Doris Carson Williams: Mission Of AACCWP

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hey everyone, welcome to the show. Those in the United States and around the world from China to Brazil. Speaking of Brazil, that's where one of my favorite people is, Richard Roberts with the State Department. Richard, you know I love you. I hope to see you later this year. And Gang Young Cho in South Korea, Cheryl Harris right here in D.C. with the State Department, and Benjamin from Kazakhstan. Just so you know, all of these people from the State Department are working with me so hard to spread the news of quality of life for people living with disabilities. And I also wanna thank our sponsor, Highmark, who has been a sponsor for years. Yoshiko, I'll never forget you. Special shout out to Yoshiko Dart, wife of the late Justin Dart. Always thinking about you, Yoshiko. Well, today I must tell you, I was very excited because don't you love it when you know the guest so well? You've known the person for years. There's someone you admire and a friend, and that would be Doris Carson Williams, the president and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce in Western PA. And I will say a dynamo. We have to add that to her title, President and CEO, comma, dynamo. So Doris, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

For our listeners around the world, we have listeners in 17 countries and of course those in the United States. I thought we would begin by you sharing your story with our listeners, like where did you grow up? What was your career prior moving to the Chamber? What made you decide to be an advocate in the African American community? How did this all start?

Well, Joyce, first of all, thank you for having me because you're a very dear, close friend of mine, as you well know. I grew up in Western Pennsylvania in the Homewood-Brushston section of Pittsburgh, graduated from Westinghouse High School, and I need to share with the audience, I always admired seeing women carrying briefcases on billboards and in magazines. That always fascinated me. But that was something that was just like a passion of mine, hidden, if you will. I went on, I left Pittsburgh, I went to school in Connecticut, and my mission was to learn more about, at that time, what they called data processing. So I learned to be a programmer and analyst and do things in the technology field, which was very important. Once again, seeing women who were carrying briefcases and being busy in the business world. As I developed my career and moved not only from Hartford but back to Pittsburgh and worked in the IT industry, I found the value that people receive from people with a technology background was really— it was really intriguing because they ask good questions. They were good planners, and they would always follow through on what was being important for the person they were speaking with. I believe it is important for businesses to understand that, and for me as a young person, it became paramount. What I did at that point was kept working in the IT industry, worked for a bank here in the city of Pittsburgh, and did a major conversion for them from Honeywell to IBM. BEM, which is how I met Joyce, and we became good friends, still working in IT, still admiring women that were in the business industry, and I took it one step further, Joyce, at that time. I started volunteering for nonprofit organizations, so the Greater Pittsburgh Business Development Corporation, a number of organizations that worked with small business, I latched onto and volunteered my services to work them. From there, I left finance and IT to go and work in the business community when I was asked to run a business inside a business for Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh. At that time, it was Carnegie 100, and the Carnegie was just Museum of Art and the Museum of Natural History. I helped along with a team of other very, very smart people to build not only the Carnegie Science Center but the Andy Warhol Museum. And my mission was to run the business operations and help them to generate revenue to support the activities at the 4 museums. So that could be anything from birthday parties, travel around the world, guided tours, running their stores, special events. Catering, food service, just a number of different entities. Whatever it took to generate revenue for that particular museum, I had responsibilities to help grow and engage them, and it turned out to be of benefit because of a fine team of people that worked with me. During that process, I had a gentleman come out to the museum to talk with me, and at the end of it, he looked at me and said, you're just the person we're looking for. We have been wanting to open an African-American Chamber of Commerce here in Western Pennsylvania, and you're just the person to do it. Well, Joyce Bender, as you know me, I didn't know much about nonprofits, didn't think they were doing too much, and I looked and smiled and said, no thank you. That was until I came home and spoke to my husband about it, the late Jimmy Williams, and he said, listen, You've always been a part of that. That's something that you would do well with. So I was on my way to the Katz Graduate School of Business for their master's program for professional executives. I went through the program, finished on a Friday, and October 8th moved into the Regional Enterprise Center that the late Paul O'Neill donated to the city. To set up an African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania. It was understood though, even though that was the name of it, it couldn't all be African American. The reason I said I'd accept the job is it had to be all small business owners. And it's my philosophy, small business owners all work for the same thing. They work for green money, They hire from their neighborhoods, they pay taxes, and hopefully they help generate revenue to support our local economy, which was important, but really important for me to take on this position. And I did it with the help of people like Joyce Bender. I reached out to all my friends who said, "What are you doing, Doris? We don't know you to be doing—" I said, "Listen, I'll set up a tiered marketing program where not only will small business owners be engaged, but major corporations can be engaged. And that's exactly what happened. Tom Usher, the former chairman of U.S. Steel Corporation, he brought along a colleague of his, and the two of them together, along with Jim Rohr, who was the president of PNC Bank, they wrote letters to all their friends saying, we caught the mission of the Chamber and what they're trying to do. We want you to give money to support their ongoing operations, and at the end, don't forget to introduce Doris to your procurement officers so she can engage the members in doing business with the major corporations. At that time, the Chamber didn't have many members. The Chamber was really 28 paid members, but it was growing. Over a period of years, the Chamber has grown from 28 paid members to 638 paid members. We are the 9th largest Chamber in Western Pennsylvania. That's the 10-county region. So we go from Westmoreland, Beaver County, up to Erie, over to the Ohio border, and down to West Virginia. It's a full-service Chamber. It offers life, dental, vision, long-term disability, all the business tools that a small business would want to engage people. The African American Chamber of Commerce offers it to the members as well as professionals who are looking to build their business and get involved in the industry. In 2003, Merrill Lynch did a study of 2,000 black business owners and found that the 4 areas they needed to become more proficient was in legal, finance and accounting, information technology, and marketing and communications. I took those 4 areas and met with the late Della Reese Ambrose, and we set up a business institute for the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania. The mission: to continuously work with those businesses and engage them to understand the benefit of working within those three— four entities to build their skills, to compete so they can compete in the global marketplace by learning from experts in the industry. So the Chamber every week would bring in experts in the industry, allow the members to talk to them and engage with them, eventually moving into digital workshops which became very popular and is even today. We all know the impact of what happened with COVID COVID caused, caused many of us not to be able to see each other, but we still had to learn from each other. On March 13th, when the office closed, the purpose was we would start working from home, and I said we will do all of our workshops virtually, and that's what we did. So we have virtual workshops that allowed our members to not only work together but to understand what was viable and important for them to do. Through the efforts of this business institute, we have had over 3,700 small business owners participate in our workshops. They continue to participate, and that is something I'm very proud of, but it's something that is very important for small business business owners. While we felt that small business owners would drop off during the pandemic, we learned a lot from the pandemic that turned out to be very fruitful and successful for the African American Chamber of Commerce of Western Pennsylvania. Small business owners found during that period, and many of them were hanging on by a shoestring, some of them fell off the edge, But what the African American Chamber of Commerce did, we worked with many of them. We helped them to get PPP funding. Those that couldn't get funding, we found people they could work with to try and build their business in partnership with another firm if that were possible for them. And some of them were able to do that. What became apparent during the pandemic was Everyone needed a vehicle to work with. Small business owners in particular needed a network because they couldn't sustain themselves working on their own by themselves at home. So we found a way to increase it by marketing more to small business owners saying, you know, join our network of small business owners, come and be a part of us and understand We are the vehicle to help you strengthen your business so that you can continue to work on. The first year of the pandemic, we generated 40 new members. Last year— yeah, last year during the pandemic, 45 new members joined the chamber. We lost some businesses, Joyce, but we got a lot of them to come back because we helped them to find entranceway back into the industry and to We realized that unless you're part of an organized body, nobody will know you're home, and that became the vehicle that we helped to strengthen firms. To date, for 2023, we've already generated 7 new businesses in our network. We continue to work with small business owners, and we're always looking for new opportunities for how we can help to improve their life. Their work in the community and what they do. You asked me to talk about who my role models were. That's such an interesting question because I had so many. My great-grandmother was a big part of influencing my life. She was the protocol Miss Lady. She always was volunteering her services to be a part of an organization and she worked in the civil rights movement, and she was very successful at what she did. I always admired Cecile Springer and would watch her when she worked for Westinghouse Corporation, being busy and affecting change for the corporation in terms of what they did. Mentors were men and women. There were a number of people, the late Bernie Jones, who I'll always remember and admire, that worked for the Aliyanni Conference. Bill Colbert, who worked for AT&T. It was people like them— Chauncey Smith, who worked for H.J. Heinz— that would always share their wisdom from different experiences they had in their careers so I could use it to benefit the chamber. People can join the chamber. You don't have to own a business. You can call our office, 412- 392-0610. We'd love to have you in the membership. You can also join us online if you'd like. We take members all the time. We do a monthly power breakfast meeting every third Friday of the month. We bring in a speaker, and thanks to the underwriting support of Duquesne Light, we just had Rich Fitzgerald, the county executive, who's ending his last of 12 years in office. Next month we will have the mayor for the city of Pittsburgh, Ed Gainey, and in March we'll have our first Black lieutenant governor, Austin Davis, that will be our speaker. People come in at 7:30 in the morning, they have a full breakfast, they get to hear the speaker, and they get to network with each other. I always encourage our members, don't sit with people that you know, 'Cause if you do, you won't learn anything. But if you sit with people that you don't know, you get to share business cards, find out what life is like with them, and find out what you can also help to do. My greatest accomplishment is playing a role in helping to build this Chamber of Commerce. There are many, many fine people that have come through this entity, Sean Hicks being one of them. He started in my office as a temporary employee grew to become a manager, and over the years— and for a young man, he's been with us 22 years. He is the chief operating officer. He has been recognized by the Pittsburgh Business Times for his accomplishments and what he's been able to do in terms of helping small businesses. So the message I would want to believe— to leave with everyone is Aspire. Work to achieve to your highest dreams. You can do it. You can do it. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it. You just have to surround yourself with good people and surround yourself with people smarter than yourself. That way you get to learn and so do they. And Joyce, I hope I haven't taken up too much time, but I was trying to give you a good feel for how I got to where I am. There's so many pieces to the African American Chamber that I could share. But that's basically how I got to where I am with the organization.

Well, Doris, I want to say, so you all know now, I've known Doris from when she was in IT, which means I saw her from when this started, the African American Chamber of Commerce. It is amazing. Which you have done. Amazing. It is amazing. But of course you're amazing. But I mean, what you have accomplished with that chamber is just unbelievable.

Well, it really is because of the people. It's about building relationships. And I think your audience knows that as long as you build relationships with people, you meet people on Monday and I tell my members this, they're not going to do business with you on Tuesday. You have to build a relationship with them. And over the period of years, that was one thing that I was able to do was build relationships with people, get them to introduce me to people, and we work together for the betterment of good for our region.

Oh, that is so true. That is so true, Doris, what you just said. And you know, you— when did you start the chamber?

October 8th, 1998.

Okay, so it wasn't the easiest time then, that like, no, every— everyone was behind this. What was it like during that time?

Um, it was a silent period, if you will, uh, take that expression to light. People were kind, but they weren't giving. They weren't willing to share. They weren't willing to come to the table.

I run into that all the time. Joyce, you're wonderful, but we're not going to hire a person with a disability. Isn't that kind but not giving? Yep.

Yeah, but, but, but they also have to— if people believe in what you say and they're sincere about what they intend to do, Everybody has to make a step forward, and it's that one step forward that allows an initiative to go forward. So sometimes that's true, you don't— people say, oh, I can't do that. Well, as my mother used to say, can't never tried. So you have to put your foot out there and try, and sometimes when you try,, as you know, Joyce, somebody will recognize it and they'll step forward to help you. That's the building of relationships.

Oh, that is so true. I mean, I have people, you know, from Highmark to PNC to Northrop Grumman, you know, all across the United States.

Wasn't easy to begin with. Well, Highmark and PNC are probably two of the biggest, biggest supporters of the African American Chamber. Because they understand the benefit of what it means for small business owners to become engaged. See, if you do well, that means that the small business owner can do well, and you have to do it in concert with each other.

Yeah. And you know, when you think about it, all these entrepreneurs that have joined the African American Chamber of Commerce, Think how hardworking they are and how talented they are. I know from when I started the company in 1995, as I told you, it was that silent period for disability also. Oh, sure, sure. But now today, of course, you know, I have all these supporters and that is wonderful. But I just want to say, an entrepreneur You're getting talent you can't imagine because this is people that whatever it takes, whether it's the law, whether it's accounting, whether it's marketing, sales, it's doing it all. So if you, if you join this chamber, you also will meet those people and you won't get—

Joyce, let me, let me just add, to your credit, you have come and spoken at our chamber. I'll never forget when you spoke and you said I said, if you know people with disabilities, tell them to come to the chamber and let Doris know. We will work to hire them. And you did. Just 2 years ago, we sent several people to you. You hired them. Yes. People, people with disabilities are no different than everyone else. They have a desire, and most of them with disabilities can compete above and beyond those that don't have it because they don't bring a stigma to the table. They're hungry and willing to try. That is 100% true.

So, um, a person listening right now that's an entrepreneur, I guess, what would you say is the number one reason they should join? Someone listening right now?

To build a network and to learn. Just understand, building the network is what is critical. If you're an entrepreneur and you want to move your business forward, why not be with other people like you that want to move forward? I need to say this too, Joyce Bender. 78% of our members are African American. The rest are white, Hispanic, Latino, and Indian because all small business owners, as I said earlier, work for the same thing. So they have to be well positioned and they have to think of themselves as I can do it. I can do it because I'm going to put myself in a network with some people that know how to do it. And what I don't know, someone can teach me.

That's right, that is so true. Well, hey everyone, it's time for news on the half hour, and it's our great Perry Jude Radesik who's been with us over 4 years now doing the news every day, and CEO of Disability Rights of PA. Perry, are you with us?

Joyce, I am. Thanks for having me.

Of course. So Perry, what news do you have for us today?

This is an incredible opportunity, Joyce. Registration is open for a virtual option to attend the annual African American Conference on Disabilities. This conference is hosted by the Arizona Center for Disability Law. The virtual conference only costs $15 for 2 days, and it's open to all individuals, family members, and organizations who are interested in learning more about and eliminating barriers on race and disability. The virtual conference starts tomorrow, February 8th, and and runs through Thursday, February 9th. Now, the Arizona Center for Disability Law offers both an in-person and virtual option for this important conference. The virtual options are only for February 8th and 9th. The in-person conference is going to be held in Phoenix, Arizona on Friday, June 16th. 2023. So, we still have a few months. If you're in the area of Phoenix, Arizona on June 16th, you should check out the information about the in-person conference. Now, this African American Conference on Disabilities is the only comprehensive conference in the United States that addresses the intersection between race and disability. Now, organizers have put together 4 virtual sessions, 2 for Wednesday, 2 for Thursday. These are the sessions. On February 8th, starting at 11 o'clock Eastern time, that's tomorrow, the first workshop will be called Crossroads: The Intersectional Approach to Disability Justice Framework. The next section— session starts at 3 o'clock Eastern, talks about Expanding a Black Family Support Group in the Midwest. Then on Thursday at 11:00 Eastern time, they're going to talk about meeting the educational needs of Arizona's foster youth. It'll be a panel discussion. And then on February 9th, that Thursday at 3:00 PM, the workshop will deal with tracing the trauma thread from our ancestors to present healing. Joyce Bender advocacy matters, so it's really important that advocates not miss this opportunity for those around the country and internationally to join in this annual African American Conference on Disability. So where do you find the link to register? You go to disabilityrightsPA.org. That's disabilityrightsPA.org.

DisabilityrightsPA.org.

You click on today's advocacy matters segment, and there is a link to the Arizona Center for Disability Law, the workshops, and registration information. Again, it's a $15 registration fee for both days that covers all 4 sessions. So be sure to go to disabilityrightsPA.org right now and register for the 2-day virtual seminars on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

You know what? That's so awesome, Perry! Isn't that awesome, Doris? That's exciting.

Yeah, uh, Perry, if you will send me— yes, that information— I will put the link out there on my social media.

Absolutely, I'll do it right now, Joyce.

Okay, and again, Perry's the CEO of Disability Rights Pennsylvania. We're so lucky to have her in this state, although she is known nationally, and she is on it. I really appreciate you bringing that to our attention, Perry, I really do. So you send that to me, I'll get it out there.

All right, and for everyone who's listening that's going to attend, you'll see me there for the next the next 2 days. So, hope to see you there.

All righty. Have a great day, Perry. Wonderful.

Good luck. Bye-bye.

See that, Doris? How ironic. You were just saying— Oh, I know. You were just saying how this is intersectional interest. Well, you know, if they're doing it, Doris, we've got to figure out how to do That is amazing. That is really, really amazing. Um, okay everyone, you heard it. Go to Disability Rights PA, then go to Advocacy Matters, and look for it on my social media. Um, and we'll make sure we get it to you, Doris. So, uh, Doris, give me an example of some of the success you have seen for some of your members?

Well, there's, there's, there's, there's so many different unique things that our members have done. We have one member that develops retail products, came to us and was just interested in doing small things, and we said Maybe we can help you, but his background was in IT and he was good at working on website design. The name of the firm was called Expanding Minds and Philip Green, who does work with Carnegie Mellon University, owns his own firm and we gave him the opportunity to redesign and build our website because we have a good website, but we needed it to be state-of-the-art, if you will, Joyce. We wanted to be able to reflect everything that was going on at the time. Today, he is now positioned not only with us and doing work with CNU, but he's in line for a major contract to demonstrate the skills that he did with building our website, which incidentally is www.aaccwp.com, and it tells the story. It tells you who we are. You can go in and pay for events on our website. You can listen to events. You can find out who the sponsors are, who the upcoming speakers are. It tells an array of events. Of stories for everyone. At the same time, we have another member that does product development, and she is just a fireball within herself. Carol Phelps, creative, CPI creative. She's done things like develop personalized cloths to clean your glasses using our logo. Oh! How about that? That's awesome. Yeah, and she's done things like make up hand sanitizer containers, put the company's logo on it, show off what they can do, make it a part of everything that they have. Um, she does work for major corporations here in town. We are pleased to say she does work with Highmark, she does work with UPMC, she does work with a lot of the major corporations and why? Because she listens. She was a former educator that took her educational background to develop products for children. So she's got placemats that children can not only scan, but they can go over the placemat with their cell phone and create a story, connect to a story. We've got a lot of of good stories that we can tell about what members have actually engaged with major corporations in developing. It continues, and we want to see that work continue on.

Well, I want to say something about this. For companies listening, corporations, Vice presidents listening to this show right now, you know you should join the African American Chamber. You've heard all the benefits. I'm proud to be a member, but you should— all of you should be a member if we really want to support all people, not some people. You need to join the African American Chamber and not for charity. You know, not like this is some, you know, good thing I'm doing. No, for business, for business, and a business investment, investment for you that you're missing out on. And, Doris, how does that work? How do people, uh, corporations, how do they become sponsors?

Well, they can just simply call me at the office, 412 392-0610. One of the things that we are proud of doing, and we've had some good sponsorship for this program, it's our How to Do Business Workshops. Comcast Business, Duquesne Light, a number of corporations have come forward and actually sponsored some of our How to Do Business Workshops. The workshops generally are 60 minutes. The company can bring in their senior procurement officer to tell the story about what it takes to do business with the corporation. And when I say that, Joyce, they don't have to set up special requirements. That's not what we're talking about. What is the requirement for doing business with your company? And out of that, our members will comply. We had a wonderful— with U.S. Steel, and it went well, and some of our members got business out of it. It's a question of companies, small businesses coming to the table and being able to work with major corporations. Now, we all know that they have regulations and they have requirements and they have their own sets of paperwork. Learn how to fill it out. We had a wonderful session with the housing authority for the city of Pittsburgh, how to do business with the city of Pittsburgh. We had 48% minority participation last year with the city of Pittsburgh Housing Authority because they followed the rules, they followed the regulations, filled out the forms, and their office even went so far as to show everyone how to fill out the papers for the federal government. Not everyone is willing to do that. They showed all of our members how to do— how to fill out the government papers. Many of them found out that they qualified. They didn't know they could qualify, but they did. So they start small and then they build on a small contract and once you're in the door, then you can move forward. That's what we're seeing happen here in Western Pennsylvania with a number of entities, not only in government but in private industry, the banking community. There's a number of people that have been successful landing contracts and they all start small. So don't think because you go to a, a large company, they're going to give you a large contract. Contract. You have to demonstrate your skill level, your ability to move forward, and then the company will embrace you, give you a contract, and based upon your performance, you can move up and forward. You familiar with that, Joyce? You know what that's like. Oh, I do.

And I want to tell you, we have, we have a lot in common because you have that no pity mentality that I have. In other words, You have to work for it. You have to earn it. No special treatment. Don't be thinking that you're going to get it because you have a disability. I mean, I love how you're working with people. I love that, Joyce. No wonder you have been so successful. It's because they have you at the top.

I mean, I'm their advocate. No, I'm simply their advocate. I can open the door, but they have to be able to walk through the door. That's what I tell all of our members. I open the door, you have to walk through.

Well, you're an advocate, but without you it wouldn't have happened. So I know you're a humble person, but let's state the facts here. Without you, it wouldn't have happened. And Doris, I think also you're on different boards. Is that right? That's right. What boards are you on?

Well, I'm pleased to say that I'm on Highmark's board. I'm on the board of Allegheny Health Network. I am most thrilled to tell you that I am chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank Board of Cleveland, which includes Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, and Erie. Wow. Congratulations. That's wonderful. And Pittsburgh, obviously Pittsburgh. It's Western Pennsylvania. Yeah, it's an exciting time to be a part of that network. And those who may know her, Loretta Mester is just brilliant. She is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank and does a wonderful job on communicating monetary policy and what it takes for small businesses to be a part of that network so that their input can be fed into Washington to help frame getting our economy back on track.

Yeah, that is, that is so good. I'm so happy. Boy, they have a good person when they got, got you, Joyce. Hey, Doris, I was wondering, when you work with people the members? Do you emphasize mentoring to them? Do I what? Emphasize mentoring, that they should have mentors?

Oh yes, I do. Well, it's important. You have to have somebody you can work with and talk to. I've had people come to me to play that role, but what I'm doing, Joyce, is playing that role for 638 members at a macro level, they need to find mentors for themselves that they can work with, and they're not hard to find. And you know why I say that? Because it's about building relationships. We've had people that said they couldn't find a mentor, but they went to, for example, they went to the Highmark's business fair, and I don't know what happened at that fair, but one of our members got in the door. Not only did he get to work with Highmark on a contract, but he found a mentor, a mentor from another corporation that was willing to take him under his wing and just work with him. Don't expect them to do your work when you get a mentor. Just expect expect them to listen and maybe provide you some guidance. And that's the difference. That's what you get when you have a mentor. A mentor doesn't do your work. They simply share based on their experience.

I was going to say, and there's your example about the importance of building relationships.

Because it makes a difference.

Yes, it does. Well, folks, it is time for What's Going On at Bender for just a couple minutes, um, and today we have Scott Hammerstrom. Hey, Scott, how you doing?

Oh, good, good afternoon, Joyce, and how are you doing today?

I am doing great, thank you.

And I gotta say, before we even start, um, this is your 20th year doing Disability Matters, so congratulations.

Oh, thank you so much. He does an excellent job. Yeah, hard to believe, hard to believe it's 20 years. But I got to thank all my listeners and people around the world. They have such, such a great listening audience. But hey, Scott, what's going on at Bender Leadership Academy?

Oh, Joyce, we have so many things going on, a lot of great things. But the, the one thing I'm so excited about is that we are growing at Bender Leadership Academy, and we are hiring a full-time community liaison specialist. And so what that person is going to do, or the goal for this position, is to help run a new program by providing supported mentoring opportunities for youth with disabilities at risk for juvenile delinquency. And we put them into this high-quality, evidence-based program, mentoring program. We also recruit recruit not only the youth with disabilities, but the mentors, the adult role models to help mentor these youth to get them out of— so they don't go into juvenile delinquency. So we're so excited about this program. And if anybody wants more information or wants to apply, you can just go to benderconsult.com and the job posting is there and you can apply that way. So we are very excited about that, Joyce.

Scott, is that also at vendorleadership.org?

It is going to be through— we have it through Bender Consulting, the website for the job position, but there will be information on the Bender Leadership Academy's website probably by Friday.

Well, I know one place I want you to send that job to the African American Chamber of Commerce.

Yeah, I was going to be sending that to you.

I think that's— Scott, send us the information.

I will do that this afternoon to you.

Hey Scott, anything else going on?

And by the way, that's exciting. We love hiring someone, adding to our staff, especially in that role.

So Scott, what else is going on? Well, this year we are signing up for— we have signed up for the Highmark Walk for a Healthy Community. This is our first year doing it. So there's many, many different organizations throughout Pittsburgh that will be participating in this. So this is Bender Leadership Academy's first year. The walk is going to be held on Saturday, May 30th. 13th at 7:45 AM at Stage AE in Pittsburgh. And if anybody, we have, so if you go on the website, go under Pittsburgh for the location, you can choose Bender Leadership Academy and sign up to be a walker or be a team captain. We would love as many walkers as possible for this event. And one thing that I was very excited about is this is an event where we can get our students and parents and educators all together in person. Because as you know, a lot of our events right now are virtual. So we're very excited to come together as a group for this walk. And to sign up for the walk, just go to www.walkforahealthycommunity.org. Pick the location Pittsburgh. And then you'll be able to find the Bender Leadership Academy's link.

And then you can sign up that way.

Well, Doris, I know you know that's a great walk.

What did you say? I said I know you know that's a great walk.

Oh, it is, and it's fun, and you meet new people every time you do it.

Well, there you go. Well, hey everyone, you heard it, and Scott's in that job position over to Doris, and thank you so much for that little news. Update.

Thank you, Joyce. Thank you, Doris, and have a great day, everybody.

Thank you, Scott.

You see there what Doris said? You just never know.

Someone— no, things always come together when you least expect it. Isn't that the truth? Sometimes you're not planning on things like that, but they have it, then they happen.

Yes. So, Doris, what are your plans for 2023?

Well, for 2023, we're trying to show our sustainability. The sustainability of the chamber is what is our hallmark right now. We're looking for people that want to go to the next level. We know that they're there. We know that many of them are moving, but we want to take more of them. We're planning workshops with the help of our sponsors and our members. In the past, we would go to our sponsors and ask them, what programs do you have that we can share with our members? We're now developing programs with them as opposed to their own or our own. We want to show more partnerships this year, and we have such a wonderful array of partnerships with our members in every major industry. We want to highlight that now, both not only in healthcare, in finance, in education, um, in the utilities. It's every major industry that right now needs to come to the table, be highlighted, and we've done a lot of things with Pennsylvania Water, that's the company I was trying to think of earlier. We've done a lot with them because we're just trying to highlight who's doing things to change the face of Western Pennsylvania. Arletta Scott Williams with Alka-San, brilliant woman. She has a major initiative going on to develop clean water and get our water systems corrected here in Western Pennsylvania. She comes and addresses our members every year, and every year she can talk about new companies that she's engaged to do business with Alka-San, all being successful. So Joyce, it tends to go on. We tend to move with the betterment of what our members see, because as I like to tell everyone, if you do well We do well. If you don't do well, the chamber can't do well because we depend on our members to help sustain us. We are now at the point in our relationships and we still have to rely on corporate and foundation support, but not like we used to. We haven't had the need to go to them because they've been addressing a much broader need of young people and adults and what's happening with people with disabilities. We're staging our game now with corporations to strengthen their partnership with us to help us move forward. So that's what we're looking at for 2023, how to be better sustained through the corporate community. Well, that is awesome.

And, and Doris, Just a few last things before we end. First, you were mentioning upcoming meetings here in Pittsburgh. What are those meetings? You mentioned Rich Fitzgerald.

We just had Rich Fitzgerald. Okay, who's next? We have, we have the mayor for the city of Pittsburgh, third Friday of this month. That is Mayor Ed Gainey, and he is just going full steam ahead with the support of cross-sections of all communities. Remember, Joyce, 4 days after he took office, that bridge fell down. It just so happened that the president was in town that day. Yeah, he is engaged. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's just remarkable, but he's engaged a lot of people to do things in the city to help him rebuild what needs to be put in place. We've got the lieutenant governor, first African American lieutenant governor, I might add, in the state of Pennsylvania, will be our speaker next month. Austin Davis. Austin Davis actually began working, if you recall, for Rich Fitzgerald. Yeah. And became a state representative. Then moved up and ran for, um, lieutenant governor. Nice, nice young man and is doing well. We've got a workshop on how to use Microsoft, how to use the, um, I'm getting tongue-tied, Microsoft Microsoft website and how to use it effectively for doing business, not only for your company, but personally. Microsoft Office 365 is what I'm trying to tell you about. Yeah, that is really great. That's great. And so we're doing that. We're doing that in partnership with Ray Vargo at the University of Pittsburgh Small Business Development Center. He's bringing in one of his consultants who will help tell the story to our members. Here's some tips on how to use Office 365. Here's some shortcuts you can take. Here's some plans you can use when you're writing proposals or getting information out from Office 365. And then Ray will, in his masterful way of doing things, he will actually highlight and talk about the holistic approach for what they do over at the University of Pittsburgh. Just a brilliant team of Pittsburgh, another one of our sponsors that we do business with. Oh, how awesome.

Well, Joyce, first of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us today.

Well, thank you for having me, Joyce. You know, I always enjoy this.

Well, I love having you. And today, as everyone knows, we end every show with a quote. And today that quote is: Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that, said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. And in the words of Mary Brocker, choose joy.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific p.m. Pacific time and 2 p.m. Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters, right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.