[00:00:07] Speaker A: And good afternoon. Good morning, depending upon where you are. And my name is Philip Clark, and I want to welcome you back to another episode of just say something's weekly podcast. As always, you can find
[email protected] or you can just pick up that telephone. Old fashioned is like how I like to say. And call us at 864-67-4099 and so today we have a very special guest. I know you're like, you say that every week, Phil, but all of our guests are always special. But today I would, I want to introduce you to Maureen Gavin. And before she starts talking with you, I'm, she's new to us. She is our newest staff member. We are thrilled to have her on board. This is her third week, and she's just, she's awesome.
And so, Maureen, welcome.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks, Phil. Good to be here.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: So tell us a little bit about Maureen.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Well, I just moved here, like Phil said, from Charleston, South Carolina, about three weeks ago.
I'm originally from Orlando, Florida, and I cold called Phil and he offered me a job.
So now I work here, and I'm just going to be helping out with the SFP program and working on air preserve, as well as helping out with the interns and doing whatever Phil needs me to do.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: So I don't want you to discourage anybody from just cold calling me, because, you know, you went from cold calling to a job, so it's a little bit more in depth. So we had two Zoom interviews, and then we had one face to face.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: And that just happened to be my birthday week, and we were doing cupcakes.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: But how did you find us? What were you looking for? What was that process, and how did you come across. Just say something.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I was finishing my degree online at UCF and working at the public library and looking to move specifically to Greenville.
I had always helped out at a non profit in Orlando growing up, and I had wanted to work for a nonprofit. And so I just kind of did some research in the Greenville area. I saw that, just say something. Had been around for almost 40 years and read more about the mission and found Phil's contact and got in touch.
[00:03:04] Speaker A: And here you are.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: And here I am. Yep.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: That's awesome. That's awesome. So again, we're, we're excited about having you on board. And so one of your projects that you mentioned with air Preserve. So let's tell our listeners what air preserve is, but then let's get into where you're working in what you're working on to see if we can recruit some people for you.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So air preserve, we're trying to educate and help people understand kind of the dangers with secondhand smoke. And we're surveying throughout the upstate to just kind of get a general opinion on what people think about smoke and vape free public places.
We're specifically researching right now in Malden and trying to connect with, really anybody in the community that's interested in the initiative.
And we're definitely trying to wedge our way into schools and try to work with some of the students in Malden county.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Okay. All right. So as we look at what we're doing in Maldon, we're also doing a little bit of work in, in Greer.
And so part of what we're doing as far as raising the awareness about our air preserve, which is our tobacco wing of what we do, is we are sponsoring or supporting sponsor. Air preserve is of an event coming up in Greer, the pickleball tournament. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's going to be September 19 through the 22nd. So it's just three full days of pickleball, and we're going to be tabling. And, yeah, it's just a big tournament.
We're definitely looking for volunteers to help out. Volunteer.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Okay. One of the things that we'll be doing at the table is hopefully getting people to fill out a survey so we can find out how you feel your attitudes towards smoke free. I know we've done one in Greer before at a couple of the chamber events in Greer, and we are like 99% of the people who fill out the surveys. Yes, we won't smoke and vape free, but then when it comes down to it, and we need people to go to a city council meeting or to talk with their elected officials, then they're not so comfortable with doing that.
What is just say something as an organization, what do we have or what can we do to help people feel more comfortable doing things like that?
[00:06:11] Speaker B: I think we're trying to kind of arm people with statistics about smoking and vaping, understand more of the harmful side effects and the educational side so that they're better equipped to have those conversations with elected officials and feel confident standing up in a room and saying that they want smoke free and vape free public spaces.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Okay. All right. I know one of the, I saw some information come across from one of our contacts the other day, and it was had to do with breast cancer and secondhand smoke. Um, and I, I think you got that, too. Do you and I'm. Unfortunately, I don't remember what that one.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Statistic was, but I think it was. There's, like, a 24% increase in chance of breast cancer through secondhand smoke.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: So if you're exposed to secondhand smoke, you have a 24% greater likelihood of developing breast cancer.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Than if you don't. So for.
That's. That's a huge number. Yeah.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: That's a quarter.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And so I think, you know, as we take those different opportunities to educate our community, because at the end of the day, we want champions within the community to say, you know, clean air, healthy living is important for me, and I don't want to breathe in anybody's secondhand smoke.
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Nor do I want to breathe in the aerosol that comes out of those little nasty vape devices.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: And I think, yeah, kids especially have the right to breathing clean air.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: While they're outside in a public setting.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Oh, 100%. We all should. Yeah. And we should want a healthy environment for our kids.
And so we have some other activities and events coming up, so if you could give our listeners just a quick rundown of some dates and times and maybe opportunities to get in touch with you, then I'll turn this over to you.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So we mentioned the pickleball tournament, which is going to be in Greer at East Riverside Park September 19 through the 22nd. And we're also going to be celebrating hispanic heritage month with the Post and courier through power collective. We're going to have a table there. We're going to be surveying there as well, handing out goodies. And that's going to be September 15 or September 15, 15th through October. October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month, but the event is going to be September 29 at Good Art Company at ten Central Avenue, Greenville. And then, of course, our red ribbon five k at Sugar Creek on October 6 is coming up also in Greer.
[00:09:19] Speaker A: Okay. All right. So we have those individual opportunities for you to get involved with. Just say something. As we lead the power collective, which is our opioid prevention and education and awareness work, while we also with our air preserve, that is our tobacco policy and ordinance work that we have. We do have several programs starting coming up early in September. So we have five strength and families programs that will get started. We will do two of those in Spartanburg. Three of them will be in Greenville county, and out of the five of those, four will be Spanish and one will be English. So if you know anyone that has children in their family between the ages of six and eleven and you think they may benefit from our strengthening families program or any of our programming. Feel free to go to our website at just say somethingsc.org. and there's a parent registration form there.
We do, we do offer our programs in house, but we also offer the opportunity to bring our programs out to the community. So if you want to host one of our parenting programs for your community or for your neighborhood, just let us know. Give us a call at 864-467-4099 and if you want to reach out to Maureen, the best way to do that would be her email, which is
[email protected]. and for those of us that are spelling, that are challenged when it comes to spelling, can you spell Maureen?
[00:11:09] Speaker B: M a u r e e n. Okay.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: All right. So that's Maureen at just say somethingsc.org. and if you want to swing by and meet Maureen and talk to her about what we're trying to do in our community, then send her an email and set up an appointment. And so that will conclude another week of our weekly podcast here. Just say something. Thank you for listening, and we hope to see you soon. Until then, we'll see you next week.
