Hello and welcome to Good News York sponsored
by ads on the go get ads on the go .com. I'm
your host Mike Brindisi Follow me on all socials
at Mike B TV. I am very excited This is actually
our first show back from the kind of small Thanksgiving
break Matt out of the office actually out of
the studio. He's here. I don't know what he's
doing. I think he's buying cucumbers on TikTok
shop. I don't know what's going on, but anyway,
it's just me today, but I'm joined by a very
special guest. Before we get to my guest, quick
shout out to my friend Hank Tarr at Whites, W
-H -Y -T -E -S. It is a repair shop, auto shop
in the outskirts of Ithaca. I go to them for
everything. I drove here in a snowstorm. and
I was completely safe because of the tires that
I bought from Whites. Whenever I meet people
that move to Ithaca, I feel like you always need
a good dentist, repair shop, and a good doctor.
Those are three important things to have. I'm
telling you, Whites is where you want to go.
No BS, fair pricing, they're fast, and I just
love them. I'm not getting paid to say it. Anyway,
enough about that. I am joined now by a very
special guest from Aaron's Angels of CNY, which
was founded in 2017. my new friend Lindsay or
Lou as I've been told is your nickname. Yes.
And I didn't know which one to call you. I said,
before we went on, I said, should I call you
Lindsay, Lou? And you said, well, there's kind
of a good story behind the Lou. Tell me the Lou
story. So I changed my name on Facebook due to
work reasons. So when I met Sheila and we got
together and talked, she thought my name was
Lou because that's what my Facebook name. And
so it's stuck. Yep. And it's been my nickname
for a long time anyways. I love that. Yeah. When
I first met you, you don't look like a Lou. But
now that I'm starting to know you, I think that's
an adorable nickname and it's great. Well, thank
you. And what else is great is the company or
the nonprofit or not for profit? Nonprofit. Nonprofit.
Aaron's Angels of CNY, which was founded in 2017.
You guys are doing amazing things. You are feeding
children who may be going through things like
food insecurity. And I think it's absolutely
wonderful. Tell me a little bit about yourself
and about Erin's Angels at CNY. So Erin's Angels
was actually named after a child named Erin Maxwell.
She was in the Phoenix School District. She was
neglected. She was eventually killed by a family
member. She showed lots of signs of food insecurity
while in the school that school staff had seen.
Sheila Dion, our founder, realized that Phoenix
was the only school district that didn't have
a weekend food program. So that's kind of how
Aaron's Angels came about and that's what's named
after. Equal parts beautiful and devastating.
My wife is a teacher and she works in the Newark
Valley School to Tioga County and she comes home
with these awful stories about, she says, Mike,
some of these kids... they come in and their
last meal was when they ate at school yesterday.
Sometimes it goes farther than just providing
them an affordable or free lunch at school. Sometimes
that's all they can have. So I understand the
importance. Also, before I took this job, I worked
as a substitute teacher in the Ithaca School
District, and that really opened my eyes to not
only how important it is to have affordable or
free lunch, but just how much people need it.
And I just think it's absolutely wonderful what
you guys are doing. So how how did this all come
together? So Sheila started building Aaron's
Angels. She started the we just were sending
home food on the weekends and then it grew to
holidays like we have a two week holiday coming
up next month for all these kids. So we're sending
extra food home for that. So we'll cover that
since they won't be in school to have access.
And we've even branched out to summertime. So
not only are we doing weekends and holidays,
but now these kids are getting food during the
summertime when they are out of school for how
many months? Yeah, three, four months, whatever
it is. I think it's about three, so that's a
big time period. Now, you do currently serve
children in the Phoenix Central School District,
but I know... It talks about your long -term
vision to expand and provide food to kids experiencing
food insecurity across central New York. Talk
a little bit about that. Have you been able to
do that or is it something that you guys are
working on? So we're working on it. Phoenix was
our main goal to start and then we started branching
out. We actually have an outreach program and
the outreach program recently got a grant from
the Oswego County Community Foundation and it
was $2 ,500. And that was divvied up between
all of the weekend programs in Oswego County.
So each of the school districts got a little
bit of it to fill the food needs. That is absolutely
wonderful. I mean, you guys are feeding thousands
and thousands of kids, which is so important,
especially around the holidays we see. It's a
stressful time for families financially. You
guys have some campaigns coming up. What I love
about this is not only are you obviously feeding
children in need, but you're out there doing
it with a lot of different campaigns. The first
one I want to talk about is your Giving Tuesday
fundraising campaign. Talk a little bit about
that. Yeah, so Giving Tuesday is it's a nation
or a global campaign and it's about giving back
to charities and non -for -profits. So we have
angel cutouts which you can go right on our Facebook,
you can donate a certain amount, you will get
an angel. We want you to sign those angels because
they are getting displayed all over storefront
in Phoenix. That's awesome. Like all throughout
the windows and the walls and wherever we can
put them. And you can do it online, but you can
also go to Monterey's Generations Bakery and
Fat Man's Treasures. Great name, by the way.
I love that. If I can get them there today with
the weather. Oh, gosh. Barring that Lou is not
on the side of the road, God forbid, parked because
of the weather that you can get it there as well.
Some other things that are going on right now.
You can go to Lock One Distillery in Phoenix,
and they have partnered with you for a special
purple drink, which, by the way, sounds delicious.
It is. What is in this purple drink and what
happens when you purchase it? How is that supportive
financially? So part of the money comes back
to Aaron's Angels. So when you buy one of these
drinks, a certain percentage of it comes back
to us. Excellent. And this drink is actually
made from the vodka that they make in -house.
It's called Rice Vodka. And it's delicious. It's
got a little bit of cranberry juice. It's got
a splash of lemon lime soda. It's got some grenadine.
And I know I'm going to murder this because I
always do, but it's called Blue Curacao. Curacao.
Thank you. I've bucketed for many years. And
for the first couple of months, I used to call
it Blue Curacao. Curacao, I couldn't, no, you
got it. It's blue curacao. It sounds amazing
and I love the tagline, every sip helps us feed
more children in need. So if you're looking for
more reason to have a few cocktails during the
holidays or any time, you're doing it for a good
reason. And let me tell you the best part about
this drink, it's got a bubble on it. A bubble?
They have a little contraption that puts a bubble
on top of the drink. You pop that bubble, smoke
comes out. Whoa. And it smells like berries.
OK. It's a whole experience. I'm in my 40s at
this point. Like, I remember growing up and it
was like, we have La Bat? Bud Light, Michelob.
Bush. Bush. Bush Light. If you want to get crazy.
If you want to cut some calories. And now, it's
unbelievable. You've got beer that tastes like
pumpkin pie, cocktails that are smoking. So this
isn't just your run of the mill, like, hey, order
this gross purple drink. It's to help charity.
Just drink it. You're going to really, really
enjoy this. Oh, absolutely. Did anyone from your
organization have a hand in the recipe itself,
or was this something that they came up with?
It was something they came up with. I love it.
Also, we have the Giving Tuesday TV commercial
campaign, which apparently was shot in your parents'
basement. Correct. Which I love. We're going
to pull the curtain back, a little behind the
scenes. Talk a little bit about that, because
it's running on the ABC News Affiliate, WSYR
News Channel 9 here in Syracuse. How was that
experience and tell us what that's all about?
So we recruited a local child, a friend of mine's
child, and we shot a commercial in the basement
and it's her writing a letter to Santa. She drew
food on her letter and asking Santa for food
for Christmas. And then at the end it shows that
Aaron's Angels was able to deliver that food
to her home. Oh, that's beautiful. So she was
a great little actress, too. She had some great
facial expressions. See, I'm at an age where
I am now crying during commercials, and I think
you've just leveled me up to now. I almost just
cried with you talking about a commercial. That's
how effective it is. Listen, what you do is absolutely
amazing. Tell me a little bit more about Lou,
a little bit about Lindsay. your background and
how you were inspired or how you got involved.
I'm from Phoenix, born and raised, grew up there.
I live in the same school district now. I have
children in the same school district now. It's
funny because my mom always told me that growing
up, find a job where you help people. So I do
that. I work in the community now. And then I
wanted to continue that once I saw Sheila doing
all these things in the community. I had to reach
out and talk to her. Yeah, absolutely. It's so
important and it's amazing what you guys do.
I don't know if there is a God, but if there
is, you are doing God's work. Tell us some of
the plugs. Where can we find people? Where can
we donate? Where can we come to any events just
to get involved? Oh, so we have events going
on. literally year round. Our next one is our
purple party. So that is a celebration of Aaron
Maxwell's birthday. And we usually have guest
bartenders like we had the mayor of Fulton and
the mayor of Phoenix kind of do a little competition
last year to see who could raise the most money
for the purple party. And that goes to our scholarship
program. Oh, that's amazing. So that's our next
one. We also have an appreciation dinner and
we have bingo for bags for any of the women who
like their high end scale bags. You can come
play bingo and win a bag. Oh, look at this. Yeah.
Any websites or social media that we can? Yes,
we are on Instagram. We are on Facebook. Aaron's
Angels of CNY. Our website is www .aronsangels
.com. Amazing. And I'll make sure that we flash
that on the screen. I do have to ask. Obviously,
I'm not going to bring up politics. We don't
talk about that on this show. But with the new
administration, there has been some changes in
funding for some schools in some states. Are
you guys noticing? Are you feeling the squeeze
of that at all? We did, especially when the government
shut down. We do Amazon give giveaways as well
from our storefront. So we get products from
Amazon, whether it's food, it could be clothing,
it could be hygiene, cleaning supplies. And we
do a giveaway. We try and do it at least once
a month. So we saw an increase of the amount
of people probably, I think it was like an extra
25 people coming in at our last Amazon giveaway
to get whatever they needed. That's amazing.
Yeah. Anything else that you want to add, to
talk about, to promote, to plug? I just want
to let people know that one in five children
in Central New York go to bed hungry. And that's
about 5 ,000 kids in Oswego County that have
food insecurity. It's a huge issue. and it's
very concerning, and we're gonna continue doing
whatever we can to try and bridge that gap. I
love that. I just thought, you're hearing the
term food insecurity a little bit more these
days, and there might be some listeners or viewers
wondering what exactly that means. How would
you define that, the food insecurity? Well, it's
pretty much when children are going without food.
Sometimes families don't have the means to get
it. Poverty is a big issue that I don't think
if you're not in it, you don't know about it.
That's right. So these kids will go to school,
which is great now that they can get breakfast
and lunch and school. But without that, what
would happen? Right. Without that safety net,
it makes you wonder what else is out there that
would be able to provide that for these kids.
And you're doing that. So thank you so much for
coming on the show. You have so much going on.
Aaron's Angels of CNY, absolutely amazing. They've
been around since 2017. We'll have all the links
up on this episode. They've got the Cut Out campaign.
You can head to Purple Drink. You have an excuse
to do so. Grab fun. And look for their new TV
commercial on WSYR, ABC affiliate here in Syracuse.
Lindsay, Lou, thank you for all you do. And come
back any time to promote this stuff. I'm a father.
And more importantly, I'm a human being that
cares about this kind of stuff that we all do
here. And I understand the... importance and
no child should ever go hungry, whether it's
for a day or a minute. So thank you for all you
do. We really appreciate it. Thank you very much
for having me. You're very welcome. And with
that, it is Mike Brindisi saying goodbye on this,
what is today? Tuesday? Tuesday. Giving Tuesday.
It is. A Giving Tuesday edition of Good News
York sponsored by Ads on the Go. Get ads on the
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