really as you know helps adults and their kids feel comfortable and happy in their house and their surroundings as they've literally gone from we demean married to single by restoring a sense of permanency and emotional well being uplifting power of color design and a whole lot of laughter and what else i want to add to that is also other people that are outside of what i do that can also do the same thing in a different way so having said that i am here to introduce my very good friend lonnie all good and we're going to talk a little bit how we met and he has a great non for profit organization that we're going to talk about as well so lonnie welcome to my show  pleasure i'm really glad that you're here before i go any further tell everybody what dreams for kids is and then we'll talk about how we met and some cool stories that we can share the c e o treat your kids and our model is to or alcohol free drug free cigarette free college educated as a right role model for kids to understand that if they make the right choices they make the right decisions that they can have and that they want they just work hard at it yeah it's really a wonderful organization and it's wonderful to know that there's a safe place for kids to go if they are a little bit confused there's a you know a direction they can look and there are people they can look up to it's pretty  cool you know we met before we met at a networking event i initially a long time ago and then we reconnected again and then you ended up coming to my place and we ended up talking and sharing with each other all the things that we do in terms of supporting we talked about kids and even adults because if you support a kid and give a kid hope you help out adult that parent that maybe doesn't know how to do it and we talked about how we do that but what's interesting and i love all these little quotes from your mom and your grandma you know tell tell everybody what your mom said to you and how you really started this and and what she instilled in you because you had all this great success and you were a famous football player and  you know after you you reached your dream what did your mom instill in you and how did it direct you to start this organization well i grew up an hour out of carolina and the whole focus with my mother my grandmother raising us  with eight other kids was that we we love and respect was free and that we should give it away every day and that we should pay it forward and she was dragged off to church four or five times a week and so that was her foundation force that we control behavior there was hugs kisses i love you god bless the ground you walk on bad behavior but was with her for a while yeah yeah and so she so i know growing up that there was first that i should be paying a forward giving back helping other people make a difference in other people's lives and the second thing was that there's a consequence for behavior and that trying to get our young people today to understand that they control how hard they work to control how hungry they are for their dreams they control bigger than your circumstance because here i am on a farm we were poor we could we and we have two nickels that we could rub together but my mother tells every day her name her integrity was worth a million dollars so understanding that every time we left the house we represented her and my grandmother and represented what they stood for was a powerful statement that no matter where we went it was about money or big houses or things it was about how we carried our self our character who are leave the house yeah that was that's the foundation to everything whether whether you're playing football whether your creating an organization whether you're helping somebody in their home to feel grounded again it's all about that foundation if you don't have that and it's wobbly you can't really build on it and you really can't help anybody that way so i think it's just so cool that you went through all this and you got your big dream and then you decided to do this what was the first like what do you have like one probably if you have one really memorable moment where you felt like you really made a difference i remember you told me the story about talking in front of five hundred kids and we maybe will bring that up again but i don't want to tell you what the story is that i'm asking you is there was there one moment when you first started this organization for kids where you said oh man i am so doing the right thing because i know i had a moment like that i want to hear what your moment was for be it's  actually collection of moments the first one is that a i took my mother my grandmother a lot because they raised me but my father didn't stay around so and it was some domestic violence so i got involved with of people would i go out speak for domestic violence and and i always talk to young men about going through stuff because of men in the locker room and in the huddle is a different world yeah just being a man so the moment for me that hit me to heart is and i talk did a program a couple years ago called the challenge program at fort dix and these are for kids who dropped out of high school and decided to come back and give the second shop but you have to go through twenty six weeks of army to ca so i go to speak and it's the army kind of situation so the kids are yes sir yes ma'am no thing dressed in uniform and when i get done speaking about dreams and goals and being humble won the whole thing and how the n dream but it was taken away one day because injuries and and competition and age and whatever was it took it away from me and but how overcame it by moving on helping other people and helping kids and and because it they that gets me excited score touchdowns was unbelievable but to see a young person male or female say thank you for coming at you made a difference in my life you gave me hope today it's here is how it is everything is what gets me going but this kid wrote me a letter we got done speaking we went to every group of kids i talk to i say i tell him that i care about them and that i love them and there's nothing they could do about it because my mother does tell me that every day so i knew i was loved every day while my way to school she hugged me kissed me and said i love you there's nothing you could do  they loved me oh my gosh so when you talk about moments did he give you a letter to page letter and not go to details we went through some abuse and went through some stuff and he was kept in a cage for was a bad situation you do what you do for you lou young the fourth grader who wants to be may and this fifty or kid who maybe i gave him enough hope to get to the next day right that maybe i am game belief that someone cares about him and so that's what dreams are kids all about and i also know that by doing what i do i'm also saying thank you to my mother my grandmother who raised me here paying respects now also personally it helps me and maybe some people out there need to hear this is i went through some stuff for points for kids i really just want to score some touchdowns and some kids lives so make kids better from inside out build their self esteem and make communities better of where they live and at the same time you're feeling good like you said it is cathartic it's there are putin i feel the same way when i help somebody the more you help the more you give us a better you feel why else are we here as for right we're supposed to be giving back even when we don't have anything to give we're supposed to get we're supposed to give all the time so and it is amazing how it does come full circle especially if you don't expect anything back if you can just do it and just not worry about what's in it for me what's in it for me then it's never authentic and it never lasts very long it's fleeting right so what i think is so great about what you do it's not fleeting and i think that the reason that it works really well is because you are truly authentic you're truly coming from a place of pain of success of respect all of the things of being humble of working hard of being hungry all the things that your mom told your could you really coming from that place you're not just some guy that decided ok i'm going to do this and not that there's anything wrong with that when somebody wants to do something nice but the fact that you know you wonder stand what they're going through it might not be exactly the same scenario but it somewhere out there like you had issues with your dad in the domestic abuse with your you know your job and your mom and all of that you  relate to somebody and people and kids especially feel that my because if you don't have the authenticity nothing works they'll know if they don't know if you have no wholesale no if your you know we can't mention the person we were talking about   or and charitable organizations and then you find out that person is using other people's money and that's interesting that's not authentic and that will the bottom will fall out of that you and i both know we talked about this is not a political of pain you know you you had all the success and then like you said whether was injury age or combination it was like taken away from you in a way now you sit there you go now what do i do how do i what do you do with myself right how old were you when that happened well said i think the key thing is that my mother my grandma set me up for that the mom already yeah well because they don't believe sports is a big deal your character was a big you know so when it when as a as i grew up enough carolina they made a point that church was important or that community was important to giving back was important to you know we go to shelters a whole food drive to do things for other people so that was always there you know my dream was sports and then one day at the seven years i found out that the n f l stood for not for was till that moment when my n f l career my sports career was over that i had a few so big you know i had a baby and then i had to decide what would get me up every day when my feet hit the floor what could i do with passion like i for football and what i found out was that when i took a kid's life or came in he was better because mr or good came through that that was it that nothing gets me more excited that brings me to close is to football to cuddle to the to locker room to playing in front of eighty thousand people many people on t v is to know that someone is better and that some kid when he wrote me that letter that i want to grow up one day and be you that was a does a big deal to think this this  and one hour speaking to him and pour my heart out to these kids that i could have that kind of impact they felt it was powerful they felt it and that's that's the whole point is that they feel that because it's all something what you say out there to if somebody was watching now and maybe they maybe they were a parent that's lost and they don't have you know the wherewithal that your mom and grandma had and that they know they have this great kid that's that's lost and then they dissed don't have the wherewithal to help them what would you say to that parent or even possibly the kid watching how would you get them motivated for a parent the first thing they have to do is make a decision not to be their kids best friend is a that's a very good you you have to understand grandmother doing was that i only know what i know she said it's all time when i was fifteen i thought i was a man the world knew everything yeah and she said well if you know everything did you know to debris right wrong i said of course i'm a grown man i'm fifteen i know everything and she said why are you still doing wrong and i would tell the kids that every day and it was i said le sink in now let yeah let that sink take that it right there but it goes back to controlling the person sit in your seat yeah controlling your behavior and how you act and thinking everything through so for the parent i would say to him that i was twenty six or twenty seven when i went back to my mother and i really thanked her for everything she differ because football was done and i realized what she i really done and she says i knew you would come around and will always take the full term but i had to go back and we thank her so follow parents out there what you're going through now your kids at one point the light bulb will go on and that moment will happen will they will realize how much you've done for him but don't be best friend because in life is about relationships it's about time it's about making a decision which of monday so your kids don't know any of that yet now for the kids i would say my three ages is what i grew up with my mother gave me three h's the first h was to work hard she says someone may be better than you but they can't work out work you so you should be the first one of practice last one to leave and a lot for me too was that i didn't really go home because my dad was there yeah  and she said don't ever take your ride when it comes your dreams always stay hungry and in the last age was for the kids would be to stay humble because you're not that good yeah that there's someone in texas or someone ohio so want to florida so it's meant to be we talked about sprinkling a seed and rose within you it goes deep and out and that's really important and you know it's it's funny and it doesn't we talked earlier about it doesn't have to you said you spoke in front of a whole bunch of of kids and you felt like you didn't reach them all in you had someone that said it's more important to reach one and go deep and it's funny i had an experience like that yesterday i spoke in front of a women's group and the amount of people that were due to c didn't come it was forgetting about the jewish holiday yesterday a lot of people didn't come so i had a very small turnout and the the person invited me to speak said i'm so sorry and i said why are you sorry there's doesn't matter if there's two people here or  hundred people here the point is i'm going to give the same talk i'm going to give the same inspiring talk tell people teach people how to create a sense of permanency in their home how to feel good about themselves in their space how to find that strength with within and share my story give them hope it doesn't i don't need a hundred people i just need to touch one person and i do i've already succeeded and it was funny because after the conversation and after  with her saying don't worry about it after the presentation was done i had this woman come up to me and she did a this great video testimonial on how i touched her and it was kind of like your ladder you know it you know you do things from the heart and you want to help people but sometimes when it comes when somebody spits it back at you and i don't mean spit in a bad way but it comes out and they now tell you what you did for them it's kind of like your letter i watched this video like five times yesterday because i spoke yesterday and i keep tearing up because i can't believe that it was so impactful i'm thrilled it was it felt good but she was so grateful and she said you know i feel like i'm not alone and i'm not you know no matter what for you it is you're doing you're really not alone in life if you look around and reach out there are good people out there and i think that's great in terms of what you're doing because you make you put yourself out there tell people how they can reach you how they can reach your organization if you want to you know we have a few minutes left if you want to you know just give your phone number your website or whatever loni and i don't give mine as well and we'll hope  w w w l a d f k three for kids dot org excellent that's wonderful and if you guys want to reach me out there you know how you can do that again my phone number is nine seven three nine eight five four three eight six and if you're having trouble feeling settled in your home after any type of transition whether it's divorce loss of a spouse and the messenger and retirement relocation and anything traumatic that is falls in the category of transition and you just don't know how to feel grounded in your space because it's really important feel grounded give me a call and my website is w even number two and b we need to me dot com and like i said divorced course more it's not just about divorce it's about anything that life altering just like yours and i'm sure that a lot of the kids that you work with to come from broken homes as well as well i mean that's a big part of i tell you one thing that's  we remember kids are kids so whether there are kids from princeton who are doing very well and then they have entitlement issues where they think they have it all but yet they may look in the mirror and i'm like what they see right and then you have kids from new york who urban are fighting maybe to get to school through three blocks of drug infested areas wherever it is and have a meal and have trouble home is still kids so i focus on the fact that they can still dream big they can still work hard to get still stay hungry and they can still stay focused on that they stay humble enough to go after it so there's the other areas besides speaking with kids and making communities better and then the last thing is i also do fundraising where i bring in a fellow players and to do volleyball or basketball or baseball football different events to raise money for schools i raise scholarships with my nonprofit as my main focus is an open up  shelters as well i would be honored if you needed me or wanted me to be inspiring and speak i love teaching people how to feel good in their space and i am so happy that you and i could connect and just from just from going to a networking group it's awesome how that worked so we were supposed to be there we were we were meant as answers to me there we were meant to have this connection and i'm delighted to know you're elated to have you as a friend so thank you once again  so much everybody for watching again reach out if you need help in any of these capacities and thank you so much in giving me the honor to speak to all of you guys out there along with lonnie weed and me divorce decor and more warehouse becomes a home thank you so much have a great day