Guest: Hadley Haas

Hey everyone!  I had this fun idea and my guest was game.

This week on At My Kitchen Table, I joined Hadley Haas at her kitchen table to have a get-to-know-you discussion with her.

Hadley is deeply devoted to her family, she’s a fierce advocate, a friend, a hands-on community builder, and an activist. And, oh yeah, she's running for the PA State House of Representatives for District 44.

We get into the importance of service, being a servant leader, and her path to politics.  Hadley also chats about how she got her name, the discomfort of fundraising cold calls, how helping others feeds her soul, and the honor she feels to carry forth her father’s leadership lessons.  Pull up a chair!

PS - I don't know how, but I didn't use any swear words in this episode.  I might still check the "Explicit" box to maintain my cred!

Intro riff by Dale Lytle (concert husband).

All content edited (I use that term very loosely) by Karen Shaak.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hey everyone. This week on At My Kitchen Table, I joined Hadley Haas at her kitchen table to talk about service to others, what it means to be a servant leader, and her candidacy for the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in District 44. Hadley is deeply devoted to her family. She's a fierce advocate, a friend, a hands-on community builder, and an activist. But those are all things you can find out about her from her website. You'll learn much more on those topics while she also shares how she got her name, the discomfort of fundraising cold calls, how helping others feeds her soul, and the honor she feels to carry forth her father's leadership lessons. For the listeners of At My Kitchen Table, I just want to start a little bit differently than how we would typically start one of my podcasts and kind of ground us in how I got to you, which was the invitation to your International Women's Day brunch. And you were using it as a fundraiser for your political campaign. And I will let you introduce that in a second. One of the coolest things that I thought was having your mom there introducing you. And as I'm listening to her sort of give a, I mean, what was it, like 10-minute speech? Not long. Yeah. But it was incredible. And you know, I kind of walked away with it from or from it with this thought of if only more people who were trying to get involved in politics and who are the helpers that we have in our communities had people out there sort of spreading that message. I just think we would all be so much better off because we just live in a world of sound bites. And so it's very hard to hear through the noise to really get to know who a person is. And that was why I reached out to you to see if this was something you're interested in doing. So with that, I would love to turn this over to you so that you could give an intro of yourself and let everybody know who you are.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Hadley Haas, and I'm running for state representative in House District 44. So that is all of the Quaker Valley School District, all of the Moon School District, including Crescent, and then most of the West Allegheny School District, including North Bayette and Finley. And I ran in 2024, um, but I decided to do it again with everything going on in the world. I didn't feel like I could sit this one out. I came to politics kind of really as a mom. I've I've lived in Swickley in the Swickley area for 18 years, raised my kids here. My kids were both born deaf, and so started my advocacy in that realm, advocating for them and for other families of children with hearing loss, and then did some advocacy around gun violence prevention for a long time. And it was that work that really brought me to politics. But like you said, I think we really need decent people with strong moral courage right now at this time in our world, and that's really why I feel like it's important to run for this seat.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing. So I want to start maybe a little bit back where your mom started when she was introducing you and kind of get to know who you were and how you grew up and sort of where some of your values and your thoughts on service came from. So, how long did your family you moved away when you were a kid, right? How long did you live here in Pittsburgh?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, so I was seven when we moved from Pittsburgh. Um, my parents were they met at Canavan High School. They're both Pittsburgh natives, kind of from the McKees Rocks west side of Pittsburgh. And we moved from my dad's job when I was seven years old. I was the oldest of four kids at that time. So my mom had her hands full.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

Yeah, yeah, she did. What kind of a kid were you? What kind of a student were you? Or the things you were interested in when you were a kid?

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, I was I did a lot of different things. I mean, I played a lot of different sports. I wasn't an excellent athlete, but I was a good athlete. So I was able to like make most of the teams in middle school. I ended up running track and um mostly playing tennis in high school, but I was competitive and athletic and would always work hard at whatever it was I was doing. Um, I read a lot all the time. I was definitely the kid that would have a book with me in school and read in between classes and read whenever I could. I was the kid that my parents had to like tell me to go to bed at night because I'd be finishing like Anne of Green Gables or something late at night. And I was social but reserved. You know, I had friends, and I think people thought of me as being sort of popular, but I was always a little quieter and enjoyed my downtime too. But I pushed myself, I was very self-motivated as a kid.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Yeah. And so I'm hearing that in conjunction with some of the things that that I heard from your mom, which was that your father sort of informed some of how you view leadership and service. Can you share a little bit about your dad and some of the lessons that you learned from him?

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yeah, absolutely. It's I'm honored to do so. I really feel like talking about my dad kind of keeps him alive because I was 25 when he died and he was 50. So he died very young, um, but he left a very strong impression. He also loved to read, and so he instilled that in us and would recommend books. And in fact, my name, I was named after the first wife of Ernest Hemingway. Um Ernest Hemingway had said, I wish I had died before I loved anyone but her. So that was the where my dad got my name or my parents got my name. But he had sort of this Zen Buddhist Catholicism, I would say. He was devout, he went to daily mass for much of his life, but he didn't um he didn't get caught up in the rules of it all as much. To him, he taught us that Jesus was love, and by loving and serving kind of the least of us, that is how you found Jesus and how you found Christianity. And that was the lesson that he took to us or we took from him. And I worked a couple summers at the company where he worked, and he was the general manager there, and I used to follow him into work at the beginning of the day and follow him out of the work at the end of the day, and he knew everybody's name. He would say hi to everybody in the morning and bye in the evening, and would walk around the steel mill and check in on people, and he would always show up for things. He treated people like they were part of his family. So he would show up at the funeral home when loved ones died, he would show up at graduation parties or even their church league basketball games to show them on. So it was very much this community driven, and people really loved him. And I think that that's what really resonates most to me about my dad.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Yeah. That's really incredible. Um, it's such a, I think, such a wonderful example because it wasn't just like one or two principles. That is like, that is an entire way of living a life in service of other people and in making sure that you're treating people as you would want to be treated at the very least, right? Right, right, right. What was the earliest thing or situation that you can remember growing up where you got involved as like hands and feet on the ground with some sort of service within school or community or yeah, I remember I would teach when I was like early in high school.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Um, there were kids at the YMCA, and I like made up my own aerobics class for some of these like kids who were like a little socioeconomic or in meteor families, and I would do that there for them and really enjoyed that and that group of kids. Um so that's something I remember from early on.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

Let's jump ahead a little bit to um college and and early adulthood. So you graduated from the University of Michigan and you had dual degrees, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

So what what did you study?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I was a double major in economics and communications.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Okay. And you were you kept up with service all through that as well, is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Yeah, yeah. I was um in a sorority in college, so we did some service projects through that too. Nice. And then would try and do as much as possible in the summer working with my dad. And my dad was on the hospital board as well, and you know, giving back in various ways in the community when I could.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

And then you were 25 when your father passed away, and you were with him, is that correct? Okay, yeah, I was I thought I was reading that on your website.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, my dad and my dad and I always ran together, and um, he had a heart condition that they were monitoring. And we were actually on vacation together at the Jersey Shore and went for a run and he collapsed while we were running together.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Yeah. I lost my mom. She was 60 when I lost her. So and it was a sudden thing, not quite as sudden as your dad's, but it sort of alters everything in your life at that point. And I don't know about you, but I know for myself, I almost looked at it as like this line of demarcation in my life. It was like before and then everything that came after. So kind of thinking along those lines, what was sort of the more immediate impact of his passing? Like, who are you leveraging for support? Like, how do you turn to your community instead of being the helper?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Right. My family is really close. So they leaned in. We were actually on vacation with my extended family, with my mom's side of the family. So her sisters and their husbands were there, my cousins were there. So everybody kind of just took care of each other and lifted each other up in the immediate aftermath of losing my dad. I was living in Chicago when my dad died, my mom was living in Michigan, and our family was all here in Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

So that was really hard. I stayed home with my mom for a couple of weeks. I remember even just like sleeping in the bed with my mom in the days right after my dad died, and then eventually went back to Chicago, but I would call her every day. And I think that when you talk about the line of demarcation, it was like that was the end of my childhood.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Um, it shifted, right? Like my dad was the one that would tell me everything was gonna be okay, and I believed it. You know, I felt that I could call him and feel that sense of comfort, and I lost that. So there was feeling of like being unmoored after losing my dad and being worried about my mom. My mom's very strong, but for various reasons, they had been in a really in a pretty strong financial position when my dad was alive, but I don't think he really thought he was gonna die, and so he wasn't as responsible with his finances. So her financial position immediately became more precarious. My brother was having mental health challenges at the time, and so sh all of that fell onto her as well. So I was really worried about my mom, and um that became a focus of in the those years, especially following my dad's death.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Yeah. And then what does that do to you? I mean, I know, well, I can't speak for anybody else but myself, but I know that when I lost my mom, I didn't even grieve right away. It's almost like you could you can right away because there's all of the things that you have to do in the aftermath. And I can only imagine that if you're worried about your mom, you know, that that that was maybe the case for you as well.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Um, what were some of the the challenges that you felt like you faced?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, I think I would come and go in waves, you know. I started dating my husband maybe a year or so after my dad died. Okay. And he would be taken aback by like the triggers, the things that would cause me to be convulsively crying all the time. I remember father-daughter dances at every wedding were like the worst. That was just terrible. It was always something to think about how we were gonna navigate that. Yeah, it's just all of it was really difficult. And I think it caused me to evaluate my life choices differently. Before my dad died, I really felt like I was doing everything to check the boxes that he thought I should do. Okay, especially professionally. And I, if my dad had lived, I think I probably would have gone to grad school and gotten an MBA and done these things. And after he died, I looked at my life choices differently and realized how short life was. And then I didn't necessarily want to prioritize my career in the same way or spending time in grad school classes that I didn't actually find value in personally, that I wanted to spend that time with the people I loved doing the things I loved. So my priorities shifted a bit in that way as well.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

That really resonates. And not to go too far down that rabbit hole, but what were some of like some of the the triggers for you? Because mine were so weird. Yeah. Mine like weren't even like necessarily like oh my god, she would have done this, or she would have thought it would it would be random things, like you know, like a song or smelling certain pasta dishes, whatever it was, you know, right? But all of a sudden I was just like a puddle.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, I don't even remember for sure. I mean, there are certain movies, you know, that would always be hard for me. But yeah, I mean, going for runs sometimes, my birthday, his birthday, uh his birthday is still hard. The day he died is actually my my cousin's birthday. Oh no. So we um always kind of recognize that, but sometimes even the whole month of August feels like there's a shadow over it because I associate it with that time in my life. But father-daughter dances honestly are were the strongest thing because I think I knew that my dad wouldn't be there for that moment for me. And and even still to this day with my kids sometimes watching other grandparents with their grandchildren, yeah, knowing that my kids missed out on having that relationship with my dad. Some of those things can be triggers for me to know.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Yeah, that makes total sense. My brother is the only one of I'm one of four as well, loudly enough. Um, and I am the oldest. And so my youngest brother was the only one of us that didn't have children at the time that my mom had passed away.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

And he now has two. So there is sort of that, especially for him when the other kids all knew her in some form, you know. That's I think the hardest thing for him is trying to figure out how to keep her alive in a way that makes sense because they don't they know her, so it's you know, it's not as present for them.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Right. Yeah. It's interesting. My older son, Declan, actually looks very much like my dad.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

So it's cool, but we also don't want to put that pressure on him. Like he's very much not my dad, but he has some genetic similarities, and that's been really cool to see. And it's heartening, there are actually people in this community who knew my dad. Like one of my friends that I've gotten to know through the work I've done to support the public school here was one of my dad's first friends in the 70s at J and L.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

And so he tells everybody, like, I knew Hadley before she was born, I know how she got her name, and and people like that come up with new things about them that I never knew before. So there's a lot of comfort in hearing those things that kind of brings somebody back for you too.

SPEAKER_03 15:39

A little bit of discovery about them as well, which is very cool.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, yeah. And it's cool for my kids to hear those stories too for sure. Those kinds of people.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Yeah. Um, so let's talk a little bit about after you meet your husband, and well, so before he was your husband, you guys decide to get married here, which now hearing you say that you still had a lot of family here kind of makes sense. But were you both living in Chicago at the time? And was your mom still in Michigan at the time?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

No, my mom had moved here. So about a year after my dad died, my mom moved back here. She actually bought my cousin's and her husband's town home. Um, and they moved to Chicago for a job. And so she bought their town home and still lives there now. So she was here. So we initially started looking at having our wedding in Chicago, but things were so expensive and they were booked so far in advance, and I really didn't want this long, extended engagement. So we started looking here. My mom started doing kind of field work for us and figuring out what was available. And um, yeah, we decided to have it here. My uncle's brother was the pastor at Assumption Church in Bellevue. Okay. So that's where the ceremony was, and then we made it really hard on our guests because the reception was at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland and the Sware there. And we, yeah, it was stunning. People were so impressed. Um, because we did have a lot of people here from out of state, so we had it there, but there was all sorts of traffic, of course. My mom was stressed. We had like a page full of like driving directions for people in the invitation um to try to explain to them how they were gonna get from Bellevue to Oakland, and um, because it was before we could do that on our phone.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

That's right, that's right. And I like to do this sometimes too for the the listeners, so I call the teabags. Yeah, for the teabags who are not Pittsburgh knowledgeable, Bellevue and downtown Pittsburgh, or like Oakland, they're not really that far away from each other by miles, but by traffic, they are so far away from each other. And I imagine you got married on a weekend. Yeah, yeah. So traffic is um yeah, it's silly.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Celebrating our 25th anniversary at the beginning of June. Correct. So thank you. Thank you. Amazing, but yeah, there's a lot of merging and bridges to navigate to get from Bellevue to Oakland. And we also had our rehearsal dinner at PNC Park. It was the inaugural year of PNC Park. Oh, that's very cool. And my husband is a huge baseball fan, and so we had arranged it that we had like a picnic area in center field for the dinner, and then we had a block of tickets for the game, and we got on like the local TV or whatever with our groomsmen and stuff, but it was raining, and so my mom was super stressed, and she actually got into a little argument with my husband because the backup plan wasn't sufficient, and we'd still joke about it. But she was like, I don't want to think that my son's future son-in-law is lying to me, but it all worked out and it was very memorable, and everybody got PNC Park hats as a favorite aware in the rain while they ate their hot dogs.

SPEAKER_03 18:48

That is, I don't think I've ever heard anything that's more fun than that. Like for a way, that is that is really awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

It was a really nice way for people from out of town, especially. We had a block of tickets for people coming in from out of town, and you know, people were so impressed with Pittsburgh.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

They would have to be so, and again, like for any teabag who's never been to PNC Park, it is, and I will fight people about this. It is one of the most beautiful ballparks in the country. Yep. And I've not been to all of them, but I don't need to. Like it is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah, no, we've been to most of them, or my husband has. Have you? Yeah, and I mean he'll still claim Wrigley Field because he's a Chicago Cubs fan.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Fine.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

And it has its charms, but like the way PNC is situated, it's that skyline.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

You can't beat it, almost looks fake on a lovely, like clear day when you're sitting in PNC Park. Yes, it looks absolutely fake, like it's a backdrop.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

My favorite thing is yeah, to sit up a little high behind home plate and look at the skyline. It's it's amazing. It is gorgeous.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

And I guess I'll give a shout out to Baltimore just because Oriel Park is actually also really awesome, too.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Yeah, that one's not bad. San Francisco's nice. Um there are a few, but but a lot of them start to look like each other. PNC looks true, very unique.

SPEAKER_03 20:06

Yeah, I agree. That's really awesome. And what ended up bringing you back? So you got married here, but you weren't living here when you got married here. No, we were living back in Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Yeah. And so our kids were born there. So Declan was born in um 2003, and he and then Bennett was born in 2006, like two and a half years later. Okay. And Declan wasn't talking, and we didn't know why. And so we had some tests and were monitoring it, and eventually found out that he had a moderate to severe hearing loss initially, and that's what was keeping him from talking. So we started him with hearing aids, and he still wasn't making progress. And a week before Bennett was born, we found out that Declan's hearing loss was a result of connection 26, which is a recessive genetic trait that damages the hair cells in the inner ear.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

And it's a recessive trait. So we had a one in four chance, and both kids ended up carrying that trait or getting both genes. And so they both ended up getting cochlear implants. So we had three surgeries within like a one-month period, basically. And there was just so much going on, it was really hard. My husband's family is from central Illinois, so they're they're lovely, and they were close-ish, but it was a two-hour, two plus hour drive every time they were gonna come up to help us. We had lovely friends, but you just can't count on friends at times like that in the same way.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

And so it it just got to be less and less sustainable. And when we were looking at schools for the kids, there weren't the options that there were here. So we initially had them in a listening and spoken language school here in Pittsburgh. And that comparable school in Chicago wouldn't take them without like a big financial outlay commensurate. It with our income. Oh wow. Okay. So all this language was very daunting. And so we decided we need to just start looking to move to Pittsburgh where we know there's a good school option for them. They can be surrounded by our family. We would come back for the holidays and like the love for my kids was palpable. Yeah. You know, like everybody wanted to hold them, everybody wanted to love on them. And then when we'd leave, it was hard to think like, why wouldn't we want our kids to be surrounded by that all the time? Right. Um, so so yeah, when they were two and almost four, we moved back uh about 18 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 22:35

Okay. And if you're comfortable talking about it a little bit, can you talk about what some of that difficulty is? So you're getting a diagnosis, it there's a genetic component to it, and now you're faced with daunting situation, daunting language surgeries in in your babies.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Can you talk a little bit just about what that stress feels like and the toll that that can take?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

Absolutely. I mean, it was it was over, it was really overwhelming. And I think one of the things that's been important to me in the outreach and work I've done is making sure that families understand early in the process what the future for their kids can look like. I think we always associate a diagnosis of hearing loss as sign language and voice off conventional capital B D death culture.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

And that's certainly one path. But technology has enabled kids to be able to access listening and spoken language on a basically a typical trajectory if they have access to that early. But we were making these decisions for our kids without a lot of this, you know, personal experience or information. They ask you to pick which manufacturer you're going to choose for the cochlear implant. And you have no, I have no background in this. So you're trying to make these really heavy decisions that will affect your kids' entire future. And it was really heavy and daunting. And you know, we basically had two kids that became cochlear implant candidates at the same time because of just the way things went for them. And Declan, my older son, had an incidental diagnosis of a neurological issue that he had to have neurosurgery to correct before his cochlear implant surgery. So he was in the hospital for almost a week, and it was trying to that's where the three surgeries. Declan had his neurosurgery, Bennett had his cochlear implant surgery, and then or Bennett had his cochlear implant surgery, and then Declan had his cochlear implant surgery. Wow. So we were we were the poster family of the fundraising newsletter for children's hospital that year. We were frequent flyers. I walked in there with the double stroller and everybody knew me. And and so it was it was really stressful. Yeah, I remember my husband was on a business trip and I was trying to like get food and manage kids, and Bennett fell and had to go to the hospital for uh like to check for a concussion. And again, all of that kind of managing it without family right in the area was was really stressful and hard. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

And were you also working full-time during this time? I was working part-time.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, I had taken a step back from my career, was kind of weighing what I wanted to do initially, and then was a part-time marketing director after Declan was born, and then began working for a friend for his consulting company part-time after that. So I was really fortunate to be able to have that flexibility. But we were still like juggling child care and with the cochlear implants and the hearing loss, it put more pressure on who we trusted to care for our children and worrying about the equipment and conveying the lessons that we were trying to make sure the kids were getting to develop their language. So it was all kind of harder those first few years for sure.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

Yeah, it sounds I mean, I can totally imagine that. Yeah. Um, can you share some of the examples of the gaps that you were seeing in some of the informational resources? So some of the things that would have led you to your advocacy work.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many different things. It's like I just remember thinking, like, okay, we want they're approaching school age. What are the options? And I was literally at that time talking to the speech pathologist about the different school options because I had no other resource. Yeah. And so she's saying, well, this teacher is pretty good, but this school, you know, and you're relying on people with who don't have a parent's perspective on it, they may have their own bias or perspective. And it was really hard to know who to trust in the process.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

And that's why when we got to Pittsburgh and I started working with Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, one of the first things Dr. David She and I started talking about was hiring an educational liaison who could be like this unbiased resource for families who could provide all of the information in a way that uh the parents didn't feel like they were trying to be influenced, but that they had access to more of that information in one single point of contact that they could go to. Because if you're going to one school and the other school, you're not necessarily getting one unbiased perspective, you're getting the maybe biased perspectives of different institutions or entities.

SPEAKER_03 27:28

Sure. And I imagine probably some apples and oranges, even as you're trying to compare and make a choice.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

And every family is different and um every kid is different. And so you're really just you're struggling to figure out what makes the best sense for us.

SPEAKER_03 27:43

Yeah. So when you started doing advocacy work, did you um did you like create your own nonprofit? Were you just working with the hospital, the school? Like how did that look?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

So a few things in Chicago. I was part of what's called the Foundation for Hearing and Speech Rehabilitation. And that was for a pretty short time because we left Chicago shortly after that, but I was able to see the types of things that they were working on. They were working on music therapy and an educational liaison and things like that. And when I got to Pittsburgh, they started, my kids started at DePaul School for Hearing and Speech and Shady Side. And initially I started doing some work for them. So I was not paid work, but just um talking to pediatric residents who would come through and telling our family's story to help them understand a parent perspective and helping them do some kind of marketing and PR stuff just to tell their story and make sure people were aware that they were a resource for them. I started doing the newborn uh Pennsylvania Department of Health's Newborn Hearing Screening Committee.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

So I would go out to Harrisburg on a quarterly basis and provide a parent perspective to that committee who was like making policy around what was available for families when their kids were first um getting this news. And then um also the Friends of the Hearing Center at Children's Hospital. And that was so I didn't do any of it on my own, but the Friends of the Hearing Center, Dr. Chi and I kind of revamped it together when we first when I first started with them, they were really just doing like picnics and things.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

And I came in and said this is what they're funding in Philadelphia or in oh my gosh, in Chicago. And so, you know, could we get to a point where we're we are raising the kind of money to do these types of things here? And he was game, and so we started having more fundraisers and um getting more ambitious in the goals that we set. So nice, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:44

And then would you say was I mean some of that Harrisburg experience, like was that sort of your first engagement with state politics?

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Yeah, it was going out there for those meetings, and then we would also do some lobbying, like DePaul School had a group. We went a couple of times. I took by some Bennett when he was four or five. I have these pictures of him in Harrisburg, and we went and met with our legislators to advocate for listening in spoken language as a choice, um, making sure it was getting adequate funding. So we did some lobbying there too. But those were my first kind of forays into legislative work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Out of curiosity, what is that process like when just let's just talk screenings, right? So what is the walk me through your your lobbying, you're talking to legislators, and then from there, what is the process that happens to try to get the early screenings?

SPEAKER_00 30:38

So for well, the newborn hearing screening program, you know, was already kind of legislated at the time. So that uh, but that was relatively new legislation and every state was a little different. So it became clear that if we could detect that the hearing loss was present early, there was meaningful intervention that could be done. And so what that looked like at the Pennsylvania level, you know, I would just provide a perspective of a parent who my kids actually both passed their newborn hearing screenings in the hospital. Yeah. So making sure that there was extra diligence around that process and that there was maybe even an interval after the newborn screening, like at 10 months, where we're making sure we're catching kids. One of the things I would talk about a lot is that I think boys go undiagnosed longer because our expectations for communication for boys isn't the same as what our expectations for girls. So being extra diligent and not giving these boys a pass, people say all the time he's just a busy boy. Right. He's gonna talk at any minute. Right. So that was kind of on the newborn hearing screening side of things. And when we were lobbying in Harrisburg, it was more there was legislation around um treating listening and spoken language schools like other schools, like the schools for the deaf were being treated so that they got the same kind of funding. Okay. Um, and so that was what we would talk about that you know, the schools for the deaf offer one path for children with hearing loss. These listening and spoken language schools offer another path, and both should should receive similar funding streams, and that wasn't happening in Harrisburg at the time. So that was the kind of stuff we were lobbying for that.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

Gotcha. Okay. It is really interesting to me. I had another guest on whose son was diagnosed with ALD, and that happened like almost at birth. And I know she has talked about what it takes for screenings to happen. And yeah, I just was very interested. It as it's not something that I had encountered prior to. And you when you have a baby, you know, like your child is just screened for things, and unless there's a problem, you don't even really know what they're being screened for. And so to understand what people have gone through to get that information out there and to create resources for everybody who comes after them, I just think is it's such magnificent work. Yeah, and really, I think takes just such a ton of effort as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

And so yeah, one of the other things I always try to emphasize too is that people, you know, depending on who's doing the hearing screening, they might say, Oh, they didn't pass, but it's no big deal. They probably just have fluid in their ears. You know, everybody wants to make you feel better, but that's doing such a disservice to the family because then they don't get the follow-up and they, you know, just wave it off and don't think it's anything serious, and then they lose that critical time for their two kids. So that was the kind of information that I tried to convey as part of my presence in those meetings.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Yeah, which is also, I think it's so important to have transparency and like honest discussion.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Yeah. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah, it's I understand you want to make people feel better, but they're gonna feel better if their kids get the all the services they need sooner and not feel like they lost time. Where with with Declan, with my older son, I had guilt for years because I didn't catch it sooner. Yeah. And it wasn't until he was two that we realized that the hearing hearing loss was underlying the speech delay. Yeah. And if we had gotten that intervention sooner, things would have been easier for him.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Sure, sure. Before we jump into how you kind of went from that level of advocacy to your engagement with the mom's demand group, let's go back to your move to Pittsburgh for just a second.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

And what how did you find it? Like, did you find it different than what you remembered as a kid? And was it was it easy to find community here just because you had family? Or, you know, how how did that work for you guys?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

No, that's a good question. I mean, we would come back here for every holiday. So I was back and forth from here, but I never, you know, hadn't lived here since I was a little kid. I hadn't really driven here as an adult because we would ride with other people when we were here. So getting around and navigating was harder or more challenging. And because my kids initially were going, we live were living in here in Swickley, but they were going down the shady side for school. I it was harder for me to establish community because they weren't going to school right here in the community initially. So it was a little isolating from that standpoint. And I did have family very close to my cousin Amy, my sister Sarah, but Amy, who had been in Chicago with us and then moved here back here before we did, her husband ended up getting a job in California. So almost immediately it felt like after we moved back, they left. And I remember that was just devastating because they were between Sarah and my my sister and her husband, and my cousin and her husband, they were closest friends. And I was losing that. So it took time, it really did take time. It wasn't until our kids were really started playing sports and going to the schools here in our neighborhood that I felt like I really started to build my community here. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 36:13

And and you've stayed in Stuically the whole time, is that right? Yeah. Okay. So how do you you okay, Sandy Hook happens? Yeah. And that was, I know I read on your website that that was sort of the impetus for you getting involved. And can you share a little bit about I mean, were you following the news that day? Was it something that was like very immediate for you when it happened, or was it something that happened over time?

SPEAKER_00 36:37

No, it was very immediate. I mean, we're sitting at my kitchen table right now, and like so you couldn't you probably even passed the elementary school. Like, we walk our kids to the elementary school right there. And I came back here, I was working probably at this kitchen table, and I started seeing the alerts and turned on the TV and saw that this was happening while my kids were at that school. So it felt very visceral. I remember feeling very emotional when I walked over at the end of the day to get my kids. And it was also right around my son's Declan's birthday. Okay, Christmas birthday, and I think that was December 14th. So that night we were going to a movie with a few of his friends. And so I remember just like looking in my rearview mirror and looking at those kids, laughing and talking and just thinking about what had happened to those families. Yeah. It just it just felt really, really visceral for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:31

I was in Connecticut when it happened. And just as a point of relatability, I was at the time interviewing for a company that ended up being a game changer company for me. I ended up getting the job.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

But I was there because they were having like my interviews, and then they were doing a Christmas party, and my sister was working for this company, so she took me as her plus one.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

So I had this wonderful day meeting all of these amazing people. And so I went the next day in the hotel before my sister and I got back on the road to write a thank you note. Yeah. And I wasn't hearing anything back. And then we get in the car and we're driving, and it's the breaking news. And um, it turned out that one of the co-owners' kids was like went to that school and knows the close friends with some of the family members who suffered loss. And so, and I just remember hearing about it and same thing, my babies weren't babies anymore. I had, you know, older kids, teenagers, but yeah, just that visceral reaction, um, just crying in the car.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

And and just thinking this is the most horrific thing that has ever happened. And it the fact that we're still here talking about it because it still happens is just unconscionable to me. So I was really, really excited to talk to you about your work with mom's demand because how did you get from emotion to action? Because that's a massive difference.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

It is, and it took time. I mean, it really did. I didn't know what to do with all that emotion initially. No, you know, I started calling legislators. I remember Keith Rothfuss was my congressman at the time. I was calling him, I was so frustrated. And then Parkland happened, and my kids were around that age. And then the synagogue on Squirrel Hill. And I remember being at my son's soccer game and hearing that that was happening. And I just, and that at that point I had gone to a few moms demand action meetings, and I just was like, enough. Like, I I've got to do something. Like, I can't just go to meetings and show up and not do something meaningful. And I went to a meeting, and actually my friend Michelle, who you met, was leading that meeting, and they were walking around saying they had empty roles they needed, or the people that they needed to fill certain roles, and they said they needed an elections lead. And I've always been a little politically minded, and so I told her, let me think about that, and um went home and just thought I need to take those risks, I need to do this. It feels scary, it's not something I've ever done before, but I can do this, and this is the time to do that. So that was the first thing I did, and that was actually during COVID. So we ended up doing all of these foam banks and doing things in a much different way. But I met some really wonderful people that way, not just within moms, but in the campaign world. You know, I got to know Pam Ivino a little bit, who was our state senator. We were working to get her re-elected. That was the first time I met Connor Lamb was during that race. And I remember talking to him on Zoom. We did like a 10-hour phone bank Zoom call, like right before the election, and just made calls and we had different elected leaders join us during that day. Yeah, we had these phone banks for the Biden campaign where we had different celebrities kind of join us and kick it off. So whatever we could do to make it interesting. But that really was my first foray into working with moms. And then I was the local group co-lead, and I think what I realized as I shifted into that role was that, you know, it's these school shootings that wake us up, but the majority of gun violence is in these um at-risk communities without economic opportunities, and we have some really wonderful community partners doing some really wonderful work there. Right. And so it was great to be able to do some things to support them too. So I like helped at a summer camp there in South Pittsburgh, and you know, you can just see that like just showing up and loving on these kids has an impact, and that's gun violence prevention in its own way, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:44

So a couple of points of follow-up. Can you explain a little bit about what an elections lead does? And, you know, as as I'm thinking about any of the listeners who are not engaged in community action, but when you hear that term and you just like raise your hand, you thought about it for a minute, but then you like raise your hand and said, sure, I'll do it.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

What does something like that entail?

SPEAKER_00 42:07

So we were organizing all of the local volunteers across all of Pittsburgh around the campaigns of candidates who have been designated guns candidates. And mom's demand action is in theory, it tends to be a nonpartisan organization. So they send out surveys to everybody running for office. What we see almost 100% of the time is that only Democratic candidates return the surveys. Yeah. But any candidate that gets that mom's demand action candidate of distinction award then can be supported by mom's volunteers. And so then we would figure out ways. I mean, that year it was just we had a lot of postcard parties. Yeah. We found a park shelter, we invited volunteers, and we sat around and wrote postcards for candidates, and candidates would come in and socialize and meet volunteers. We also, the in 22 and 24, we were able to do more door knocking and be more effective with that. And that's really the most effective way of campaigning is just knocking doors and talking about candidates. So we had canvases 22. I did a lot of door knocking for Chris Deluzio.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Um, and for his congressional campaign, I got to meet Franco Harris at one of his Canvas launches, which was a highlight. So we but we did organize these events and brought volunteers to campaigns to do that type of campaign work for them. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:30

And then I'm glad that you brought up the fact that it is supposed to be a nonpartisan organization. Can you talk a little bit about what the goals and missions are for anybody who doesn't know what mom's demand is at this point? Because I do think that it gets too easy to get caught up in, again, just sound bites. Right. And this, oh, they're taking our guns is sort of like the, you know, the reaction. Right. And it's not about that. And I would love for you to talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

I mean, at the simplest level, it's an organization. Founded to end gun violence. So what then they look at it and they have a lot of data. And if you go to their website, there's a lot of data there, but they look at what are the most effective ways that we can approach bringing an end to gun violence. So a lot of that is trying to pass meaningful gun safety legislation. It's not about taking guns away from responsible gun owners. It's about legislation like banning ghost guns or machine gun conversion devices. It's about background checks, making sure there are no loopholes in our background check laws, things like extreme risk protection orders. So if somebody's in a crisis, there is a scaffolding in place that law enforcement or a family member can have firearms removed. And when we look at like our math shooting situations, that's often where a law like that would have prevented it. Because if somebody's in a mental health crisis, or oftentimes a family member is aware of that, but they don't know how to go about getting those guns away. So those are the types of laws that Bombs Demand Action has been working on. Then they've also been working to get funding to community violence intervention programs. And so that's where we have seen more success in Pennsylvania, in part because of Governor Shapiro and Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, who are both big gun violence prevention champions. And so funding people like peacemakers on the ground, these like guys that grew up in the neighborhood that know everybody there, that know where there might be potential problems or conflicts, and they're there on the ground diffusing things. Or people who go to hospital rooms after there's been a shooting and talk to the victim and again try to diffuse the situation and figure out what's going on so there isn't, you know, doesn't um snowball and keep going, you know, that you end that cycle of gun violence and looking at ways, you know, I'm on the board actually of Cafe Momentum, which is a restaurant downtown that works with kids who have interacted with the justice system and gives them jobs because just having economic opportunities is another way of intervening and ending gun violence. So mom's demand actually really looks at all of those things with the goal of ending gun violence.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

Thank you for explaining that because I think it's very important for people to understand what those distinctions are because it's it's so much more than just I think what some people think that it is.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

And the other part of it is actually there's a program called Be Smart that's just about secure firearm storage. So it's just about educating people, whether it's schools or hospitals or doctors' offices, that if you have a gun at home and you have a child at home, that gun needs to be locked. And so making sure people have gun safes and that they're educated on that.

SPEAKER_03 46:51

That's awesome. Okay, let's talk about some campaign stuff because it's easy to see how your network has expanded through your advocacy and your activism. And I imagine that that has expanded even some of your community, right? So not even just the community that you had to find, you know, when you after you moved here, but then you start branching out and your community becomes a little bit larger. But it's still quite a step to decide, yep, I'm gonna run. Which some people are like, well, that's crazy. Why would you do that? Right. Most people. So what what were the things that really made you say, that's it, I'm I'm doing it?

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Yeah, it was definitely cumulative, right? Like I knew in 2022 that I would work whoever for for whose ever campaign was running against my current state representative. And the person who got in did a great job. She worked really hard, but she got in late. Um, she didn't really have the support to win that year. And I really wanted to make sure that somebody who ran against her was viable. And it just started to realize that that had to be me. And it was during some of the public speaking at like the March for Our Lives and things I did through gun violence prevention that people started to say to me, You should run for office. And mom's Demand Action actually has a program called Demand a Seat. So that was the first thing I did was I did that candidate training program to kind of see if this was something I was interested in and to try and better understand what it took to run for office. Yeah. Um, it still felt really abstract, but I did that. And then after that candidate Debbie lost in 2022, I just raised my hand and talked to people I knew and I said, I think this is what I'm gonna do. I think this needs to be me this time, and just started making the connections to people at the state level and the local level who understood more so what it took. Yeah. Um, but that was the start, but it was really, really scary when you start to talk about the amount of money you have to raise to run for a seat like this. It's really daunting. There's so there's so much institutional knowledge that is not easily conveyed in one place, and even these training programs that try to teach teach it to you, everything's hyper-local, everything is different in every um municipality, all the personalities are different. So there's so much just kind of local institutional knowledge that you have to get to really do this effectively.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

Yeah. What were some of the things in the mom's demand uh sort of training that you went through, abstract or not? Like what were what were your takeaways from that? What were some of the big surprises to you? Like that maybe as part of the training.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah, it was a while ago and it was a good one. Okay. But um that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

I just put you on the spot.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah, no, that's okay. I mean, I think, you know, to this day, I mean, call time and people don't know, but when you're running for office, you basically just have to cold call people and ask them for money.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

And that's just something that they tell you right up front, every political candidate has to do. It's just part of the process. Yeah. And that was disgusting to me to think about. And now I do it four hours a week, and it's just something you have to sit down and do. But I remember thinking, there's no way I'm gonna do that. There's no way I can possibly make calls like that and call all those people and ask for money. So that was a big hurdle just mentally to get over understanding how that whole process works. How did you get yourself there to like get over that hurdle? It took a long time. It really did. I mean, I remember sitting on Zoom calls with people who were coaching me. And I think it was this mental shift of like, I'm not really asking people to give me money, you know, I'm asking for them to invest in this campaign that will impact them positively. That, you know, this seat is important to everybody in Pennsylvania, and it's important to issues that matter to everybody in Pennsylvania. Matters for raising the minimum wage and for lowering the cost of health care and investing in public education, and all those things matter to the people I was calling for money. So I think making that shift made it easier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:09

Um, there are words that I've heard sort of repeatedly as I listened to speakers at the brunch. I've watched some of your campaign materials that are on your website, and some of the ones that kept popping were compassionate, empathetic, that you're a fighter, and that you're relentless. And they're all descriptors of what I would consider a servant leader. And servant leadership is something that I felt very strongly about just in my corporate America jobs because I think that it's such a different mindset than sort of that top-down hierarchical thinking. And I think you get, depending on the industry or the situation that you're in, you just get so much more out of people when they see you as a servant leader. And so we'd just love for you to share a little bit about what the idea of servant leadership means to you from the perspective of running um for office.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah, I mean, it's called a state representative, right? Like to me, this job is about representing the people of your community and fighting for them. And you can't do that if you don't sit down and look them in the eye and get to know them and what's important to them. So that's where it starts for me. I remember early on talking to Nick Piscotano, who's now a state senator, like southeast side of Pittsburgh, but he was like, this is a great job because you get to like help little old ladies get their tax rebates, and it can be so rewarding. And I thought, okay, I can do that. You know, there tends to be so much stuff that sounds terrible, and you're infighting and the you know, partisanship of it all, um, attacking each other and all of that stuff. But the helping people is what appealed to me most. And, you know, even when I'm knocking doors and campaigning, I like talking to the people to whom whom I know I will be able to help. Yeah, you know, um, and listening to them and getting to know them. And and again, that goes back to my dad, I think, and how he approached his job, and always this knowledge that even if he was, even when I was working in corporate America or he was running a steel company looking for the ways that you could show and demonstrate love in that job, or adding on by doing something in the volunteer realm that would still be serving people and using that privilege you have to benefit people in a positive way.

SPEAKER_04 53:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

So I think that that's I don't know. I just think this is public this these jobs are being a public servant. And if that's not what you want to do, that's not what you signed up for, then find something else.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

Yeah, I love that. You have some experience though with the political divisiveness. And can you share a little bit about what that looked like for you in your previous run?

SPEAKER_00 54:00

Sure. Yeah, it got it got kind of crazy. I mean, the first stuff they started with was calling me a Chicago radical, which I just thought was I had to laugh, but I knew it was coming, but I still had to laugh. Sure. Um, because I'd lived here for 18 years. I was actually born in the district. My parents lived in Moon when I was born, and I'm, you know, a mom who just came to this through advocacy work and nothing radical. So I didn't get as worried about that. There were some comments made about because I hadn't been paid for what I had done for a couple of years because I was doing advocacy, that inferring that I was a stay-at-home mom and I wasn't qualified.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

Even such an interesting take. Right? Especially, well, not that I think I mean, national politics definitely informs some of that and some of those messaging messages, but given the push in in trends of like traditional life stuff, it's so weird to then turn that and use that against you.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Right, right. So that was crazy. And then there were things toward the end, there was like just stuff like how filing finance reports and all that stuff, they started to say that I was lying and I was hiding George Soros' money.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

And that was what was most upsetting because we had proven that we had filed everything and that we weren't hiding anything. And I'd worked so hard for all the money I raised in that race. Like I said, I was calling people, I was doing events, I wasn't hiding anything. And I remember being at the polling location on election day at Swick at Quaker Valley Middle School, where my kids went with all these people I know, and this couple came up and I smiled at them, and this woman looked like she was gonna spit at me. Oh my gosh. And she said, Don't you smile at me. You're lying and you're taking money from George Soros. And it was so unsettling in my community to hear that and see that venom. Yeah. And so that was that was hard. Um, I think, you know, also from that day, I met this gentleman out in Finley, not where I'm from, and he said to me, Maybe I could consider you if you weren't such a radical. And I said, Well, why do you think that? And we had a conversation about some issues, girls and sports and that kind of thing. But then I bridged it and asked him if he went to um St. Column Keel, the church out there, and if he knew Father Dennis Brnowski, who was my uncle's brother, is my uncle's brother who was the pastor there. And I told him how my father's funeral had been out there at that church. And all of a sudden I could see this shift in his eyes. Yeah. And he warmed up, and all of a sudden he was giving us directions to the next polling location. And it was like he just saw me differently because we were able to make this personal connection. Yeah. And that's one of the reasons I was so excited to do this because it is hard to make personal connections on the campaign trail. And I just think it's really important to see each other as humans now more than ever. And so I'm happy for any opportunity I get to do that.

SPEAKER_03 57:16

Yeah. One of the things that you just said actually made me think of I so I had another friend who was in local politics. She was on her township uh council. And one of the things that she had said to me, and I it just forced me to think about it in such a different way. She was like, I could go into a grocery store and be guaranteed that everybody knew who I was, and I didn't know who any of them were because it was also impacting like outside of her immediate town. And so when you you talked about that venom and that and feeling so unsettled, how do you not, or do you carry it with you? Like, how do you not carry that with you into this year's campaign?

SPEAKER_00 57:54

Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I don't have a a great answer. That's okay. No, and I I know I'm gonna face more of that as I go. I think the best answer I have is just talking to people and looking them in the eye. Um, one of my favorite things we've done so far is our senior center outreach campaign where we're taking this art in motion program that we used to do in the elementary school, taking it to nursing homes and senior high rises, and taking this piece of art I love, um, Romeo Reardon's Pittsburgh Memories.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:24

And then we talk about that a little bit. I tell them who I am, and then we do a collage art project together. And I just go around and talk to people and look them in the eye. And and because they're doing this collage, it's getting them thinking about who they are and who they were and who their spouses are, and just having those human moments, I think, is the best thing for my soul, and reminding myself that those people with that venom don't really know me. They know this caricature of me that's been conveyed in mailers and commercials and whatever. They don't really know me, and I know in my heart why I'm doing this and what's important to me and who I am. And and part of, I mean, going back to my mom, you know, my family enables me to feel that way too because I know I have a strong support system with my husband's God and my kids and my mom and my sisters, my brother, and everybody who they know who I am and they know what my heart is. So that's important to me too. Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

So talk a little bit about the the campaign this year and you know, how does what happened in 2024 shape how you view the campaign or how you like how are you how are you taking that and like turning it a little bit for for the campaign this year?

SPEAKER_00 59:46

Yeah, well, you know, when I first started to think about doing this, I was asking everybody like number one, can I win? And number two, is this the best use of my time? Is this the way I can help the most? And I couldn't, nobody can tell me for sure, number one, but the more we get into this year and see other races around the country, the more the answer feels like yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

And number two, I think the more time went on, the more I felt strongly that this is the way I can help the most in the position that I'm in in my life. So that helps. I think it also helps the different people. I mean, the governor actually asked a few of us on a Zoom call right after 2024 to stay in the fight, and he told us 26 would be different. And so knowing that I have kind of been asked to do this again gives me more freedom and agency in a way, too, that I can do this my own way. I knew last time we talked a lot about reproductive freedom last time, and that's important to me, it's an important issue. But as we talked about, I was raised Catholic, and so I understand how difficult of an issue it is for people, and I think these it's gray, it's not a black or white issue, and I never shy away from having those conversations with people, but I was uncomfortable with how much it was in my paid media that was the messaging. And I kind of had the sense that that wasn't the winning issue last time, and so this time we're really being more mindful of using these personal interactions with people to shape the messaging and to talk about the issues that are really important to people in this district and on the ground instead of what we think is the issue of the day. And I think also, you know, being just telling my story more, you know. Like I said, I know when I meet people face to face, they they see that I'm not a radical. Yeah. Whether or not they agree with me on all the issues, they can see that my heart is in this and that I'm coming to it from an authentic, genuine place. And so just that is my biggest thing is looking for more and more opportunities to have those types of genuine, genuine one-on-one interactions where people feel like when they're going to the poll, even they if they don't vote for me, they know truly who I am. Yeah. Um, and they're not voting against this cartoon radical they think I am.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:08

Right. Um, you used the word bridge before, and I know you've used that in other areas as well. Can you maybe talk a little bit about why that's important to you?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:19

Yeah, I mean, to me, I look at this district and it's basically 50-50 voter registration. It's a very purple district. There's a bridge in the middle of the district, like the Swickley Bridge is like part of my logo. And I loved the symbolism of that. I love the Swickley Bridge. I think it's really beautiful. And to me, whoever serves as our state representative in this district should be a bridge for people. They should be somebody who actively brings people together and solves problems. You know, it becomes a little cliche in Pittsburgh because we have so many bridges and everybody has a bridge in their logo. But authentically, I think it is a, you know, a really perfect metaphor for this race and my candidacy.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Yeah, I agree. It's funny, I literally was just having lunch with a friend of mine, very dear friend, um, and we sit at opposite sides of the political spectrum and both having a conversation today about how we all live in this big messy gray area and how rough it is to try to engage sometimes with people with the sort of more extreme mindsets. And so it's funny because I kind of came here today on the drive here today, thinking a little bit about bridges as well. I agree with you. I'm I think it's it is a really good logo. I think it's it is a great symbol.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:43

So yeah, I think it's I think everybody is tired of how divisive things are, you know. I don't think anybody wants it to feel like that anymore. Right. And, you know, I think if if and when I win this race, like anybody should be comfortable coming into my office or having a conversation by me with me, no matter if they voted for me or not. Right. I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:05

So before we wrap up, yeah, I would love to chat a little bit about volunteerism and being active in the community. And this is actually something that has come up a number of times. I have a number of podcast episodes from different perspectives, but all that kind of tie back into that same sort of topic, which it's like a common thread, I think, that comes up a lot. And that is some of the antidote to some of the things like loneliness and not understanding what's going on in your own community, is to actually get out and be, you know, boots on the ground in your community.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:41

So from your perspective, how important are those things? And then also, how does something like that inform your worldview differently, I think, when you're able to get involved in your community?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:52

I mean, I agree with everything you said. I think, you know, at times of despair, often despair is because we're looking so inward. And so for me, the best antidote to that is to go out and help somebody else. So I'm not, you're not focused on yourself and your own problems and your own turmoil. So that's been a theme for me in my life and for what I've tried to convey to my kids, yeah, too, is to go out and help other people. And I think it gives you so much more perspective on your your own problems. And after I lost in 2024, it took me a bit, but I just thought, how am I gonna come to terms with this? How am I gonna find a way to feel productive right now while I figure out what's next? And I decided to um volunteer at the neighborhood program in a local like where there's a large concentration of immigrant families locally, and just went over there and said, I'd want to volunteer. You know, what kind of volunteers do you need? And we talked about my background and said they could use my help in their after school program.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

And honestly, nothing brought me more. More joy last year than going and like reading with kindergartners and drawing pictures for them. Like I haven't been like artistic. I was artistic as a kid. I forgot to mention that. I would draw all the time and don't do that as much anymore. But somehow I started drawing pictures for kids, and these kids would be coming to me all the time, asking for pictures of Stitch or Hello Kitty or K-pop demon hunters. And it became this like artistic outlet, but also a way to bring them joy. And it helped me out of this really difficult time in my life. And so, in a way, it's selfish, right? Like helping people and showing up for other people is good for our own mental health. Yeah. Feed your soul.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:46

Yep. Yep. So I I think it's really important. It's something I tried to do my entire adult life. Um, when I was single and living in Chicago, I was a big sister for a couple little girls there and got to know them and go bowling and do different things with them on the weekends. And that, you know, in a job that didn't feel like it was helping the world in any way, it was nice to be able to do something to supplement that to feel like I was making a difference.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:12

Yeah. You're showing up for other people and in turn sort of showing up for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:19

And look at you. You're trying to show up for a whole community full of people now. Doing high baths. Yeah, let's do it this time. All right. So at the end of every episode of At My Kitchen Table, um, I always ask my guests to share three good things about their week. Rolling seven days. And it can be the smallest thing or the biggest thing. It doesn't, doesn't matter. Um, just three things that maybe you're grateful for this past week.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

Sure. So I saw some friends in Philadelphia over the weekend, and they were just so lovely and generous, and they're people that I wouldn't have met had I not run for political office. And I even stayed at one of their houses, and they just, it was just nice to just make new friends through this process and feel like they're people that I'll carry with me going forward in my life. On every Sunday night, we have when my kids are away, we do a FaceTime with my kids and just sit there. My husband and I sit on the floor and we FaceTime with the kids and we talked about college basketball. Yeah. And that just brings me joy. Just even listening to them banter with each other brings me a lot of joy. And then um yesterday, I guess, when we did our most recent senior outreach event, and I was talking to this woman, Peggy, who was 90 years old, and she told me how she wishes everybody could live as long as she did because she's had so many wonderful experiences.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:46

And she was so smart and wise, and she was talking about how she looks at some people in politics who say they're Christian and that they've lost Jesus in Christianity, that she doesn't recognize that anymore. And then she went back to her apartment and brought me this prayer card with a psalm on it that she wanted me to have. And it was just this really, really lovely moment. And I was just really grateful to have that um moment with her that felt so meaningful.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:15

That is really awesome. There are three great things. Thank you. I will say that last one is pretty special because for somebody to feel that way and to still feel hopeful and like they want to spread a message is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:29

She was really special.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:31

Well, thank you so much for doing this, Hadley. This was awesome. Thank you, Karen. Yeah, and good luck.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:37

Thank you so much. I appreciate that.