happen welcome to on the waterfront i'm your host melinda moulton and was made tonight is suzan johnson who is the executive director of healing windsor ma suzanne how are you linda great thank you very much for having me well thank you so much for being on my show to all my viewers out there i just want to share my history with suzy and we met boy what fifteen years ago what eight years eight years ago was that years ago when you had your restaurant and suzanne owned a restaurant the name of the restaurant was till teles cafe where i tied dishes dishes is now it's a lower church street exactly and you had the big aquarium many and i came into your restaurant a lot to eat there because you were one of the first people in the county or probably in vermont maybe new england to have a restaurant that had a lot of gluten free dishes yes i think most everybody most all of our food was gluten free which is really nice change but that was that was pretty remarkable during that time to be that close most of it was a guessing game up and up until now up until then magnolias was also doing the same time with us and that of course it kind of really grew from there it was such a huge number of people that wanted to want to have gluten free food and it was actually excellent food and good seafood so anyway that was where you and i first met and then we just hit it off and we and we really enjoyed each other's company and now for the last couple of years you've been you were the founder yes and the executive to healing wins remonde so for my folks out there if you'd like to visit the website healing wins vermont healing wins v t dot org healing when vitti dot org visit the website but before we talk about your organization i want to talk about you i want to talk about where you hail from and what brought you to vermont i like the word hail there's all sorts of you know nautical words to connect and i grew up in greenwich connecticut and i grew up on the water sailing with my father and my parents all my life i can't remember not sailing on long island sound and so pretty much all the way through college and then i have been married and children then we moved up to burlington vermont my ex husband worked at burton and so we landed up here i have a strings and so coming up here and raising two children had a third child here and i've been here pretty much ever since it's a bit about twenty years or so yeah so what did you do before the restaurant oh boy i want one of these serial entrepreneurs and done quite a few different things have had my own yacht cleaning business i've i was in real estate i've been a real estate agent since one thousand nine hundred seven and various different positions i had two restaurants actually was my second ever had as the small restaurant aspen colorado and so you know a little difference there but so you know i just i love i love being around people i get energy from people so i also worked in  profit with the american red cross to remember what i said i didn't remember yes that's right you ended up american red cross right here locally as a major gifts officers so i learned what the nonprofit world was like because i've never done anything like that it's always been a poor profit or my own company so yeah so you've had a very active and remarkable career doing a lot of different things and doing a lot of startups and putting your energy and your brilliance behind these things what was the inspiration for you to move into a nonprofit to do the nonprofit work i mean what because it's very selfless work in it is you know is so after tilly's i don't know how much you remember it i think a lot of the public might remember seeing saying this with me but after i sold to lee's i ended up getting cancer myself i had breast cancer and so i went through the whole gamut chemo radiation on drugs up until just last year lost all my hair and so as i was coming out of that i don't know if you remember me being bald yes i do yeah i knew you then we got together during that period i remember that and it was it was you know was a battle and you you won the battle game and won the battle so you say it was that the reason why you sold tilly's or was did you sell just no actually a soul and then i found a lot of i found that interesting so you know it but it talks about why cancer why is this happening so much and you know there's so many different so many different reasons i think but one of them which keeps coming up and across a corsa nation is the stress level people who are carrying a lot of stress and not realizing to what degree you know so i found this lump and i you know went through the whole thing and after coming out of  my treatment i just i was what do i want to do i want to do something that i'm connecting with this amazing community here in burlington vermont and this whole area and all the people i've met through the various different things i've done and how can i make a difference and i just i wanted to do something that was meaningful and you know a lot of people who go through cancer i think and any kind of disease really it really kind of sets you back in terms of what's important you know we're really really  matters and you can drive the best car and have the best house and that you can't take any of this stuff with you and in the end right in your good health so you're right in so good health what are you going to do that makes a difference i was asking myself this well what can i do that at least makes a difference in one person's lives or or several people's lives and so you know i started talking to kathy macbeth over at the hospital here and she is i think that is medical y h exactly she's a psychologist and so she specializes in helping people come back to the workforce or back to wherever they were doing a book after going back to their life right and you know gosh it's just you have all sorts of i wouldn't say self doubt but just questions like what what matters right whether what i want to do now and now that i've done this and been here or been faced with mortality sooner than i thought i was going to be and this right so it's a snyder thing i gave her a it's one of these one of these visionary a lot like my father in some ways but so she said i think you should start a nonprofit we used to take cancer patients out sailing on the windsor violins at which the irelands used to have the fleet of sailboats are here and they shut that down she said but you know that was kind of a little bit expensive to do and i think you should start a nonprofit and we'll help get people out on the boat you know in terms of nominating them and you should do it you can teach people and sail and i thought how great you know this will be a great way to give back and make a difference and what was her reasoning about getting people out of a sailboat in the on the lake what was the you know i think that she felt at the time the few people that she was able to talk to afterwards that they just couldn't stop talking about how wonderful it was to be out on the lake with their family and just forgetting about wherever they were in their process with our sisters getting through cancer right right and you know and sometimes it's not getting through cancer is dealing with dealing with it they never really  don't know and that's one thing i love about sailing it's a lot like cancer you don't really know where the hell you're going because you have to kind of go where the wind goes and it is really about stopping and being thankful for where you are with the people that what happened so that's a long story that's who long today but anyway to tell his very anyways started a boat was given to me for free by a gentlemens uncle who did not know i was thinking about starting this and out of the blue  motor boat or is it the sea because they kind of like sail boats a little bit better i mean you know and he said no no no it's a sill boat and i know you love to sail and i said well that's just great and tell me about the boat  said nothing you know i'm not going to be here in another month if you want it's yours coming get it and so then i i said well let me let me ask the family because i'm just you know a girlfriend of the family and so i asked the family and they said oh and then we don't we don't want the boat why do you want in and i said that's ok i just want to know if you want it so way call up oncle now and then next day and i sit here says here's the deal  love to accept your vessel bring it up to lake champlain she was on the chesapeake and start a nonprofit and carry on your legacy and take people out just like yourself and all cancers of all ages  thousand and thirteen when he gave me the boat and that two thousand and fourteen was our first season so so talk to our viewers a little bit about how they can be involved in your organization the web site is healing w the t dot org and tell our viewers how they can get involved in your organization and well and it's so wonderful organization there's lots of things people can do you get on the website you'll see there's three buttons right off the bat you can nominate somebody and i'll explain that in a minute you can volunteer of course and it's ours our nonprofit is supported by individual donations i would say about in eighty eighty nine eighty nine percent of this nonprofit and many many non profits cross the state and because this is free says if greece is free to do well yeah and so people ask well how do you deal with that with insurance we have insurance it's just we are not a charter so we able to provide this service so you go to the website and you can nominate somebody so you know anybody who's just getting the word that they have cancer are there about to go through this or are they going to go through this journey they would or radiation or living with cancer i think there's one thing i've learned so much here there's so many people that live with cancer and have kind of a meet and schema that you would have absolutely no idea really so you can nominate yourself to somebody going through this you can nominate yourself and you just fill out a little form right there right electronically on our website and send you hit send it and anybody else can nominate anybody so you could somebody you've heard that this person you may not know that well but you would like to kind of give this a little gift and you can either let them know that you want them to know it's you or you can also nominate them anonymously it's really hard to say fast but anonymously so how many people are you taking out on your beautiful well we can carry on the new boat that was donated last summer and this is a different budget for but we now have a thirty nine foot day which is we are now behind at the boat house and we are on on dock a right kind of right next to the spirit sort of in that area behind eco we can take up to ten people at a time and last summer we went on forty seven sales so we took over four hundred thirty five people out only champlain last summer alone and it's a member we had kind of a rainy kind of a funky beginning of the summer but so so  far in the past this is our for just finished our fourth season we've taken over eight hundred and fifty people out on the champlain in just our four seasons of burlington sailing season which is  coming in from all over new england not just from mont because there's nothing else like this anywhere else so you have your own private sale with ten of your your caregivers friends whatever doctors part time paid captain the rest of them are either have their coast guard license or have had it or are working towards getting their license and we have about twenty four twenty five volunteer crew that we use we have a rotating you know basis we train them off shore first of what it's like to be with people who are being challenged sometimes it's the end of the life of me in these people some of these folks get on board have a weeks to live and they're the real thrilled to be out there tell me the story about what that one woman said to you know so i have we have so many little stories that are just so heartbreaking i mean heartwarming i should say i have one friend of mine who came out sailing and stage fo cancer and you know she will constantly be living with this for the rest of this person's life and he got off the boat and turned to me and said give me a big hug and said that was my cancer free day my cancer free day i was normal i didn't think about my margins and didn't think about what's going to happen next and what's going to happen after that and you know what a marriage what it what are the results going to be and when i go in my next treatment is that i was completely normal and is a nonprofit where we we give this gift for the person going through it we call them the nominee you never really call them patients but in on many a nominee and and their caregivers as well because so much of the focus is on the person dealing which makes sense with the cancer but every everybody's affected and around the entire families of children or children where your answer and we've taken and on that side we've taken two year olds out who are who are the nominee is a no we've all cate all ages and all cancers so it's just a really unique experience to be able to stop and stop everybody to stop but they're doing and be out there  honor whoever it is that's asked you to be with them and to take that time so let's talk about that third button because you have a volunteer button just right area of the donate and please to all my viewers out there if you support the work this is in johnson and healing vitti dot org please go online and make a donation no donation is too small you have the nominate button that you can push if you want to nominate someone or yourself to go out for a sail and then there's the volunteer but let's talk about that well we have lots of things going on you know there is this and people think other boats you know put away you have nothing to do all winter and well that's just the opposite in fact i'm and i don't even though he's told you about this part but we are starting to expand and we've been asked by ten different locations in the united states to open up a healing wins in their community and so we are in the process of building our board a little bit stronger this winter and we have opportunities for p r and just in exposure and letting people know that this service is out here in including our own hospital anywhere in vermont and out is debbie pullin hi debbie and what would you like to share with us tonight well i had the honor in the privilege of being nominated for a sale and i just wanted to give those out there that are listening a little inside especially if there and i know susan touched on this a little bit undergoing are just finishing treatments i had to just just completed my fiftieth chemotherapy treatment before i boarded the jubilee for my first sale and i absolutely did not think that my would be sea worthy in my legs  my stomach and once i boarded that boat and had that crew and sudan there for support i knew right then and there are the challenges i've been finding in the moments of this journey which is finding peace comfort joy and freedom was about to happen and you've just got to keep this this this going this is an incredible organization and thank you suzanne for for starting and coming so so far this trip once you do it and you actually get off and walk away you're not walking away from that sale you're walking away with an experience you will never forget thank you thank you so much for letting us know your well she's made special so the potential for this organization to expand regional way is right there at your fingertips absolutely and then to expand nationally in this would you see yourself as being sort of and so we are we do have the trademark for healing winds and so our model is that this healing winds usa which we also own that domain this is going to be our headquarters here in burlington vermont and vermont is the first chapter of the national organization and the other chapters will follow suit and it's a similar model to make a wish ok so you have different locations and you have boards of each location but there are advisory boards who are is the one the board here in burlington vermont is the governing board so it is very exciting and it's just it is wonderful to see people people come and get off the boat or even on the boat turning to us and saying we just thought this is a sailboat ride you know this is and they we had no idea just how poll found it is to be out here and i'm probably people have never been sailed by her never been out on the legs so many people who grew up here i've never ever looked back in burlington on the other side of that break water i mean it is just exciting to me you know growing up on the water i can't imagine not being on the water but but is just it is as wonderful be able to give that gift the sheer joy of people especially those who are really being challenged have smiles on their faces and crying and happy and excited and they all these emotions that all come up and three hours of time so it's a really wonderful  that they're going through yes just forgot in that moment yes i'll share a quick little story about today another story two stories one of which is a gentleman who was nominated through the hospital and he did not have many friends and family but he brought a few people out and he he had had terminal cancer and was undergoing a lot of treatment and he came out he said you know i was so excited to go sailing because i knew that i had you know fourteen days until i get to go sailing on on on do believe at the time and every day i went in for my treatment i was counting the days and the hours that i would be able to get on board and that gave me so much strength to be able to sit down in the at another infusion of chemo and just knowing that i got to have that to look forward to so that was a really nice skip and the other little story i'd love to share is someone who has brought to her sister at terminal  hospice patient out sailing with us and ten of their family members and and it was about a couple months later they called me and said you know we want to share with you that it's just make a name that jackie passed away this morning and you know it was very very sorry to hear that and she said and we are all sitting around her living room and we're all talking about the wonderful gift that you all gave us and no other organization or other people gave to us and that was memories that that we will always have will always have this memory of sailing with with her and how much she enjoyed that and that whatever we can do to help share that in our in our community and throughout the state of vermont or anything that we can do please let us know because this is very powerful and so well i know there's someone else out there who is going to i think the biggest thing is that you know i've been in real estate says you know full time and also running and healing wins as well and they just with all of this new energy of x wanting to make a bigger impact i have made a decision to do this full time and and so it makes a big difference because i think we really need to have full time presence and take this to the next step and to the next level so f my viewers odds healing wins v t dot org but there must be a phone number that people can call as well if they want to call here here it is all right eight zero two six seven three sale which is seven t four five if you want to call healing wins vitti dot org visit the website and the way to get involved is you can donate which we would love you all now to make a small donation or any size to support as it is this is basically an eighty ninety percent supported by private donations the sale is free one thing i would do want to mention i think it's really important for people to understand is that these vessels there are several of them and they're more waiting for us our vessels that are donated to us so these vessels are owned by the nonprofit itself which means that products are going to be in kind donated for the vessel the boat that we like this this particular model better than using other people's vessels because we want to make sure the sale is a controlled sale that is as safe as possible so all of our boats are outfitted we know everything about the boat from head  and it makes a big difference you don't want to be a bumpy ride or you know if you had bad weather and so that's really important so yeah so so donations are really important because you also have to take care of the boat and sail boats need to be cared for another is to nominate yourself all ages all cancers a loved one a friend you can do it anonymously and you can also become a volunteer you know we can take people we brought people all the way down to the boat with their wheelchair we we helped them get up into the cockpit and then icing is that they don't have to move yet they're outside and they're moving which is that's a so beautiful about being out there and sit on the sailboat and i think people who who are close to family members that are at that point they you get it and i think when you've been out sailing with us you can see this and it's just i can't explain just the joy of these people who are finally outside again and the freedom and the freedom and the incredible  well we have thirty seconds left tim i'm sorry we didn't hear from you tonight but we'll get suzan johnson back on the show and hopefully then maybe you'll even come on the show yourself we can always have more people will listen i have thirty minutes to wish my viewers and to tell you think how much i love you and what a great friend you've been and to my viewers i want to wish you all a happy holiday to sit to suzanne johnson annealing windsor thank you for being on the show and we will i will see you all next year when eighteen they have a good holiday and good night