Crab Cake Row: John Hoey of The Y joins Nestor with 33rd Street lore and Baltimore community growth

John Hoey of The Y joins Nestor with 33rd Street lore and Baltimore community growth at Koco’s Pub in Lauraville on “A Cup Of Soup Or Bowl Week” to benefit the Maryland Food Bank.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

years, baltimore, people, coco, beautiful, work, good, game, talking, community, mets fan, wife, citibank, maryland, state, story, weinberg, put, new york, build

SPEAKERS

John Hoey, Nestor J. Aparicio

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:01

Welcome back. We are live at Coco’s pub. It is 11 o’clock. I haven’t been on time all week. I every single guest has either been on late or later for most of the week, but we are we’re on time today and I don’t even know I’m not even keeping like a hard clock today. was sick is going to be here a little later on and Luke Jones is going to be here now. Luke has never had a Coco’s crabcake John, who has never had a Coco’s crabcake Is that correct?

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John Hoey  00:29

I think that’s accurate. Yeah. How

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:31

are you from the why? Why I just put up a picture because I was a Costas all day yesterday. I didn’t put any I didn’t set my son produced me yesterday. We’re hanging out. He took no pictures of anything I did. I took no pictures. We went off the air twice. I got back on the air within three minutes. And then I cried five times yesterday because people were making me cry. And we had a whole bunch of canned goods and I got home at like seven o’clock my back hurt. I didn’t have one picture on my phone. I didn’t take any pictures. So I yelled at Allah Hey, thanks to anybody took pictures and then I got inundated with everybody took pictures I put them all up so today I put it up and I just I just my status was why not is what my status why not? Why not? John has been a member of why MCA for many years. And the why and and even more. So I’m telling you I had serendipity this morning. Your Marcel is gonna be next guest All right, she’s out here. This morning. I have a Pacific a belt buckle collection about 120 belt buckles are from the 70s are all rock and roll belt buckles. Cool. I always try to feed myself. And pick one that means something today. Like I picked the Peter Frampton when based on a song, you know, last week, you know, do you feel like we do today that the Orioles got sold. I wore that one. Okay, seriously. So this morning, I’m in there about seven o’clock and I’m beaten up my back hurts. And it’s day three. And I wonder why I did this and how I know why I did this. But why I did this. And I looked up and the first belt buckle I saw was

John Hoey  02:00

the Village People. Oh, yeah. So hang

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:02

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on, hey, this had nothing to do with you. This has nothing to do with you until 30 seconds ago. I looked up at this village people belt buckle. All right. And I said I looked at it and I thought all right. I’m in Lawrenceville. And I’m thinking to myself, all right. And I thought of Marcelo and I saw your face and when I saw this, I thought a Harvey Meyers. Harvey Meyers was the man who owned the Emerald tavern. Back when I was the DJ there. And Marcy and I were there watching Sunday football. And every Sunday night, Harvey would run around the bar, get free beer out, we would play YMCA. And instead of young man, young man, we would go Harvey.

John Hoey  02:45

Harvey, you

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:47

know, and he would and he would dance. He was his big old job. Diet Coke. And look at her laugh. She’s laughing and my wife and I’m such a ball of energy. I wake my wife up at 620 and she hates that I’m like, there because I’ve been awake since three in the morning and I’m pretty high energy cat and a yell down the steps. I said, today’s gonna be freaking awesome day and she’s like, why? And I’m like, I’m wearing my village people belt buckle. Oh, she’s like, why? And I’m like, Harvey and she’s like, Oh, that’s awesome. And then I I didn’t realize till you sat down. And I just I just said the words why MCA I even say why not? And didn’t think this is true. Serendipity. This is true serendipity. Snare. I didn’t cry talking about Harvey but I might 20 minutes.

John Hoey  03:39

I’ve never met any members of the village people but you know, every year Bobby

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Nestor J. Aparicio  03:44

nick the late great Bobby Nick would MC R and DJ are nasty, nice guy awards. And every year he would hand someone was the cop. Someone was in the zone one was deplete. Yeah. And I always had to be one of them. I usually was Elvis. He had this Elvis thing. Oh, yeah. And me and my staff would get out and do the Wi Fi hockey games. They’ve done it the seventh inning stretch in New York for 50 years. Right like ever since. Randy, you have some brandy.

John Hoey  04:15

It’s you know, it’s that’s an interesting story. I mean, I as you probably know, I didn’t grow up as a white guy. I came to do this job mid career and so it’s it’s been

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:27

funny. No. What did you come from teller? Well, honestly, well, professionally. I

John Hoey  04:31

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spent most of my I spent my career in the private sector. I worked for companies like Citibank, and then I spent you were in the banking industry. And then I spent 11 years working with Doug Becker at Sylvan and then joined him and several others started a company called Lauriat which went on to become the largest for profit higher ed company in the world, banking education. I also I also worked in the apparel industry to start my career. So I was, you know, I was a business guy. I enjoyed my career, I did a lot of international work business most a lot of my career was international. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:10

you fly a lot is what you’re saying your frequent flyer might have

John Hoey  05:13

way too many miles. And way too many stories. But next time well, that’s a rabbit hole. So I’m the, you know, I’m sort of the, the guy you would never have expected in this role. So I never thought about the white hole. I probably had been a member of maybe the way once in my life,

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:36

for wanting to Dundalk why when I was a boy, I was there. Yeah, I

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John Hoey  05:40

was a member of the Y when I lived in Toronto for two years working for Citibank. Okay. It was near my, my place. I didn’t know anyone. And so after work, I’d go there. I play some basketball, workout meat and up meeting just a group of people. So I mean, that’s my it’s not a very fascinating why story I have to spend. A lot of years now I was recruited to do this job in 2006. So I have been there now. Coming on to 18 years. I started when I was 17. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:20

you lie. You don’t get your free soup here today.

John Hoey  06:22

Yeah, I figured I’m gonna have to pay anyway. So I gotta

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:25

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ask you this because it’s been controversial. Maryland crab crema crab. Mix. Your real Baltimore guy, right?

John Hoey  06:32

I lived there a long time. I

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:34

mean, like, I didn’t, there was no such thing as the MCS day. This is kind of a new thing. No,

John Hoey  06:39

I don’t think you mix. You don’t do it. You’re against it. Um, Maryland crab cream. The crab is great. But man, is that heavy?

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Nestor J. Aparicio  06:46

It’s nice here. They put a little sharing in it here. Sure.

John Hoey  06:49

It is excellent. Delicious. We know that doesn’t I’m not saying it’s not great. I’m just saying like, Maryland straight Maryland crab soup. Nothing beats it that Yeah. I mean, that’s the way I would roll. All

Nestor J. Aparicio  07:03

right, what’s going on with the why give me a good tell our audience what the y used to be and what the Why were the y’s going? Well,

John Hoey  07:11

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I’ll try to make that really short. Because as I got plenty of time, yeah. Well, the interesting thing about the Y is we’re you know, 170 plus year organization, right? So started during the Industrial Revolution and started as a place for young men who were coming from the outlying areas into cities as we started to industrialize as a country who were wreaking havoc, because they were a bit out of control first time in the city, you know, and there was a lot of opportunity, a lot of opportunity in the 1800s. Yeah, Baltimore City on the fourth biggest city in the country. It started in London, but then came to Boston and sort of just came down that East Coast, every major city started a YMCA. And so it was a boxing thing that was originally started as a religious organization that helped young men get their act together, meet each other, and then it launched recreation as as a means of occupying time and intramural sports. Yeah, getting people active and so they weren’t active doing other negative things or active doing positive things. And then over time, like so many things, it had to evolve and adapt to meet the needs of a changing world changing community in the case of Maryland, Central Maryland, Baltimore changing town. So if you then fast forward so along the way, I created a lot of things invented a lot of things. The way I invented basketball, why invented volleyball the why invented Father’s Day, the why invent, I could go down and it goes, the list goes on by the things you wouldn’t

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:04

the why invented basketball. Okay. You probably

John Hoey  09:08

know that. Well, Jim, James, Nas, Springfield, Massachusetts, volleyball, you go down the list. So And those things were simply ways of coming up with programs or activities that came out of creative minds. Father’s

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:25

Day was about Dad and son. Yes, dad and daughter, maybe

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John Hoey  09:31

daughters daughter’s about emphasizing the role of fathers. Right. Okay. And then over time, it became just another reason for somebody to buy a golf shirt, right, or tie or tie, you know, dinner, Coco’s or something. Well, that would be probably the most useful upsell. If you fast forward all the way to today, what we really are is we’re an organization that serves the community but ultimately builds a sense of community and instills hope. Healthy, inclusive, connected community and we are not a religious organization anymore. We are we we simply talk about the why we are actually we serve more women than men we serve. We our employee base is two thirds women. But we’re there to serve the community through a wide range of things. So most people know our centers or Big Y facilities. But we’re the largest youth serving organization in the state. So we’re the largest early childhood provider in the state. We are the largest community school provider in the state. We serve probably as many seniors as virtually any entity you could name. So what we do is through various means we reach people where they are we serve individuals, families, communities, to help make them healthier, more connected. We partner with families to help kids through life. You know, I’m a parent, you’re a parent. You were a kid once I was, you know, and I’m sure it’s neither one of us. I’m sure we’re perfect kids. I mean, maybe you were

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:17

well, I mean, we had I had a great neighborhood and grew up here. I’m from Dundalk into seven Yeah, we had a support system. There were different neighbors. We had a backyard to play and I talked about St. Peter’s Church. The last two days, we played stickball but you had

John Hoey  11:32

a community whether you even look out of each other that way. And those communities still exist, bless. But communities have frayed. And so and I look, I grew up in New York, but same thing. I mean, we didn’t even know it. But there were you know, they were Moms, I’m sure looking out for us that we didn’t even realize you know, as we did dopey things around the community harmless but dopey things. But we that’s we’re there to really support the community to help people stay healthy, active, engaged with each other engaged with their own families. And we do that through so many different programs, I always tell people, I can’t list all our programs, it would look like the Dead Sea Scrolls, you can’t operate at the scale we operate at unless you do a lot of different things. And you can’t just do it out of our great white Family Centers. You’ve got to be in schools. So we’re in something like 80 schools around the region. You know, you can’t do it without providing early childhood. Because, you know, kids are at their most vulnerable before they hit school and parents need the early childhood development and early childhood centers because they gotta go

Nestor J. Aparicio  12:52

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to work. It’s the hardest thing to do. Right? That’s the hardest time in life is the hardest time in life.

John Hoey  12:56

So for the parents, we take on the responsibility of serving people, we call it from cradle it shouldn’t say great, but from cradle till, you know, however long you can run this thing out. And it’s really a very, it’s a dynamic organization. We are you and I talked during the pandemic. You know, we went through the wringer during the pandemic as you can imagine. But you know, we’re back and we’re, we’ve got a I think we’ve never been more relevant than we are today.

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:35

For you, is it where’s the nearest why to hear this? Or one that you could drive me to? That’s four miles away? Well,

John Hoey  13:41

you would like this one. Sure. You bend to it the Weinberg why on 33rd Street where the old Memorial State I was there

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Nestor J. Aparicio  13:48

a day dedicated we I have a picture Brooks Robinson Luke’s gonna come in. Luke met Brooks Robinson that day, he’ll still tell you about pictures with him that day and the old

John Hoey  13:57

Ring of Honor sits in the gym there. Cow was there. I was just there. I came from there to this interview. And Brooks, you know, there’s Brooks’s sign on the Ring of Honor there. So I go

Nestor J. Aparicio  14:12

over there right now. It’s roughly 1114 on Wednesday afternoon right now Yeah, drive I told everybody goes I’m like near Memorial Stadium here near Montebello you know come up there I mean precinct lives two blocks up he’s gonna be recepty statement. We were in the 80s back into the house and we’d nice night summertime we take a walk. What happened? What’s going on? What am I going to see when I walked out? Did you just leave 45 minutes ago,

John Hoey  14:41

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you’re gonna see the center of that community. You’re gonna see a beautiful eye. That’s got all the amenities that you would expect that a why you’re going to see a world class. The Sherman early childhood center, serving a hunt. Certain 10 Kids, both traditional preschool and Headstart, which is federally funded, you’re going to see the Cal Ripken senior Youth Development park right in the middle where the where the field sat, where homeplate was,

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:17

I haven’t done this dude, you got to do No, I’m telling you, man, like, you’re gonna show so there’s a limit on this is they left in 91, the football team played there and the bass Sox played there till 98. I remember at the turn of the century, then Governor Shaffer and controller Schaefer after that was yelling about keeping the memorial. Yeah, it was a big, big deal. I mean, I know you’re 32 years Johnson, like I’ve been through all this. And then it got torn down. And I literally met my wife and a three. And the first good five years of our marriage, I would refuse to drive down 33rd Street because the standards weren’t there. And it really made me cry. It made me really, really feel well, let me tell you, you know what I mean to do that, but I went back and now I can do it. I don’t have any I don’t think that way anymore. So I’m ready. I’m ready to come back and walk the base. Here’s

John Hoey  16:08

some good stories.

16:09

I got 9098. All right.

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John Hoey  16:12

Well, I want to You should meet me there someday. I’m done. I am going to tell you a couple stories if that’s okay. You got related to the time. Alright, so I didn’t grow up in Baltimore. I grew up in New York, right. And big, huge sports fan baseball for played every sport. I grew up a big Mets fan.

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:35

You had a better year in 69. And

John Hoey  16:36

we desert Yes, I was born in Flushing, New York. So there’s a reason I

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:39

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walked out of the lead Dykstra game, but that’s another story. Yeah, I was at that game at six

John Hoey  16:43

Glenside as issues. Yeah. So I was working for Citibank and New York, strawberry

Nestor J. Aparicio  16:51

and good, but I’m just taking

John Hoey  16:55

a little bit 1989, I was working for Citibank. I was in one of these roles, where they moved me around every couple of years to experience different things. And I had the opportunity there. Actually, I was in New York, they moved me to Toronto for a couple years. And then it was time for my next sort of rotation. And I had an opportunity to go one of three places. Seoul, Korea, back to New York, where I’m from, or to Baltimore. And honestly, well, first of all, I’ve never been to Baltimore. I thought in my head, I eliminated Baltimore immediately. However, it turned out the best job opportunity, the most interesting opportunity professionally, was here in Baltimore, at Citibank. So long story short, that’s what I picked. I moved here, Baltimore sight unseen. First years, this 1989 April, okay, well, so I fly from Toronto, to Baltimore. Toronto just had a new dome at the time they had Yeah, they were just, yeah, they just opened it when I was leaving, right. And so I remember I flew on a Friday night. So short flight, came into Baltimore to the airport, rented a car and they were Citibank was putting me up across keys. Right. So I get up on a Saturday morning. I don’t know anyone in Baltimore. I don’t know anything about Baltimore. And I was like, What the heck am I gonna do until I start working on Monday? So there used to be a little deli at cross key horse. I went to the deli, he got some to eat and got a new Scott.

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Nestor J. Aparicio  18:44

Billy Martin got in the fight.

John Hoey  18:48

So I didn’t do all that. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:50

there was also Rob deer Robin yell, throw down in there. And I did I had to I was a reporter. I had to go to the hospital. And I sat in the emergency room and Robin, Rob deer as reporter I walked in and asked him what happened in the emergency.

John Hoey  19:03

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I can imagine they love that.

Nestor J. Aparicio  19:07

In the morning, I got sent on the sports desk. Anyway. 88 or 82. So good. So

John Hoey  19:15

I get the paper I realized there’s an Orioles game, and I’m talking to the guy at the crosskeys Deli and I’m like, is Memorial Stadium anywhere near here. He’s like, Oh my god, it’s so close. So I bought a map back. This is pre internet. Oh, yeah. I bought a map. He showed me where it was. I was like, wow, told me, you know, so somebody has to park bumper to bumper Nope. Well, there’s part of the story. So I figured go to a baseball game. Right, right. So I go right. And yeah, and I go in and I park and I realized, Wow, that guy parked right behind me and there’s a guy right in front of me and it’s like a mob hit like you can’t get out of here. You know, you don’t know what the mob pull up right behind.

Nestor J. Aparicio  20:00

My family never drove to the game. We didn’t have a car. But if we did we still we took the bus, right? We took the 23 to the 22, the 22 bus was waiting to get us out.

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John Hoey  20:09

We were taking the subway to the game, so Exactly. Anyway, so I realized like, I’m gonna be here for this whole game, because but again, like what else did I have to can’t leave? So my first thing in Baltimore was to go to a baseball game and Kyle was playing short. Billy Ripken was the second baseman, and the father was the manager.

Nestor J. Aparicio  20:30

That was why not team. Well, that was Frank Robinson was 89. Yeah, but yeah, yep. And

John Hoey  20:34

it was a good game. I believe they won. So my first experience in Baltimore, literally was going to Memorial Stadium, right? So fast forward. I am in Baltimore, I end up going back to New York for a while come back to Baltimore. In 2006, I’m recruited to do this job, no interest in doing it. I don’t know why I turned them down three times. They kept coming after me. And after a while, I was like, I was seems like fine. I’ll do it for a couple years. And then I’ll go back to the private sector shows how good I am at career planning. But

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:17

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well, your heart took over Yeah, right.

John Hoey  21:19

First of all, it was a it was a mess and was a good child. So they described to me as a turnaround, we need a business person. So like, that’s very appealing. Over time, it became a passion, right? So I went from a interesting, professional challenge to a passion. So one of the really the only why we had at the time that was in decent shape. The rest of them were disasters. Well, they

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:45

probably had no money invested in a long, long time, they didn’t know why 1990 looked like it did in 1970 probability,

John Hoey  21:51

there has been no strategy. But they had built that why? Because, as you were saying, finally, after all the controversy around that site, they decided it was cheaper. And then O’Malley, as mayor said, we’re going to take give half of the site to the Y but they must build a y here, and they must do whatever. And they gave half of the site to get CO which was a is a nonprofit that serves mostly seniors. So they build senior housing for low income, older adults. And so this was before my time. So they built a nice, why there. But right in the middle, and there’s a big circle was the old field. And it was rubble. Nobody knew what to do with it, right? It’s Rubble. So here I am. This

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Nestor J. Aparicio  22:51

is hallowed cemetery.

John Hoey  22:55

All I know, is I’m a massive baseball and sports fan. This was my first experience of Baltimore. So this ground was like, meant something to me, everyone had me it meant like, alright, this, this was my orientation. And it was great. It was fun. It was a baseball game in the middle of the day, like, You got to have something wrong with you and not to enjoy that. So I’m like this is wrong, because it was just a pile of dirt and rock and rubble. And I just said, this is not right. This, we got to do something about this. And eventually it took a couple years. Turned out a really close friend of mine was hired to be the Head of Development at the Ripken foundation. I had not met Colin bill at that point. But they had just started their foundation. And I said, Well, I’m going to call them because we ought to partner between them and us to baseball fields, a baseball, it’s where they all played.

Nestor J. Aparicio  23:57

And when we were it’s been 35 years. It was right, right.

John Hoey  24:01

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Serendipity, you were using the word serendipity. It just turned out that they had decided that one of their core strategies was to build build Youth Development parks around the country. And they’re trying to figure out where they’re going to build the first one. So I said like, I I know where you’re going to build the first one is going to be where Memorial Stadium was. And I so I ended up talking to Colin dill and this woman carry lever

Nestor J. Aparicio  24:33

of the Orioles Cal Ripken that guy.

John Hoey  24:37

I love seeing that and new and improved. That’s great. We talk about that later. If

Nestor J. Aparicio  24:42

you want to talk about that all afternoon.

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John Hoey  24:46

It was immediate for them to like there was no everyone sort of realized, right? How could we not do it right. And so they built they helped raise the money and then you know we jointly they We got this beautiful turf field belt. It’s a baseball but multipurpose. So any sport crosses playing soccer, football, and it’s beautiful. And they named it after their dad. You know? So that’s beautiful. That’s exactly right. So it’s the Cal Ripken senior Youth Development Park. And I’m

Nestor J. Aparicio  25:23

ready, I’m ready. spiritually ready. And I

John Hoey  25:27

will tell you one other story related to that Well,

Nestor J. Aparicio  25:30

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wait, go in there that day we’re gonna like tonight. Well, I just they’re gonna like it now. Stadium and my dad supposed to be alive. You’re gonna live supposed to be I’m not going to be Get off my lawn guy. I mean, I’m all for change just took me

John Hoey  25:43

took a motional II a little while to the, to the credit the built something called Camden Yards, which turned out to be a beautiful ballpark. And

Nestor J. Aparicio  25:52

we shall host a parade there that John Angeles was actually saying that for a long time. John, who is here he is the why not like the village people like my belt buckle. But what can people do to help participate? Stop? Probably the one thing they could do in our audience just dropped by why and see what’s going on? Yeah, because that would be the first thing to say. It probably isn’t what you remember think it is right. Yeah.

John Hoey  26:16

And I would say what can you get out? I mean, join the why. I mean, it’s good for you. It’s good for your family. And it’s funny, I’ve had that experience with folks. They’ve come in two wise. I brought them into our wives and they look around like, Oh my God, I don’t, I couldn’t I can’t believe it’s so beautiful. And like, of course it is, you know, we don’t do proud of this. We do what we when we do a why when we do a program, when we do it, we do it first class first rate, in my view, I don’t care who you are, I don’t care where you came from. I didn’t come from much I can tell you that. When you walk into a why or you walk into a wide program, I want you to feel like a million bucks. I want it to be beautiful. We all deserve the best. Right? So you’re not going to have gold plated toilets there. That’s not what I’m talking about. But state of the art beautiful, bright spaces, welcoming people clean, modern equipment, interesting, engaging programs, you’re going to see people from all sections of society, you’re going to see the wealthiest people in Baltimore as members, you’re going to see people in the middle of the income bracket, you’re gonna see people at the bottom of the income bracket, you’re gonna see all races, you’re gonna see all parts of our society. That’s who we are. There aren’t many places you go anymore, Nesta, where you get to see all of our society. We’ve kind of sectioned everything off,

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Nestor J. Aparicio  27:46

just wanting to play breaks down to last time. I think I was with us some dark days. And yeah, and then

John Hoey  27:52

that just exacerbated it. So but also you’re gonna need

Nestor J. Aparicio  27:58

for for you though, yes. Right. I mean that. We talked about the problems with kids. And I’ve been talking about early childhood education with other people last couple days, and there’s more of a need forever after the plan. That’s why I did the crabcake tours. All these places needed business more than ever. Well, after the plague and conversation what I do for a living exactly, that’s

John Hoey  28:20

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to do. Coco’s, yes, it’s a restaurant bar, great food fabric of the community, but it’s a community people come here, not just for that, you could sit at home and eat a crab cake. They can encourage you to pick them up and curve. And by the way, I’m gonna take one on my way out for lunch. Don’t do what

Nestor J. Aparicio  28:38

I did put it in the toaster oven and try to get it out with tweezers. No, don’t

John Hoey  28:41

do that. It’s I’m going back to my office here that I dropped

Nestor J. Aparicio  28:44

the four ounce crab cake and I had to tell the story about it. You can’t do that. The shakes from

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John Hoey  28:49

get through that. So you know it. So you could join the why? I mean, you can engage with us. You can run the turkey trot. I mean, we oh, that’s a Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving morning. All right. All right.

Nestor J. Aparicio  29:04

That’s your big that’s your Super Bowl. Yes.

John Hoey  29:09

Last year, though, we had over 15,000 participants in six locations. That’s a lot of people. The governor came two years prior he was supposed to come this Thanksgiving, but he got sick. Unfortunately, it is one of the largest events in the in the state. We it’s a lot of fun running Thanksgiving morning, as I said six sites around the region run before one of those is Weinberg is that the Weinberg why, by the way. And there’s and so we get a lot of engagement that way. But you know, I’ve read a stat. I don’t know if it’s all true. I’m not one to propagate misinformation, but I’ve read it in a couple of places. So I think it’s probably close to true. It says 70% of Americans So I’ve had some experience with the why. Okay, and so there’s lots of ways to engage with us, as I said, as a member, as somebody who runs the turkey trot every year as part of your family or neighbor tradition. You might use us for as a preschool. You don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Nestor J. Aparicio  30:21

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But yeah, my son’s 39. And people were asking me yesterday, he has to worry about it. I had some friends that are grandparents that are my age. I’m like, okay, right go. times now.

John Hoey  30:32

Your kid may be in an after school program and their school that’s run by the why.

Nestor J. Aparicio  30:38

Summer Camp? Well, you keep saying Weinberg I’ve had here and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation on the philanthropy and I should have had Met Gala girl from gold sector this week to really because he’s so good at talking about that. Part of what happens for people like you that these really original people from a century ago left a whole bunch of money behind, right. And all these years later, what was supposed to be done with it is helping somebody right over here. Memorial Stadium, yes, do something today, right?

John Hoey  31:07

And the Weinberg Foundation, obviously, they gave a lot of money to that project, but they support us on an annual basis. And they support all our youth development work, because they know how important that is. And we get great support philanthropically. It’s never enough. I mean, we all know that. I mean, it’s, there’s a lot of great organizations out there. And there’s a lot of things that need to get done. And there’s a lot of there’s foundations, there’s a lot of people who support us, but, you know, people think I’ve had people tell me, like, Why do I give you money? You know, you have these big facilities and members, you know, that’s, you should be fine. And it’s like, Nah, membership is about 50% of my revenue. And I put, you know, everything goes back into our facilities and our programs. We rely on philanthropy, we, you know, we have, we have a pretty large budget, we, our budget is over 100 million a year. But, you know, about

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Nestor J. Aparicio  32:12

100 million locally Central, yes.

John Hoey  32:14

Just Central America. Wow. Okay, I have about 3000 employees. So we are huge. To make that all work. About 20 plus 20%. Of that is, is philanthropy. Okay? Otherwise, it doesn’t work. I can’t like I keep my prices low so that people have access I scholarship, people who can’t afford my job is to get everybody involved. So if I was running the why as a as a for profit entity, and I have some experience running for profit entities, and the model would look different. And I wouldn’t spend any time worrying about getting people with lower incomes in I would just focus on people at a certain income level on above. Well, that’s what

Nestor J. Aparicio  32:58

we’re getting with sports and different things like you can’t afford to play right. Yeah, exactly. afford to play the why

John Hoey  33:02

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everyone can afford to participate. And that’s, that’s at our core, who we will always be. And that’s why, you know, we have so many we have people who get what we do and why we do it and how our model works, who fund us. It’s a more complicated story than someone that does one thing in one place. And we need people to do stuff like that. So it’s not a one is not better than the other. But our story is more complex, because we do a lot of things. And we do it at scale. And there’s a perception by some people that we you know, we we could have all the money we possibly need through membership or there’s a money tree. Yeah, like we’re just printing money in the back somewhere.

Nestor J. Aparicio  33:51

Jenna was here he is the why and, you know, you can ask him why go find him. We’re doing a thing here for the Maryland Food Bank. today. We are Coco’s we’re doing live radio all week because I’m crazy and it’s old school. And it really feels right. If you want to stop by bring canned goods, dried goods, all that kind of stuff. We would love to have that here at Coco’s will be at State Fair and Catonsville on Thursday. Friday, we’re gonna be at Pappas in Cockeysville. It is a cup of soup or bowl. I’m clever, right? You say that? We used to do radio row out of the Super Bowl. Yeah, I’ve already pointed out the weather’s better here. So we’re at crabcake row and his cup of Super Bowl our friends at the Maryland lottery. I feel like Oprah you got a lottery ticket John. So there you go. 10 times the cash our friends are window nation 866 90 nation I got the wacky had I did windows a year and a half ago. I’m saving money right now with my electricity. I’m gonna do doors this year because I can see the daylight under the door. So I need to do something about that. Also Jiffy Lube, multi care supporting us, our friends at wise markets and royal farms sort of put me up to this. I saw Jamie Costello. I’m shopping it wise that you would back at Thanksgiving time and my wife parked away For the front door, and there was three giant tents set up. And Jamie was doing a live thing with Carmen del Cueto, who’s going to be on the show. First thing Thursday morning at State Fair from the food bank, and why she has been my partner forever. And the seeds of all of this. I cried about it on Monday back to you my dad soup soup lines in 1929. But that was scrapped. Pennsylvania, came down here to work on the bombers. That’s how I got here in the 40s and Essex. And my dad would always say to me, my dad never voted for a Republican after Herbert Hoover. So he always thought the song that all in the family, you know, yeah, right, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again, my dad would just curse a blue streak in the 70s about that. So my dad starved in, you know, after the depression 1929 30 incident surplus. I haven’t spent a night of my life without food. But you know what I mean? And and all along the last few days, all I’ve heard about a kids that are going to bed hungry, hungry in this city, and in this area, in this region, this

John Hoey  35:53

region, justice in every neighborhood, people think it’s just a city, it’s across the place. And by the way, we we partner with Maryland Food Bank, Carmen’s an awesome guy. We actually have put food pantries in several of our wives. And we, we do a lot of work in food, the food insecurity world, a lot of our community schools, we get we have food pantries there. So I understand that issue. I agree that I mean, and organizations like ours and Maryland Food Bank, we know we can work together to get more done than by working separately. So there’s a lot of good stuff that goes on in this community that people don’t understand. And it’s not just one of us doing it on our own. It’s, it’s banding together to do stuff that needs to get done.

Nestor J. Aparicio  36:41

No, that’s why I did this this week. I mean, I just felt like we’re gonna, we’re not gonna go to the Superbowl and do that after 27 years, we’re going to do something bigger and better and more local, more meaningful. And you know, all these years doing Super Bowl, I’m going to run some of that next week’s and best off and you want to hear Dan Marino or Joe Montana or Yannis people had on the show. They all had a cause they all sat down and they were doing this for that. And oh, by the way, this is for the kids or the you know, the there was always an angle. I do this for the why or yeah, whatever that angle would be for people. And I thought, well, you know, that if, if I’m gonna be blackballed by the National Football League after three decades, I’m gonna be very welcoming Coco’s and a state fair. And a Pappas and Bailey’s and Acosta so we’re gonna do a good turn. So I appreciate appreciative of your friendship. I think I met you in the hallway at my house 20 years ago, correct. is entirely possible there was throwing a party. I think there was a condo that was across the hall at a holiday party every year. I think that’s right. It was. It was an Insurance Group. Zurich. Zurich Insurance, owned the condo adjacent to my hallway for years, and they sold it to a regular person. But you were up and I had a holiday party and I was in the hallway and I saw you. So 20 years later, it’s great to have

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John Hoey  37:49

you on and learn neither of us has aged. That’s a great thing.

Nestor J. Aparicio  37:53

We’ll go to that next oriels World Series.

John Hoey  37:55

Yeah. Second generation fun. That’d be fun.

Nestor J. Aparicio  37:58

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You have any 69 memories, or no?

John Hoey  37:59

I have a lot of six to nine members. Or they tell you a quick story.

Nestor J. Aparicio  38:03

I’ll tell you Ron Swoboda was never Welcome back here.

John Hoey  38:05

Yeah. Well, you know, let

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Nestor J. Aparicio  38:07

him he used to Phil’s point.

John Hoey  38:08

I was 10 years old. Huge Mets fan nets Metro terrible, you know, they, they were terrible. They were new still a new franchise that we had moved to upstate New York by then. So I had moved out of the city is your family Dodgers. Giants are my I get my baseball roots from my grandfather on my mother’s side. He was a New York Giants Giants fan fan. They lived in northern tip of Manhattan right by the Polo Grounds. Okay. So he transferred his allegiance to the Mets and that’s how I became a Mets fan. Right? Like we know that that sports gets passed down from generation right that’s where you so that’s where I became a they’re still Dodgers fans in Brooklyn somewhere there are not as many because for a lotteries so So anyway, we had moved to upstate New York by then but you know, I was living and dying every game back then. Not the games weren’t on TV as much. So when you got Oh, are you got hooked up? Oh, yeah. transistor radio, listening to every game kind

Nestor J. Aparicio  39:14

or manufacturers?

John Hoey  39:17

8

Exactly. Oh, those guys. And so that obviously they went on, won the World Series. Nobody who was a Mets fan expected any of that. So after the World Series, the Mets went on sort of a little tour around the state, right to celebrate. So they came up to a shopping mall in Albany, New York, which is near where I was living at the time.

Nestor J. Aparicio  39:43

When you say vase, it’s like a crane pool. Yeah, like a lot

John Hoey  39:47

of the plate. It was a real caravan it was and all right, it was you know, the old style shopping mall inside so they kind of they were in cars and they kind of drove around the mall and we all stood there you know? likes a parade, parade. All right, and so set your attention when you’re a 10 year old kid, you’re so ecstatic. That a your Mets won and be there right there. I jumped in one of the cars. It was Jim McAndrew, who was a pitcher. And like I couldn’t control myself, I was so excited. So instead of just standing there, I jumped in the car with Jim McAndrew. And he was very nice. I think a cop kind of told me I shouldn’t be in the car. I had showed my parents were mortified.

Nestor J. Aparicio  40:32

There’s a picture circulating last week that someone here locally found that put on one of the heritage sites. And it’s Louis Aparicio. In the six keys in a in a car. Yeah, in the 66 parade. Well, that’s very much how to do it. Right. I mean, that was and it had his name on the blue empower. 1967. And everybody was right there. I don’t know who that is. But there was Louis Carling Brewing Company sponsor, there was a sponsor, and there’s the car. And Louie was in the 60s. This is exactly

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John Hoey  41:10

right. And you can imagine you were 10 years old, you might have jumped in the car, right? Well,

Nestor J. Aparicio  41:16

I’ve done a couple of parades here. We thought we’re gonna have some parades last year. We want a couple of divisions around here. I gotta let you get out of here because I was gonna come on, Marcel is doing this whole thing that if you want to come over here and give cash to the Maryland Food Bank, she’s gonna hook you up with like the 25 gift cards. So we’re very appreciative that so come on over, get some cash. Come on over, bring some canned goods. Come on over bring some dry goods. It’s all for the Maryland food bank. It is a cup of Super Bowl. We’re calling this crabcake row and John are always about to have his mind blown here because he’s got the Weinberg thing right over at the 33rd Street in the Cal Ripken senior in the baby. And he can walk here you might have to walk back if he eats this 11 ounce crab cake over here, but you’re about to have your your world change your cup of Maryland crab soup, we’re gonna get you a cake. And if Toughbooks just go to the walk, right? It’s gonna be okay. All right. Websites and this and that you keep it nice and simple. To the Maryland lottery keeping it simple. 10 times the cash. I’m giving these away all week as well. We’ll be at State Fair all day Thursday, Pappas and Cockeysville on Friday, on Saturday on rest, and then on Sunday. I don’t know if they’re playing a big game. It’s a big game. Las Vegas. It’s the 50th time they played the big game. We’re going to be in Hollywood Casino. A purple in that game. My wife and I went to Hollywood casino for the Flacco it wasn’t we we saw the Flacco when they lost Yeah, but we were there because we we didn’t want to get peacock. So it was it was an anti peacock thing. Yes. We went up there on a Saturday night watch that awful chiefs dolphins disaster and that for three day or whatever. But we start playing with blackjack. We gotta you know so we’re gonna be up Sunday night at even though we’re not in the game and Taytay is going to be there at all that on the big screens will be at the sports bar on the sports book. Hollywood casino you can bring your kids it’s it’s outside of the casino but adjacent to the casino. You could send them over to Great Wolf Lodge at the floods done and you can sit down and watch the game and have a proper cheeseburger. My

John Hoey  43:03

twin girls and my wife are going to the lodge this weekend with friends because my girls I have twin girls are turned 14 This

Nestor J. Aparicio  43:10

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once you bring them up and about 334 o’clock come on over. I’ll buy you beer watch pregame show. And they’re beautiful. I mean it’s it’s a Vegas style. Yeah, it’s beautiful. So come on up Hollywood casino Berryville ample free parking and you can beat the toll and see the beautiful Eagles up there. Now the Eagles are all nesting on the Conowingo my wife and I are gonna go up a little early and Eagle watch because you you will see an eagle if you’re out there and you will see an eagle if you look you’ll see an eagle you see the nest you’ll see the juveniles it’s a beautiful thing that’s there right by MC falls Iron Horse tavern to give a free plug to my buddy Glen over there. If you go north on crumble bro Bridge Road from MC falls. There are nesting Eagles along the waterway. That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s near the radio station we got on Sunday mornings and watch the Eagles this time of year. Yeah. And it’s not the Philadelphia Eagles.

John Hoey  44:02

I was gonna say well, their hometown. Yeah, it’s

Nestor J. Aparicio  44:04

not the compensate Eagles either. All right. I wonder Morgan State. Don’t tell my compensate friends that but wherever Coco’s I’m getting a crabcake as big as my head right at 501. But between now and then Luke Jones will be your Microsoft Liana is gonna be here. We are going to do some brain injury stuff later in the day and we’ve we’ve done the community and charity here in the morning but we’re gonna do a lot of sports today, man. I like I haven’t had Luke on all week. I don’t know if you know the baseball team was like it’s gonna get sold. So there’s news and we got the cheese’s in the Anthony Weaver’s in the mic with McDonald’s. So we’re seeing and Luke lots of sports today but just stay with us. It’s it’s officially 1145 Right now, but we’re Coco’s come by and say hello, back for more on wn st right after this