Common Good for the Common Wealth: Second Chances, Stronger Communities

What if the most powerful investment we could make in our communities isn't a building, a business, or a program, but a person?

On this episode of Common Good for the Commonwealth, Nancy Grayson sits down with Alecia Webb Edgington, Executive Director of Life Learning Center and the Covington Education Foundation 2025 Person of the Year, to explore what happens when we stop defining people by their worst day and start creating pathways toward lasting change.

Drawing on a career that spans the Kentucky State Police, international narcotics work, public service, and nonprofit leadership, Alecia shares how those experiences shaped her mission to reduce recidivism, restore dignity through employment, and help individuals rebuild their lives. At the heart of the conversation is the work of the Life Learning Center, where holistic education, workforce development, and deep community partnerships are transforming outcomes for people overcoming incarceration, addiction, and other barriers.

Nancy and Alecia discuss why collaboration is the key to solving our region's biggest challenges, how data is driving smarter philanthropy, and what Northern Kentucky can teach the rest of the country about working together for the common good. They also reflect on authentic leadership, mentoring the next generation, and why real impact starts by believing that every person deserves another chance.

This episode is a powerful reminder that stronger communities are built one life, one opportunity, and one act of belief at a time. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Welcome to Common Good for the Commonwealth, where we feature our uncommon advocates of Northern Kentucky who work every day to make our region more vibrant. I'm your host, Nancy Grayson, President and CEO of Horizon Community Foundation of Northern Kentucky. And I'm absolutely pleased to have our guest today, Alicia Webb Edgington, Executive Director of Life Learning Center and a dear friend. Thank you so much for being here with us today. I am so excited, honored to be part of this. But we're going to dip right in and we love to talk. I, you know, over time, you and I have really gotten to know one another very well, especially because you're a recovering politician. My husband is a recovering politician, and we have some more stories, I'm sure, that we could share. Maybe that would be for a cocktail hour instead of this podcast. But our our roots are not here in northern Kentucky, interestingly. They are now, but both of us grew up in different parts of the state. So talk a little bit more about your roots and maybe how that's impacted your journey, which has been so fascinating. We'll dig into the different roles you've had too.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

Sure. So I grew up in Evanson County, Kentucky. For those of you that are not familiar with Evanson County, uh, my mom and dad's front door to the front main entrance of Mammoth Cave National Park is 10 miles apart. And so uh and and growing up in Evanson County was fabulous. I mean, we were always outside and doing fun things. And I was always one of those children that like to swim upstream. And uh so in 1990, the state police did away with their hike requirement. And I um applied and got accepted to the state police academy. And so I was already had that flavor for law enforcement. I've been working in the sheriff's office for a little bit of time there in MC County, but not to the level for which I then contracted, which was with the Kentucky State Police. And so out of the state police academy, uh back in the day, it was unique how we were selected for our post. We actually drew those out of a cigar box.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

What?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Absolutely. And um we could trade for one week. I drew Pikeel host, and quite frankly, I was satisfied to go to Pikeville. Uh I thought it would give me a good opportunity to learn and really engage in the state police law enforcement career. But uh my roommate at the time, she was an only child and she needed to go back to Pykel County to help take care of her parents. And so she traded with me and she gave me this post, and it was dry bridge. I saw this uh which is so then I put a dove on a bat. Yes, and I found dry ridge, and I can remember the first day that crossed into the Great County Corridor. I was like, well, Alicia, here you are. And uh I have been here now over 35 years. So uh, you know, state police brought me here, but uh throughout my time with the state police, I started uh working narcotics and uh my husband's retired Covington police officer when we met on the job. We've been married 33 years, and so now you know the rest of the story.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

And you are firmly a northern Kentuckian now. Yes, I and thank you for your service, by the way, your husbands. You've seen a lot, and I know we've chatted about that some too. I, if I recall correctly, I think your experiences in that wall have really helped to shape your perspective of the work that you're doing today. So talk to me a little bit about uh Life Learning Center and what you do, and then what is that connection between what you used to do and what you're doing at?

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Great question. So, as president of Life Learning Center, uh first, let me give you the background on the organization. We provide holistic education and care continuums to serve that risk population. And when I first came to tour the facility in 2016, it was everything that those of us that had been in the criminal justice ecosystem had discussed that people needed, that we did not have access to, nor did we have the resources to make it happen, both from community partners all the way to financial resources. And so I toured and I saw what uh our founder, Bill Butler, was trying to accomplish, and I was in awe of what he had designed and created because again, it was everything that those of us that had been in the criminal justice world, we knew that folks needed a pathway to reintegrate into society that would help them to develop their dignity, uh, give them hope and an opportunity to get back in the workforce. And so the value of that is there's dignity in work, getting people back into the workforce that had suffered incarceration, substance use disorder, that's that's not an easy task. And um, but you know, just to reflect for a minute, last year in 2025, we put over 15 million dollars back into the economy, wow, putting our folks back to work. Wow. And so um, and and the second part of your question was what prepared me for this? Um you know, when you're in law enforcement, you are dealing with raw humanity, and you you are seeing people at their most vulnerable moment, and frankly, uh at some of their worst moments. And again, oftentimes us in law enforcement, we don't have the resources to be able to address everything that they need. I'm not saying that at Like Learning Center we're everything to everybody, but we certainly have the resources, we can start working on individuals with the holistic education continuum and for them to take ownership and accountability and give them a metaphorical toolkit to be able to reintegrate and just decide.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

And I think when I've taken the tour and have heard about um the 12 weeks, if I recall, of programming, uh really education, it's very formative, but it's more holistic that the candidates are going through. What are some of the things that you address in those 12 weeks?

SPEAKER_02 7:01

So in those 12 weeks, we look at five pillars of life physical, financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual. We do not teach ideology in Hadlive Learning Center, but we do speak to higher power, uh, much driven by what is taught in 12-step programs, and uh about putting others before themselves. Um also I think the that looking at all of those pillars, those are the base tenets of life. And while those of us who have had good mentors in life, educators, parents, grandparents, coaches, uh, employers, some of these folks have not had those resources available to them. And so basically in 102 classroom hours, we're trying to teach people everything that they learned in 18 years, which I know that sounds a bit over my career. And sometimes it seems that way, Nancy. But um, you know, again, all of the bits and pieces of my career, I mean, while I was in the state police, as you know, I spent a period of time working international narcotics and law enforcement in the State Department, and I am a recovering politician. I think that knowing the policy side, uh, knowing the side of the law enforcement community, criminal justice, and from a national or foreign policy issue, international actually, um, is really helped me to develop my resume so that I better understand the depth and breadth in which we need to be looking at some of these solutions to community problems.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Oh, yes. Well, and I think of gears, right? And and the gear that impacts the most change is policy overall. We can be doing everything we are able to do in a local community, helping individuals or helping groups, but really to have that large scale. I've always felt like my theory of impact is let's use philanthropy and private investment to show proof of concept and to innovate, to act quickly, to respond. And then when you show a case that's successful to allow government to come in and to scale it and to really provide more sustainability. So I think the idea that focusing on the policy piece allows us to move more towards good at a single swipe rather than trying to snip one diamond here and there. It's very fair.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

And what I applaud Horizon for is you all could bring all of us nonprofits together to look at a collaborative effort, to look at an ecosystem wherein each one of us had a responsibility and uh stay in our lane, don't duplicate service, collect good data, allow the data to then drive decision making. And then philanthropy helps us to support that, and then we're not throwing good money after bad. And and not that anything's bad necessarily. I'm just saying let's be effective and efficient. There's not we we can't uh as far as money goes, like there's limited resources, so we need to think very intentional about how we're gonna spend those, yes, and have a strategy versus willy-gilly.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Yeah, and I mean these are in philanthropy, especially these are Harvard dollars of of donors, and so having that trust there, and I'm glad you brought data up. I think uh for listeners who've heard me say on other podcast sessions, I'm a data lover, a data nerd, and uh we had a kind of a scan, I will call it, uh about a year ago with Ignitive Philanthropy, who looked at 990s of all nonprofits who are physically located in Boone, Kent, and Campbell counties. And there are 1,750, which is overwhelming. But when you take out the private foundations and the Chamber of Commerce and membership groups, um, you really narrow it down to true organizations that are acting like a nonprofit agency. And there are actually closer to 300, which is still a large number for the three county footprint that we have serving 400,000 people, but you can kind of get your arms around it a little more. And part of that scan, to your point about dollars, uh, was looking at where funding was flowing from into those uh different categories of nonprofits and what was the role that philanthropy had. And so um a notable one that I could give as an example was for those providing mental health care very, very strongly in earn revenue, so fees and government funding as those two legs bestowed, but the third leg of the stool philanthropy was only 1%. So philanthropy can help in that space, but what is its role when you're trying to address mental health issues? So I think of Life Learning Center, philanthropy can be supportive too, but you you can't just rely on the generosity of individual donors or foundations. You have to think of different sources of income. And you've been doing that. I mean, your background, I think, in government has really helped you and your savviness and connections, which is why you're the perfect person for this role to really take national attention. Um, we've had, you know, U.S. senators come in, uh, different uh, I would say groups learning about the work. It's now spanning across Kentucky. Talk a little bit about that. You you guys are growing quickly, which is exciting. I mean, this is a model that can be used across the nation, really.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Well, is you know, one of our passions is reducing recidivism, not limited to Kentucky, but certainly you need to look at home first. And uh we, you know, Colonel for Kentucky, uh, we incarcerate more people per capita than anywhere on the woe. Really? Yeah. I learned that while I was at the state of Marbett. Why shouldn't I share it? And uh so that data's a little bit old. Maybe somebody's out more how he's now, but um and because of that, uh, you know, we have this same we did have down the legislature that our money from the budget went to educate, medicate, or incarcerate. And uh, you know, we gotta we gotta think about this incarceration rate that we have and how we're gonna reduce that. But with that said, we are expanding life farming center is going to be more head, Somerset, and hopefully we'll be in Bolo Green. And then um, and we'll have about 40%, 35 and 40 percent of covered by that point. Why are you know because we're going to use the area development districts as book grants. So so we're excited about that opportunity, but we can't do it without partnerships. And so I failed to mention before at Mike Learning Center, much to your ploying about Clattery, we have 138 community and residential partners. That's incredible. And the reason that we need those folks is I need to stay in my lane and our life learning center lane is educate on our continuums, and the care then comes from those multiple sources that do what they do best. So for example, be concerned food pantry. We're not a food pantry, but we act as a satellite prevent. Um, so we source product for be concerned and we put food boxes together for our folks from Life Learning Center. But again, we are not in the food pantry business. So that is a community, an example of a community. A residential partner example would be tattoo removal.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

Yes, I love the story.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

And tattoo removal is we utilize those resources every day at i learning center. Individuals will present at Life Learning Center with tattoos on their face, hands and neck, they're inappropriate for the workplace. And Jo is exceptional. She will remove those for our candidates and members at no cost, and we permit her to see her paying customers at Life Water Center. That's why so it's those kind of collaborations. I and I can go on and on, but last mile food rescue. Yes. One of our biggest partners, and because of last mile food rescue, we our overhead in the cafeteria for a meal is four dollars and fifty-five cents. That's incredible. And we serve over 700 meals a week, but we are sourcing food from Last Mile, and then nothing goes to waste, which I love because it makes me sick to death to think of good food going in the length. And our folks eat very well. And uh Last Mile, we've sourced from Fidelity, St. Elizabeth Children's Hospital, the Reds, UDF, Krover, and on and on and on. And um I mean, it's those kind of collaborative efforts. And that's I think that's what makes Northern Mentucky exceptional. You know, our three county judge executives work together, sinks. And because of that, it does make us extraordinary. We hear that, Nancy, all the time.

SPEAKER_03 16:47

We do from Cincinnati, from other parts of the state.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

That's right. Yes. And it makes your foundation also more effective because they work seamlessly. Yes. Because then we can collaborate uh through formalized and informalized agreements to spit our money efficiently and effectively, and everybody stay in their money.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

And I and I think that sphere of collaboration is is certainly not um unique to any one nonprofit. I I think I've been very surprised in a good way when we've had grant applications to see how much collaboration is happening that maybe isn't acknowledged as much as we might think it is. And so if we're able, at least in a small way, to shine light on the good work that you're doing with these 130, how many different 138 partners that many people don't realize that it really takes that kind of village of nonprofits working together to serve your candidates and members. It's it's an incredible story. And I think that's why we are getting noticed because we are a bit fractured at times with our county jurisdictions and our 36 towns. And uh, you know, we're part of Cincinnati, but we're Kentucky and kind of our own personality. So being able to do it together and to stand shoulder to shoulder, which is why we exist as a foundation, but it's really just the makeup of northern Kentucky. And that was very different for me growing up in Leicington, which is very centralized and you know, urban county government, everything is very much kind of um and lost up. But this allows us to have our unique personalities of our communities, but then working together, um, we're able to get further, I think, so quickly, which is beautiful in my my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

I um 100% agreeing up with you. And to go back to your your data, uh Life Learning Center here's in the last 18 months, we put a system together, my LLC. It is a data-driven records management system for Life Learning Center. We collect over 80 data elements on every person that we serve, and we are now able to, and and we're about to embark on um taking legacy data, legacy data from the last three years and putting that into the system so we get a more uh full scope to look at who we're dealing with, what are the characteristics? Do we have weighted variables that really had an impact? One for which you are deeply interested in um housing, maneuver housing. Yes. And that housing is comes in different forms, but which variable is the most weighted relative to hierarchy of needs, and how do we accommodate these folks so that we can't stabilize them and get them back into work and clearly housing and food, safe insecurity and clothing uh top issues, value top issues, yes, to be able to get folks where they need to be and be able to keep a job. You know, I I think the thing that a lot of people are missing over is that many of these folks don't work because they don't want to.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yes. Yeah, talk about that stigma. She's a stigma connected with people who have been incarcerated.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

That is a fair, I mean that that question is because in in saying the stigma because it is out there. The reality of it is, is most generally the individuals that are being released from detention, they don't know where to start. They're looking at themselves thinking that that almost like they're not worthy uh to be back at work, which is it's that's very sad to me because uh all these folks should be able, they paid their price for what they've done. We need to get it back in the work. Or some for us as taxpayers, we want it back. Absolutely, it reduces recidivism, it adds to the tax base, instead of consuming taxpayer dollars, they're contributing. So that's that's ultimately what we want. And today it was remarkable. I just got an update from our employment team, one of the individuals, and he was so excited to come back and tell us he went through mocked interviews, and while he was still going through mocked interviews, he actually got offered a position, and the position he was offered was $75,000. Oh wow, yes, yes, in logistics because he had had a credential prior to his incarceration. He dusted that credential off, and now he's math. And in 90 days, he will be eligible for a $3,500 petty increase.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

And this is something he wouldn't have even expected. That's right, right.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

But you know, these folks are in 102 classroom hours, they're drug tested six times throughout the program, they're working on their sobriety, they want to work. They want to be back in the workforce. Uh now I would be telling the story if I said 100%. You know, we got some folks that you know, you know, they Don't see the value in work. But if once they say that to us at Live Learning Center, and we're not the program. Right. And we have to understand that. And I don't mean that to sound like we are not compassionate people. We are. But our job, what I charge to do by my board of directors and by the community is to get people back to the workforce.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

And you've been really innovative in this space. I know you're doing some work with the city of Covington. If you want to talk about that new uh program that you're rolling out, also a strong connection to different workforce uh organizations regionally, really trying to place your members and making sure that they have that success that you're looking for. Talk about the Covington Partnership, any some of these other innovative angles that I I mean I know are long, but uh for our listeners and maybe a couple of those different uh you're leading right now.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

We are so excited about this program of the city of Covington. So many of our folks have a gap in their resume. So we need to rebuild at resume a bit and work on some basic uh job responsibilities. And so we uh work with the city of Covington and the Covington Business Council to uh create ambassadors, and my farming center is providing the employment, the the employees, and they are uh cleaning Madison Avenue from 12th Street all the way down to the riverfront. Okay, and then they provide guidance and direction for visitors in our city, and we clean up and we sweep and we keep the tree wells clean and planting flowers. Uh-huh. And I love that because uh as many of you all uh that have been down 65, my uncle Johnny Webb has uh he's doing the beautify 65 project. So that beautify thing sort of remains in our family, but just knowing that our folks can be a part of planting flowers and keeping the community clean and picking up trash on our streets and making it welcoming and inviting our visitors and for the people who live here and our business.

SPEAKER_03 24:10

And there's a sense of private place, I think, too. Sense of welcome that we're providing. I've heard um a lot along the river cities uh considering us named as the front porch to the south. So making sure that people do have that sense of welcome when they're coming into at least the city of Covington and our other river cities.

SPEAKER_02 24:27

So absolutely. And then to your point, um the the other locations for employment opportunities, we work with the Chamber of Commerce to identify the top um employers that will that will take individuals that have suffered felony convictions in all of the paradigms for which they see Brooks. And we try to focus on those areas. And I've got to tell you, we we couldn't have a better community that welcomes uh opportunities for transformational employment. We have over 280 employers at welcome individuals that I got set of elements. And and it's just been through hard work and effort and the chamber working together with with the business leaders. And I mean, it's a solution that works, and and I've got to tell you, I my hat's off to all the business leaders that had been willing to take that opportunity and make it go.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

And this is a new row for so there's been a mindset shift, I think, over time. Maybe some education. Obviously, you go into the bath for for people you work with and then maybe serve. What what's coming next? What's what's on the horizon? I like saying that, even though it's it sounds like a plan and is intentional. Yes. What's what's next for like learning center?

SPEAKER_02 25:48

Next for life learning center is this growth pattern seeing how we can expand, how we can get 40% of the stake covered, uh, how we can continue to reduce recidivism. I make this argument all the time.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

An impressive data point that you share with me before. I know you're working very hard to keep recidivism at a very low rate, but I I absolutely was quite floored at the percentage that you shared with me recently and the success that you've had at Life Learning Center. Talk to us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

So our recidivism rate at Life Learning Center is 3.82% for our graduates. The national average is 83% for individuals uh one year post-release. And some social scientists should be saying, Alicia, tell us how you measure that. And so we still had two sworn officers on staff at Like Learning Centers. We're able to use a tool called Justice Exchange that has 92% of all the jail vids in the US. And we know every 15 minutes who's incarcerated and who's released. So we measure our graduates against that database. And if one of our graduates is reincarcerated for a new offense, we kind of started recidivism right. Now the value of that is for you as a taxpayer is reincarcerated, not readjudicated, reincarcerated. Because the minute somebody goes into detention, on average, it's costing you $47, to that be so expensive. That's correct. So you see why I think it's so important for us to reduce recidivism so we can put that money into early childhood development. But um, if we do what I think we can do with recidivism, all of us are for early childhood development and pre-K for all. So if we reduce recidivism, like I think we can do it, we'll have plenty of money to put in to early childhood and pre-K, and we will not have to raise taxes.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

That should be music to everybody seriously when they're listening to this. And I am not running for all. Well, we we can we can have a conversation about that too. We would be so fortunate to have you inaugural again. Um, you know what, actually, this conversation does pivot a little bit into something that I want to know that there are so many women who really look up to you, and I'm one of them, but it respect you, you're not only the impact that you've had and your journey along the way, but you're very much part of uh helping other women out of um the phrase lean in kind of drives me a little bit crazy sometime. I'm like, let's just get work done, and I know you have that mindset too. But you are very supportive and and nurturing, I think, of women who are are looking at like what will their future career look like? How do they become leaders in their own right? You have any little negative advice for those listening who maybe want to hear wisdom coming from the miss Alicia Wada J Tent.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Thank you for saying what you said. And and it I I will say I I never want to be one of those people that other women than book and say, oh, she, you know, she stepped on everybody's back to hit where she's at. I'm not I want to be thought of as one of those people that turned around and grabbed somebody by the hand, brought them with me. Uh I I've had a good career, but I want to see our young women in this community grow and take on those leadership roles. I mean, that's part of why we we're involved with Excel Red. We we want them to grow and be the next best version, yes, whatever that looks like. I have this mantra that I use um a lot around all this, and I say to folks, be authentic. Rare is authenticity. Do hard work and surrender the outcome. And if you do those things now, full disclosure, I need to work on them because these are my hard power is surrendering. That's sorry, sometimes I will and everybody that knows me just hurt at least. I mean they're going to yeah, yeah, yeah. Um because patience is not one of my virtues. But I have learned, I'm six years old. I have learned that if we surrender the outcome will effectuate more true change because we we can't control all the variables. It's impossible as much as we would like to. Um but if we do the hard work and we're authentic, and that's you all heard me say earlier, you know, occasionally somebody will say something about my accent. Look, I've been in northern Contus and now for Linar uh 35 years, 36, and I'm just like my accent. I'm proud of it. It's awesome to change now. Dops. Um, but just be authentic, just be honest, loyal and respectful. Loyalty is a must to me, as everybody knows. Uh, I gotta earn respect, but I demand loyalty.

SPEAKER_03 31:03

That's why I cherish that friendship. I I feel authenticity is is a cornerstone of many relationships. Sometimes too much. You and I are pretty freak about a lot of things too. We speak freely. I I know for me it's it's maybe not a mantra, but often we're on panels together. I always challenge one in or anyone who's in the room uh to think about either serving on a board, mentoring a child, or running for office, which sounds scary, but we can do it. And I think if we had more people who took a risk and ran for any particular office or even put their name in for an appointment, it really would be kind of move us forward more quickly into the future. And I think people are a little timid in this current environment, but we we've got to, we've gotta just kind of pull up our bootstraps and say it's time some of us need to step into the arena.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

That that's exactly why. And look, if you're risk diverse, I I don't know what to tell today. We can't maybe mentor a child. Yeah. Uh, but you gotta take some risks in life because look, this is not a dress rehearsal. But we got one shot at this. And uh so and and we gotta make all the change that we can make in the of course in the right ways. I mean, um and leadership is one of those things. And Nancy Dura Play identify some boards and some organizations for which you can really bring your expertise to and and work on that, and then on occasion, use that as the launching pad to run for office. I mean, I'm sorry, but it's those kinds of things that you're like that you're involved in and you start thinking, that's a that's gonna do a bad piece of legislation. That policy doesn't work, or why are you doing it that way? And again, I I recognize you're not gonna get rich. We pop up surface, I'll be the first giant now, now, now but the rewards that we get on the other side of this are immeasurable. Yes, they're and again, I could not have choreographed my career to to have ever seen where I'm at now. I I I really couldn't, um, you know, and I feel like I'm in my last chapter of my career. And bringing these things together, this this sort of ingredients to this cocktail, um has worked and I love it, and I love every day of what we're trying to accomplish at Life Learning Center and Northern Withucky. You're not limited to Northern Tucky. I love this work, and every week I try to think to myself, what can I do today that will really be impactful and move the meeting? And I'm not blowing smoke, as you know. I don't know. And we're so lucky to have you in this world here we thank you. And and again, I just say that because if we all kind of come together, do our best. I mean, I know you've just we're just speaking to Charmelie, people like Charlene, people like you and Jean Schwart, Karen Feynon, and you know, Julie Kirkpatrick. I mean, I can go on and on and on. I mean, those would those are the women that are gonna bring this next generation to the forefront and and give them the courage to do what they need to do.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

And that gives me hope. Because there's so many women in these different roles right now, and we're working together, we are authentic with one another, and we do have fun when we get together. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

And you know, one of the things that you said, and that and we do this with each other.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

If one of us is not doing what we need to be doing, and you can tell Welly kind of knock it off, and no, I'm back in your lane with with kindness and love.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

And I don't but but I think that is there's value in that because I wish sometimes of all of my road of my career, some of the people have told me to kind of knock it off until we want it's a gift because sometimes I think we we drift or we just need to be reminded of bear we we're on a tape.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

That's right, as my mother can say get too big for our bridge. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, it's this has been a lot of fun. It is so much fun always to get to hang out with you and the work you're doing is incredible. Again, it is a national model and just to see how quickly it's grown and to get the accolades that you got then. It's it's because of the hard work and your leadership. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Well, before close, I want to thank Horizon for all the support you've given us. Thank you at Life Learning Center and to the community. And um, and thank you for this opportunity. You always give you lots of opportunities to be able to uh expand upon what we're doing at Life Learning Center and market who we are in our grateful.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

We're sisters in the trenches. Thanks. Thanks so much. This is Common Good for the Commonwealth. See you next time.