Purple Purse Launch Party - Harbor House of Central Florida

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to a very, very special event. It's for the Purple Purse campaign that the Harbor House of Central Florida is running to raise money and awareness for their Harbor House where they house victims of domestic violence and their pets. It's a really great place in Florida and it's a haven, a safe haven for a lot of people who would not be able to leave their home because they are afraid of leaving their pets behind. And we do love our pets, and that's something you have to think of. And I have some people in the film studio with me. This was kind of last minute, so you'll have to forgive us. Not a lot of prep on this. But I did throw some invites out, and I was very lucky to have some responses. Maggie Unzueta is with us, and she's in Coronado, right off of San Diego, California.

Hi everyone.

Hi Max, thanks for coming. And then we have Kristen Drysdale. Kristen, you're in Arizona, are you?

Queen Creek, Arizona.

Queen Creek, Arizona.

Okay, so you're coming from the Central Time Zone. And Jenny Field is coming to us from North Carolina.

Yep, just outside of Raleigh.

There you go.

North or South, I'm always not— North Carolina. So we've got a great group with us tonight and all here to help support the Purple Purse campaign. And then on location, we have my friend Carolyn Caperna. She's there in the middle of everything. So tell us what's going on, Carolyn.

Hey, hey, good to see everybody. I'm really glad that the whole Google+ crew is behind us here at the live launch event for the Purple Purse campaign. We've got a great party going on here at Kate Spade New York in the Mall at Millennia. We've got, let's see, we've got a pretty full house here right now. We've got cupcakes and we've got a really cool animated GIF photo booth over here over my shoulder. That futuristic-looking tower is actually making animated GIFs for people. And actually now we've got Harbor House's social media community manager joining me, Katie Fisher.

Hi. Hi.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, if you want to just— Yes, we can hear you.

You can hear them?

Yep.

Hi, Katie.

Hi, how are you?

Very good. Thank you so much for joining us and for allowing us to be part of your Purple Purse campaign there.

Yeah, we're having a lot of fun. It's packed here. It's crazy.

So you want to tell us a little bit about what you're doing?

Like my job specifically or about the campaign?

Well, the campaign.

Okay, well, this is a social media campaign to promote economic empowerment in our community and kind of get the conversation started about domestic abuse and putting an end to it. Um, so what we're doing here is we're doing like the kickoff launch party, and we have a raffle going to promote, um, obviously the purple purse, which is the whole icon of the campaign. Um, we're doing a photo booth, we have food, we have all this stuff going on, but the overall, um, theme of it is economic empowerment. So we've made a video, we've done photo shoots with countless community members all over Orlando, all over the public high schools, with different empowering words that kind of go along with our message at Thropper House throughout the morning, like positivity, hope, encouragement, empowerment, those kind of things. We never use disempowering language, so this campaign is kind of perfect for us because it's all about empowering women.

All about empowering women. That's a very important thing, especially when they're in this type of situation because they do struggle so much. I can't imagine.

I really wouldn't know.

I don't know how to think about something like that.

It's mind-boggling to me, but thank God there's people like you and Harbor House around to help us, help them.

And how fantastic that you let people bring their pets with them, because I think it's hard enough to work up the nerve to leave a situation, but to think that you would have to leave your pets behind, I can't even imagine. We have cats and I couldn't do it. So that's wonderful, that's one less thing for the people to have to worry about.

Exactly. And that's a huge barrier for leaving. A lot of people end up staying in abusive relationships because they don't want to leave their pet. And a lot of times after leaving, their pets will be abused or killed by their abuser. So they literally get trapped in that relationship. And I think there's only one other kennel—

I'm not sure right now—

one other institution that actually has potential to take in pets.

It's a real need. It really is. And you know, this campaign is all about particularly financial empowerment. So, you know, the purse being a woman's typical symbol of her whole empowering identity, of her access to her finances. It's where your credit cards live, it's where your bank cards live, it's where your cash lives, it's where your ID lives, and all of those things are tied together into your economic identity along with some other things. So access to all of those, um, you know, different aspects of day-to-day life is so important to talk about, even if it's not the most, shall we say, sexy of topics. You know, who wants to talk about budgeting today? Me! You know, it matters. It really does.

You know what, having been on that side of it, having come from shelter system, I can tell you it's sexier than what you might think. Because when you don't have anything, The opportunity to learn about money and to have a financial workshop is huge.

Yeah, it's knowledge. What do they always say? Knowledge is power, right?

Right.

So who else is there for us to talk to? Carolyn, we can hear you really, really well, but we're having a hard time—

Well, let me take this back from Katie and see if we can take a stroll around. See if you can round up someone to chat.

Yes.

Oh.

Can you show us that photo booth too?

Yeah, I'll take you over to the photo booth.

Police animatronic?

Yes. Hey, you can look at Greg.

Oh, Greg.

Here's Greg to meow.

Hey everybody. There he is.

Hey.

Now I have one question for you before we get started. Are you there, Greg?

I can't really hear you, honestly. It's crazy loud.

I know you got the high heels before. Are you getting a purse too today?

No, unfortunately I won't be getting the purse today. We are reserving that to really only the attendees and people that are putting bids online. Since I'm part of the team that helped put this together, I'm not eligible for the purse.

Okay, now you said they can give bids online or they can donate online. Where do they go for that?

Yes, there's a Crowdrise page. We'll make sure to put it in the link there. I'll pop in after I hop off here and I'll make sure to link it. And you can donate directly to Harbor House on that Crowdrise page, and that will enter you to win the Kate Spade purple purse.

Okay.

Thank you for having me.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Thanks for having me on.

I gotta hop off and attend the party here.

Alright, Greg, thank you so much for stopping by.

Party on. Thank you, Dennis Littley. Alright, so before I walk you around and show you I'm going to introduce you to Manny. He's the prevention coordinator for Harbor House. He's working a lot on the actual education initiatives behind this. We're actually brainstorming some fun education workshops for kids to take into a local school related to the Purple Purse so that we can teach kids about saving for a rainy day and the importance of their finances. So let me give my headset to him. Sounds good.

Hi, Manny.

Hello. How y'all doing?

We're doing good.

Good. Glad to see y'all here.

So, yeah, there's a little bit of a delay here, but just tell us what you're doing.

All right, so I am working with prevention. And I do a lot of empowerment for children. So I work with children from kindergarten through 5th grade. And we talk about things, healthy communication, conflict resolution, bystander intervention. And we basically just prep them and teach them how to respond to abuse, how to identify it, and how to further friends. You know, if they're being bullied, if they're in the school, they're being if their friends are being bullied, if their family is bullying each other. We try to put it in terms where they can understand it. And we also have something that we're putting together for financial empowerment, which is basically talking about what they can do on a rainy day, you know, when they feel sad, when they feel blue, when they don't feel quite as good as they would on a regular day, and taking that and translating it over to their parents. You know, how do you think your parents feel when they have rainy days? How do you think mom feels when she doesn't have enough money to pay for food or enough money to pay for this or that? So we kind of want to bridge the gap so that the parents and the children can have a healthier communication and have a healthier relationship, and that ultimately will foster a family and a nurturing family home, and that's what we want to work at.

That's fantastic. How long have you had that initiative in place?

The community education piece with children started in Project Courage about 5 years ago, and that was out of the West Side in Orlando, West Orlando. But we've now expanded over to the East Side, we've expanded over to other areas of Orlando. Where we're doing some of the same curriculum as well. Um, we are in Orange County Public Schools, we're in the rec centers, and we are in the houses of worship as well. So it went from one rec center to now more than 50 houses of worship, more than 20 Orange County Public Schools, more than 20 rec centers in Orlando. So it definitely has expanded, and we've gone from place to place bringing this curriculum.

That's fantastic. I used to teach in Orange County Public Schools when I lived in Orlando, and kind of an at-risk population, and I can definitely tell you that there was a need. So that's wonderful.

Can I give you a hint? Can I give you some tips on 7-year-olds? If you dress them up in Lego, a Lego figurine, or give them some French fries, they'll listen to you.

I bring candy, candy, that's my main go-to. I have my chart and candy, you know, you get your stars, you're a leader if you behave, and you get your candy.

Stickers go a long way too. Stickers are pretty awesome.

Snickers, Twix, I mean the whole nine yards, we gotta, those are our supplements to the curriculum.

It works for adults too.

Yeah.

It does.

We've got a lot of good response from adults in our trainings as well. We give them extra Snickers and they do good on our pre and post surveys.

You guys are doing great work.

Denny, I know you've got to go, so thank you so much for being with us.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the invitation. This is great. It's good to hear about Harbor House. Back in my former hometown. So thanks very much.

All right, Jen.

God bless everybody.

Thank you.

Bye-bye. Bye.

Okay.

I wanted to ask about—

Yeah, we're not all—

We're going to get all of Harbor House indoctrinated into Hangouts On Air.

Good. This is trial by fire. Now we can do a real one where they're actually sitting in front of a desk too, not just jumping around.

Exactly. And we're planning to do one of those middle of the month. Actually we're bringing on some of their key staff to talk about financial empowerment in a more less noisy context.

But he's cool, isn't he?

Yeah, it is. So I'm going to walk you over to the photo booth now so you can see what's going on. We're on a live Hangout On Air. And this is Nick, he's with Giffen which is run by Purple Rock Scissors, a digital agency here in Orlando. Can you— do you want to take a minute to explain, or do you want to help them first and then we'll—

If you want to let them in on the explanation, if you want to stand here.

Yeah, cool. So we're going to listen in on the explanation of what GIF is, and I'm going to even show you.

Okay, so I'm going to explain to them, and then at the same time, I will say it in English. Alright, you already kind of know. Awesome. So basically what this is, it's going to take 3 separate pictures. It's like a standard photo booth. And then it's going to basically put those pictures together in a GIF, like a little moving image. And then you can share it, Facebook, tweet it, text it, email it out, wherever you want.

Do or die.

Do or die, yeah.

Yeah, you want to try it?

Alright.

Yeah, you're here now.

Pretty cool, right?

That is pretty cool.

Did you guys catch that?

Yeah.

There's the camera apparatus right there.

Ready?

Does it go right to your phone then? Does it mail to you, or how does that work?

On the touchscreen there, I think, on this touchscreen, it'll then give you the option to put in your information.

Okay.

Hey, Jen Vargas is here.

Oh, great!

Hi, Jen!

I just saw her Saturday night.

Yeah, you just saw him at the Gift of the World, eh?

Yep.

Hey, Jen! Long time no see, Shawn.

I know, good to see you.

Oh, okay. Introducing everybody.

Oh, okay. Hello!

I'm glad you could stop by.

Hi!

Long time no see.

I know. We haven't seen each other forever and now we see each other twice in one week. That's pretty cool.

That is pretty cool.

I'm a rabbit that wants to say hello.

So how are things going there, Jen? Anything exciting happening with the Purple Paw? What do you got?

There's pretty cool stuff happening. I mean, they've got cupcakes that are fantastic, lots of great conversations going on as well, lots of purple, which I absolutely approve of. Is that a glass?

That's a purple glass.

Purple!

A purple one! It has to be.

You know, I looked for something purple in my closet, and the closest I could come was plum.

I can approve of that.

Cool, yeah, lots of cool stuff going on behind us.

I see, I know, I wanted to come out, but time wasn't on my side, so I thought this would be the next best thing. Best thing, doing a live Hangout.

Aww, well you gotta win a purple purse.

Well, yeah.

Everybody has them, I mean, come on.

I know. You know that I have to have a man bag.

A man bag? Yeah.

A man bag.

As long as I don't need the man's near, I'm okay.

But the man's near. Seinfeld, what was it, what did he have? Purse. What was it called? A mani.

Was it called— no, it wasn't called a mani.

He called it something else. It was a European purse.

I can't remember.

A murse.

A murse. That's it.

A murse.

There we go.

Yeah.

Oh well.

Well, you're a hip kind of guy. I know you'll figure it out.

Yeah, I'm metrosexual, I guess.

I don't know how you actually see the pictures with the tops.

Maybe I better look it up.

Well, head to Carolyn's. All the cool stuff.

Bye guys!

See you later. Thanks for stopping by.

Of course. Oops.

Sorry about that. No worries.

I want to give these to you guys.

Alright.

We're having some fun and we have some people in the house. Cheryl Deuce is here. Roxanne Davenport. Awesome. Kenny's in here, Andy Lyons, so we really do have some people watching, so it's pretty cool.

More Harbor House folks saying hi. Did you guys see the cupcakes?

Yeah, that's what I was looking at, cupcakes.

Oh yeah. Purple? These are from, I'm going to have to look up what bakery these are from, but they are delicious, holy crap.

No free advertising.

So here is the purse.

Oh, I want one.

It's nice, isn't it? What does it retail for, do you know? About $300.

Wow.

And how many do they have today? They are raffling off one to anyone who donates $25 on their CrowdRise page. Wow. For the next week, I think.

Yeah.

So just the one, unfortunately. And unfortunately, like Greg said, he and I can't win it. But that's probably fair. Probably. I will win it. Yes, you can. So there's lots of nice stuff behind me.

I see. I know why I don't usually go in Kate Spade, but I think Lisa's been there a few times.

Oh yeah, I would imagine so.

If they don't have benches, I don't go in there. Then I sit outside. I love the mall in Miami.

Well, there are a couple of these chairs in the back of the door.

Okay, well, you got to go all the way to the back.

They got to be up by the front.

Oh yeah.

I like the shops in heaven.

Yeah, sorry Lisa couldn't be here.

Yeah, she's still in Philly.

Sorry Lisa couldn't be here tonight.

Yeah, she'll be back tomorrow.

She'll be in Philly.

Well, Carolyn, I'm going to let you go. Go have some more fun.

Alright.

It was great.

Thank you. I better go before my battery dies.

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you all for coming on.

And I'll see you soon.

Yes, thank you, Kristen and Maggie, as well. Thank you for being here. And thank everybody in the audience for saying hello.

We're really glad to have you.

Keep doing what you're doing.

Thank you. I will. No sleep, lots of work, here we go.

Here we go.

Alright.

Take care.