Erin Ritter educates Nestor about the history and mission of Casey Cares for kids. As part of “A Cup Of Soup Or Bowl Week,” we hosted all of the charities we’ve ever partnered and participated with over the years at WNST Baltimore Positive.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
cares, 80s, families, critically ill children, casey, gala, wife, kc, years, super bowl, baltimore, orioles, kids, coolest, soup, leukemia, cup, great, lasting memories, super bowl winners
SPEAKERS
Erin Ritter, Nestor J. Aparicio
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome back. We are wn sta and 5070, Towson Baltimore we are at fadeless. We’re doing crabcake row. Replacing radio row in the last day I would want to be in Vegas today it was only the 50s air weather’s better here. Orioles are getting sold. We got crabcakes your word fails. We’re going to be at the Costas tomorrow and Dundalk all day Tuesday. Wednesday. We’re going to be Coco’s Thursday. We’re going to be at State Fair in Catonsville on a Friday up at Pappas in Cockeysville. I’m going to be eating really well. They brought me fish sandwiches like a crab cakes. I’m going to leave you with some shrimp salad. I like taking trips out because my wife doesn’t like trips. I get to eat it all myself. So it’s good. Casey Baines was unavailable. She’s the case use case she cares to call her Wallen back. What do I call her? Now? You gotta I gotta get right, right? Yeah. How are you? I’m gonna read her here. She’s the deputy associate Dr. Wright has case good grades. She’s
Erin Ritter 00:55
great. busy, very busy things you won’t be carrying. Yes. Well, I
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:02
guess Casey cares came to me maybe 1015 years ago. And it was just sort of in my world people like I’m doing this for Casey cares. I’m doing that for Kate. Like, what does Casey cares that I met Casey and then I figured out you can. So you guys have your big gala coming up. I want you to talk about the the long picture of Kc cares and how it started. give everybody the whole soup to nuts, potatoes, give him a crab cake and a crab soup. Absolutely.
Erin Ritter 01:25
So we we provide programs for critically ill children and their family members. So we’ve been doing it for 24 years. We do things like tickets to baseball games in the circus and dizzy and ice for families whose lives have just been turned upside down by the diagnosis and the treatment of their critically ill child. So kids with all sorts of different illnesses from leukemia, brain tumors, different types of cancer to severe sickle cell and cystic fibrosis. Our goal is just to provide some positive positive family time and and good memories for the families while they’re going through this really arduous journey. So yeah,
Nestor J. Aparicio 02:03
you know, my my wife was diagnosed 10 years. In five weeks, it’d be 10 years. She was diagnosed in March 20. She had leukemia, two times survivor bone marrow transplants, the whole deal guy in Germany saved her life. It’s beautiful story. But the part of it for me was, I’ve cried twice this morning, I’ve cried since 10 o’clock, because nobody said David Modell to me yet. But we would go down when my wife was sick with a report. And she was 155 Nights at Hopkins, right? So we would go down to that common area on the ground floor, just to get her out of the out of the prison. And she would bring her port and a pole. She had a hole in her chest with the port, and that damn thing would go off. And every time the battery would go, Oh, it was awful, right? I can’t I haven’t thought about it in a while. But we would get down to that courtyard area. And my here’s my wife fighting for her life, but she would see a sick kid. And it’d be over. Even when she was fighting, it would be over. And we think about taking care of these kids and their poor parents and the families that love and we went through a lot. My wife is 41 years old. But when you’re talking about kids struggling, there’s a whole different level of unacceptability. Yeah,
Erin Ritter 03:15
well, I mean, as a mom, I would rather go through it and have one of my kids go through it, right. As a parent, there’s, we live in a great area, we have amazing hospitals, you know, we have some of the best medical care, but at the end of the day, there’s not much more than that parent can do they just are watching their child and hoping that the right treatment and the right doctors make the right choices there
Nestor J. Aparicio 03:36
to my wife and the doctors and the nurses were just miraculous. Yeah, it changed the mechanics of my life to be able to talk about things like this, because, you know, I did sports for a couple of years, you know, it’s just a little bit, but seeing that sort of care move me to say, all right, fight with Peter angelos, talking about the football team getting bad or whatever. Those are nice things this is real this is this is what’s real. Yep. And when KC cares is taking care of a family someone there is a level of discomfort suffering misery that whatever the 10 seconds whether it’s seeing a celebrity or a couple of hours or a meal or time or anything like that you guys do get a picture of of beauty at that point right when you do you go through this effort to make magic happen literally for someone that’s suffering. Oh, it’s you’ll get me cried at two o’clock and three o’clock in the afternoon.
Erin Ritter 04:33
Well, it really is like it’s about our slogan or is little moments lasting memories, but that really moments lasting memories and like that, again, as a parent of perfectly healthy kids. That’s what you have. You know, I look back on the last five years of my of my of my life and my kids and they’re just little snippets. And so if we can give the families little sin, snippets of positivity that they can pull from for strength as they go through this battle, and that they can look back ACC on. That’s really what we want to do. We can’t cure them. We’ve got Hopkins, we’ve got University of Maryland, we’ve got some amazing places. But what we can do is we can give them an afternoon to be a family to go see the O’s to go see the ravens to goes, you know, go to a capitol. So new and improved Orioles
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:16
as I like to say, I’m gonna I’m gonna continue to use new and improved new
Erin Ritter 05:20
and improved Yeah, so I’m under new management super important just to give them that afternoon that evening to have fun and have some positive things happening and give them the strength to move on and carry on. So that it takes to get involved in all this give me give me the whole yes as she actually started working with sick children, but it was primarily kids with cancer. And it was kind of a once and done type of a thing that she was, you know, granting a wish. And so she really felt like ongoing support, and not just kids with cancer. So those were her two things. And so when she didn’t feel like that need was being met, she decided to meet it herself. So how many years? 24 years? or
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:58
years? Yeah, I would say I’ve been on your 32 I’d say I’ve been hearing about it for 15 or 20. It’s amazing. Just so you know, back in the aughts. Yeah, I had no idea. I would have thought it was 15 years old. But maybe that’s the first time I heard about how’d you get involved?
Erin Ritter 06:12
I actually Casey and I went to college together. And I was moving to Baltimore I had some experience in nonprofits and I was looking for something fun and she was looking for me and we’ve been together for 18 years
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:25
all right something fun for Casey cares. It says your march then if other people doing events in May June this one’s coming a knife at the American Visionary arts museum that’s one of my favorite places I had Rebecca on in I know they had some new things going on there as well. Right in my neighborhood. I lived down at the harbor for years a great spot so what what is it Casey cares? Super Bowl ball look like? What are we calling it?
Erin Ritter 06:53
We’re calling it the totally 80s Gala. Yeah. Gala.
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:58
Tried to get me to the Wizard of Oz over St. I don’t have that outfit laying around. But I have some,
Erin Ritter 07:03
like warmers in my heroes. But yeah, so we have. We have live music. We have open bar, we got food. We have appetizers, auctions, raffles, there’ll be dancing. There’ll be fun. And I would guess that well over half the people will come dressed head to toe in 80s gear. Doing leg warmers. What do you do? I am actually looking for an 80s prom dress because I’m trying to keep it classy. You know what I mean? So yeah, let me off the shoulder lotta taffeta rod
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:32
or pink tuxedo, that would be great. So my two my junior prom in 84. Okay, if I could find that again. Maybe worked at it. But I think if I was doing 80s, my 80s were hammer jacks. So you know what I mean? That was my 80s and I got the hair for it now. So I may I would do 80s rock star, okay, you know, and I have come up with something that hairband
Erin Ritter 07:55
pearl or I got hair
Nestor J. Aparicio 07:57
and get the band but I got the hair just the bands. But take the band off their hair to hear. I’m like do that for femme? Who’s feminine seen with the long hair? Yes. How can people help you and get involved?
Erin Ritter 08:07
Sure they can go to Kc cares.org. They can obviously buy gala tickets. There’s all different ways folks can support us. We have a 5k we have a golf tournament. We’ve got a fishing. I’m familiar.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:17
Yeah. So that I think I’ve participated with the go and I’m not a golfer but I think I’ve been
Erin Ritter 08:21
invited. Yep. It’s a fun event. It’s in Baltimore country clubs. So that’s a really nice, really nice course and a really nice day. And we’ve got a 5k if that’s your thing. You can also wear your pajamas to work in April. So we’re just really trying to Yeah, well, April 16 is national wear your pajamas?
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:37
Nothing. What is that? I hope? Like a smoking jacket. Yep.
Erin Ritter 08:41
I mean, whatever you wear to bed you well. I felt you should wear whatever you should wear that. Yeah, thank you and it shows your support for critically ill children, folks who drink pajama drives that and giftcard drives for our programs. And so yeah, Casey cares biggest PJ party is always a fun event. April 16. I can do it from your house.
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:01
I don’t. This is like asking Damian her favorite crabcake Do you have a favorite story, a Casey care story of something that you cried a lot or you’re like, that was the coolest effing thing we’ve ever done that the what would be the coolest thing? Because I this is my 25th anniversary and it’s a little plug for curio wellness. I just have Wendy Byerly I’ve done the 25 stories of glory of our 25 years of all the coolest things we’ve done. I would think the 25 coolest things that Casey cares have done are pretty cool.
Erin Ritter 09:32
We I mean, we’ve done some amazing things. We like all that guy. We’ve sent kids to Taylor Swift concert. I mean, it’s been a couple years if you’re listening tailorable we’ll take some more tickets. We’ve done disney world we’ve had folks throw out the first pitch at Orioles games. We’ve had all sorts of meet and greets but honestly we do these movie and pizza night boxes that are a gift card for pizza delivery. Hurry and a gift card for streaming services and that thank you notes we got for those boxes are just as good. Thank you that we got pizza and movie when
Nestor J. Aparicio 10:09
you’re not feeling well as a beautiful night as the end of the week. I’ll have crabcakes Oh, we think she’s my best. She’s walking me around the time she knows that I well. I love her smile. It’s nice to meet you and hang out. March 9 at the event American Visionary Arts Museum. They’re doing their event. It is totally 80s Totally. That’s totally up my alley. There that well. Music gonna be good. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I’m just checking. Yeah, it’s hard to mess up. 80s Music unless you play country or something. Don’t worry. We’re gonna play some Kenny Rogers dolly islands industry. We’re down here at fade Lee’s it’s by the way you did not get a lottery ticket did not touch the cash. Aaron’s hooked up here for Casey cares. We’re families all day today. It is a cup of Super Bowl winners. crabcake row, you bring down the canned goods. I can somebody brought me some wise lasagna and some lucky charms. I have lemon pepper tuna salad in a can. I have green giant mixed Mexicali corn. People have been very, very generous. You bring down canned goods. You bring stuff for our friends. At the Maryland Food Bank. We’re gonna give you a free cup or bowl of soup. Awesome. Super Bowl. soup or full a cup of soup or don’t get me in trouble. Roger Goodell listen to this program. Now. I promise you Chad steals this cup of soup or bowl. All right. The Super Bowl itself is Sunday night. We’re not necessarily we’re down here. Family’s fan VIP days. You’re speaking of Super Bowls. I got a Super Bowl champion coming by talking about a great cause he lives in a neighborhood. I bumped into him a lot when I live downtown. been about a year since I’ve seen him looking forward to talking Super Bowl 35. Get some ravens in here. And we’re going to talk about a big big turnaround all that’s coming up next. I’m Nestor we are wn sta a 5070 Towson Baltimore back for more from fade Lee’s on a cup of Super Bowl and our crabcake row promotion
