Tim Snow and the George Snow Scholarship Fund Changing Lives

This is iDesignLab, a podcast where creativity and curiosity meet style and design. Curator of interiors, furnishings, and lifestyles. Hosted by Tiffany Woolley, an interior designer and a style enthusiast, along with her serial entrepreneur husband Scott. iDesignLab is your ultimate design podcast where we explore the rich and vibrant world of design and its constant evolution in style and trends. Today on iDesignLab, we are joined by Tim Snow, the driving force behind the George Snow Scholarship Fund, a powerhouse non-profit helping South Florida students not just reach college, but thrive. Under Tim's leadership, millions in scholarships and life-changing support have opened doors for hundreds of scholars. Today, we dive into impact, opportunity, and the magic behind Bokeh's Ballroom Battle. Welcome to the iDesignLab podcast today in the studio. We're joined by Tim Snow, who is the force behind the George Snow Scholarship Foundation. And welcome. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to our conversation today. The same. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and then we can dive into the foundation. A lot of questions. Yeah, I've actually a lot. Sure. Well, again, I'm Tim Snow, so I head up the George Snow Scholarship Fund and I was raised in Boca Raton. My family moved here in 1958 and my dad came down to be a high school math teacher actually in Delray. Saw that. It was then Seacrest High School, which is now Atlantic High School. But then later went on into real estate and construction. He started building houses as a way to supplement his income as a teacher during the summer months. And then with the growth of our community, South Florida in general, that became his career and left teaching and then started a construction company, which built a lot of homes over the years. And then our family's always been in an aviation. So when he retired at a very early age, he started helicopter charter service. Okay. And so that's how he was a pilot. He was a pilot. My brother's pilot. I was a pilot. So fascinating. Yeah. And unfortunately, that's how he passed was coming back from a mission from the Bahamas. And that was in 1980. Unfortunately, he never recovered his remains or the wreckage of the helicopter. Really? Yeah. A lot of mystery still even to this day surrounds that whole thing. But after he passed, we wanted to memorialize him and he was always helping while he was alive, always helping young people that were trying to help themselves. So we thought, you know, a scholarship fund would be a really good way to, you know, kind of keep that work alive and keep his memory alive. And so we started that shortly after his passing, about a year after it actually was. I was just going to say, oh yeah, like how soon. So I've known you since the 80s. Yeah, exactly. Because I remember back in the 80s us riding motorcycles and you telling me the story and you had, I think, we're just starting out creating the foundation. Right. And I thought it was just an incredible story and what a thing to do to remember your dad to kind of keep his memory alive. Yeah, well, it was again, he, you know, he, there were things that he was doing, you know, my dad always did stuff and help people, you know, very behind the scenes and very quietly and things that we didn't even know about until after he passed away. How? And thank you letters from people after he passed, you know, kids that he literally put through college that we didn't even know about. Wow, little heaven weeks. That's amazing. Yeah. So it was very much a natural thing to do, you know, in his memory and it's grown into, you know, something pretty substantial over the years. It really is. And so what made you decide that this was going to be like your mission afterwards in a in above the scholarship portion? Um, I just, you know, I don't know. It suits my personality. I guess I'm not really sure I was building this houses, you know, I kind of followed in his footsteps a little bit. And when we created this and then we kept seeing more and more young people that we wanted to help, but we couldn't help them because we, you know, the initial funding really kind of came from mostly my dad's friends and then, you know, the family a little bit. But my dad didn't leave like a whole large endowment or anything like that, which I think a lot of people think is the case. But literally every penny that we've ever given away over the years has been raised in the community. It's amazing. So the Boca community obviously is a very important part of that. So how has that, you know, shaped your life and values growing up in Boca since 1958? Well, the Boca Ritual community has always been a very generous community and it's, you know, having not lived literally any place else, you know, in my life. It's pretty amazing. I don't want to say I take it for granted. I don't take it for granted, but, you know, I think it's a very unique place. It really is. I don't think there's any other place. I'm sure there's other communities around the country that have very much, you know, some similarities. But as a community, we live in a remarkable place and the community, I think, you know, it's one of the things I'm very proud of is that it's really a community organization. It's started very grassroots, even to this day, it's very grassroots. I love that we actually have, you know, some of our original donors, their kids now are involved in our organization. So it definitely is a community of people that all kind of have the same thought that, you know, education is very important and we need to be able to provide that benefit to the young people that need a lot of help. And there's a lot of them as affluent as South Florida is. You'd be surprised at how many, how much need there is in the community. The first few years you did this, was it a struggle getting the foundation going, trying to get the word out, trying to get momentum? Well, like you say, momentum is a good word. So we would basically what we would do, and this is kind of the evolution of the scholarship fund is we would do, we would have a Kentucky Derby Party every year. And whatever we raised from that is what we would give away. And so I don't want to say we did it, you know, we were running the organization passively, but, you know, we had a board of directors, we did all the things you're supposed to do with a nonprofit. But we just didn't have any, you know, anybody steering the boat, so to speak. And we kind of, you know, stayed at where we were, you know, giving away eight to $20,000 a year. But again, we kept seeing more and more young people that we wanted to help. And so the board of directors really kind of, which I was a part of, my brother was a part of, said, we want to, you know, we want somebody to really run this. And would you consider doing that? And so I, you know, didn't take a lot of thought because I, you know, kind of enjoy this kind of thing. And so I think it was in 1991 that I actually just started doing this exclusively. Wow. Yeah. And so then it's been, you know, the growth curve kind of went up a little bit, you know, and it's true. It's true. You do, you gain, you end up gaining momentum. And sometimes it takes a long time. I mean, this is our 44th year. That's unbelievable. Yeah. That we've been doing. That is really amazing. Can you share one story that was like that moment of, you know, wow, this is really my calling. Like this is, this is sealing the deal. Like this is what's going to. It's really taking off. Yeah. And so, well, it's, that's a hard question to answer, right? Because every year we see these young people and that, that one moment just gets repeated over and over again, right? Every year when you, the kids' faces are different, but, you know, many ways their stories are the same. They're overcoming these challenges within their families and a lot of them are caregivers, a lot of them are first gen kids. And they're just like amazing, I call them rock stars because I mean, I remember reading applications and thinking to myself, man, I am such a loser compared to, you know, especially at that age to this young individual. And I had the benefit of growing up in a, you know, I had a mother and father in the same household. My father, you know, was respected in the community, had made a good living. I had a lot of benefits in my life and a lot of these young people don't, don't have that through no fault of their own. And so, you know, that, that aha moment just for me always gets repeated every year. And that's what keeps you going really. Well, I think that you've also kind of really cornered the market or from a standpoint from charity, from the events that you put on, the events that you put on are just phenomenal. I mean, I look at it, we go through a lot of different things over the years. I call them all rubber chicken dinners, right? But the George Snow Foundation doesn't put on rubber chicken dinners where you're sitting in a room and it's kind of like, okay, the night went by and all right, we raised some money, but wasn't that exciting. Right. You're putting on events that, and I've been involved in a lot of, I sat on the board of Alonzo Mornings Foundation for 12 years and Dan Marino's and Chris Everett's and so many different, Andy Roddick and the events that you do are a lot of fun. Well, I mean, really enjoyable. And the staying power. I mean, you haven't tired of it, you know, like people still look forward to that. Well, and like you say, you got to, you've got to keep, you've got to, you've got to keep them fun. If the longest people are having fun, you know, they want to come to them. Correct. And like you say, I think, I can't remember, but we've been doing, I think our cowboy balls coming up in March, early March. Which is a blast. Yeah. And so we've been doing that for 32 years. And ballroom battle, you know, this year will be. Which is amazing. 32 years you've been doing the same event and most events after 17 years or so. Yeah, Peter away. Peter off. Yeah. You know, and don't have that. Well, people, you know, the first event we did was a rodeo. Okay, so I remember that. I remember when it used to be on the polo grounds and they were outside and. Yeah. I mean, and it's been, that event has its own evolution and its own story. Like you say, it goes from polo grounds to old school square, the Redwood Park. Right. And it's just, and you just try to, you know, you try to just make it more fun every year. And, you know, you, people keep coming as long as they keep coming and you keep making a good return on your investment, then it makes sense to keep doing it. So the next one coming up is the cowboy ball. Yes. What is that? That's March 6. And where's that going to be held? That'll be at the Book of West Country Club. Okay. Yeah. Which is a fun, a fun event. Yeah. And I think you kind of also capitalize over the fact that Yellowstone, the television show, it's been a few years. Exactly. Yeah. That's right. Well, that's, we've been around so long before Yellowstone. Correct. But, you know, listen, everybody, what people like about it is they don't have to put on a tuxedo or a brand new dress. You know, they can just. Decreate and it'll be clever. Pull whatever they got in the closet. No, it's clever. Come to the event. Know that they're going to have a good time. And, you know, we always have a student there telling their story. So that kind of tugs at people's hearts. So it's been a, it's been a good, good thing for us. So you mentioned the Board of Trustees in the very beginning, you know, kind of brought you in and was like, are you ready for, like, let's do this. Yeah. Like designing, you know, a Board of Trustees, how does that even, like, who do you rely on? Are they people that were close to your dad, close to business operator? Like, how do you even curate that? Well, that's a great question. And then in the beginning, they were all people that were close to my dad and, but they were also very influential people in the community. So for example, we had the IBM had a huge presence here years ago, but their plant manager, you know, my dad built a big percentage of the people that moved to Boca Raton for IBM. He built their homes. So he built the plant manager's home. So they became friends. And same thing with FAU. There was a lot of people that came from outside of the area to live here and they became my dad's friends. And so after my dad passed, you know, a lot of them, and, you know, my brother and I knew them because my dad was social with them, so they would come to the house. So they were very amenable to being on the board and helping us. Yeah. And, you know, your question of how do you design a board? You really need to get a board that is going to help the organization and drive the organization forward. But there is like a certain, like, you know, nuance to that because not everybody takes it to that level. I mean, it kind of seems like a pretty special initial group, you know, was brought together in the beginning. Yeah, for sure. And it still is to this day. To run with it to this level. I mean, if you look at our board, they're all, you know, community leaders. And you don't, you know, for me, you've got to have somebody that's passionate about what we're doing, right? I mean, there's a lot of people. There's a lot of affluent people in the community. You could ask to be on the board. You've got to have somebody that's committed to the mission. And, and there's, you know, we, again, we've got a big family of people that are. And so to be able to then go to them and say, Hey, listen, I'd like to ask you if you'd like to take your support to another level and be on the board and really help us with fundraising and governance. And, you know, everybody has their sort of area of expertise. And so, you know, being able to rely on that expertise is a real blessing to the organization. It really is. In almost every way you can think of, right? Right. So who was the driving force between behind, you know, setting the tone for that mission? I'm sure there was a mission statement from the beginning and. Yeah, we weren't quite that sophisticated. Really in the beginning. And we're actually undergoing a strategic planning process right now, which is really been. We did one a couple of years ago. And this one. We're starting, you know, we had a session, a day long session, not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago. And just really, I'm really excited about going through that process again. Because it sort of redefines, you have the opportunity to redefine your core values, your mission and your vision. And then look at, you know, where do you want to be three to five years and really do a deep dive into, you know, where are our needs? What do we, you know, how are we going to get there? We've had a lot of growth over the last. A lot, I'm sure. You know, five, six years. Yeah. I mean, if you look at a chart of, you know, just the scholarships and support services that we award, it's pretty crazy. You got to do some manipulating to get it on one page, you know. So that growth is wonderful, but with growth comes challenges as well. Growing pains, yeah. You need infrastructure behind it and to support it. And we've been able to stay ahead of that, you know, which is a good thing. We just opened up a 2400 square foot. It's not necessarily an addition that is attached to our office, but it's on the same floor as our office in the same building. And that's where now all of our scholar services team. Wow. That's a big undertaking. Yeah. So, but it's a great, it's a great spot. I love that. Like I said, love to have you guys stop by and take a look at it. That's where we got our podcast room. So tell us about the scholarships. You're raising a lot of money to putting on these wonderful events for the community to come to all for a great cause. I think it's like over $5 million in scholarships you awarded this past year. That's right. That's like, it's amazing. Yeah. Tell us about the program and how it's affecting the process. Yeah. Well, let me give you a little, just kind of a little bit of background on it, right? So we already talked about kind of where we started off, eight to $20,000 a year, kept seeing more kids that we wanted to help. So. And is it college scholarships? It's probably nearly or? It started that way. Okay. Yeah. And it really is very much that way still. Although now we've got some dedicated money for workforce careers. And that can be anything from a four year nursing degree to a certification program. So we're doing that as well, which we think is really important for the community to be able to help kids that, you know, want to pursue those careers because it's very, they're very much in need and they're very lucrative. So we've kind of, we've kind of morphed into that. But the real thing that kind of sets us apart that as we were making these awards, we were seeing and we were listening to our kids and we were seeing kind of things that they needed. Like the first thing was, I remember a young man who was literally about touring of his school, went away to college and he dropped out after the first year. So he had a hard time making that transition from high school to college. So we developed what we, to this day, call our high school to college transition program. And that's a one day long. Actually, this year may, we are going to expand it to maybe two days, but we bring in and we start. Yeah, we talk about, look, this is going to be a different world. You know, you're not going to be talking to your high school teacher. You're talking to a professor now. And what does that look like? And what's the difference? You know, you got office hours with professors that you didn't have with teachers. You take advantage of them and housing situations and for... Budgeting, financial management, make sure they fully understand their financial aid packages, just anything to make that transition easier. And then we just kept listening to the kids. And one of the, I remember one year we, I don't even know how I came up with it, but I said, said to everybody interviewing. I said, if you ask every kid that we interview, do they have a computer to take the school? Wow. And 75% of them did not. So we implemented a program where they have an opportunity to get a computer from us if they need them. And that's really our, you know, what we call our support services. We've got emergency fund for our kids now. We send them care packages. We actually, when you come by, we'll show you, we've got a closet probably the size of this room. That's, it's just a closet full of clothes and good clothes, you know, and shoes. So the kids, when they, when they came home for Thanksgiving break or the holiday break, they're in there looking for winter jackets and stuff. That's amazing. Is that donated or are you buying them? All donated. That is just amazing. And I don't think I realized like that, that's another level of community outreach and people to be able to partake in the scholarship. It's way beyond just writing a check for school. Yeah. So how are you finding these, the kids? Where are they coming from? How are they, so. Do they have to reach out to you? Yeah. Well, that's a great question. So we go, so this in 2026, we're going in the Broward County for the first time. So what I'm telling you, the process applies to both now Palm Beach and Broward County. Amazing. But in, let's say in 2025, let's just say every school that we serve, we visit every school that we serve. So are they high schools, elementary schools, private, public? All high schools. All high schools. Right. So we're looking for high school seniors who are going to be graduating in the following year. We'll go see them in October, November of their senior year. And we talk to them about our scholarship opportunity. We also educate them about other opportunities that they might have in the community, different scholarships that are not part of our organization, but we're, you know, trying to help the kids. You couple with. So we have three kids in high school. Right. We go like American heritage. Yeah. We go, they have, what is it, Korea Day where they have all the different universities and colleges. Right. Tables and you go meet them. Yes. We go individually. Sometimes we'll participate in like a county wide college fair. But what I'm talking about now is our staff individually going into the school. So you call the school, set up a meeting. That's right. And then go in and talk to the kids. Right. On how you can support them and help them. Yes. And do you get it like a, you know, in some schools. An overflow of too many kids when you do that or? Some schools, you know, will give us 25 kids. Some schools will have 200 kids, you know, in the audience. And now that we're doing these workforce scholarships, you know, we emphasize to the guides counselors, look, we're not just looking for your, you know. That's the brightest, right? We want, yeah, we want young people that really have a passion about something and need help. And so we get a lot of kids. So do you go through those kids and kind of select who fits a certain? So the process is our applications online. So of course we make them aware of that. We point them in the right direction. They have until February 1st every year to complete the application. And then we have like right now we've got over 260 people because we this year we had 3000 applications, 2000, 3000, 3000. Yeah. Right at 3000. And so we've got 260 very dedicated people that will go through those applications. Every application gets read five times. And then they rank them. We've got a matrix. We train the reviewers talk about biases and implicit explicit biases. And then we have our own formula of evaluating the rankings or the ratings at that point. They're ratings. And then we determine who we're going to interview. So we kind of know like, okay, we've got 5.5 million this year. I think we're going to do 7 million. So we've got 7 million dollars to give away. And that kind of translates to, you know, X amount of students. And so for that, we're going to need to see 500 kids, you know, or in this case, 7 million. So most kids looking for financial support or? Most, yeah, they're all, they all have a financial need. And are they at different levels of the financial need? Do you actually say like, okay, this person's going to be getting this much attributed. This one's going to be handy. That's right. Everybody, everybody is different. Everybody gets a different amount. And it's all, we do internally within our organization, we do a need analysis on them. And it's really kind of an interesting process because, you know, you'll have students. And this is a, you know, this did happen to us. One year we had three young ladies from Belgrade, which as you know, is a very underserved community. They all were going to Harvard University. Unbelievable. But they didn't, Harvard gave them full rides, but they, so they didn't need, they didn't need money, but we have a, what we, that, that, that year sparked this creation of what we call our hometown hero scholarship, which is, it's not financial, but it's all these support services, right? So these young ladies are going to go from the community of Belgrade to Harvard. The Harvard community, which is completely different, right? And so we're, we'll, we are there to support them, you know, through that transition, give them the computer that they need, the emergency, any emergency funding, whatever it might be. And with that scholarship, you know, they'll graduate debt free from Harvard. Amazing. And we'll get them, we'll get them through there, but we give them that support. And in other cases, you know, it just depends on what, how much financial aid are they getting from the schools, the federal government, the state government, and then we try to meet that unmet need. So there's like different categories of what you're, you know, funding support. Yeah, very much so. I mean, we kind of look at it all the same. I mean, we're all of our, our, our, almost all of our kids that we're, that we're helping are, are getting these, these support services along with the financial commitment. And that's, it's a four year commitment. And that's really important to us too, you know, because we see a lot of scholarships that are like one year deals and, you know, that's great. That can't really be helpful in the long run. Wait, wait, wait. So you're supporting each one of these students, you're supporting them for the four years? That's right. So there, you're having ongoing communication with them through their four years of college. That's correct. Yeah. And so, and we have almost a thousand kids in college right now. So, so there's like 250 in each year kind of is probably growing. And it is growing. Yes. So that's a lot of follow up. It's a lot of follow up. I mean, you know, a lot of it, it's interesting because first of all, they hear from us. We sent them out a Monday motivational message every Monday. So that kind of keeps, you know, them understanding. Look, we're back here. If you need us for anything, you know, call us and, you know, they, they all have our staff's cell numbers and our staff might get it called 10 o'clock at night. I was just going to say, I have to ask how many people are on your team or on your staff? Yeah. Well, we have 16 people total within the scholarship fund. And in terms of the supports, the scholarship support. It's almost like a foster child in a way. It's like you're fostering them through this experience. Well, that's right. And, you know, probably let's say, I'm going to say 70 to 80% of the students, you know, they're okay. They, they're, they're plugging along. They're getting great grades. They've adjusted. They're fine. So, you know, we hear from them twice a year when they need money and we send a check to the school on their behalf. And then that, that, that 20 to 30% of the kids that might have a family issue or some kind of a struggle, those are the ones that, that we have the most interaction with. And, you know, I was just reading some background today on, you know, we had a young lady who lost her father. So we, we paid for her flight home through the emergency fund. And the staff actually put together a little care package for her. They knew she had a dog. So they got her dog food and, you know, just, and that was waiting for her, you know, when she arrived at her, at her family's home. This is so much more than a school scholarship. I don't, I don't know if that has been like drilled out there. You know, this really is so much more. I mean, it's one thing just raising money and putting on these events. That's the whole entertain itself. You're running now a whole nother organization that I've, I've been down on how many of your events over the years. I didn't know all of this. Yeah. It's a, it's a, well, it's a lot, but I tell you, we've got an amazing team. That are, you know, doing this, Leslie Cornwell, who's our, you know, really kind of heads up our effort and, and everybody kind of falls underneath her, but she's been with us for a very long time. And, you know, we tell the kids, look, you're now part of our family. And so we're going to do for you. Like, and that's, that's what drives us. Like if, if there's a question, like somebody says, would you, you know, should we do this? The first question we ask ourselves is, would we do that for our own children? Children. And if the answer is yes, then we would do it. We'll do it. You know? Do you ever partner with just because of thinking locally, like FAU or like a Lynn University or any online schools in addition to just the financial component, like helping them even getting into programs? We have, we do, we partner with Palm Beach State. We do a little, some things with Lynn. We do a lot with FAU as well. For example, Van Williams, who's a provost at the Boca campus for Palm Beach State College, he hosts a reception for every class of our kids that come there. So I think we've got almost a hundred kids at that school right now, but he hosts a reception and he brings in, he brings in all of his deans. So the financial, you know, the dean of financial aid, the student life, you know, so our kids get to meet those people on campus. Very specialized. Yeah. And so they kind of are like a priority for the school. And we do the same thing with FAU where their career services department we work very closely with. They've got a whole team of people that deal with the first gen population. And so those folks, and they come to our high school to college transition program and do, you know, introductory kind of a little seminar for them. So yeah, we do a lot of partnerships and we're looking to expand that into not so much the local schools because we've got great relationships there, but we also have. Out of state. Well, not so much out of state, but University of Florida, we have a lot of students there. All of the 75% of our students stay in Florida because they're getting bright futures. What about the like Florida prepaid? Can you as a charity organization do anything? Yeah. Well, buying into that or? You must have done your homework. So interestingly, I've been told. So the answer is yes. And what we do is we, we have a partnership with the Florida prepaid foundation. So we're purchasing last year, we purchased a hundred and I'm going to say 135. It's not exactly that number, but about that number. Florida prepaid programs. And so a lot of our kids are getting four years tuition. That's just part of their award from us. So we purchased that from the state of Florida. They match it. Wow. Dollar for dollar. The value is much more. It's maximizing your money tremendously. And then we'll piggyback on that more financial aid because they need, you know, they need books. Tuition is really only a third of the cost of attendance. Correct. Like housing. Housing, room and board, all that. So yeah, that's a big component of what we do. I mean, I was going to say that's such a huge component opportunity to like continuing this and growing it. Yeah. And like I said, I did 130 last year. I'll do 200 this year because of our move in the Broward County. So how did you realize now is the time to now branch out? Well, obviously the need is there. I mean, yeah, the need is there. And it's taking on a lot more. Taking on a lot more, but we've been very fortunate that we got funding, you know, to do that. Right. And again, it's, we, it was interesting because, and I'm probably not answering your question, but we learned, well, let me ask you to answer your question first. I guess going into Broward County, we got, we had a very generous contribution from the Frederick Day-Daluka Foundation. Okay. And so that's going to underwrite 100 additional scholarships down in Broward County. And so they also understand the need for infrastructure to support that. So they've helped us with, you know, adding to our infrastructure, which we would not have been able to do it without that. Right. Broward County is actually a bigger school district than Pob Beach County, I believe it or not. I don't think I realize that. Yeah. And it's a different, it's sort of demographics are very different down there. And so, but we've been really embraced the school district of Broward County has really embraced us so much. So we've got a great relationship with them. And again, we're going to every school down there, did go to every school down there. I think we got 1200 applications from that county for our first year. That's was crazy. I thought if we got 500 applications, we'd be doing good. So yeah, so it's, and that's what's going to kind of push us over probably the $7 million mark this year. So exciting. One thing that I appreciate about the foundation too is it's kind of based on such a positive growing step in somebody's life. It's not like a hard luck situation. It's not like somebody coming back from something. It's really giving foundational support to giving a chance to those in need. Well, you're 100% right. I mean, it's, listen, I've been doing this for 44 years, right? Which is crazy to actually say that. And I know that a baby born in Belgrade or Pahokee is going to have the same talent and ability as a baby born in Boca Raton, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. But the thing that they don't have is the same opportunities. And so that's what we're here to do is to make, to level that playing field out for those young people that don't have necessarily the opportunities that someone born. Again, I look at myself. I had all the opportunities and I didn't have challenges necessarily. But these young people do. And I can tell you without a question, these young people that I'm talking about, they are amazing young people. Well, it's like rewarding good behavior. I mean, I love that, you know, to really be able to dive in and support somebody who just needs that extra support because they're willing to work hard. They're willing to believe that they're capable and deserving. And by the time they get to us, they've got a track record of that. That we can see and we know that they are willing to help again and help themselves and others. And so who doesn't want to help somebody? No, and I feel like that's so unique to so many, to different foundations that are around today. I feel like a lot of them are, you know, like I said, somewhat more of a hard luck story where this is really just, you know, rewarding good behavior. And I feel like our world benefits from that in a lot of ways. Well, it does. And we need to give them that opportunity because our community in the end benefits from it, right? True. And I tell you a story about a young man from Belgrade and now he's back in the community. His family literally were working in the fields in Belgrade in the Western communities. And he's now graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Unbelievable. And he's back in South Florida. Not only contributing to our community, but, you know, selfishly contributing back to the scholarship fund as well. That's amazing. So how many do you come back to South Florida? Like, have you been able to track that? That's something we really want to dive into. Almost like an alumni association. How many have come back to South Florida? How many have you actually helped over 44 years? Thirty-six hundred. Thirty-six hundred. Students, yeah. So we'll probably get over that 4,000 mark in 2026. Wow. Yeah. But that's a good question. It's something we want to know. And a lot of the reason we want to know it is we want to know why they're not back here, right? We know housing is a big issue for a lot of them. So is there something we can do in that arena that might be helpful to them? But we also want to get them internships here so that they make relationships with. Well, that's what I was wondering too. Yeah. Partnering with, especially with so much growth in South Florida now. Right. That I would think there's some strategic growth there. Yeah. So is that a new initiative that you're working to implement? It is. Yeah. We've just, in the last couple of years, developed a career development department where we've got experts really that are guiding our kids and trying to give them hard skills and soft skills that they need to get the best job that they can get after they graduate. So a quick example is Danielle Rossi in her restaurant, Oceans 234 does a dining etiquette course for our kids. I love it. And she does an amazing job with it. And so they learn the things that they just don't know. And what I love about the way she doesn't just serve them a meal, it's things that they maybe have never eaten before, oysters or a carpaccio or sushi or ceviche. Right. You know. And broaden their palate. Yeah. They just, and it's fun to go through that with them. Absolutely. So would you, like using that as an analogy, I mean, there's obviously a lot of mentors then also are these people doing this as a community service or how does like, you know, donating time, how can one get more involved? Well, there's a ton of ways to get involved with us really. And we've got a whole section on our website that folks can go and look and see what the different opportunities are. Anything from baking cookies for our care packages that we send to the kids every winter when they do the, right before their final exams, we send it to them. Two of sending packages to the schools for the kids. We sent over 700 care packages out this year and had, I can't even tell you, over 150 people baking. I baked 24 dozen cookies. I was going to say, I mean, this is also a great way to get involved. I mean, this is all such really great information. I love that because there's so much, like even we could be putting our kids involved in. Well, and that's what like the bait, you talk about that, but that's a lot of our, the people that bake, they engage their kids in it. And their kids are writing notes to our kids, you know, saying good luck. And it really, you know, it is totally a community deal. I mean, all the way around. It really is. So obviously in addition to the fabulous events that we do attend and we have obviously the website, what are other ways that you can partake in the community during the year getting involved? Like, do you come to your office or is it donations or mentoring? Well, donations are a big, a big part of it. Obviously, right? People, you know, people come to us. They know that we have the infrastructure to a lot of people come to create their own scholarship programs with us. You know, they just, we make it turnkey. They have to do three things. They have to figure out what they want to name it, how much money they want to give to it and what's the criteria of student that they want to help. And we handle everything from that point on. And so we have a lot of folks that do that, a lot of people that just make general contributions to us, which we absolutely need. And then with our programming, you know, it's, I liked, it's very hard to, you know, get specific on what we need. But you know, like I remember with somebody, he was a quantitative analyst and he kind of, you know, we had lunch together and we talked about his work and we asked him to come in and analyze our selection process. Right. And so everybody's got something that they can, they can offer us to make our organization better, to make our programs better. You know, if you've got, you know, like I said, we're giving computers or there's just so many different ways. I mean, I could go on and on. So what's the initial ask, I guess, to create a scholarship underneath your. So they should be ready to commit $10,000. Okay. And then it goes up from there. A lot of people created downmits with us as well. Our average award this last year, 2025, I think it was about $14,000. And so we're trying to, you know, get a meaningful financial contribution to the students again, lasting over those four years. Right. And so, but $10,000 is what we would look for. To, and that's like creating a scholarship in. In somebody's name. Okay. You know, and they'll, you know, they'll come to the awards reception that we host and present the kids with a medal and get their picture taken with them and meet the kids, their parents and feel that gratitude. Right. And you can put the face and the story kind of on a personal aspect. Is there a particular story of a student over the years that stands out? But I mean, we've got so many, we've got people working on their Artemis project right now. We've got at least a couple of kids up there. So, you know, we've got my dermatologist was one of our scholars. Wow. You know, again, it's just they're amazing people and they come back and they're, they're part of the community. And that, that's what we want to just keep going because again, it makes our community better places. So you said keep going and obviously like the growth has speaks for itself 40 years and continuing and growing exponentially. I know you mentioned you have a podcast coming. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, so we've been doing a podcast for about a year now and our objective there is, I mean, I don't have any aspirations that I'm, you know, we're going to be any social media star or anything. But really all we're trying to do is educate young people and their families about continuing their education after college, right? Whether that's through a Votek or a four year career after college. I'm sorry, after high school. Thank you for correcting me on that. After high school. So we talk about student debt. We talk about financial aid. We talk about, you know, writing college applications, resume, everything and trying to get, you know, experts to come in to advise our kids on it. And it's, it's been, it's been, it's been fun. And I think, you know, the podcast, I think is really, first of all, it's gaining traction, but it's really giving valuable information to young people who are, you know. Who need answers. Who need answers. And they can listen to this and make informed decisions. You know, I talked about the student debt, you know, we educate the kids a lot about the student debt. Well, that's a big thing with college right now is so many people are coming out in so much debt that like. But kids are picking, you know, they're, they're maybe not making a wise choice on where they want to go to school, right? They want to go to the University of Alabama. They're going to have to pay out of state tuition. They're going to have student debt when they can, you know, literally stay in Florida, get an outstanding education and maybe graduate that free. So those are the kind of topics that we, we like to cover with our podcast. Which I think is so amazing because everybody's story in general, you learn from through communicating and, you know, being out there. Everybody has something to share and you can gain something from there. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you have the cowboy ball coming up. What else do you have? Events for the public. Because I think that's a place where the more people that attend and learn. Yeah. Fun in that. So we'll do a golf tournament in September. Okay. We're doing that at Roll Palm. I'm not sure if we have a date for that, but it'll be probably in late, late September. And then this year, a ballroom battle, which we normally would do in September, is going to take place on November 7th. So tell us about, we know it that. I know, and I do love that. Let's talk about that for a few minutes. Yeah, for sure. That's a very interesting, fun event. How that came about. How you select everybody. Yeah. Well, we, it came about. So before you cut, how it came about, tell us what it is. So people don't know. So what it is, is it's, it's called Boca's Ballroom Battle. And we select eight people in the community, recognizable people in the community, to be what we call our community dancers. And we partner with the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Boca Raton. And we, we pair them up with a dance professional and they learn a dance routine. So it's like dancing with the stars, but in Boca Raton. The stars are the stars and it becomes really a great. Living in Boca or South Florida. Right. And we sell it out every year. We sell out every sponsorship every year. You know, there's 900 people over at the Boca Raton. Why? And it's, it's, it is such a great event for so many reasons. But what I love about it is all the positive energies that's in the room. So yeah, people go, oftentimes they're there to support one person, but they end up cheering everybody on because they, you know, look, everybody says America's number one fears public speaking. Well, that's nothing compared to dancing in front of 900 people. I will tell you. So it takes a lot of courage to agree to do this. And we've been really fortunate. I think we've had 144 people do it already. Wow. There's a lot of energy in that room. A lot of positive energy in that room. And it's just, and they do such a great job. I mean, Fred Astaire does such a great job of, you know, having them learn this routine and teaching them a routine. And, and it's just, I don't know. I can't say enough good things about it. I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, it is not a room bigger locally. Because we could, we could sell more tickets. Oh, you could sell twice as many. Yeah. It's a, it's a big, it's a big deal. How do you go about deciding who to bring on? Well, we, we just, we kind of keep a running list, believe it or not, of folks. And then we kind of sit down and it's interesting because obviously for us, what we're trying to do is cast a wide net of spheres of influence, right? So we're not going to ask somebody that, you know, maybe our best friends that they're going to be calling the same people to raise money because it's, as you probably know, it's not a, it's not a dance competition. It's a fundraising competition. Who can raise the most amount for their dance? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And so. And all the many events that take place along the way to. Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's been a game changer for us, you know, when we started this 19 years ago, we were giving away 330,000 dollars a year and now we're giving away, I think over $7 million in 2026. So, and a lot of that, it's been a, it's been a blessing, not just from the financial part of it, but it brings awareness to the organization and what we're doing. Um, and again, it's people that maybe have never heard of us before. They come to that event. They hear one of our kids speak. They hear about the numbers. They hear about the support services. And, uh, it's just been a remarkable benefit to us to be able to spread the word and then to grow our, our population of people that help us. So is that your biggest event of the year? Yeah, definitely. Okay. Definitely. By far. Well, it's a fun one. Yeah. Oh, well that's exciting. And then the cowboy ball, as Scott mentioned, is coming up. Coming up. Yeah. March 6th. And then you do the golf. The golf. So we do, we do three fundraising events. Three big fundraising events. Yeah. And we, our events, we've got some great people in our events department, but we do other events like our wards reception, which is really not open to the public, but, you know, to our donors. And then we do two guidance counselor appreciation breakfasts in both, uh, one in Broward County and one in Palm Beach County. And so that really is our opportunity to get the guidance departments teed up. Look, we're going to be coming into your school. These are some new initiatives that we're, you know, promoting. So you're looking for, I would guess volunteers to help you with these events. We're looking for volunteers to help us with it. We're looking for sponsors to help us too. Right. Because those, those things are programmatic, but they still cost us a lot of money to host 150 people at a hotel down in Broward or Palm Beach. So where do you see, you know, the scholarship, George, no scholarship going in the future. Obviously you're going into Broward County. Is your hope to see this go throughout Florida? Do you partner with any other scholarship, you know, funding in other states? You have future plans and aspirations and goals. I think really looking at it, at least for me, realistically is because we, we are so hands on with our kids. That's the most important thing for us is the quality of our programs. So we're not going to expand unless we're able to continue that same level of service to our kids. And so that, that's what really determines our growth. To me, I, I, somebody could say they want to do a scholarship in Dade County, but unless we were able to really, you know, cause let's, let's say somebody wanted to do that, I'd have to go to every school in Dade County and I can't do that. So it's really a function of maintaining the quality of service to our kids. And then, you know, and then, you know, the funding to, to send them to school. And, and then we take it, we just take a look at, you know, everything in that, in that kind of lens and make a determination on that from there. So for people who are listening or watching, where should they go to learn more? We've got a great website, scholarship.org. Um, and they can go there and learn everything they want to know about us. Scholarship.org. Yeah. Well, that was wonderful. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate you guys sitting down and talking with me. Yeah, we look forward to attending and supporting and getting our kids involved too. Well, we certainly welcome that. We appreciate all that you do for us. And like you say, you know, uh, knowing you guys for a long time, we have a lot of history together. I know it was fun coming back into the fold in the last few years. We're glad you did and everything. So thank you. Thank you guys for coming. You bet. Thank you for listening to iDesignLab. iDesignLab's podcast is an SW group production in association with the five star and TW interiors. To learn more about iDesignLab or TW interiors, please visit twinterior.com.