The Big Ask, The Big Give

Hello and welcome to the Get to Life Podcast where we have conversations about organ, tissue and eye donation and transplantation. You can always find us at thegiftedlife.org. I'm Maurice Deel. I'm Kirsten Heif.

And I'm Sarah Blickmore. Coming up on The Gifted Life today. We're going to be talking to Jennifer Martin from the National Kidney Foundation and she's going to share what they're doing to help kidney patients share their story and encourage the conversation about living donation. And we all know about our IQ, right?

Well today, we're going to learn about our EQ. Ooh, okay. Good stuff. Episode 152 of The Gifted Life.

Here we go. Here on The Get to Life Podcast, we're all about learning, bringing new topics to the table so that we can all pull from it, ask questions, just learn more about it so that we can make life happen in Kirsten. Today's topic actually came to you while you're at a conference. How cool is that?

Yeah, it was a really great presentation that I saw at the Denate Life America Conference this year. The speaker was Jennifer Martin and she's the Vice President of Program Development for the National Kidney Foundation. And her presentation was called The Big Ask, The Big Give. So let's welcome Jennifer onto the program.

Hey. Hi everyone. Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming on.

As I was, this conference happened to be a virtual conference this year as so many things are. But I was like, oh, I got to make sure we try to reach out to her and get her on the podcast because I hadn't heard such a comprehensive program on really educating people that are waiting about what they can do to impact their rank on the waiting list and how they may be able to even get a living donor. So could you tell us about the program? Sure.

So the program is called The Big Ask, The Big Give. So kind of a mouthful, but what it means is the Big Ask is really designed for patients and families who may be seeking a transplant, hoping to find a living donor. And don't know how to have that conversation with people and let people know about their need for a kidney transplant. And then the flip side of it, The Big Give is for people who are thinking about donating a kidney or who maybe would think about it if they just had more information and education and support around making that decision.

So the whole purpose of this initiative is to help people no matter where they're at in the process, whether they are on the patient or family side seeking a transplant or somebody thinking about donation. And it includes lots of different programs and resources under that umbrella to help people through that. Yeah, that's incredible that you're hitting both sides of it. We tend to work with more people after they've received.

And when I asked them, did you think about living donation? The ones that didn't, it was because they didn't know how to have the conversation. So what kind of tools do you provide to help kind of coach them through getting that conversation even started? Yeah, so we talk a lot about how you might share your story and let people know about the need.

And it could be the person with kidney disease sharing their story with people or it could be a family member or friends letting people know about somebody they love who needs a transplant. And so we talk a lot about the big ask. It doesn't necessarily have to be asking people for a kidney or asking people to consider donations. Some people do it that directly.

But for a lot of people that is really uncomfortable and that doesn't feel like the right approach to them. And so what we talk about is just get your story out there. Just let people know about your need. And your ask can be, hey, can you just help me spread the word?

Can you help me get the word out there and let people know? So the tools that we have, like I said, there's lots of different programs and resources under this. We're always adding new things and new things under development now. Some of the major things are we have a big ongoing public awareness campaign.

So just trying to get stories out there in the media about living donation and transplant. It's one thing for me to talk about it, having not experienced it myself. But I think for people to see people who received a transplant or people who've been living donors, it just demystifies it a little bit and helps it resonate with people, helps make it real. So we've reached over 120 million people through our awareness campaign for this initiative.

And I think that helps because if people have somebody that they know, whether it's somebody know well, a family member or friend who needs a transplant or somebody in their community, or maybe they're even interested in donating to a stranger, just seeing those stories and seeing that other people have gone through this helps a lot. So that's one piece of it. And then more down at the level for patients and potential donors, we have some educational and training programs. So we have an introductory course to donation and transplant called first steps to transplant.

So just giving people basic information in a very interactive way that they may need about what's involved in receiving a transplant or donating a kidney and what that looks like and answering questions that they might have. And then I think what we're known the most for under Big Ask Big Give is our other training program called Finding a Living donor. So that's really for people who already have some information about donation and transplants. But again, they're people with kidney disease or their family members or friends who are trying to find a donor and need help in overcoming that fear of letting people know.

We've heard from so many people in that program that while they're hoping to get a transplant, we need to find a living donor. Often a lot of people in their lives don't even know that they need one, right? And it sounds so obvious, but it's such a huge hurdle for people. It's such an emotional thing.

And I think back to one of the first programs we did, this man stood up at the end and was very emotional crying. And he said, I came here because I wanted to find a living donor. I've been waiting for a transplant for a long time. And I realized through this program that almost nobody in my life knows that I need one.

So how is somebody going to help me if they don't even know about my need? And he said, I haven't wanted to let people know. I haven't wanted to ask for help. I don't ask people for help ever.

And he said, you're helping me see that I need to ask for help and I need to let people know. And he said, this is just open a window of hope for me. So really just getting them past the hurdle of even sharing that they have a kidney disease, it sounds like. Right.

Right. So we teach them it's really, really interactive. So there's lots of exercises in the program in the Spining Living donor program. So one big thing is, how do you share your story?

What does that look like? What would you even say to let people know? And so we share lots of examples of what other people with kidney disease or their family members have said, like exactly what they've said, obviously with their permission. So here's Alan who received a transplant from a living donor.

And here's his Facebook post that he shared. He's exactly what he said. And let's break it down and talk about what he did. And here's something that somebody shared with their place of worship and how they raised it with them.

And here's a woman who shared with her book club. And somebody from her book club donated to her. So we give people those really tangible examples and just walk them through some ideas and then have them in the program actually work on, okay, what can I, what would I say to share it? And it could be two sentences.

It doesn't have to be that long. Often people write something much longer. But it doesn't have to be. And it's not a one time thing, right?

You have to keep letting people know. So that's one piece of the program is what do you say? And then a couple other big pieces of it are, okay, once you figured out what to say, where are you going to share it? Sorry, you touched on some of those things.

But it's whatever individuals or groups people are connected with is often the best place to start. So it could be family and friends. If their family and friends don't know, it could be social media. If they use social media, that feels like the right approach to them.

It could be community groups they belong to, like a book club, for example, places of worship. I think that's a great place for people to share. We teach people how to get other people to help them. So it's not all of them.

It's, you know, we can get other family members and friends to help share with their networks. And then we, so we help them come up with a list of where they could share, where they could start. And then everybody develops their own personal action plan at the end of the program of what they're going to do next, what they're going to try, and what they're going to ask other people to do to help. I think it's becoming more commonplace.

I saw a sign on a fence as I was traveling to work. I saw on car windows in need of a kidney, call this number, social media is a big one. I know you just mentioned that. What questions I guess do you get most from people considering living donations?

So if someone were to see the sign or see a post on social media, like where do they start and how do we get that side educated as well? Yeah. So, you know, people generally have a lot of questions about what's involved, what are the risks of donation, what's the process, what does that look like, how would I even start that process if I'm interested. So you know, if somebody wants to consider donation to somebody specific, whether it's a family friends, somebody in their community, somebody that they just heard about somewhere, then, you know, generally they would start with contacting that person's transplant center to, you know, explore the process of donation.

And if they're just interested in donating to anybody who needs it, then they can contact transplant centers in their area. So that's a transplant center is just a hospital that performs transplant operations. Not every hospital does transplants. And if people have trouble starting that process or figuring out where to begin, they can call our helpline or email or helpline.

We have operators in English and Spanish who can help answer any questions that people have and kind of guide them through next steps. But a lot of the questions for potential donors are around what's involved, what does that look like, where do I start? You know, people want to know, I think often, okay, by contact. A transplant hospital might commit it, you know, like, wanting to know, can I just explore this and think about it before committing?

And, you know, of course, the answer is yes. It's a process to, you know, be evaluated as a potential donor and people can certainly back out at any point in the process. If they decided to talk right for them. Right.

Because I'm sure you have to be mentally prepared as well to go through that process. And I'm sure a lot of questions involved, what are their new physical abilities after they donate? Can you walk through that? Yeah.

I mean, most living donors do really well. There, there's certainly the potential for complications, just like any other surgery. So, you know, certainly after donation, living donors will have pain, need to take pain medication for a while. If they are employed, they'll have to take some time off work.

So general, I think the general guideline is maybe that's four to six weeks, maybe longer, if they have a more physical, active kind of job, it could be shorter, it could be longer, depending on the particular circumstances. There are, you know, some longer term risks, like people developing a hernia, things like that. And of course, there's a small risk of, you know, more serious complications. But generally those are pretty rare.

And again, if people are interested in donation, you know, once they talk to the hospital, the hospital will walk them in great detail through all the potential risks, make sure that they really understand, you know, how this will work, what's involved, what the potential risks are and that they, you know, are comfortable moving forward. You mentioned a hotline, is that open and active in something we can share with our listeners? Sure. Our helpline is called NKF Cares.

And like I said, we have operators in English and Spanish. It's open 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern time.

So NKF Cares can be reached, it's toll free, it's 855 NKF Cares. So that's 855-653-2273. And people can also email us at nkfcares-at-kidney.org. And the helpline is for anybody who has any questions about anything kidney related.

So we get questions about dialysis, transplant, living donation, people who are earlier stage kidney disease, people who have questions about insurance, financial issues related to kidney disease, all kinds of things. So it's kind of your one-stop shop for any questions. You might not. That certainly makes it easy.

You mentioned that the hotline has both English and Spanish speaking folks on the other line. But from what I remember from your presentation, you guys developed the whole program in both English and Spanish, didn't you? Yeah. So the awareness campaign that I mentioned earlier has a lot of things in Spanish.

We've been on Spanish language TV programs to talk about the big ask that they give. We've had articles in major publications. We have videos in Spanish on our website that people can access of people who've donated or people who've received a transplant. The helpline is in Spanish.

The educational programs, including the finding a living donor program are in Spanish. Yeah, a lot of the resources, most of the resources in Spanish are in Spanish if they're not already. We're working on it. That's awesome.

That is great for everyone. And it's great for us to know that it's a resource and is available. We have a cute little couple here in Louisiana. We live along the Gulf Coast.

So of course, Hurricane Cane, they were evacuated. They were evacuated to the same spot. She needed a kidney. He said, I'm going to get tested.

And she said, I don't know you like that, Mr. And he went anyway. He was a perfect match. So he was able to give his kidney and then they later married, which I know doesn't happen a lot of time.

But they use their anniversary to... We can't promise that. I think the disclaimer to talk about organ tissue, eye donation, which is, I think, amazing. And I'm sure you have those stories that have just come about since the big ask, the big gift can you share?

Yeah. You know, my favorite story is actually our first success story from the program. So we started the Big Ask the Big Give. I think it was 2018.

And when it started, we started with the Awareness Campaign and our website. So we developed a much more expensive website on living donation and we really started promoting those stories, like pushing out stories of donors and recipients. So when we were working on that and we were developing resources for the website about how you might share your story, we had at that time a web designer named Alan and he was asked to develop the website. So we gave him all the content for the website and he designed this whole Big Ask Big Give website.

And so he'd been working on this for months. It was a pretty big overhaul of the website. And so he was working to design it and make it look nice and make sure the flow was right. And at some point he called me and he said, I need to speak to you about something personal.

Can I talk to you? And I said, sure. And so we sat down together and he told me that he himself had kidney disease. So again, coming back to what I was talking about earlier, none of us at work knew that he had kidney disease.

And he worked for us for a while. And so he's developing this website for the Big Ask the Big Give and he said it was just a real thing. Like, this is my story. This is my exactly the point.

And he had gotten to the point where his doctor said, you're approaching kidney failure and you need to start thinking about a transplant and do you have any potential donors. So it was just, yeah, it was a crazy thing. And so he ended up using the strategies on the website that he developed and shared his story. He and his wife decided to share a story on Facebook because they used a lot and they were comfortable with it.

And they just shared with their friends and friends of friends and expanded it out a little bit from there. And he wrote this beautiful post that talked about his need. He talked about being a private person and that even if you were somebody, you might be somebody in his life who didn't know that he had gotten to a point where he had to let people know. And he gave people lots of ideas for how they could help him.

So it wasn't just about donation. He said, listen, you can help me just by sharing this post on your own Facebook page. Like, that's a simple thing, right? Anybody can do to help him.

He said, you can just go to the website. You can learn more about living donation. He said, I would never ask anybody to donate. I just wouldn't.

But if you were willing to consider that, I'd be really honored and grateful. And so he had somebody step forward, a friend of a friend of a friend, somebody that he never met before didn't know. And she ended up donating to kidney care. We have a great video of them on our website sharing their story.

And then we have another video of Alan and his wife Aisha providing their tips to other people about how to share their story. Love that. So it was just a beautiful story. Yeah.

So what's the website so people can go check it out? It's www.kidney.org. And then from there, you can go, you'll see a section on kidney donation and the Big Asco Big Give. And you can find lots of different videos, again, in English and Spanish of all those stories.

That's great. That's great. Of course I was waiting for the, you know, Diddy Giddha. So I'm glad to have you on the happy end.

Yeah, me too. It's just smiling. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm sure. I mean, that's definitely just one in your first success story. But have you all seen a big increase in living donations since you've started?

Yeah, we have. So we've been doing the workshops, especially that finding a living donor one for a couple years now. So we're getting more and more data in about the results of that. And I think, you know, we always want more data to kind of show this is definitely working.

We have some preliminary data that's showing some good results. So we do a couple of different surveys to people after they attend the program over time. And the last one's at one year after they attend because it takes people some time, right? To try the strategies, to get the word out there, to have potential donors evaluated, to get, you know, actually get the transplant.

So it might take, you know, nine or 12 months or longer to go through that whole process. So at one year, we did a survey and the people who replied to the survey. So we had a number of people who replied and 67% of the patients who took the survey said that afterwards they know they had more potential donors, seven-four. So people expressing interest.

That's a big percentage. People don't always know if they had donors set forward. So the real number may actually be higher, but 67% said they knew people set forward. And 18% said that they received a living donor transplant.

So the 18% is significant because if you look at how many people on the waiting list for a transplant receive a living donor transplant is about 7%. Typically, the people living donor transplant if they're on the waiting list. And so 18% saying that they got one after this program is a big increase. And we hope to only build on that.

So yeah, we're always, like I said, expanding the program and adding new resources and more intensive support for people. Well, those are successful numbers. So you're doing something right. Yeah, we're really, really proud of the program and, you know, just seeing those results come in and that is making a difference.

And we're hearing more and more success stories from people who just heard from somebody recently who I think I mentioned him earlier, but he, after the program he shared with his church, and somebody from his church donated to him. We have another woman who shared with family members who didn't know yet, not everybody knew and somebody from her family, I think it was her uncle. Somebody, you know, that she hadn't let know yet donated to her. And so she actually received that living donor transplant.

I think it was maybe nine months after the program somewhere around there. And so we invited her to a program a year after the one she attended. And she shared that, hey, I came to this program a year ago just like you guys. And it worked.

I found one. I found a kidney donor. A community of support. And so we have folks listening and they're like, okay, I need more kind of go through where they can find these details about the big ask, the big gift.

Yeah. So there's lots of things they can do. One is I think that a good first place to start is to go to our website, check out the information that we have there under kidney donation. Lots of tools there about how to share your story, how to get the word out.

We have Alan who I mentioned earlier, we have his template of what he shared for people. That's a good place to start. And then I think contacting our helpline is another good place to start. So any questions that people have concerns if they want us to mail them free printed materials about donation and transplant, we're happy to do that.

We also have a peer mentoring program. It's just in English right now, although we do want to expand it to Spanish, but our peer mentoring program is one on one support for people. If they're somebody with kidney disease and they want to speak to somebody who's already had a transplant, we can match them up one on one by phone. And then if somebody's thinking about donating a kidney and they want to speak to somebody who already has donated a kidney, we can connect them to.

So it's all the mentors in our program are trained by NKF, they're overseen by social workers on our staff. And they're not there to give medical advice, they're really there just to listen and support people and kind of help them through whatever they need. And the nice thing about the peer mentoring program is people don't have to exchange any personal information, they don't have to share their phone number, name, email address, it's all done through this confidential phone system. So if they want to be anonymous, they can be.

Well, Kirsten, you were right. She's good. How amazing. Yes, Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on.

I hope that a lot of our listeners will go and check out the program. Thank you. And the last thing they can do is on our website, you can find a list of all of our local offices around the country with our national office in New York, but we have offices all over the country and they're the ones that hold our educational programs. So if you connect with them, you can find out what's happening in your area right now because of COVID-19, we're doing all of our programs via webinar.

But post COVID and before we have in person programs. And yeah, and if people have questions about that too, again, NKF cares, the one-stop-shop they can ask questions to, they are about what's in their area. So Jennifer, is there anything that people can do to learn about their risk for kidney disease or to maybe prevent themselves from needing a transplant? Yeah, absolutely.

So we have a number of different initiatives to try to find people with kidney disease early as early as possible, hopefully prevent them from ever having kidney disease or if they have it, slow down the progression. We want to do everything that we can to help people get a transplant, but we also want to prevent people from ever needing a transplant or dialysis in the first place. So prevention and early detection is a big part of what we do too. We recently launched a campaign called, Are You the 33%?

So we know that 33% of American adults are at risk for kidney disease, 33% are at risk. That's huge. Because they have high blood pressure or diabetes or they have a family history of kidney disease. So if people go to, let me make sure I get it right, it's minuteforyourkidneys.org, minuteforyourkidneys.org.

There's an interactive quiz there to find out, are you part of the 33%? Are you at risk? It guides through a series of questions and lets you know what your risk factors are and what you would need to do if you are at risk. So that's a big thing people should check out.

We also post COVID will start up our screening programs again around the country. So having people actually go for a little screening process to see if they're at risk in their community. And then we have a lot of resources for healthcare professionals to help them identify and find people early. Yeah, that's wonderful.

I know we've partnered with our local chapter of NKF and some of the screenings and you know, we're on the same page. If we could prevent people from even needing it, that's even better. Exactly. And then we'll work on the other side too to educate about donation and transplantation.

So thank you so much for coming on and sharing all these resources. Thank you. Alright guys, we are taking a moment for mental health. So what are we talking about today, Sarah?

So today we're going to talk about our EQ, also known as emotional intelligence. Uh-huh. So we know our IQ, but what's our EQ? Yes.

Listen. So basically, so just like with IQ tests, there are emotional intelligence tests that you can take or quizzes that will tell you how emotionally intelligent you are and if there's things you need to work on. So the one I recommend is on psychology today. If you just search psychology today and then go into their search box, they have an emotional intelligence test.

I hope it's not like those little toys at Cracker Barrel where you know, like if you have to leave a peg in it and then like you're a dummy, like I'd be worried that's one score. Yeah, I do well at those either. Yeah. Well, this definitely doesn't test your intelligence book smarts, but it's definitely about your emotional intelligence.

So you're not going to be tested today or graded here, Stan. But essentially what our emotional intelligence is is being able to understand people in an emotional aspect. So understand what people's needs are emotionally, what they're feeling. It just goes a little bit deeper.

It goes behind the words to how people actually feel and what their emotions are being able to understand that. And it's a really good skill to have. To increase your emotional intelligence, you can more people will like you. You'll be more respected.

There's more leadership. People who have higher emotional intelligence show good leadership skills because they can understand people and help them. Oh, okay. Got my attention.

So how do I get there? So how do I get there? So here's some key ways to build your emotional intelligence. So the first thing is to make people feel good about themselves.

You look good today. Thank you. I appreciate that. But it's true when you're having a conversation with people.

It's understanding what their needs are. So if you are talking to your boss and they're saying, you know, I'm just so stressed out, I'm trying to, I have all these things, understanding that I can help. What can I do to help you? It's a way to be respected and to get people to like you.

So you're good at that because no matter what's going on in the world, you're like, how are you? And I always noticed that and I appreciate that. That is a good tip. Yeah.

It's kind of good listening skills too. Yep. And that's the next part is to balance your speaking and your listening. Okay.

That's hard to do. It is. What am I going to say next? I have to be thinking about it.

Well, here's a good trick. Any conversation you're having, this is the rule of thumb I try to have is number one. First you listen to understand. Second you speak to be understood.

So lead with listening. If you can understand what people's needs are, how they're feeling, what they're feeling, then you can help out and you can be more there for somebody and be a better partner, employee, subordinate, whatever it is. Just being a good human. Yeah.

Yeah. And lastly, when you're having a conversation is to not ask too many questions. Come on, Sarah. You're killing me.

Yes. You don't want your conversations to sound like an interrogation. You want to ask the questions you need so that you can be emotionally supportive or just supportive in whatever people need, but you don't want it to be interrogating. You don't want it to make people feel pressured by answering or that they have to answer a certain way.

You just want to ask those basic questions. What do you need? How are you doing? How can I be a service to you?

And if you do those things in the beginning, then the rest of it will fall in line. These are just really good leadership skills too. It's a good way to be a leader. It's a good way to climb ladders at work.

It's understanding what people's motivations are and helping them get there. I was waiting. I actually have a friend tell me that sometimes I ask too many questions and that it sounds like I'm not really that interrogation. It's like you're not really listening and I was surprised because I thought I was actually showing that I wasn't interested by asking more questions, but I think it's the speed and just like you're already thinking about the next question instead of really listening.

Right. And if you're clarifying questions, if you need to understand better, if you didn't understand it fully, but really people want to be understood and validated. So following up with too many questions is like you're just skipping through this checklist. You're not actually asking me a question to understand what I'm going through.

So it's a good point. I had a really good point, but I forgot because I was trying to listen. That's not all the good, right? I'm not going to point to the point.

That was neat. Okay. I can appreciate and understand and obviously I need to do some homeworks now. You have a topic you want Sarah to cover.

Please email us, info at The GiftedLife.org. in our question and answer segment today. How do I donate a kidney if I don't know someone waiting? Kirsten, you want to take that one?

Happy, happy to. And that's one I've heard a couple of times out in the community. You don't have to know who you want to give a kidney to. You can contact the Transplant Center closest to you, as usually what I recommend for convenience.

And they can walk you through the process of the whole process of living donation and match you with the best person in need. And the great thing is that that's going to get somebody off the list and move everybody up. So if you don't know where the Transplant Center closest to you is, I recommend going to srtr.org. That's the scientific registry of Transplant recipients.

And they have a feature that they can find the Transplant Center closest to you or Transplant Centers. And we'll be sure to include this information in our show notes. If you go to the giftedlife.org, you'll be able to find them there. And if you're listening in Louisiana, we also have a living donation tab under the donation facts at lopa.org.

That's L-O-P-A.org. Alright, I'll get information. Do y'all have a question for us? Give us a call at 504-648-3477.

In every episode of the gifted life, we honor a hero. Today, we learn about Brantley Cole Spillman. And we learn about Brantley from his family. Our barefoot angel story began April 19, 2016.

Brantley Cole Spillman was the most beautiful baby and so special to so many from the day he arrived. To look at this baby, West 11. He was our rainbow baby. He was always such an active child and definitely all boy, even with his doting crew of three older sisters surrounding him.

He had dored his sisters but knew from a very young age that he was just like his daddy and was supposed to do man things. Brantley loved to write his four-wheeler and work on trucks or other guys stuff like his daddy. It wasn't very often that daddy got away without him and Bo, his dog, tagging along. November 4, 2017, a very short 18 and a half months later, started just like any other day.

We never dreamed it would be the most devastating day of our lives, leaving us with an emptiness that can never be filled. It's been a literal nightmare living through the loss of this baby, knowing that a part of him can live through and help others fills us with a humbleness and gratefulness that cannot be spoken. His death, although still so hard to accept and understand, was not a waste. Our baby at such a young age is still able to touch, improve, and save others' lives.

Not a day passes that we don't crave to hear him or feel his soft little touch. Our forever young barefoot angel, our hero. And now we pause and say thank you to Brantley for the gift of life. And that's going to do it for episode 152 of The Gifted Life.

And thanks to Jennifer Martin from National Kinney Foundation for coming on and sharing the big ask, the big give. What a great concept. I know I enjoy learning all about it. Hopefully you did too.

Thanks for listening, everyone. And hopefully I'll be inspired you to register as an organ, ion tissue donor. You can do that anytime, register me.org. And go ahead and visit our website, thegiftedlife.org, where you can listen to any of our episodes.

You can also listen on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or wherever you like to listen. If you do listen on Apple, go ahead and subscribe and leave us a five-star rating so that others can find us. On social media, check out our Facebook page, the Gifted Life podcast, on Twitter and Instagram at GiftedLifePod. Thanks so much for joining us today.

We hope that you go out and do something you wouldn't normally do to help us make life happen. We're a team. Until next time. This is a production of LOPA, or the Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency.

The Gifted Life is hosted by Lori Steele, Joey Buudro, and Sarah Blakemore, our executive producer is Kirsten Heis, producer Ishelan Caraway. Intern is Rebecca Rannam, and we are recorded, engineered and mixed in our Covington, Louisiana studio by Troy Perez.