Intro
Broadcasting live from the Business Radio X studios in Dayton, Ohio. It's time for Dayton Business Radio. Now, here's your host.
The Mag
Lee Cantor here, another episode of Dayton Business Radio and this is going to be a fun one. Today I have with me, Heather Salazar. And she is with Pink Ribbon Girls. Welcome.
Heather Salazar
Thank you.
The Mag
Well, before we get too far into things tell us about Pink Ribbon Girls, how are you serving folks?
Heather Salazar
Well, we're doing we Pink Ribbon Girls provides meals, house cleaning, rights to treatment, and peer support for women in their families, battling breast and gynecological cancers. We provide three meals a week for your entire family, house cleaning two times a month and as many rights to treatment as you need to get through your process.
The Mag
So how did you get into this line of work? What got you into this?
Heather Salazar
Well, I had breast cancer when I was 31. Before I had breast cancer, I was kind of into social work and nonprofit work. And we had adopted our fourth child. She was raised right here in Dayton, in the foster care system, and 17 different foster care homes. And her mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. And she passed away at the young age of 24. A year after her mom passed away, I was diagnosed with the same kind of breast cancer, but it was in the early stage.
The Mag
And then from there, you saw the need when you were going through all the process.
Heather Salazar
Correct? Yeah, I got well, I got really frustrated and mad and kind of hated the pink ribbon. And truthfully, I never thought I would do anything like this. And then I just realized that my community and my family came around me and offer this for my family. But Lexi's mom, Alexis didn't have any support. And so as we know, cancer is not prejudiced or biased. And so I wanted it to be something that's really tangible, like these three meals a week. I mean, I feel like where most people are aware of breast cancer, and I wanted to be able to really help and come around the person after they were diagnosed.
The Mag
Now, for you, you mentioned, you're working in social work, and you were familiar with some of the bureaucracy and some of the challenges with those systems. But had you ever like kind of started a nonprofit like this before?
Heather Salazar
And no, when I was 14 years old with my church, I did start we started the clubhouse, which was an inner-city after school reading program that was at Parkside projects, and then moved to Old North Dayton so but I hadn't, you know, I actually worked with the kids. I didn't start, you know, the actual nonprofit.
The Mag
So now, what was the learning curve there? Like, how did you find mentors? Or how did you get that going? Because that has its own challenges.
Heather Salazar
Yeah, it does, I was able to, so I was able to write a grant when we first started to a billionaire out of Texas named Lester Smith. And I thought it was kind of a joke. And in the grant world, I knew enough about that we shouldn't have gotten the grant because we didn't have any money. We didn't have any sustainability. I had like a pipe dream to offer these three meals, this house cleaning rights to treatment. And they announced the winners of this grant on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. And PRG was a winner of a $45,000 matching grant at the time.
About eight years ago, our budget was right at $100,000 to start. And he basically was like, I believe in your seed, and sent a little sticky note. And he was a businessman, not really a grant person. And so with that, I was able to get matched, completely matched by Pat and Tom Robinson, out of Detroit, Duke Foundation. And Pat, that said to me at the time, make sure you surround yourself by people that have strengths and your weaknesses. Make sure you have Dewar's, donors, and door openers.
The Mag
That's good advice for any business right there.
Heather Salazar
Yes, it is. And so I formed a board and I asked awesome people in Dayton to be on my board that should have said no, because we weren't really starting. And I asked you know, Vicki, Jim Brown and Dale Brenner and Jenny Lewis from the different hospitals and they said yes, and we kind of started and I joke with him now because when I asked them I said, this isn't going to take any of your times. It's just going to be really simple. I plan to work 10 hours a week, set it up. And so here we are eight years later so.
The Mag
Now when you look back what do you think made all this magic happen? Because it seems like these are amazing you know, I don't want to say coincidences but opportunities where somebody with this kind of background not to diminish it, but just these are long shots, right? And multiple areas.
Heather Salazar
So I think great is a lot of it, and I think that I was super passionate about the cause and so if you gave me $10,000 If I can say thank you so much, that was 1420 meals, and I just listened to my board and my mentors, like, stay true to our focus, I said at the very beginning because I have this tendency to want to help everybody with everything. And so you know, if you needed help with your rent or your house payment, I would have wanted to do all of that in we wouldn't have been able to sustain it. We just stayed true to meals house any rights to treatment. Last year, we gave, we served 108,000 meals, and we gave 6900 rights to treatment.
The Mag
So now how do you kind of facilitate that the rides and the meals and you know, the packing, delivery, all that that's kind of a logistics company at that point?
Heather Salazar
Correct. So we work in Ohio, so we're in Ohio, Missouri, in San Francisco right now. So in Ohio, we use a company called Scratch catering, and they have been with us from the beginning. And they originally started helping us cook the meals and they were a catering company. And we delivered the meals in Sam's bags, literally like Sam's or Costco bags. And we worked with interns from different colleges. And in month three, we had 400 meals which we couldn't get all over the state of Ohio. And I was like, we have to figure out how to ship these meals. And we didn't know how to do it and the catering company didn't know how to do it.
And they just worked tirelessly because the owner believes in the mission whose mom died of cancer. And so we figured out how to ship the meals. We started out with UPS and FedEx and now we work with Rush transportation and logistics they came on as a women-owned business partner for us and give us a sustained huge discount, and they deliver all the meals in Ohio. In Ohio, we also work with car dealers such as Dave Arbogast, they have donated all of the vehicles and then we hire people to drive our patients to treatment, whether they're stay at home moms, retired teachers, retired nurses, that's been amazing that way, in California, we use a national company. And then Uber Health provides all of our rights.
The Mag
So how has the pandemic impacted you know, that side of the business?
Heather Salazar
So that's scary. So the pandemic, our services increased, right, because you have people that are at risk that are at supercritical need both socioeconomically and within fighting cancer, I can't even imagine going through stage four cancer or stage two cancer and then not knowing how you're going to feed your kids. So we just decided that what was right for us, even though we weren't sure how we were going to fund it was to offer anybody that was food insecure, two extra meals per week. So in many of these cases in Dayton, in the Dayton area, kids were getting a lot of free lunches at school and free breakfast.
And now their mom's sick, their immune-compromised, they can't go out and they need those extra meals. And so we just rallied in it was scary, because I don't know, right? Our biggest event of the year in Dayton raises almost a million dollars is that since September? So you know, I don't have all of those answers to the questions. But Dayton is pretty awesome. And they come around their people. And so we were able to get a grant to the Dayton Foundation, we were able to get a huge grant from Gale of hope. In the end, that's how we were able to come support that needed with the extra meals.
The Mag
And that's something a lot of people don't understand the unintended consequences of all those kids that are at home, that they don't realize that that might be their one or two meals that they're getting that day. And then when that exactly Lifeline is cut, then they're kind of scrambling.
Heather Salazar
Right. And even to say it flippantly like I've had people say appropriately like well, there's, you know, the food banks offering this, or there's extra meals here at this and then I'm like they're sick. I mean, they're sick, they can't leave, you know what I mean? They're very, they're very immune-compromised just to go out, and especially with the unknown. And so, you know, when we were able to do that our caterer came on board and across the across all five regions, we were able to continue and it increased, it increased us by about 30% a week, which is a lot, especially, like I said, when you don't always know what your funding is, can we raise about 60% of our money in September and October. But I just feel like it was the right thing to do. And it was really true to our mission. And I feel like I mean, my gut is just that it's gonna work out and that we did the right thing.
The Mag
So now that original billionaire guys, he's still in the loop.
Heather Salazar
Oh, he's the best his name was Lester Smith. So this is the greatest thing ever. So in year five, he flew his private jet to EUD, and he was the speaker for us and he said, You know, I never to be able to see that this happened that is just so inspiring to him. And he was a great, it was a great speaker. And then he, the great story is he fell in love with my Potato chips because we gave him like a taste of Dayton in his bag. And so he about two years ago how to have a double lung transplant and I sent him like potatoes. chips every other week. And he was so happy. And unfortunately, just through all the surgeries and everything he passed away about three months ago.
The Mag
Oh, wow.
Heather Salazar
Yeah, but he was great. And we're still in touch with his wife. And you know, what's interesting is that he gave away 20 to 20, nonprofits, this $45,000. Okay. And he said, we were the only nonprofit that followed up with him consistently.
The Mag
Wow, that's another good lesson for business people out there the importance of follow-up, and staying connected.
Heather Salazar
And I never asked him, I never asked him again, like he gave another $70,000 that year when he came in at Ignite. And then I kept following up and he would just send random, you know, donations. In Texas, I've learned when oil is good, it's good when oil is bad. So yeah, he was one of a kind.
The Mag
Now, what's next for Pink Ribbon Girls.
Heather Salazar
So I don't know for sure we're, you know, we are a nonprofit, when we had a consultant come in, we can't find another nonprofit nationally, that kind of does what we do, there's peace meals or support online support. I think that critical care is so important. And I think we have so many transplants in so many areas. And even though Ohio is kind of homegrown, we have so many people from the base, and it's so we serve everyone, whether we don't care what your income status is, I mean, we feel like the people who can give back because we know breast cancer isn't prejudiced.
And there are many times that people have used our services and just the meals are so healthy, and so delicious, which is very important to me from when I was sick, that we, you know, we've served support person, and we've served as a multimillionaire and I think that as we continue to grow, we're just gonna stick to the mission and stick to, to serving that way. San Francisco has been a little bit of a challenge being out there, just you know, you can't get to San Francisco today. But it's been really good. And we've had some really critical people step up and kind of see what's going on in our mission like the CEO of Uber health and things like that, have asked us and continue to see what it takes to serve their patients and stuff like that. So that's kind of where we're working now.
The Mag
Now, how did you choose those other two markets to get involved in?
Heather Salazar
So that's a good question. So Lexi, that our daughter that we adopted is the cutest little thing you've ever seen. And she's just a crazy athlete myself. I can say that because she doesn't have our genes. So we were in Phoenix for a soccer tournament. She played high-level soccer, and I was there. And at this time, this is 2017. And PRG had just hit like the 1.5 million annual budget we were. And I only had three or four people working and I was buried in emails. And so I was sitting there at the airport trying to answer the emails, and she came up to me. And there was this guy sitting beside me. She's like, Bob, can I have $5 for Starbucks in? I said, Sure. And the guy said, did you adopt her. And I was like, clearly cuz he's African American. And I was like, clearly, and I didn't have any time for this guy. Well, anyway, he was one of the original people that created the software for Amazon to become a multi-platform seller sold as Jeff Bezos and worked for Jeff Bezos for two years.
And he is creating artificial intelligence for breast cancer. And he just was so intrigued and just whatever. And so they have been able to use the AI to detect breast cancer so early, and they're working with John Hopkins and Stanford and Wash U in St. Louis. And so they got all their data set from Wash U. And so he flew me out there to talk to them, and then Wash U decided that they want a PRG to serve their patients, St. Louis. And so and then after that, we were on the Today Show with Megyn, Kelly, and Joan Lunden. And John Lennon's like if you know, I want this to be national. And she's like, well, you have to be able to operate on the west coast. It's like its own country, if you can operate out there, you have a great shot at this, this is an amazing organization or whatever. So then we started in St. Louis because that's where the AI company was getting their data set. And then they live in Silicon Valley. So we've been in Silicon Valley, we've been in Stanford, like the site, the Palo Alto Valley Medical area for about nine months. And we've given served about 2000 meals and given about 500 rights to treatment. So that's kind of how that happens.
The Mag
So for you as the CEO, and from where you started to where you are now, as a leader, how have you seen yourself grow and expand into the world?
Heather Salazar
Yeah, that is a great question. And it has been huge. And just to be honest, I think you have to be willing to get your butt kicked, and you have to be willing to learn. And especially last year, I felt like I was in meetings that I didn't belong in with people that were like, you know, crazy, like, but I never thought like, I don't know, like the founder of Google Maps and stuff. It's just to be able to ask them questions that grow and sometimes I had to feel really, you know, like, I didn't know because I didn't know but just to keep getting back up. I mean, just to keep getting back up and facing that adversity. And I think for me personally, it's because I, every time, I have to go to a funeral of a young mom when I have to hug their seven and eight-year-old, and I think their kid's faces are etched in my head forever. And I don't know why I got to live and they didn't, I want to be able to serve them and make their life as best as it can be for as long as they're here. And that's what keeps me going.
The Mag
Now, if somebody wanted to get involved, whether just to donate or to as a business person to get involved and help you in your mission, what's the best way to get ahold to you?
Heather Salazar
So well, they can email me or call me but our pinkribbongirls.org has all of the information and my emails on there and all of the contact information. And, you know, I just I can't say enough great things about Dayton and how these businesses have gotten around us. I don't know if you've seen any of the pins, trucks around, or whatever. And they just support us at, you know, $10,000, the pink chalk and they come to the event, and they just come around us and just support this mission, like nothing I've ever seen. And I just, I love this community for that.
The Mag
Well, Heather, thank you so much for sharing your story and doing the work you're doing. It's important to work and you're making an impact in Dayton and all over the country. Thank you.
Heather Salazar
Thank you.
The Mag
All right. This is Lee Canter. We will see you all next time on Dayton Business Radio.
Image source: https://www.pinkribbongirls.org/our-team
