Episode 975 - Fostering Community Connections
In In this episode, Andrew is joined by Kellie Thomas and Craig Wharem. Listen/watch as they discuss how to foster connections within your community.
Fostering Community Connections - Episode 975
SUMMARY
In this episode, Andrew is joined by Kellie Thomas and Craig Wharem and they discuss the importance of fostering community connections within martial arts schools and their communities. They explore various strategies for building relationships with local businesses, engaging students in community service, and collaborating on community events. The conversation emphasizes the mutual benefits of these connections, highlighting how martial arts schools can contribute positively to their communities while also gaining visibility and support.
TAKEAWAYS
Building relationships with local businesses can enhance community engagement.
Engaging students in community service fosters a sense of responsibility.
Collaborative efforts can amplify the impact of community service initiatives.
It's important to approach community engagement with a mindset of service.
Creating partnerships with local organizations can lead to mutual benefits.
Involving students in charitable events teaches them the value of giving back.
Regular outreach can help maintain strong community ties.
Schools should actively seek opportunities to participate in local events.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Fostering Community Connections
07:47 Building Relationships Through Outreach
15:53 Engaging Students in Community Service
23:09 Collaborative Community Efforts
30:22 Finding Opportunities for Engagement
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it.
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Show Transcript
Andrew (04:49.292)
Welcome you are listening or watching whistle kick martial arts radio and today I'm joined with a couple of guests and I'm not gonna tell you who they are yet because You're only gonna know this early if you're watching you're gonna have to wait But today I'm joined by two guests and we are here to talk about Fostering community connections, which is gonna be really fun. Stick around I just want to mention to any new listeners or viewers that whistle kick
Martial Arts Radio is only one of the things that we do at Whistlekick. We have all sorts of stuff that we do. And if you go to Whistlekick.com, you can find a myriad, I love that word, just, I don't know, it just came to me, a myriad of things that we are involved with. And you can buy apparel, I've got, you know, sweatshirt, I've got this cool Whistlekick hat, you can buy t-shirts and sweatpants and all kinds of stuff. We have training programs if you want to be faster.
If you want to be more flexible, if you want to be stronger, we have programs available there for you to check out. Maybe books is your thing. We have a ton of books. We have a whole book division. There's all sorts of stuff you can check out. Whistlekick.com. Maybe your school wants to join Whistlekick Alliance and reap a ton of benefits from that program. All of that information is going to be there at Whistlekick.com. If you want to learn more about the show, Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio is the place to go. You're going to find Transcur of
transcripts of every episode. You're going to find show notes on stuff. We put all kinds of stuff on there for every episode we've done. We're up over 7, 970 episodes at this point. We are cracking up, getting closer and closer to 1000 episodes. And my two guests that are joining me have definitely helped us get there. And so we appreciate that. And so without further ado, I want to welcome our two guests. First guest.
I was gonna do drum roll, then I realized if I hit the table, it's gonna be really loud on the microphone. So I'm gonna do drum roll on my chest. The first guest, Kelly Thomas.
Kellie (06:52.031)
I am not gonna drum roll on my chest, but thank you.
Craig Wharem (06:54.469)
Yeah
Andrew (06:54.636)
No, that's fine. Kelly, thank you for joining us. We appreciate you being here. And our second guest, who perhaps holds the distinction of being on the most episodes outside of Jeremy and I, will be Mr. Craig Wareham.
Kellie (07:11.731)
you
Craig Wharem (07:14.03)
Hey, what's going on?
Andrew (07:17.688)
So as you can tell audience, we're going to have a good time today for sure. So, excuse me. So this episode, fostering community connections. I thought about this this week after a Marshall summit ended. We're recording this the weekend following the event. And this week I spent a lot of time going around to the businesses that I worked with.
Craig Wharem (07:21.144)
You
Kellie (07:22.145)
Yes.
Andrew (07:47.362)
to help sponsor and be a part of the event and give out little thank you, little thank you gifts and things. And it really got me thinking about how the relationships that I have worked to foster within our community has really helped the event and ultimately any martial arts that I teach really helped grow the event and those community connections that I've worked towards gaining has really, really helped. And I thought, you know what?
I think that we could do a good episode on how we have done that, I did that within the city of Keene and Craig and Kelly, how you guys have worked to incorporate as much as you can and any other thoughts or ideas on how to foster these community connections within the communities that they're in. So Craig, I'm gonna throw it to you first. I know that you do a lot of outreach within that, your area.
So can you talk just a little bit about that?
Craig Wharem (08:48.379)
Yeah, so where I am kind of on the seacoast in New Hampshire, there's all sorts of opportunities to jump in and help out in some facet, right? I feel like every town or city has a need that a martial artist can assist with. you know, some examples of things that we do as part of our school and that I personally do, we worked, I sat for many years as the president of the dare board for our town. So I would go in and help
raise money or things like that for the DARE program that the extra police department would run. I would jump in and help out small businesses once in a while, either through a networking where it's like, hey, give me your business card or whatever, right? That's a pretty standard one. But one of the things that I found was the most impactful was just going into a store or whatever and just saying, hey, this is who I am. I'm Craig Wareham. I run Karate International Nextdoor.
And I'm just curious, what can we do to help you? What can I do to be a benefit to the community? And it's easy for me in this town, because I grew up in this town. So there's already kind of that homegrown, I know most of these people and have for most of my life. But I think that that's really important. When martial artists think about being out in the community, sometimes it's focused on how can I get more students in my school or how can I get that impact?
And if you flip the script and just say, can I serve my community? Your community is going to recognize you for that first. And I think that's the most important part.
Andrew (10:23.414)
Hmm. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I would agree for sure. And you know, the thing that really struck me that you said that I want to make sure to touch on is you went into a business and talked to them in person. And I think that that aspect can't be overlooked. And so we'll touch on that a little bit more. But Kelly, how about how about yourself? Anything you have done yourself to to help foster these connections?
Kellie (10:53.101)
One of the things I do is I travel and I do a lot of after school programs or go into different. So I go to them. I go to preschools. I just started a senior center class, which is really cool. And that way, you know, I get to see more people and kind of pass the word around. When we have events and we sell food at the events.
It always goes to a local charity. So that money helps there. We do our yearly break-a-thon, where it's like a walk-a-thon, except students, you know, break boards to earn their pledges. We always pick three charities, because I teach in three counties in Vermont. And the last three years, we've raised $15,000.
Andrew (11:25.04)
Mmm. Mmm.
Kellie (11:51.245)
each year, so that's a pretty significant donation to our community. I've sponsored like T-ball teams, other sport organizations. Whenever anybody is doing like a raffle, I always give a gift certificate to them in order to do that. Or like when they have
Andrew (11:51.406)
Mmm.
Kellie (12:21.389)
plays and stuff like that and they're looking for advertisers, I always help out and put in an ad and that sort of thing.
Andrew (12:28.891)
Yeah, and all of those things get your name, your school's name out into the community, right? And that's ultimately what we're looking to do, right? know, whether you want to have a school of 5,000 students or you've got two students and you want five, five more, right? You have to get your name. People have to know who you are. And so all of these things help that, right? You know, I know a lot of schools that do
birthday parties, kids' birthday parties, right? And I've always found, you know, sure, like, and whatever the price is, like, you know, kids' birthday party, it's gonna cost this much, whatever, and you get a cake and you get this or you get that. You know, sure, you can go to your local grocery store and just buy a sheet cake and bring it, and the kids have a cake, and great. But you can go to your local bakery and talk to them and explain, again,
going, walking in in person, talking face to face and explain like we do kids birthday parties. You know, I want to, I would like to set up a relationship with you because let's face it, anything, any business exchange has to go both ways. Cause if it doesn't, they're not interested in being involved. Right. And so when schools that I know of that go into a bakery and create a relationship with
an owner and say, hey, we're going to contract with you. I don't contract. I don't mean fill out a contract, but like we're we're going to come to you for all of our cakes for our birthday parties. Can you give us a deal? Because we also want to make sure that, you know, we give out business cards to all of the parents that know that this cake is from this place. And, you know, the hope is that it's going to bring more business to you in exchange for us getting a slightly better deal on a cake. And even if there isn't a
deal on the cake, you getting a local business cake as opposed to going to your local Hannaford or Price Chopper or whatever to get a cake means a lot more to that local business. And you have already started fostering that relationship. And I think those sorts of things can't be overlooked, right? And remembering that it's a two-way street. Like, yes, we want something from them, but we want to give something back to them as well.
Andrew (14:54.552)
Craig, your thoughts on that?
Craig Wharem (14:56.717)
Yeah, I think that that's important. think, you know, I'm racking my brain a little bit thinking back on all the things I've done. And the thing that I consistently do the most to connect with my community is teach for free in the schools, right? So I'll go and be a guest PE teacher for a week or whatever. And doing that for 15, 16 years, you know, I have a pretty good relationship. But also the kids in at least this town, Exeter, where I am now,
They see me once a week every year from kindergarten till they're going to high school. So regardless of if they ever train with me in a longer term thing, they all know who I am. So, you know, the long running joke, if you ever come to visit me here is we can't go out to eat right in town because you're never going to get to order anything because people just come up, you know, the amount of times that people just point at me on the sidewalk and yell the karate guy.
Andrew (15:36.238)
Mmm.
Craig Wharem (15:53.315)
Right? Well, I'm not the only martial artist in town. I'm not the only school in town, but they all know who I am because I rush over to the school whenever they ask for help or whenever they need something to the point where, you know, one of the schools was hard up for substitute teachers and they asked me if I would be a sub. So I subbed in for their PE program for like, I'd say a year. I was in and out teaching their PE classes, not martial arts, but they knew that I could run a class and I could be in.
Andrew (15:54.04)
Mm.
Andrew (16:02.958)
Mm.
Craig Wharem (16:21.627)
a gym and I could command a group and do what I need to do. So I've always found ways to say yes to whatever is asked of me. And in return, you know, I know that if I ask them, then the answer will be yes back. It's one of those things where I don't always look for an immediate, can you hand out my business card or can you do this? But
Andrew (16:30.798)
Mm.
Craig Wharem (16:47.405)
A great example actually, Andrew and Kelly, you both came to my school in August. did the Skill Builder Day that I do. And one of the guys who presented was the wrestling coach for the high school. Right? Well, he came in and did that no problem because I've been teaching in his PE classes for 15 years. Right? So he'll come in, pop in and teach and like make an extra connection and share something else just because, you know, he and I are friends from so many years of working together.
Andrew (17:00.066)
Yep. Yep.
Craig Wharem (17:17.947)
And I think that that's important. It's not always an initial, what can I get from this business or this place at this time? It's what can I do to help them? And when the time comes, maybe if I need something, they'll be able to help me out. But the process for me is always from the heart. It's just, how can I help? What can I do? The stronger the community, the better the place for everyone to live. So what can I do to step up and help?
Andrew (17:46.454)
Yeah, Kelly, have you had any other examples of that or stuff that you've done or seen?
Kellie (17:51.613)
what I do is, when we level up for our next belts, they, everyone gets homework. And one of the things in order to get the students involved is in February, we do a, kindness ninja mission and they have to do, nice things, two nice things. I think it is to like somebody in their school.
somebody in their community, somebody at home, that sort of thing. so it kind of starts them thinking also about taking care of their community. then like you say, you're going into a business, like I've had students will bring, it's gonna sound like a cliche, but coffee and donuts to police department.
Andrew (18:47.342)
You
Kellie (18:48.237)
you know sending letters saying thank you and you know, so that You know even so I don't have to do it all but you know, the students are doing it and it's like they're saying okay, it's not just You know, i'm trying to get more students. It's we're all learning how You know to be together as as a community. Yeah
Andrew (19:15.128)
So, I love that because it shows that you as a school, that you care about the community and you wanna be a part of the community and you want them to be a part of your program as well. Another thing that I was thinking of is what other things do we as martial arts schools often need or use? And it's usually not all schools, but many schools
get their own merchandise, t-shirts, sweatshirts with their school logo and things like that. so making a connection to a local t-shirt shop, you here in town, Bee's Tees has been our sponsor for free training day slash Marshall Summit for the last three, four years. And yes, they absolutely get money, right? We are bringing them business, but in exchange,
You know, if you're a martial arts school, connect with a local t-shirt shop and say, you know, we would like to, you know, exclusively have our stuff printed by you, no discount, but like, we're going to bring our stuff to you and you set up a relationship with them. And then when you have your special event, your, your break-a-thon, for example, which you're taking that money and you're donating it to charity or whatever you, because you have a relationship with this business, you can go to them and say, Hey,
This is the event that we're doing. We're donating money to charity. We want to be able to give t-shirts to all of our attendees, which they're going to, you know, that's going to cost money. But because we have a relationship with you, would you be willing to, you know, give us a discount on them because it's for charity or whatever? If you don't have any relationship with them and you just walk in and say, yes, I'm doing a breakathon and we were trying to raise money. They might give you a discount.
but they'll be way more likely to if you have a relationship, if you have fostered this connection with this part of the community.
Kellie (21:18.701)
So you can imagine at the Breakathon, one of the things we need the most of is boards. So we have, there's a local place that I buy all my boards from for all of my events. And so when the Breakathon comes around, they sell me the boards I need for that event at their cost. So that's exactly what, yeah.
Andrew (21:24.012)
Yep, absolutely.
Andrew (21:41.026)
Yeah. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yep. We, so one of the sponsors this year was a yoga studio in town or it's not a yoga studio. It's wellness. It's called Everglow wellness. And Abby Hoy had been hired by the owner to come in and teach a women's self-defense course. And so Abby knew the owner had already fostered this relationship with her. Abby was paid money to come in and teach this.
Excuse me, this women's self-defense course. So when Abby went to her and said, Hey, we're looking for some, you know, for some help with this martial arts event, because Abby already had a relationship with her. The woman, the owner, Ashley was like, absolutely. This sounds great. What can I do to help? But again, if we didn't, if Abby hadn't worked at fostering that relationship with that business, it would have been a lot harder to do. Right. And so that's what, you know, if there's a big takeaway from this episode, it's
You absolutely can run your martial arts school and close your walls and you do your own thing and you can do that, absolutely. And there's nothing wrong with that at all. But if you want to be more known within your community, you have to work at it, right? It doesn't just, know, Craig, you've been teaching in the schools for 15 years. It doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen, right?
Craig Wharem (23:09.657)
Right, right. And I think that it's, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, one of the things that I, one of my goals when I list out my goals for what I want Black Belt with me to be is, is, you know, active in their community. I want them to be engaged, right? So if I want them to do that, I have to show them how. And I have to lead that way. I have to, they need to see me in the community and.
out there and participating and doing all these things. And I think that that's important. If you're gonna, if you're gonna expect, you know, I know some martial arts schools, especially at summit, when I was talking to so many school owners about curriculum and expectations for their, their students, a few of them said that they have, you know, they want community service. I said, okay, well, how do you foster that? Right? Like, how do you make that happen? And they said, well, they go find it. I also
Andrew (24:00.392)
Interesting.
Craig Wharem (24:05.485)
expect my students to have community service, but I give them five or six opportunities every year to do it. it's, you know, and I think that that's important for, you know, a local thing like that, whether it's maybe they're helping me, you know, in February, I do an event for Big Brothers, Big Sisters of New Hampshire for their martial arts for mentoring program and, trying to raise money and raise awareness for that program. And so if they're putting, if
Andrew (24:11.491)
Hmm.
Craig Wharem (24:34.701)
I have students in the community service house and they're putting in time helping with the flyers and putting the flyers up and, and coming in early and cleaning like that all counts for that. Or are they going out in December and helping raise money for a local children's fund for them to have warm clothes this winter? Right? Like they they'll have all sorts of outlets that'll appeal to maybe their personality, but it's also something that pushes them forward. And so I think that there's
There's obviously the intrinsic value to me as a business owner, right? I get more students in the door, that's a great thing. But on top of that, there's the walk the walk, talk the talk kind of thing.
Andrew (25:15.628)
Yeah.
Craig Wharem (25:17.103)
right? And I think that that's important. to see people be engaged, for people to see their instructors be engaged in a thing is important. And I think it's really powerful.
Andrew (25:31.18)
Yeah. Any thoughts, Kelly?
Kellie (25:34.861)
That's, you know, part of the reason why I set up the Breakathon the way it is, because even though it's hard, because students, kids are raising money for so many things throughout the year, but I tell them, I said, this is the one time you're doing the work not for yourself. You're going out there and you're doing all this work and you're giving it to somebody else. You know, it's not for new uniforms, it's not for a trip, it's not for...
you know, any of these things. And I tell them, you know, make sure that they know that, you know, that you are putting yourself out there just for the pure desire of helping somebody out. They don't win any prizes. lot of those places, like you win little prizes for the highest, you know, highest one. We don't do any of that. You know, and I cap it. I tell them they can only break up to 20 boards.
but some of them will still continue to raise more money than what is required, even though they're not even gonna get to break those boards. They will share those boards with another student who didn't raise as much or whatever. it's a drive to, just to give to somebody else.
Andrew (26:57.1)
Yeah, no, that's great. So the other thing that I thought we could talk about is things that our as a group, our schools can do together in the community. Right. Obviously the breakathon, like that kind of counts because you're involving the whole community, but it's at your school. I'm assuming anyway, you hold it at your school or you hold that at a location. But what about things like as a school, we're going to go walk this 5k.
and we're all gonna wear t-shirts with our school logo because it's a 5k raising money for whatever. We're not even running it. We're just gonna do it because someone else's do, but we get ourselves out into the community. That gets our school name out there and they see that we're involved. Again, there's nothing wrong with just staying in your own school and doing your own thing. But I think you can't discount the goodwill that
your school can gain by going out into the community. Do either of you do anything like that?
Kellie (28:05.427)
think we've got two projects probably that's going to happen next year. Somebody did the Spartan Beast and wanted to grab some people together and go as a team. So I said, yeah, put it together. And I said, I'll get t-shirts made and everything else. And another thing that somebody wants to do is the Penguin Plunge. So I figured,
Andrew (28:14.677)
yeah.
Andrew (28:30.702)
Mm-hmm.
Kellie (28:32.749)
we would do the same thing. I'd make t-shirts up and so that they all, and I think that happens in several different locations. So, thank you.
Andrew (28:42.68)
For the Penguin plunge, rather than getting t-shirts, you should get like winter jackets.
Kellie (28:48.299)
or towels. Yes, that's a good idea.
Craig Wharem (28:49.497)
Or like swim caps.
Andrew (28:54.779)
Craig, how about yourself? Is there anything that your school does out in the community as a group?
Craig Wharem (29:00.255)
Yeah, so I mean, the thing we do the most of is that charity I was talking about that raises money for to give out vouchers for warm clothes. They do a few fundraisers a year, one of them is a duck race. So there's always, you know, a bunch of my kids in their uniforms downtown selling tickets and things like that. And then they do a gingerbread house competition and like a festival of trees kind of thing where you can
you know, sponsor a tree and you put a bunch on it and there's an auction, right? There's things like that. But what we'll do is we'll have kids down there in their uniforms, selling out little cheap toys or whatever, and all the money goes to the charity. So we'll go out there in our uniforms and we'll jump in and help out. We've had kids help out with the holiday parade before. Maybe they're, you know, helping direct people or whatever, you know, and
Usually it's things like that where we're not necessarily, we're not the ones running it, sponsoring it. We don't necessarily have a team per se, but we've been asked to help staff an event or something like that. And we'll, we'll do it that
Andrew (30:12.908)
Hmm. Yeah. Awesome. Well, this was great. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you want to make sure we talk about?
Craig Wharem (30:22.585)
I think we kind of missed, if people don't even know where to start, right? Like where do I even start looking for things like that? You know, what organizations might benefit? You know, and I think that that might be something beneficial to throw out there. So a couple examples for people, local PTOs or PTAs are always looking for help or fundraising or things like that. Libraries.
So we do a thing here where if you have a public library card and you show it to me, you get a discount on your membership or vice versa. We try to help them out in any way we can because libraries are important too. But those are two pretty public things that benefit a community that are kind of easy entry points if you don't have an idea of where to start.
Andrew (31:12.46)
Hmm. That's a good point. What about you, Kelly? Anything that we didn't hit on that you want to make sure we talk about?
Kellie (31:17.045)
Kellie (31:21.869)
don't think so. I can think of...
Andrew (31:23.586)
Okay, great. the other thing is that you contact your local Chamber of Commerce, right? There's always events going on in your town or in your city, if you're in a city, and your Chamber of Commerce can help with that stuff. Or if you're just looking for volunteer things, contact your local Rotary. know, Rotary is great for that stuff as well. See if there's something that you can get involved with. excellent.
Kellie (31:47.373)
Yeah, I think the chamber, like you said, is good. I mean, don't just contact them, but be a member of them.
Andrew (31:52.375)
for sure. Yeah, if you have a school in that town for sure. So, excellent. Thank you guys for joining me. This was great.
Craig Wharem (32:01.028)
Anytime.
Kellie (32:02.839)
Thank you.
Andrew (32:02.958)
If if you like I mentioned at the top of the show if you're new to the show go check out whistle kick martial arts radio Comm for anything about all of our episodes are our 970 plus episodes. I think this is gonna be 973 I think 975 I think it's 975 25 more episodes and we're at a thousand so that's pretty amazing and then
Check out all the stuff Whistlekick does. Whistlekick.com where you can buy apparel, you can buy training programs as I mentioned, you can purchase our weekend event, All In Weekend, which we host in April in central Vermont. All sorts of stuff that you can find there, sparring gear. So go check it out. And it's constantly rotating. We always have new stuff showing up in our store.
So, feel free to check that out And if you need to contact me if you have any questions for me, you can always reach out to me andrew at whistlekick.com You don't have to reach out to craig or kelly, but if you want to you can send it to me or I happen to know craig is now In quotes official with craig at whistlekick.com
Craig Wharem (33:19.535)
That's right.
Kellie (33:20.201)
Whoa!
Craig Wharem (33:22.851)
And if you reach out to me with any feedback, I'm just going to forward it to Andrew.
Kellie (33:26.689)
Hahaha!
Craig Wharem (33:29.125)
Just kidding.
Andrew (33:31.414)
Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for being here. we can try and do the outro together. I don't know how it'll go kelly's like no
Kellie (33:40.916)
we should have practiced. We should have practiced.
Craig Wharem (33:44.131)
Until next time.
Andrew (33:46.829)
Train hard, smile, and have a great day. High five!
Kellie (33:47.021)
straight, hard, smile, and have a great day.
Craig Wharem (33:47.525)
Train on.
smile and have a great day.