please tell me your first, last name
and the name of your business, book,
or anything else you'd like us to know.
Okay, so I'm Jamie Truman.
I am the co-founder of a volunteer-based organization,
Truman Charities.
I also am the host of our podcast,
the Truman Charities podcast,
and I am the author of Vanishing Fathers,
The Rebel Effect on Tomorrow's Generation as well.
Oh, wow, okay.
You have a lot under your belt.
I like it, I like it.
So when it comes to the Truman Charities,
tell me about your vision for that.
So Truman Charities, as I'd mentioned,
it's 100% volunteer-based organization,
and we're a group of individuals
that hold three annual events per year,
Halloween, a derby party,
and then we have like a family fun event
for various charities each year.
We've raised, as of right now,
a little over $2 million since we started 15 years ago.
And obviously our vision is two things
for me and my husband, Jerry,
that's my other co-founder,
is have an opportunity to bring the community together
to do great things, like our tagline is like,
when good people get together, great things happen.
And that really is, like a lot of people want to give back
and they want to get involved,
but they don't really have the vehicle to do it,
or they're kind of confused on where to start.
And so we kind of give that opportunity
to other people in the community.
And then also this is something that me and my husband
and the other board members feel
that this is something that'll be great generationally.
My stepson, he's 21,
he's very much involved within the organization now,
and I have two young sons,
and my six-year-old is actually doing his,
he's host of the family fun event.
So it's great to do something
where your family can also get involved.
Absolutely, well, I love that, and when it comes to
volunteering and being able to do it
and do it for a good cause,
I think that that has been a challenge even for myself,
is just trying to volunteer and making sure
it's going in the right direction,
as well as it is meeting also my morals, my goals,
my values as well.
So I love that for you.
And you said you guys have been doing this for 15 years?
Yeah, 15 years now.
Wow, and when you did this,
I also wanna know where did the vision come from?
Was it something you just thought of or?
So it was interesting.
I met my husband, I was 29 years old,
and at that time when I was about 20 years old,
my father had passed away,
and I decided to run a marathon to raise money
for a cause that was meaningful to me.
He had passed from, he had AIDS,
and so I ran a marathon to raise money
for the Whitman-Walker Clinic,
which actually helps people in the DC area
that are living with HIV and AIDS.
And since then throughout my 20s,
I started doing that for other people,
helping them and training them to run marathons
for different causes and help them raising money.
And then I met my husband,
he had just started Truman Charities about a year prior,
because he had run for Man of the Year,
which for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, so LLS.
And that's this fundraiser where you have six,
I think it's like six or eight weeks,
and you try to raise as much possible money as you can
so you have all different kinds of events.
And he absolutely loved doing that.
He had been very much involved in LLS
because his grandfather had passed away from that.
And then one of his good friends
was in remission from leukemia,
and she was raising money for Light the Night Walk
through LLS and she asked for him to be a sponsor.
And he was like, you know what, I'll be a sponsor,
but let me see if I could do a little bit more.
So he had just a small party and he had,
kind of like a bowl out, which is like checks and cash
and a couple of solo cups cookout, you know?
And he raised $8,000 that night.
And he was like, you know what,
this is really something that I think people would get,
would be interested in.
Cause a lot of people that were coming were like,
you know what, I always wanna give
and I wanna have a good time
and I want everything to come in together,
but I just really don't know how to do that.
So it's been great since our first event where,
my husband raised 8,000 to our largest event
that we had last year,
we raised $117,000 for that organization.
So it's been a ride, but it's been a lot of fun.
Yes, oh my goodness.
Well, congrats from the first year all the way till now.
And you'd said something that gave me goosebumps.
I was in the field of HIV and AIDS for about
10 and a half years.
Really?
Yes, yes.
And my first job was to answer the telephone
with a big, big billboard
and they would call and ask me how they get tested.
And so I went from answering the telephones
to answering really tough questions,
to being a case manager,
to eventually becoming the COO of a nonprofit organization
in the field of HIV, AIDS,
mental health and substance abuse.
I have another question.
What are the greatest joys of what you do?
Oh gosh, wow.
You know, the one,
I can think about one thing that just recently happened.
I got an email randomly from this man and he said,
you know, because of your podcast,
what I do is I have my grandchildren listen to your podcast
and they have like a donor advice fund.
And they say, when I make the girls listen
and then pick a charity that they are passionate about,
make like a presentation.
And so then whoever has the best presentation,
then they donate X amount to that organization.
So I thought that was a really cool way for, you know,
somebody to get their entire family involved.
And then also, you know,
just seeing the results of our events,
we had, which was really, really moving.
We had our last, one of our events last year
was for Strongest Hearts.
And his son has muscular dystrophy.
And one of the types of it, they,
I don't know if you've heard, it's like CRISPR.
And it's a type of technology or,
and I might be kind of speaking a little bit.
I'm definitely not that.
So they know a lot more about it,
but what they needed is they needed money to research
because what they can do is they can halt the progression
of this particular muscular dystrophy.
If they're able to raise,
and they were having to raise about like $600,000
for them to get from the beginning stages to the end stages,
this would literally change the lives of these type of,
these children that have that particular type.
And we were able to raise,
and that was the one we raised our largest was 117,000.
And they were able to reach that, their goal.
So this is life-changing for not only their son,
but so many other children.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.