Kansas City Bucket List

 Mindy Hargesheimer (00:00:00): 

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining, and I hope you've been enjoying  the episode so far. Today I have a really special guest. I have Brandon Callaway. He is the CEO and co-founder of Kansas City G.I.F.T., , G.I.F.T. being Generating Income For Tomorrow, which is a non-profit here  helping black-owned businesses. Um, they have an incredible story to tell about how this business came together. Um, one thing that I was particularly so impressed with is how many businesses they have  helped and how much money they have raised over the past five and a half, almost six years, um, to help  so many businesses east of truce that, um, we talk about. And I think you'll be really, um, intrigued and  inspired and enlightened by what he and his team are doing. So I hope you enjoy this episode, um, and  hope you can find a way to get involved with this incredible nonprofit here in Casey. I am excited to have  you on. Yeah. So nice to meet you. I have been hearing your name and Kansas City G.I.F.T. Oh. In so many  different places. I couldn't even tell you like all the different places, but it keeps popping up like, oh,  Brandon. Oh, Kansas City G.I.F.T.. Oh, we worked with them. They're so great. And that's where I was like, I  have to reach out to you. Yeah. You have to come on the podcast and talk about what you, what you do.  So yeah, thanks for coming on. I appreciate, 

Brandon Calloway (00:01:19): 

I appreciate you reaching out. I'm glad that, you know, the work we are doing is circulating. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:01:23): 

Yeah. Yeah. So we were just talking about, um, you've worked with Elaina Paige with the Next Paige Yep. 

Brandon Calloway (00:01:28): 

Foundation. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:01:28): 

And, um, she and I got connected last year, and so I did a little feature on her space and what she has.  Yeah. And, um, ever since then, I've just adored talking to her and keeping in touch with her. And so then  I saw that you have worked with her Of course. Yeah. Through Kansas City G.I.F.T.  Which we'll get into, but, um, so Brandon Callaway, you are CEO of Kansas City G.I.F.T.? Yes, 

Brandon Calloway (00:01:48): 

Ma'am. Yep. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:01:48): 

Are you a co-founder? Do you have other people that you came together with this idea, or what's kinda  the backstory there? 

Brandon Calloway (00:01:55): 

Oh, yeah. So, let's see. It's a long, long backstory. . It's a long backstory. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:01:59): 

We've got time. 

Brandon Calloway (00:02:00):

Yeah. But, , gosh, how far back do we wanna start? Well, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:02:05): 

You're a KC native. Yeah, 

Brandon Calloway (00:02:06): 

I am. So 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:02:06): 

We can go all the way back to childhood, but you're born and raised Casey, so I'm sure you're very  passionate about the city. 

Brandon Calloway (00:02:12): 

I actually am. , so yeah, I was born, born in KCK, moved to KCMO when I was, what, seven or eight   

Brandon Calloway (00:02:19): 

And grew up on the east side of Kansas City. Um, and, you know, grew up in an area that, , we, we  grew up in a historically red lined area of Kansas City. Yeah. And then growing up you didn't, you didn't  know that language. Yeah. 

(00:02:35): 

You just knew that the, the houses looked a little bit, you know, beat up. There weren't as many if you wanted to go shopping or go to, you know, bigger businesses or, or  something that you had to go further away. Mm. , and there wasn't a whole lot of, , you know, we  didn't have, we didn't often have a car, so we had to, you know, hop on the bus to, and, and so you got  comfortable spending an hour to two or three  . You know, on the, on the bus.  Um, and, you know, I, I seen a lot. I mean, I, I grew up in a house that often had no lights, no water, no  gas, all at the same time  

Brandon Calloway (00:03:18): 

Right. And, , a lot of different economic challenges. That one, it just felt like nobody, like everybody  knows that this is happening. It felt like, like you could clearly see Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:03:31): 

That, that, that this was a challenge and this was a struggle. But it didn't seem  like anybody cared, anybody was doing anything. At least not

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:03:38): 

From what I, you felt that as a child. 

Brandon Calloway (00:03:39): 

Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:03:39): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:03:40): 

Right. Um, you know, I mean, when you are, when it's negative 10 degrees outside and you know, you  are in the house, you would, you pajamas on and your snowsuit on and you know, you the sheets and the  blankets and the comforters and, and all of that. Yeah. You know, riding it out. Yeah. , and you know, I remember, you know, we had scrounged up, I don't know, I don't know where we, we, we got  money. I was in high school. 

Brandon Calloway (00:04:14): 

We got money to, , you know, pay the gas bill, or it was gas or electricity. I don't remember which one  our heat ran off of. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:04:24): 

Sure. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:04:25): 

I remember being there and the lady was on the phone with my mom, and, um, she said,  you know, she said, oh, I'll let you go. I'll, I'll give you guys a call when somebody can come out that way you can go back home.  

Brandon Calloway (00:04:42): 

And it was like, I don't know what you're talking, like, we live here. Yeah. You know, and so for the  lady on the other side of the phone, she couldn't imagine that it was negative weather, and we were like,  that we weren't going and staying with relatives. Yeah. That we were just staying there. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:04:57): 

Or the urgency to be Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:04:59): 

Helping out, like, but to us that there was no option. There was no option to,  you know, go and stay somewhere else by that time, you know, I was, you know, I, gosh, I had to be 15  or 16, , I had my own car, and for me it was just as comfortable to sleep in my car as it was to sleep,  you know? And, I got really, really, really used to sleeping in, going to work, sleeping in my car and  going to school, and then going to work, and then sleeping in my car and going to school. Yeah. I very used to doing that. Um, so all of , all of that, I was very intimately familiar with the challenges of  the east side of Kansas City. . Um, and then growing up, so I, you know, went to EO high  school, then went to the Army for, for a little bit. Okay. , and then I got my degree in exercise  physiology from Avila  . Um, and, you know, worked as a personal trainers, sports performance, you know, trainer and, and clinical exercise guy and all of that. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:06:03): 

Seems like you've had a lot of drive since. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:06:06): 

Well, and so what I told myself 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:06:07): 

Early on 

Brandon Calloway (00:06:08): 

Was that the, I wanted to use my skills, the skills that I, I was, you know, developing and, , personal  training, strength and conditioning  

Brandon Calloway (00:06:20): 

Wanted to use that to help inner city kids get to college. Not so they can go to the NFL or anything like  that, but, because even back then, you know, I was 19 years old, fresh out of my first personal training  certification.  

Brandon Calloway (00:06:37

Still understood that college was a launchpad to upward economic mobility. 

Brandon Calloway (00:06:43): 

And so, , yeah, I started working as a trainer in, um, or as a strength and conditioning coach for  Northeast High School, , solely to help those kids get to college. But the other thing that happened  was that as a trainer, you realize that, you know, you have a sales job. Yeah. Like, for, you know, 'cause  you gotta make money. And that high school football team, , they, you know, they didn't really pay, ,  honestly, actually, they didn't really, they didn't pay at all. but so I, I had to get, I had to get  really good at business. I had to get good at learning how to sell so I did that  and 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:07:22): 

Then just self-taught. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:07:24): 

Did you have people around you that 

Brandon Calloway (00:07:25): 

Were No, so, I mean, at Pinnacle, so I went to Pinnacle Career Institute. They gave us one business class,  and then I started, when I got, I went to the army, got outta the Army, and I started working as a trainer  down in, um, in Austin, in Austin, Texas. 

Brandon Calloway (00:07:39): 

Um, and I went to my supervisor once, and I was like, man, I'm not good at this. Like, , because what I  cared about was science. I loved science. Right. Okay. And so the, the exercise physiology,  endocrinology 

Brandon Calloway (00:07:54): 

the, you know, biomechanics of movement and clinical exercise and recovery, loved  all that. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:07:59): 

Really fascinating too. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:08:00): 

and I was like, yeah, I don't, I, I don't think I have the skills to be a top performing, top producing  trainer. And so we sat down and he, and he was like, well, let's, let's look at that. And we looked at how  many clients do you have? And we pulled up all my clients. He was like, okay, where did this one come  from? Where did this one come from? Where did this one come from? And we broke 'em all down. And  we found out that probably like 70% of my clients came from, , the new gym member, consultation.  Okay. Yeah. You know, you sign up for a gym and you get, and they say, Hey, here's a free personal  trainer. Yeah. Um, 70% of my clients came from that. And I was like, okay. So it seems like he was like,  you know, it seems like you're closing sales. Yeah. Right. You, you, you, you're, you're having these  consults you're meeting with, with people, and then you're converting 'em actually into, , you know,  into per, you know, long term personal training clients. Yeah. , and, and it wasn't just that it was from  that. Plus there's, every gym has a list of people that has signed up for the gym. 

Brandon Calloway (00:09:04): 

But so there's two lists. There's one of people that have signed up and haven't been in the gym in the past  30, 60, 90 days. . That's, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:09:15): 

Or that's good to know, six to 

Brandon Calloway (00:09:16): 

12 months. Like, it it so that they, they have it broken down by 

Brandon Calloway (00:09:19): 

You know, like, this person hasn't been in the gym for a year, but they've been paying for a membership. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:09:23): 

They're like, this person had New Year's resolutions. Yeah. And then 21 days later, we never saw 'em  again. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:09:27): 

And then there's another list of people that have signed up that pay their membership and never  come into the gym, 'cause that happens a 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:09:38): 

Lot. Good. A good investment. Right? 

Brandon Calloway (00:09:39): 

Yeah.Right. , 'cause the people that say, I'm gonna go but house, they never go. Right. Yeah.  And, and so most of my clients came from either those new member consultations or me doing the cold

call list, because trainers hate doing it is not a fun thing to do. Yeah. You know, you haven't been in the  gym in eight months, and I'm calling you up and say, Hey, just notice you haven't been in, in a while.  That's a tough pitch. Do you wanna come in for a, for a training session? No, no. Thank you for shaming  me. Yeah. . No, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna come in calling me out. Yeah. But I got a, I got a,  I got a good amount of clients from, from those, from, from calling those lists. , and so when we  looked at all of those appointments that I did, I had a 35% closing rate. 

Brandon Calloway (00:10:17): 

and, and so then we just did math. And he was like, okay, so if you meet with X amount, this is how  you, this is how many people you closed. This is how many people you've met with 35% closing rate.  And so if you continue to walk the floor and make these, , calls, , and you can hold your close rate  steady, which it seems like I could, 'cause I've been doing it for over six months 

Brandon Calloway (00:10:38): 

Right. Um, then you can, you can grow, you, you can grow 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:10:42): 

The potentials there, right? 

Brandon Calloway (00:10:44): 

And from there I was like, cool, this is just math, which I was good at. I was very good at math. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:10:47): 

So that kind of got you excited. Yeah. You were like, let's go. 

Brandon Calloway (00:10:49): 

Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I realized it was just volume. It, it was, I mean, now the, the language is, it was  controlling the volume of leads  . Right. , and so I did that, and I ended up  becoming probably, I mean, we had 33, 32 trainers on staff. It was a big gym. Yeah.

And I was top five. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:11:10): 

Nice. 

Brandon Calloway (00:11:11): 

yeah. I ended up becoming top. I mean, I was educationally, I already, I had a bunch of education, so  I was already one of the more, more expensive trainers to train that. Okay. , and then I became one of  the higher selling trainers. 

Brandon Calloway (00:11:26): 

and so I just, you know, I got good at business. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:11:29): 

Got good at business. 

Brandon Calloway (00:11:30): 

I got good at sales, and then I eventually started training trainers and then, you know, moved back to  Kansas City, finished up the degree, and, , and I started running some gyms. I started running like small  bootcamp fitness  . Studios and, , like Leewood and Prairie Village and stuff  like that. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:11:47): 

What brought you back to Kansas City? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:11:50): 

Rather than staying in Texas?

Brandon Calloway (00:11:51): 

Yeah. I, , I really only care about the, so, , at, at the time, I only cared about the social benefit of  society when I was in Kansas City. Okay. , you know, I, I, I cared about doing what I could to make  the city, you know  

Brandon Calloway (00:12:07): 

A, a better place. , it wasn't really being homesick or anything like that. Okay.  

Brandon Calloway (00:12:12): 

I, I, you know, I wanted to, I wanted to come back and do what I could for the, for, for the city. 

Brandon Calloway (00:12:16): 

, and I ended up working in, you know, still working as a trainer in the suburbs of, of, of the city mm hmm 

Brandon Calloway (00:12:23): 

And all of this to say, you, you notice that the other areas of Kansas City don't look like the inner city of  Kansas City. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:12:33): 

Was that the first time you really had that eyeopening exposure to it? Or had you had it before? 

Brandon Calloway (00:12:38): 

Yeah. I, I think as I was, as I started working as a trainer, you know  . I  launched 'cause I launched my own personal training business failed, but when I was 18. 

Brandon Calloway (00:12:49): 

Um, and, and so I was, you know, like going all around the city, but then coming back and just working at  some of the bigger gyms, like you really just got, it really became obvious used to it. Yeah. And it was  places I was going every day. And, , and then you learn about redlining and, and the systemic  oppression of black people, the global systemic oppression of 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:13:11): 

Black people. Yeah. I wanna get into that, right? Because I think it's really important to hear the details  about it Yeah. And what we need to know about it. So feel free to expand on it as much as we can. 

Brandon Calloway (00:13:18): 

Redlining was a system, um, it was a collaborative system from private developers banks and  public government officials. Okay. , that, you know, sectioned up neighborhoods. , so gosh, when  we cont so if you go, I'm saying, I'm trying not to go back too far, but if you go 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:13:45): 

Back, go as far as you want. 

Brandon Calloway (00:13:47): 

There, there is, I forget the word, I forget the term for it, but, um, in the book, gosh, I think they talk about  it in the color of law as well as the new Jim Crow. 

Brandon Calloway (00:13:58): 

Time a system of oppression ends, the, the people in power look for the most legal ways to hold on to the power. Right. How, how can they legalize, , how, how can they continue to oppress and receive the  benefits, , of that, of, of the oppression 

Brandon Calloway (00:14:23): 

, that they were inflicting, but do it within the, the legal limits of the law. , and so that's how, you  know, after slavery, you get the, the black codes, right?  

Brandon Calloway (00:14:32): 

You get the black codes that, that, , make it illegal to not have a job and make it legal, that if you don't  have a job, you can then be sold into slavery. Right? . Um, and so it, it's a, a system to say,

okay, well, slavery isn't, isn't legal anymore, but if we do this and this and this, and then we make it hard  Yeah. For, you know, former slaves to get jobs  

Brandon Calloway (00:14:58): 

Then, then they can be, you know, they can be arrested and put back into to slavery under another name.  But legally, , and even when the black coat, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:15:06): 

Hence the systemic, right. Where people, I think there has been, there's confusion for people on literally  what that means. Right. So this is good. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:15:14): 

I mean, literally built it. It is, it is oppression built into the system 

Brandon Calloway (00:15:19): 

By using the system to reinforce the benefits received in that oppression.  . ,  and, and so, you know, when the black COEs, you know, got, , abolished because they were eventually  deemed, you know, illegal  

Brandon Calloway (00:15:38): 

, and the reinstatement of the black COEs under, under, you know, other, other names, um, the, the,  there was also the separation. There was a separation of work, there was a separation of housing, there  was a separation of schools  

Brandon Calloway (00:15:54): 

, and, and so, you know, government, government officials, private developers and banks, you know,  sought to create racially homogenous neighborhoods where, you know, black people were in, in, you  know, one area, , white people were in one area. I mean, they, they, and they didn't even really just stop  there. It was you. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:16:18): 

And you're obviously not speaking only to Kansas City at this point. No, 

Brandon Calloway (00:16:20):

No, no. I mean, the country Yeah. This, this was, this was absolutely across the country. Yeah. And JC  Nichols was one of the, you know, pioneers of, of, , redlining.  . , you know,  JC Nichols, I think he became on the board of like the National Association of Real Estate Developers  that also put out a national handbook  . Around, , how, how do you, how do you  develop safe neighborhoods, right? Mm. Which was a code Okay. For racially homogenous  neighborhoods. Right. , I mean, the, and the, and so redlining was the system where they literally took  a map and drew green lines around neighborhoods, yellow lines around neighborhoods, and red lines  around neighborhoods. , and would would say that, you know, if a community was predominantly, was  predominantly white  . Then it was, you know, green lined, , you, you could  lend there, , it was encouraged to, to, to land there. Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (00:17:21): 

Know, , if it was a mixed neighborhood, then it was, it would be yellow, and if it was a predominantly  black neighborhood, it would be red. Right. Okay. Which would mean that, you know, this is a highly  risky, and you should not land here, um, for homes, for businesses, for anything. You should, you should  not land here. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:17:38): 

And this dates back to when, by the way, is 

Brandon Calloway (00:17:40): 

This like, , 1920s? 19, so 1920s, thirties, forties. Okay. , and, um, it was also shown that  communities, so black communities were redlined even when they had these same economic power as  white communities, right?  . , and so you get, you, you get redlining that they,  , so redlining partnered with block busting, partnered with racially restricted covenants. Right. And so,  , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:18:15): 

What is block busting? 

Brandon Calloway (00:18:16): 

Yeah. So block busting was, , a practice done by, , by realtors and developers who will tell you that  they were just doing good business. Right. They were doing good business at the time. Um, and what it  was were, is that if I'm a realtor, I come to you and say, Hey, you know, black people are moving all, all  

in this neighborhood.  . , the quality of your, your, your property value is about  to go down. The safety of your neighborhood is about to go down, you know, sell your house, get out of it   . And, and, you know, and it's again, systemic. Yeah. You know, media, media  fear you being, you know, conducive to the messages of the time.  . Would say,  oh, yeah, I need to get outta this house.  . Right. And so I offer you, , a below  market rate, you sell, and then, and then we turn around and sell it to a black family  

Brandon Calloway (00:19:16): 

, without doing any of the fix, fix up and any of the reinvestments, , in it that, that, that we say we  would do. 

Brandon Calloway (00:19:21): 

, and at the same time, we got racially restricted covenants. , and so Mission Hills and Prairie  Village, were two of the first racially restricted covenants in the country. Mm. 

Brandon Calloway (00:19:31): 

, and the, these are, these were how these are homeowner, , gosh, resident, these residential  developments, where in the deed it would say that, , no, nobody may own this home, or nobody may  own a home in this area that is not of Caucasian descent. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:20:01): 

That was legal to put that in writing. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:20:03): 

So, I mean, if, if you pull deeds right now from Mission Hills, during that time, they No. If you pull the  deeds right now, 

Brandon Calloway (00:20:10): 

They will still say that. Right. , they, they became, they, they became unenforceable and, , the, the  legalities and changing language in a 

Brandon Calloway (00:20:22): 

Okay. Make it more expensive than, than, , than it actually, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:20:26): 

I would hope there's some evolution there. 

Brandon Calloway (00:20:27): 

Right, right. But I mean, but they became unenforceable a, a while ago. Okay. , but they were, when  they were, were created

Brandon Calloway (00:20:35): 

They were created specifically for, for, for that. So you get take redlining, block busting and racially  restricted covenants. Yep. And what do you get? You get a, , you get a system where you have black  neighborhoods that are disinvested in, and you have white neighborhoods that are intentionally built and  specifically to be invested in  . The Plaza.  . , was, was  built to be a shopping district for the racially restricted covenants of, of the, um, houses that were built.  Right. Right next to the plaza 

Brandon Calloway (00:21:05): 

And so you take all of that 

Brandon Calloway (00:21:08): 

And you get an inner city, you know, so the east of Truce is our historically red aligned area. Okay. Um,  and so it is the area of, I mean, east of Truce, literally that one street, it is 75% black on the east side, ,  36% poverty rate. Okay. , and west of Truce is 91% white with a 5% poverty rate. 

Brandon Calloway (00:21:29): 

Right. And this current data Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:21:31): 

To, yeah. To this day. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:21:32): 

Okay. And, and so, you know, all of that, we say, this is the, this is the actual, , current impact mm hmm 

Brandon Calloway (00:21:43): 

Of these historical practices. 

Brandon Calloway (00:21:46): 

Right. , and so what do we do? You know? Yeah. We, we, we could stomp our feet, point our fingers,  and just be mad  

Brandon Calloway (00:21:54): 

, but what, what happened, you know, so I talked about all of that. Talked about my, you know, my,  my history in, you know, fitness and business  . And, , and so what I told  myself, I, I was making money as a trainer  . I was making, running, running  gyms, and I, and, , I wasn't impacting my community really any, any anymore. Okay. I was just making  money. Right. Yeah. And so I quit. 

Brandon Calloway (00:22:15): 

I stepped away from fitness and said that the skills that I developed in sales and business, I can use in  nonprofit fundraising, do a great amount of good for a great amount of people. , that took me to United  Way. And while I was at United Way, I learned a whole lot about nonprofit. So, United Way at Great  Greater 

Brandon Calloway (00:22:30): 

City. I was there for three years. , and then pandemic hit. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:22:33): 

I was gonna say, when was this? So pre right before Pandemic. Okay. Yep. So 

Brandon Calloway (00:22:35): 

I got there 2018. And 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:22:37): 

By the way, did you just have this good heart feeling of like, I wanna do good, I wanna get into the world  of giving, giving back. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:22:43):

Or was it, was there anything else that also kind of inspired that Yeah. Or ignited that in you? 

Brandon Calloway (00:22:47): 

Well, I, , it is, I don't consider myself, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:22:56): 

You can brag about yourself if you Well, 

Brandon Calloway (00:22:57): 

But I don't, I don't consider, I don't consider myself like I'm not a bleeding heart that I, I, I absolutely am  not. Okay. , and people find that out when they come and they, and they are asking us for grant money.  And, and I'm like, all, tell me about your business. Does your business make sense? And if it doesn't  make sense, then I, you know, yeah. I'm not a bleeding, which 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:23:15): 

We'll get into that. Of course, though. I'm not a bleeding. Okay. Okay. . , 

Brandon Calloway (00:23:18): 

But I am about action. Okay. And I don't like complaining about a thing that I am not willing to  participate in changing. Um, I, I can't stand, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:23:29): 

Which is amazing, but also not everybody. Yeah. So, 

Brandon Calloway (00:23:31): 

But I, yeah. I just, I, I can't, I, I can't stand that. Okay. And, you know, , I had a lot of complaints.   sure had a lot, you know, you're breaking down redlining and racially restricted covenants. And  Blockbuster had a whole lot of complaints. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:23:47): 

You were doing this, by the way, were you working with other people like, um, at the time that you  wanna mention that are doing things today? Or will we get into that, like, oh, who else is making great  impact and change? Like, you, 

Brandon Calloway (00:23:57): 

You mean as we were developing this where we working with other people? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:24:00);

Well, yeah. So you went to United Way  . And you were there for three years.  Yeah. And then the pandemic hit. Yeah. So we can kind of, we'll keep going down that path. Yeah. And  then, yeah. So what happened? 

Brandon Calloway (00:24:09): 

Well, and, and that, that's kinda where everything converges because Okay. So during the pandemic, well,  while I was at United Way, I did, I was, , volunteering donor engagement. Okay. , and so, you  know, I was putting together, you know, volunteer, I would put together events that were five people,  h, 

Brandon Calloway (00:24:26): 

Then I would also put together events that were 500 people. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:24:28): 

Yeah. Wow. 

Brandon Calloway (00:24:30): 

And, , and so during the Pandemic, I wasn't really doing much, you know, I, 'cause I I wasn't gonna do  a Super spreader event, you know? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And we didn't wanna do, , small things.  And we, we were, we, we, we were just, we were holding tight, , especially early on in the pandemic. 

Brandon Calloway (00:24:44): 

And so I remember I was sitting at home and I was scrolling through Facebook, and I'm in a Facebook  group called B-O-B-K-C, black Owned Businesses, Kansas 

(00:24:51): 

. And in that group, one of our co-founders, a guy named Chris Stewart. So Chris   . , Chris lives in Houston, but he is from Kansas City, grew up on the east side as well.  Okay. And, you know, , gosh, while I was at United Way, I also, this is not a knock on United Way.  Okay. This is this, this is not a knock on United Way. Sure. , and they have since changed these  policies and learned a lot about nonprofit. Yeah. I watched United Way raise $20 million a year asking  everybody for a little bit of money.  . And then I also watched United Way, ,  spread that between 19 different impact areas. Right. Okay. And so if you trying to solve 19 problems   . At the same time, how logical is it that you will solve any of of them?

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:25:43): 

So that gave you some good insight into how you could find your niche. 

Brandon Calloway (00:25:46): 

Right. And I also looked at Root. I saw root cause. , again, not a knock on any nonprofit. Sure. , and  there are, there are bandaid programs, and there are root cause programs, right?  .  You hungry  

Brandon Calloway (00:26:02): 

I have a soup kitchen. Right. You, you come, it is Thursday, you come in, I feed you Friday, you hungry,  I feed you Saturday, you hungry, I feed you, and so on and so forth, and so on.  

Brandon Calloway (00:26:12): 

Versus let's figure out the, the underlying economic condition that is causing you to be hungry. 

Brandon Calloway (00:26:17): 

How can we solve that? Yeah. So that you don't have to continue to come in  . ,  and so I just saw, I, I, I saw bandaid programs. I saw 19 different impact, , areas. I also saw root cause  programs  . So there, there were, and so what I told myself, I said, we need a black  United way. We need something that is raising money from everybody.  . And  laser pointing it in one direction. That actually solves a root cause in the black community.  

Brandon Calloway (00:26:44): 

And so, pandemic hits, , Chris gets on, on the, the Facebook group, and he's, he is like, you know, he's  really frustrated. He, he's talking about how, you know, every time he comes back to Kansas City doesn't  see black businesses in black communities the way that he felt like he should. And he was like, there's  15,000 of us right here in this Facebook group that's supposed to be supporting black-owned businesses in

Kansas City.  . If we all put in $10 a month, then we can take that money. We can  grow black businesses ourselves. We don't really have to wait on anybody to do anything. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:27:12): 

That's a lot of members. How long had that group been around? 

Brandon Calloway (00:27:14): 

, I actually don't know. I, it was probably around maybe five years. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:27:21): 

But he kind of spurred the conversations to happen and Well, yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:27:24): 

Well, so, you know, he, he was, it was a bunch of people in the group, and so he just, he made a post in,  in the group. 'cause he was really upset. Yeah. He was really frustrated. And, , you know how  Facebook is, it is like, oh, there's a horrible idea. Oh, this would never work. And Oh, and yeah. 

or I tried this and you should do it like this. And, and so I didn't say anything. . , I saw it  and I thought, you know, this is this, that black United Way thing that I've been thinking about. Mm hmm. And, and so the first thing I did, I sat there for an hour and I thought of all of the ways that it  wouldn't work. Okay. Right. , and I came up with a solution for each one of those. Right. And at the  end of that hour, I had no more reasons that it wouldn't work. Right?  . And so,  um, and I told myself, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:28:05): 

So you're a, you're a problem solver. 

Brandon Calloway (00:28:06): 

Right. And I don't like complaining about things that I'm not willing to do. 

Brandon Calloway (00:28:09): 

And, and so I told myself that if I, , you know, if I feel like I have this thing  

Brandon Calloway (00:28:15): 

That will actually make a difference. , and let's say I do nothing with it  

Brandon Calloway (00:28:20): 

Let's say I be, , that was a good idea and I go on about my life.  . What's the  difference in having a solution and, and not implementing versus actively tearing down a community?  Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:28:32): 

, and so I reached out to Chris and I was like, Hey, man, I know you don't know me, but this is really  similar to this thing that I've been, you know, thinking about and trying to do for a while. , and or  thinking about for a while, I hadn't really made any effort on it. And, , you know, I was like, we, we  should, you know, get together, talk like we, we can, we can do it like this and this and this.   . , he ignored me because it's Facebook and . He had made a, he made a post,  and here I am in his inbox, you know, talking all of, talking about all of this. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:29:02): 

One of 15,000 people, and he was like, who is he? 

Brandon Calloway (00:29:05): 

Right? And the next day it was still bothering me, so I hit him up again. And, , he responded to me and  he pulled in his friend Cornell Gorman and Cornell, you know, him and Chris had went to high school  together, and Cornell was this, , is a self-taught marketing guy. 

Brandon Calloway (00:29:22): 

Um, and so the three of us got together and we talked, and we, yeah. We launched G.I.F.T.. And so the, , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:29:31): 

It just seemed like a no brainer. Yeah. It was a, this can absolutely be done.

Brandon Calloway (00:29:35): 

And so Chris's Facebook post was April 30th, 2020. 

Brandon Calloway (00:29:40): 

our very first conversation was May 2nd, 2020. So we got together. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:29:45): 

Then I filed all of our paperwork on May 5th. 

Brandon Calloway (00:29:48): 

and then by May 18th, we had a nine person board in place. We had our fundraising systems, , set  up, , Cornell how built he had built our logo, our website, and our social media. Um, and then we went  back to the Facebook group and we were like, Hey, we are here. You know, this thing. Everybody said  like, let's, let's, let's, let's do it. And, , you know, 'cause that's our model, our model is to this day still is  if 15,000 people donate $10 a month. Yep. And, we got our first six donations, we got six people, $60. Love it. From that, from that group. Um,  and then from there we went and we, you know, we, we had to, we, we built out a whole program. Um,  but what we do, you know, so we, we talked about it extensively and we talked about, you know, what a  

support for black owned businesses look like  . And, you know, is it education? Is  it grants? Is it loans? Do we take equity in these businesses? How do we do this? . And why?  Right. Um, and what we settled on was that it absolutely had to be grants. Right. And so, in talking about  the systems of redlining and block busting and racially restricted covenants, you know, what, what was  the financial product that was dis that, that disinvested in black communities was loans.  

Brandon Calloway (00:31:05): 

Right. , and so to, to us, it didn't make sense to say, okay, we will deprive you, we will deprive, you  know, this group of people of loans for decades and decades and decades and decades  

Brandon Calloway (00:31:19)

And then after there's this large racial wealth gap, say, okay, now you can have a loan. Right? 

Brandon Calloway (00:31:25): 

Now you can have the opportunity for us to give you, you know, if we give you 10,000, we, we'll, we'll  let you pay us back 12  . Right?  . Like that, that's not a 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:31:33): 

Right. Yeah. , that's not the point. 

Brandon Calloway (00:31:35): 

Right. You, you, that's not, that's not altruistic. Right. I, that that's not a favor. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:31:39): 

Know, , and, and what we said was that if we are really going to aggressively, if we are gonna match  aggressive and intentional disinvestment, then we have to match it with aggressive and intentional  investment, right?  . We need to do what we can to, to close this racial wealth gap.  Um, and so grants made the most sense for us to, to, to, to do. Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:32:02): 

And I don't know a lot about grants, and I don't know how much we need to get into the weeds of that.  Yeah. But is that a complicated thing that you guys needed to pursue, or was that fairly 

Brandon Calloway (00:32:10): 

Not necessarily. Not necessarily. 

Brandon Calloway (00:32:12): 

and so, you know, I put together all of our stuff in our, so I wrote our program and did all, did all our  stuff myself. . And then, , a few months later, we connected with Husch Blackwell, , one  of the large law firms and Okay. Kind of large law firm in the region also, , global law firm. , and  when we connected with them, they gave us a pro bono legal stuff for our grant recipients. But I was like,  I also need your nonprofit attorney because I am not an attorney, and I did all of this. Yeah. You know,  , , we 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:32:41): 

T's crossed, right? Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:32:42): 

Right. When I, when I sat down with her, she was like, this is all correct. I was like, oh, great, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:32:46): 

Okay. You know, 

Brandon Calloway (00:32:47): 

That was, that was Yay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:32:48): 

All signs. It's meant to be there, right? Yeah. Things are just kind of falling in line. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:32:52): 

Yeah. And so grants become hard, you know, we, earlier we talked about private benefit calls and  nonprofits. Yeah. And grants become hard when, if we were, if we were an organization that was raising  money and we gave a grant just to Elaina, and that was it  . Right? Then it would  look like we existed for the private benefit of the Next Paige, right? Yeah. , okay. But because we are  giving grants to, we're, we're giving grants to businesses, to black owned businesses on the east side of  Kansas City specifically, so that they can grow, scale and create jobs  . , to  create economic benefit for the entire community.  . Um, then it, it becomes, ,  clear the public benefit of us. Um, , I'm probably getting too close. No, you're great.  It, it, it  becomes clear the public benefit of us providing these grants for, for these, , for, for the, for the  businesses. And so it wasn't really that, it wasn't really that hard 

Brandon Calloway (00:33:45): 

To, to do. , but we, you know, we went to a whole lot of stuff happened in May. Right. , , 

Brandon Calloway (00:33:55): 

Right. You know, we, we were still on lockdown for, for the pandemic.  

Brandon Calloway (00:33:59):

We had to build out a whole program. Right. We, we, we, we had the idea, now we had to, to fully, fully  build it out. 

Brandon Calloway (00:34:06): 

We had to build out, , all of our back offers. So we needed bookkeeping, we needed accounting, we  needed, , bank, we needed our, you know, we needed a bank account. We needed fundraising systems  and softwares. , and so we worked on building all of that. , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:34:20): 

And this is with the people that you've kind of recruited to be on the board at this point, or 

Brandon Calloway (00:34:24): 

The three of you? Oh, no, this was, this was just the three of us. Okay. This was just the three of us. ,  and then we did recruit, you know, , I reached out to somebody on LinkedIn and I was like, Hey, we're  building this new thing, you know, you're passionate about, , financial education   . I think you should join our board  . And, you know, be, be our  treasurer and do all of our books. Yeah. , and she, she hopped on Zoom with me, and I was like, oh,  you hop on Zoom, I'm gonna close this. Okay. And she's still on our board. She is. She's our accountant to  this day. Yeah. Um, and yeah, so we, we also needed to build out what the program looked like. And so in  May, I did the data analysis, which is where I got the 75%, you know, black  

Brandon Calloway (00:35:06): 

, 36% poverty on the east side of Truce, and 91% white and 5% poverty on the west side of Truce.   

(00:35:12): 

. What I did was we, we looked at the six highest populated high income zip codes in  Kansas City and the highest populated low income zip codes in Kansas City. So that way we got good  sample sizes. Yeah. , and we weren't like looking at this 10, 10 person zip code. Right? Sure. Um, and,  and so that is what got us our demographic focus on the, on the east of Truth. So that's where we grant  most of our money at. Okay. And then when we were building the program, I actually cold called black owned businesses, and I said, Hey, you know, we're starting this new thing. Yeah. And we we're, we're  gonna be giving some grant money to black business owners. , if we were to give you money, how  much money would you want? What would you spend it on? How many jobs's engage what 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:35:52): 

People would need? Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:35:53): 

How many jobs do you think you would, would be able to create? And then other than money, what else  do you need?  . Right.

Page 24 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:35:59): 

And you guys are the first ones who've ever done anything like this. Right. So I assume people are like,  whoa, whoa. What? Like, wow. They 

Brandon Calloway (00:36:04): 

Hung up in my face. Okay, . Yeah. This isn't real. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I remember, I  remember having the call, and this is, so this is also we, the first people to done something like this Yeah.  During a global pandemic, right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:36:15): 

New York Times. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:36:16): 

Yeah. And so people answered the phone. I remember one lady, , when I, you know, I said all of that to  her, and she said, , no thank you. And just hung up . I just hung up on that. She's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:36:27): 

Like, are you one of those scammers that's gonna ask me to like, send you money via 

Brandon Calloway (00:36:31): 

WhatsApp? And that was fair. That was fair. Sounded like a scam. But a lot of people also stayed on the  phone and answered all of my questions. , and that's how we've, we've figured out that people had  needs of like $10,000 or below. Some people had needs of, , $50,000 or above, but most people had 20  to $30,000 needs. Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:36:48): 

It's kind of sweet spot. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:36:49): 

They had a plan that they were ready to implement that needed something between 20 to $30,000 mm hmm 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:36:55): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (00:36:55): 

And it wasn't just like, fund my Business. They actually, like, they had thought about what they would do  with this money and how it would increase revenue kind of in perpetuity. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:37:07): 

How did you identify who to cold call in this process? 

Brandon Calloway (00:37:09): 

Oh, I just cold called a bunch of people. Okay. Yeah. I just, I just looked for black business owners. Yeah.  And, and, , I, I wanted the, so they couldn't be brand new businesses. They needed to be up and 

Page 25 of 75 

running, , a little bit and have some kind of social presence that I needed to be able to verify that they  were a legit business. They were running and they had customers Got it. And all of that. , and so all I  could do was, you know, digital search 'cause of COVID also, I couldn't even go to the, to go to their  businesses. Right. . Um, and, but the other thing that they said, other than money, what, what else  do you need? Right?  

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:37:44): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (00:37:45): 

Business coaching, accounting, marketing and legal services. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:37:47): 

How do I run a business? 

Brandon Calloway (00:37:48): 

Exactly. . And so I took that. , so I went back and with the data analysis that I did and the  survey that I did, and I put together a program that I presented to the board that said, okay, we need to do  grants between 10,000, , 10,000, 25,000 and $50,000 grants.  . , you know,  we needed, we had a monthly cadence of how, when we were doing the grants and that every grant  needed to come with a year's worth of business coaching, a year's worth of paid bookkeeping. , we  needed to do a small business marketing package for everybody. And then we needed to provide pro bono  legal services for, for, , for everybody, at least for a year. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:38:24): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:38:25): 

, and yeah, we, we adopted that. , and I remember 'cause we were brand new, and I, again, I had no  name, you know, , you know, Cornell and Chris had, they had No, I mean, I was, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:38:38): 

People didn't know who you guys were. 

Brandon Calloway (00:38:39): 

No, not at 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:38:40): 

All. Not yet. 

Brandon Calloway (00:38:40): 

Not at all. Um, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:38:41): 

Different story today.

Page 26 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (00:38:43): 

Right. And so our board, you know, this nine person board that we put together, they was like, okay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:38:47): 

Yes. 

Brandon Calloway (00:38:47): 

And they adopted it, and they, and they were like, and if we don't make it, then they, because I, I, I put up  a 200 and 250, $230,000 budget. Okay. I was like, this is what we need to raise  .  And it was like, okay, well if we don't do that, then it's okay. You know? 'cause it was, you're 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:04): 

Like, no, no. Yeah, 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:04): 

This 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:05): 

Will happen. Yeah, 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:05): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:05): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:06): 

, and so all of, all of that, and then parallel at the same time, so this was May of 2020, so we launched  May 5th. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:13): 

 . 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:14): 

A week later, ah, Maud Arbery's video came out of him, you know, jogging through a house and being,  you know, shot by  . Just two random guys.  . , and  then Breonna Taylor's story came out  

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:26): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:26): 

And then George Floyd was killed. Yeah. , and so like 30 days after we launched the entire world  started talking about systemic racism, black owned businesses and racial equity

Page 27 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:39): 

 . 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:40): 

, and so we, you know, we became a place for people to, you know, take action. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:39:48): 

, 

Brandon Calloway (00:39:49): 

I, I remember, you know, you know, , I don't know if I've ever said this as publicly as I'm about to say  it, but I went, you, you remember blackout Friday? Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:40:03): 

Where 

Brandon Calloway (00:40:04): 

Everybody was posting, you know, black squares, right? I went on Instagram  .  And I found anybody in Kansas City that posted a black square with 5,000 followers or more   . , and I just sent them a message and I said, Hey, thank you for using your platform in  

this way. . I know you don't know us. We're a brand new nonprofit, you know, but we are really  focused on taking action. It's time for us to take action now.  . And so I just asked,  could you, you know, share our social media account, you sign up to be a $10 monthly donor, or even  encourage other people to sign up to be $10 monthly donors. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:40:32): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:40:32): 

And a lot of people did the third. Okay. Um, and so we had a bunch of small businesses that were  encouraging people to sign up to be a $10 monthly donor at G.I.F.T. and get a free $10 G.I.F.T. card, or, you  know, enter into this raffle or, you know, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:40:43): 

We, which you're currently doing right. With Mildred, is that what you said? Yeah. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:40:46): 

We're also, yeah, Mildred is one of 'em that we're doing that with right now. Okay. Um, and we raised our  first $11,000  

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:40:53): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (00:40:54): 

, like that

Page 28 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:40:55): 

Via that way. 

Brandon Calloway (00:40:55): 

Yep. And then we gave out, , $10,000 to Ruby Jeans juicery.  . And that  August to help them, , get through the challenges, , specific challenges that they were facing during  the pandemic. Um, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:41:08): 

Does that mean that they were one of the first 

Brandon Calloway (00:41:10): 

Oh, they were our first. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:41:11): 

The 

Brandon Calloway (00:41:12): 

Very first. Yeah. Yeah. That was our very, very first grant was was August of, , August of 2020.  Awesome. , and then every news outlet picked up, so we were on Channel 5, 9 41, , we were on the  bridge, KCUR, , in the pitch and Kansas City Star.  . , oh. And the business  journal, and I'm probably forgetting something else too. Sure. Um, the community voice, the call, we  were, we, we were in literally every, every point. Oh, startland at that point. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:41:40): 

Were you like, oh my gosh, here we go. , like, exposure or, 

Brandon Calloway (00:41:44): 

Well, I also reached out to all of them, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:41:46): 

. Well, hey, yeah. You're a salesperson. It worked. Yeah. You know what you're doing. , 

Brandon Calloway (00:41:50): 

Yeah. So I, I reached, I reached out. So most of them I reached out to. , but it, that was, that was a very  easy sales pitch. Yeah. I re I remember I hit up the business journal on LinkedIn, h ,  , the editor of the Business Journal, and I said, Hey, you know, I know you don't know us, but we are  brand new nonprofit. We just gave 10,000 to Ruby Jeans, we giving grants to black owned businesses.   . , and this is the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Yeah. I  was like, I think this is a story you guys might wanna do. Yeah. And they was like, you're right. h,  this is a story we wanna, we we wanna do. , and so yeah. We, that happened, , and they all ran the  story within a two week timeframe  . And so by September, because so many  more people had heard about us, , we had went from raising and we, so we had $11,000 in the bank,  and we gave Rub Jens 10. Right. , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:42:38):

Page 29 of 75 

Do the math and 

Brandon Calloway (00:42:38): 

Yeah, I know. Right. Let's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:42:40): 

Get back up. 

Brandon Calloway (00:42:41): 

And, but it was also important that what I, I didn't want to spend a year raising money   . Telling the community that we're gonna fund black owned businesses, , and wait and  making them wait a year before we actually did anything. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:42:53): 

Sure. 

Brandon Calloway (00:42:54): 

, that is what happens to communities of color and underserved communities all the time. We get a  whole bunch of promises and it never follows, never follows through. And it, to me, it didn't matter that  we were black. That didn't matter. Like we, we, we, we couldn't make promises for that long without  actually doing something. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:43:09): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:43:10): 

And so it was important that we did that and, , you know, left us with a thousand dollars in the bank,  but by September we had raised a hundred thousand dollars from individuals signing up to donate $10, be  $10 monthly donors because of that, the more people that heard about us, all 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:43:30): 

Of that. Right. In the press media. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:43:31): 

And they wanted to take action. And what I, what I, and know what I told one of my 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:43:34): 

Co-founders, and I was saying that was outside of KC as well. Was it? Or was 

Brandon Calloway (00:43:37): 

It all? No, this is Kansas City. This is Kansas City. Yeah. And what, what I, at the time, systemic racism  felt as big as climate change, right?  . And, you know, I mean, we just talked  about systemic racism and how deep it goes. Yeah. You know, you just drew a line back to slavery. Yeah.  And so as one individual, what am I going to do? . You know, like that that is, that's the general  idea. That's the general thought. , and it,

Page 30 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:04): 

But also the problem where Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:05): 

It 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:06): 

Doesn't drive people to move forward, so, 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:07): 

Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:07): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:08): 

And it, but it does feel defeating, right? Yeah. You know, climate change, okay, I'm a recycle every,  every week. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:15): 

Am 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:15): 

I making a difference? It's, you know, it's a great 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:17): 

Comparison, 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:17): 

But 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:18): 

Especially when hear by the way, we need to get somebody from recycling on here when they're like, all  that plastic you're recycling is just going in the trash. And you're like, what? Yeah, that's not 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:26): 

Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:44:27): 

All my efforts. Right? Yes. No, I get it. 

Brandon Calloway (00:44:29): 

But, , but what our message was about collective community impact  . It was  like, yes, this is a huge problem. And yes, you donating $10 once a month, this one time won't end 

Page 31 of 75 

systemic racism. But that's why the message is, if 15,000 people  . Donate $10 a  month  . And so, and we recently did a survey of, you know, asking people why  they give, and, you know, collective, the message around collective community impact, , was the top  message and why, why people felt like, , it was that as well of our mission, why people felt like, ,  

they were compelled to support, to, to support what we do. You're 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:45:09): 

Like, there's the faith in humanity. Yeah. Right. I get to see it. 

Brandon Calloway (00:45:12): 

And, and also, you know, it's a huge testament because we, when we start, again, we weren't well known.  People didn't know us. Right. , and so we didn't get corporate support, we didn't get foundation  support. , and because we actually showed action, we gave that $10,000 away and told everybody  about it. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:45:33): 

Brandon Calloway (00:45:33): 

. Um, we got a lot of individual support. So now, you know, fast forward we, 2026, we  coming up on our sixth, , anniversary, we have given out $1,986,000, 83 different black owned  businesses. , they have created over 160 new jobs on the east side of Kansas City. On average, after  they get a grant from us, they, their average revenue grows by 209%. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:04): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (00:46:05): 

Um, and then, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:06): 

I mean, first of all, seriously, that's huge. 

Brandon Calloway (00:46:08): 

Yeah. Thank you. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:09): 

That is, I mean, well, for somebody who, I mean, you thought you were gonna be a physical trainer Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:46:15): 

. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:16): 

Right? And then you pivoted this way and look at the impact that you faced. Yeah. Amazing. Well, Brandon Calloway (00:46:20):

Page 32 of 75 

And that is also 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:22): 

Not that you wouldn't have had an impact on people in your health, but 

Brandon Calloway (00:46:25): 

 Yeah. But, you know, that is collective community impact. Yeah. We, we would not have  started, we wouldn't have started at all if individuals didn't step up and and do it. Yeah. No corporation  was gonna fund, I mean, we are talking about giving, you know, millions of dollars 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:42): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:46:43): 

Directly to black business owners as grants  . , and then we, and we've done  another $2 million worth of free services that have gone to those grant 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:46:53): 

Recipients. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:46:54): 

Right. And it's just no foundational corporation would've would've said, yes. Let's, let's just, let's just do  this. Sure. , especially these three guys that don't have a track record. And, , our, our biggest, ,  credential was me being at United Way for three years. Right? Sure. , and, and yeah, we, we've started  because of individuals, we've grown, because of individuals we sustained because of individuals. And so  that, you know, I i, it sounds cliche because, you know, I am the CEO and co-founder, and it is kind of  the thing that I'm supposed to say.  . But it's also true.  .  That that 2 million, you know, those 160 jobs like that, that is not us. That is collective community  impact. It, it, that is individuals in Kansas City that actually made that happen. Yeah. We just were the  vehicle for, for that. Shout 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:47:45): 

Out to all those people. Yes. 

Brandon Calloway (00:47:47): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:47:47): 

That's, 

Brandon Calloway (00:47:47): 

Yes. You know, I, I, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:47:49): 

Which I don't even think we've said it yet, Kansas City G.I.F.T..

Page 33 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (00:47:51): 

Yes. Kansas City G.I.F.T.. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:47:52): 

Generating income. Generating 

Brandon Calloway (00:47:54): 

Income for tomorrow. For 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:47:55): 

Tomorrow. 

Brandon Calloway (00:47:55): 

Absolutely. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:47:56): 

Yep. Yeah. Is that easy to come up with by the way, back in April, may. 

Brandon Calloway (00:47:59): 

Yeah. Act So, Chris, Chris Stewart, our, , co-founder, he actually, he had a, I mean, this is some, Chris  has been, just like I was, I had been thinking about how, how do we create this black United Way, right?   . Chris was also thinking about how, what, what can he do to better the black  community  . Right? And so generating income for tomorrow, , so Chris was a,  he, he's a, a local musician. And so G.I.F.T. music group was a thing. Oh, okay. , of, of just his. Yeah. And  so, you know, when we, when we came together and we were thinking about a name, and he was like,  man, I got this, I got this thing over here. And he was like, I don't know if it's a good name. And when he  said it to us, we was like, yeah, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:48:40): 

That's it. Like, that's, 

Brandon Calloway (00:48:41): 

That's literally like, that's, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:48:42): 

That's no further, that's the 

Brandon Calloway (00:48:43): 

Thing. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:48:43): 

Like, 

Brandon Calloway (00:48:44): 

If you wanna use it, let's use it. Um, but yeah. Yeah.

Page 34 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:48:47): 

And I wanna say, I took a couple things in my research h, um, that I just kind of wanted to, to put out  there. Yeah. So this might have been from your website, but we strive to be an actionable step after all the  protests have ended. Yep. And to educate and empower others to take action. We work to ensure that we  close the racial wealth gap, reduce poverty related crime, and reverse the effects of systemic racism in our  city. I really love that. 'cause I do, you know, I think that question for me and for others comes up where  it's like, gosh, all the protests that we have. Yeah. So tough, right? Like, and we've all been there, we've  all been, well, I shouldn't say all, but like, I've been a part of, you know, protests. Right. And then what  Yeah. And it's always been that question of like, how can it make the difference that you wanted to make?  And that's not to answer here. Yeah. Because we can't. But I just, that stood out to me. So. 

Brandon Calloway (00:49:32): 

Yeah. And that's the, that's the the thing. And I mean, be careful on how I say this because I don't wanna  make it sound like the protests aren't important. 'cause they are. Right. Same. Same. They, they, they  absolutely are. , they also are, they're the easy emotional response thing to do.   . You know, I'm mad. Let me go stand and tell everybody that I'm mad.   . Right? , I don't like this, this needs to change. Let me go stand and tell everybody I  don't like this and this needs to change.  

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:50:00): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (00:50:00): 

, but the how, yeah. The what? , and then the persistence, , that's hard. . Yeah. That, that,  that is, that is hard. That's hard. The work, identifying where, where are the breakdowns that this can  change? Yeah. Okay. How do we provide interventions in those breakdowns so that we've, you know,  forced change  . And then how do we maintain that level of, of effort within that  intervention so that we produce sustained change. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:50:30): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:50:30): 

, those are, those are hard. Those are hard. Um, which was another reason that, you know, I, I felt like  we, we let a lot of people, I don't wanna say off the hook, but, , we made it easy. We made it easy for  people to answer the, like the, the what next. Right. You know?  . Sign up to be a  $10 monthly donor and, you know, let us do, do this work. Yeah. , especially knowing that without  you signing up to be a $10 monthly donor, we won't be able to do this work. Yeah. Right? Yeah. , and,  and so, you know, there are other nonprofits that are primarily funded by foundations and corporations,  um, where the individual donorship is supplemental  . Um, but our individual  donors are core. Right. And, you know, it, it, , people that donate to G.I.F.T. can actually say that their  money is going directly to, you know, creating long-term, tangible systemic change. You know, the Elaina  Yeah. You know, Elaina was our first $50,000 grant recipient back 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:51:41): 

In the

Page 35 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (00:51:41): 

April of, of 2021. And so the, and it, it was, I remember her interview. She came in, I don't want to go to,  she, she, , she got very emotional and I just, a talent agency wasn't a business that I thought of at, at all.  Right. Okay. And I remember our, and again, I'm not a bleeding heart. And so when people ,  when , so our process, our process is, you know, you apply for a grant online. We have a grant  committee that reviews and make sure that you meet the criteria. And then we have a board that looks at  everything that does meet the criteria. And then that board selects probably five to seven businesses and  bring them in for in-person interviews. Um, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:52:23): 

Is that on an annual basis or is that just, , so we, at any given time, 

Brandon Calloway (00:52:27): 

We, we started, we were doing it monthly. So our first Oh, wow. Okay. Our first three years, we did that  every single month. Wow. , and then I, it was like, oh, we kind of gotta give the boards some rest. And  so we moved quarterly. Okay. , and so we still do it quarterly. We, we likely won't dip below Okay.  Below quarterly. Um, but when they get into the room, you know, they have made it past a whole bunch  of other people. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:52:51): 

And 

Brandon Calloway (00:52:52): 

So, you know, our board members are, are, you know, people that understand doing business in the black  community  . As well as really, truly understand business. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:53:03): 

Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:53:03): 

, and so, you know, we, I say we are a non-profit, but we, we, the intersection of non-profit and for profit and, and our, the, our altruistic work that we do is developing good businesses.   . And so, you know, in order for us to be effective, we gotta be hard. We gotta, we gotta be  hard at this stage. Yeah. When you are standing in front of all of our board members and you are pitching  your, your, your business, , one, we gotta make sure the things that are coming outta your mouth match  all the stuff that you put on, on paper, you know? Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:53:32): 

So that's happened. 

Brandon Calloway (00:53:33): 

Oh, it doesn't always happen. . It, it doesn't always match. It doesn't always match. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:53:37): 

Match. Can you talk a little bit about what they initially need to submit and then what the criteria is?  Yeah. That must match. Yeah, yeah.

Page 36 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (00:53:42): 

Absolutely. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:53:42): 

For anyone who hasn't gone through this yet with you guys. 

Brandon Calloway (00:53:44): 

Yeah. And so, you know, one, we are looking at businesses that are 51% black owned. Okay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:53:50): 

Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:53:50): 

That are in our target area. And so that's east of Truce. , and so we started off truce to Hardesty ninth  Street to 95th Street. That was that six zip code area.  . Year two and three, we  expanded further east into Raytown, further south into Grandview. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:54:09): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (00:54:10): 

So, , so that, that, that's our target area. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:54:13): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (00:54:13): 

, so 51% black target area, they have to have a revenue generating plan. Right. And so if you submit an  application, which we have gotten before, if you submit an application that says, you know, I'm a  construction company, I, I need $25,000 to grow my company  . Right. That is not  our plan, , at at all. Right. It doesn't say anything  . And so that won't make it  Okay pa that wouldn't make it past our initial, , , initial grant review. Yeah. Like, and 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:54:46): 

'cause it hasn't shown that the revenue is being generated with the services that, or 

Brandon Calloway (00:54:49): 

They haven't made an ask. Like they, they, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:54:51): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (00:54:52): 

They, so, and 'cause this is just at the application stage.  . They have to tell us how  they plan on using the money in a way that will logically increase their business.  

Page 37 of 75 

. And so if you say, I need this $25,000 so that I can grow my business. Right. You haven't  told us, tell me all about how. Right. Um, so 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:55:15): 

Buying street brewing, 

Brandon Calloway (00:55:16): 

Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:55:16): 

Let's use them as an example. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:55:18): 

So Vine, vine Street, great example. Vine Street, they, in their application, they asked for 25,000. , so  they were open, I wanna say three or four days a week. Um, they had great, , traffic, that's the word I'm  looking for. They had great customer traffic  . Um, and they had great demand,  but their production capacity was limited. Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:55:44): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (00:55:45): 

And, and so they couldn't, they couldn't meet their full product. They couldn't meet demand because of  production capacity  . And so they needed a, , I'm gonna get this wrong 'cause  I'm not a beer guy. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:55:58): 

Oh, you should be, 

Brandon Calloway (00:55:58): 

No, I'm 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:55:59): 

Sorry, just kidding. , 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:00): 

They, they needed a new, , fermentor. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:03): 

Sure. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:03): 

Right. And so it, it is actually, if you go to Vine Street and you walk down the stairs, it's this really big  metal thing like right

Page 38 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:09): 

To 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:10): 

The left  . We bought that. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:11): 

Right. Okay, perfect. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:13): 

, specifically so that they can increase the amount of beer that they are able to produce. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:18): 

Amazing. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:19): 

Right. , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:20): 

And I'm a beer drinker, so thank you. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:21): 

But, and, and so that is a plan because we gave them 25,000, now they can perpetually increase supply.  Yeah. Right. So that they can meet growing demand. Yeah. And then they can use that additional revenue   . To put back in the systems and processes so that they can continue to, to  increase 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:40): 

Supply. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:40): 

Okay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:40): 

Right. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:41): 

, you know, if Vine Street said, yeah, we have a great brewery and we need to get more customers, ,  so give us 25,000, you know, that wouldn't have went anywhere. Right? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:49): 

Yeah. It's just not quite specific enough. Right? 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:52):

Page 39 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:56:52): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (00:56:52): 

Right. , and so, and as you can see, what we're, what we're not, what we're asking for isn't, isn't not  crazy. Sure. You know, we're not even asking that this plan be foolproof  . Right.  Just tell us that you have thought about how you are gonna use this money in a way that is really gonna  have a, a impact on your business, and tell us why you think using it in this way  .  Will have that impact Yeah. On your business. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:57:16): 

So you scan the gamut of industries, types of businesses, right? Yeah. Right. So it could be really  anything, or are you guys focused on We would love to get in more restaurants. We'd love to get in more.  Yeah. Um, what does that look like for you guys? 

Brandon Calloway (00:57:30): 

So, , I have two answers to that. Okay. Um, the short answer is we don't, we don't, we're not industry  specific at all. Okay. To, to, to anything.  . The thing, you know, so let me, I  should finish my, , other thing 'cause I take too long answering questions. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:57:46): 

Yep. 

Brandon Calloway (00:57:47): 

, but, , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:57:47): 

I love it. 

Brandon Calloway (00:57:48): 

51% black owned target area revenue generating plan, , the ability and willingness to create jobs. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:57:57): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (00:57:57): 

Right. They have to have the ability and willingness to create jobs.  . Right. We  have had somebody go through the entire process before Great plan  . And my  question to them was, this is a great plan. You actually are going to, like, you're gonna make more money.  What are you gonna do with all this additional money that you're making? Because I haven't heard  anything about that in this plan, but this is a great plan. And young lady said, I'm gonna retire early. And I  was thinking, that is great. We are not for you though, right?  . Because, and we  didn't give her a grant. We didn't even consider giving her a grant because the willingness, ability and  willingness to grow and create jobs. Sure. Um, and, and so when it comes to our grant program  

Page 40 of 75 

. You know, we're not, we're not focused on industry, , but we are focused on can this  business create, you know, jobs, right. So 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:58:45): 

We, 

Brandon Calloway (00:58:45): 

We, we are trying to create businesses that hire 25 or more people, , at, you know, at a minimum of  $40,000, , a year is their bottom salary. Right? Okay. , specifically on the east side where the median  income is $35,000 a year. Right? Yeah. 

(00:59:04): 

Um, and so there are some industries that are gonna be more conducive to that, but as an entrepreneur, my  mind is open. Right? Yeah. IIII think almost any industry, you know, any business run in a way with that  to be the goal can probably get there. Yeah. You know? Um, and so that our criteria and our, our grant  program is really driven by job creation. Okay. And now we after be, after doing the program for one  year, you remember we gave, we give, you know, free a year's worth of accounting, you know, business  coaching, legal and marketing  . And so I called all of our, , you know, did  another survey. You know, I called 'em on the phone and, and said, Hey, I asked a bunch of questions.  Oh, you're 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:59:46): 

Like all old school calling on the phone. 

Brandon Calloway (00:59:47): 

Yeah. Because if you send surveys to people, you get like a, you, you get a 70% response rate. Okay. But  if you call 'em Yeah. And you say, Hey, you know, lemme just ask you these questions, I'll answer 'em  myself. And we have, well, you're 

Mindy Hargesheimer (00:59:58): 

Clearly good at calling people on the ground, right? 

Brandon Calloway (01:00:00): 

. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:00:00): 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:00:01): 

, and so we got a hundred percent response rate, and one of the questions I asked was, what was most  beneficial? The money or the technical assistance, right?  . , and they all said  they were equally beneficial.  . The money allowed them to implement a plan, but  when they had to, when they got successful and they had to hire, you know, new staff, right. They had to  create an onboarding system. They had to create a payroll  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:00:24): 

.

Page 41 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (01:00:24): 

, they had a team of professionals that knew how to do all of that instead of having to stumble through  doing all of that. Right? Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:00:32): 

When 

Brandon Calloway (01:00:32): 

They were developing new contracts, when they were acquiring land, they, they, they had, you know,  lawyers  Yeah. That's, that knew how to do all of that. Yeah. And so we took that and we said,  okay, you know, we're limited by how much money we can give by, , how much we raise   . But we could create a business center that takes all of these services, puts some under one  roof, and then expand on them  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:00:54): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:00:55): 

, and we can provide it to everybody in the community that is not a G.I.F.T. grant recipient. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:01:00): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:01:00): 

Right. And so that is what our business center is. So our business center is 7,500 square feet on 50th and  Prospect. Okay. It does, it provides one in a one-on-one setting, free business, coaching, marketing, ,  accounting and bookkeeping setup, website build and development, , head shots, product photos,  coworking space. , we have a studio for people to do, you know, podcasts, , in, , we have a  banking partner in there so you can open up a bank account. I mean, it sounds like 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:01:30): 

You don't have anything missing. 

Brandon Calloway (01:01:32): 

Yeah, we tried not to. Yeah. We, we, we, we, we tried to make it where you can literally come in there  and get any and everything that you need for your business. And then we also have classes. So we have a,  you know, business one-on-one business coach, and we have a business basics class. We have a one-on one, , marketing strategy. We have a, you know, marketing one-on-one strategy class. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:01:52): 

Who's teaching those? , you guys. 

Brandon Calloway (01:01:54): 

So it's a mix. It's actually funny. The marketing class is the only class that I teach. Mindy Hargesheimer (01:01:58):

Page 42 of 75 

Oh, really? 

Brandon Calloway (01:01:59): 

Is, yeah. And I've, I, , you know, the bigger 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:02:01): 

One I wanna come sit in on your marketing class. Oh, 

Brandon Calloway (01:02:02): 

Yeah. Please feel free. The, the, the bigger we get, the, the less stuff I can actually do. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:02:08): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:02:08): 

Yeah. , which is a whole nother thing about entrepreneurship and leadership and like, growing a  business and moving from being the spearhead to now being like, now instead of my, my job being going  out and, and, , I'm still raising money, but I'm not implementing any of the programs. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:02:26): 

You Yeah. You gotta delegate to do bigger. 

Brandon Calloway (01:02:29): 

Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:02:29): 

Strategy. 

Brandon Calloway (01:02:30): 

And my, my job is to grow to, to grow the talent of my team.  . , to empower  them to do the stuff, to trust them, to do the stuff, to, you know, help them grow into leadership. Mm hmm . Um, that, that's, that is, that is my job now, which was a huge shift from, you know,  , I'm hitting up all the reporters and I'm doing this and doing that and doing this and doing that. But 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:02:55): 

You did it all to get there. Yeah. Which is good. 'cause you can speak to it and Yeah. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:02:59): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:02:59): 

Um, do you ever run into capacity issues? Are people just like, do you have this influx of people coming  in? They're like, yes, I wanna use the coworking space, and Yes, I wanna 

Brandon Calloway (01:03:07):

Page 43 of 75 

 Yes, we do. . Yes, we do. So our business center, gosh, I was talking about this  yesterday, but our, our first year being opened in the business center. And so this was one thing that we  knew like, okay, we've shown good success through individuals  . This business  center. We can go to some, , foundations and we can write some grants and get this open. And so mm hmm 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:03:27): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:03:27): 

The Sunderland Family Foundation, , the Block Family Foundation, , and I will be remiss, the city of  Kansas City did help us, , OO open the, , o open the business center. Okay. Um, and, but I remember  when I wrote the grant, , which I, I also wasn't a grant writer. I had, I, I had learned grant writing. ,  and then I had to learn how to teach, , 'cause I, now, I'm not our grant writer. And so I had to, I learned  grant writing, and then I taught our office manager how to do grant writing and put her through some  professional development and all of that. Incredible. But I wrote that, , I anticipated us serving 200  individuals per year and, and that, you know, if we can touch additional 200 businesses per year, it would  accelerate the impact that we're able to have on, on, on the, on the east side of Kansas City.   . , and now our business center is open for any and everybody. Right? Yeah. So you  don't have to be a black business owner. You don't have to be on the east side of Tru. You don't even have  to be in Kansas. I've done business Okay. 

(01:04:23): 

Business coaching. I had a Kaufman Foundation, had somebody fly in from New York, and they  recommended, they recommended that she meet with a lot of people, but one of, they recommended that  she come over to G.I.F.T., and we did a, i I sat down with her, did a full business coaching thing with her, and  she's from New York. Um, great networking though. Yeah. Our business center is open to any and  everybody. But within our, our first 12 months of the business center being open, 985 individuals came  through there, and I was like, we have to pause our marketing. Whoa. We are not prepared. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:04:53): 

Yeah. You know, we, 

Brandon Calloway (01:04:54): 

We, we did not, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:04:55): 

But showing the need. 

Brandon Calloway (01:04:56): 

Yeah. Yeah. My gosh. It was, the demands 

(01:04:57): 

Was, there was a much bigger need than we had anticipated. , and so, you know, we needed to get in  more business coaches. , and so now we, we were using all volunteers. We have some contractors that,  that we use now for, , stable, , okay. Business, because, you know, vol, I love volunteers, but they  also, you know, they, life happens temporary, right? Yeah. And so it, for, for about a year, it was like, all  right, I would get volunteer business coaches and then, you know, my, , the, our COO who's running 

Page 44 of 75 

our programs, she would come and say, okay, well, we just lost a bunch of volunteers in, , marketing. I  was like, okay, well, let me go get some marketing volunteers. And it was like, oh, well, we need some  legal ones. Okay, let me get some legal, okay, now the business coaches are gone. I'm like, okay, I you  sleep 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:05:38): 

At night. Oh my gosh. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:05:40): 

Well, I didn't used to, yeah, , I actually didn't, I, I, I woke up probably at 3:00 AM two between  two and 3:00 AM every day, , thinking about all of the stuff that was going wrong or that was about to  go wrong, that I needed to, to, to fix. I didn't 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:05:57): 

Get, which is funny because I literally had the thought earlier of like, you must rest easy at night for what  you're doing, 

Brandon Calloway (01:06:02): 

. Oh, yeah. No, I definitely don't. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:06:04): 

Back and forth, back and 

Brandon Calloway (01:06:04): 

Forth. I definitely don't. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:06:05): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:06:06): 

, because what, , am I, the board, the staff, the co-founders, they all, they kind, it's kind of a running  joke, but, , every time we hit a milestone, they're like, Brandon will celebrate for five minutes,  . And then, you know, and then he just moves the goalpost, , . And so I take my  thought process, take what we've done now  . $2 million, right?   . $2 million, 83 businesses, 160 new jobs, you know, our business center. So we've been  open, a business center has been open four years. Okay. , around 3000 individuals have come through  the business center, over 10,000 appointments done at, at, at, at the business center. Um, and so our  business center reports around 25 new jobs being created per year from some of the, the businesses, ,  that, that come through the business center. And now that's self self reports. So we can verify. So I don't  usually, I don't put that in, into the, into our, our numbers data. Right. But let's say it's true. Yeah. Let's  say it's, let's say, you know, our grant program has produced 160 new jobs, and our business center has  produced, you know, a hundred new jobs, right?  . , over the past four years,  you know, 260, and we can round it down and say 250 new jobs. Yeah. Um, over 250 jobs 

(01:07:35): 

In the past six years, actually five and a half ish, , that won't close our racial wealth gap. Right.

Page 45 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:07:42): 

And 

Brandon Calloway (01:07:42): 

While we, we don't own the responsibility of doing that ourselves, it'd be foolish for us to think that we  even could, , we do have a responsibility to take a bigger bite out of, out of our portion of the pie.  Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:07:58): 

, and what do you mean by that? 

Brandon Calloway (01:08:00): 

You know, we need to be getting to a point where we are creating, you know, 50 to a hundred jobs per  year, right?  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:08:07): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:08:07): 

, we we're not, we we're not doing that yet. Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:08:15): 

What do you think it will take to get there? We, or is that even easy to answer? 

Brandon Calloway (01:08:20): 

So there, there's, we don't yet have 15,000 people donating $10 a month. Right. Um, and because of that,  our, I don't wanna say, because it's not necessarily that our capacity is limited, but our, you know, our  future is not solidified. Right. , every year we gotta go out and find 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:08:53): 

Fresh 

Brandon Calloway (01:08:53): 

Brand new money. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:08:55): 

Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:08:56): 

, and, you know, some years we raise, we've only been around five years and five and a half, and every  year we raised a decent amount of money, and we started from scratch. And so where we are in five years  is 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:10): 

You have a lot to be proud of.

Page 46 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:11): 

We do. We 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:12): 

That absolutely do that. You also feel like you have, 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:14): 

We got a lot more to do. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:15): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:16): 

We, we, we have, we have a whole lot more to do. Right. , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:19): 

And you might always feel that way, like you said, moving the goalpost. Yeah. But 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:23): 

Yeah, I, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:23): 

But I understand. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:25): 

I, I, it's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:26): 

A huge undertaking. 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:29): 

, I would say, if we can get to the point where we are putting out, you know, 500 to a million a year in  grant funds Okay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:36): 

And 

Brandon Calloway (01:09:36): 

Really helping businesses, you know, grow. Yeah. , then we are, then, then I would be satisfied in that,  you know, no matter the outcome  . We are, we are putting in the inputs. Yeah.  The, we are doing our part to take a, to take a bigger bite out of, out of the pie. Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:09:55):

Page 47 of 75 

But I think that's good to literally quantify Yeah. Put it out there for everybody to hear. Yeah. Whatever,  whether it's manifestation or somebody hears it and the right people hear it and act on it. I mean, that's,  that's great. 

Brandon Calloway (01:10:05): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:10:06): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:10:07): 

You know, and we, so we've gotten, we've kind of going back and talking about the, the, the story again,  you know, as you probably, you noticed we didn't look around the country, , and that's not true. We  did, but we didn't find anything Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:10:26): 

Of other people doing this. Right. That was gonna be a question of mine. Right. Interesting. 

Brandon Calloway (01:10:30): 

And, and so what we built, we, I mean, we built from scratch. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:10:34): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:10:35): 

, and because of that, I mean, we have been asked by people in Detroit and DC and Baltimore and  Houston, St. Louis, Miami. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:10:46): 

Wow. 

Brandon Calloway (01:10:46): 

, you know, how can we get, you know, Kansas City G.I.F.T. here, and we, we are prepared to expand.  Right. Interesting. Our logo says KC G.I.F.T., , with the KC being really small  .  , you know, we brought in a marketing, , agency and you know, that our logo can be drag and drop  to any city. It can say, you know, DC gif, right? Yeah. It can say, you know, , you know, a TL get, you  know, yeah. It, it, it could, it could, it could say a, a bunch of DA bunch of different cities, h,  , um, but because we don't have, you know, 15,000 people donating $10 a month, and we  have to go out and find new money every, every, , every year, , and we're finding money to be stable,  not necessarily, , well, we're finding money to be stable and to grow. , and so we have been  successful in doing that every single year. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:11:40): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:11:40):

Page 48 of 75 

, but, and it, this, this could be a pipe dream of mine. I would love to get to a point where we are not  focused on raising for stability. We are just focused on raising for growth. And I don't want to be, I don't  want to go to DC  . And be, you know, raising money to set up, you know, a DC  G.I.F.T. to be stable while also still trying to stabilize Kansas City G.I.F.T.. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:12:03): 

Um, 

Brandon Calloway (01:12:03): 

That makes sense. And, and I do want to, like, there are communities around the country. I mean, going  back to what, where we just start when we started, and you, you know, I was talking about redlining and  blockbuster, and you even, you pointed out that, you know, this is not necessarily specific to Kansas City  and it's not  . You know, when we looked at the data Kansas City, we also found  

out Kansas City is one of 21 hyper segregated cities in the country. So it has a designation from the  census from the United States census as being hyper, hyper segregated because of the drastic divide of  black people and white people specifically, , in geographic and economic breakdown. Right. We are  just one of 21 to 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:12:44): 

This day. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:12:45): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:12:45): 

We 

Brandon Calloway (01:12:46): 

Are one of 21 cities  . And there's a, there are a lot of other cities that could use,  that could potentially Yeah. Use some kind of intervention like this. They may already, I mean, just like  there are people in DC that don't have no idea that we exist here and that are, that we are doing this and  

we're tackling, there's problem. Right. Probably some, it could be somebody in DC doing the same thing.  They might even be doing a better job than we are. Right. , but if there's not  .  Then, you know, again, I don't like complaining about stuff that I've done  that I'm not willing to  do. , feel 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:13:20): 

Free to complain just once if you feel like it. So , um, is it a loaded question to say, how do we  get off the list of 21 cities? Like how much would that take to get ourselves removed? Kansas City? I  mean 

Brandon Calloway (01:13:36): 

Yeah. Of, or 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:13:37): 

Do you have an idea of Oh,

Page 49 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (01:13:38): 

It is kind of simple. It's not easy. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:13:40): 

Of course 

Brandon Calloway (01:13:40): 

It is kind of simple.  hmm. The simplest thing to do is more interstate or enter, , geographical mixing  of commerce. Right. Okay. And, and so one of the challenges is, is the east side of Kansas City, it is been  disinvested in, right?  . And so, , we don't have a whole lot of developers  developing over there. , you know, that's not, we do have, we have developers developing, , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:14:15): 

Just not at the magnitude that you wanted to. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:14:19): 

But not at the magnitude that they are investing in developing in all of the other sub suburbs of, of 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:14:23): 

Yeah. Of 

Brandon Calloway (01:14:24): 

The city. , and it, it that con segmented development continues to, um, expand or continues to  perpetuate our racial wealth gap. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:14:38): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:14:39): 

Right. And, and so, you know, placing, develop, , placing developments in, and actually, I don't wanna  say that I talked to an organization, , I talked to an organization, , about how, how they might  do a development, , in a way that would allow them to do it wherever they wanted to do it.  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:15:04): 

. That 

Brandon Calloway (01:15:04): 

Would also have some tangible benefit to the east side of Kansas City. Okay. , which, which was, oh, I  don't want, I can't give finding a way to gen, so XX amount of the revenue that they generated from the  businesses they operated  . 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:15:21): 

, 

Brandon Calloway (01:15:23):

Page 50 of 75 

Could be designated back to a racial equity fund that specifically, you know, improved the quality of life  on the east side of Kansas City. Right. , because in, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:15:37): 

Are you saying you have like a prospect basically of, oh, 

Brandon Calloway (01:15:40): 

They've, we've already had this conversation and they not doing it. Okay. , okay. Yeah. Yeah. I will  tell you who it is after the Sure. . Okay. But, , but yeah, we, yeah, we've had this conversation.  They not, they, they not doing it. Dang. Um, but doing developments in a way that bring, so like, bring  economic opportunity to the plaza  . While also, you know, I mean, I, I've talked  to some city, , officials of like, there could be a 1% tax, and so, well there is, there's a 1% for art tax.  Right? Okay. And so any new development, the developer has to allocate 1% of, , the total budget for  like, art so that the Yeah. So, so that it is, , you know, they keep up beautification, right? Sure. , we  could do a 1% root cause, right?  . And so, you know, identifying what programs  are actually getting at root causes on the east side, allocating 1% of the total development to go to funding  those programs, , which would improve. I mean, we would improve housing, we would improve  schooling, we would improve, you know, , commercial, , commercial real estate quality, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:16:48): 

Improve 

Brandon Calloway (01:16:49): 

The different types of businesses. Um, and by, by doing that, we, we incur, we make it possible, , make  it more possible for people that don't live in those communities to come and contribute to the economic  activity of those communities, right?  . And, and so, you know, gosh, I wish I had  a whiteboard, but there's a , , because there's a visual of like money circulates in a community   . Right? , and, and so right now we have, like, we got money circulating in the  suburbs, and we got money circulating in the, the east side of Kansas City. And this, this is our, you  know, hyper segregation, right? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:17:36): 

Brandon Calloway (01:17:36): 

. , and when we are able to, you know, when we're able to build a bridge, and people  might not like this because, , what it, what it says is that this funnel has to shrink   . , for a little bit. And, you know, instead of money just circulating here, it has to actually  pour out and come over into this community so that that can, , that can begin to grow. And so the,  'cause the first thing that has to happen is that the east side of Kansas City has to visually, economically,  has to be become on par with every other area of the city. Right? When that happens, crime goes down.   . So we, that's reducing the racial wealth gap. Crime is going down, it's making a  safer Kansas City for everybody. Yeah. , and it increases the ability, right? The people that live on the  east side growing their economic, you know, situation, they now have the ability to choose where they  wanna live, right? Yeah. They could, they could live in any of the suburbs  . ,  now people that live in the suburbs that want to live in the city will now have quality choices of housing  and schooling and, and, , job opportunities and, and business amenities. Um, and so while this funnel 

Page 51 of 75 

would decrease a little bit for, for the time  . It would break the two into being  one, one bigger. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:18:55): 

Yeah. One, 

Brandon Calloway (01:18:55): 

One bigger funnel. , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:18:57): 

Has that successfully happened in any other city that you're aware of? 

Brandon Calloway (01:19:02): 

Not that I know of. Not that I know of. No. I don't. I, I don't believe so. , but in the meantime, you  know, and this kind of goes back to the, this problem feels so big. It's hard for one person to feel like  they're, they're, they're making a difference. , but individuals deciding to go over to the East side, go to  a restaurant over there, go to a coffee shop over there, go to, , I mean, the Black Repertory Theater has  plays over . Like go, go go o go over there and contribute. I mean, vine Street Brewery, right?  Yep. Go over there and contribute to the economic, , , activity Yep. On the east side of Kansas City.  And, you know, maybe you go with a friend or maybe you go with a group or like that enter, , enter  neighborhood commerce Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:19:50): 

Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:19:50): 

Of just come coming over and contribute into the economic activity on the east side of Kansas City  actually helps us get off that list Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:20:00): 

Of 

Brandon Calloway (01:20:01): 

Being, you know, one of 21 hyper segregated 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:20:03): 

Yeah. , 

Brandon Calloway (01:20:03): 

Cities. And so what we're, what we're trying to do, I mean, we're trying to do this internally. We are  trying to fund these businesses, help them grow their revenue, help them create jobs   . So that the east side of Kansas City has, um, increases the, the quality, increases the  amenities, and, and, and then we're able to have that free flowing, , traffic. , but it could, it can, and  likely should also happen from, from that direction as as well. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:20:33):

Page 52 of 75 

What are some other, um, I know you have 83, but are there some other examples you wanna throw out  there of what you guys have been a part of? 

Brandon Calloway (01:20:40): 

Yeah. , gosh, first priority heating and cooling. And so, you know, it, it is, it's probably, it's not a  business that, it is not like Ruby Jeans or Vine Street, where people are like, oh my gosh, I love that. I go  there all the time. Right. Food and drink. Yeah. Everybody 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:20:55): 

Loves food and drink, 

Brandon Calloway (01:20:55): 

But first priority Heating and cooling is a business that, , so they came to us. They, they, it is a HVAC  company. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:21:03): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:21:04): 

, and, you know, it was a husband and wife. They, you know, they, he was the technical skills. She was  a tried and true entrepreneur  . , and when, when they came to us, they came to  us with the challenge of limited capacity. You know, they, they, , they, he was doing all the duct  cleaning. He was only able to do so much at, at, at once. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:21:30): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:21:30): 

And then during the off season of duct cleaning, which I don't, you know, I don't know what that is, I'm  not a fact guy. Sure. We 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:21:37): 

Won't pretend to know. Right? 

Brandon Calloway (01:21:38): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:21:38): 

Um, 

Brandon Calloway (01:21:40): 

They got asked, , no, I, I I, I'm changing those words. While they were doing HVAC stuff, HVAC  stuff, HVAC stuff, , duct cleaning was a, was something else that they needed to add in that was in a, a  different season. Okay. Than, than, , than that. This was years ago. I don't really remember. Yeah. , I  don't, I don't, I remember, I remember they added in duct cleaning, and it was different from the, the  HVAC maintenance and repair and, and, and, and stuff. That's what, that's what it was. Um, and so we 

Page 53 of 75 

gave them 25,000. They brought on another person, train that person so that they can do two, you know,  two of the HVAC repair things at the same time. And then they added in duct cleaning. So they had a  different revenue stream, , so that during their downtime, they, they, they could still keep revenue up.  It's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:22:32): 

Like an essential business, right? 

Brandon Calloway (01:22:33): 

Yeah, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:22:33): 

Exactly. 

Brandon Calloway (01:22:35): 

, and then they are one rare business that we gave a second grant to. Oh, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:22:41): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:22:41): 

, 'cause they, I, I think they grew their revenue by, at that time, they grew by like 300%. Wow. , and  then they got an opportunity, there was a big commercial building. It was a million dollar contract mm hmm . , but, you know, and they were W-W-B-E-M-B-E and all, all, all of that. So they  could take on, they, they had the, , they had the license, the city and state licenses for, you know,  women owned business, minority owned business, um, and or women business enterprise, minority  business enterprise, what those stand for. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:15): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:23:15): 

Um, but there was a level of, they had to pay like $25,000 for insurance to be able to cover the bonding  that would allow them to, to, to take on the, the contract 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:30): 

Brandon Calloway (01:23:30): 

. , and so we gave them $25,000, allowing them to take on a million dollar contract.  There you go. Love it. , and then they got a second one. Okay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:38): 

Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:23:39):

Page 54 of 75 

, and from this, from this HVAC business, they have been so profitable that they have taken the profits  and created a big mama's food truck. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:52): 

Oh, nice. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:23:52): 

And so they, they now have a whole separate 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:55): 

Yeah. Second 

Brandon Calloway (01:23:56): 

Successful business. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:58): 

, 

Brandon Calloway (01:23:59): 

Shout 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:23:59): 

Out to them. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:00): 

That's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:00): 

Awesome. 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:00): 

And, which she is fun. I know. Big mama's food truck. I mean, it is soul food. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:04): 

, 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:04): 

And so, you know, there's food and drink, people can go and they Yeah, they, they, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:06): 

Wait, is that the, did they have a shop or is it just a food truck? 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:09): 

, this is just a food truck. They, there is Big Mama's Bakery.

Page 55 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:12): 

That's what I was thinking of. I've been there for the cinnamon rolls. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:14): 

Yeah. And, and that, that is a, that is separate. Well, that's her sister. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:19): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:19): 

All in the family . Yeah. It is All, it is all in the family. Um, but yeah, they, I mean, they, they  came to us just husband and wife, you know, with this one revenue stream. , we helped them expand  that revenue stream, add in a second, and take on a bigger contract that led to, you know, them opening up  a whole second business. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:39): 

That's amazing. Yeah. Do you have any others that stand out to you that kind of like, get you emotional  thinking about like, wow, we were able to play a part in this, 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:45): 

Get me emotional, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:46): 

Or that somebody else got highly emotional because of what you were able to help them do? . 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:51): 

Yeah. You, I, I 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:24:53): 

Don't wanna make you cry. Of 

Brandon Calloway (01:24:54): 

Course. Yeah. I always think of Sweet Peaches. Cobbler is one that, it is just a, it is a really good story,  you know? Yeah. , and she, she should be extremely proud of herself for what she has built, ,  pandemic story, you know?  . Laid off during the pandemic, she started making  peach cobbler. Her grandmother's recipe, her grandmother's recipe included Jack Daniels. And so Yeah.  And so it was the Daniels Cobb secret sauce. Right. , and she started, you know, she started selling it at  popups and, and, and all, well, people started eating it, and they was like, you should sell this. And so she  started selling it at popups. Um, and demand kept going up and up and up. And so she went into a third  party kitchen, , so that she stopped cooking. We stopped making it out of her, her kitchen, and went to  a third party kitchen. Like the innovation space is, is what, what it was called. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:25:41): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:25:42):

Page 56 of 75 

Um, and even there, she had reached a point where demand exceeded her production and storage capacity   . Right. Um, so we gave her 25,000 so that, you know, she could hire some  people to increase production, , and also, you know, buy some more, , deep freezer, so, so that she  could store more Sure. So that, so that, you know, she could meet, meet a, meet a higher demand. Yeah.  , she was able to, we, she was able to get a contract with hyvee. Oh. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:26:20): 

, 

Brandon Calloway (01:26:21): 

Nice. And, and so she is actually now in a 200. Wow. Yeah. So she's in, she is in all of the, not just all the  Hyves in Kansas City. Yeah. , she's in Hyves, she's in Constantino's. , she did this like, , peach  cobbler egg roll. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:26:44): 

What? 

Brandon Calloway (01:26:44): 

That was at the Chief stadium. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:26:46): 

Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah. All kinds of doors opened. 

Brandon Calloway (01:26:49): 

She has since moved in. So, so she now she has a co-packer. , and so this, like, it's been packed at this  industrial facility because she has a higher amount of demand. Yeah. And she's shipping out pallets at, at  a, at a time. Wow. Rather than, you know, back in her kitchen family 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:27:05): 

Recipe. 

Brandon Calloway (01:27:06): 

Right. Yeah. Right. That's now in the stores. They don't let her put her, they don't let her put Jack Daniels  in, in, in the, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:27:11): 

Yeah. In the stores. Yeah. That'd be a different, I'm sure there's some legalities Yeah. Parameters to that.  She also has 

Brandon Calloway (01:27:16): 

The, the royal cobbler, , which you can probably imagine that has Crown Royal in it. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:27:21): 

Okay. Yeah. Oh, I was like, Royals. No, crown Royal. Makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. Okay. Brandon Calloway (01:27:26):

Page 57 of 75 

Yeah. And then there, I mean, there, there's, we got a bunch of 'em, but, , Antonio from Hall Pros, you  know, and Antonio's story is unique because, , he had a prior conviction, and so it was hard for him to  keep and main to get and maintain a job. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:27:40): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:27:41): 

Um, and so he launched a trunk and a moving company and, you know, he had a truck. He had people  that, you know, would pay him to do moves. , and, you know, he had friends that was helping him do,  do, do moves. , and so he was cash apping his friends. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:27:56): 

, 

Brandon Calloway (01:27:57): 

And so he kind of developed his business, , and he had good word of mouth, so much so that he was at  full capacity with this one truck. Okay. But he didn't really know how to operate a business, right? Mm hmm . He was cash apping all of his employees. , 'cause he didn't know how to build a  payroll system. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:28:11): 

Sure. And 

Brandon Calloway (01:28:12): 

So he came to us. We gave him 25,000. He brought, he bought a second truck, hired a couple more people  to, you know, operate that second truck. , he also got an interstate license that allowed him to take on  some bigger moves. And then, , before we gave him the money, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:28:27): 

He 

Brandon Calloway (01:28:27): 

Called me and said, when do I get to meet with that accountant? Right?  . ,  and, you know, I know a lot of business owners. I, I love my accountant, but it is not my favorite time of  the month when we sit down and we do all the, the, the, the reconciling. , but he was excited, he was  excited to meet with that accountant and, , she got him, he got his payroll system set up. She got his  book set up, , and he went from, you know, 'cause we also got him with Husch Blackwell. ,  obviously we did, you know, business coaching, but he, he went from $8,000 in revenue per quarter. ,  in that was Q4 of 2020. He had eight, $8,000 in revenue. And then Q4 of 2021, he had $101,000 in  revenue. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:29:15): 

Wow. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:29:16):

Page 58 of 75 

Um, Antonio, I mean, it is the business that has hired the most people. , I think he's hired 18  employees. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:29:25): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:29:25): 

Is a, by now he has a 1000, I wanna say 1311%, , revenue growth. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:29:33): 

Geez. 

Brandon Calloway (01:29:33): 

Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:29:35): 

Amazing. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:29:35): 

And, you know, so from from him not being able to get and maintain Yeah. A job to him being able to  run this business where, you know, now he can employ people Yeah. They can't get and maintain jobs. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:29:47): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:29:48): 

Um, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:29:48): 

That's incredible. Yeah. That's like the give you chills kinda story of people's Yeah. Progress. Yeah.  Amazing. Well, good. Um, I wanna get into some fun rapid fire questions about Kansas City, but man, I  feel like we could keep talking. Yeah, we could. I mean, I got 

Brandon Calloway (01:30:02): 

Time 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:30:02): 

So much we could get into  . Um, what's the main thing that you want people to  do to interact with you right now? Donations. 

Brandon Calloway (01:30:11): 

, yeah. So 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:30:13): 

Let's talk about how we can get Yeah. Community involved.

Page 59 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (01:30:16): 

Sign up to be a $10 monthly donor.  . , Kansas City G.I.F.T., you know, right now  we're, you know, we're partner with Mildred's  . And so if you sign up to be a $10  monthly donor, Mildred's would give you a $10 G.I.F.T. card. , who 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:30:29): 

Doesn't love Mildred's? Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:30:31): 

We 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:30:31): 

Love 'em. 

Brandon Calloway (01:30:31): 

And here, here's the, the other, the other thing I was, I was debating on whether to, to say this, 'cause I,  what I don't want it to, I don't want to feel like I'm trying to shame people 'cause I'm not   . Um, and I also want to acknowledge and recognize some trends and realities that, that we  have seen  . 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:30:49): 

You know, 

Brandon Calloway (01:30:50): 

So because of what happened in 2020 Right. The murder of George Floyd and the, the Black Lives Matter  movement, you know, we became a really tangible step for people to take action.   . What we have seen is that the further we've gotten away from 2020, the less urgent it has  felt, , for the community at large. Yeah. Right. , but the challenges that we have are still there. Right.  The problem is still there to, to be fixed. And the difference between now and back then is that back then  we were a concept that we were pretty confident in now. . , we got data now, now we've,  we've, we've done it. We know, we, we we know how to continue and, and repeat the thing. Yeah. ,  and so the fight just, you know, the message is the fight is not over. Yeah. , and, you know, foundation  and corporate support have come in, but our core support is still individual monthly donors. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:31:50): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:31:50): 

Um, and, and so, you know, I appreciate places like Mildred's and last year actually Tiki, , it was like in  October, , Tiki Taco. Yeah, they did, they did the same thing. They came on the podcast. Oh, did they  love Tiki? Yeah. Was it Eric? , Eric. Eric not, yeah. Eric. Yeah. Eric. Good people. I need to call Eric.  Yeah, he's great. But yeah, they, they did a, they did a, the exact same thing. Sign up to be a $10 monthly  donor, a G.I.F.T., get a $10 very giving Yep. $10 G.I.F.T. card to, to, to tiki taco.  . And,  and so, you know, signing up, , signing up to donate is one, one thing that, that people, that people  could do. Um, and then the other thing, you know, yes, we are always, , looking at capacity, but our  business center is open. Our business center is open for any, everybody I'm here right now, they there.  Yeah. You know, , they they are there, there's somebody,

Page 60 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:32:46): 

It's awaiting you. Yeah. You need it. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:32:47): 

Yeah. There is somebody there right now doing business coaching. That's Thursday. So there's probably  somebody right now doing, , getting a, a website built for free. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:32:56): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:32:56): 

Um, yeah. So, so, you know, donate to G.I.F.T., come in and utilize any of the services. They are, they are  built for any and everybody. , and then just tell, tell people, tell, tell people about, you know, who we  are and what we do. But the, the other thing I should have brought 'em, um, we have some black business  passports. Did you see those? Did you, no, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:33:20): 

I don't 

Brandon Calloway (01:33:21): 

Think so. Yeah. So we have, we have some black business passports. So we have a passport that is, ,  for, it has like 15 black owned restaurants around the city. Yeah. Okay. And then we have another  passport that's 15 black owned arts and entertainment venues around, around the city. Okay. Um, and so  we do that, you know, our grant program, we invest in businesses and help them grow financially and  with, with the education. The business center is, you know, the educational aspects and all of the back  office stuff.  . , and we've grown our, we, we have a, we have social capital  now, right? Yeah. And so, you know, the, the passports is how we use our social capital is one way that  we use our social capital to, you know, when people are looking at us for black owned businesses 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:34:02): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:34:03): 

We give, so we, we created these passports ourselves. , we don't sell 'em, so we give 'em out to any,  and 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:34:08): 

Everybody you ask how much they're okay. Nope. 

Brandon Calloway (01:34:10): 

They, they're completely free. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:34:11): 

All right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:34:12):

Page 61 of 75 

And so we make, we, and in each ones like the restaurant one, , so Urban restaurant is one of the  passports, and there niece, or one of the restaurants, nieces is one of the restaurants in there. It has a QR  code. It'll take you to the menu. We have a recommended item, , on there. I like that you got, it's a note  section so you can, you know, write down, remember Yeah. What you did, like, what you didn't like mm hmm . You can rate it. Um, but we make it, we, we, we, it's our way of making it fun to go  out and support black owned businesses. So kind of the thing that I was talking about earlier of like, you  know, that inter mixing of commerce Yeah. You know, that taking those passports, , as a individual or  as a group and going around and just, you know, you could plan multiple date nights of just how much  fun you get. And again, you 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:34:54): 

Also love food and drink. Right. You know, and we have an incredible food and drink scene, and that's a  good way for people to add into their portfolio of restaurants. They wanna check off their bucket list to  add some of those in. Yep. 

Brandon Calloway (01:35:05): 

And then the arson entertainment one, I mean, it has, , like there's cigar lounges, , in there, there are  museums in there, there's, , there, there are a bunch of different, you know, , , theater, theater  companies Yeah. , in, in there. So you can go and watch, you know, plays like there Well, for 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:35:24): 

People who have a hard time coming up with what they wanna do. 

Brandon Calloway (01:35:26): 

Right. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:35:26): 

It's perfect. Right. It gives you the ideas. So 

Brandon Calloway (01:35:28): 

Yeah. And it, when people open, and especially the arts and entertainment one, I imagine the response,  the a common response would be, oh, I didn't even know I could do this in Kansas City. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:35:41): 

 . Right? 

Brandon Calloway (01:35:42): 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:35:42): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:35:42): 

, and which is a, a another, another reason. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:35:45):

Page 62 of 75 

Did they pick those up at your Yeah, 

Brandon Calloway (01:35:47): 

At our business center. We Okay. Yeah. At our business center. We have 'em, , we had some at  Mildred's, but I think those have run out. Okay. , but yeah, at our bus, at our business center especially.  Yeah. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:36:00): 

Um, the, I don't know that there's a short answer for this, but for people who are, we know Kansas City is  unique, and we love, everybody loves Kansas City. No one loves Kansas City more than Kansas City  ands, right? Yeah. That's, that's right. Like we wear on our sleeve, literally. Yeah, that's true. Um, for  people who live literally all around the metro  . Um, how do you kind of convey  to them you going and eating and drinking and shopping and doing all the things over in this area makes a  difference for you? Yeah. How do you kind of explain that for people who might be like, Hey, cool, but I  live 45 minutes that way, or I live over here, it probably doesn't impact me. You know, like, can you kind  of speak speak to that? Absolutely. 

Brandon Calloway (01:36:38): 

Absolutely. , gosh, you're right. I, I don't know if I can give a short answer. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:36:43): 

I know , I 

Brandon Calloway (01:36:43): 

Can give a short answer, but it won't be as good. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:36:45): 

Yeah. Um 

Brandon Calloway (01:36:48): 

Hmm. When we, we gotta reframe how we see the economic activity, right? We, we don't, we, we, it's not  that we see economic activity as, , like we are doing this thing to help this business owner and and  increase the wealth of this business owner  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:37:08): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:37:08): 

That is not, that, that is, that is not a helpful way to frame, you know, e economic activity. , but  framing it as spending money in this community increases the cash flow in this community.   . Increases, you know, the economic viability and the economic opportunities in this  community, right?  . So a business growth is job growth.   . Job creation. So the east side of Kansas City, Kansas City is a city where if you don't have  a car, you know, you can't really get around, , to too much. Right? Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:37:42):

Page 63 of 75 

You know, 

Brandon Calloway (01:37:43): 

The, our public transportation system is not the most cohesive, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:37:47): 

Not the most robust. Right. 

Brandon Calloway (01:37:48): 

Um, and so what, what does that mean? That means if you live on the east side of Kansas City and you  don't have a car, you don't have access to quality paying jobs, you know, , elsewhere your economic  opportunity is, is diminished.  . And so spending money, helping those businesses  grow, you know, we, we, we help them grow, expand, create jobs, and create economic opportunity. Mm hmm . And, you know, why is that important? You know, poverty, I mean, we say reduce  poverty related crime.  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:38:16): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:38:16): 

You know, it's poverty related crime. Right. It's not just crime, right? Yeah. And people are not  committing crimes because they wake up every morning and they're like, oh my gosh, who can I rob?  Who can I steal from? Who can I shoot like that?  . That's not a thing. You know,  the thing is survival, right? I grew up on the east side of Kansas City. I have experienced it. I have seen it.  I, the, the thing is how do I survive in these limited economic opportunities? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:38:42): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:38:42): 

And the answer too often becomes less than legal activity. , and so increased economic opportunity  decreases crime, you know, on, on the east side of Kansas City, and crime going down on the east side is  better for Kansas City as a region.  . , it doesn't matter if you live in, you know,  Liberty Leewood Lee Summit. It is, it is, is good for everybody Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:39:06): 

As, 

Brandon Calloway (01:39:06): 

As a region. And a big example of it, a big example, , was the Super Bowl parade. Right. You know, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:39:17): 

Were you there? 

Brandon Calloway (01:39:18): 

No, I wasn't. I I

Page 64 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:39:19): 

I was there, but we left before. 

Brandon Calloway (01:39:21): 

Yeah. Like that is everybody from the city coming together  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:39:29): 

. 

Brandon Calloway (01:39:29): 

And, you know, we have this, this threat of elevated violence just kind of all of the time 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:39:37): 

 . 

Brandon Calloway (01:39:37): 

, but that can be drawn back to a lack of economic opportunity.  . Right. You  know, when it's, when it's 

(01:39:48): 

When survival is the focus, thriving is not the focus.  . Self-actualization is not the  focus, you know, teaching and educating the next generation is, is not the focus  .  Right. The focus is, I need to survive, so I need to help my kids survive. I need to help the next generation  survive. Yeah. You know, if they can do all of that, you know, growth and stuff later, my, my job is to get  them to survive.  . Right. And, and so, you know, it, it is just, it's a, it's not even a  

drastic reframing, it is a reframing from what we think it is to what reality actually is, right?   . Reality is that spending money increases economic opportunity and increased economic  opportunity limits the potential of the drastic violence that we saw at the, the, , super Bowl parade.   . Like that that is why it matters. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:40:41): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:40:42): 

No matter where you live, because we, again, we are one Kansas City. Right. And if we, we limit the  regional economic opportunity, we limit the, the businesses that might want to come into Leewood,  because if they're not from Kansas City, they see Leewood as Kansas City. And if they see the crime in  Kansas City as high Yeah. They think, oh, well maybe we, maybe we shouldn't go there. Yeah. Um, that's 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:41:08): 

A good point. 

Brandon Calloway (01:41:08): 

So yeah. It, it's just, , there's a lot of selfish reasons Yeah. To, to, to, to focus on developing the, the, ,  the east side.

Page 65 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:41:19): 

Yeah. No, I think that's, I think that's a good way to sum it up, you know, without going on a complete  tangent Yeah. Into a deep dive of that. Because I just, I just think we need to have that conversation open  where pe everybody around the metro can really engage in like, okay, I, yeah. I should be doing more.  Yeah. 'cause it does impact me on a larger scale, so. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else you wanna share  about Kansas City G.I.F.T.? And then we'll get into some questions. 

Brandon Calloway (01:41:42): 

Yeah. No, I don't, I don't think so. I, we've, yeah. We've, we 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:41:45): 

Covered a lot. Yeah. We didn't hit everything. Been good? Yeah. Okay. Um, what is currently on your  Kansas City bucket list? 

Brandon Calloway (01:41:51): 

My Kansas City bucket list. Oh my gosh. I am pathetic. I, I am a . 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:41:59): 

Anything you wanna do? See, you haven't done yet here? 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:01): 

God, I, I have been. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:42:03): 

Are you a homebody? 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:04): 

I am a homebody. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:42:05): 

I've 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:05): 

So head down. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:42:07): 

It'll 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:07): 

Work. , I feel so head down it 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:42:10): 

Work. What would be, what would a day look like for you that you could be completely free of the  responsibility just for one day? And what would you do here?

Page 66 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:18): 

Um, completely free of responsibility for a day. The thing that it, the thing that I'll usually do . 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:42:24): 

If 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:25): 

I have a, just a completely free day, , is I go to Lake Cuomo's, , I go to Lake Jmo, go to the marina.  Yeah. Rent a pontoon and just, you know, I chill. Yeah. Love it. For, for the entire day. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:42:44): 

Being on and around water is so amazing for 

Brandon Calloway (01:42:48): 

Restoring, honestly. I mean, I don't, the selfish part of me, I don't want everybody to start doing this  because, you know, all there are day, there are times where, especially when it's not, if it's not the  weekend, it's not, you know, a peak season, , and the marina is open, you know, it's, it's real easy to just  go and get a boat and sit there and 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:08): 

Do, 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:09): 

I mean, I, I don't, and it's funny, I say I'm head down and work. I will go and get a boat, take my laptop  and  

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:15): 

More power to you. I love working out outside work. Okay. That's good. 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:18): 

But yeah, that's, that is, that's my, my thing. , you know, we, you know, Valentine's Day just happened,  right? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:29): 

Sure did. 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:30): 

And so, , my girlfriend and I, we went, , we were roller skating at Skate City, and so that's still That's  amazing. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:36): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:36): 

It's still, it is still a thing. Love.

Page 67 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:38): 

It 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:39): 

Is still a thing. There is a, , we went to gosh, , rock, ROKC 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:47): 

Oh yeah. The rock climbing. 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:48): 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so that, that was fun. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:50): 

That was 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:51): 

New. , 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:43:52): 

Which one did you go to? There's a few around town. 

Brandon Calloway (01:43:54): 

Yeah. We went to one in, I think Overland Park. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:44:00): 

Olathe, 

Brandon Calloway (01:44:00): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:44:01): 

Oh, 

Brandon Calloway (01:44:01): 

Yeah. Olathe, Overland Park was out there by, by the, by Skate City. Yeah. Um, they've 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:44:06): 

Got the, um, the restaurant, 

Brandon Calloway (01:44:07): 

Yeah.  . Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:44:09): 

Yeah.

Page 68 of 75 

Brandon Calloway (01:44:09): 

, and then, you know, kind of my two favorite, my, my favorite coffee shop, my favorite, , cafe is  Equal Minded Cafe. Yeah. It's right. It's, I mean, it is one of the businesses we funded and Yeah. , I  mean, it's literally where I drove from. I, I left Equal Minded and came here Perfect. You know, , and  then Urban Restaurant, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:44:30): 

, it's literally top on my list. Yeah. It's, I gotta get there. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:44:34): 

Urban is a Oh, it is great. It is a really, really, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:44:37): 

It looks really cool. Yeah, it is on the inside too. 

Brandon Calloway (01:44:39): 

Yeah. It, it is, it is. Great ambiance on the inside. , when I'm near and people ask me, what should I  get? Like, I'm not, I'm not a good person to ask that, because, you know, like literally everything on the  menu, you know, there's the brown butter pancakes with the bacon. There's the urban, you know, burger  there, there's the, , the chicken and waffles. Yeah. , there's the, what is it, the crab omelet. There's a  whole bunch of stuff. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:02): 

That's when you to go with like a group of 10 people so you can have a bite of everybody's and just do it  like shared plate style. Yeah. That's what you should do. So, um, I was gonna ask other restaurants that  you absolutely love eating at in Casey. Other favorites, 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:14): 

Other restaurants that I really love eating at. Um, so I, I'm, gosh, about four or five months ago, I, I made  the full Switch. I'm vegan, right? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:28): 

Ooh, okay. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:29): 

And so 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:30): 

I won't even ask what brought that on, because we'll add another 20 minutes to this conversation. We'll  get to that later. 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:35): 

Yeah, yeah, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:36):

Page 69 of 75 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:36): 

, but Gigi's vegan Cafe is right. Oh, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:41): 

Gigi's. 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:41): 

Yeah, it is right on. , gosh, what is that 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:44): 

On Westport? Yeah. Westport 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:46): 

Road 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:46): 

Or something. 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:46): 

Yeah, Westport Road. It's that funny intersection, and it's like five intersections all at once, so confusing.  Yeah. Yeah. Right by the Westport. QuickTrip, yeah. , yeah, G Gigi's Vegan, , eatery. And then 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:45:57): 

I'm not vegan, but I have had that with 

Brandon Calloway (01:45:58): 

It. Yeah, it's good. She, and she does a, she does the KC Veg Fest every year, and so it's a big v , vegan  fest. I think that every year that, um, that I, I, I love going there. I mean, yeah. It's a whole bunch of  different, you know, food. She, she had like, I think last year people, somebody drove up from Florida,  some vegan Oh, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:46:17): 

Wow. Seafood 

Brandon Calloway (01:46:18): 

Place. Okay. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:46:19): 

Drove 

Brandon Calloway (01:46:20): 

Up from Florida. , yeah. It was, it was, it was cool. It was real fun.

Page 70 of 75 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:46:25): 

Love it. Um, and then anyone that you'd love to hear on this podcast, anyone that you would refer to me  that you think would be great for people to hear from? 

Brandon Calloway (01:46:33): 

Oh, , Chris Good. Would be great to have on the podcast. Yeah. , Justin and Ron from Urban would  be great to have on the podcast, , Shanita Shanita from, um, the Prospect. Prospect, yep. . The  prospect, kc, she would be, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:46:50): 

She the, she has the Nook  

Brandon Calloway (01:46:52): 

. Yep. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:46:52): 

Coffee shop inside the library. 

Brandon Calloway (01:46:53): 

Yep. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:46:54): 

Yep. Okay. Yep. Great. She, 

Brandon Calloway (01:46:55): 

She'd be really good to have on the podcast. And then, I don't know if you've had Mth from Vine Street  Brewery. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:00): 

No, I've reached out. I would love to have them on. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:02): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:02): 

Kimmet 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:02): 

Would be good to have on the podcast as well. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:04): 

Plus I want them to bring beer. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:06):

Page 71 of 75 

You know? 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:06): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:07): 

And then, I mean, there's all, I, I got a, I have a bunch of, a bunch of, especially we talking about founder,  like, , Tyler from, , , maiden kc. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:18): 

Enders.  . Yeah. Tyler 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:20): 

Enders. Tyler Berg from, , US Engineering. He, I 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:23): 

Don't know that who that is. Okay. Yeah. I'll go look him up. , 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:26): 

And, , Aaron, Zack from Sunlighten. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:31): 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I want, I would love to have sunlight on. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:33): 

Yeah. Yeah. Aaron. Aaron is Aaron's a 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:36): 

So that means you're into infrared saunas. Oh, 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:38): 

Yeah. I am. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:39): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:39): 

Me 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:39): 

Too. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:39):

Page 72 of 75 

I am in infrared saunas, and that's, that is another thing, like all my bucket list, we, and I can't say it's on  my bucket list anymore, but we do a whole lot of like, contrast therapy, so, , cold plunges. Whoa.  Okay. And infrareds. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:53): 

Yes. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:53): 

Um, 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:54): 

I'm all about it. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:55): 

Yeah.  . Yeah. We just did one on Valentine's Day, actually. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:47:58): 

Sweet. 

Brandon Calloway (01:47:58): 

Um, but yeah. Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:48:01): 

You sound like you're on a health kick. 

Brandon Calloway (01:48:03): 

Well, it is, you know, I love it. My, I, I still have the, , you know, the exercise physiology stuff. That's  true. . It's a great, yeah, it is. It is still part of, still part of what I, what I do. Amazing. I'm doing  75 hard right now. I've 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:48:18): 

Heard about this. Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:48:19): 

Yeah. And so it's, you know, it's two workouts a day. Read 10 pages of a book, pick a diet and stick to it.  No alcohol. Yeah. , and I'll drink a gallon of water and all of that. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:48:29): 

Yeah. 

Brandon Calloway (01:48:29): 

, and this is our, this is, , my girlfriend is a trooper. This is our third time doing, doing this. We did it  twice last year and then Good 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:48:37):

Page 73 of 75 

For you. , 

Brandon Calloway (01:48:38): 

And we, we, last year we made an agreement that Ja, every January 1st we would started. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:48:43): 

Okay. 

Brandon Calloway (01:48:43): 

Um, and so, you know, even though we did it twice last year, we came around and was like, we doing that  again. Right. She said, yeah, why wouldn't we 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:48:49): 

Pro to love it? . Yeah. Amazing. Oh, all right. Where can people find and follow you? 

Brandon Calloway (01:48:54): 

, yeah. , Kansas City G.I.F.T.. You can follow us on Instagram. You can, you can also follow us on  Facebook, , LinkedIn. And we don't do a whole lot on YouTube. , and so I wouldn't recommend  following us on YouTube. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:49:08): 

You'll be on my YouTube, so we'll leave it at that. 

Brandon Calloway (01:49:10): 

Yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:49:11): 

Good. Cool. This has been awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Considering we had never met before, we got a  solid, we're coming up on like almost two hours 

Brandon Calloway (01:49:18): 

Oh yeah. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:49:19): 

At this point. So Yeah. We could keep talking forever. Yeah. Do a 2.0. So, yeah. Yeah. Thank you for  coming on. Thank you. I was really excited to hear the story, get the details out to people, and I'm excited  for people to hear it. 

Brandon Calloway (01:49:28): 

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me on. I'd love to show. I, I, it was, you know, it was an honor for you  to reach out to us and Yeah. Have us on to talk about, you know, what we are doing and what we trying to do. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:49:37): 

It's an honor to have you on. Yeah. Thank you.

Brandon Calloway (01:49:38): 

Thank you. 

Mindy Hargesheimer (01:49:40): 

Thank you so much for tuning in and finding inspiration in these incredible stories. If you love what you  hear, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Leave a rating and share the show to help these  Kansas City voices reach even more listeners.