Crab Cake Row: How MCVET serves veterans in need here in Maryland

Crab Cake Row: How MCVET serves veterans in need with Misty Bruce and Dr. Kevin Green at Costas Inn on “A Cup Of Soup Or Bowl Week” in Dundalk.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

mc, veterans, vet, people, organizations, crab soup, love, years, talking, call, military, patriot, service, baltimore, friends, va, pappas, government, good, maryland

SPEAKERS

Dr. Kevin  Green, Nestor J. Aparicio, Misty Bruce

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:05

Welcome back wn S T A and 5070 Towson Baltimore and Baltimore positive you’re listening out on the alive airwaves. We were Costas my home away from home down in Dundalk. Come on down and sail over here to five. These 2505 I’ve got a date with Bob on the yoga mat at 715 tonight because I’ve been sitting all day trying to get myself together. We’re gonna be Hollywood casino on Sunday watching two teams not called the Ravens play football. I’ll be there just for the Taylor Swift thing and for the gambling and the and the delicious food and the the roast beef. But come on by will be at Hollywood Casino. That’s Sunday, Wednesday all day long Coco’s nine to five Thursday, State Fair and Cato, people are bringing bags full of groceries in here. I love that. Our friends at the Maryland Food Bank on Friday will be at Pappas in the back at Cockeysville up in the lounge area. Love it up there and fireplace and all that. We’re gonna be talking some sports later on in the week, as well. Luke’s gonna be stopping by as well as we’re saying who was my co host with a K at Coco’s on Wednesday. I have some defending champions coming back on the show people stopping out here. First things first is sponsored by the Maryland lottery. I feel like Oprah you get a lottery ticket, you get a lottery ticket, everybody gets a lottery ticket. And yeah, there we go. Misty Bruce’s here. She is the executive director. So I always mess this up. Make that MC vet. I mess it up, which is it really efficiently.

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Misty Bruce  01:29

So it’s MC bed beneficially? Yeah, MC set the will answer to MC vet if you’re talking about

Nestor J. Aparicio  01:37

spelling. Mr. Bruce is here. She’s executive director of MC set. That’s right. There you go. I like to Dr. Kevin green is also here, director of business development and vet, a real vet. My father in law served in Vietnam. So every time I see him, I say thanks for the service. So give us your background and service. So doctor,

01:58

I enlisted in the Army in the late 90s. I got commissioned into the infantry did that for a while. I’ve been to Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. I ended my career as an intelligence officer. I focused on human intelligence and counterintelligence.

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:19

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Heavy stuff, intense, very intense stuff. You see this every day, right? As the executive director at MC vet, tell me your background, cuz you’ve been on the show before, let’s reset with you. Because you’re always trying to this is a local organization helping veterans and, and I think we’ve seen veterans struggle. People just like the doctor here who need help. And your service provides veterans helping veterans, right? Yeah,

Misty Bruce  02:40

it does. You know, one of the things that I find very interesting and heartwarming about MC vet is that it has a really unique way to intentionally help someone at a grassroots level to be able to say yes, when other organizations have said no. And that’s one of the things that struck me when I walked in the door when I walked into the door, where the loved ones now. Okay, yeah, was that it has a way MC vet does of repurposing a person of filling them with hope of getting them to Yes, reassuring them that they are seeing, they are valued. And every journey matters.

Nestor J. Aparicio  03:22

Doc, tell me your story, your journey to become the director of business development. Clearly, you don’t go to war and serve the way you do without being affected right in some way. And you come back home, different every value said that to me in a lot of ways, whatever that adjustment is. It’s all taken on a different way family, you come back money life, real life, adjusting to not being yet

03:48

and it’s, you know, those, those are called triggers that cause a physical response. For me, that never goes away, right. But learning cognitively and logically how to deal with that is something that, you know, is provided by mental health medications, things like that, but to your point it nobody goes to war and does those things and sees those things and is the same person. Right? It affects different people differently. But it definitely changes who you are, how you think and definitely how you operate.

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Nestor J. Aparicio  04:29

I got an argument this week by one of my sponsors, Bill Cole, he’s on the air co roofing and he used the word patriot. You use that and you know, I’m not a Trump guy but that’s that’s neither here nor there but the word patriot being usurped in some way. I feel like I’m patriotic I love the country and you know I say thank you to service people. I think sometimes I find some of the military stuff to be not overwrought, but but like not real. You know, it’s they they pay for it. They’re buying advertising Seeing for the military. And then I see people come back and they can’t get help, you know, from the military from our country. And that’s where my patriotism, the fact that you guys have to exist, right that the government isn’t taking care of the people who served in the way that they should. And I hear and see and feel that just the fact that any veteran is ever homeless is just mind boggling to me like that thing that could ever happen. And they can’t get the help from the government that they have to come to people like you. I think that’s shameful. But I’m still a patriot. But I want to fix that. And I know organizations like you really are. When you can’t get the help you need. When you come back. This is where you guys step in, right. So I

Misty Bruce  05:41

would say that MC vet utilizes partnerships across lots of sectors, and one of our biggest partners is the Department of Veteran Affairs. They definitely have skin in the game, you know, a lot of our funding comes from grants. And aside from our government partners, you know, those individual donors, but also like minded organizations, small government, like Baltimore City, you know, working across all different types of genres of organizations to make sure that we’re filling the gap is critical. It’s very important. I think that when you spread yourself out across different types of organizations to look for support or funding, if you will,

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:25

it all comes back to money. Yeah, money makes this app,

Misty Bruce  06:30

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it makes it all more likely that you can say yes, a little more often.

06:33

And sometimes, it’s like I used to be, I have a really great experience using the VA. I love hearing that. But sometimes it’s individual, right, like some people either don’t qualify to go to the VA, but they still have issues, which is we’re a great place for that. Right? We take anybody no matter what your discharge type, no matter what your status, to me that that made me feel like I want to be a part of this organization.

Nestor J. Aparicio  07:01

How long have you been with McFadden? Couple two weeks? Oh, you’re brand new. Oh, God, I love hearing this. So why are you with Macbeth? Give me the whole you

07:12

want the long answer the short one? Well, I mean, when

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Nestor J. Aparicio  07:14

did you become aware of it? I love the long answer. This is what we do. Okay,

Dr. Kevin  Green  07:18

how long answer. After my I was a cop before I went in the Army after my active duty time, I was a government employee for the Department of the Army. And then I finished up and I’m not a golfer, but I use this all the time. I’m on the back nine of my career. So I’ve chased the leadership positions, I’ve chased the money, go for the position that what’s the next level get promoted. And fortunately for me, I’m in a financial situation where I can pick up a job that I want based on what I like and want to do. For me, everything that I’ve done, I worked in higher education for a while since 2012. But it’s always come back to veterans. For me, it’s always been a soft spot for me. So I seen veterans

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:11

struggle. Oh, yeah. I mean, that literally, I mean, I’m not bringing up anything new here to say that we haven’t done a good job. Like you, all of us, collectively, the country, US patriots, taxpayer, whatever you want to say leadership, believe it or no, you want. We haven’t done a good job. We haven’t done a good enough job.

08:28

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There’s just so many facets to this, right. There’s so many different issues and people and it’s easy to say that we haven’t done a good job. But I think we

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:41

asked for a lot. When we ask a lot of you anyone that ever served the country. We’re asking so much and lead their family. I mean, we saw the heartwarming stories of the reunions when people come back, like but we ask a lot of veterans and these really do these

08:55

men and women volunteer whether they go to combat or not. They know that when they volunteer to do this, that that’s on the table, you know that it could happen and they still do. And it’s just like police officers, they sign up to do

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:11

or service on that. It’s it’s a difficult role and a role nobody else understands outside of yeah, whatever that fraternity would be. Yeah, and

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09:18

there’s definitely a brotherhood surrounding that. But what I’ve seen at MC vet is that brotherhood gets stretched to people that aren’t veterans, they just understand what we go through and they want to be part of it. And I think that’s what makes MC FET so successful is the partnerships with the community with industry and other organizations as well as the government, local, state and federal governments. They they’ve brought a group of people together to attack this problem holistically.

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:53

Who comes to you Misty, what what would you say to my audience out there, you got a neighbor you got to run relative, someone that’s not getting what they need from the VA is that prime, literally primarily, if you’re not getting what you need from the VA, or you’re a veteran, or you know, someone that is struggling getting what they need, this is where you want them to call you. Right?

Misty Bruce  10:14

You could definitely refer them over to MC vet, I would say to some of the things like Doc mentioned, that are really unique about MC vet is that if you have a DD 214, you know, what is that 214 Excuse me if you’ve been discharged from the military, at any point, or if you were reservists and never activated. So MC vet doesn’t necessarily put the same restrictions or constraints around that service as some other organizations do. So you might not be eligible anywhere else. I’m going to figure out a way to say yes to you. And so I would say that if you have found yourself in a place where you at one time raised your hand and said, Send me I’ll go, come see me. And let me see if I can help you. Or if my case management team can help you, if Doc can help you, we’ll come

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:00

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to you with what’s a typical Acer cause. not typical, but like give me the last five people that came in and what their issues are, I

Misty Bruce  11:06

would say people I consider them our nation’s war wounded. And those wounds can be things that you don’t see, right, but they can be CIT, things that you see, we often get veterans who present with maybe they suffer from PTSD, or some sort of mental health, whether it’s from time and service or not, and that mental health has led to a degradation in other areas of their life. Maybe they are failing at financing, maybe they’re failing at a marriage. And for whatever reason over the years that has compounded itself, and so they end up in a place where they’ve lost a home. They’ve alienated themselves from everyone who used to say yes to them. Maybe they lost their driver’s license or professional credentials you their car. Usually when people come to make bet, they don’t just need help with one thing. It’s they’ve the interest is compounded over the years, and resulted in them being in a place where they don’t have anyone that’ll say yes, anymore.

Nestor J. Aparicio  12:06

Well, the qualifications is simple. If you served, that’s it, that that’s all you need to be involved with me back.

Misty Bruce  12:11

That’s it. And what’s interesting is that female veterans who come to us don’t realize that they’re veterans, they don’t somehow see themselves as being in the same category as our male veterans. And so I would say, especially to female veterans, if you’ve ever raised your hand and said, I’ll go, yes, you’re eligible for services at MC vet.

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Nestor J. Aparicio  12:37

So in business offices, what you’re doing doc and trying to raise the organization, and I’ve done things with Jeff before and with MC that I know about your organization. Where is it right now in regard to how people can help out fundraising events? What are you guys doing this year that the people can get involved in because maybe as a volunteer in some way to

Misty Bruce  12:57

take the tour? So I would say volunteer? Yes. If you want to give back in a meaningful way, we’d love to have you come down to make that and talk about leveraging a passion or a talent that you have to support our veterans. If you want to make a monetary donation, absolutely. We can accept a monetary donation. Some of the events that we have on the horizon for this year. Tentatively planning a, what I call a micro gala event, and so it’ll be you know, like a roaring 20s kind of theme working on

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:30

that can be a new outfit. I gotta go get me some pinstripes yourself.

Misty Bruce  13:33

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Let’s face it. That’s the only reason I’m going with that theme is because the

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:38

steam I you know, I’ve had themes and a lot of charities doing themes these days. It’s good gives me creativity. Yeah. Yeah. Yesterday, I had a Wizard of Oz theme. I’m like, I’m not doing a scarecrow tin man. You know,

Misty Bruce  13:49

that’s funny. Yeah. Yeah. So looking at that, and then there’s been a request for like a crab feast. But also know people were crabs. I, this is a yes. Burrier. We’re here. Yeah. So and then looking at aside from fundraising, awareness raising, and so having lunch and learns some symposiums. But I would also say, invite us. If you have an event going on, where you’re talking about meeting the needs of people who maybe don’t have a voice at the table. Invite us we would love to widen our circle of contacts. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  14:28

we will come to you not shelter in your place, right? Clothing shelter. What do you provide? Someone comes knocking on the door, so I’m a veteran, I need help. Well,

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14:36

that’s the beauty of MC vet. Right? Okay. Understand, and research supports this, right? They understand that in order to make or help somebody become a productive, healthy part of the community. It isn’t just like she said, housing or finance, you have to heal the person holistically. So MC vet in my experience Really the only organization I’ve ever met, where they look at individualizing, a program that helps each person with what they need across all of their life domains begins with counseling, in some ways manage counseling. And just before we move on to that, because I’m the business guy, I want to talk about what my major push here is, I’m looking for corporate donors, people that want to make big donations from corporations. It’s, of course, tax deductible. But there’s a lot of opportunity for big corporations to really do do good things for not just the community, but the veteran community, specifically, those corporations that the military uses their products. You know, we’re looking at a local company like Under Armour. Home Depot is very good with veterans. So there’s a lot of opportunity for that. And that’s kind of what I’m digging into now is, is trying to look at even the defense contractors like Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and all these companies who really their business model relies on veterans, right? So

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:17

civilians to war, literally a gray zone, maybe not to war. But that was a big part of our charge here last 15 years, those folks are going to come back and whether they get help or not, you know, my wife was a first responder and I, you know, went out her company, but she works for a great company, they sent her to 911, back in 2001, to be a first responder for tech, she put Wall Street back together, she got leukemia in 1314 15, almost died twice to bone marrow transplants, nobody from her company even acknowledged that like they sent her into the warzone. Like, literally, we didn’t think of it like that, then we didn’t even realize that that’s how she got cancer. But it is it is kind of years later, when you get put into a situation that’s not a good situation, you come back, I don’t know what happened to those people. I just know there were a lot of individual contractors who weren’t military who didn’t take the pledge, but still went and, and and they got paid and they got paid at a maybe even a higher rate than military. I thought all of it was a little weird, to be honest with you now that we’ve removed ourselves from that situation over there. But the civilian part of that I wonder who’s responsible for that, especially when my wife almost died? Basically, fixing an act of war? Yeah, literally. Yeah. For you, with business development, people coming out and sponsors, somebody says, Alright, I got five grand, 10 grand, I’m gonna write a check, do where’s the money going? exactly where that money could go for corporate sponsors.

17:42

So we can direct it to whatever function or piece that they want, or it can go into overall operations. But if they have a specific need, let’s say they just want to help shelter services, or if they’re more into, we want this money to go toward recovery, we can direct that money accordingly.

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:02

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That’s good to know. Mr. Bruce is here. She’s the executive director of MK vet, Dr. Kevin green, he’s our new defending champion. He’ll be returning guests when he comes back. He is the Director of Business Development here at Where’s Mick fat located give everybody the the, it’s very easy to find out on the web. But and there’s a lot of information up on your website to kind of click around and learn a little bit primitive how to find you. And if you call and somebody out there may have that need. And we want to make sure that if you’re not getting what you need, we’re all patriots here. We want to pitch in and help you out.

Misty Bruce  18:33

I appreciate that to do so you can go to make that.org and find us on our website.

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:38

This is really local. This is like right here it is. It’s right

Misty Bruce  18:43

over in the often forgotten about industrial side of East Baltimore.

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Nestor J. Aparicio  18:47

Right here. That’s where I am where my people are from.

Misty Bruce  18:51

Yeah, seven and a half miles from here. All right, well,

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:53

he’s Baltimore MC fat.org. Correct. All right. Well, thanks for coming by and Did I did I miss anything? We got everything in.

Misty Bruce  18:59

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I appreciate you having us back on the show. Always loved spending time with you on

Nestor J. Aparicio  19:05

the Costas and hung out today. And we got some canned goods or sweet brought some peanut butter. Look out. I’m getting hungry. They brought me some crab soup. And we’re here on behalf of our friends at the Maryland Food Bank. The Maryland lottery putting this on I had my wacky half of my friends in winter nation 866 90 nation as well as Jiffy Lube MultiCare a lot of this was inspired by seeing wise markets do a food bank drive which channel to a couple months ago, my friend Jamie Costello and Bill over there. And my son came up with the cup of Super Bowl ID he’s like that if they’re not let you go cover the Super Bowl and you’re not doing radio row for the 28th year, you should do something with crab soup. So that’s how this thing got started. I figured crab soup, hunger cold this week in a year raising food that we can actually see and feel for local pantries. So that’s where that’s what we’re gonna be talking about St. John’s pantry today. We’re going to actually have Carmen del Cueto from the Maryland Food Bank on the start the show Thursday, Wednesday. We’re Coco’s all day. microsc Liano Luke Jones a whole bunch cool. So on Wednesday, Thursday, we are at state fair on the west side of town and then Friday back up to Cockeysville. Tony, Mary, we’re going to be up at Pappas from nine until five come on by and say hello. And I, I can’t give you too lottery tickets. So I’ve already been saying when I throw tickets, I was lucky I can feel appreciation everybody here costs us for making this happen. I swear, we’re live radio. I’m gonna take a break. And I’m gonna like wolf down as much of a 5050 half and a half crab soup as I can. You guys are Baltimore. You Baltimorean No, I’m not. You’re not a Baltimorean. See, I gotta tell you this is little information. Maryland crab soups, the red soup, right, like a vegetable soup of crab. And then cream of crab soup, which I loved as a kid puts a little pounds on you little Evie. Sometimes it’s cracker. I had never seen anybody combine it until the last time. I’m 55. I mean, so the first 45 years of my life, you wouldn’t have like chocolate with your peanut butter you just wouldn’t have combined in the last 10 years, it’s become this thing. And I don’t know that it’s controversial. Like it was controversial earlier. Like, you want to pass tastes like gara just give me the red suit. So I’m doing half and half here. And everybody does have an app but it’s not even on the menu here. It’s kind of like animal style it in and out. You have to know about it. So but Pete said he’s going to add it because so many people ask for it. But nobody ever asked for it before like last century for sure. I would say like this is an odd thing last 10 or 15 years, half and half kind of like an Arnold Palmer of crab soup. It’s delicious. I have it over there is settling and I’m gonna go eat it so we’re gonna take a break. Mr. Bruce, my thanks and the tax kept green as well from our friends at MC vet find them at MC vet.org You can find me at wn S T am 1570 Towson Baltimore where we never stop talking. Baltimore positive stay with us.