 Hi, I'm Tom Handel with a member highlight featuring Independence Association. And I have with me here Dennis Saint-Pierre, the Director of Development for Independence Association and Melissa Rock, the VP of Marketing for Andrew Scott and Bank. And we're here to talk about the Run for Independence, which Andrew Scott and Bank is sponsoring. But before we get into what the Run for Independence is, maybe we could just tell them a little bit about what Independence Association is all about. Well, Independence Association is an organization that is there to support people with developmental disabilities throughout the entire mid-coast area. We actually support towns all the way as north as Gardner. We help people in Damascota, all the way south as far as even in Yarmouth. But Freeport, Durham, Lisbon, so forth, Brunswick and Bath and Tops and Marvara centers. So we support them in every way. Every point of their life from childhood all the way through senior care. We give basically home supports as well as employment supports, as well as community supports so that they can get out in the community and be very involved and more inclusive in their community. And about how many people do you have, sir? It fluctuates. Right now we're probably serving about 200 people, individuals. If you include the families of them, that's a lot larger. And we currently employ about 235 people. And this is in the Brunswick area and they're about sir. Predominantly the Brunswick Bath area. So the Run for Independence, that's coming up in May. May 17th, 2015, Sunday morning. And I take it, I know that it's a run, but what does it involve? It's a run, but there's more to it than that. This year we're actually going to have the first of its kind in the state, 10K for para-athletes, wheel division. So we're really focused on trying to allow anybody with any kind of disability to have the possibility of competing or to enjoy being participating in a run or an event like a run as complete equals. So we have a wheel division, 10K. We have the 10K running division. Again, we have para-athletes that will be running in that as well as our own consumers. So all disabilities are welcome to join us, 5K, one mile, and a free kids' run. And why did Andrew Scoggin Bank decide to get involved with us? Well, you know, Andrew Scoggin Bank is in essence an economic development company. That's what most banks are. So we want to support the folks that we have our economic development relationships with. And Independence Association, we've been lucky enough to have been working with them for years and years. We have one of our employees is on the board of the Independence Association. And we just, when Dennis told myself and the president of our bank, Paul Anderson, about the great works that they're doing and this opportunity, we just really couldn't say no. It's just, we try to get our employees engaged with the types of events that we sponsor. So we're really excited about the team that we're forming. We're going to have t-shirts and someone has actually already spoken up and said he'll have a post-race rehydration station at his place afterwards. So whatever that means, I'll let your imaginations go. I may have to go there. Yeah, it might be fun. So we're just really excited. We like to get involved with things that we can get really excited about. And so on every level, this just fit that bill. Yeah. And so you're actually forming a team of runners to go and, oh, wow. Yes, absolutely. That's also new this year. We're really encouraging team involvement and team competitions. We actually have five competitions where they can win team prizes, which we never have had in the past. We're hoping that people will want to get into a team and compete against each other. Hope that branches will compete against each other. The Air National Guard has a team that already has said that they're going to come down with. We've possibly got a couple of police officers and so forth that want to run as well. So we've got a lot going on. Yeah, we have some footage of last year's that we taped that. This sounds like it's going to be so much bigger. Oh, yeah. A lot bigger event. And where could people go for more information about this? Well, they can go to runforindependence.org, which is our website. So they can go there, or they can go to runinnerace.com to register. If there are any other questions, they can just go to independenceassociation.org as well. And they can get all the information about independence association, our run, and everything else. So you're still looking for runners, even though you have all these teams lined up and everything else? How about sponsors? Anything else that you need for this run? We would love more sponsors, of course. We'd love more sponsors. We'd love more sponsors. This is a fundraiser, but it's more an awareness builder event of people with disabilities. And what we're trying to say is we're trying to get out there and say, this is about celebrating ability. Everybody in the world has abilities, regardless of the disabilities that they may have. And we want to welcome everybody to join us, and we believe all businesses would like to support that as well. It's great that it's for awareness, but I have to give away a little bit something. I know I'm on the board of Independence Association as well. And I know that the funding issues isn't necessarily cut and dry. There are some needs there. Could you want to explain that a little bit more? We're facing some major, major dramatic cuts if certain things happen in the near future that could affect independence association to a point of where our solvency will be challenged. So we are looking for new endeavors, new partnerships, like the one we have with Andrew Scoggin, and with any other business or any legislator or so forth to try to help us find new ways to fund what we do, because it is so important what we do. There are major challenges that need to be met. So any help that we can get would be extremely great. And how much do you anticipate to raise? I mean, how much have you raised in the past, and what do you look forward to raising now? It's really hard to say. We raised probably around $12,000 last year. We would like to raise, we would love to raise around 20-25 if we could this year. It sounds like you're pretty much well on your way. And I just have to ask you, Melissa, are you running? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Are you a runner? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, we actually have quite a few runners in the bank. So people, I mean, I put an email out and within about a half hour I had 10 people on the team. So we're in. Great. We're all in. Yes. Great. Well, maybe we can get some of the board members in the staff to run. Yeah. And for those who don't run, there's, you know, you can volunteer. You can just come and cheer people on. It's, we are involved all in. Sounds like a family fun festival after as well. Yeah. And it sounds like there's a lot more players. This time should be fun. Yeah, it will be good. Well, thank you very much for joining us. I look forward to it. And I'll be there. All right. See you there. Thank you. You better be.