Let's Talk with Leaha & Rhonda

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You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NBC Studios on public radio K, u and v. 91.5. The following is a paid program sponsored by Crawford management group and smart time consultants. Please be advised that the voices and opinions you hear did not represent the views of 91.5 Jazz anymore, the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:34
Hi, my name is Leah Crawford.

Unknown Speaker 0:36
And I'm Rhonda Nolan.

Unknown Speaker 0:37
And you're listening to the let's talk with Leah and Rhonda show

Unknown Speaker 0:41
for all the beautiful entrepreneurs out there. This is for you. Good morning. Las Vegas. Hi, Leah. We're How are you feeling on this Saturday morning after Thanksgiving?

Unknown Speaker 0:55
I am so happy I made my meal. Oh, good. What did you make? So I did Turkey weighing macaroni and cheese. And I went around the town and got the desserts because everybody was making all the sweet potato pie. It helps but I did cook. I am so happy that I That's good. I'm ready now. I'm ready. I might do something for Christmas. Oh, and my little brother came to town. So I am super excited. I haven't seen him in a couple of months. So very good to see him. That it's wonderful. How you How was your Thanksgiving?

Unknown Speaker 1:32
Oh, it was fantastic. You know, I had to go home and check on the family. They had to manage my mother, you know, because she makes 30 different. And she invites 100 People over so everything went well. Thank God for my sisters because they love to clean. So you know so you got it. Yeah, we got it. We got a nice day. I

Unknown Speaker 1:48
need a job some years ago. Oh my god, y'all years ago, a long time ago. Come in and clean. Clean? Well, yes.

Unknown Speaker 1:56
Well, Las Vegas. We are so excited that you joined us on this beautiful Saturday morning. You probably out shopping somewhere getting ready to go to shop. But we want to introduce to you we have a very, very special guest in the audience. His name is Mr. Ryan and he is from care. chest.org. Mr. Ryan, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 2:15
I'm doing good. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. That's wonderful. How

Unknown Speaker 2:19
was your Thanksgiving? Oh, it

Unknown Speaker 2:20
was fantastic. I got to see my mom and my dad and my family has some Amish roots. So we had some good old Amish roots recipes cooked up for a good time. That's wonderful. Amish

Unknown Speaker 2:33
Pennsylvania. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:34
well, my family's from Indiana. But yeah, Indiana, Indiana.

Unknown Speaker 2:41
My mother loves buying Amish chickens. Yeah, they're great. That's amazing. Yeah, they sell them at the health food stores. Because they're healthy. You know, they're fed what they're supposed to be fed in and out all the extra time what they're supposed to be. Yeah, you know, whatever it is they eat, you know, to be healthy. You know, that type of thing. Yeah. So Ryan, tell us a little bit about the organization you work with? Yeah, care

Unknown Speaker 3:01
chest is a nonprofit organization. And what we do is we provide Nevadans in need free medical resources. So that goes through a variety of things. We do durable medical equipment, Walker's wheelchairs, canes, medical beds, we also do diabetic supplies, we do supplemental medical nutrition. So that's your insurer Glucerna, your protein power, those things you see at the store to really boost your nutrition, all value. We also do one time you supply. So it's just incontinence supplies, wound care, some over the counter medication. We even do some assistive technology and independent living home modifications. And what that means is we help people make the modifications they need in their home so that they can stay independent in their houses.

Unknown Speaker 3:44
That's fantastic. That's

Unknown Speaker 3:45
a lot. There's a lot. That's a lot. So what brought you guys, well, how long have you been in Southern Nevada?

Unknown Speaker 3:50
So we've been in Southern Nevada, in total, three years. So in 2020, the state of Nevada asked us to move down south and bring our programming down south. But we've only been doing our full fledged programming since August of 2022. And in the last year and a few months, we've actually served 2000 Southern Nevada's expansion

Unknown Speaker 4:10
1000, Southern Nevada. That's huge. That's wonderful. So how can how can our audience get in contact with you for this? Well, what is the process to to get to be a client? And yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 4:22
it's actually really easy. We want our process to be as accessible as possible. So there's a few ways that you can reach out to us first of all, we have our on our website, we have our application, care, cesta. org, you can go there and there's a huge on the top right corner of the screen, there's an apply for assistance button. You can also give us a call. Our phone number is 866-206-2242. If you give us a call and tell us what you need, we can walk you through the application. We can either mail you one out, we can fax it to you, we can email it to you, we can figure out a way that you can get your application. We also understand that a lot of the people that we serve Are mobility impaired or can't necessarily make it out to us. So we actually do rural mobile outreach, where we touch every county in the state of Nevada. And we also hit some hotspots in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, at certain food pantries where people can come up to us at those food pantries and apply there. And the next month, they can receive assistance there. That's fantastic. Let

Unknown Speaker 5:20
us use so the contact because he said it real fast. I know. Yeah. He said the contact information real fast. So it is 1-866-206-5242 again. 1-866-206-5242. So this program has been in Northern Nevada for some time. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 5:46
34 years ago, three pharmacists kind of got together and they looked around and they said, Why can't people for their durable medical equipment, and they recognize there was an issue with it, and that people needed certain things so that they can live independently and have the quality of life that they desired. So they looked around and said, Well, we can take some gently used equipment and redistribute it out to the public. So the organization was literally started out of a garage. Our stories also started out in a garage where we cleaned up the equipment, and then we redistributed to the public. Well, the need was just so huge that the programming just continued to expand. Were these pharmacists looked around and said, Well, these people who are coming to us for durable medical equipment, also need some wound care, because, you know, for some reason they need that. So we decided to try and be a one stop shop for some of the people we serve. So they're not coming to us and go into the pharmacy as much as possible. Now, obviously, we can't give out good like, medicine, because we're not we're not doctors, and pharmacists, yeah. But what we can do is we can provide people as much as possible so that they can leave us feeling like they have their needs met.

Unknown Speaker 6:56
So do you do you get funding from the pharmaceutical companies or the pharmaceutical manufacturers who make any of these products,

Unknown Speaker 7:04
so we do not get funding from those companies? Currently, we are willing to reach out and make those partnerships because we are a nonprofit organization. We do work with these companies and getting some of the equipment. But ultimately, most of our support comes from the community. It comes from people donating durable medical equipment, it comes from people donating their funds, their time and their energy to us. And then we're able to use that to redistribute those resources to folks. Where's your office located here in

Unknown Speaker 7:34
Southern Nevada? Yeah, it's

Unknown Speaker 7:36
great question. So we are not far from Allegiant stadium. We're at 3030 at 3080. West Post Road, Las Vegas, Nevada. 89118. We are open Monday through Friday 830 to 430. If you put us into the GPS, it's really important to make sure you put West Post Road because there's an East East Post Road, East Coast. A lot of people go to East coast road and they give us a call and they say we don't see you. We're at West Post Road. We're not far from an Amazon fulfillment center. We're, if you're going west on Sunset, on Town Center, you see Town Center, we're just past that bridge, just past Town Center. So we're

Unknown Speaker 8:19
here you go. We're familiar with the area. We are very familiar with. Very familiar with the area. Okay, so for you, how long have you been with this nonprofit?

Unknown Speaker 8:30
Yeah, so I've been with the organization since May. And part of the reason why I joined the organization is because I grew up here as a Las Vegas local. This community means a lot to me. It's my hometown. It's my hometown, by far and large. And one of the things that this community is really working on is increasing that the health care in this community. It's it's been historically known as weak. But we're really working on changing that narrative. It's not just us. There's a lot of organizations, corporations in the city that is really working on shifting the story of what healthcare is in the community. And I thoroughly believe Kertesz is one of those organizations that is working on making that change. So what high school would you go to? I want Silverado High School Silverado. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 9:11
Okay. I live over there.

Unknown Speaker 9:15
So you are in Las Vegas native. That is huge.

Unknown Speaker 9:17
Yeah. Yeah. It's a great, great community. I love it. Do It's totally

Unknown Speaker 9:21
different from when you were younger? Oh, absolutely. It's totally changed.

Unknown Speaker 9:26
Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's it's a great change. I think it's, it's positive that people you're meeting that are coming in. This is a unique community. I've lived in a lot of places in the world as well. I lived in southern Orange County for college. I lived in South France for a semester in college lived in Seattle. There's no place like this community where you can meet some of the most amazing people and some of the biggest assets are the generosity of people in their actions. So

Unknown Speaker 9:56
I appreciate that. So care chests. Let's go over those ervices again, because you, you ran through those I was like, Well, Lord, He that is. So let's let's go over to services one more time. And let's talk. Let's stop. And let's talk about each one of them. Because when you might not know what that means, what that could mean to someone, right? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker 10:16
Absolutely. Because like, in total, there's no one stop one stop solution for healthcare. There's no one size fits all solution. So people have really unique services and really unique needs. And a lot of times people who come to us, they don't just use this for one program, they use this for multiple programs. And it's very important that they recognize that we're out here because we want people to use our services.

Unknown Speaker 10:38
So hold on real quick. You've been listening to the less talk with Leah Rhonda show. I'm Lea Croft.

Unknown Speaker 10:42
I'm Rhonda Nolan. And we are so happy that you're joining us this beautiful Saturday morning, after Thanksgiving. And we have Mr. Ryan here. And he is telling us about some great programs that may be good for you or some loved ones and your family.

Unknown Speaker 10:53
And good to know because I want to add also that, you know, a lot of people been transitioning the COVID and everything else. And they may have these medical supplies. And you don't know what to do with those medical supplies. Right? Well, you can donate them. That's right, you can donate them to care, chest care, chest can donate indicators.

Unknown Speaker 11:13
And you can find them online at www carechgst.org. That's www carechest.org.

Unknown Speaker 11:29
And the phone number is 866-206-5242. Again, 866-206-5242. Okay, we're gonna take these programs, one at a time, a lot slower, so that we can understand what it is. Let's talk about the first service guys. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 11:47
so the first program, which was our flagship program, what we started with is our medical supplies and equipment program. So what that looks like is we have a durable medical equipment, I like to call it a library where people can come to us and borrow the durable medical equipment they might need, and some one time use supplies they might need. So for our durable medical equipment, we have anything from Walker's wheelchairs rollators. Which are the walkers with the seat in the wheels. Oh, yeah. And

Unknown Speaker 12:17
also cool. Okay, yeah, those are cool. Yeah, because you because you can walk and then when you need to sit down, you just pull your seat. That's right.

Unknown Speaker 12:26
We have shower chairs, we have bedside commodes, we also have power chairs and scooters. So we have a lot of a lot of durable medical equipment in our library, as I like to call it. Part of that program is to access it is income based. So we typically serve those at or below 130%, the federal poverty line. But what we typically look at, as we say, let's look at your income versus expenses. And if you're left with less than $200 a month, we can try and serve you. And the reason for that is we recognize that people who need our services typically have higher medical costs. So what we're trying to do with these programs is take out the decision between groceries or my medical.

Unknown Speaker 13:09
Love it. Yeah, and that's a you understand that that's a real decision for a lot of people. It's been real

Unknown Speaker 13:15
for some time, especially for people on fixed income, you know, they have to determine, you know, can I buy my medication this month? Or can I buy groceries this month? Can I buy a new Walker this month? Or use one? Or do I you know, do I buy my medication or do my

Unknown Speaker 13:29
walkers normally last? I guess they I guess they're not built to last a lifetime. So

Unknown Speaker 13:32
the thing about walkers and canes and wheelchairs is people often graduate out of like a walker to needing a cane to knew nothing at all. Or they unfortunately go the other way where they go from a walker, whether they need a wheelchair or they need a power chair. So what happens a lot of times is that there's a gap in their insurance it in their insurance, what their insurance provides, or they don't have insurance. And so they have a walker from when they were maybe five foot eight, and 50 years old. But now they're 65, they've shrunk a little bit. And they need a rollator versus a walker, they need something that they can sit on when they need something. And the insurance is no we we've bought you a walker, we're not going to buy a roll later, or they don't have that insurance anymore, or for whatever reason they can't afford the copay. So what we're a great service for is catching them in that gap, catching them. And again, there's a lot of people out there who even get the insurance to approve. So we had a gentleman we started the other day who had a walker rollator approved for him to be bought, however, was going to take six months to get there. So what we said is he said hey, I just need to borrow a rollator for six months. Sure, sir. Come on down, borrow for six months, bring it back when you're done. And you're good to go. You can walk today. You don't have to wait six months. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:48
that's great. And you will know what again, the number is because I know I'm hearing it and I'm just thinking to myself, wow. Because you never really think about what you may what might happen and what you may need and just having something avail double the number is 866-206-5242. Again, 866-206-5242. And it's good to know, because you might, you might know somebody that needs it, they're talking to you and they haven't they have an issue. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 15:16
I have a question for you sit now what exactly is below the poverty line right now? And 2023? How much money? Is it?

Unknown Speaker 15:25
That's a good question. So for a one person household, it's about $1,530 is like that, that line. So the poverty line is at $1,200. But we do 138%, because we recognize the federal poverty line doesn't really move. Also, the cost of living in Nevada is heart is higher than the cost of living in other states. And that's why we also take that step further, where if somebody really needs our services, we look at their income versus expenses, because we recognize that that line doesn't really move.

Unknown Speaker 15:55
What it sounds like, is that we're trying to work with work to fill the gap. They're trying to work with you, so that you don't have to make the decision between groceries and medical equipment. And they want to work with you 866206524 To the poverty line calculation, this is real, it's interesting. And it moves it moves because it's one person, two people, three people, four people, what cost the place the people.

Unknown Speaker 16:24
It's a lot we have, we have other programs, even if you don't meet the income, say say you're you have a loved one coming to town. And you they're not from the state but and you have a higher income. Typically we look at the person we're serving income, so we're not looking at it. Even if you're taking care of an older loved one. We're looking at that older loved ones income if we can serve them, okay, but there are, there are people who join our program called Club care chest, where you access, you have access to our Durable Medical Equipment library, anything in it for as long as you need for $50 a year. Oh, wow. So So there are

Unknown Speaker 17:00
a lot of different apps. And so that's the one program plus the other program. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 17:05
so are other programs are one time new supplies, I want to talk about that a little bit because it includes some of our most used program, which is our incontinence protection supplies. So incontinence protection supplies includes diapers, bed pads, bed chucks, pull ups, we're the only nonprofit in the state that we know of that provides them and there's another nonprofit in the state that does it, please reach out to me because we'd love to collaborate and see how we can effectively serve more Nevadans. It is a largely used program to supplement there are so many people who want their Medicare provides doesn't provide the full their full needs. So they need a supplement. We had one woman who were serving that what Medicare was providing her was actually causing abrasions on her skin. And so we needed to provide her something new. And there's a lot of people who don't have any provision whatsoever. And again, comes to that question, well, am I gonna get my incontinence protection supplies? Or am I gonna buy my needed groceries? Right? So it's

Unknown Speaker 18:08
the same thing. And I never never think you'd never, we never thought you'd never think about it. But that's the reality as well.

Unknown Speaker 18:15
Yeah. And we do that we also do diabetic test diabetic supplies. So it's not just testing supplies, but a lot of the stuff, we provide this testing supplies. So lancets, alcohol wipes, everything you might need to test your blood pressure levels, we do blood pressure monitors. And basically the reason why we do that is because we recognize that diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases in the United States. And people have to make these weird decisions about how many times a day they're going to test. And it's just not a safe place to be. We had one woman come into our office a few months back, where she was diagnosed with diabetes. And she came into our office two weeks later. And she came in and she was like, I got diagnosed with diabetes. I don't know what I'm supposed to get. I don't know how I'm supposed to get it. I just read that you do pre diabetic supplies online. So we were able to serve her she had all of her qualified qualifiers and everything fit. And we were able to show her how to test right then and there to be we don't need to teach people how to test because, you know, they've already learned in the past they but she didn't know how to. We actually found that she was in a dangerous state. And so luckily, she was able to find us at the right time, we found out she was in a dangerous state we we consciously kind of said, Hey, you gotta wait 30 minutes before you can drive, you know, and she was able to regulate her blood pressure because she was able to test but she wasn't able to do it for those two weeks beforehand because she couldn't afford it. Oh wow. UNECE

Unknown Speaker 19:53
huge. My sister died of complications with diabetes. We do the diabetes walk. And we just did it last Sunday in Philadelphia. That's about to cry. I try not to cry. But because it was a huge learning curve for my family. Because everybody had to somewhat participate. She had juvenile diabetes. Oh, wow. And she lost. Wow, we were, yeah, it was 9095. And we found out, she'd lost a lot of weight real quick, and was in the hospital. And I just remember, I was pregnant. And from an unknown, it was just us really trying to help her live the life first being diagnosed with diabetes, because for some reason, that's a hard diagnosis for people to accept. And then to change the lifestyle. I used to have the needles in my car, right? And then you got to be careful, because if I get pulled over with the needles in my car with all the drug users, so it was this crazy thing, you know, we just all tried to be supportive. But then she passed away probably about eight years ago, with complications from diabetes. So that's something that our family really looks into it. My nephew almost passed. No, he was diabetic coma earlier this year, and we found, thank God, we found him. He was in hospital for a month afterwards. Wow. So if I can say if you if you are close, pre diabetic, diabetic, please take care of yourself, because this is not this is real, very

Unknown Speaker 21:35
real, it's very real, please go to the doctor and please get checked, take the medicine. And when they let you know that you have to take medication to control it, please take your medication. And if you can't get it, then you know who to call Mr. Ryan is are not here to call, but you know who to contact Mr. Ryan and his organization because they can help you out. That is care chess.org that's www carechest.org. And they can help you out. All

Unknown Speaker 22:05
right, our telephone number again, 866-206-5242. Again, 866-206-5242. Okay, so we have the the supplies, the chairs, that the rollers with diet, Vedic medicine, I mean, not the medicine, but the supplies, that there are a lot of supplies that you need, when you are a diet and when you are a diabetic. What's next.

Unknown Speaker 22:37
So we do supplemental medical nutrition, I do a case free a month, that's supposed to be a supplement to what you're getting. So that is your insurer, your insurer plus your Glucerna protein boost. So it's those drinks that you might see at the store. There's like those little boosts to help you. You know, your A lot of times it's doctor prescribed that you should take this. So we can provide people who qualify a case for your month with a doctor's note. So we need a doctor's note when saying that you need it. Because we want to make sure we're serving people who really need it. And we can provide the case for you to be a supplement. Some of those cases are really expensive. We, there are people out there who really can't afford them. But yeah, those those cases are rising in prices. And people are having a hard time accessing them. And we really want to be able to, you know, provide that extra little boost that they might need so that they can feel energized for their day and really access. We always say it carry chest, we want to nurture independence, you know,

Unknown Speaker 23:43
nurture independent,

Unknown Speaker 23:44
I like that. That's part of it. So

Unknown Speaker 23:46
that's huge. Okay, is there another program?

Unknown Speaker 23:49
Yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 23:53
I'm saying and these are I mean, these are much needed programs. Because this is this is basic, if you need it, just you know, you can ask, yeah, you know, 662065242 again, 866-206-5242. No need to suffer. And I think well, I can I can I got the broken chair. And you know, stuff is not working. Now you have a solution.

Unknown Speaker 24:19
Exactly. Solution. Right, exactly. One thing I want to say one of the big things that we strive for Kertesz is what we have is no closed door policy. So if you call us and we're not the right resource, we will tell you who is the right resource. So yeah, we have some people who call us for different things that we might not do that might just be beyond our scope even as wide as our scope is.

Unknown Speaker 24:45
That's a you have a wide that. I'm sure we haven't touched on all them. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 24:48
yeah. So we really try and strive to make sure that if somebody calls us because what people we serve, do they do they cold call organizations over and over and over again and Just hope that somebody bites, you know, it's like they're selling what they need. And we just want to be, hey, you're calling us. We can't help you. We're going to know somebody who can refer

Unknown Speaker 25:10
you out and connect the dots so that they can get the services. Because getting the services is huge. Exactly. We really want to be able to serve as the people

Unknown Speaker 25:21
at the end of the day, it's about serving as many Nevadans as possible.

Unknown Speaker 25:25
Love it. So tell us about the other program. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 25:29
we have our last program. What is official title is assistive technology for independent living. But we often call it our independent living program. And the whole idea is, is that we either provide whatever the assistive technology is, we help people afford it, or make the modifications, they need to be independent. So that could be anything from installing a wheelchair ramp at your front door, to completely remodeling a bathroom to doing something along the lines of remodeling a kitchen. So countertops are lower, to bind people hearing aids, so helping somebody have a CCTV, which is a fancy TV that you put your paper underneath it, and it magnifies it on the screen for you in front of you. Really? Yeah. So there's a lot of resources.

Unknown Speaker 26:20
Let's go over that one more time. Because that you have to have a desk because because that's, that's huge, because when you have a wheelchair, you might have to remodel your home. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 26:28
exactly. Okay, so we've, we've redone bathrooms so that they're the doors moved in, you have a roll in shower, and it's all accessible. There's grab bars around, we've helped people. We've installed stair lifts for folks. So that's the look that the railing that takes you up your stairs, so you can transfer on the stairs, and you roll all the way or you kind of slide on the railing all the way up. Oh wow. One family we served was a set of 210 year old twins. One of the twins was suffering from cerebral palsy. And suffering is not the right word, but he had cerebral palsy. And he was living with it. And the mom was having trouble transferring because as the kid was growing older and getting bigger, the mom was also getting older and becoming less strong just due to aging. And it was becoming increasingly hard for that kid to be transferred so that he could get out of his room. So what we actually did for that families, and we installed a rail system throughout their house, so that they can essentially fly through their house. Wow. Yeah. My favorite thing about that story. So I grew up with three brothers and my brothers are very important to me. And probably the one of the coolest parts about that testimonial is the little brother said are the twin brother said it's I have my brother again. I love

Unknown Speaker 27:50
it. I love it. Well, Ryan, I want to tell you, thank you. Thank you for accepting our invitation to come on the show. Rhonda, thank you for allowing me to know. Thank you. I want to say thank you. Thank you for being my co host for all these years. Ryan again, phone number 866-206-5242 Again, 866-206-5242. You've been listening to the less talk with Leah Rhonda show. I'm Lea Crawford. I'm

Unknown Speaker 28:18
Rhonda Nolan. And we're so happy to do have been with us a Saturday morning also again, Mr. Ryan, you can you can go to Kerr chest online and look at all the services they have. And you can actually fill out your application online. Yeah, so they can go you can put all the information and they'll call you you know, probably very shortly thereafter and kind of find out what you need kind of interviewed you on the phone. But anyway, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Mr. Ryan, thank you for coming in and speaking with us, and hey, I guess it's time to go. I'm gonna go home next week, next week. Bye bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai