Interview with Restoration Now Global founder, Josh Roloff

I sat down for a discussion with Josh Roloff, the founder of Restoration Now Global.  RNG is a non-profit agency that fixes homes for people in need here in Fort Collins and also abroad in places like the Philippines and Honduras.  There are acute housing needs in both places and RNG does an amazing job of identifying and meeting those needs.  

Josh and I talk about his journey from renovating high- end Old Town bungalows to installing water filtration systems in the jungles of Honduras and everything in between. 

Learn more about this unique organization at https://www.restorationnow.org/

The following text is a transcription of the podcast…

Ryan: Alright, we’re going to, this is take two. The first, the first time we got into our conversation, we were not recording. We’re just new at this podcast thing. All right. This is a podcast, episode number six, the Grey rock realty, Fort Collins real estate ramp up podcast. But today we’re not talking about real estate. Well, a different type of real estate. Really. Yeah. We’ve got Josh Roloff in the studio today with me.

Josh: Thanks for having me. RJ

Ryan: It’s good to have you here talking about doing this for a long time. Yeah, right here in Old Town Square. A little or a little office. So we do a lot of real estate podcasts as some of people that listen to this. No, but today we’re going to talk to the founder of restoration now. Co founder, founder, sorry. Co founder. We have an executive golden. You have more than two co founders. I Dunno. Founders. Yeah, that sounds right.

Josh: Yeah. My beautiful wife Nicole and and Scott Lowe. Yeah.

Ryan: So, we want to do some real estate podcasting. We also want to talk to local business owners. I mean there’s so many awesome people in this town that are doing some amazing things, not least of which is my brother-in-law Josh Roloff with Restoration Now. And so we were just actually at lucky Joe’s having a pint and we were having a great conversation and I was like, this is the kind of stuff that I love to hear people talking about on podcasts and we should do one. So that’s why we’re here.

Josh: We’re doing one. It’s awesome. Well thanks for putting this together.

Ryan: Yeah, man. Well for people that don’t know anything about you, let’s kind of start from the beginning and talk about how you guys, , you’ve done everything from fixing, , people’s homes in Fort Collins and , everywhere from old town, two trailer parks on, Harmony and Mulberry and then you go overseas and you’ve been to the Philippines. You’ve been to Honduras. Where else have you been?

Josh: A Central African Republic was a water project there. Rwanda, we almost moved to Rwanda. That was amazing land. Ah, Uganda, anywhere from Kigali all the way up to the border and Lira. And that was cool. That was working with Zambikes, bicycle powered ambulance trailers in rural Africa. To reduce infant and mortality, infant and maternal,mortality rates. Hauling people with the mechanized. Yeah. Cause they could, ambulances couldn’t cover the same ground that these trailers could come through. Cars could really get like where these were at. You needed a land cruiser to get in there. Yeah. Right. So, yeah, some some, some beautiful parts of the world Pokhara Nepal. Yeah. So, I alwasys find the hotspots.

Ryan: Let’s back up to, to the Zambikes thing. And how did that work? Like you’re a guy that lives in Fort Collins. Yeah. How do you go from a guy that lives in Fort Collins that renovates homes for profit to going to Zambia and helping people, a fixed trailers to bamboo bicycles to ride people to the nearest hospital. How does that look? What does it look like?

Josh: I’m trying to think how I learned about that guys. I’m really struggling. And even now I have some friends, the Kilgallens in Winter Park. They had told me about these guys years before from some fundraiser they went to in Denver. But how I’ve found it, how I connected with them, I don’t really remember. I remember finding them. They were, oh, they were at that North American bike conference in Denver or whatever it’s called. I started researching them and then my son at the time was maybe all, he was like five, six, and we started just like geeking out on all these videos of them building bikes in Zambia and then doing all this work and Uganda. And I think I just called the guy, I think I just called the director saying, Hey, was there anything I can do from my side?

Ryan: We have a lot of bike industry here. Was this Funk of Funk bicycles, Darrell Funk out a Denver?

Josh:No, I ended up connecting with him later, but he knows Dustin out of he, he started this thing out of like a project for school in California. Okay. and then took it to Zambia and started this company building bikes to their, their motto or their, they were trying to change Africa one bike at a time. So they named their company Acirfa which was Africa backward. Okay. So they were trying to like mix it up really cool. Really cool. So I spent some time with them. And then Darryl Funk obviously long cycles. Yeah. Who’s there now? I believe he’s now their director. Okay. And genius bike builder. Yeah. And local Colorado Dude. And I’m here teaching guys there how to weld and build these frames. Sure. The ambulance. Awesome. Yeah, there’s really like, there’s some amazing stuff going on and a lot of roots from Colorado. Yeah.

Ryan: So you got connected with these guys, you went over and like what, what did it actually look like to go over there? Like you just spent money out of your own pocket. Did you raise money and then what did you actually do when you got over there?

Josh: I think I had some people that were through the Restoration Now community. Okay. That knew that I had this yearning to do something more than just right here. Okay. And they trusted or believed in me and they couldn’t quite make it all make sense. But they loved the concepts and the exploration and they wanted to be a part of it. And not everybody is willing to jump on a plane. I learned, I think it’s great at spine just to like lay willing to do that. Re, , you read a book on the plane and just hang out and people bring you stuff when you hit a button. Ali loves that on flights. I’ll, , love that on your long flights to Tokyo. Like you just hit this button and somebody brings you like whatever you want to great. Sure. Or a blanket. Yeah. The flights are, yeah, that’s great.

Josh: And then just to hang out in different cultures. Yeah. It’s, there’s some scary aspects, but really getting to the airport on 25 is scarier than hanging out places deemed, , murder capital of the world. Like they call Honduras like scary or getting to the airport and Honduras. Right. So yeah. So funding was always , oh, it’s always interesting. There’s people that believe in what you’re doing and if you, , and they like to be involved with it. Yeah. And there’s always more money to be made. You can figure that out later. What do you mean? Well, I mean, , there’s always a Bono said, , it’s like the God I serve Ain’t short of cash minister. Right. And that’s kind of liberating when you take your risks like this. It’s like, , I’ve done remodeling. I can always go and fix somebody’s house if I need it. Side Hustle. Right. I don’t want to be, but yeah. It, , there’s opportunities out there and we have a lot of opportunities. Deer, especially in Fort Mayberry. Yeah. Yeah. That’s plenty here. Right? Well, any of towns, plenty of resources. And I, and I found that people like to, , invest best in other parts of the world or just in their backyard through our early years of restoration now.

Ryan: Well that’s a cool thing that I’ve noticed from watching you over the years is like you’ll, you’ll find a project, be it here in town or overseas and sound like you’re waiting to like figure out if it’s, if you can raise the right amount of money or get another enough people on board, you just go do it. And I think that’s, , cause it’s with a lot of projects that people have in a lot of aspirations, man, it’s easy to, it’s really easy to think about stuff and talk about stuff but doing it as a whole nother thing. And so that’s really, I’ve always been admired that about you, that you’re just like jump in and get on a plane and go do it.

Josh: Small business owner himself here that you moved out here a little earlier than you’re going to because my son was born earlier than he was supposed to. That’s right. And you said, heck, we’re coming out here sooner and then you took some risks. Yeah, yeah,

Ryan: Yeah. We’re all from the Midwest and Josh and my sister moved out here first and then, My wife and I followed and my wife’s brother followed her other brother followed our parents and parents do grandparents. And that’s kind of a cool thing about Fort Collins is it just seems to draw, , it’s like with one person in a family unit comes out and then other people come and visit them. They’re like, man, I gotta I gotta live here. It’s such a great place. So that’s, yeah, I hear that story a lot. You’ve done a whole bunch of different things like that. I mean, how, how long ago was that that you were doing Zambikes?

Josh: Ah, that was in, Gosh, well I think I had stepped away from being director of restoration now. So 2000 Oh, it was, it was 2013. Okay. And we were doing just some local campaigns here and helping them redesign the canopy for like cultural sensitivities. Okay. For, for the Zambia ambulance trailers system. Because if you lay down in like a trailer and put a big canvas, like with a frame of course it’s like a, like a burly kids trailer only on steroids. Right? Yeah. And it can be pulled behind a motorbike too, so it’s pretty sturdy. Okay. Okay. So,

Ryan: And they were doing a lot of that. They were pulling a lot of these ambulances on motorcycles. Right.

Josh: Some there we tried to introduce it to in the Philippines I was working on a project, there was a oh for a community center building and Daryl and I were trying to figure out how to make this go in the Philippines. And that’s a very motorbike, popular area. But the transportation and the roads, they’re a little better than rural Africa. So they are, we’re honing in more on Africa, more pedal bikes. And a lot of people were hung up on it. Cause if you were to pull one of these are pretty heavy, , steel, right. And the bikes are heavy and you’re on a dirt on a dirty, dry up road. But if you go there and hang out, then a lot of those argents go away because people are pushing their bikes, hauling stuff, wood, they’re just for fires. So much more in shape.

Josh: And if you see some, somebody being pushed on one of these, or somebody’s trying to get to help because they’re pregnant and distress, then everybody in the village comes out and helps push this thing. It’s not, you’re not always pedaling. Yeah. And people were like, oh, this thing’s so heavy. I don’t understand how that works. Yeah. I was like, well, go there. Right. A bike is not necessarily for riding to all stuff. H. And Yeah. So it’s, it was a great thing. So they’ll sometimes, if the bikes he loaded down, they’ll just be walking the bike. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Or they’re just not even met to ride. Yeah. Some of them don’t even have seats. This is rural Africa, , you’ll have four people on a bike. The seat just gets in the way. Yeah. So yeah, it’s, it’s very utility, . And so we were helping doing some work here for some prototypes for their marketing here to fundraise, get more of these into clinics. Okay. Brew a lot of other NGOs and, and yeah.

Ryan: So you were doing that and then at the same time also doing projects here in Fort Collins, like talk to us about those kinds of projects. I mean, I, I worked on some of those with you. Sure. It’s just, it’s really interesting to see like a town like port Collins, super fluent, best place to live in the world, blah, blah, blah. It’s written up all the time. And then you have,  obviously parts of town that people need help. Right. Oh, what did that look like to jump in on those?

Josh:  It was just, it was a hard selling point at first for funding. It’s like, oh, you live in Fort Collins. Why would we come out with, I was fundraising for a lot of these projects and just like our admin and staff and salary out of places that had a lot of needs. The more,

Ryan : Yeah, like in the south. Okay. You were fundraising for restoration now. Okay. Talking to people that lived in the south, right. Just their like contacts worse here than you do have it in Fort Collins. Correct. Right.

Josh:  And, but, but you had to explain to them that like underneath this, like great city, there’s a, there’s, there’s the layer and underneath that there’s still people in need, people in need. Anywhere you go. Yeah. A lot of underserved people. It doesn’t take much. In fact, in a place where the cost of living is higher and it’s gone up higher with real estate prices and people wanting to be here, there’s that, that, that gap rose people struggling even more. Yup. So the cost of living goes up as certain areas get bought and developed and it pushes people out and they’ve lost their homes. Yeah. And, and then we also found that nobody left should take nobody, a lot of other nonprofits wouldn’t work on mobile homes because there’s no value to them. Right. There really isn’t.

Josh:  And like we would talk to funders and they would be like, we want to do projects on houses. Like, we want to build like a nice new house. And I always would tell people that you were basically what is it called? The organization that builds brand new construction. Oh, habitat habitat. Like habitat for hanity for existing like for trailers, right.

Josh:   Grass roots, smaller end remodels. Yeah. , there was a couple of new construction, a couple of little commercial things we did, but yeah, for the most part it was always residential and a lot of, a lot of mobile home parks. Yeah. And, and what we found is like these, , these people had real needs and, and, and the really, the the thing that struck me most when we, the first few projects we did, whether it was in a freestanding home, that they own the land and never, , the whole bit. And it was an actual stick frame structure versus the mobile home. With that. When we brought volunteers in to help when we brought resources like home depot or, or advanced interiors, , no matter who it was, that uncle Benny’s, whenever they gave us materials, it brought, we were elevating these peoples lives, but we were also elevating the game.

Josh:  They were donating their time, their resources, their talents and, and that really started to change my mentality. The whole thing is this is the massive endeavor. Like it’s not just about pounding nails, it was building into people’s home and not just into their homes but into their personal lives. And it gave opportunity for community members like you, you, you, I remember on one project you’d come out on a lot of projects and, and you would sit with people. There was this one guy, you probably remember him is a, he was a Vietnam vet and just didn’t have any family around. As much as I could tell his home had needs and we were working on a roof. We were replacing some windows to make us home more efficient, save on electric bills and gas bills. And I think you just like pretty much the whole time sat on the portrait, the guy while he chain smoked and you hung out with the guy.

Josh: And that’s what it was about. That was, it was giving our community an opportunity to just get to know each other. Yeah. And, and that, and that was , that’s what I was impressed with. What wasn’t what I was doing or, Scott and Nicole and I and restoration now board. It was about the volunteers that would come out. Yeah. And that was really the avenue. We were just a bridge and we were just giving people, we are an in road right to these, to these needs. And this is great. It’s a great community and people want it. They have this, a lot of resources here and a lot of people that care about things in life that have substance. And that’s community. Yeah. That’s why for cow, that’s why old town now, all of it costs so much because it’s a community.

Josh: You’ve just very much in each other’s business and you can ride your bike around. What, we were just hanging out and my son and his friend were bouncing in and out of lucky Joe’s running around old town square with animals, they got out of a bear claw at pinball Jones. That’s fun stuff. Yeah. But , there’s also a the sad side of it too. And it doesn’t have to be, we can invest in our community here through these projects and yeah, take care of each other and hey, there’s so many people that want to help. I mean, the hard thing is just like telling people about these needs and these projects. , Those are really hard thing. I remember we would do projects and the, the people that knew about it and showed up, , would get so much out of it. And the way that you would be able to source materials from, , Home Depot and what was the other supply? Oh yeah. Uncle Benny. Any resource which is now the bike co-op, they’re gone. Right. They were amazing.

Ryan: I mean, you would just like go and walk into like these places and tell them what you were doing. And I mean, I remember you would do, we would be doing significant remodels, tearing out rotten floors on trailers and painting the entire place or placing the roof, putting in a brand new bathroom. And I remember like the cost of the materials would be like 1500 bucks or something like that.

Josh: Yeah. And that was, yeah, that’s just a great thing. Like we start to tell people about what you’re doing, how many people kick in. And that was amazing.

Josh: Yeah. We’re about ready to, as soon as it stops raining, we’re about ready to do a big concrete pour for an ADA compliant needs so that somebody in a wheelchair and we have to build like a little deck. And then we got a $5,000 lift donated from Frontier Mobility. Wow. And then the concrete guy I’ve used for years and I pass him around all the time to all my friends do use Roble brothers, Fernando Robles. He’s, he’s donating all of his, all the labor and then Loveland Readymix is gonna donate all the material. That’s super cool. And then we’ve got a bunch of people that need community service hours that are going to jumpp in and out. , Like people that have done some things wrong and they need help. Yeah. Through community service. And like the lift was lacking a few panels for safety.

Josh:  So we’re going to teach some kids how to Tig weld alin and then they learn how to weld and it’s going to go to solve the problem. Then we educated some people and he was skilled that they want to learn how to do. Yeah. And that that can only happen in a community that’s like, I dunno, it’s gets engaged in their own maths. Right. And so I guess I like to say we kind of expose the mess, but with dignity, that’s a big thing. Like people aren’t projects, , these people are awesome people in our culture. They just need some help too. We all do. That’s why we’re here. , You and I, we’ve been given a lot. Like we went to the same school. Yeah. College prep school like right. , Or my best friend drove a Porsche. I drove a truck with a gun rack, lifting the sticks.

Josh:  But , like we’ve been given a lot of stuff. So it’s, yeah. You talk to a lot of like homeless people around town and like, I feel like many of them say, , I was like, you, I remember being like you. Yeah. She’s like , guy with a house and a job and I had this and this happened to me and now I am where I am. Yeah. So it’s super hbling to talk to those people and understand, , that they’re not, they’re not that far away. It’s not always like, right. And with cost of living just in general is it rises or just like, not too many moves away from right. Being in trouble. Right. If, yeah. If you don’t own the house and , rents getting kicked up on you. So, , like when we were doing work on the mobile home parks, we could go into a home.

Josh: We figured, or we can go into a home for a couple of hundred bucks and winterize it when these lot of these homes are so drafts and their pipes free. Yeah. They got to crank the heat and it’s, , so if we can reduce their gas bill and, and make it a little bit more, what do you call it? Quote Unquote Green or home as much as you can. Yeah. But then we reduce those costs and then then they can afford to pay for other services that tax the system. Right. Or keep them, they can afford their lot rent. Cause it’s a, that’s a lot of people that veteran mobile home buyer, I mean, they, they don’t own the land. They own the home. Right. And a lot of those mobile home spaces are going for like 800 a month if, yeah. Not more. And that’s jumped, it was what, in 2005 and we started doing this.

Ryan  It was like four to 500 and now it’s that and it’s, that’s not, they can’t go on too much longer. And if their home has all these other issues, right. So yeah, that was so what does that look like? You guys basically just said I mean this is what we do, or restoration now or we fix homes in Fort Collins and surrounding areas. You got hooked up with a, was it three one, one or two? One, one, two, one, one. It’s the nber you call when you need help with. Yeah. So there’s a lot of things, right? And so people would like your cell phone a drain and people would say, oh yeah, like I, my pipes broke and I’m in a bad spot and I need help. Right. What did that look? One two, one one has a lot of cool programs out of that.

Josh: Like like emergency funding or like a water heater blowing or furnace and, but there was this gap that was needing build and two on one is through United way and awesome services, but they, they really latched onto what we were doing because it was a gap that needed to be filled. So what, what was the gap? I’m just like, well, like roofs or like somebody would say, they would call me and say like, [inaudible] there’s something wrong with our carpet. There’s a whole, and I’m like, I’d go over there and it’s like, well if there’s a raccoon living underneath there, , like yeah, there’s a hole because the floor fell through and the carpet has made it so you haven’t, right. Yeah. So, okay. All right, we can fix that. But like why is there a hole there? Well, the roof’s leaking and it’s leaking through the membrane and then down through like a light socket. So that’s, it’s more than just fixing the whole, Oh, it’s never, no dripping light fixtures. Never get there. Yeah. So we would get, , we draw the line at some point of not just having volunteers that were unskilled, we would bring in skill.

Josh: And that’s, and that’s the art path right now. It’s continue is to have people in the community that, , a lot of business owners that want to give back. We can utilize them. But really, once again, we were kind of that bridge between the need and the service that needed to be provided. And we didn’t claim to build a fix everything. We would try to take care of the emergency issues first and, and then, but really engage the community and taken care of. Yeah. Not just us as an art. Right. So yeah, like you said before, we were able to do this stuff on it. We can do it on a shoestring budget. Yeah. Like the example of the concrete pour coming up once it stops raining, which I love this frame. Yeah. Yes. Pretty Nice. But it’s a, gosh, I want to say probably $20,000 job we’re about ready to do and we’re gonna be able to do it for about maybe $1,800. Wow. Yeah. So, and that’s just story after story. I mean, that’s kind of your emo. Yeah. Yeah. You’ve got to get scrappy with this stuff, , and sure. If I had a million dollar budget, that’d be awesome. But what, I would still do it the same way. Yeah, absolutely. That’s the, that’s the, the great part of this. He knows we can spread this money around, spread these resources. Yeah. ,yeah.

Ryan: So let’s talk about, so you’ve done that for a lot of years and recently you’ve been, , before that year, I mean you’ve been all over doing all kinds of stuff, but you’ve also recently.  At the lodge, Minnesota borders true Minnesota in the day. I got it. I got to give you a shout out. Two years. You lived with Nicole and I and slept in a boat house that we converted into a, a shack to live in and it’s all true. Yeah. So we’ve done a lot together with the years. Yeah. Eat fish at night and

Josh: Glow, glow in the dark. Bobbers off the dock, catch Walleye and rainbow trout x a Jenia maple. I hatches on Birch Lake. Birch Lake Gunflint trail boundary waters,

Ryan: Minnesota represent Wa.

Ryan: Oh, those are the days.

Josh:  Yeah. Sold that place. Moved out here. You guys followed 2003 for Braman houses with Greg Taylor and started to remodel business and yeah, after being taken on a United way bus tour by our co founder just expose to expose the whole thing to suppose this whole city is an amazing city, but there’s a lot of need. Yeah. And started just diving into a lot of these partner agencies of the United Way and they were, these partner agencies are doing amazing thing. It’s helping single moms helping health issues go down the list and they but there, this housing issue was a massive gap yeah. That we then started doing volunteer projects, the restaurant and ah, yeah, thanks to Scott and Nicole like kept this whole thing on the tracks, . Right. And

Ryan:You had a period of time where you went kind of back into like, money got tight, you went back into remodeling houses, but you like, I could see it in your, in your eyes, you just had that like you, I mean, it’s hard to go from doing what you did and helping people in the way you did. And then going back in the for profit world, which once you see it, it’s always been easy for you to like, I mean, you just kind of like, people ask you to do work for them wherever you go because you’re really good at doing what you do. Sure. It’s, and it’s easy to make money. It’s easy to make money that way

Ryan: But it’s but I can always see it in your eyes that when you weren’t doing that, that nonprofit work, it was hard for you.

Josh: Well, and I, and I had to kind of like self evaluate some of that like I found. Okay. So yeah, we stepped away from Restoration Now, stepped down from being director in 2000 well I believe it was. So we were six years, seven years at it and it was just time to give it a break. And, and that’s when I started making multiple trips, staff that are doing some water projects with some really amazing NGOs and nonprofits out there. And that and I, and I learned a lot because I always wanted to do restoration out on an international level, but I didn’t know what the heck I was talking about. Like I had been to what like Canada, Mexico, Taiwan like to see my brothers and I hadn’t done any of this stuff. It’s easy to sit around and think about it or talk about it, , or watch whatever videos, what people are doing. I don’t know. But I just, I knew I needed a break. I knew the nonprofit probably needed a break from me cause I was trying to figure out how to do it internationally and I didn’t have the bandwidth to do both. But really it was just, I think probably better. I left because I was able to explore and work with other

Ryan:  Leaders. Yeah, he did a lot. Just kind of on your own dime, like you went to different places. You’re like, I’m going on to this country this month and

Josh: Right. And I would call people up and be like, Hey, I’m going here. And they’d be like, okay, well I’ll, I’ll send you some money. I was like, oh, that’s awesome. That covered a plane to have yet. And then, , Nicola, I’d be like, Whoa, how am I buying the kids food? We’ll figure it out. And I’m, yeah, she’s very I’ll, I don’t know. She gets it very gracious to me and we, the kids are doing great, , they’re, they, they’re nine and 12 now, so they, they made it, but it really exposed me to how other people worked. What they were doing, what was a good fit. But really to have a yes education period like that I wouldn’t have done if I would’ve stayed on trying to do it myself. , Looking back. Yeah. Like why did you ever leave? Why didn’t you just do that? This, I didn’t know what the heck I was doing.

Ryan: Yeah, yeah. It’s, sometimes you gotta step away and then you learned a ton and explored a bunch and then kind of came back to it and now it’s, it’s global. Yeah. And local. So that’s why it’s called restoration now. Global. Yeah. We’re just still doing projects here. And then you’re doing projects and Honduras and t r talk a little bit about Honduras and like specifically like what the, what the environment is like down there and like what the community centers are doing and talk. Talk to people about that.

Josh: Sure. Yeah. Honduras is one of the most beautiful places. I’ve bet it’s gorgeous. I mean the coastlines, the Caribbean, the jungle. Some of the most beautiful people. They are just amazing people. And I don’t speak Spanish at all. I, I grew up in our nice little preface. I grew up speaking French. , I, I took French. I, there was a Spanish option but I took French cause I just wanted to ski in Shawmanee France and I wanted to know how to like, like buy a buy beer and buy a lift pass and get around. That’s why I, I’m not kidding. That’s why I took Brent. Well I took it. How does this have anything to do with Honduras? Oh, cause I wish I would have taken stuff. Okay. But high school, your, your

Josh: Sister would tutor me and then she would be like, you’re not trying to learn French at all. You’re just silver here to hang out with me. And I said, well that’s true. But that’s really the yeah, probably between wanting to ski in Shawmanee and, and, and then, , kiss your sister in high school. Yeah, she came, I hate to go there. I, that’s why I took French and so, and we lived in St Louis, so there’s a lot of right. That’s right. So I have a past client who is French who lives in St Louis. Yeah. Ask Her if she knew Marty Harold, but I know, oh my God. Salt of the earth right there. Oh yeah, she’s awesome. So I, and yeah, the Montessori school I went to, you had to take brown even in preschool. Okay. Probably just cause they had somebody on staff anyway.

Josh: It doesn’t matter. I did not take Spanish. Okay. And it sure would be a lot more helpful in places in Africa. It has been helpful to know a little French. Okay. And so I’ve linked that back years. Lips. Oh, maybe this is why I took bread. Well, I’m not doing much in French speaking Africa. Right, sir? Circling back to hunter, so Honduras, I wish I knew Spanish in my friends in Honduras. It’ll be here in June. June 22nd, we’re doing a fundraiser at ascent climbing studio. Okay. awesome people there that are hosting this event with us to help build a climbing wall at a community center and see what the pack a, it probably sounded a lot different if I did speak Spanish, but that’s what I’ve got. They’re going to be here and they’re very gracious to me and they laugh at me and they think it’s great that I try and I, I try and speak Spanish, but so yeah, we’re working on two different projects and alongside some amazing high caliber beautiful people that have a vision for really transforming their communities, their cities.

Josh: One is very urban, so it’s central Honduras and see, watch back a, we just call it seawater mountainous around it. It’s a, it’s an urban site and then there’s also as site outside of [inaudible] in solid tron and a lot of new villages thought a new villages cause population just keeps growing. And these guys have been doing some census work because the government doesn’t even know who these people are or what the needs are. And most of the time they don’t have the bandwidth. You might say they don’t care, but they just don’t have the bandwidth to solve it. The governments disaster, it’s that the economy down there is a disaster. But the people that I’ve spent time with that are wanting to bring change to these villages who are amazing, beautiful people are there. They’re wanting to see things change. Yes. The climate there right now, I’m not talking about whether

Josh:  The political climate is rough. There’s, that’s where the caravan movement started. , While that at all, is that the caravan of just people trying to leave because it’s so people, the desperation is so high. People are willing to risk life that get out of there. And even if they make it to Mexico to like the Tijuana border, which is not work islands they get shut down or they get taken back there. They’re willing to sit, do anything to lead. Are they better off in Mexico? Yes, cause there’s more jobs. Okay. Closer to us there’s more jobs. But recently the u s government, I’m not going to get political here, but the u s government has shut off all aid to Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. And a lot of it is in conjunction with as far as I can tell with the caravan move people just trying. So I believe with the resources and energy and note work some, I don’t know, I’ll work.

Josh: The resources and energy that I’m trying to pour in restoration now is trying to pour in with our community here is to help eliminate and relieved some of that desperation. So what does that like, let’s get granular. Like what does that go on, on the ground, on the ground? Like what are kids struggling with? Like you, you’ve told me a lot about God, what is it like to be a kid and Honduras you have like you don’t have a lot of options, right? So how are you guys remedying that? Sure.

Josh: So the, the site and solid tron, which is outside of LeSabre which is a very rural area. If you have kids listening to this aisle, it might be a little graphic. I’ll try and keep it, do 13 rated, but I’m nothing my kids haven’t heard of. So I have a nine year old. Your niece, beautiful little magnolia is nine. If you were to ask her what she wants to do with her life, she would tell you she wants to live in Fort Collins. She wants to go to CSU, she wants to go to vet school and live with her good friend, Eila Jane and, and have, , I have three dogs and on and on and on. If you were to go to that same girl age in these villages, this isn’t true for all of Honduras. I will say that this weird thing in this area. Okay. You already go to somebody her age and asked her the same question.

Josh: It would be a blank stare. It’s like no idea what that means to like project.  My future and not just, not just like I don’t know what my future is going to be, but it’s more of like a, are you kidding me? I have options. Like what are you talking about? There’s no opportunity, there’s no opportunity. Those are dreams that Nola has, like just don’t have those dreams. In fact, it’s, it’s worse than that. It’s, they know that potentially, probably they will be and it’s almost consensual. Everybody knows it’s happening. On some level it will be great and become property of whoever performs that app. These are young girls and the in the guys that are doing it are young often. Not always, but often they’re young and it’s just kind of the norm and no, and nothing’s being done about it. There’s no economy and these guys have no commitment after this app child being born or not. Sure. And it just becomes like this power play because the guys don’t have much future either.

Josh: So the people that we’re working with down there, I’ll right now leave them unnamed, but they’re wanting to change that. They’re wanting to have a, have a future with [inaudible] these kids having, , a different story. They’re pouring their lives in. Yeah. And, and so to know that those things just like you, when you, when you experience projects here, we work, like once they’re there, you gotta do something about it. Right. So talk about these guys, like, tell me about my friends down there that are doing this work. Yeah. Like not nickname. Hi. Hi. Yeah. Like, like they’re, they don’t even really fit in because they’ve been educated there. They were, they’ve gone to college and on post masters too. Agreed. They’ve, even though one is Honduran, one’s Costa Rican, these pinned in, they do speak Spanish, but they like, , they’ve, they’ve had education and they’ve had, they have a, like a home.

Josh: They, they stand apart. So they’re trying to build into the lives there slowly, which works with us because we’re bringing resources slowly. But first thing is they’re doing like a census trying to figure it in. And even though the gentleman who owns the land, he’s, it’s his family’s land, they’ve been there forever. There are still differences. Like all children, there’s still a gap. So they’re trying to build into their lives by caring for them. So they’re doing like after school tutoring programs to help them with their education. So they might, the norm is like third, fourth grade down there. That’s it. That’s all you’re going to do. Okay. If you go into a school room, one,

Josh: One room, school house, it’s through sixth grade and the desks, they’re all in rows and it’s one guy, 25 year old teacher get paid Jack Squat and he’s left to educate these kids so that any has to commute. He’s worn out. So the people we’re working with down there are investing in that school to get to know the kids. Well, the school doesn’t have running water, it doesn’t have is all the cinderblocks sitting there for a bathroom but has been built in that way for a year because I’ve been down there and this teacher’s doing what he can. But these guys I’m working with are trying to like help him dark with doing afterschool programs, gets into their homework and then also doing health sir. Figuring out like basic health issues, diabetes, malaria people. This thing is normal, be completely chewed up by mosquitoes down so and to have diarrhea all the time.

Josh:  That’s normal. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. , I come back from some of these scripts and tonight I’m chewed up and I’ve got diarrhea. I know there’s what caused it, what’s wrong with me and I can go get some cipro or whatever. , Like this is just the norm. So the guys that you’re working at, they’re basically like setting up afterschool programs and the guy that has the land. Talk a little bit about like for people who have no idea, oh yeah, Ryan text of this, like talk about the plot of land. You guys have and what well he’s trying to do and what you’re trying to do with him. So, right. It’s this big, it’s a fairly good size piece of land. I can’t remember the acreage. 15 acres. Couple kilometers off the coast. It’s deep in the jungle.

Josh: It’s up against national park. There’s waterfalls. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. Like clear running water. Yeah. Yup. Yeah. And so it doesn’t take much to purify that. We can take a five gallon bucket with a $25 Sawyer filter, a little shout out for Sawyer for making these amazing product. It’s just a hose line. You drill into the bottom of the floor, the side of the bucket and it lasts like thousands of gallons before you have to clean it, not replaced it. They clean it and somebody gets sick off that. Cause I said that, I don’t know all the details there, but that’s what I’ve been told. So we can, we can come in and help provide that clean water and, and help build latrines and give running water to these homes. Cause the, the waterfalls that are running through there are providing water to some villages, but it’s not clean.

Josh:  I tested it when I was there brought over water purification tests and it’s like 80% client, which is that 20% accurate yet yet. Right. , like if you go to rei and you get to drink at long enough, you’re going to get sick. You’re again. Yeah, we’re just once. Yeah. but the water flow is really high. So like vole wise , if you were to set your stopwatch and bill, if a five gallon bucket coming out of a pipe, it’s full. It’s like a second. I mean it’s like hundreds of gallons. Thousands of gallons. Yeah. And I know that because we were trying to figure out a way to bring power for the she has her phone on in these ad form cheats parched here too, so yeah, you need another beer. Gosh, , that the opportunity, therefore, like hydro electric is ripe, , solar can work.

Josh:  But once again, like why? Like, okay, well if you want kids to finish school pass third grade, , like, and it gets dark at six 30 he needed some power. So you can just, I’m like solar lights, we’re looking into that. But a lot of these places in the same like in Africa where we worked, it’s like people have a little kerosene lantern, they sit around and they try and read and do their homework. Yeah. Okay, well kerosene is really expensive. It’s not great to get out of the ground environmentally. And then your s you gotta , like, think about like your kid trying to read over a kerosene light. Right? Okay. He’s huffing all those fes kind of a problem. Yeah. So if we can bring in some small scale solar or hydro hydro in this case. So we started messing around.

Josh:  I was like, what kind of stuff can we find laying around that we can produce some power? So I said to my buddy as like, , what do you think? He’s like, Whoa, Whoa, whoa. Can we find that spent? So anyways, long story short, we get find an old BMX sprain with one wheel. Like perfect. Take it to my buddy shop and let’s Seva as Guy John Clough, he’s been down there for years. Amazing guy and his family down there building all sorts of full stop medical clinic and at seminary and, and orphan care like salt of the earth band. But he, he has welding equipment so he helped us Kinda, he’s like, this is great. Let’s let me help you guys. So we take this BMX frame, we put these fins on the rim, so it turns into a paddle wheel. We Scott out of some old like flashing, we find laying out behind his building don’t point is like anybody can bring down a hydropower deal, but like at what cost, , so we figured out, let’s fit fine.

Josh: We can find laying around here. We attach it with a few other components. We attach it, a belt, a radiator belt to a stand or that tensioning strap with an old Toyota alternator on it and start trying to figure out how we can get power off of it. And it didn’t work as well as we wanted it to. But my buddy from down there, he’s just like, dude, I don’t have anybody to help me do this kind of stuff. Nobody, everybody says just hook up to the grid. Well, the grid’s expensive and it runs off of gasoline. It’s gross. I mean it’s just, that’s what the greatest fired with in this area. It’s electric plants fired with nasty fuel. So, and it’s really expensive to buy it and to bring it in. So we got to figure out a different solution. So then we took like an old wire spool, like yet able from, , like when they’re stretching cable around town, we turn that into a trick.

Josh: Then we got some good results like that, that spins fast. So now I’m trying to work with some students here that can learn some hydropower, the electrical and mechanical engineering, learn some welding, bring it all back home here to pour college. Yeah. And, and utilize the brains and the talents and, , and then the now help us go a little further when we’re on the ground, they’re trying to figure this stuff out. And there’s a lot of, , people that are interested in helping do that here and then exposes how to take care of needs on the other side of the world. Right. and so for, for these guys in Honduras, they need to be able to help educate these kids. And part of that is like providing power cell phones. As much as I hate cell phones, they’re helping a lot of people, , that communication and, and research and, and just, you can send money through cell phones, which is pretty cool.

Josh: Yeah. and just given people, and my son kind of probably, where is it he listens to it is, I hate phone so much and I don’t want him to have one, some total hypocrite here. Gosh. But , that the, the reality is, is like, if you provide some of these basic resources that we don’t even think about bed nets, well we don’t eat bad. That’s, well, , we had them in the Philippines, which is pretty helpful and I could, Dang gay fever. Yeah. For five bucks you can keep a kid from getting malaria and or whatever. Dang gay or chicken Goonyella , it’s like, or giving them clean water or give them some power so they can read. So to bring it all like back together, like essentially you guys are going down there, there’s a community center that you’re building and the community center essentially provides power. Clean water does a place for kids to hang out, medical school, medical, medical screenings, and then we can help get them to the appropriate clinic. Just basic things. We don’t talk about just dental hygiene, , like that’s dental health, ,

Josh: And, and connects them with people that are like mentoring them and telling them that they do have a future and like, here’s the way forward and you don’t like, , you don’t have to experience the status quo. Right. , go into the sex trade or, , yeah, yeah.

Josh:  Give him an n and this, all this stuff. The afterschool tutoring. I’m just getting to know people by doing, holding a health clinic build street credit for them that they care. They’re invested there they are, , locals even though they’re just moving back there from being gone to Costa Rica, getting educated or whatever, , they’re telling these people that they do care about them and they want to see change. Because you can’t, , it doesn’t matter where you are, you don’t wait around for the government to do it. And that’s what a lot of people do. And there’s a lot of NGOs that have done a lot of amazing things, a lot of nonprofits, but they’re also, they’ve, there’s also a lot of handouts that have been yet, and this is not that this is investing in local people, local people. Yeah,

Josh: Exactly. About like empowering kids and yeah. And just say there is some biting like kind of like the city on the hill where you come here and it’s, , right. You have opportunity and it’s a sanctuary. This land is a sanctuary.

Josh:  They have a lot of land. They’ve been gifted a lot of land and so they want to use, they want to be able to have medical clinics. They want to be able to have agricultural development. The one organization I worked with in ca in Central African Republic was teaching people how to plant different crops that can help with immune, immune building. So like if you have aids or whatever it is, or just just anything other than corn and rice. Yeah. , There’s just filler that’s killing people. , It’s like planting crops that are better or that like animal husband, Tree Stott, like raising goats were for our economy too. They can make money raising goats. And I tell the one guy this all the time, like, you need to have goats here. Let’s get some guns. He’s like, ah, I can’t take care of goats. , I’ve got too much to like, I’m going to buy goats next time I come down and we’re going to fund this and you’re going to have goats because it’s good protein. You need this meat. , And he’s laughs at me. But , the, the, the norm is rice, corn, well, look at the fallout that it’s, it’s I blood sugar, , high blood pressure, diabetes, it’s killing people unnecessarily

Josh:  And the water’s dirty, cheaper. It’s the same price to get Coca-Cola’s as it is clean water and there’s water running through the property. So we need to change that. And that’s what, that’s what like gives me inspiration to work with these guys. Yeah. And they can help change and build into the lives and give them better future, . Yeah. And the other than other cool thing they’re doing from an environmental standpoint is these oceans there are amazing. I’ve been to a lot of reefs in Southeast Asia Caribbean and there’s some beautiful places. The reefs off this shore 30 minute boat ride are amazing. There’s an, and so the people we’re working with down there teaching these kids and young adults how to take care of the land. Like don’t dp stuff out in the ocean. If you have trash, take care of it.

Josh:Great. Well, , it’s easy to say that cause I’ve been out to those reefs, it costs me 10 bucks like a fisherman took us out. These kids have never been there. Right. They’ve, people have lived there their whole life and they’ve never been out there. Yeah. So if they haven’t experienced it, how are they going to, why would they care about not dping sewage or whatever out in the ocean? Like that’s easy, low hanging fruit that we can change. Right. , so like sponsor a kid today, they go to a reef, ? Yeah. Like seriously, like it sounds stupid or , whatever. But like if you were to teach these kids about the environment this way that the people were working down there, art doing, that’s part of the program. I was down there, I was like, we need to be taking these kids out to these briefs that they know how to take care of their land here.

Josh:   It’s because the reefs are dying because of not necessarily their trash. It’s mostly because us buying stuff at Walmart [inaudible] it’s because of, , 30 million people living in Manila with air conditioners on, , but has something, yeah, I don’t know. Who knows? Well, yeah, so investing in this, a couple that we’re working with down there is massive impact. Yeah. That’s an awesome thing that I’ve noticed is like, , I mean the budget is so small for what you guys do and like the impact that you have. I mean, it’s just like, , you have a lot of donors giving like small amounts of money a month and just what that does down there and just how efficient you’ve been able to be going down there and like connecting with

Ryan: Resources and it’s, it’s awesome. , It doesn’t have to be like this giant million dollar project like you hear about, it can be small amounts of money and going down there and inspiring people and just helping people and , it’s not a top down thing too. It’s not like you’re going in and like swooping in and , being the savior. Like ultimately there are locals down there that are doing the work, , and it’s kind of going down and supporting them.

Josh:  Exactly. , and there’s a time and a place to be at these places like we live or not quite a year in the Philippines when we thought we were going to go to Africa, 2013 that iPhone hit and it devastated. Tuck on 10,000 people went down there. It was very tragic and we went with another NGO and, and serve belonged to and I and I learned a lot. I learned that working with leaders that had vision and mission for the cities and change was more beneficial than just a bunch of Westerners since. Nothing wrong with them assigned. But like we got a lot more done with not much money. And I had friends with big NGS, the biggest ones out there. So many layers of red tape and bureaucracy, donor intent gone, , on and on and they’re spinning their wheels. They were there for two years and they got not much done compared to what we got done. And it wasn’t because of we got, it was because right. Leaders got built into and there was and then since we’ve left, those same leaders have continued the work. Yeah.

Ryan: So for people that don’t know about that, I mean, talk about Tacloban you went to the Philippines and essentially renovated or built a community center, a medical center. Yeah. Yeah. We have that as a church that meets there and it’s a medical center medical and it Tutoring sustained by locals at, right. Yep. And, and

Josh: The tutoring program is actually taken off, I don’t know if it’s tutoring after school, like education, getting kids to pass their high school proficiency exam. There’s a program there that’s being housed at the center and it’s gotten so, like very well recognized. They’ve started to see a need for a school and that was one of our goals all along is how can there be a school there? The original plans had room for a school and then I was, I was at a rotary meeting that I don’t, somehow I was at, I was at a wedding for somebody. We were the only Americans at it. It was amazing. I buddy Mark’s family invited us and somehow sniffed out that there was a way, we were like a family of wedding track until we got seated at it like a head table. And I remember that.

Josh:   Never met the girl getting married as my buddy’s sister. So awesome. Was in, because we were white with blonde hair. They shuffle this. I was like, no, we can’t. No, we used to have it like next to the head table and then I think Nicole and I want like some kids. Oh my God. I’m serious. Yeah. We got chosen. We won. We had to kiss for a contest. She had to put lipstick on and see. No. Yeah. And she had to see how was it? No, I had to put lipstick on. You wore a white tee shirt. Nice to see how many lip marks I could get in a minute. That must be a

Ryan: A Filipino thing. Cause like Katie and my wife used to do wedding photography and she, yeah. And we went to a wedding with a Filipino was a bride and they did like a bizarre thing where she would pass an egg like up his pant leg. No. And then down the other side and they had another, they had all these like crazy wedding games. Oh yeah. There was another one where she, the bride was blindfolded and she had to feel like the ass of every, everybody in the wedding party and figure out which one was,

Josh: And of course she got it right. She’s like, yeah, that’s the woe way. Oh this shame feel boatloads of thinking about Filipino culture. Maybe not. A lot of people know they are rated the most fun, happy people group in the world. And I am a believer as a rating system. I don’t, I don’t know. They’re 100 million strong, so they might be doing their own, but yeah. So you wonder why I always want to go to other countries, , it’s amazing. Like that kind of stuff. You can’t make that up. So on the, on that contest though, so they, , Nicole puts his tee shirt on and then I grab her by her shoulders and I’m like ready to go. And she’s just like, no. And turns around, she’s like on my back.

Josh: Yeah. So we won. We won that. Oh yeah, it was, it was hilarious. So I’m, I was hanging out with the father of the, of the bride and he invites me, we were up at the bar, he invites me to a rotary meeting. So I’ve went and we’re ready to just demo this building that was on site that we were going to build this new structure on this community center. Yeah. We had been given approval by the city to like demo at, do , start our work and in like, seriously the day before we were going to demo, I’m pretty sure it was the day before. If not, it’s a much better story. If it is the day before we, I go to this rotary lunch and I’m in, the guy that invites me doesn’t show up. Mark’s dad doesn’t show up. He got sick, but he calls a friend, says, hey, this Gringo Josh is going to show up and and so be nice to him. So the guy sits with me and he starts asking me about our project and he’s just like you ought to come to my office afterwards. No, like why, what’s the problem? Because you don’t demo your building yet. I was like, what are you talking about? So I, I go to the guys office afterwards and he’s a contract worker with the city. He unrolls this map and he’s like, you see this, it’s a seawall going right through your property.

Ryan:  It’s on the book. Your property was right on the coast, right on the coast and they were basically going to build a seawall right through for it. So right through our new building and you guys had gone, had like traveled overseas, bright, picked up your whole family for that Collins to travel to the Philippines to build this community center at a wedding. You are told secondhand information that they’re building a sea wall and you can’t, you shouldn’t do this project

Josh:  Because I immediately called Zurial my guy I’m working with, I’m like, you’ve got to come down. Luckily he was in town, he was back and forth and Manila and I, and so we sit down and my, I was just like, I was devastated. , We had, we had engineering students and architects, students from cal poly designing this building seawall, not in the, we never knew. I mean it wasn’t the Japanese as a Japanese government. Well Jessica, it was a Japanese non-pro I don’t know what the heck it was, but, okay. Oh, anyway, they were funding it. Okay. And that was their contribution to the s to this area after the storm happened. And this is a big deal. I mean, the 30 foot wave, the third wave that came through that really devastated the area in lives was, it was 30 feet.

Josh: So they needed to do something and it’s, cause it’s going to happen, , there’s knocking it, like they’re not immune to it happening again. , So, right. This and this, see, oh, okay. So a seawall, we’re talking like 30 feet wide. They were going to build a bike path on top of it. It was like a trap is oil. Wow. So it wasn’t like, oh, we’re going to build this little wall on here. , It’s not like, , other walls that are on the books, but this is like a wall to protect and they’re going to build a bike path on top. I don’t even know if anybody bikes there, but I never saw it.

Josh :  So it made us scramble in, switched gears. So what did, and actually looking back is a really good thing because cultural sensitivity once again is a mass division. Like if we would have built this massive, beautiful, shiny building, which was really cool thing. Carly Altaf, who’s now designing stuff in Kigali, who’s amazing building, she spent time over there researching the culture and how to make this building amazing fit in with, yeah. Yeah. And when she’s with Journeyman, she’s with Draymond international who did all the design work and then they sent a the guy named Ethan pepper over who was a construction management student. They lived with us and help us run the show. Really cool collaborative. But she’s now living in Rwanda and she’s working on some stuff that with some guys I know up in [inaudible] like crazy, but they put a lot of time into this.

Josh :  Like this is like going to be an amazing building. But looking back like, so there was an existing building, so we took that, got rid of parts of it, opened it up. So if there was another storm surge water could go in, water could go out, beef, the whole thing up. Ali would dig like a meter and a half deep into holes and guys would pocket this soil out and then we added on to it. But we kept away from where the seawall was supposed to go. In fact, they were just like eminent domaining everywhere. Some of the places didn’t make sense how they were going to do it because of site plan. But anyway, so they did build part to the seawall, but it’s not going to go through there. So now we’re back to the drawing board with restoration now and Zuri L’s crew and, but ultimately you renovated that building instead of starting from scratch, he took what was there, we took what we and had made it up and we added on and an amazing medical facility.Yeah. and really, really the, the people that knew that building anyway, it was actually better like for that. So like have this place that was very sentimental to them before the storm and they, they still happen. Yeah. And while it looks different, yeah. Oh yeah. We put in like led lights and built a basketball court. It was so much fun. We go play basketball at like two in the morning over there and I suck. I actually broke the window of the medical clinic trying to do a half court shot and which I’m famous for. But that I don’t play basketball at all. No, but I will, you wouldn’t, that place comes alive after midnight. So we would go out late with friends and we’d stopped by and knock on the gates and the guard would come out and flip all the lights on.

Josh:  He played basketball with us. Awesome. Scott Lowe got to do it was so much fun. Yeah. But I did, I broke the window I had to buy. Wow. Okay. Last sounds about right. Yeah. So I don’t even know how we got off on that, but [inaudible] one thing I was thinking about though with like this local tie in, you and I were talking about this earlier I was reminded of my first trip to Central African Republic. I was, I was I was supposed to have lunch the other day with Roland Tremble who, who works for con l and m instead of having lunch, we went out and we picked wild asparagus and cause he knows where it is, drive and all these roads. I won’t say where, where it is because he told me, I think that you’ve wanted to blind pulled me. So I would never go back.

Josh: Find his staff is but being with him remind me, I was like, I was in Central African Republic in 2000 well yeah, I think, well, and I was working on a water project and side thing happened with this massive, or we had a generator that wouldn’t work in the the director and this guy looks like Indiana Jones name. Jim hocking with water for good. He says, Hey, do anything about generators? And I said, well yeah, I used to have generators that are lodged, , and he says, well, why don’t, why don’t you help me figure this out? Well, what it ended up being was,,I got dropped off and he wasn’t there. He ended up showing up later. But this generator was not what I was used to. Like I’m used to one, you can wheel around. This was like a semitrailer and it was four.

Josh: Well,drilling equipment. He’s like, this thing has to be out on a job site and a couple of days near the camera and border and we’ve got to get this thing going. And it was an Ingersoll rand brand of generator. So I started looking at it like, what? I think I might know a guy that my asparagus picking buddy, while we didn’t pick asparagus pack and Fort Collins, he phoned him back and Fort Collins and I had a phone, a friend, I had a phone, a friend as multiple choice and I failed on that. And then,,and true or false. So I said, and I had a flip phone, , I’m way behind the time. And so [inaudible] no, there was no phone service. So we had a satellite phone. And so I call Roland Tremble at Cornell, any answers and, and he, and so he links me up. He patches me through via his phone service. Anyway, we figured out how to eliminate the turbo. That was the problem. I ended up bringing the turbo home in a box and getting it repaired and getting sent back somehow. I don’t even remember. But like this, that kind of stuff like haunts me and reminds me of like

Josh: This, all these problems in the world, we can’t fix them all. Hell, no, he can’t. But we can try and we can use our small circles. I don’t care if you’re in Fort Collins or it is better here, but Oren Terre Haute, Indiana, I don’t care where you are. There’s resources that pipe into your own community and Bungie Central African Republic like and for people that don’t know Cottonelle resources, like one of the biggest psych civil engineering companies and for Collins and northern Colorado like yeah. Infrastructure for neighborhoods and like road projects all over and they’re the ones that hook me up with Loveland ready-mix for free. Concrete on this wheelchair ramp for it. Yeah. And that they do so much at all. This thing about like you had restoration now is like those kinds of calls like Josh’s over in car and he calls like condo resources in Fort Collins and they’re like, yeah, we got you covered.

Josh: We’ll hook you up. And connecting those people that way is, it’s a beautiful thing and they, and they love that. They love to be able to be a part of that. , The guy’s like, where are you at Roland Center? And Roland says, you’re an Argentine. I was like, no, I’m in Africa. He’s like, where central off at worst central Africa Republic. I was like, it’s in central Africa. And there was a attempted coup last night and he’s like, oh my gosh, you got to get out of there. I was like, yeah, but I got to fix this generator first cause we got to bring yourself out on help me out. So yeah, we, he told us how to strip the thing down and it was gosh, like that’s the kind of stuff that says, , there’s a time and a place to live in different places in the world.

Josh: There’s also a time to hunker down in a land of plenty and not just money, but people that give a crap and, and given them opportunities a lot opportunities. There’s a lot of NGOs, there’s a lot of nonprofits to give your money to and do it. Just do it. I don’t care if it’s us or somebody else, we’d love it. But like, there’s a lot of cool people doing cool stuff to help people all over, ?

Ryan: And, well that’s absolutely true. I mean, so tell people like how if they, , are interested in what you guys are doing. Like give me your cell phone nber or something.

Josh: Sure. Yeah. (970) 413-2272. You can check us out at restorationnow.org. You can also come to ascent climbing studio June 22nd from noon to five and we are having an event there and you can meet some real live Hondurans love to say that and, and their families and they are kicking ass and making a huge difference and see what to pack a and the neighboring villages bringing hope through clean water and sanitation and, and they are they want to build a climbing wall at their urban site.

Ryan:   It’s amazing. And ascent climbing gym in Fort Collins is building the wall where it’s going to be all you.

Josh:  It literally, if you come We are bringing a different type of hope that these kids, I mean these kids want to climb but they don’t have money for memberships. Like I have. I don’t really have it either, but I do it my kids cause they’d love it, connect with them. But date day, like there’s rules around it. Like you do 30 minutes of homework and you can climb for 30 minutes. Launch, Skate Park here in town. Awesome. This is a scent in Fort Collins. Are you talking about the climbing wall is the one a Comunidad a climbing wall in Honduras one and we’re getting Fort Collins and Honduras mixed up. Well you should because it’s all the same. So if, if these kids want to climb in Honduras at this wall, they have to do some homework and then it’s going to let them get exposed to the rest of the, yeah.

Josh:  And we’re doing like a maker space there where kids can learn how to weld and do carpentry work and get them trained vocationally. So it goes back to reducing the vulnerability, reducing the need to get on the caravan and try and leave. It’s an amazing land. It’s amazing people. There’s amazing opportunities. And if we can build into these lives that are trying to change lives, not us changing the lives, but we’re helping PK and Edgar who are doing amazing work down there with their families and giving them the resources they need. And it starts with basic things like a client giving them ropes, harnesses, pulled plywood for the walls, all stuff that we pay for here by our membership. So they don’t have that. Yeah. And then they’re going to get kids in there and then they’re going to do their homework. They’re going to graduate from sixth grade.

Josh:  They’re going to not potentially, hopefully not join a gang and all the drug violence and, and, and exploitation that happens at that. Yeah. So you can meet Kikay and Edgar at June 22nd, 22nd, there’s going to be beer. Awesome food s climbing set on timberline ride by the police station there. Yeah. Let’s not get, we know, don’t drink too much, but it’s a, yeah. So we’re donation base. All the money proceeds are going to go to gear that these guys need. Climbing Wall. They’re building. What’s that directly to the climbing. Climbing Wall. Yep. None of us go into restoration now. None of it all going to these guys. Cool. And this just a way for us as an organization to bring awareness to what they’re trying to do and change. Kids live can give them a different note. Yeah. Oh Man. And then restoration now.org.org called Josh Thrive.

Ryan: Thanks for listening everybody. Super Cool. Dude, We just did a podcast. Look at us, can’t believe it. Love it. Thanks for having me. Yeah man. Gosh, we’ll do it again next week. Right? Let’s do that. Let’s keep tackling. We’ve got some stuff in Nepal we need to get after we’d got a lock in funds or both places. The rural one, we need like 45 grand and we’re bits going to be, , a couple year project. But they have, , a lot of needs and they’re not trying to do it all at once. They want to do it slowly and build into that community there. So that’s awesome. Yeah. If you guys want to, one of the most efficient operations I’ve ever seen as far as nonprofits go is just super impressive. What, what you guys do.

Josh: And we didn’t even talk about this, but there’s my mountain bike here, we’re building a mountain bike tour company out at the urban site and seawater that’ll help reign and economy there.  Teach kids how to tune bikes. They’ll go through the villages that we’re trying to bring clean water to bad net sanitation issues. And I’m, we’re looking for people that will come down like three, four day track village to village. Wow. And so our first one’s going to be late September, early October. So Mountain biking community here, , just get after it.

Ryan: Sweet have a good ride home brother.

Josh: Thanks man. Hey Dude, you keep slinging deals here in Fort Collins and we’ll try, we’ll keep keep on keeping on. Thanks to Grey Rock realty for their ongoing, for years support financially.

Ryan: Glad to do it. Love to see what you guys are doing there.

Josh:  If you’re looking for house by one from Grey Rock reality.

Ryan: Yeah, you can buy a house from us. All right buddy. Well, we’ll sign off. We’ll have another drink and thanks everybody for listening. Thank you. See you soon.