FM #1730 - Testimonials at SAFE Gala - 04/17/26

0:00This is Steve Sherlock for Franklin Madness, Franklin Public Radio. You'll get to listen to some testimonials that I managed to capture during the safe gala celebrating their 10th anniversary on Friday, April 17th at Gillette Stadium. The background noise is a little bit loud. They were in a party mode, which was appropriate for the time. But you can still distinctly hear the conversation with the individuals, which is why we're sharing it. I thank the Safe Coalition for providing me with the press pass in order to do this. And this is a token of thanks back to them for all the work that they're doing to help the community. Steve Sherlock for Franklin Madness here at the Safe Gala Friday night, April 17th at Gillette Stadium. This is quite the venue. And I'm here with Lucas Gigera, the superintendent of schools. Lucas, how are you doing this, Steve?

1:00I'm doing well, Steve. I'm doing well. Thanks for asking. And you're here supporting Safe. I know the school department works closely with Safe on a number of things. The relationship between the Safe Coalition and Franklin Public Schools dates back to when they first started 10 years ago. It's amazing. It's amazing. I was an assistant principal at the time. And I just remember with some of our students, there was a greater need for support that we could provide in the school, really specialized support in a lot of the areas Safe Works in. And then meeting Jen, meeting Jim and hearing their stories and hearing about this foundation and this coalition was just amazing. And it turned into a great partnership. And the support they provided are young kids over the years has just been, it's life changing. From what they started with at the beginning to what they're doing now, their service expansion has just been phenomenal. It's amazing. I can't remember the hidden in plain sight, bins where Jim would load them into his truck. I'd help him carry him in. He'd set it up.

2:01Now there's a full staff. There's a van out there. There's a decal van. It's just amazing. And Jen remarked tonight that when I set a load of her just, I'm looking around right now and I can't even tell you the idea of this to where we are today at Gillette Stadium is just a testament to their leadership and the community's support and the work that happens to you. I'm really excited to be here. I'm excited to be here too because I've been watching them for the 10 years and it's like, oh, look at this, look at this. That's incredible. Yeah. And it's equally incredible. I know firsthand personally some of the lives they've changed and impacted where I had real concerns for some of our youngest people in our town and to see the kids today as adults because of some course correction and some support for safe is just amazing. That's the real work. Absolutely. I have lost some that's unfortunate but hopefully there's now more support, more availability, more awareness so that we should not lose as many going forward. That's right.

3:02And you're not alone. And as a parent, you're not alone when you're struggling. I think that's the first call I would make and I recommend them. So this is great Steve. We're here to celebrate but also to keep giving so that this organization continues to thrive. Absolutely. Well, continue to have a great evening. Thank you for taking a minute. Absolutely. Thank you Steve. Steve Sherlock here with one of the founders of the Safe Coalition, Jim, Derek, Jim, this is quite an evening. We are super excited Steve. I was talking to Jim Levine, the other co-founder on the way in and neither of us can really believe that it's only been 10 years. Only 10? It's only been 10 years and to be at Gillette Stadium with almost 500 people coming out tonight. Honestly, I'd love to take the credit for that but this has nothing to do with Jen and I. This has to do with the community that cares about substance use and mental health. And this is the community responding to destigmatizing these illnesses and coming out and supporting

4:05us very visibly right here at Gillette on a beautiful evening. Well, they, honestly, they are following in the temple. I know an individual who climbed up on the stage 10 years ago to get involved. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And you're so right, Steve. And I, you know, it's one of the things that I didn't believe early on when Jen told me. She said, you know, Jen had all the clinical experience and I didn't. I was a dad who had a son that was suffering and she said, no, Jim, no, that's what she said. And she said, look, you have a PhD in what we need. And I didn't wasn't sure about it, but we took a step forward and now there's countless other of me, people that are willing to step up and say, me too, whether it's parents of or whether it's people that are going to recovery themselves or people that are willing to claim their seat. Right. Yeah. And a night like this is important because you get funding from donations. That's right. Indoor grants. That's right. But you have to prove yourself every single time and it's the evenings like this where people come to share the stories, have some fun as well.

5:08That's right. That's right. So this is you're nailing it. An opportunity for our donors and our stakeholders and sponsors to get a status report. What have we done with the money that they've so generously granted to us? You know, one of the things really important for us is transparency. All of our financials are audited. They're all online, but nothing takes the place of actually showing people the impact. And tonight we're going to hear from some people who have been through some of our programming and want to come and give a testimonial and that gives people the opportunity not just to see the numbers, but to see the human face behind it. Absolutely. Yeah. Congratulations. Thank you, Steve. And thanks so much for being here. Looking for 10 more. I need to. But I don't know how many more days and nights you have to deliver all the services. I know. Just doing so much. We love it. We love it. It's a labor of love. It's a happy problem. Yeah. We're so thrilled. And we're so proud of our community for stepping up. And that's all we did. The community just responded to an invitation that we put out. An invitation of destigmatizing and stepping forward into the issues of mental health and

6:14substance use. So I couldn't be more proud of our community. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. So here at the Safe Galloway at our state rep, Jeff Roy. What an evening. This is spectacular. What a tribute to this organization that's celebrating its 10th anniversary. I can't believe it. It's like we started yesterday. But the amazing progress that the Safe Coalition has made in 10 years is outstanding. And the fact that we're celebrating those 10 years in the home of the world champion New England Patriots is just a pop of the course. That's so good to be here and to see how many people here sold out. That's an incredible talk. We got a chance to talk with Jim earlier. He said it was going to be about 500 people here with the sell out. That's an incredible statement. Yes. He was kudos to the people for stepping up. And I said, well, I think they followed somebody who 10 years ago stepped up onto the stage.

7:18Yeah. In response to that first evening. I can recall when we got this organization going, they were absolutely no support services. No one for anybody to reach out to the call to get help. And in the intervening 10 years, the support network is incredible. And the number of lives that have been saved as a result of this organization is in the triple digits. And it's just fantastic for our community, for our commonwealth, and a great thing to celebrate tonight. Yeah, because the expansion of their services to your point, I think there's actually there's multiple things every day of the week. There's almost like, you know, not enough time in the spaces to put in additional pieces. And they keep growing in the space. They took on some additional space in the last year. They're opening a facility in Springfield. They're talking about something and framing him. I'm just so thrilled that I say to Jen Knight every time I see her,

8:22and when she had approached me back in 2014 about starting a small support group. I look around now and I say, Jen, is this what you had in mind? The small support group. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know we got a busy evening for you, so thank you for taking a minute. Thank you. And thank you for being here. Absolutely. This is Franklin Madden. Yeah, that's right. That's right. There's nothing wrong with it. Well, thank you for everything you do in spreading the word. Absolutely. All right. See Sherlock here again at the Safe Gala with Bob DeLocco and Greg Conner, Bob. Imagine 10 years ago. Did you ever think? I can't even imagine. Something like this was happening. Yeah. I was lucky we're going to have a cookout 10 years ago. Never mind this. Yeah. Greg. Yes. How impressive is this? This is amazing. But all that the work they've done in the last 10 years is amazing. I don't want to spend with the DA's office for 25 years to see how it's improved the quality

9:22of life for people and see how overdose has come down, cut in half over the last 10 years. This is amazing. To a certain extent for money to spend is with the jail diversion and the other support. They're taking some business away from you. But that's not a problem. Yeah. Isn't it? I always find something else that will come up in my time. Trust me. Well, we're happy to go after murder as opposed to this. Yeah. This is great to see people getting their help they need. So they're not going to be our problem. But they're giving back to their own families and society. That's a win. We'll take that any day. Yeah. And Greg and Michael are always on board. They're the ones that helped us like get the section 35 going and all that stuff. The benefit of all the details that we didn't even know how to do that until these guys came on board and helped us. And you know, now we can get somebody's sections and I was compared to day, you know, couple of days thanks to these guys. It can matter when we're like. Well, yeah.

10:22If he sleeps overnight, he could die. And that's exactly what it was. So now we can get him. Get him in. The courts were great with us. Yeah. They've all come on board with us. And it's so much easier now. Yeah. And I say the first story I ever had was a football player of mine. His father called me and it was I think there's something right. That was the first meeting we had at the TV. And he lived down the street. Yeah. We went there and it was myself, Jeff Roy in Jim Derrick. Yeah. And Jen happened to go home at that time. So we went down and we're sitting on the porch going. All right. We started this thing. What are we doing now? What are we doing now? We ended up getting them sections like the next day, the Franklin PD. You guys came on board and helped us. You know, it's now. It's so much. I just think of that story all the time because I'm shocked at what we're doing.

11:23Yeah. And Bobby, it touches every economic strata and touches everybody. And so like if we can get out there and help as many people as we can, that's amazing. That's what safe is all about. Yeah. So the requirements, those donations, the price, those grants. It does. And it's for the very life saving years. Yeah. And you know what? It requires everyone working together because the mission is to get it right. Right. And it's to help people out. It's not about locking people up. It's not. It's really just trying to get people to the help they need so they can see them all. Right. And that's what the phone call I made to Mike. Mike was the first phone call I made because I had like three or four football plays that I coach. Two of them died. You know, whatever. And all of a sudden, I'm like, Mike, you got to get out there. And the first thing I said was, you get to rest these guys. And Mike was the first one that you got in yourself.

12:23But like, we can't rest our rest ourselves out of this. And they were right. You're not going to jail your way out of this one. Yeah. And that was the first phone call I made. Yeah. You know, if you look at it, Bobby, the Walpole prison is closed. Concert prison is closed. Yeah. But overdoses are cut in half. Yeah. So prison wasn't a solution. No. No. Clearly it wasn't. No. So we're getting there. Yeah. We're getting there. Good. We'll enjoy the rest of your evenings. Congratulations for having gotten to this point. Thank you. And we'll see where we are in another 10 years. Right? Excellent. Thank you. We're not producing this in collaboration with Franklin TV and Franklin Public Radio. This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin, but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help. How can you help? If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors. If you don't like something here, please let me know. Through this feedback loop, we can continue to make improvements. And I thank you for listening.

13:24For additional information, please visit FranklinMatters.org. If you have questions or comments, you can reach me directly at suresteve at gmail.com. The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark in the group East of Shirley. The piece is titled Ernest Domagnana. Copyright Michael Clark and Tin type tunes in 2008. And used with their permission. I hope you enjoy. And by the way, you can also subscribe and listen to Franklin Matters Radio on your favorite podcast app. Search in podcasts for Franklin Matters. Thank you very much.

14:53Thank you very much.