Ep. 2255 Amie Ward | Voices with Cynthia Chaplin

We created a third curriculum in the form of allyship. So really trying to hit all the marks of gender based violence prevention once that benefit the bystander, the targets, and also approach people who might not know that they are being aggressors or doing microaggressions or things like that, you know, to trying to find a way to connect all the dots to make sure that that prevention pieces accessible for everybody in the industry. Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. I'm Cynthia Chaplin, and this is voices. Every Wednesday, I will be sharing conversations with international wine industry professionals discussing issues in diversity, equity, and inclusion through their personal experiences working in the field of wine. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and rate our show wherever you get your pods. Hello. This is Cynthia Chaplin, and today I am so happy to have Amy Ward as my guest on voices. Amy's based in Baltimore, Maryland in the US, where she's the president of the Baltimore bartenders guild, which is a mouthful to try and say. A certified health coach, a mobility specialist, and most importantly for our conversation today, she is the executive director of Safe BARS, which is the leader in gender based violence prevention for the hospitality industry. So This is gonna be a super important conversation, Amy. I'm so glad that you came on today. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Well, you've got degrees from the University of Maryland in Kenesthesiology. I can't even say that word. And extra exercise science. So I'm I'm dying to know how first of all, how you say that word. But secondly, how did you go from that sort of academic educational background and into the beverage and hospitality industry? Yeah. So, great question. First of all, it's kinesiology. You could also say exercise physiology or basically I I studied the body and movement. So I'm obsessed with the body. And so I've I've always been involved in sports and and movement. I actually started as a dancer before I got into sports. So my obsession with sports is what led me into the kinesiology program. I had experienced a ACL tear, a Terry Appreciate ligament tear in my right knee very early on in my in my sports journey and the process of going through that surgery and the physical therapy that was affiliated with it afterwards really had me further obsessed with the body in a more scientific perspective and I I wanted that. And I had also been I started in hospitality when I was fourteen. So even before I had hurt myself, I was a dishwasher in a crab house in Annapolis, Maryland, which is if you're in in Maryland or on the East Coast, that's a very Maryland. It's a very East Coast mid Atlantic thing to do. So I had started there, but I went the route of academia and thought I was gonna do academia. And I was kind of struck by in my undergrad studies. I did a thesis on homophobia in women's sport. And so got into the more like cultural perspective of sport in my undergrad and my advisors had asked me to come apply for the master's program because they saw my perspective in the way that I wrote and thought I could be an advocate and and an asset to their physical cultural studies program. So I did that, and was looking at power, body, labor, things that we deal with in, you know, things that I discussed within within my work now. So it got some early starts there. And I think ultimately, there's, like, way more details and sob stories associated with it, but, the academic route in publish or perish did not seem very appealing to me. And I was in a very conservative space. So, like, the the program which belonged in the sociology department was actually in the public health department. Which was previously the physical education department, which was a very conservative male dominated space. And it really wasn't super fitting for me. So I, you know, along the way I'd also been bartending working in in coffee shops doing every every bit you can think of within hospitality. So I just decided to, go back that route instead because I enjoyed talking to strangers for a living way more than I did dealing with the conservative groups trying to tell me how I should look and how I should behave even though what I was saying and doing was far more important than my physical appearance. So kind of a long winded way of story. I I still just chose talking and talking to strangers and working with strangers at the end of the day, but eventually found a way to merge my two worlds back together again down the road. Talking to strangers for a living is something I can really relate to. So, But it's it's such a cool story because it it really, you know, sort of runs parallel to a lot of what we experience in the wine and beverage industry where it's, you know, even still, it's a very male dominated place, white male dominated, old white male. I mean, I could add more addresses. But and I live in Italy, so it's even more extreme. So it's interesting that your academic career was affected by that as well. And then you headed into hospitality, which has similar problems. So you were probably just in the exactly right place at the right time to bring your academic knowledge to bear on what you were doing. So Let's just jump right in there and start talking about safe bars. This was founded by Lauren Taylor in two thousand and thirteen, out of a really dire need for greater safety in the hospitality industry. All of us who have worked in it have, you know, have all seen it felt it you know, been part of it. The idea was to work with bartenders and servers and others, you know, to create a way to stop sexual violence in alcohol serving spaces, which is an issue that, you know, does not get enough airspace honest to god. Safefire's mission was to create safe, equitable, inclusive hospitality spaces. So this is something that is really near and dear my heart. Also yours, I know. When did you join safe bars? And what's your role as executive director now? Sure. My well, the first time I experienced safe bars was in twenty sixteen, Lauren Taylor had come, you know, because Baltimore and DC are neighbors. She did a training for Baltimore during our Baltimore cocktail week, back then in twenty sixteen. And I really fell in love with the curriculum. I also, you know, Lauren is such a kind and compassionate and empathetic person, and I think if you're working in gender based violence prevention, you absolutely have to be that. It's it's in it. It's in you. It's a soft skill. It's an innate skill that you're born with it. She was very kind when we were talking about ways in which we intervened in situations that we didn't like at the bar. And by that time, I had been working in a in a dive bar for for most of everything where I feel like the most comfortable because those those are my people. You can just come as you are and and you get every single type of human that walks in that space and it's beautiful. And they're like, well, what do you do when when you see bad things happening? I was like, oh, will I jump over the bar and kick the person out? Obviously. And in like, I still I love telling the story because she was just so kind and paused for a moment and said, yeah. So that is absolutely a strategy that you can you can take. It might not be your safest one. So let's talk about other options and, you know, she showed me a level of empathy. I really hadn't, and compassion that I hadn't experienced from anyone beforehand, and it was really an eye opening eye opening moment and a moment for me because I realized at that time the the strategies I had been taking to, like, create a safe space in the in the bars that I was working at was very much self serving and put put me at risk. So it wasn't helping create a conversation about the behavior. It wasn't helping set a correct expectation for other people in the space, whether they be guests or or my coworkers. So it really gave me a much broader view of how I needed to think about impacting others. I mean, I I'm I'm very much a community oriented person. I'm a helper that is some people are just born that way. Like, I talk to strangers and I like to help people. That is my happy place. And so I, you know, continued to stay in touch with Lauren took trainings again. And in twenty eighteen, I had an opportunity to become a trainer because the Baltimore of our tenders guild started their own chapter. Of safe bars with Lauren's help. And so I'd been training since that time and began training with Lauren through the through the national organization and eventually you know, in early twenty two. Maybe it was late twenty one. She was like, I think it's time I finally have the funds to be able to, like, hire somebody as an executive director and as the founder, she was gonna have the opportunity to go back to her the the organization that she started originally, which is called defend yourself. And because she started as a self defense trainer, and and that's really where her her heart lies. And so started the process of of the interviewing for for that position and became the executive director in in October of twenty two. And in my role there, like, the first piece of the puzzle was really putting systems in place because even though the organization had been around for almost ten years at that point in time, it was not the pro not not a a lack lack of priority or lower priority, but it was a concept. It was a thing that kinda took off very wildly at at the the height of the pandemic or at the beginning of the pandemic and in conjunction with the Me too movement and really needed some systems and strategies put in place to to get it organized. And then from there, it's been trying to talk about the mission of safe bars and safety in in the bar spaces in a way that's digestible for for people like us. You know, it's such a we have such a beautiful like subculture within hospitality and like Sometimes it's wine sticks with wine and beer sticks with beer and spirits stick with beer and we each have our own little subsets of subcultures in there, but being able to kinda break through those barriers and present this knowledge in a way that is accessible and makes sense to the people that we're training is really what we've been doing since then. So being able to get into more bars and restaurants and do our training with the bystander intervention and deescalation, which was born out of out of the pandemic, and be able to get into, like, conference spaces and be able to show people in conference spaces how much we need to get that training for the event staff and volunteers who work in these, like, spaces, global events where hundreds of thousands of people are coming into play, and and they don't necessarily have the tools, to keep themselves and other people safe. So we've been doing a whole lot of that over the last couple of years, really just trying to spread spread the gospel of safe bars. And, in the meantime, also, I we created a third curriculum in the form of allyship. So really trying to hit all the marks of gender based violence prevention once that benefit the bystander, the targets, and also approach people who might not know that they are being aggressors or doing microaggressions or things like that, you know, so trying to find a way to connect all the dots to make sure that that prevention pieces accessible for everybody in the industry. So let me ask you, you know, this is it this is such an important, like, I I don't even have the right adjective, you know, to describe this program. And as you said, it kind of blew up faster than you could actually get the training wheels on. So, you've been, you've been there for just a couple of years. And how how do people access you? How does this curriculum work? Do they come to you in person for training? Is this online? Do you go to them? How do you roll these programs out? I mean, obviously, you're working on lots of different tiers of, you know, small bars, big events. I'm a, you know, twenty year veteran of Vini Taly. So, you know, I know what that looks like, but How does it work actually in practice? How do you get this training to people? How do they find you? It used to be that we were only doing this in person, and we had an opportunity you know, take take the good with what came of the pandemic where we transitioned our training online. So it became, you know, we vetted the curriculum to make sure that it was accessible in an online format, and now people can access us by we go there in person. We also have I've made it I've made a really concerted effort to get trainers trained up throughout the US and be able to pull some of the trainers that we have in our smaller chapters that are really great so we can use them and and make it more accessible to people if they wanna do it in person. But we also have that opportunity to train online via Zoom. So we can do we can do it all. Whatever really works best for the group. It's it's it's such a cool thing. Are you so you're rolling it out across the whole US? Mhmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I'd say, prior to so from twenty thirteen up until about maybe twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, we only trained in person in the DC, Maryland and Virginia area, what I call the DMV. And then Lauren had launched our chapters, which is basically taking our curriculum, giving our curriculum to smaller community organizations so that they can start their own safe bars chapter and make it very much dialed in to what that specific community needs. So that started around twenty seventeen where we started creating these smaller chapters across the US, and we were out in Seward Alaska. We were in Portland, Maine, and, you know, all all over the place. But it was, I think, after when the pandemic hit and we transitioned to online and everybody had access to us that way, once that was done, we started training way more all over the US. And in Canada as well. So we've been able to we've been able to really access a lot of people because of our transition into the online curriculum. Well, it's it it's just incredible what you've managed to accomplish in such a short period of time, and we really need things like this rolled out in Europe. So, you know, when you have a spare minute in your, you know, start turning your head to how to roll this out in Europe, but I know that within the safe bars framework. You're also the director of herd. You know, this is a different program, a program that faces on, you know, peer to peer support and mental health resources for food and beverage, service industry, people involved in that. So How does that program work? And how many people have been involved in herd since you started? Sure. Herd was started out of so the peer to peer sport organization was started out of the pandemic as well. It was a couple of Baltimore bartenders who started something that was originally called just the online industry check-in. And we made a place on every Monday night where people in our industry who were stuck at home and couldn't work would be able to meet up with their peers. So we started the industry check-in back in the pandemic in about a year almost a year into it. We were approached by Joel Reeves, who was the founder of Saint City Culinary Foundation and had started a program called Heard, which was in person peer to peer support groups for people navigating sobriety, mental health, general wear and tear of being in the industry. He's said that, hey, all of our in person chapters are on pause right now because of the pandemic could we fold our code to pool our resources together and make you all the national online chapter of herd. And we were very pumped about that. So we we made that transition. And then after the pandemic, it was ultimately decided for Saints to the culinary foundation to close-up shop. And so Heard became, you know, Joel asked if I wanted to have heard. And I said, yes. I, like, I don't want that to go away. So originally, I had, folded the organization or or looped it up into my my health coaching business. But because of the nonprofit status that we have with with safe bars, it felt a little bit better to put it into there and because it's an accessible resource for everybody that we train just the same. So we have been doing that since the pandemic. We took a break during the summertime. We're actually relaunching this Monday, restarting herd as, again, that space on Mondays for people to come and check-in. We had previously always had a theme for the nights of things we wanted to talk about, but we're gonna transition it to just be more of an open discussion, so people can come in there and use that space as they need. And it's it's a really beautiful thing. Like, we you know, the people that started this program with me are sober bartenders. And while I I am definitely the advocate for conscious conscientious mindful like choices, you know, I ebb and flow out of what my relationship with alcohol is in terms of whether I'm gonna be drinking or not. So it was good to have all those different perspectives that were in there. So we have people who are needing assistance with sobriety. We need we have people who are on that on that journey and they also don't find like AA is very accessible to them because we're non secular. We wanna make sure that, you know, this can be a, you know, spirituality means whatever to anybody in this space rather than it's very much dedicated to one one style. And we also wanted that space for people navigating mental health, which, again, have been a huge advocate for that as well, can have a space where they can talk through different things that are going on with their bar, ways which they're feeling about being in the space or dealing with the social climate or whatever it might be. It's really just a beautiful open access space for people in our industry to create community and find support amongst their peers. So that again, you know, it's now a full program of safe bars. We are relaunching on Monday, November eleventh. And, you know, it's really just so I'm so fortunate to be around people who care about the community this much that wanna create this space for for their peers. You are so lucky. And it's it I think, you know, the culture in the US around the the beverage industry and hospitality is so different from what it is like in Europe. So, you know, having a space like that to to talk about it, to share everybody's perspective, everybody's impressions, and experiences is something we really don't have. So it's it I think it's you know, it hopefully inspirational to to people listening from from other places. But, I know Safeguars is collaborating now with eighty six harassment. I spoke to Deb Brennan not long ago from women of Fine and spirits And I wanna just talk about this because, you know, this is another program, with some really key goals and and interesting things coming forward. So, tell me a little bit about eighty six harassment and how it started in the goals and how safe bars is collaborating. Yeah. So, eighty six harassment was born from, from, obviously, the group over at Women and Vine spirits, and they wanted to create this global platform where all resources that would help contribute to us ending gender based violence in the hospitality industry was set up. I approached them probably this time last year, maybe maybe a little bit later to ask how we could become involved because I knew that they were doing women of science spirits before eighty six harassment was actually launched was doing trainings with Rain, and they were, you know, geared towards the hospitality industry. And I I had taken one, and I liked it because I always love the content that Rain puts out. And I thought there was an opportunity to bring more dialed into bartenders, dialed into front of house workers that we could have. And so we we discussed doing that. And so we decided in this past year, so in August, September, and October, we did three different trainings on their platform, on the on the eight six harassment platform, and we did our active bystander training, our de escalation training, and then our Ally Ship training. So we could see how it landed with everybody, in hopes that we could come around next year and have a more consistent, presence on the eighty six harassment platform. So it's really nice. It's just a it's another vehicle to get this content and this information out to people. I know that you know, you'll see a variety of different style trainings that are on there, and ours is definitely safe hours is definitely the longer version of things, but that's because we really wanna ground people, you know, that that comes from me doing a research program where I had to write a book the end of the day. Right? You wanna ground people in the moment and have them understand and contextualize their experience of being a part of the industry. So not just telling people what the problem is, and here's how to solve it, it's providing the background, making making sure that they understand where their connection to it is and why this is so important for this information to get out, and then we actually have people practicing the skills that we teach them, and our goal a hundred percent instead of, like, coming in as a lecture know, if you're doing, like, an hour lecture with somebody and telling them what they need to do, we invite conversation to happen and, like, have the teams co create the knowledge together because it's really about getting people in that atmosphere to share their experiences. So Everybody can understand what we're all actually dealing with on a on a regular basis because some people some people harassment and aggression doesn't doesn't touch them or they're they think about it differently or they're socialized differently or they pat you know, They excuse certain behaviors because it doesn't bother them, but it does bother other people. And we're really trying to make sure that all people's experiences can be heard at the same space. So it's it's been really nice to, you know, we usually work with just an individual establishment where they already have rapport with one another and they're familiar and that's where that cocreation knowledge really comes up there fast. And in this space, it's a new challenge, and I always like being challenged because I'm I, obviously, a little bit ADHD here. So being able to establish rapport with these new people that don't know each other that are coming from all facets of the industry is a beautiful challenge, and it's a another opportunity for for them to see how each other is impacted by this really important training that we're doing. So it's been a wonderful experience being able to work with them and we're looking forward to, chatting through twenty twenty five and see what that looks like so we can hopefully get some more trainings up on their calendar. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And it it is exciting and it's it's great to know that you're creating a space where people can have those conversations without, you know, feeling judged for their choices and, you know, or their shortcomings or whatever, you know, is on their mind. And and allows them to stay in an industry that most of us love, you know, but they're I've worked in the industry, of course, everybody starts off young. And sometimes you feel like you have to get out, and it's it's great that you're creating a space for people to be able to choose to stay in, you know, and and feel positive about what they're doing. So I know you've been really personally committed to health advocacy for the beverage alcohol community for a long, long time, obviously, and you founded the health tender in two thousand and seventeen. So What did you have in mind when you began that? And how is the health tender working alongside all of your other roles at the moment? You've got over three thousand followers now on Instagram. So somebody's paying attention to what you're saying with with health tender. Let tell me a bit about that. That the the impetus behind the health tender was really a way to get information about physical health out to to the industry. I I started it and I I love telling this story too of like I was always the bartender that had, like, had treats in my in my apron. I had pocket nuts at all time. Obviously, you know, can't always have nuts because allergens and stuff like that, but I I jokingly always had pocket nuts And I had my, you know, I had my my blender bottle on me at all times. I had that and water or protein powder, like, in my blender bottle while I'm at work. And after work, I would also after shift, I would go to the gym rather than go out to drink. And people kinda looked at me very goofy and didn't understand why I would do that. And it dawned on me that everything I knew about physical health because of being an athlete and because of having the the, you know, formal education that I that I have was missing in in this hospitality sphere because it just isn't something that people had access to. So where while it's completely ingrained in my body, there was this disconnect between my peers And so I wanted to bridge that gap and show people how they can make their body not hurt like hell after being on it for an absurd amount of time because you know, we're we're expected to do way more with our bodies than than what most people in a working atmosphere are asked to do. We're asked to do more with our bodies than a lot of athletes are. So I did this as a way to try to teach teach people in our industry to treat themselves like athletes, tell them that they're endurance athletes, and teach them how to fuel their body appropriately, how to stretch their body, how to move in ways that make sense for the space because ergonomically, there is Naria bar. There's very few bars that are actually designed for people to, like, be physically comfortable in. And the the opportunities that have come up to change that, which is like creating those cockpits and things that we can, like, step into for our well rather than getting cut off at the knees, are not accessible because they're so expensive. So and and, hopefully, that won't be the case for so long, but really teaching people how to, like, use their body to their advantage in the space since a space is not designed for their bodies. So tips and tricks on how to, you know, basically, how to engage your core at all times, but how to stand and adjust your stance to, to work within a specific combine of what you have, whether it's a teeny tiny well, or you're sharing it with multiple people, or if you're a person who's a a server and, like, running drinks out or running food out and, like, so I really wanted to bridge that that gap on on overall physical health and wellness and bring that to the community. And I was really happy that when I did my first discussion, I had an opportunity to do in, like, April of twenty sixteen or rather it was December of twenty fifteen that I did my bartender education for the for the Baltimore Bartenders guild. I did a fifteen minute presentation on how to have snacks at the bar. And I got samples of snacks from people like Justin's nut butter and, like, the power protein waffles and all these different things that are normal to me and people are like, hey, this is actually really tasty. I was like, yeah, you don't have to go twelve hours without eating. Or, like, you don't have to do these things. And it was super well received there, and I happened to do that talk at the time when Lindsay Johnson, who is the founder of lush like productions, was there in Baltimore touring because in April, we were gonna have Baltimore Bar Institute. So she was scouting locations of where we could hold different events during that time, and she heard that talk that I gave that very small presentation said, people need this. Like, you need to figure out how to we need you to do this on a larger scale because people need this information. So It was very affirming to have have that feedback at the time and then come April of twenty sixteen. I did a larger one hour presentation on it was called check yourself before you wreck yourself, because I love to name everything after wrap songs. And talked about the, you know, the general health risks that we experience being in the industry, whether it's physical, you know, repetitive motion injuries or nutritional def deficiencies or mental health issues because of the emotional labor and secondary trauma that we experience in there. And I went through the whole gamut of what we can experience in this space and why it's important for people to pay attention to those things and some accessible ways in which they can actually kind of counteract this. And it was, again, it was well received. I was not really experiencing that because, you know, even in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, I don't think people were taking their health and wellness quite as seriously as everybody is now. Mean, we see that in the way that people are changing their attitude towards drinking and why NA is, like, on the huge rise and it's, like, growing by thirty two percent. And, you know, it was easy because it was my it's my love and I talk I I make jock a meat head. I call myself that all the time, and I talk talk about wellness all the time because I love the body, and I love people feeling good in their bodies. And And so it's been it was really easy to start that and then transition from there from just giving talks to now I was teaching movement classes. So normally what you would call a workout class or a fitness class, but I called in a movement class because I don't want I want to hit those people that do not like the gym, would never find themselves in the gym, have been ostracized by the gym so people can find a way to move their body in ways that feel good and ways in which they are able to dial in and it make it it starts at accessible and then has challenges added to it if people want it, but it starts at baseline accessible for for all bodies. And yeah, so that's that's my my love, the love of my life, the health tender. So it's fun because I I am the health tender. So people call me the health tender. So as I'm, like, still navigating how to manage being in the space of, like, running safe bars and also doing, health tender work. I'm still able to work with coaching clients on the side and provide them the materials and and resources that they need. I'm able to teach classes at different conferences. Trying to work on getting something set back up in Baltimore where I can do more regular workout classes with my guild. I do anything possible to trick people into moving their bodies in really nice ways, and, like, finding ways which they can put good stuff into their body that makes them feel better. I just want people to love on their bodies and feel good on a regular basis. So because because it is my, like, alter ego slash is who I am, it's very easy to fold into everything that I talk about when it comes to safe bars, when it you know, when I'm out and about or when I'm when I'm teaching and when I'm just being me. So Well, as as if you didn't have enough to do with all of that list that you, yourself, just listed off, you're also the beverage director for Camp Runamuck. Like, I I love this idea. This sounds absolutely fantastic. The first summer camp designed for bartenders, and how how fun is this I wanna go. I I wanna ask about this because it there are so many people out there I I can see where you're going with this. So I'm pretty sure I know where the answer is going to, sort of hang on this format. But, you know, when did Camp Runamuck start and how many people attend on an annual basis? What's the itinerary? You know, tell us everything about this. I want people to get excited and we should all go to Camp Brodermock. Yes. So Camp Brodermock is a magical thing that came from lush life productions again, Lindsey Johnson, who, wanted to start an opera start a space where bartenders could come and learn more about their craft. So, basically, it's an an adult bartender summer camp where they go to the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, and then they go out on field trips every single day, and they learn about whiskey production. And while they're away doing that, I'm running the beverage program back back on the kids campsite. And I, you know, we have anywhere from four to five activations during the day when they come back. They come back and there's a pool party. And then there's like a, you know, square dancing, and then there's a nighttime activity, and then there's a, you know, campfire. So whatever it might be, we my team is building all the drinks on the back end for that. I believe Camp just celebrated its ten year. I think it started in either two thousand eleven or two thousand twelve. I I need to double check on that. I can I can help out with that afterwards? And I first attended it started as just one session per week in the earlier days. And by the time that I got there in twenty sixteen, it was two different weeks out of the year. One in May, one in, started on Memorial Day, I believe. So, like, May into June and then August is when we had it, and then we also threw in some alumni sessions as well. So I I went for my first time in twenty sixteen. Twenty sixteen was a very, very big year for me of, like, learning growing and and figuring out some stuff. And You know, I I went after that first time and I I enjoyed it, but I also have always really liked, again, I'm a helper. I like being on the back end. I like being on the event side and the production side of things. So I had an opportunity to come back and be on the beverage team. For one session and then I asked if I could run it after that. They're like, how did you like it? What would you like to do? I was like, can I run that thing? And and so they are, you know, I guess boldness pays off, and they gave me a chance on doing that. And so I've been running the beverage program since twenty seventeen at Camp. And basically, you know, it's it is two weeks out of the year, and I'd say I'd spend, like, probably another two months prepping for it in terms of working with different suppliers that are gonna be sponsoring things and understanding what they want to see for each activation and coming up with those drink drink menus and, working with my the team that we choose of, like, we basically, anybody on leadership for camp is people who are already a camper, and then they come back and they get to be in a leadership position whether it's as a counselor on the beverage team. They could be on chef team. They could also be part of a team, which is base the the people who set up the events, the people who take out all the trash, all the, like, the the heart and soul of the space. The other part is really like working with my team and trying to get them to have buy into the program as well. So I hand out drinks to them. I was like, I need you to create a drink for this style of thing using this product, and here's the other things that we have access to. So it is it's a beautiful experience and and, like, it has also transitioned to where when I'm there, I've also had the opportunity to teach classes or I teach water aerobics during during a pool party as the health tender. Or, we've also had heard sessions there, which is, you know, giving space for people to talk because it is a lot to go away and be around two hundred new humans that it's it's a lot of overwhelm, it's a lot of fields, it's a lot of overstimulation. So giving people space for that or people who are navigating their own sobriety while they're at a whiskey camp, making sure that they have space and access to be able to, have that too. And then with safe bars over the last couple of years, Lindsey, lush life and camp, camp run amok, we've been working together with safe bars to create an anonymous reporting system so that if anything were to happen at that space, people have a safe anonymous way to report it, and then I can attend to those things whether, you know, whether I need to make recommendations for mediation based upon, like, what they tell me they need or what they have seen, or we need to ask somebody to leave, or we need to change rooms, we need to do any of those things. That's in place because of the the anonymous reporting system. And also for the last time is a flat circle, so I cannot quite remember. But I think for the last three or four years, we've been doing safe bars active bystander training for each group that comes in prior to them arriving at camp. So They know what the ground rules are for for consent and behavior and what they're expected to do when they're in that space. That way nothing is nothing is unclear to people. And that's part of what we do within Safars is trying to teach people like This is hospitality. You design a space that you want people to have experience in, and so you get to set the ground rules for how people are expected to, act and operate, and conduct themselves in that space. So it's the same exact thing. We get to say, this is how you're going to be in this setting at camp and, you know, consent consent rules at the end of the day. And, so it's been it's been really cool. I love my time at camp, it is absolutely one of the most, like, rewarding experiences to have to see, like, you know, o g bartenders who have been in the game forever come through for their first time and and experience it and experience the joy that comes from it. To brand new bartenders and seeing their eyes light up in the a moments that come from there and just watching people get inspired. So it's it's a happy place and I'm so glad that I have those two two weeks out of the year that I get to go to Lebanon Junction, Kentucky and run this thing at a at a kids camp. And the other part which, like, speaks to my style of bartending is so I'm the batch queen. I love batching large things. I love making sure that something tastes good in batch form and can go out to two hundred people quickly and and they love it. We're also working currently working with, kids, kids camp facilities. So, like, I don't have access to tons of power and tons of ingredients and tons of things. So we make magic happen with with less. One of the funniest thing we got, we had a sponsorship with PolySI a couple years ago. Like, I think it was twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen. And I had I got an anti gravity plate to play with. Which, like, would flash freeze anything that I wanted. So I was like doing these chocolate covered cherries for one of the drinks I was on, but there wasn't enough power supply to actually in the building to actually make that that device run. So didn't work out. So there's, like, all these hilarious, like, hiccups that come with it being kids camp, but, lush like did recently purchase that camp property. So things are gonna change in the next couple of years. We don't know what it is, but there might be more power in my future, which is really exciting. That that yeah. I if you're doing all this with no power, I can't wait to see where this goes when you've got some massive generator. But, before I let you go, I I have got to talk about your amazing hobby because this just this blew me away. I love it. You like pulling trucks and competing in strong women competitions. So how the heck did this happen? How did you get involved in this? It's not like every morning you wake up and you think, I'll just go pull a truck. You know, what how did this come about? I mean, you don't think about pulling trucks on a regular basis? I do now. I had that actually came after the end of my roller derby career. Oh my god. I never even got to that. So I I played roller derby for ten years and at the end of my career, I was deep into running bars and really could not pull myself away to to give the commitment to to roller derby that needed to happen. And so, couple of the other retired roller derby people were doing strong man. And I'm like, okay. Well, I like lifting weights. Let's check it out. And then got to find out that you get to take your normal normal lifts, normal olympic lifting, which is like your deadlift, your squat, your overhead press, your bench press, and you get to do the same thing but with mirrored objects. So I get to pull a truck instead of, you know, I get to pull a truck behind me or in front of me. I get to deadlift a car. I get to, lift a giant metal barrel over my head as a press instead of just a barbell. So it's it's so goofy because it's like comically leaning towards the sideshow strong strong man, strong woman kind of thing of like the objects that you're manipulating, but it's great. It's It's a little bit different for me because it's a little more individualized as a sport, and I'm very much a team team is everything to me. So team orientation team oriented sports are my happy place. So you have to you do have to, like, make your own community a little bit more actively in that space, but it's really fun. You only are you're working against yourself. You're working, like, no matter how much you lift or don't lift, you're still trying this very ridiculous feat of strength which is really just a a beautiful thing. So even if I can't deadlift that car one more time, I've still done it once, or, hey, you tried to deadlift a car. That's pretty cool. So, yeah, I just like a I love being strong. I love being self sufficient, independent. And I love, you know, watching strong people do strong things and watching all different types of bodies be able to put these ridiculous amounts of weight above them behind them in front of them on, you know, whatever it might be. It's it's such a cool cool space. I love it. I love it. And I love what you said. A ridiculous feat of strength is a beautiful thing. And, yeah, strength is not always physical. Strength can be emotional and mental. And I think you have really covered every single one of those bases. You have the most amazing energy. So I know that whatever you put your hand to is gonna be lit up. So I can't wait to see what you've got coming in the next few years and you have just, like, boosted my day massively. So I really am so grateful that you came on. Thank you so much. No. Thank you very much. I appreciate you reaching out. This is really great. Thank you for listening. And remember to tune in next Wednesday when I'll be chatting with another fascinating guest. Italian wine podcast is among the leading wine podcast in world, and the only one with a daily show, tune in every day and discover all our different shows. You can find us at Italian wine podcast dot com, Sound Cloud, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your pods.