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Hello, and welcome to the Life By Design podcast, brought to you by Strategic.

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All right.

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Welcome back here to the Strategic, uh, Life By Design podcast.

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I'm Aaron Evans, and I'm very happy today to be joined, uh, by 2 gentlemen, Brian Gaffney and Nolan Gaffney, who are brothers.

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Brian is an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Nolan is a senior account manager at System One in Buffalo, New York.

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More importantly, along with me, they are proud alumni of the New Hartford Spartans football program.

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Go Spartans.

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And, uh

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That's right.

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Go- go Spartans.

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But, uh, the reason they're here today is in addition to their full-time careers, they are also co-founders of a non-profit organization called City Cleats.

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So I'll start there with, uh, the opening question.

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Tell me how you guys decided to, you know, in- in addition to your full-time jobs, start a, uh, non-profit organization.

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How did this idea come about?

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So, um, it's interesting actually.

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Both Brian and I were approached by one of our good friends, um, Connor Coe, who's the kind of the third co-founder of City

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He was a, uh, a long-term, um, coach for Proctor Football and over probably about 10 years.

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Over his time period there, he kind of started to see, um, that, you know, there was a little bit of a need for proper and better footwear for players.

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Um, it's something where, you know, often it can be taken for granted, um, the things that you have that everyone doesn't, you know, quite have, and, and that was made apparent, um, oddly enough at a basketball game.

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He was at a, uh, Proctor basketball game and 2 of the s- 2 of the starting guards on Proctor, um, had holes in their cleats.

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And it was just like kind of jarring to see these sort of like, you know, very strong good players, um, you know, st- starting on that team and every cut they make, you know, their, their foot's sliding through their shoe.

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And it's just like kind of crazy to see them compete at a high level with, you know, um, gear that just isn't up to that level.

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Yeah.

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Uh, so, kind of through that experience, he saw there was an immediate need and a place where, you know, people could come in and help.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, and that was kind of the, the origin of, you know, City Cleats and this idea.

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He approached, um, Brian and I, and we obviously very quickly, as like former football players who, you know, have a passion for the game, love it, um, kind of clung onto the idea and wanted to help and, and build it into something where we could, you know, give back to the community.

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Um, so I would say that's kind of the origin of, of how we started this.

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I don't know if you want to add onto that, Brian, or add anything else.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely.

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Um, so, you know, as Nolan said, Connor approached us and, and said, "Listen, I think there is a, a need to, um, you know, kind of help equip some of these underserved high school, uh, athletes, specifically football players.

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Um, and, and a good way to do that is provide them with kind of high quality footwear.

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Um, and, and our goal is in doing so, um, you know, this is gonna help remove some of the barriers to both performance and participation in high s- Mm.

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high school athletics."

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And, and I think that this idea really kind of just sold itself to me, right?

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You know, Nolan and I, and, and Aaron, of course, yourself, all had played, having had played high school football, um, you know, this, speaking for myself, had a tremendous impact on me, on my kind of, uh, you know, my, my path in life.

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Um, you know, playing under, under the great Coach Bob Jones, uh, you know, I learned a lot, a lot of life skills that I still carry with me today.

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It brought me to college, it brought me to my, you know, my career now- Yeah.

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um, a- as a, as a post-grad.

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And, and, you know, I have so much to be thankful for and that really all stems primarily from some of the lessons I learned in high school athletics.

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Um, you know, dedication and teamwork and time management and all of the things that I really use still in my day-to-day life today.

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So when Connor- Yeah.

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approached us and said, "You know, I have this idea.

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It's gonna, um, you know

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Essentially we're going to be helping high school student athletes perform at a higher level and, and, and giving them the equipment that they need to do that."

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Mm-hmm.

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You know, it was kind of an immediate sell for me right away, so- Yeah.

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all right, where do we start?

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Uh, you know, how, how do I get involved in this?

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And he says, "Well, you know, we need a third board member, so all you kind of do is sign your name on the line here and, um, you know, we'll, we'll start taking some steps towards getting this thing, uh, kicked off."

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And, and that really kind of then, you know, rolled us into, you know, the timeline that, that brought us to the founding, um, of City Cleats.

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And, you know, I think this idea was originally getting kicked around in about, in about March of 2024.

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And, and once we said, you know, I think we have a, a legitimate avenue and a pathway to be able to kind of, um, you know, make an impact here, uh, you know, we, we started then speaking pretty seriously and meeting regularly amongst ourselves.

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And, and, um, there were a lot of steps that needed to be taken from this, you know, just being a great idea to- Great idea.

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actually being something that- Yeah.

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we can, um, you know, help solicit donations and, and then kind of, um, buy the equipment and fund these athletes.

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So I'll just go back a step.

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You know, it's a, it's unbelievable you just kind of happened to be with a friend and it's a great origin story, had a friend at a game and noticed these kids with holes in their sneakers and going, "Wow, there's a problem here."

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And then the other part of the problem is, uh, just

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doing some back to school shopping with my kids is the, the cost point, right?

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Like I, I was at the- Yeah.

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you know, sporting goods store last night.

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You're talking for a, a good high school football cleat probably somewhere in the $140 to $200 range for nice athletic footwear.

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Um, so that's a pretty big dollar amount.

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I'm sure that's not easy for everyone to come by and an item that also needs to be replenished probably year over year.

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So, uh, a, a great problem to un- to uncover and then, uh, you know, start to think about a solution.

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So let's, let's transition from that into what you just said, Brian, which is, okay, we had a great idea.

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We had a couple like-minded people.

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Uh, that takes a little bit more to do than just, you know, "Okay, this would be nice to"

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How do we actually form an organization and actually start doing something?

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I think that's, you know, where you guys have taken that step that a lot of people probably haven't, which is taking that next step and actually making the initiative to, uh, to form an organization and, and start raising money.

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So how did that work?

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Yeah, I mean, uh, so I'll take this one.

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And, um, honestly, it seemed super intimidating whenever you think about it, and we can kind of like walk you through our timeline of what the process was- Mm-hmm.

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and the steps that we went through.

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But like beforehand, like I will say, it wasn't that difficult.

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Like right now, we all have so much information at our fingertips, like with the internet, you know, just Google now- nowadays with AI.

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Like if you can follow instructions, it's a pretty easy pathway to, you know- Mm-hmm.

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getting from an idea to an actual, um, for a business.

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So we started in March of 2024, as Brian mentioned.

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Um, had this idea and then decided, you know, "Hey, we're, we're actually gonna move forward with this."

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Um, we, you know, reached out to a couple of lawyers within our network, and they had provided a little bit of guidance of, you know, what next steps would be as well as, you know, doing a little research on our own, uh, which required us to file for, um, certificate of incorporation as well as a EIN.

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That process required, you know, it's a couple of like templates that you're filling out and submitting, putting all of your personal in f- you know, not all of your personal information-

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but address, you know, like the basics.

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Uh, submit it, and then you hear back from, I, I believe it's the state within like one to 2 weeks.

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Mm-hmm.

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We got all of that documentation back.

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We were officially, you know, a, um, uh, legal organization, and then shortly thereafter, um, we had to file for a 5013c status, uh, which allows us to sign up as a non-for-profit organization.

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Yep.

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Uh, and that is, you know, with the IRS directly.

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Once again, a couple of like boilerplate templates that you're going through and filling out.

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Um, that took another one to 2 weeks, which

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So in total, about a month.

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Uh, so that brought us to the end of April, um, for our starting point.

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And then along the way, we were kind of, uh, kind of parallel pathing a couple other things, uh, you know, purchasing a domain, purchasing all of our socials, um, setting up these- Mm-hmm.

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these bank accounts, all things that are, you know, relatively straightforward- Mm-hmm.

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um, but just take a little bit of time to- Sure.

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to go through that process.

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Um, but that was it.

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You know, once we went through and we got our 5013c status submitted with the charity bureau, um, we kind of had everything we needed at that point to go and, and solicit donations and, and really turn this into a, a, you know, fully functional business.

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That's awesome.

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Thanks for sharing that.

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I think, you know, people are either starting a business or starting organizations, and it's nice to know that there's a, a simple process and resources there to help.

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Okay, so you're in April.

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You got football season coming up in, you know, just a few months.

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What were, you know, y- you're still in your kind of infancy as an organization.

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What, what did you do in those first, uh, f- few months to try to make sure you were off and running and able to make an impact in that first football season?

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Yeah, I mean- Yeah, I mean- Oh.

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Well- Go ahead, Brian.

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Yeah.

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Well, I mean- Next time, you go for it.

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So we, we've only got a couple of months here, right, to, to see

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You know, I think by May we finally had all the paperwork that we needed to begin soliciting donations, um, and then taking it to the next step.

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And, and there was a real, you know, there was a real, "Hey, I don't know if we're gonna get 5 bucks from anybody."

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You know, there was

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It really had said, "We don't know.

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We, we've done all this.

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We, this might not go anywhere."

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Um, and so it was, we said, "Okay, well, you know, we need to start getting the word out."

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Um, so, you know, our, our fundraising primarily, um, was and still is very much so a, a grassroots campaign- Okay.

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um, in that we rely on kind of numerous small donations from a lot of individual supporters and, and local businesses.

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Uh, you know, we, we tried to take a real community-focused approach to our fundraising.

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Um, you know, our, our aim was to mobilize local communities and supporters who are passionate about supporting youth athletics.

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Uh, you know, we wanted them to not only contribute but then spread the word through their networks.

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Mm-hmm.

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Um, and, and the support that we got was really overwhelming.

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Uh, in year one, we had over 50 different donations from just individual donors, and that ranged from $10 to, um, several thousand dollars.

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Uh, one of our biggest donors was, um, a former NFL, uh, lineman.

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He was actually Tom Brady's center on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Ali Marpet.

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Oh, yeah.

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Ali played- From Hobart.

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at Hobart.

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That's right.

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So he is a, a Division III guy, a local guy.

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Uh, and, you know, he caught wind of, of our efforts here and he made a significant donation that really helped us out a lot.

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But, you know, there were also a lot of contributions from, from local businesses, um, that really kind of helped to move the needle.

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Master Vito Hyundai, Price Chopper, Pavia, of course Strategic Financial, uh, Ottsaga Mutual.

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And then, you know, as we kind of continued this momentum, we were able to, um, reach out to some bigger donors.

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We got a, a s- substantial donation from the Buffalo Sabres, uh, NHL organization this year, so really cool.

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Um, and, and so it, it is something that, you know, in our first year once the donations started to come in, it was really all kind of word of mouth, uh, spreading this throughout the community.

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We want the community to, to kind of feel empowered in their donations, um, and then, you know, see the direct impact that they're having in their local communities, kind of take ownership of that, and, and that's something that they can be proud of.

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And it's something that I know, speaking for myself, uh, we are very proud of.

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Um, but yeah, I think after that point, we, we got some of the donations coming in.

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And, and then as we touched on earlier, we now said, "Okay, we now need to figure out this mathematical and logistical, uh, you know, equation.

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How do we get enough cleats to supply all of these programs, and how do we get them to these kids before"

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I think it was August 10th.

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Sure.

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Um, and that, that was, you know, that was a real all hands on deck effort.

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But it all funded or it all started with, you know, the, the contributions that were being made from our local donors.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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It's such a relatable thing, I think, for a lot of parents, right?

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There's

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Youth sports is huge now.

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And as I said- Mm-hmm.

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I, if I count the number of times I step foot in Dick's Sporting Goods, like, you just know what, how much money it costs to keep your kids involved in all these activities.

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So it's good to hear that there was an early reception to the mission, the effort, and, and just, you know, making sure you guys could start on really short notice to get something going, um, just in a couple months there.

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So, so how did the first season go, Nolan?

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You know, if we switch over, like, how did it go last year and then we'll talk about kind of what's going on this year, but how did it go in terms of what were you guys able to do?

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Yeah.

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No, we

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I mean, as Brian mentioned, we had a tremendous, um, like turnout from a donation standpoint.

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We were able to raise over $15,000 in a very short time period, um, which really set us up for, you know, a s- a successful first year.

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Um, it

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There were definitely a couple of headaches along the ways, you know, figuring out the logistics, finding, you know, where to get these cleats at the lowest cost possible, um- Sizes.

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What was it?

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Yes.

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Sizes, yeah.

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Sizes of all the different players, the names of the players.

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These are all things that, you know, you, you didn't really think about until, you know, you got in the moment and then you had to figure it out.

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Um, but going kind of full circle, that's like, that's kind of football, you know.

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You, you get presented with a problem and like you have to immediately, you know, figure out how you're gonna react and, you know, solve that problem.

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Um, so it

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We had a tremendous, um, I would say like start to it.

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We were able to outfit 4 schools, um, obviously Utica Proctor, we had a lot of donors from the Utica area, um, which to Brian's point, like the, the donors were just really willing to support their community.

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When you, when you like went out there and said, "Hey, I'm not just asking for this, you know, for random people that I, like you may not know in a community that's not relevant to you."

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Like when you tie it back to their community, it really is impressive, you know- Yeah.

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how much people are willing to come out and support.

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Um, so Utica Proctor was one of the schools we funded in our first year.

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then we also expanded out to Syracuse.

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We worked with Corcoran and Henniger, and then a school out in Buffalo, South Park.

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Um, so we were able to donate about 150 cleats, um, and service those 4 schools in year one, um, which we were, you know, really happy with that, that turnaround.

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Awesome.

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That's awesome.

186
00:16:23,688 --> 00:16:27,748
And in that first season, what was kind of the reaction, I mean, obviously from the schools?

187
00:16:27,748 --> 00:16:30,627.9999999998836
Were they just like, you know, you know, how did

188
00:16:30,627.9999999998836 --> 00:16:32,784
I would imagine some pretty cool stories that came about?

189
00:16:33,468.0000000001164 --> 00:16:34,268
Oh, for sure.

190
00:16:34,268 --> 00:16:35,148
It was, you know- Oh, yeah.

191
00:16:35,148 --> 00:16:41,117
there were some amazing stories, um, specifically when we started reaching out to the coaches.

192
00:16:41,117 --> 00:16:42,788
That was, you know, another challenge.

193
00:16:42,788 --> 00:16:43,908
We were year one.

194
00:16:43,908 --> 00:16:45,668
We didn't really have a brand behind us.

195
00:16:45,668 --> 00:16:50,228.00000000011642
We didn't have any sort of proof behind what we were selling.

196
00:16:50,228.00000000011642 --> 00:16:55,548
Um, so, you know, in today's day and age, there's a lot of people that are skeptical, you know?

197
00:16:55,548 --> 00:16:55,558
Yeah.

198
00:16:55,558 --> 00:16:57,058
Who are these- There's scams all over.

199
00:16:57,058 --> 00:16:57,848
Who are these guys?

200
00:16:57,848 --> 00:16:58,908
What are they doing?

201
00:16:58,908 --> 00:16:59,668
Exactly.

202
00:16:59,668 --> 00:17:03,268
You know, like, this almost sounds too good to be true, so.

203
00:17:03,268 --> 00:17:03,848
Sure.

204
00:17:03,848 --> 00:17:15,927.9999999998836
Um, a really cool story, we reached out to Henniger, um, the head coach there is Nick Patterson, and we had left him a message, um, just saying, you know, "Hey, this is who we are.

205
00:17:15,927.9999999998836 --> 00:17:20,788
We'd like to, you know, support your team, donate cleats to them, free of charge."

206
00:17:20,788 --> 00:17:31,298
Um, and he kept, he called back, uh, and basically left us a voicemail not quite in tears, but basically in tears being like- Very emotional.

207
00:17:31,298 --> 00:17:33,008
"What's, what's, what's the catch here?"

208
00:17:33,008 --> 00:17:34,218
You know, like- Yeah.

209
00:17:34,218 --> 00:17:37,028
"There's gotta be, this, this is too good to be true.

210
00:17:37,028 --> 00:17:42,748
These sort of things don't happen to programs like us, to communities like us.

211
00:17:42,748 --> 00:17:45,248
Like, what, what's going on here?"

212
00:17:45,248 --> 00:17:50,468
Um, and that was just really when things became very real for us.

213
00:17:50,468 --> 00:17:50,488
Yeah.

214
00:17:50,488 --> 00:18:01,788
It was a very, like, powerful, emotional, uh, moment where we realized what we were doing, you know, truly had this personal impact.

215
00:18:01,788 --> 00:18:06,268
Um, so that was a really cool response.

216
00:18:06,268 --> 00:18:07,928
Um, and it was one of many.

217
00:18:07,928 --> 00:18:12,567
You know, there were, you can go to our website, CityCleats.com- Mm-hmm.

218
00:18:12,567 --> 00:18:36,668.0000000002328
and there's a little testimonials page where you can go through and you can see the head coach was talking about it, of what it kind of means for their program, for their players, um, and it's just, you know, this overwhelming sense of gratitude from not only the coaches, but, you know, the actual experience of, like, going off, or going there and dropping off all the cleats.

219
00:18:36,668.0000000002328 --> 00:18:38,048
You know, we- Mm-hmm.

220
00:18:38,048 --> 00:18:46,328
as the, you know, founders, went to each individual school and hand-delivered all the, uh, the cleats ourselves.

221
00:18:46,328 --> 00:19:05,208
Um, and just the look on the kids' faces, you know, the sheer excitement, it was, it was a really cool experience and, like, all of the time and effort that went into setting this up, raising the donations, going through the logistical nightmares, like, all was kind of worth it at that point.

222
00:19:05,208 --> 00:19:05,967.9999999997672
Yeah.

223
00:19:05,967.9999999997672 --> 00:19:06,708
Yeah.

224
00:19:06,708 --> 00:19:07,128.00000000023283
How cool.

225
00:19:07,128.00000000023283 --> 00:19:15,248
I mean, and you know, everyone knows the feeling of getting a new pair of shoes and, you know, to be able to do that for kids who probably, you know, otherwise wouldn't have, is, is pretty awesome, so.

226
00:19:15,908 --> 00:19:18,368
Uh, and it's cool that you guys were able to do that in person.

227
00:19:18,368 --> 00:19:19,108
So meaningful.

228
00:19:19,108 --> 00:19:24,608
So, you know, just, just an awesome, awesome, uh, first really short-term success story.

229
00:19:24,608 --> 00:19:25,447.99999999976717
I mean, you guys did that- Mm-hmm.

230
00:19:25,447.99999999976717 --> 00:19:27,376
in just a handful of months.

231
00:19:27,967.9999999997672 --> 00:19:33,328
So, successful first year, 150 pairs of cleats, 4 organizations.

232
00:19:33,328 --> 00:19:35,588
All right, that gets behind you.

233
00:19:35,588 --> 00:19:39,328
Let's talk about now, you know, okay, what do we do next?

234
00:19:39,328 --> 00:19:41,128.00000000023283
Do we just kind of repeat the same thing?

235
00:19:41,128.00000000023283 --> 00:19:42,408
Do we expand our reach?

236
00:19:42,408 --> 00:19:49,840
Kind of what, where did you guys head kind of in this off-, we'll call it the off-season, as we prepared for what's, what is now the, uh, '25 football season?

237
00:19:52,288 --> 00:19:53,295.99999999976717
Yeah, so- Yeah, very much so.

238
00:19:54,668.0000000002328 --> 00:19:55,208
Go ahead, Brock.

239
00:19:55,208 --> 00:19:55,748
Go on.

240
00:19:55,748 --> 00:19:59,688
You know, we had a, like you said, we had a, we had a great, great first year, right?

241
00:19:59,688 --> 00:20:00,748
Overwhelming support.

242
00:20:00,748 --> 00:20:04,368
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't know if we, you know, we didn't know if we were going to get-

243
00:20:04,368 --> 00:20:06,63.99999999976717
a single, a single pair of cleats.

244
00:20:06,808 --> 00:20:13,168.00000000023283
Um, but, you know, year 2 was, uh, uh, uh, it said, "Okay, how do we, how do we build on this?

245
00:20:13,168.00000000023283 --> 00:20:16,428
How do we continue, you know, kind of what, what we've started with?"

246
00:20:16,428 --> 00:20:20,028
And, um, you know, there were some lessons learned, right?

247
00:20:20,028 --> 00:20:24,548
So, um, that, that we were able to take into year 2.

248
00:20:24,548 --> 00:20:25,960
Um, continued funding.

249
00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:32,200
We reached out to some bigger corporations for, uh, donations, right, continued our grassroot efforts.

250
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:46,480
Now that we had a sense of, um, some of the logistical challenges that we, uh, kind of tackled, right, it was important to us to identify some schools, um, make sure that we were getting the proper cleats, the right sizes early on.

251
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:46,740
Mm-hmm.

252
00:20:46,740 --> 00:20:52,560
And then this all kind of, uh, led us to, um, you know, how are, who are we gonna work with?

253
00:20:52,560 --> 00:20:58,580
Can we find a vendor that is gonna be able to kind of offer us something in the way of economies of scale?

254
00:20:58,580 --> 00:20:59,060
Sure.

255
00:20:59,060 --> 00:20:59,520
Uh, right?

256
00:20:59,520 --> 00:21:06,400
So bulk orders, uh, means lower prices for us, which means more cleats for our student athletes.

257
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:07,000
Yeah.

258
00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:15,056
Um, and that really is kind of the primary goal and focus here, it's how can we outfit as many s- uh, as many athletes and as many schools as possible?

259
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:19,640
Um, and, and we did have some success in doing that in year 2.

260
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:27,980
Uh, we were able to outfit all 4 of the, the schools that we, that we used again, um, or that we did, you know, that we worked with in the first year.

261
00:21:27,980 --> 00:21:30,410
And, and, you know, again, we had a great, great response.

262
00:21:30,410 --> 00:21:35,184
And we kind of just touched on this, but delivery day is something that makes kind of all of it worth it.

263
00:21:35,980 --> 00:21:44,920
Um, and, and, uh, you know, so that's, it's, it's, it's great to be able to kind of have an understanding of some of the challenges in the past, right?

264
00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:51,160
We had, certainly had some challenges in year 2, um, that we are looking forward to kind of building on, right?

265
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:54,680
Lessons learned and, and some bottlenecks that we ran into.

266
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:55,088
Mm-hmm.

267
00:21:55,650 --> 00:22:13,620
Um, but again, working with our donors, working with the coaches, working with our vendors, uh, who were all really great in saying, you know, "Hey, I think there is a, a possibility this sporting goods company is gonna have a bottleneck in getting you all cleats by the end of August.

268
00:22:13,620 --> 00:22:14,389.99999999976717
This is July.

269
00:22:14,389.99999999976717 --> 00:22:16,139.99999999976717
I think we should make some transitions."

270
00:22:16,139.99999999976717 --> 00:22:16,780
Mm-hmm.

271
00:22:16,780 --> 00:22:25,712
Um, and it, it was kind of really communicating with them to be able to get out of the curve and, and make sure that we weren't falling into some of the, the pitfalls that we, that we ran into in year one.

272
00:22:26,580 --> 00:22:27,000
Yeah.

273
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,800
I think year 2 was definitely, uh, a learning year for us.

274
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:30,960
Yeah.

275
00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:36,160
It's like, finding places where we could kind of optimize our processes.

276
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:41,920
Um, and I, like, uh, distribution was obviously a big one.

277
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:59,139.99999999976717
Um, year one, the time was really against us, I would say, so we didn't start raising funds until May, which is, you know, when you're picking up the phone and making your first calls, and it's not like when someone says yes, that the money's, you know, shows up in your account that day.

278
00:22:59,139.99999999976717 --> 00:22:59,910
It takes a little time.

279
00:22:59,910 --> 00:23:00,120
Yeah.

280
00:23:00,120 --> 00:23:12,240
So, uh, we, we were fighting time there, um, and frankly, you know, we're just trying to figure out, like, who the players were in the space that we could reach out to all of that.

281
00:23:12,240 --> 00:23:22,850
Um, whereas year 2, we had a little bit more time, we were able to, like, go out, find a new distributor with, you know, a, a cleat cost that was 30% lower than our first year, so- Mm-hmm.

282
00:23:22,850 --> 00:23:39,480
there was some pretty major strides we made, um, on that front as well as, you know, getting cleat sizes earlier, um, just making for, like, things a little bit more scheduled out for the actual drop-offs for a more clean, kind of better experience on that front as well.

283
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:43,400
So, um, results were, you know, very similar.

284
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,820
We were able to outfit all 4 schools again.

285
00:23:45,820 --> 00:24:06,600
Um, we were able to raise, you know, uh, a very strong amount of donations, uh, and we're, you know, frankly set up for, you know, a, uh, strong, like, year 3, uh, I would say, based on donations that came in, um, kind of word of mouth, all that stuff that, that's out there now.

286
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:16,688
Uh, it's, the more success you have and show, um, I think the, the easier, kind of begins to, like, build on, on what you're doing.

287
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:18,350
Mm-hmm.

288
00:24:18,350 --> 00:24:19,920
So, so delivery day happened this year.

289
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:20,880
You guys obviously did that.

290
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:23,760
We're, we're coming up on week one of high school football here.

291
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:24,440
Mm-hmm.

292
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:33,620
Um, so you'll start to hear some of those, you know, you got some of those stories again and the impact from the coaches and the players, and obviously it's fun to kind of track those teams along the way.

293
00:24:33,620 --> 00:24:37,008
I would imagine you guys are keeping an eye on, on your programs throughout the season.

294
00:24:38,300 --> 00:24:38,810
Oh, for sure.

295
00:24:38,810 --> 00:24:40,460
Yeah, very- Very much so.

296
00:24:40,460 --> 00:24:45,180
We, um, it's, that's, that's something that we are, you know, interested in year 2 as well.

297
00:24:45,180 --> 00:24:48,820
It's something that we're gonna take away from, from our, from our first year.

298
00:24:48,820 --> 00:24:52,860.0000000002328
Um, you know, we stay in couch- in touch with all the coaches that we work with.

299
00:24:52,860.0000000002328 --> 00:25:00,540
Uh, you know, uh, a part of having some, you know, uh, a bigger base and bigger funding is that, um, we're able to work with the coaches throughout the season.

300
00:25:00,540 --> 00:25:12,112
We're in contact with them if they need, you know, if, if there is anything that we can do to support them throughout the season in terms of footwear, um, you know, our base right now allows us to be able to do so.

301
00:25:12,994.0000000002328 --> 00:25:17,300
Um, you know, we, we do track, we track them, uh, their seasons, their successes.

302
00:25:17,300 --> 00:25:21,520
It's, it's something that, you know, uh, we keep a very close eye on.

303
00:25:21,520 --> 00:25:35,960
Um, one of our, uh, uh, one of the, the schools, the, the senior running back at South Park last year, um, broke the New York state single game rushing record, uh, and, and, uh, and that's, uh, that's, uh, a program that we helped outfit.

304
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:36,720
I mean, it's cool.

305
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:42,210
Um, I pulled it up here, uh, Adam Nunes ran for 598 yards and- Oof.

306
00:25:42,210 --> 00:25:44,240
7 touchdowns in a single game.

307
00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:44,900
Oof.

308
00:25:44,900 --> 00:25:53,020
Um, and, you know, to, to, to see, uh, South Park High School kind of on that headline, um, you know, it, it, it makes it all worth it.

309
00:25:53,020 --> 00:26:00,436
It's, it's just, it's really cool to see kind of these kids out here, you know, taking their game to the next level-

310
00:26:00,436 --> 00:26:03,984
and a lot of that starts with the proper equipment and the proper footwear.

311
00:26:04,596 --> 00:26:08,436
Um, and yeah, so I imagine that's, that's something that we like to keep an eye on.

312
00:26:08,436 --> 00:26:09,656
We track them throughout the year.

313
00:26:09,656 --> 00:26:11,276
We, we got a coach from

314
00:26:11,276 --> 00:26:16,695
Uh, or excuse me, we got a, um, a note from, um, the Corcoran head coach, Tyrone Fischer.

315
00:26:16,695 --> 00:26:18,135
He sent us a text message.

316
00:26:18,135 --> 00:26:28,356
He said, "You know, guys, we were out there on the field today, and as the offensive line breaks the huddle, they, the offense goes and, and takes the line of scrimmage."

317
00:26:28,356 --> 00:26:35,436
And you can kind of see from behind, every single one of them has a matching pair of cleats on, and it, it's kind of this

318
00:26:35,436 --> 00:26:43,176
You know, he sort of kind of took his breath away a little bit, and it was this very cool, surreal moment to see a team look like a team, act like a team.

319
00:26:43,176 --> 00:26:47,096
And, and you know, I think that certainly elevates their game and their confidence.

320
00:26:47,096 --> 00:26:50,985.9999999997672
And, um, you know, it's stories like that, that we like to follow throughout the year.

321
00:26:50,985.9999999997672 --> 00:26:55,576
And, and we are also now in a, in a position to continue supporting those programs- Yeah.

322
00:26:55,576 --> 00:26:56,464
throughout the season.

323
00:26:57,056 --> 00:26:57,755.9999999997672
Very cool.

324
00:26:57,755.9999999997672 --> 00:26:58,816
Very cool.

325
00:26:58,816 --> 00:27:00,726
So, we're in football season- Yes.

326
00:27:00,726 --> 00:27:02,956.0000000002328
starting again this week, week one.

327
00:27:02,956.0000000002328 --> 00:27:08,456.00000000023283
Uh, you know, 0 obviously, the b- as you said, you're gonna continue to support the teams, but the bulk of the work for season 2 is now done.

328
00:27:08,456.00000000023283 --> 00:27:11,135
So, let's talk about what's next for City Cleats.

329
00:27:11,135 --> 00:27:11,996
Where are you guys headed?

330
00:27:11,996 --> 00:27:13,956.0000000002328
What are some of the things you're thinking about?

331
00:27:13,956.0000000002328 --> 00:27:21,296
And then also, you know, with that, uh, let everyone know how they can get involved if, if they want to make sure they can, uh, you know, help support your organization.

332
00:27:23,836 --> 00:27:24,514.9999999997672
absolutely.

333
00:27:24,514.9999999997672 --> 00:27:25,136
I mean, I, I

334
00:27:25,956.0000000002328 --> 00:27:29,776
At this point, I th- I think the next logical step is just, how can we expand?

335
00:27:29,776 --> 00:27:34,286
How, how can we help more kids, more student athletes- Mm-hmm.

336
00:27:34,286 --> 00:27:35,156
more programs?

337
00:27:35,156 --> 00:27:45,036
That's kind of top of mind for us, is, how do we expand our reach, um, throughout Central, Western New York, really just New York State as a, as a whole?

338
00:27:45,036 --> 00:27:51,514.9999999997672
Um, so that's kind of where our goal is, um, moving forward, is, is bringing on more teams.

339
00:27:51,514.9999999997672 --> 00:27:52,166
And- Mm-hmm.

340
00:27:52,166 --> 00:27:56,776
a lot of that stems from, you know, the donations that flow in.

341
00:27:56,776 --> 00:27:58,096
That, that is a huge part.

342
00:27:58,096 --> 00:28:09,196
You know, with- without the funds and the, uh, the kind of, charity from, from all various individuals, um, businesses, you know, none of this is possible.

343
00:28:09,196 --> 00:28:13,076
So, um, moving forward, that, that's kind of where our focus is.

344
00:28:13,076 --> 00:28:14,096
We're, we're gonna

345
00:28:14,676 --> 00:28:20,056
There's never a bad time to go out and, and solicit donations and- You can-

346
00:28:20,056 --> 00:28:22,655
continue to kind of push our brand out there.

347
00:28:22,655 --> 00:28:28,775
Um, so you can follow along with us on, um, Instagram or Facebook.

348
00:28:28,775 --> 00:28:31,876
Our handles are simple, @citycleats.

349
00:28:31,876 --> 00:28:33,255.99999999976717
Uh, LinkedIn as well.

350
00:28:33,255.99999999976717 --> 00:28:37,435
You can, you can go to our website at citycleats.com.

351
00:28:37,435 --> 00:28:41,496
Uh, there's a donation request form right there, where you can fill that out.

352
00:28:41,496 --> 00:28:53,216
Um, and we are, you know, obviously more than happy to provide you with any sort of documentation, uh, donation receipts, all that, for, um, you know, end-of-the-year taxes.

353
00:28:53,216 --> 00:28:57,232
Uh, you know, it's a very nice write-off, something to keep in mind.

354
00:28:58,076 --> 00:29:03,935
Um, you know, as a financial advisor, I, I feel like, you know, that's something that's good advice.

355
00:29:03,935 --> 00:29:05,502
Yeah, listen-

356
00:29:06,316 --> 00:29:06,755.9999999997672
number

357
00:29:06,755.9999999997672 --> 00:29:07,766
No, we say the number- But-

358
00:29:07,766 --> 00:29:09,476
one bill everyone pays is their taxes.

359
00:29:09,476 --> 00:29:16,176
So, if you can figure out any way to optimize that, uh, that expense, you know, that, that's a, a good, a good strategy, so certainly.

360
00:29:17,378.00000000023283 --> 00:29:17,596
Yeah.

361
00:29:17,596 --> 00:29:21,076
But, uh- But no, I mean, that, that's kind of where we're thinking.

362
00:29:21,076 --> 00:29:21,679.9999999997672
Go ahead, Brad.

363
00:29:22,226 --> 00:29:29,796
Yeah, and if this is something that, you know, sounds interesting to you, um, you know, you can contact us if you'd like to get involved.

364
00:29:29,796 --> 00:29:33,016
We have a Contact Us page at citycleats.com.

365
00:29:33,016 --> 00:29:35,476
You know, drop us a line, name, email.

366
00:29:35,476 --> 00:29:38,456.00000000023283
Um, Nolan, myself, Conoco, we all

367
00:29:38,456.00000000023283 --> 00:29:42,656
You know, all of our emails are listed there as well, if you'd like to reach out directly.

368
00:29:42,656 --> 00:29:54,476
Um, but yeah, um, you know, contact us if this is something that sounds interesting to you that you'd like to partner with us on, uh, or get involved with, or, um, you know, as Nolan said, we are always looking.

369
00:29:54,476 --> 00:29:57,576
There, there is no off season for, um-

370
00:29:57,576 --> 00:30:03,456.00000000023283
you know, donations, soliciting donations, and, and looking forward to what the next season will bring.

371
00:30:03,456.00000000023283 --> 00:30:09,696
Um, our goal is always to, you know, expand this program and be able to empower more student athletes.

372
00:30:09,696 --> 00:30:17,396
And the way to do that, um, you know, is, is to, you know, kind of help raise those, raise those funds, and that's through donations.

373
00:30:17,396 --> 00:30:18,576
So, spread the word.

374
00:30:19,815 --> 00:30:20,144
Yeah.

375
00:30:20,876 --> 00:30:25,136
Well, I want to just thank you guys both for taking some time today, sharing your story.

376
00:30:25,136 --> 00:30:30,876
Again, you know, this organization's only been around, what, 15, 18 months now, 2 football seasons.

377
00:30:30,876 --> 00:30:33,876
You guys are already making an impact, uh, across Upstate New York.

378
00:30:33,876 --> 00:30:45,775.9999999997672
So, great origin story, great, uh, effort by you guys to actually take that next step and decide, "Hey, we're not just gonna think that's a cool idea, we're gonna do something about it," and, um, awesome success thus far.

379
00:30:45,775.9999999997672 --> 00:30:47,496
Thank you for sharing the story of City Cleats.

380
00:30:47,496 --> 00:30:52,415
We'll be following along, along the way as, as, uh, you know, donors and, and fans of the organization.

381
00:30:52,415 --> 00:30:54,755.9999999997672
But appreciate you being on the podcast today.

382
00:30:54,755.9999999997672 --> 00:30:59,076
We just want to highlight people doing really cool things, and, uh, you guys certainly are.

383
00:30:59,076 --> 00:31:00,592
So, thanks for taking some time today.

384
00:31:01,456.00000000023283 --> 00:31:01,695.0000000002328
Of course.

385
00:31:01,695.0000000002328 --> 00:31:02,076
Yeah.

386
00:31:02,076 --> 00:31:02,435
Thank you.

387
00:31:02,435 --> 00:31:02,456.00000000023283
Yeah.

388
00:31:02,456.00000000023283 --> 00:31:03,976
Thanks for having us.

389
00:31:03,976 --> 00:31:04,275.99999999976717
Yeah.

390
00:31:04,275.99999999976717 --> 00:31:05,636
Awesome guys to be here with.

391
00:31:05,636 --> 00:31:06,516
Thanks, Strategix.

392
00:31:06,516 --> 00:31:07,728
We appreciate y'all.

393
00:31:14,018 --> 00:31:17,976
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only.

394
00:31:17,976 --> 00:31:21,086
Please see the full disclosure in our show notes for more information.