Sober Dad Crew Episode 93: Scott Sherwood: Founder of Service In Unity

My guest this episode is Scott Sherwood, founder and executive director of Service In Unity, an organization dedicated to empowering individuals in recovery through meaningful opportunities for service and community connection. In this episode, Scott shares his recovery journey, the founding of Service and Unity, and innovative apps designed to support mental health and recovery. Discover how community-driven initiatives and technology are transforming recovery support and employment opportunities.

Key Topics

• Recovery journey and family impact
• The founding and mission of Service and Unity
• Community-driven employment models for recovery
• Development of supportive apps for mental health
• Addressing stigma and barriers in recovery
• Innovative solutions for low-income and unhoused populations
• Scaling and replicating recovery models across communities
• The role of technology in empowerment and independence

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Personal Updates

01:09
Scott's Recovery Journey

04:15
The Birth of Service and Unity

09:11
Hiring and Empowerment in Recovery

14:08
Building Connections and Community

17:54
Changing Narratives and Stigma

20:33
Embracing Recovery and Community Support

23:53
Innovative Solutions for Low-Income Families

28:11
Empowering Caregivers with Technology

30:32
Navigating Challenges in Social Support Systems

36:33
Expanding the Model for Broader Impact

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Sober Dad Crew is an independent, DIY production created by Stephen Kimball, who writes, records, and produces the podcast. To learn more, please visit soberdadcrew.com. Copyright 2026.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And the unity piece is I know if we act together, we can change this world. And we don't need to ask permission. We don't need to ask permission. We don't need uh government okay. We don't need we don't need anybody to say it's okay. We can just go, we can try together.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Be sure to subscribe, leave a rating, and share the podcast with folks to help spread the word. And head over to SDCpodcast.com for more information. All right, my guests. This episode is Scott Sherwood. He is the president of Service in Unity. That's a nonprofit dedicated to empowering individuals in recovery through opportunities for service and connection. Just a little update from me. Been a while since I've done an episode. My depression kind of fired back up, so I got myself back into therapy, got myself back on my antidepressants, you know, no desire to drink, which is always a good thing because it's been more than 16 years. So maybe why there's been some gaps in episodes. Also, you know, I'm just busy. I have four kids and a job and all that good stuff. And now it's lawn mowing season. So, you know, we gotta all do it. But Scott, super happy to have you here. We connected, I was it maybe two years ago in Ithaca, something. I don't know, we're getting old, time flies. So I just wanted to, you know, kick it off and you know, ask you a little bit about your recovery journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Sure. So I have been sober for I'm coming up on eight years myself. Uh and that I got sober at 42. And so is this called the sober dad crew? So I had two teenagers. I had a 10 and a 14-year-old at that time, and it was a family journey at that at that age, it becomes a family journey. And so from there, I I've also that's another reason why I like to help fathers with young kids. Um, you know, so my I practice my personal program every day very hard. It's my number one job. Every day is my recovery, and it's opened uh a world I never knew could exist. It was uh life-changing journey. I I it's I'm speechless, which is rare.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

And I know that because I know Scott. And and I think your point about the family piece is super, super important, right? I mean, like Al-Anon exists for a reason. Yep. You know, because you know, the the impacts are out there to to your kids, and I think looking back, mine were, you know, really the older two were young when I got sober because it's actually the oldest is his 23rd birthday today. Um, and then the other one's 19, and then you know, the younger two who, as I've said, are my stepkids, but they're just not, they're just my kids. You know, they only know this version of me in all its glory, uh, you know, all its striving hard to just be be a good dad and a good person, and you know, all the bumps that can come with that.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

The smartest thing I think I ever did, and I don't know if where I got it from, was so I got I got sober in meetings, and I was coming home and I told both of my kids, the family was kind of traumatized, and I told both of my kids immediately, I go, We can talk about this. You can say whatever you want, you can have whatever conversation you want about this, you can tell me anything. This is not gonna happen in a vacuum. And that's led to they became part of my recovery journey, and that was an amazing aspect of it that I was blessed with.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Yeah, and now, right, if I'm mathing it right, they're adults. 18 and 21. Isn't it crazy to have been a parent for more than two decades? Yeah. But and how fast did that go? Like so fast. And my oldest lives 16 hours away. So yeah, we're all we're all still local, which is nice, but 16 is that's like far.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah, that's where I was the first week of June. She lives in Iowa. The b the cool thing though is she actually works for Service and Unity, so I still see her often.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Right on. And that is a good segue because that's really kind of how we intersected. Was I think it was when you were just kicking off Service in Unity.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah, we were doing our pilot project in 2024. We were just trying to figure out how to get feet underneath this thing and get it working.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Was my employer, were we one of the first ones? You were. We love, love, love working with you guys, I will say. Um, it was important to me when I learned about you to like, you know, find some way to intersect with that. So, like, let's do that origin story. Like, how did that come out of? And, you know, really dig in so people understand really, it's just so cool what you do.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah. So the other part of my story is my wife's journey. So my wife is severely bipolar. And like, like alcoholism, it's a progressive illness that if it doesn't get treated, it keeps getting worse. And we didn't know, right? We didn't know. And and like, and people think that's insane. How do you not know? It's it's like alcoholism. The family um becomes familiar with it, and they normalize that. And so in 2021, the symptoms just became so catastrophic that I ended up needing to leave my career and become a caregiver. And I saw this same, I saw the similarity between alcoholism and substance use recovery and mental health recovery. And I saw I started getting involved with that side. I've had board positions on both sides of that spectrum, and I really started seeing I saw people struggling, and I saw people, especially on the mental health side, where they were risking their life just to get out of the house to find some value. And people don't really understand that. It's like that that that drive for value where you're part of something bigger than yourself, is such an part of recovery. And we have it set up in our world right now that if you're really bad and you get SSDI, so you get some sort of disability payment, you don't have to work. The world kind of goes, you're set, and they will, and they, you know, but then you're still stuck on the couch. And so I saw this opportunity of how do you do how do you how does a person get out of the house, not risk their recovery? Whether mental health or work or because it's how do you do that? Like, because you're not gonna start working 20 hours or 40 hours, it it it it it's just not happening. And so I developed service and unity. Actually, I don't know if I developed it, I got hit with this giant idea for service and unity in October of 2021, and it just hit me. And I'm like, the my first reaction was no, that's so much work. And I just was like, you know, because at that time I was doing I had a corporate life, you know, I was uh facilities and IT director, and and I was busy in that world, but my wife's mental illness led me to leave that career, and so then I started developing service in unity while being a full-time caregiver. And so we I saw what this could do, and the first thing I did was at that time it was the Alcohol and Drug Council. I went to a couple people that work with them, and I and I started having sanity checks with these people, and I go, Hey, I have this idea. What do you think? And every every group I talked to said, Oh my goodness, we need this because there's all these people falling through the gaps. And we started. We started with no resources, no funders, no nothing. We I what tends to get me in trouble is when I have an idea or something I want I can help somebody, I go, I can try, right? I can try. And that leads to starting an entire organization and mission statements, and and here we are today. And we've helped 24 people now. We've had 70 recommendations. It's it's we're becoming known. I love it when we first talked, it was this new idea, and now more and more people know about us. And I love that you know a person that works with us because he's an amazing person. And uh trying to think what else. So that's that's where we started from was just an idea. We're called service and unity because of the basic recovery, is the idea of being of service is such a huge part of my recovery and a lot of people's recovery. And the unity piece is I know if we act together, we can change this world. You know, amend to that. Right. We need more of that. And we don't need to ask permission. We don't need to ask permission, we don't need uh uh government okay. We don't need we don't need anybody to say it's okay. We can just go, we can try together. And that's I think that's sometimes missing. I think there's a lot of people that are waiting for permission or approval, or and we just started.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah, you kind of just put the pedal down and and did it. Um, what's the filter for people to get in or the process?

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Sure. So there's this age-old question of how do you hire somebody in recovery safely? Like that's always been the nut to crack. And so I used my corporate thinking. So when you're in a corporate setting, what do you do? You act you let the experts be the experts, right? And that's just and so what I did was I go, okay, so let's benefit every treatment provide provider in the county. How can we how can we bring this the human service side of recovery into this? And so now I have a we call them staffing partners, and so that's essentially every mental health recovery, re-entry provider in town. I make a connection, I go in, I do a staff meeting, I show them our model, I go, then I always follow up, tell me how to make this better. Right? So it becomes community developed. And so now when your therapist or your recovery case manager or Tompkins Community Action, your housing person, you're you're starting to go, I'm interested in work. And they are then they make the decision whether you're ready for work or not. So a professional makes that decision, and then they go, you know what, you should go talk to Scott. He's a really good guy, right? And that's to me, that's the best warm handoff. When you're when your trust and recovery person goes, you can go trust him, like there's not, and I take that beyond serious. Like, that's to me, that's the one of the most humbling facts in my world is people trust me to do that. And then what happens is we start. My goal is to be the lowest barrier employer in town. Right? So if you if you have that mentality, so how do you have your interview? You meet at a coffee shop, you sit across a table and you have a conversation, you meet these people where they are, and you and I actually go. My thing is I'll meet you anywhere. If you if you're more comfortable meeting, maybe at we're at pros or your or cars or wherever it is, I'll meet you there. I I I will go to where you are. And from there, we we have a good conversation. We are all about empowering. Empowerment is number one thing because too many it's missing for so many recovery journeys. It's missing. They feel trapped and they feel like they have to do this and they have to do that. And so we empower people. And throughout all of it, so when you're talking to me about like what we're doing, and I'm like, well, we're doing this, you know, we're hiring people, it's on small scale of ours. The thing is, is you always get a choice. Do you want to keep moving forward? Right? We I ask. We don't you don't have to, right? And that leads into they fill out their application and they're ready to work. We directly hire everybody. So we I provide paychecks, it's not stipended in any way. And again, we empower our people because I go, I go, hey, I have this opportunity for you. It's a couple hours a week and it's doing it's doing cleanup at this day care center or bank or whatever, and they're just looking for some help. Are you interested in this? And again, they're empowered, they can say no. That's such a rare thing in early recovery, is when somebody gives you an opportunity and you can say no. And so what I if they say no, I go, okay, no problem. Right? And then they get the next opportunity, they don't go to the bottom of the list. And then the same thing for pay. I go, well, it's paying this much. And then I go, if it's not, if that's not what you want, then I get to guess that, okay, no problem. Granted, it's really rare that people don't take that opportunity, but what happens is so you said you have a person working for you. That person shows up knowing I chose to be here, I chose the pay rate I'm having. I and so instead of being trapped in employment, they're empowered by this opportunity, and you get a completely different person showing up. And it's I didn't understand how powerful that was going to be until I saw the reaction from people. So that I mean, so if you think about it now, in that one fell swoop, now when somebody wants to start working with us, they come to us from some sort of treatment provider, so we benefit them. We help a person in some sort of form of recovery uh through small opportunity and they're supported every single step of the way. Anybody that works for me can call me anytime, and I'm going to be there for them. And then we also help an organization locally, right? It's it's we say win-win-win. And I truly believe if I help any one of those, we help the community at large.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yeah, just for people who aren't in the Ithaca area, cars, which Scott referenced is CUGA area recovery services. So it's a recovery thing in Ithaca. Yeah, there's a lot, there's so much that's cool about this. So we at my employee are on our second service in Unity person. So for us, it's also awesome because like Scott's just keeping us hooked up with this sort of stuff that falls through the cracks in the in the office. And you know, recently he worked super hard for us, and we had this great, we like grabbed Franco slices, you know, and a whole bunch of us sat down for I don't know if he said this to you, sat down, we all had lunch together, and I was like, oh, like we used to live in the same town, and you know, it's I loved that sort of moment of connection, and I was proud of everyone at my employer. Like, yeah, there's no judgment on any of this, like it was like, I mean, good on all of us, but it's just it's so cool because also they are building a resume, right? They're not just grabbing this sort of job, that sort of job. You can be a reference when they right. The idea is people, if if they want, can move forward into other things and they're building, they're rebuilding.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Yeah, and so we so from day one, you can we you start an employment verification. That you know, employment doesn't have to have 40 hours, and so you know that giant hole on people's resume. Like, what happened during that six months? It's the most feared question ever for somebody, right? Right, you know, but and so we we allow them to start having employment, like it's just that basic. It's it's a win. We also, you know, for the next stage, so many people I help don't understand that they should be treated well. It's it's like such a basic thing. They've never experienced a positive work environment. And so we just I treat them really well, like how like how you're supposed to. And it it's just like, and my goal is like the next job, whatever their next cycle is they know they deserve to be treated the same way. I'm not doing anything different, right? I'm I'm this is how I used to be when I hired people in the corporate world. But it it's novel for people that have been through a lot, a lot, you know. We you know, we you know, we also work with people who have been unhoused and haven't worked in six years. Yeah, you know, it's if you want to see a shame cycle, go ask somebody how long it's been since they worked, and you can see them count the years in their head, right? And so we our goal is to a simple goal is we want to change that. So when the next person asks that, they get to go yesterday. It's such a right, but that doesn't what uh struggle is that doesn't line up for grants and foundations and because they want diet metrics and this, and I go, well, that's not what we're about. We're you know, we can provide that, but our goal is to change simple narratives and change stigma, right? It it's like so you know somebody's working, somebody that works for me is working for you, but you don't know their backstory, right? It's so we just know that's why we serve people in all forms of recovery. You don't it allows them to come and they can just know that they're having a help, they just need a helping hand that day. Or if we only serve people on substance use disorder, that means every time somebody shows up, they have all the narrative, all the stigma associated with that. And so now they're just a person that needs a helping hand today.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

And that narrative, too, substance use disorder, that narrative's huge, right? I mean, my narrative is very different than it somebody else's, you know, like yeah, yeah. And the and the and my recovery process uh and tools are different and 100%.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

And then the stigma associated with it is huge. I was at uh I was watching a funding decision because they were live streaming it, which was kind of interesting, and to hear somebody uh that that holds an office and they were talking about how we have to have extensive insurance because people are in recovery. And I'm like, you know, it's the people not in recovery that are the expensive ones. And so it's like that's the odd stigma that we run into is insurance companies and that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Well, and I would guess if the person is on my site and they get hurt. I mean, I don't know, Ike, I don't know how you work on would actually work with that, but I'm I hopefully it's never an issue.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

No, it's an important issue, actually. I didn't understand. There's so much I didn't understand when I started this journey, Steven. Um, you know, I just started off with an idea and then we tackle one problem at a time until I'm sitting here. So workers comp, all of our people are covered. There's so many people that I've met that will help they're they're just being good citizens, and they're like, I'm gonna give this guy a business can go, I'm gonna give this guy a hundred bucks to mow my lawn. Right? And he's in recovery, and it's a really charitable thing to do. And I always go, and I'm like, okay, what happens if one of you get hurt? Like, one what happens if some like your property gets seriously damaged or the person gets hurt, and so what we do is we provide all the insurance so the person's protected under workers' comp. The customers are protected under our business liability. And so our goal is to reduce the risk on the organization as well. So it's like it was like one of those things because I saw people doing some crazy stuff. And I'm like, what happens if you get hurt?

SPEAKER_01 22:18

We I mean, before you guys, we used to, you know where my office is. We used to just hire, you know, I'm not gonna say the last person, I'm sure you knew who it was. Yep. And you know, that was the model that we did, and then you know, he's you know, sadly that guy passed away, and that's sort of around the time I met you. Right. And and I I just brought you in. I was like, we I went to the you know, our CFO, and I was like, hey, you guys know, you know, my story that I'm in recovery and here's this thing, and and everybody was like, that's awesome. I mean, we had no pushback, it was really great.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Your your your organization has been amazing. And it's just it's been and that's what I find. Like, at first people can be a little hesitant, but then when we're in an organization, they're blown away. Uh I strive for excellent customer service. Like it's just I I know that at the end of the day, the organizations we're helping, it's somebody's passion, and they don't want to always take a risk. And so what I I approach it as is how can I help you? You know, let's see what you're getting out of this. And then I go, oh, by the way, you're helping this person over here. And everybody wins and it keeps going.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

And I think there's a bit of like, if you can see it, you can be it, right? So so people are coming into different work environments who maybe had no idea like XYZ was even a thing. Yep. And they see it and they think, oh, like, like, how do I do that? How can I become that? And I think that that's a really because that also reduces stigma, right? To have somebody come to an office and be treated with dignity is so important.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

It's huge. We again, and this isn't our isn't normal, is we focus in on how do you feel when you leave. What's the value you're getting from that work, right? And you mentioned it having slices of pizza together. Like a lot, some of the people I help, they haven't really been people haven't been happy to see them in quite a long time, you know, especially if they've been in drug court or parole, recovery, like, you know, and they show up and it's never they're never treated great. Right? And so uh one of our first stories uh is we helped a local child care center, and they're they're they help a lot of low-income people. And I always go to the executive director, I always go, so how can I help you? What can I do to help your day? And she puts her hand on this box, and it's a crib that's been in her office for three months, and she hasn't had a no like, how do you say no? Stop chasing that toddler to put this crib together, right? And so she goes, I need this crib put together. My guy shows up, everybody's like, Oh my goodness, it's new crib day, because everybody knows this crib needs to. So everybody's like, Oh my goodness, I'm so happy to see you. And he's put and he put together a crib that day. What did you do today? I put together a crib so an infant can sleep during that time. And when he's leaving, everybody's like, Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Like, and that was two hours.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Following those instructions could have been a high stress opportunity, though. I put some of that kind of stuff together. A hundred percent. That's an act of sainthood.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah, a hundred percent. And it's it's actually we've done that a lot. We've assembled a lot of furniture, seems to be like a go-to thing for us.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Well, there you go. And because you're the kind of guy that risks being bored, you guys are starting to do like other super cool, impactful things. Then I I I definitely want to give you that opportunity to to talk about the other stuff you're doing too, because I think it's wildly important in our world right now.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Yeah, so I've always been blessed with tech, like I've always been a tech guy, like, and I've had the knack, and so I've been a essentially a low-income person my entire life, and I've always used technology as a leverage. Like it's always been my leverage to help me out. And so now under the Service In Unity platform, we are we are we've launched one and we're gonna we're in the process of launching two other apps, so we're gonna actually start having an app suite, and the goal is to release apps that serve the low-income population from a low-income perspective, which it's it's basic. So it's me going, how would I use this? How like you know, I and how would I teach my kids now to use this? Because one of my kids is using one of them now. And so the first one is a good example, is this one's our next one that we're going to be launching. It's called In Unity Meals. And the goal is how do you get the most out of your grocery budget? Food prices are insane right now. And so this application allows a two-week menu planning. But the difference is when you select an item, it's gonna suggest any leftovers you can get out of this, and then let you automatically put them into your meal plan. And then it's gonna give you a grocery list out of that, and so that way you can actually cut down, like you can go, I want to shrink this so I can you're gonna know your budget. And now this is gonna grow. I haven't built this piece, but this is also gonna start having a food pantry directory into it, and so a part of it is we um like food pantry is an amazing gift for people, right? You get a lot of free food, but we we make this assumption that people know how to use it, and I don't think that's always the case. Like, that's not always the case. And so imagine an app that it's AI intelligent, and so you can go, hey, I got this and I got this from the food pantry. How what what can I make from this?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah, when you get the rutabaga, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

A hundred percent. And the last piece it's going to do, and this is kind of a our unhoused population lives in a hotel. And what I've learned from my friends at Catholic charities is a microwave is an amazing thing. Like, that's the only cooking device. And so I'm gonna make this meal, I'm gonna be able to. You can use all this food you get, and the recipes are gonna be able to be done in a microwave. And there's an amount of stigma reduction there because I want other people to go, wait, there's other people in my shoes. There's a microwave setting, like somebody, somebody else is doing this. And so that's one of our apps that I'm really excited about. We're testing that in-house right now, and that, you know, that's a game changer. Once you can once you can have your meal plan across and saving, you're low in your grocery budget, and you're eating healthier, so you're gonna feel better. Like it's win-win-win across.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

We'll share all that when it's when it's live. I mean, that's also you know, every everyone should have that. I mean, I feel like in our in our house, we're like always just throwing crap away, and it's like whether or not we're income challenged is just 100%, you know.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Like and uh the best part is it's free. I'm making my apps free. No paywalls, no ads. It's there's a donation link if you want to donate to help the next person down the line. These are skills and tools I was kind of blessed with knowing how to do, and it's just I I just want to share them. That tends to be like hustle apps, yeah. There they're in the next one is uh this one's actually in use right now. It's called In Unity, and this is from my personal experience. So when my wife was really struggling, she had as-needed pain medicine as well. And so any caregiver who has dealt with somebody, whether aging or really severe mental health issues, knows the struggle of maintaining how do you how like that person in in recover in that situation, that supported person, needs that autonomy. How do how do you how do you let them still take their pain medicines but keep them safe? Because they may not remember it. Like they may not remember it, and then they may take it again. And so at that time, I developed an app that allowed my wife to track when she took the medicines and what medicines, and then allowed me visibility into it as the caregiver. And so we had one deal. It was like you can have this as much as you can, as long as you you tell me you can put it in the app. And so that's led to an entire app that allows you you can have more than one supportive, more than one caregiver now. You can, and so as a person, so this is my I I served on NAMI, which is the National Alliance of Mental Illness Board, and I learned a lot about you need the person going through the mental illness needs that autonomy. And so it allows them to keep retain their autonomy, take their medicines when they want, when they need, and it allows the caregiver to monitor it. And if the person can't track it, the caregiver can. And they can share it with their their healthcare professional. And so it's it's empowering both sides because I know how scary that that situation can be. And it's one of those things that unless you've lived it, nobody knows. Nobody knows. Yeah. Um, where where can people get that one? Right now, you can just go to inunity.serviceunity.org. We are gonna be. I am about two months away from being able to put stuff on Play Stores and App Stores. It's it's a challenge just to get that set up.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Yeah, I I have I would imagine that there's some um tech gatekeeping there and approvals process that's probably a giant pain in the rear end.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

But once we get it, we're gonna do it. And it's like we're close. Because these are these apps are so right now we say we're we our traditional model is for central New York. And these are things that can go nationwide because it's technology. And then the last app that we're launching, so actually, I was just we I just had a participant impact committee meeting yesterday. And so as an organization, we we are trying to figure out how we want to deal with the work requirements for SNAP and Medicaid, which if your audience doesn't know is uh it's a cliff. It's a cliff our society is about ready to go off, and it's really scary. The SNAP part is hard enough. So to clarify, you need to uh have 20 hours of work a week to qualify for Medicaid starting January 1st, 2027. So the the catch there is if you're disabled, you get a you get a pass, you get an exemption, and if you have a young child, I believe you have an exemption. The problem is, is if you're in the middle of a mental health crisis, getting SSDI and getting that exemption is near impossible. Like it's really hard. And so we're like, okay, how how can service immunity address this help in some way, shape, or form? And so locally we're going to start assisting people volunteering an organization, doing this basically the same employment piece, but for volunteering. But then we launched, we are launching, and there's it's in beta test at a couple local organizations. Uh it's called In Unity Hours, and this is a volunteer management system for organizations that gives people essentially a time clock for volunteering. Because you can do 20 hours of volunteering, and that counts towards work. And so what this does is on the particip on the person side, you can volunteer at multiple organizations, have one app to punch in and out. This this app now has your form that you need to submit right in there. You can put your caseworker's email address right in there. You can send your form directly to that person. You know, and people don't I think people really underestimate how difficult it is to do all of that. You know, losing papers and just how do you you have to go to the office? Like what happens if you don't have a car and and you live in Newfield, which is uh 10 miles away from Ithaca, how and you have to get that to the office, and so adding technology just by sending email, right? And our local nonprofits can benefit from um having an entire volunteer management system. And it's it's just I from my experience of doing this, is if we can make it a benefit to the organization, then they'll do it. And then that the whole goal is to benefit the person that needs the the exemption.

SPEAKER_01 36:08

So Right, but it also still benefits the community, but yeah, there's so much one could unpack in that discussion about change and snap and all that, and the politics and the oppression behind it, and how it's gonna impact immigrants and um poor people and the unhoused. It's just like we've got it's gotten brutal out there.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Yeah. I I I really worry about people with mental health disorders. And if the because the the idea that they can do some of this on their own is not okay. And once you remove their Medicaid, then you just remove all of their supports. All of them.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

And and you're gonna watch people become unhoused. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:58

Yeah. And it's so again that service in Unity started with this idea of we may not be able to change the world, but what can we do to help? Like what can we what can we do? Like we have this skill set and we have this connection and we have this lived experience. You know, I can't I could talk to people maybe, and try I'm not gonna be able to change federal laws, but I can help our local residents, man, try and manage it and get through it if they can. I can be that person, the advocate to go, here, I know you're struggling. Maybe I can connect you over into this organization to volunteer. You know, we have some great resources in our town for volunteer list, but that's assuming that somebody can can go and go to that website, filter through that entire list, not get overwhelmed, and follow through on it. And I I just go, that's for a lot of people I help that's too much.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Right. If they even know it exists, or if they even knew that volunteer hours could count towards SNAP, I'm sure that that is not being advertised.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

Right. And so that's why with our connections into all the treatment providers, so we can use, I mean, we our our mailing list right now goes to about 100 caseworkers in town in Tompkins County. And then each one has a caseload of I say an average 20 participants. So it we we develop this network so we can get news out really fast and it and we have a reputation of real solutions to help people. Like we worked really hard on that reputation, and it's well deserved today.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

For sure. And before we wrap up, any like my wife's a social worker, you know, she works in Cuga County. Um, you know, any are you looking to kind of get other counties or make this a model that can be replicated? Because it seems like you you've done all the hard thinking and figured out how to get the insurance and all that crap, like yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

So my goal, so two things there, Stephen. One, we're we're working on we ran a project with Cornell Big Red Microenterprise earlier this year, which teams local nonprofits with two students who are in a master's degree for business. And I had them look at us expanding into Cortland County, and so we're gonna be expanding into Cortland County this year. We have one goal, and that's to have one person working for one organization by the end of the year, and that and that that's very doable. Uh, we also are I just wrote a grant uh if we can get this, it's actually to develop an affiliate model, and so what that's going to allow us to do is take our model and drop it into any any town and country, essentially. And and it's because we unlike a lot of workforce development, like we have the Finger Lakes Reuse Center, which is an amazing group. Oh yeah, Diane. Shout out to Diane, right? She's amazing, and they do great workforce development. The it the thing though is if you want to replicate it, you need a whole nother Finger Lakes reuse. So for us, we can our my goal is to be able to drop it into any community. They can have they can even be an LLC and not have to become a full nonprofit yet. You know, and so basically we're setting it up so somebody can go, I I would love to do that in my community. And you can use our name, you can use our website, you can use all the resources that we've built.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

It also feels like, I don't know, if you're a church or if you're another existing nonprofit, yeah, you you could just say, Oh, we're gonna do this part, we're gonna integrate that. It doesn't have to be an independent organization. It could be an existing nonprofit, even a chamber of commerce, it could be a lot of different organizations that could just say, Oh, let's just do this thing, and here's the model.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Yeah, and I mean that's where we're we're really unique is our flexibility, right? So um you you have you have somebody that's done some landscaping works. I have somebody that's looking for a placement and has an accounting degree. I've had IT professionals, I've had ad admin people. It's it we serve every type of business needs. Like it's we can help anybody almost. Uh and and the other piece that makes us really different is we don't use stipends. Like, we're we're very different in that way. So everybody understands is uh organizations we help, they tell me how much they want to pay an hour for our great people. We keep it that simple. And then when they say whatever it is, we we call it empowered pricing. We add 30%, 20% covers the employment costs, 10% comes into the organization. And so you get these break-even relationships where both sides are getting like organizations are now helping fund recovery workforce development. Like we've brought, we're gonna at the at the end of this month, we'll we have brought sixty thousand dollars from local organizations into recovery workforce development. That's amazing. And ninety percent of that goes to our participants in in either a wage or in an employment cost. Like And that's dignity. Yeah. It's it's you know, people wonder why we don't do stipends and we don't you know fund our people through government agencies. I want our people to feel their paycheck. Their work is tied to their paycheck, and I think that's a dignity that we all need to have. And that allows us to say, if you want to stay with me for as long as you want, you can stay with me. The program doesn't expire.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

All right. Well, before we wrap up, um, where can people find more information on ServiceIunity?

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Sure. Our website, which is actually in the middle of getting redesigned, is serviceinunity.org. It's the easiest way. We're on all the social media platforms. Follow our stories. We actually spend a lot of time doing social media posts every so we have a post every week. We're always trying to stay in people's view. Uh, and you can always reach out to me. My contact information is on our website. I will usually talk to anyone anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

All right. I appreciate you, sir, and all that you do. Thanks, Stephen. Thanks for this opportunity. Absolutely. Thanks for listening. SDC Podcast is an independent podcast written, produced, and hosted by Stephen Kimball. For more information, head over to SDCpodcast.com. All materials are copyright 2026.