted over 500 young people's lives in 10 years and that's it's an honor and thrilling to be able to say that and again to see these young people coming back and being part of RTS is as I mentioned just something that I didn't anticipate and we're just excited to think about what the next 10 years are going to bring and hopefully 10 years after that is the world is changing a lot and we're lucky that we've been able to be really iterative and really responsive to the changing world whether it's the freeing safety net or just AI and other factors reducing entry-level jobs you know where we have a really entrepreneurial team that can you know pivot as we need to so we are celebrating it we're going to be having our first gala in September and you know raising more money than we normally plan to to make sure we have enough for our basic needs scholarship to have enough for our internships because that's a huge part if when we talk about that year after graduation we have we have one program called the Impact Fellowship that my partner Pat McCabe has started where students are placed with nonprofits and we actually underwrite stipends so they can do that work and gain experience but making sure that students have internships even if it's after graduation is really important so this year that's what we're really focusing on fundraising on is is making sure we have that money absolutely wow yeah congrats on 10 years that's that is very impressive making presence on a survey where 500 youth that is a big number and a big impact that you've had in the Los Angeles community I'm very impressed and good luck good luck with your gala I really think it's crossed that you guys are going to get those for those students yeah of course it's been wonderful please know you both have been getting to know ready to succeed. I'm so appreciative of the work that you do, but for those who have listened to the end of the podcast, thank you very much. You put out podcasts every month. You can find our podcasts on our website and we also distribute it to all podcast platforms. Thank you so much for listening until next time. [Music]