Janice Risch MSSP Ep. 30

Michael Schweisheimer: [00:00:00] You good? All right.

Here we go. Three,

two, one. It's time for the Mission Story Slam podcast, brought to you by PWP Video. I'm Michael Schweissheimer. I'm the executive producer at PWP Video, Mission Story Slam, and I am on too many boards, including being the chair of Be Local Philadelphia for the last year and a half, which you can ask me about at the next slam on Tuesday evening, December 3rd, when we'll be back at National Mechanics.

Since that's the Tuesday right after Thanksgiving, we have decided to go with the theme of It's a Family Affair. We still don't have an official sponsor for our 11th edition, so if that sounds exciting to you, please reach out to me, or you can email info at pwpvideo. com. Here's another interesting fact, today's guest is the Executive Director of the Mount Airy Business Improvement District, usually referred to as a BID, and guess who is [00:01:00] on that That's right, this guy who just told you he's on too many boards.

But today's episode is about Janice Risch, and Janice has been a longtime Slam attendee and supporter. I've been trying to convince her to tell a story for a long time, because she is a great storyteller. She suggested a theme for Mission Story Slam 10 of Messengers, and I completely messed with her when I changed it.

But Janice overcame, and she won the coveted judge's award. So I have two warnings as we embark on today's discussion. First, Janice has one of the driest senses of humor I have ever encountered. But she is consistently funny if you're listening for it. And secondly, we are definitely going to be talking a bit about grief and loss today.

So if that is a really raw topic for you right now, just be warned. I will say Janice has shown amazing resilience in the face of tremendous loss in the years that I've known her. And I think her ability to see the world from a slightly different perspective and with the humor I mentioned [00:02:00] is really what has me so excited to talk to her today.

So Janice, welcome to the mission story slam podcast. Hi,

Janice Risch: Michael.

Michael Schweisheimer: I know you were definitely hesitant for a long time to tell a story. I am curious, when Dave Winston announced your name at the end of the night as a winner, what did you think?

Janice Risch: I thought it was pretty crazy, and I was happy. I thought about it for a long time before I threw my ring in the hat, so that was really a nice validation.

Michael Schweisheimer: It was very well earned, and I definitely want to ask you some questions about how you thought about your story and prepared it, but why don't we start out by listening to your judge's favorite story?

Janice Risch: Okay. My story begins in 2003, 15 years into my relationship with my partner Pam. That's when she began campaigning for a dog.

And she'd say, Oh, Jen, let's get a dog. And then I would say, okay, but I would do very little to help advance the project, if you know what I mean. Then one day I came home from work. It was late. It [00:03:00] was winter. It was dark. It was cold. And then I went up the steps to my house. There was a very large animal standing between me and the front door.

I ran back to the car. I called Pam and I said, Pam, I can't get in the house. There's a dog on the porch. Well, the only thing she heard was. There's a dog on the porch. She got very excited, thinking I had brought her home a dog. As if you could do that, just come home one day with a dog. Well, I had startled the dog, and when she left my porch, that's when I could see how emaciated she was.

So I went in the house, and I got some cat kibble, and Pam found a rope to make a leash. And I went back out, looking for the dog shaking the kibble. Well, she came out from behind some bushes. I was scared of her. She was a boxer. She had an enormous mouth. I put the food down, I backed away, she came forward, she ate it, and then she went back behind the bushes.

So I went back in the house, I got more kibble, I put it out, this time when she came from the bushes, I stood my ground, I put [00:04:00] the leash around her neck, but she wouldn't walk with me. I went back in the house a third time to get more kibble. This time, Pam put me on the phone with a friend of hers whose nickname was Woofie because of all the dogs that he rescued and he yelled into the phone, If she won't walk with you, you've got to show tough love and pick her up and carry her.

So I went back out. I did what he told me, even emaciated. She was 45 pounds, so I couldn't walk very far with her. But that was okay. By the time I put her down, she was more than willing to walk with me. And we went in the house, we saw that Pam had made for her a beautiful bed out of a sleeping bag. Don't worry, we did all the things you're supposed to do when you find a lost dog to see if anyone's looking for her.

And they weren't. And when she was ours to keep, we named her Amazing Grace. And we adored her. And she was very attached to us. And we loved being a dog family. So you can imagine how devastated we were when a few years [00:05:00] later, we learned she had cancer. And Pam and I were fretting about this and talking to everybody we knew about it.

And then I was walking Gracie one night and a very unfamiliar car drove down my little one way side street in Mount Airy. It was a Cadillac. You don't see them very often in Mount Airy. And then the driver rolled down the window and he said, Young lady, that's a very beautiful dog you have. And then he said, I've had many boxers in my life and they're very prone to mast cell tumors.

So now I'm walking up to the car window and I'm like, yes, we just learned that she had one and we're so worried. And he said, don't worry, she'll let you know what she needs. And then he rolled up the window and he drove off. And I felt like maybe I had been visited by an angel from the set of that corny TV show.

I don't know. Touched by an angel. I suddenly felt calm. [00:06:00] He hadn't told me what to do. He simply assured me that I would know what to do. Well then, many, many years later, Pam got cancer. And she did all the things that you do. She went through chemo. She went through radiation. She took medications. And then the day came when she and her doctors and I realized she'd run out of options.

where And as I was getting ready to take her home from the hospital for hospice, I was extraordinarily worried about how I was going to help her take care of her diabetes. She was insulin dependent diabetic. And I even asked to meet with the doctor, and he said, you know Janice, Pam is already always taking care of her diabetes, and I think you can leave that to her.

Well, he really hadn't told me what I wanted to hear, but in that moment, what I heard was, don't worry, she will let you know what she needs, and [00:07:00] you will know what to do. And I think she did, and I hope that I did know. Well, the reason I was thinking of all this was because I was reading in a book, of course, where else do you read, that the Hebrew word for angel is malach, which means messenger, messenger.

One who is sent from the Most High. And this rabbi, Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, was suggesting that these messengers among us are probably not even aware of the role that they're playing. They may, in fact, be very preoccupied with their own worries and concerns or why they're lost in Mount Airy. And then he says, it's not known how many times in each of our lives we are called on to be messengers.

But he believes that for each of us, it's at least once. Thank you for listening.

Michael Schweisheimer: I just love that story, Janice. It is 100 percent you from the dry and I think [00:08:00] hysterical jokes to just leaning into sharing something as dramatic as the loss of your wife. Thank you,

Janice Risch: Michael.

Michael Schweisheimer: Now, I'm so glad you came and finally told that story.

So listen, I think Chris Attullo asked you this on stage. Um, but one of the few things I believe you missed or dropped in your story was, do you mind sharing exactly how Gracie's story ended?

Janice Risch: Well, I don't know that I planned in the story to say how she ended, just to say that when her time came, she did let us know.

what she needed and we knew what to do. It's funny that I forgot that line because that was really meant to be my through line through the whole story, which is just the challenges of being with a creature or a person as they're dying, feeling totally unprepared. for it and yet having to be there and and rise to the occasion.

She lived for three years more and when we knew her time was coming we [00:09:00] took her out for soft ice cream and had a great time.

Michael Schweisheimer: I, I think skipping that one line did not Impact the story to be honest with you. I think that theme came through. Matter of fact, you really, you did a great job of like weaving together a number of motifs, which is something that I'm curious.

Did you write your whole story out in advance? Like word for word? Like how did you You

Janice Risch: bet I did. I wrote it big and then I kept cutting and cutting. I was really intent on making the five minute deadline and had a sense of how many words I could tell to meet five minutes and really wanted to stick to that.

And I think I'm a more long winded writer than the way you want to talk, but I would actually tell my story out loud quite a bit while I was walking my dog in the neighborhood, my current dog. Oh, nice. Yes. So I would walk around the block talking out loud, looking a little demented. Probably. Yeah,

Michael Schweisheimer: [00:10:00] it's a, it sounds very monetary to me.

I don't know. Uh, I know Dave Winston, when he's going to get ready for a story, he does a lot of saying it out loud. I think he does a lot in traffic, which I can't do because I'm too busy swearing at other people in traffic.

Janice Risch: Well, that's probably a good idea then to stay focused.

Michael Schweisheimer: Through your practice, through your writing process, did it come out the way that you, not just the way that you wanted to, but the way you expected it to?

Janice Risch: Ah, well, part of my kind of editing process along the way was to be able to tell the story without crying. And so I, so there were things I had to think about how to say that I thought wouldn't trigger my own tears. And in fact, while I was telling the story, there was a moment where I felt myself tearing up and I was like, uh, oh, uh, oh, I didn't think this was going [00:11:00] to happen.

So yeah, that would, that was a little bit of a surprise. I thought that I was going to have that completely under control.

Michael Schweisheimer: Um, I don't think that from a story audience perspective, I don't, I think that works for you, not against you. It helps let us know that that story is immediate and as personal as it sounds to me.

Janice Risch: Well, that may be the case, but I didn't want to have a breakdown.

Speaker: No, I do not blame you for not wanting to have a breakdown while telling your story in front of an audience. So,

Janice Risch: right.

Speaker: Um,

Janice Risch: and I don't think people really want to see that. So

Michael Schweisheimer: in The work that I do helping people tell their stories for videos, and I think we do this at Mission StorySlam, having a safe space is really important because talking about something that is emotional, close to you, or it can be very raw, can be very powerful.

Sometimes clients will be like, Oh, we want everyone in the audience to cry. Maybe the people on [00:12:00] camera should cry. And I feel with stories, an audience is going to meet you where the emotion is. Having someone crying on camera or crying on stage isn't necessarily something that makes an audience want to cry.

It actually makes us, like, feel bad or want to reach out and help someone to stop the tears. Not necessarily, like, make a donation or do something they're asking us to do, but just to, like, make the pain stop. But that moment before crying? That's a powerful moment.

Janice Risch: Yeah, and I've seen a bunch of your videos, Michael, and that's now that you mention it, I have really seen you go very deep with a lot of people, whether it was people I knew very well, like Yvonne, or some of your big videos, like, I think it was Habitat for Humanity, I think that I saw, where you did a lot of interviews, so, yes, that makes sense to me that you would actually have a lot of experience.

experience observing and making a safe space for that moment [00:13:00]

to bring this back to you and your story. I'm really glad that you felt that mission story slam would be a safe space for you to come and share something that is so risky. That is so raw for you. I do love. The motifs and clearly were you thinking about motifs as you were going to them?

Did you start with those in mind or did they come to you as you were writing it out the presence of angels that we could? Be angels that will know what needs to happen that you know finding great Love having great loss all of these things seem to repeat it was interesting because you brought in the comment from the rabbi Talking about how we might be called to be messengers.

We don't know how many times in our lives. Like, so you really, like all of these things seem to wind back upon each other.

Hmm. I was sitting in a synagogue going to bat mitzvah when I was reading that in a prayer book. And if you've ever seen a Jewish prayer book, it's. It's got a lot of sidebars. It's really good for people [00:14:00] of ADD because you can wander.

There's like 16 different things on a page to read. That was one of the stories. And as I remember it, that story got me thinking about the man and woman in the big Cadillac and how I always laughingly thought of them about, you know, as angels. And then that got me thinking about how there are people at these moments in our life.

who deliver something to us that's transformational and might be as profound as that. But, you know, at the time that I was going through that story, my mother was unbeknownst to me, dying. She was going through a lot of health crises that ended with her death earlier this month. A lot of the beauty that I encountered came in random people, like this sweetheart of a man who [00:15:00] worked at the garage, who just would give me this nicest smile when I would leave, and I saw him almost every day, and would sometimes help me reach the thing, you know, you're in your car and you're trying to, scan it and whatever, and my arm's short.

And if you're not close enough, just those would be very small, sweet moments that transformed the energy for me. And I was thinking of that as those messengers who show up in our life along the way.

Speaker: Mission story, same, the whole community, like some of the ideas that we have a bunch of people trying to make the world a little better, be corpse, nonprofit people, activists, et cetera.

And there's a lot of talk in our community about things like be the change you want to see, or lots of stuff about. Demonstrating the things that we want to see. And there's something about the way that your story works, or even the story of the gentlemen in the garage, obviously, this is something about the way that person presents themselves to the world that instead of like [00:16:00] mailing, man, you can't figure it out, which is by the way, that's always the parking attendant I seem to get, but you got the nice one.

It's a neat thing about your story to. allow small acts that maybe aren't being done with any intention of being larger impact, that they can have larger impact.

Janice Risch: They certainly do for me. That's, that's all I can say. Those small human interactions do a lot to pick me up when I'm down.

Speaker: They do a lot to pick me up when I'm up.

Janice Risch: Yeah, that too. Well, then you're just, then you're just crazy happy. I have those days. I love

Speaker: those days. I did meet you early enough that I was able to meet Pam like once or twice. The time I remember meeting her was along with a lot of our bid friends, including Yvonne Haskins, because we were all at Trolley Car Park doing a lot of planting along the avenue.

Janice Risch: Right. Well, Pam saved me and she saved the bid [00:17:00] when we were trying to figure out what flowers to do in the hanging basket. And you guys never asked me in my interview if I knew how to keep plants alive, because the answer would have been, no, I do not need to. My wife is a landscape architect. So. I think I was working for the bid a couple months when I realized that the existing hanging basket program was not a success and that since I, as you know, like to plan for catastrophe, started fretting about it and asking Pam for her advice.

And she was the one who recommended that we put those really hardy ivy geraniums in the hanging baskets that she was using over the bullpen. At the Philly's ballpark,

Michael Schweisheimer: you've alluded to something, but maybe we should [00:18:00] share what Pam's job was.

Janice Risch: Well, she had a really cool job. She was hired by the Phillies to be a project manager and oversaw the construction of citizens bank park.

So she was there every step of the way. And since her degree was in landscape architecture from the university of Pennsylvania, once the Phillies built this 100 acre park. She parlayed that into the position is the director of landscaping.

Speaker: So I actually was lucky enough to get to go to a Philly's game on Sunday with our board chair, Ken, and a couple other friends.

And we were sitting there looking out to center field. I remember you're describing that Pam was in charge of everything that grew at citizens bank park. That wasn't.

Janice Risch: So she did not maintain the turf. That's someone else, that's its own specialty, turf management. But everything else that grew [00:19:00] was under her domain.

Michael Schweisheimer: So I was wondering if that straightaway center, if those plants that are back there, if that was a design from Pamela. I think

Janice Risch: you're talking about the batter's eye wall. Yes, that was hers.

Michael Schweisheimer: I'm not a baseball expert. So batter's eye wall.

Janice Risch: Yeah, it's called the batter's eye wall because it's what the batter sees and you want a contrasting color.

So that when the white baseball is coming at them at 90 miles per hour, there's this dark contrast behind so they can see it.

Michael Schweisheimer: I will say if it were not for Pam's advice, I don't think we would have flowers up and down Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy. And I think at this point, are other bids now coming to you for advice on planting?

Janice Risch: Maniunk bid has, yes.

Speaker: There

Janice Risch: you go. And Gwen was really funny because she said, Oh, don't worry, I'll do a different color so we won't look like we're copying you. And I said, Oh Gwen, I would be honored if you did Acapulco pink. That's Pam's pink at the Phillies ballpark. You're free to go ahead and use the same colors.[00:20:00]

Michael Schweisheimer: Oh, that's cool. Do the Phillies still keep that, uh, Acapulco pink going on in their landscaping? Do you know?

Janice Risch: They do, but I read in the paper, in fact, even the New York Times covered it, that they've done something to add advertising space that's covering up The flowers and yeah, and it made the New York Times.

The New York Times sports writer wrote like, what happened to the flowers at Citizens Bank Park? They're there. They're planted. They're just obscured a little bit.

Michael Schweisheimer: Kudos to the New York Times writer for paying attention to the fillies. I guess they probably grew up down here. That's going to be my guess.

Janice Risch: Maybe. Yeah.

Speaker: I really am interested to know if once your story was told, or while you were telling your story, like, did you feel you were receiving anything from the audience or that in terms of their energy, or did it feel like any sort of milestone in your own grieving process to share your story in such a public way?

Janice Risch: Uh, I don't know about that, [00:21:00] Michael, because, you know, so remember my mother just died Ju July 2nd, so I'm Sort of back in a lot of the same place I was in 2020, but I also feel like at our age, this is a lot of the terrain. 63, much more of our life is going to be these moments of loss. So, if there's a different relationship to grief, it's maybe just, uh, a recognition that probably going to be ongoing from here on in.

So, and, and I think it's fun to laugh and joke about it. I was joking with my older brother about his death the other day while cleaning out my mother's closet. I found my father's World War II army uniform. And I was trying to think, what am I going to do with that? And maybe I'll donate it [00:22:00] to quintessence theater for their costume department.

And then my brother said, Oh no, I think I want it. He's 10 years older than me. And I said, what are you going to do with it? He said, I'll probably keep it in my closet. And like mom did, I was like, great. So a couple of decades from now, when I'm cleaning up after your life, I'm going to have to encounter this uniform again, and I hope I remember this great idea to donate it to a theater group.

So I think it's. I think it's good to be able to acknowledge it, laugh about it, and cry when you need to.

Speaker: We'll be right back with more of the Mission Story Slam podcast.

Dave Winston: Hi, I'm Dave Winston, and I've been a storyteller all my life. Glossophobia. The fear of public speaking. They say it affects as many as 70 percent of people and is often listed in the top 10 most common fears.

Now I suspect, and I say this with absolutely no proof or [00:23:00] scientific data to back it up, I suspect that most people say they have a fear of public speaking like most people say they're allergic to bees. Most people aren't really allergic to bees, they just don't want to be stung. I mean, who does, right?

If I don't absolutely have to do something that's going to get me stung, I'm not going to do it. Just like public speaking. If you don't have to do it, why do it? Well, it can be fun. Listen, if you have a true phobia of something, then your reaction is involuntary and there's nothing I can do to help you.

But if it's not, if it's just a fear Well, maybe I can. In college, as part of my work study job, I was assigned to a program to help students overcome public speaking apprehension. I was fortunate to work with Dr. Arlie Mueller Parks, who did great work on developing techniques to deal with communication apprehension.

[00:24:00] If it is a serious problem for you, there is help out there beyond what I can share in this short presentation, but let me say that most frequently it boils down to two things that you can bring into your control. The first is be prepared. Know your topic well enough that you can speak off the cuff about it without a script.

Don't prepare to be word perfect in your presentation. The first time you fall off script that will increase your anxiety, which will increase your mistakes, which will increase your anxiety, and so on and so on. Know your topic well enough so that even if you deviate from the organization of your presentation, you can continue with just the facts.

The second thing is relax. And that's serious. I'm not telling you to worry less. I'm telling you to take active steps to reduce the anxiety in your body. One great way [00:25:00] is to practice relaxation exercises. My favorite is called progressive muscle relaxation. It asks you to sit or lie quietly, focus on your breathing, and then individually focus on each muscle group starting with your feet and moving up your body.

But there are many ways to do this. They all generally require you to sit in a quiet place, close your eyes. Slowly take control of your thoughts and breathing, thus reducing your stress level. Find the one that works and use it. Now the real secret is to practice it regularly. Use it to get to sleep at night when your brain won't stop thinking.

Use it when your workload builds up. Use it regularly. And you will begin to find that you no longer need the full ritual of closing your eyes and counting or focusing on body parts or whatever the relaxation ritual is. You will find that your body will react automatically and can go from anxious to relaxed.

[00:26:00] in a few short steps. But like anything, this requires practice to get good at it. I will tell you that a number of years ago I was ill, and it required a few medical procedures that were painful and quite worrisome. And I was able to use this relaxation technique to go from panicked to peaceful. To go from an out of control state of mind to a state of mind that allowed me to remain in control of my behavior and to think clearly under stress of the moment.

Relaxation techniques were critical to getting me through what was easily The most stressful time of my life. Now, I want you to remember that at Mission StorySlam, you're surrounded by friends. We seek to create a supportive environment where people feel comfortable sharing what can be painful and embarrassing events in their lives.

At Mission StorySlam, there are no hecklers here. We're pulling [00:27:00] for you, and that should go a long way to reducing your stress level.

Speaker: We're back with more of the Mission Story Slam podcast. Let's see if we can take maybe, uh, five minutes to talk about something that doesn't necessarily involve death, or we can bring death up as much as we want, shall we?

All right, go for it. All right. So you are, I believe, one of the more dedicated quote missionaries, aka member of our Mission Story Slam community. So do you have any idea at this point of how many slams that you've attended?

Janice Risch: I feel like maybe five, not counting the Zoom ones.

Speaker: I count the Zoom, those can count.

Janice Risch: And then I also went to the one that you didn't organize, but you helped film.

Speaker: This is My Brave.

Janice Risch: This is My Brave. Yeah.

Speaker: That one was really cool. Right. Um, storytelling, trying to break stigma around mental health issues. It was really cool.

Janice Risch: It was great.

Speaker: And do you actually, are you the one who's actually listening to the podcast?

Is that you? Yeah. [00:28:00] Yeah. Yeah. So I've known you since you started at The Bid, which I think is, that's about seven years, right?

Janice Risch: I don't think it's that long, but, uh, maybe it is. I don't know.

Speaker: It was pre pandemic and everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Janice Risch: You're right. And actually, I remember you interviewing me, Michael, and saying, where do you see yourself in five years?

And I was like, I don't know, retired, like, I don't know, living on a beach town. So.

Speaker: I'm glad you're still at the bin. I'll tell you that much. So I consider you a friend at this point, but we certainly met in that professional setting. Heck, I was interviewing you when we met. But, all of that is to try to give you a little actual credibility when I want to make sure that you're not just saying nice things for a friend when I ask you, any idea why you keep coming back to Mission Story Slam so many times?

Janice Risch: I love stories. I love to hear them, and I love to tell them. So it's really just as simple as that, yeah.

Speaker: And I know for a while now you started bringing friends to the story slams. You actually brought several [00:29:00] last time, I think.

Janice Risch: Well, yes, I brought several to support me this time. But yeah, I have a couple of friends who have a shared interest in stories.

So I always invite them to come along because it's just something, it's something I enjoy and it's something I enjoy sharing with people who also love stories. In fact, Mu was driving by my house while I was gardening and she pulled over to say hi and I told her about the upcoming story slam, asked her if she wanted to go and then said, I'm going to tell a story this time.

How about you? Are you going to tell a story? Maybe you should. And she said, okay. And then through the car window, we did a little pinky shake on it.

Speaker: Perfect. I love it. I love it.

Janice Risch: And of course I'd love for my other friend who's come to a few of them, Mary, to come because she's got that wonderful Irish kind of brogue accent.

Speaker: Well, let's see, we've got a couple of friends of the Story Slam and Adele Howland and Siobhan Lyons. Everyone knows one of the Irish women in [00:30:00] Philadelphia, and it's usually one of the two of them. So we could try for an Irish night. We'll get them on stage along with Mary.

Janice Risch: There you go. That'd be, oh, that'd be awesome.

The

Speaker: Lilton Beautiful rhythm of, uh, Irish storytelling. That would be awesome.

Janice Risch: Yeah, we could just ask them to recite poetry and it would be great.

Speaker: Whatever it takes, we'll see what we can do.

Janice Risch: Yeah.

Speaker: Last question. I am curious if in your work over the last several years, if there have been any particular books or resources or groups that you've discovered or checked out that some of our listeners who were, might be thinking about some of their own grief journeys right now might want to check out.

Anything that really helped or landed for you.

Janice Risch: I mean, yeah, Penn Hospice has a great grief support program that I still feel plugged into and it still goes on. And if you lose your loved one while they're under the care of a doctor at Penn Medicine, Penn Hospice contacts people a couple weeks later and offers some really [00:31:00] great grief resources, a grief counselor who'll come to your house.

And the kind of funny thing is, they operate by regions. So, whoever you met with, if you know anyone else, like in Northwest Philly, who's recently gone through grief, they might speak to the same person. So, Yvonne and I both met with the same grief counselor.

Speaker: Yvonne Haskins, yeah.

Janice Risch: Then they have grief support group and it's ongoing.

It's like an eight week support group, but then one of the facilitators just has a monthly check in and it seems like it's a open invitation for the rest of your life.

Speaker: Wow. That's great.

Janice Risch: So that's, it is good. Yeah. It's great. And yeah,

Speaker: any. Books or things like that have helped get you through or is it mostly been working with the the grief counseling at Penn?

Janice Risch: Uh, no, there is a book. I really like called. It's okay to not be. Okay a group that doesn't exist [00:32:00] anymore That was called writing your grief and the author of that book created it Her name was Megan Megan

Speaker: divine

Janice Risch: Megan divine I thought it was but so her books really good and I got so much out of my Grief First two visits with the grief counselor who came to the house, I didn't even feel the need to keep meeting with him other than the fact that I, you know, liked him.

Speaker: That's cool. Thank you for sharing about those and we'll make sure to mention Megan Devine in the show notes for anyone who wants to look for that. And we'll see if we can give a link to Penn Hospice. Obviously that's available for people that are in the Penn medicine system, but we'll make sure that's there.

And listen, I really enjoyed having you on the podcast. Thank you so much.

Janice Risch: I enjoyed it too, Mike. I always enjoy hanging out with you. So that was fun for me too.

Speaker: Well, that is very good news. All right, sprawling listening public, please let Janice be a role model. She is the best example [00:33:00] of a missionary that we have.

And remember, she really demonstrates what we're trying to do with the Mission Story Slam podcast and events. We're trying to build a community and community is what happens when you participate. So we'll meet you where you are. Maybe you want to reach out and share some thoughts about the podcast, suggest some themes for our slams, attend a slam, say December 3rd at National Mechanic.

Or, really importantly, you could absolutely share the work we're doing with your own community. Reach out to us, whoever you prefer that could be through our website, mission story slam. org. You can connect with us on LinkedIn, follow us on Instagram, and apparently even Twitter, still not calling it X. I would also like to shout out and throw some shade to Elon Musk for releasing the fugliest vehicle on the planet.

Anyhow, the mission story slam podcast is produced by Dave Winston. It is edited by James Robinson. The Pod is produced and brought [00:34:00] to you by pwp Video. We are video with a mission, and you can find us@pwpvideo.com. So until our next episode shall remain, Michael Schweitzer and I do look forward to sharing the next story behind the story with you soon.