 Welcome to On the Waterfront. I'm your host, Melinda Moulton. And with me tonight is Suzanne Johnson, who is the Executive Director of Healing Winds Vermont. Suzanne, how are you? I'm Melinda. Great. Thank you very much for having me. Well, thank you so much for being on my show. To all of my viewers out there, I just want to share my history with Suzanne. We met, boy, what, 15 years ago? No, well, what, eight years ago? Eight years ago. Was it eight years ago when you had your restaurant? Yeah. Suzanne owned a restaurant. And the name of the restaurant was? Tilly's Cafe. Tilly's Cafe, where... Thai dishes. Thai dishes is now. It's Lower Church Street. Exactly. And you had the big aquarium. Many. And I came into your restaurant a lot to eat there because you were one of the first people in the county, or probably in Vermont, maybe New England, to have a restaurant that had a lot of gluten-free dishes. Yes, most, yeah. And I was gluten-free. Everybody, most all of our food was gluten-free, which was a really nice change. But that was pretty remarkable during that time to be that. Yeah, most of it was a guessing game, up until then. Magnolia's was also doing that at the same time with us. And then, of course, they kind of really grew from there. It was such a huge number of people that wanted to have that. They wanted to have gluten-free food. And it was actually excellent food and good seafood. Anyway, that was where you and I first met. That's right, that's right. And then we just hit it off. And we really enjoyed each other's company. And now, for the last couple of years, you've been, you were the founder. Yes. And I'm the executive director of Healing Wins Vermont. So for my folks out there, if you'd like to visit the website, Healing Wins Vermont, HealingWinsVT.org, HealingWinsVT.org, visit the website. But before we talk about your organization, I want to talk about you. I want to talk about where you hailed from and what brought you to Vermont. I like the word hail. There's all sorts of, you know, nautical words to connect. I grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. And I grew up on the water sailing with my father and my parents all my life. I can't remember not sailing on Long Island Sound. And so pretty much all the way through college. And then I married and had children. And we moved up to Burlington, Vermont. My ex-husband worked at Burton. And so we landed up here. I have a history of Vermont ties. Southern Vermont was Stratton Mountain, where my father was very much a big person down there in terms of starting the mountain way back in 1961. Dad was involved in starting Stratton? Yes, he was. No kidding. Isn't that fun? That's so cool. So you're also a skier. Yes, very much so. Sailing and skiing. That sort of go hand in hand, right? That's right. How interesting is that? Isn't that cool? Yes, very cool. So Vermont has this little tie and heart that pulls to my heart strings. And so coming up here and raising two children, I had a third child here. And I've been here pretty much ever since. So it's been about 20 years or so. Wow. Yeah, isn't that neat? So what did you do before the restaurant? Oh, boy. I'm one of these serial entrepreneurs. And I've done quite a few different things. I've had my own yacht cleaning business. I was in real estate. I've been a real estate agent since 1987. And various different positions. I had two restaurants. Tilly's actually was my second. What was your first? I had a small restaurant in Aspen, Colorado. Oh. And so a little difference there. So I love being around people. I get energy from people. So I also worked in nonprofit with American Red Cross. Do you remember? Yes, I do remember that. Yes, that's right. You ended up at the American Red Cross. That's right here locally. Yes. I was a major gifts officer. So I learned what the nonprofit world was like, because I've never done anything like that. It's always been a for profit or my own company. So, yeah. So you've had a very active and remarkable career doing a lot of different things and doing a lot of startups and putting your energy and your brilliance behind these things. What was the inspiration for you to move into a nonprofit, to do the nonprofit work? I mean, because it's very selfless work. It is. So after Tilly's, I don't know how much you remember. And I think a lot of the public might remember seeing this with me. But after I sold Tilly's, I ended up getting cancer myself. I had breast cancer. And so I went through the whole gamut. I had chemo radiation. I've thrown drugs up until just last year. Lost all my hair. And so as I was coming out of that, I don't know if you remember me being bald. Yes, I do. Yeah, I knew you then. We had gotten together during that period. I remember that. And it was a battle. And you won the battle. Yeah, game me. You won the battle. So was that the reason why you sold Tilly's? Or did you sell it just because you were? No, actually, I sold it. And then I found the lump afterwards. Isn't that interesting? You know, Tilly talks about why cancer wise is happening so much. And there's so many different reasons, I think. But one of them, which keeps coming up across the nation, is the stress level. People who are carrying a lot of stress and not realizing to what degree. So I found this lump. And I went through the whole thing. And after coming out of my treatment, I was like, what do I want to do? I want to do something that I'm connecting with this amazing community here in Burlington, Vermont, in this whole area. And all the people I've met through the various different things I've done. And how can I make a difference? And I just, I wanted to do something that was meaningful. I mean, you know, a lot of people that go through cancer and any kind of disease, really, it really kind of sets you back in terms of what's important. You know, really, really matters. And you can drive the best car and have the best house and you can't take any of this stuff with you. And in the end, right? So you're good health. So you're right. And so what are you going to do that makes a difference? I was asking myself this. What can I do that at least makes a difference in one person's lives or several people's lives? And so, you know, I started talking to Kathy Macbeth over at the hospital up here. And she is... Kathy Macbeth. Kathy Vermont Medical Center. Yeah, exactly. She's a psychologist. And so she specializes in helping people come back to the workforce or back to wherever they were doing, right? But after going through it. Come back to their life. Right. And you know, gosh, you just have all sorts of... I wouldn't say self-doubt, but just questions. Like, what matters, right? What do I want to do now? And now that I've done this and been here, I've been faced with mortality sooner than I thought I was going to be. And so, she came to me after a couple of sessions that I think you should start a nonprofit because whatever you seem to touch blossoms. And I said, oh, that's so nice of you. This is Suzanne Johnson-Midas touch. Just saying. It's a... Right? So fun. It's a Snyder thing. I get great. It's one of these... one of these visionary... a lot like my father in some ways. But so she said, I think you should start a nonprofit. We used to take cancer patients out sailing on the winds of Ireland, which the Ireland's used to have the fleet of sailboats here. And they shut that down. She said, but that was kind of a little bit expensive to do. And I think you should start a nonprofit and we'll help get people out on the boat, in terms of nominating them. And you should do it. You can teach people how to sail. And I thought, how great. This will be a great way to give back and make a difference. And what was her reasoning about getting people out in a sailboat on the lake? What was the... Yeah, I think she felt at the time... the people that she was able to talk to afterwards that they just couldn't stop talking about how wonderful it was to be out on the lake with their family and just forgetting about wherever they were in their process with cancer. In the process of getting through cancer. Right. And sometimes it's not even getting through cancer. It's just dealing with it. Dealing with it, that's right. You never really know. And that's one thing that I love about sailing. It's a lot like cancer. You don't really know where the hell you're going because you have to kind of go where the wind goes. And it is really about stopping and being thankful for wherever you are with the people that you love to be with. And a feeling of freedom. Yes, yes. And how alive you feel when you sail. There's something that makes you feel so alive. It's a natural world. You're on the water. So tell me what you did. So tell me how this is the beginning. So what happened? So that's a long story. That's too long to be. But anyway, just tell us what. Anyway, a boat was given to me for free by a gentleman's uncle who did not know I was thinking about starting this. And out of the blue, he literally had a month to live and he just out of the blue said to me, do you want my boat? And he's not even from here. Amazing. He's not even from here. He doesn't even from here. I don't know if you wanted his boat. And he didn't even know about your boat. He didn't even know anything about it. And first thing I said, is it a motor boat? Or is it a sailboat? Because I kind of like sailboats a little bit better. I mean, you know. And he said, no, no, no. It's a sailboat. And I know you love to sail. And I said, well, that's just great. And tell me about the boat. And he told me about the boat. And this is a 30-foot O-day. And you can sleep five in an in-board engine. It's just perfect for this, right? And I said, well, this is just wonderful. But what would you like for this boat? And he held up his hands just like this. And he said, nothing. I'm not going to be here in another month. If you want it, it's yours. Come and get it. And so then I said, well, let me ask the family. Because I'm just a girlfriend of the family. And so I asked the family. And they said, no, we don't want the boat. Why do you want it? And I said, that's OK. I just want to know if you want it. So I called up Uncle Allen the next day. And I said, here's the deal. I would love to accept your vessel. I bring her up to Lake Champlain. She was on the Chesapeake. And start a nonprofit and carry on your legacy. And take people out just like yourself. And all cancers of all ages. And bring them out sailing with anybody they want to take with them. And I can't get you right off before you leave us. But know that this will happen. And he said, that's fantastic. And it was just great. I said, that's how it started. That was 2013 when he gave me the boat. And that 2014 was our first season. So talk to our viewers a little bit about how they can be involved in your organization. The website is HealingWinsVT.org. And tell our viewers how they can get involved in your organization. Well, it's a wonderful organization. There's lots of things people can do. You get on the website. You'll see there's three buttons right off the bat. You can nominate somebody. And I'll explain that in a minute. You can volunteer, of course, and donate. Our nonprofit is supported by individual donations. I would say about 88 to 89% of this nonprofit and many, many nonprofits across the state. Because this is free. This is a free sale. You don't pay to do this. Yeah. And so people ask, well, how do you deal with that with insurance? We have insurance. It's just we are not a charter. So we're able to provide this service. So you go to the website and you can nominate somebody. So if you know anybody who's just getting the word that they have cancer, they're about to go through this. They're going to go through this journey. They would be perfect. Any cancer, any age. Any cancer. Isn't that amazing? Any age. And HealingWinsVT.org. She's good. She's good. Any cancer, any age, anybody that's going through chemo or radiation or living with cancer, I think there's one thing I've learned so much here. There's so many people that live with cancer and have kind of a maintenance chemo that you would have absolutely no idea, really. So you can nominate yourself. Somebody going through this, you can nominate yourself and you just fill out the little form right there, right electronically on our website. Hit send. Yeah, hit send. I helped you. That's good. And anybody else can nominate anybody. So you could nominate somebody you've heard that this person, you may not know them that well but you would like to kind of give this little gift and you can either let them know that you want them to know it's you or you can also nominate them anonymously. It's really hard to say fast, but... Anonymously. So how many people a year are you taking out on your beautiful boat? Well, we can carry on a new boat that was donated last summer. Oh, this is a different boat. Different boat. We now have a 39-foot ode which is, we are now behind, we're at the Boathouse and we are on Dake right kind of, right next to the Spirit, sort of in that area behind Echo. We can take up to 10 people at a time. Stand. And last summer we went on 47 sails so we took over 435 people out on Lake Champlain just last summer alone. And if you remember, we had kind of a rainy, kind of a funky beginning of the summer. But so, so far in the past, this is our, we just finished our fourth season, we've taken over 850 people out on Lake Champlain in just our four seasons of Burlington sailing seasons, which is, that is short. The season is how long? June 1st, usually until October 1st, if you're lucky on either end, you never really know. So what do you do during the off months? Well, raising funds, raising money, raising awareness. You know, we have people coming in from all over New England, not just Vermont, because there's nothing else like this anywhere else where you have your own private sail with 10 of your, your caregiver's friends, whatever, doctors, anybody, but it's really a truly your own time, your three hours of time to stop. Are you on that boat? Oh, yeah, often. So you're often on the boat? I'm often on the boat. We have six captains. We have one part-time paid captain, the rest of them either have their Coast Guard license or have had it or are working towards getting their license. And we have about 24 to 25 volunteer crew that we use. We have a rotating, you know, basis. We train them offshore first, and what it's like to be with people who are being challenged. Sometimes it's the end of your life. I mean, these people, some of these folks get on board, have weeks to live, and they're thrilled, thrilled to be out there. Tell me the story about what that one woman said to you. So I have, we have so many little stories that are just so heartbreaking. I mean, heartwarming, I should say. I have one friend of mine who came out sailing and staged for cancer. And, you know, this will constantly be living with this for the rest of this person's life. And he got off the boat and turned to me and said, gave me a big hug and said, that was my cancer-free day. My cancer-free day, I was normal. I didn't think about my margins. I didn't think about what's going to happen next and what's going to happen after that. And, you know, what are the results going to be and when do I go in my next treatment? She said, I was completely normal and was able to drink and do whatever I wanted. And it was just so relieving to be able to be out there. She forgot about her cancer for three hours. That's right. And there's just something, and the great thing that sets us apart, I think, from lots of other nonprofits, is that this is a nonprofit where we give this gift for the person going through it, what we call them, the nominee. We never really call them patients, but... Nominie. Nominie. And they're caregivers as well because so much of the focus is on the person dealing, which makes sense with the cancer, but everybody's affected around the entire family. So if they have children or parents. And on that side, we've taken two-year-olds out who are the nominees. We've all ages and all cancers. So it's just a really unique experience to be able to just stop. Everybody to stop what they're doing and be out there in honor whoever it is that's asked you to be with them and to take that time. So let's talk about that third button because you have a volunteer button too. The donate. And please, to all my viewers out there, if you support the work, John Johnson and HealingWinsVT.org, please go online and make a donation. No donation is too small. You have the nominate button that you can push if you want to nominate someone or yourself to go out for a sale. And then there's the volunteer button. Let's talk about that. Well, we have lots of things going on. You know, there's just people think, oh, the boat's put away. You have nothing to do all winter. And well, that's just the opposite. In fact, Melinda, I don't even know if I told you about this part, but we are starting to expand. And we've been asked by 10 different locations in the United States to open up a HealingWins in their community. And so we are in the process of building our board a little bit stronger this winter, and we have opportunities for PR and just an exposure and letting people know that this service is out here and including our own hospital anywhere in Vermont and elsewhere. So imagine this. We have a call here, but I want to return back to that, to the regionalization and maybe even the nationalization of this incredible organization. Absolutely. Let's see who's with us. Good evening. And who's with us this evening? Good evening. My name is Debbie Poolin. Hi, Debbie. And what would you like to share with us tonight? Well, I had the honor and the privilege of being nominated for a sale. And I just wanted to give those out there that are listening a little inside, especially if they're, and I know Susan touched on this a little bit, undergoing or just finishing treatment. I had just, just completed my 50th chemotherapy treatment before I boarded the Jubilee for my first sale. And I absolutely did not think that I would be seaworthy in my legs or my stomach. And once I boarded that boat and had that crew and Susan there for support, I knew right then and there that the challenges I've been finding in the moments of this journey, which is finding peace, comfort, joy, and freedom was about to happen. And you've just got to keep this going. This is an incredible organization. And thank you, Suzanne, for starting it and coming so, so far. This trip, once you do it and you actually get off and walk away, you're not walking away from that sale. You're walking away with an experience you will never forget. Thank you, Deb. Deb, thank you so much for letting us know your experience and we all wish you well. Thank you, thank you very much. And I hope to be a volunteer next season. Yes, you will, you will, you will. Thank you so much. Thank you, Deb. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, bye. Sorry. Well. Yeah, she's amazing. You're special. So the potential for this organization to expand regionally is right there at your fingertips. Absolutely. And then to expand nationally. And this, would you see yourself as being sort of the home office of this and being the center of these satellite organizations around the country? Exactly. Maybe even around the world. Well, yes, that's a whole other conversation. But yes, and so we are, we do have the trademark for Healing Winds. And so our model is that this Healing Winds USA, which we also own that domain. This is going to be our headquarters here in Burlington, Vermont. And Vermont is the first chapter of the national organization and the other chapters will follow suit. And it's a similar model to Make-A-Wish. Okay. So you have different locations and you have boards of each location but they're advisory boards, whereas the one, the board here in Burlington, Vermont is the governing board. So it is very exciting and it's just, it is wonderful to see people, people come and get off the boat or even on the boat turning to us and saying, we just thought this was a sailboat ride. You know, this is, and we had no idea just how profound it is to be out here. And probably people who've never been in a sailboat or never been out in the lake. So many people who grew up here have never, ever looked back in Burlington on the other side of that breakwater. I mean, it is just astonishing to me growing up on the water. I can't imagine not being on the water but it's just, it is wonderful to be able to give that gift of our beautiful, being a gift of just being out there and right there on this lake and be able to see beautiful sunsets on one direction and then turn around and see Camel Sump and Mount Mansfield and Burlington and Vermont and, yeah. So it's just wonderful to share the history of our lake and all its shipwrecks and I can't even begin to explain how meaningful that is for us as captains and crew to watch the shared joy of people especially those who are really being challenged to have smiles on their faces and crying and happy and excited and all these emotions that all come up in three hours of time. So it's really wonderful. And the struggle that they're going through is just forgotten in that moment. Yes. I'll share a quick little story. I'd love to hear another story. Yes. Two stories. One of which is a gentleman who was nominated through the hospital and he did not have many friends and family but he brought a few people out and he had terminal cancer and was undergoing a lot of treatment and he came out and he said, you know, I was so excited to go sailing because I knew that I had, you know, 14 days until I got to go sailing on doobly at the time and every day I went in for my treatment I was counting the days and the hours that I would be able to get on board and that gave me so much strength to be able to sit down and get another infusion of chemo and just knowing that I got to have that to look forward to. So that was a really nice, nice escape. And the other little story I'd love to share is someone who brought her sister at terminal hospice patient out sailing with us and 10 of their family members and it was about a couple months later they called me and said, you know, we want to share with you that, I'll just make a name there, that Jackie passed away this morning and I was very, very sorry to hear that and she said, and we are all sitting around her living room and we're all talking about the wonderful gift that you all gave us and no other organization or other people gave to us and that was memories that we will always have. We'll always have this memory of sailing with her and how much she enjoyed that and that brings us such joy and may we in lieu of flowers have all donations go back to healing with Vermont and I said, well of course, I thank you so very much but they said we want other families to experience this and whatever we can do to help share that in our community and throughout the state of Vermont or anything that we can do, please let us know because this is very powerful and so Well I know that there's someone else out there who was going to call in Tim so Tim, if you're out there call us please at 862-3966 we want to hear your story we only have about four more minutes to be on the show so Tim, we'd love to hear from you if you can call us at 862-3966 so tell me a little bit more about what you're up to beyond healing winds and the other things that you're working on I think the biggest thing is that I've been in real estate as you know full-time and also running healing winds as well and with all of this renewed energy of wanting to make a bigger impact I have made a decision to do this full-time so that makes a big difference because I think we really need to have full-time presence and take this to the next step and to the next level so for my viewers, it's healingwindsvet.org but there must be a phone number that people can call as well if they want to call here it is, alright 802-673-SAIL which is 7245 if you want to call healingwindsvet.org visit the website and the way to get involved is you can donate I would love you all now to make a small donation or any size donation nothing's too small because this is basically an 80-90% supported by private donations the SAIL is free one thing I do want to mention I think it's really important for people to understand is that these vessels there are several of them and they're more waiting for us are vessels that are donated to us so these vessels are owned by the non-profit itself which means that products can be in kind donated for the vessel we like this particular model better than using other people's vessels because we want to make sure the SAIL is a controlled SAIL that it's as safe as possible so all of our boats are outfitted we know everything about the boat from bow to stern and it makes a big difference you don't want it to be a bumpy ride so that's really important so donations are really important because you also have to take care of the boat and SAIL boats need to be cared for another way is to nominate yourself all ages all cancers a loved one, a friend you can do it anonymously and you can also become a volunteer we can take people we brought people all the way down to the boat with a wheelchair and the nice thing is that they don't have to move yet they're outside and they're moving that's so beautiful about being out there on the SAIL boat and I think people who are close to family members at that point you get it and I think when you end out sailing with us you can see this I can't explain just the joy of these people who are finally outside again and the freedom we have 30 seconds left I'm sorry we didn't hear from you tonight but we'll get Suzanne Johnson back on the show and hopefully then maybe you'll come on the show yourself we can always have more people I have 30 minutes to wish my viewers how much I love you and to my viewers I want to wish you all a happy holiday to Suzanne Johnson and Healy Wins Vermont thank you for being on the show and I will see you all 2018 have a good holiday and good night