EP280: America Builds Up: The Bremerton Naval Yards and 100 Women Creating Transformation In Their Own Backyard

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Light, comfy, good to go to. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories, and we tell stories about everything here on this show, including yours. Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. Up next, a story from our regular contributor, Ann Claire. Ann is a teacher, organist, and choir director. She's also a World War II history buff. You can find her stories at thenaptimeauthor.wordpress.com. Up next, a story on the Bremerton Naval Yards in Washington.

Here's Ann to tell the story. On October 30, 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a campaign speech in Boston, in which he said, With hindsight, we know that didn't last more than a year because We interrupt this broadcast and bring you this important bulletin from the United Press. Flash, Washington. The White House announces Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. However you look at it, this was a huge change, a huge impactful event in American history.

It had a profound impact on, really, everybody in the country, but in different places it hit differently. One place that had a really interesting historical connection with the whole Pearl Harbor attack and with the way World War II would change the U.S. is the town of Bremerton in the state of Washington. Now, Bremerton's not a big metropolis.

In fact, it largely grew because of some Navy connections. It's across Puget Sound from Seattle. It's on the Kitsap Peninsula, which is a little peninsula sticking out from the larger Olympic Peninsula. And since it's on Puget Sound, it does have access to the Pacific Ocean. Which is why in 1891, it was picked to be the site for the Puget Sound Naval Station, which was the first Naval establishment in the Northwest. Which was a pretty big deal because at that point, if U.S. ships needed major work, they would have to go all the way down to Mare Island in California, or they'd have to go all the way up to British Columbia. So this gave a facility where American ships could be tended on American soil.

Now, over the years, the yard grew and changed significantly. Back in 1928, it had work on the very first U.S. aircraft carriers, the Saratoga and the Lexington. Actually, the Saratoga spent enough time in Puget Sound that eventually it got the nickname Sarah from the workers there. And as the fleet was authorized to build up by Congress in 1934, there was more work again in the yard for the people who were there. On the invasion of Poland in 1939, FDR declared a limited national emergency and they dug more dry docks for ships and expanded the ones that were there and began preparing to be able to build ships themselves.

They also became involved in something called de-perming. See, once Germany went to war with Britain, Germany started mining British shipping lanes and they'd used magnetized mines, which of course is a problem for any ship that's going through those areas. So one of the jobs that was done in the shipyard area was creating these big electromagnetic coils that would actually de-magnetize the holes of ships so they wouldn't attract mines, ideally. Also, the battleships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were getting overhauled and repaired during this time, which kept about 6,000 employees very busy. Now, the first real look at war that Bremerton got, the first first-hand look, as it were, was actually through a foreign visitor. The yard hosted the HMS Warspite in the summer of 1941. This British ship had been pretty badly beaten up in the Mediterranean and had limped its way across the Pacific to Bremerton, which was kind of exciting for the citizens.

They got to host these British sailors and a lot of them invited them into their homes and tried to show them hospitality. And were naturally also very curious about the ship, though the Warspite kept up pretty strong security, even stronger than the shipyard itself had had in past days because times were changing. But still, even though it was a look at war, a look at people who'd experienced it, war still felt fairly far away until December. December 7th in Bremerton is, according to memories of people who were there, a pretty nice day for December in the Pacific Northwest. People were working on houses, coming home from church, out and about with friends, going to their jobs, when word came through that Pearl Harbor had been hit. And unlike some different parts of the country that were farther away from Hawaii, Pearl Harbor was not an entirely unfamiliar name to the people in Bremerton.

And it was a bit of a shock because while Hawaii, mileage-wise, is still a good distance away, just geographically, it felt uncomfortably like, I guess you could say like a neighbor had been hit. And they wondered, the people of the area wondered, if they might be next in line. Bremerton, the yard, is where the damaged ships would come. They had the facility, the only place on the West Coast really, that would be able to repair any damaged battleships. So as soon as word came out that Pearl had been hit, people started looking to the skies.

They were concerned. And you're listening to Ann Clare, who's a teacher, an organist, and a choir director, but she's also one heck of a World War II expert and buff. When we come back, more of this remarkable story of Bremerton Naval Yards, these kinds of stories happened all around this country as the arsenal of democracy was put into high gear.

More of this remarkable story, Ann Clare telling the story of Bremerton Naval Yards, here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the stories we tell about this great country, and especially the stories of America's rich past, know that all of our stories about American history, from war to innovation, culture, and faith, are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, a place where students study all the things that are beautiful in life, and all the things that are good in life. And if you can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with their free and terrific online courses.

Go to hillsdale.edu to learn more. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.

It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit uhcmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious, and there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done. I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try All-Free Clear Mega Packs. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs.

Which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that All-Free Clear Mega Packs, they have your back. Purchase All-Free Clear Mega Packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we return to Our American Stories and the story of the Bremerton Naval Yards with Ann Claire. When we last left off, the people of Bremerton, Washington, where the Bremerton Naval Yard sits, had just found out that Pearl Harbor had been hit. And big changes to this town were imminent. Here again is Ann Claire to tell the rest of the story.

There were a lot of changes. People tell stories of changes in the ferry routes because back in those days, just like now, there were ferries back and forth from Bremerton to Seattle quite frequently. One person wrote about hearing shots while he was riding the ferry home and walking out to see a rifleman standing on the front of the boat firing into the water. Because if there were mines in Puget Sound, he hoped that they'd get detonated. The war spite, which was still docked in the yard, was turned around to face seaward. And every afternoon, 4 p.m., it would be disconnected from all of the lines that connected it to the land and all buttoned up just in case they had to go into some sort of combat situation. They started parking barges in front of the different dry docks to try and put up some sort of barrier to protect the ships that were being repaired.

Barrels of water and boxes of sand and rakes were put up around the shipyard. Tape criss-crosses were put on windows just in case blasts might blow out the glass. And people started looking for ways to create air raid shelters as well.

There were basements of some buildings that would serve, but also just in case people couldn't get to them in time, old ship boilers were brought out and cut in half to make sort of dome-shaped shelters that, at least according to the signs on them, could get 30 people inside and give them some sort of protection in case the bombs started falling. It was just lots and lots of planning in a short time as everyone tried to figure out what we'd do if the Japanese came, if the invasion happened. The invasion by the Japanese, of course, we know did not come to Washington state. The invasion that did come was of the U.S. Army, actually.

A week after Pearl Harbor on December 14th, lots of Army trucks started rolling into Bremerton, which was quite another big change for this Navy town. And tents cropped up in play fields and in parks and soldiers were sleeping in people's barns or garages or finding lodging in different houses and filled up a lot of the space. And that was also amplified a couple of weeks later when the 303rd Barrage Balloon Battalion rolled into town as well. If you've seen pictures of Britain during World War II, you might have seen pictures of those big silvery balloons floating above London or at the beaches also when we were doing different invasions in Europe and things. Barrage balloons were designed in Britain. These ones were actually created in the U.S. And the idea was that these balloons with the long steel cables coming down from them would actually stop planes from dive bombing. Or if planes tried to dive bomb, the cables could sheer off the wings of the planes and it would provide protection to the ground area. So Bremerton was full of barrage balloons.

Wherever they could find a good open space to plant one, they planted one. But the barrage balloons were an interesting addition to the town. They also caused some problems because if a high wind came up and they weren't able to bring the barrage balloons down in time, they might snap their cables and go flying off. There's quite a few stories of barrage balloon cables taking out chimneys or power lines.

And since the barrage balloons also were flammable, there was one unfortunate incident in 1943 where one actually blew on the ground and injured seven soldiers who were taking care of it, one of them critically. So all these precautions, all of these different things to protect Bremerton were changing the whole landscape of life in this town. Add to that fact the fact that the shipyard itself was trying to amp up its number of employees because there was a lot of work coming in. The town itself was getting so full that there's stories from people working at the YMCA during this time that they'd have to just go and set up cots on the gym floor, 100 cots in the gym, and they'd all be rented out. They'd have people actually reserving seats just for a place to sleep and a place to keep their belongings while they were looking for more permanent lodgings.

Putting the cover on the pool table at night and having a couple guys jump up on there and use that as a bed. I heard stories of hotels actually renting out one bed to three different people and one person would be working the first shift and then they'd go off to work and then the next person would come and sleep and they'd have the next shift and they'd go off to work and then the next person could use the bed while they were off of work. As the shipyard was looking for workers, they just couldn't seem to fill the slots quickly enough no matter how full the town was getting and so teenagers in town were recruited too for different jobs. Which worked out kind of well because the city was so crowded that the schools couldn't actually hold all of their students at one time. So the students were going to school, in the public schools at least, in two shifts.

Half of the students went in the morning, half went in the afternoon. So there was a certain amount of time for outside employment as well for the kids and it was a very, very busy time for everybody. The yard was keeping busy with a lot of different projects of course. There was ship building and there was refitting other things. But two days before the end of 1941, the first Pearl Harbor Ghost arrived in the yard and that was a pretty significant event. This ship, this ghost ship, wasn't really a ghost but Japan had reported that five US battleships were sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Which actually the US was able to salvage, get back to Bremerton repair and put back into the fight.

The first of these ghosts, as they were jokingly named since the ships had been declared dead an hour back out and about, was the USS Tennessee. And it was sailing under its own power even though it had been battered by bomb hits and also by debris from the USS Arizona's explosion. The next day, December 30th, the USS Maryland made it into port as well. The ship yard took a break from lots of other projects and put people to work on it because we desperately needed ships in the Pacific. And they were actually able to turn those ships around, get them repaired, and get them ready to fight and upgraded as well in just 53 days.

The Maryland and the Tennessee had sailed back out. In February, the Saratoga, the aircraft carrier, was back at the shipyard too because it had been hit by a torpedo not during Pearl Harbor but on January 11th. And then by May 1st, the third Pearl Harbor ghost, the USS Nevada, had made it to the shipyard. Just to give some perspective on the level of damage on these ships, it took about 700,000 man hours to get the Nevada ready to go into the fight again. The last two Pearl Harbor ghosts to show up were the USS California and the USS West Virginia. They had been damaged the most and they had been sunk and flooded and full of silty soil and needed quite a lot of work.

But eventually, they were all turned back into the fight. And these five ships were not at all the only ones that the yard worked on during World War II. All these workers and all these employees coming in and teaming up to work together to repair and equip these ships did a tremendous job.

There were about 32,500 employees in this workforce. And during the World War II period, they built 50 new ships and repaired 363, which was a pretty tremendous aid to the American war effort. And a special thanks to Monty Montgomery for the production on that piece. And a special thanks to Ann Claire, who's a teacher, an organist, and a choir director, but she's also a World War II history buff. And we love having our World War II and history contributors be from all walks of life.

You don't have to have a PhD in history to know history or tell stories about it. And my goodness, 50 new ships. That's a crazy number of ships, folks. The story, in a way, of the arsenal of democracy.

The story of Bremerton Naval Yard here on Our American Story. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.

It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare.

Helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop. But for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot.

And I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious. And there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done.

I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So, if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try All-Free Clear Mega Packs. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All-Free Clear Mega Packs are also 100% free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs. Which my family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So, the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that All-Free Clear Mega Packs, they have your back.

Purchase All-Free Clear Mega Packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. This is Our American Stories and up next, a powerful generosity story. Wendy Steele was a banker in Cincinnati, Ohio, when one day she stumbled upon a transformational idea. Here's Wendy with a story of that idea. I would talk to women and try to get them involved in the nonprofit volunteer work I was doing and they would tell me all the reasons why they couldn't. You know, because I had grown up that way, it was hard for me to fathom people who just didn't understand not only that each of us is really called to do our part where we can, but that they wouldn't realize how much they were missing out on.

I suddenly thought that there needs to be a way that would remove the barriers. You know, when you work for an organization, you're well paid, but you travel a lot. Well, then that means you can't make regular meetings. And for a lot of women's philanthropy, it's very time-based. And that doesn't work if women are traveling or they would tell me, you know, gosh, I'm a stay-at-home mom. I can't justify paying a sitter $10 an hour while I go volunteer with you.

And so, again, how can I overcome this? Probably the worst part of it for me was hearing women have that sense that they didn't have enough. They didn't know enough. They didn't have enough money or wisdom or experience that it wouldn't matter that their efforts couldn't make a difference.

I intuitively knew that that wasn't true, but I really wasn't sure what was it that was needed. Right about this time, I had heard a story about a church and the circumstance. The pastor of the church had come upon some sort of cash flow crisis. And so, as such, he called in his senior staff, the head of the men's guild, the head of the women's guild. And he explained to all of them this dire situation and that he really needed everyone to do what they could to raise as much money or they wouldn't make payroll.

They wouldn't make the mortgage payment for the church building, whatever it was. It was a crisis. And it was a matter of, you know, three weeks before they had to bring in all this money. The head of the women's guild went out and she mobilized all the women on her team. They went out and they did bake sales. They did garage sales. They picked up donations.

They did yard work. They did all of these things for day after day trying to raise as much money as possible. And at the end of the three weeks, the head of the women's guild goes to deliver the check, something like eight thousand dollars. She had never raised that much money so quickly before. She was exhausted, but exhilarated that they had come together. And as she's walking out the door, the head of the men's guild walks in and he hands over a check to the pastor.

That's many times more than what the women were able to do. And she says to him, how in the world? How did you do that? And the guy says, well, you know, I decided that we could give five thousand dollars. And so then I called my friend Joe and I asked him to give and Tom and Steve. And I played golf with a couple of guys and they wrote a check.

And the point being, it was much more efficient, much more effective and much more powerful. The way that the head of the men's guild went to bring in all this money and the head of the women's guild in no way was held back. You know, it wasn't like the pastor said, oh, and by the way, whatever you do, don't write a check.

Just go out and work your tail off and try and see what you can do. It was that culturally women are brought up to think first about doing. Even when we control our own wealth, we are much less likely than a man to write a check without getting permission from a man in our life or at least getting confirmation. And men don't view money the same way.

For me, that was sort of an aha moment. And as I sat there that summer with my spiral notebook, one by one, I started to create what we now know as Impact 100. So the model is really simple. You gather at least a hundred women who each donate a thousand dollars. Now, for me, this notion of putting in a spiral notebook that every woman would give a thousand dollars, I myself, I had never written a check for a thousand dollars to a single charity prior to Impact 100. So I didn't go into this with this knowledge and experience of writing what I call a big check.

I just knew that the numbers had to work and they had to be powerful. All that money, 100 percent of it, nothing taken out for any expenses, would be pooled and given away in grants of a hundred thousand dollars or more across five broad focus areas. This was not women helping women and girls. This was women funding community.

The five focus areas are arts and culture, environment, preservation and recreation, health and wellness, family and education. The idea being that there wouldn't be a nonprofit in the community whose mission wouldn't qualify. We would have one woman, one check and one vote. If a woman was wealthy enough to write a check for five or ten thousand dollars, she was welcome to do so. But she could not buy five or ten votes. This was democratizing philanthropy.

They can select to write a check and not do another thing except cast their ballot. Or they could serve in a variety of administrative committees or the leadership board, and they could also serve on the grant review committees. And then we come together for an annual meeting.

We allow those five finalists to each present, cast your votes, and the highest vote getter would get the grant. And so in late October, I invited the women who I had initially identified as being part of the founding board to dinner. They knew we were going to talk about Impact 100 and whether it was a go or no go. What I didn't tell them is I invited 15 women. And what I didn't share is that unless 10 of them were as committed as I was to moving ahead with Impact 100, I wouldn't do it. I knew that this was way too big an undertaking, that certainly it couldn't be done by me alone.

And it couldn't even be done by just a small group, that we needed 10 women to be able to own this in the way that I did and to build it. The questions became, you know, if not us, who? If not here, then where?

And if not now, then when? Fortunately for Cincinnati and for several other communities, all 15 women said that they were in. And so right now we have 65 active chapters. By the end of 2019, we had given away cumulatively just under $80 million.

And $80 million, $1,000 at a time, it's just a mind-boggling set of numbers. And you've been listening to Wendy Steele trying to solve a problem and hearing how men did it better. In this respect, they just did it better. And so she said, how can we do it better than that? And this idea, well, it's better than just calling up a few pals who you golf with.

And that's the power of an idea and then executing on it, folks. And by the way, to learn more about joining an Impact 100 chapter in your community or starting one if there isn't one, go to Impact100Council.org. That's Impact100Council.org.

When we come back, more with Wendy Steele's story here on Our American Stories. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.

It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCMedicareHealthPlans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners, too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Doing household chores can already be time consuming and tedious. And there's nothing more daunting than facing piles and piles of laundry that need to be done.

I mean, that can be overwhelming for anyone. So if you want to get those larger laundry loads done right and get back to your life, try all free clear mega packs. All free clear mega packs are bigger packs with two times the cleaning ingredients compared to a regular pack so that you can tackle any laundry load without the worry. All free clear mega packs are also 100 percent free of perfumes and dyes and they're gentle on skin, which is great for any family's sensitive skin needs. My family, we definitely have sensitive skin. So the next time the whole family gets home from long vacation or you get the kids back from summer camp or whatever the situation is that's caused this big pile of dirty clothes, just know that all free clear mega packs, they have your back.

Purchase all free clear mega packs today and conquer any laundry load for all fabric types. And we continue with our American stories and the story of Impact 100, the generosity movement where 100 women or more in a community each donate one thousand dollars and make transformational gifts of one hundred thousand dollars. Let's return to its founder, Wendy Steele, on the very beginning of what was meant to be the first and only chapter in her community of Cincinnati, Ohio.

By March of 2002, we had our 501 C3 nonprofit status by May. One hundred and twenty three women had given us a check for a thousand dollars and we offered up a single grant of one hundred and twenty three thousand dollars. And the highest vote getter was a dental clinic in over the Rhine, which is one of Cincinnati's most challenged neighborhoods called the McMicken Dental Clinic. They had one staff dentist, a woman named Dr. Judy Allen. They had five dental chair setups that have been donated by a very generous dentist several years back when he was updating his own practice. These dental chairs were old and troublesome. They didn't quite operate as well as Judy would like them to. And so the application was to re outfit them.

And that's what our members voted to do. We were all invited to an open house where Dr. Judy, with great pride, walked us around her newly refurbished dental clinic. And on easels, she had pictures of her patients. My gosh, these pictures of people of every age and every background who in the before picture, they're barely smiling. You can see the sadness in their eyes. They've got missing teeth. They have black teeth.

In some cases, they have swollen faces and mouths from some severe illness that's going on. You know, people don't always think about it, but your dental health is so critical. If you've got black teeth or missing teeth, you're really not even hirable at a lot of traditional entry level kinds of jobs. I mean, imagine the receptionist at your company or the hostess at a restaurant, even a busser. If they have black teeth or missing teeth, it's very hard to get a job of any kind. And your own self-confidence is diminished.

You know, you don't smile, you're embarrassed. And so there were before and after pictures of all of these different patients and how their lives have changed. And then a story that would tell you that before somebody was unemployed and homeless and, you know, their whole situation.

And after they now are employed and you see these beaming smiles. So Dr. Judy and I had become good friends at this point. She called me into her office and she pointed on the wall and she said, Wendy, I really want you to look at that.

And it looked like a calendar. And I said, that's fantastic. Judy, it looks like you're serving more patients.

That's excellent. But she said, no, Wendy, you're missing the point. The names on that calendar are dentists who are now volunteering to come into the clinic every week. She explained that for years, when she would go to her dental association meetings and the continuing education credits and so forth, she would explain that she needed volunteers. She needed more help. She explained how these dentists, they would smile and they would nod and they would tell her yes, but they never came.

And now they were coming. The difference, she said, were these chairs, that the dental chairs that she had been using, they were about 20 years old and the useful life of dental equipment is about 20 years. And so what was happening is that dentists weren't going to come because they were doing very complex treatments and they couldn't rely on the drill or the light.

They couldn't rely on the equipment. But now with this equipment, she now had this army of local dentists to join the community and come alongside. We had tried really hard to get the local press in Cincinnati to tell our story and we just couldn't break through. So about a week after visiting the McMicken Dental Clinic, my home telephone rang and I almost hung up because I thought it was a prank call when the woman explained that she was Lorna Grisby, the Midwest bureau chief for People magazine, and that she wanted to do a story about Impact 100. I was not a People magazine subscriber at the time, but I did know that People magazine was the most widely subscribed or read magazine apparently in the world at that point. The People magazine story came out. The phone rang off the hook.

In those days I had a landline and in those days my email was AOL. I got hundreds of people reaching out of the woodwork talking about how they wanted to replicate this model in their own community and how much would I charge for the license fee, how much would I charge to help them get started. From the beginning, it was never designed to be a profit-making exercise for me. And so I could not imagine charging people to be able to use this. And so I didn't.

I gave the model freely. And interestingly, Pensacola, Florida is now the world's largest Impact 100 chapter. And if you know anything about Pensacola, demographically, that might be a surprise to you, especially if you know that we have chapters in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and Chicago, Illinois, and Palm Beach, Florida, and San Francisco, California.

And Pensacola, they started off strong. The goal of every Impact organization, in my opinion, the goal should be to get to 500 members. When you get to 500 members, you give away five grants. You give one grant in each focus area, and in doing so, you satisfy all the women, as well as we can all be satisfied, I suppose.

But you satisfy all aspects of the community, really get blanketed. And year over year, when you're giving 100,000 or more across each of these five sectors, if you will, it really is a game changer for the community. In year one, Pensacola thought, why would we only give one grant?

Let's keep going. And they were able to attract more than 200 women their first year. They got to 500 members relatively quickly. And when it came close to their 10th anniversary, they decided that it made sense to get all the way to 1,000 members. And they did. Some people thought that that 1,000 member was just a special thing for their 10-year anniversary, and they'd revert back to 700 or 800 members. But they didn't.

They've stayed above 1,000 members since then. And just a couple of weeks ago, they had their annual meeting, or what it's known as in Pensacola is they had Million Dollar Sunday. They gave away 11 grants totaling $1,166,000 on that Sunday across all five focus areas. It's the second year they've given away that much money. So they had 15 finalists, three in each focus area.

Members would vote for two of the three in each focus area and then choose one focus area that they thought should get fully funded, so should get the third grant funded as well. It was absolutely amazing to see this Million Dollar Sunday and the outcome from Pensacola. I think that sometimes God gives favor to the most unlikely people and turns what would be a simple woman who thought she was going to be a banker into the founder of a movement that is getting ready to turn 20 and knocking on the door of $100 million in new money contributed to communities around the globe is, to me, as shocking as it is awe-inspiring and as it is dumbfounding.

I would not be the one that most people would pick for the team, and so I am very grateful that our God has a sense of humor and that he thought I would be the right person, Cincinnati would be the right place, and now would be the right time to start. That, to me, is a surprise, but I'm grateful. And you've been listening to Wendy Steele, her story of Impact 100. And by the way, go to Impact100Council.org.

We also want to thank Carrie Morgridge at the Morgridge Family Foundation for telling us about Wendy and she's a paid member at all 65 chapters, including that one in Pensacola, Wendy Steele's story, here. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.

If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. What up?

It's Dramos. You may know me from the recap on LATV. Now I've got my own podcast, Life as a Gringo, coming to you every Tuesday and Thursday. We'll be talking real and unapologetic about all things life, Latin culture, and everything in between from someone who's never quite fit in. Listen to Life as a Gringo on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by State Farm.

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This is the start of a new era. We have an opportunity to be the better future for everyone. Combining the best of humanity in the technology, we will unleash our imagination. Everything that can be connected will be connected. We as an industry must dare to dream. So we find ourselves at a critical juncture in human history. See, touch, and experience the very latest in technology. Visit MWC Las Vegas September 28-30.