Sunbeam Strengthens Oklahoma Families | Sarah Rahhal & Angie Gaines

[00:59:59:58 - 01:00:27:43]
 Well, welcome to the Oklahoma City Nonprofits in Action podcast. We have one non-profit we're highlighting today that is in action. Sunbeam Family Services. We have Sarah and Angie here. We will get to them in just a little bit, but I want to pause for a chance to talk about our sponsor. Well, thank you so much to our sponsor. They help bring this whole thing to life and get the word out and all of that fun stuff.

[01:00:27:43 - 01:00:34:31]
 And speaking of fun stuff, we have two great guests today, Sarah Rahall and Angie

[01:00:34:31 - 01:00:55:29]
 Sunbeam. Hello. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you for having us. Yeah. I'm excited to have two people today. Which would be great, right? Yes. Dynamic duo. Dynamic duo. Well, I see already. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. I expect some finishing each other's sentences or something like that. All right. You got it. Okay.

[01:00:56:32 - 01:01:01:33]
 Sounds great. Sounds great. Well, I want to start with today an individual's story.

[01:01:03:16 - 01:02:39:03]
 Each do one. We'll start with you though, Sarah. Is there a story of some of these lives you've transformed through Sunbeam that can kind of help us start to understand and then we'll expand what this organization is all about. Okay. I love starting with a story that really highlights family because that is what we're all about. I think about one of the grandmothers that we served. She started with us in our Grandparents Raising Grandchildren program because she found out that due to her daughter's mental health crisis, she was going to have to care for her grandkids. And that is a big thing a grandparent steps up to do. It's huge and it's overwhelming. They need support and we love being there for them. She needed help with her little ones and she enrolled them at our early education center and she needed mental health services for herself, dealing with this adjustment, helping keep that relationship with her daughter because it was a lot for that family. So one of the things I like to highlight with a story like that is we're really about that wraparound support for the family because we offer so many services. We get a lot. Hey, what does Sunbeam do? Well, we do a lot but a lot of that is in that family space with young children and making sure a family is strengthened and reaching their goals. Yeah. Well, I'm going to ask you, what does Sunbeam all have? Can you capture that? Yes.

[01:02:40:18 - 01:03:52:13]
 Just help us out here. Well, I like to start with our mission because it is that building brighter futures with all children and families. We believe we're walking alongside families. We're there helping them live their best life and we do that with a lot of services. We've been around since 1907 and that's 1907. Almost a hundred years? No, that's important. Since statehood. Oh, you're right. My math is terrible. No, that's all right. We've got it Taylor. I think we can all got a math. Never mind. Yes, you're right. Over a hundred years. It's actually 119 years this week. But we have a variety of services that really support families. So, we provide mental health services for all ages and we have our early education centers where we're providing early head start and head start across the metro area. Not only do we operate some of the early education centers but we also partner with other child cares and school districts. We offer foster care, grandparents program, parenting classes, just an array of services that strengthen families.

[01:03:53:49 - 01:07:00:57]
 So, maybe this one's for you Angie. What doesn't Sunbeam do? Because I just heard everything. Anything else you want to add? Oh, well you know I think a really beautiful thing about Sunbeam is that like Sarah was saying we support the entire family and you have someone that's walking alongside you. So, if you are a foster parent, you've got 24-7 support. You have access to mental health, not just for perhaps the child in your care but also for the parent or parents and even their children because a lot of children have experienced trauma in foster care and it might be that you know the child in your care you're not sure what to do. You haven't seen this behavior before. What do you do? Well, you call Sunbeam where they're 24-7. At our early head start and head start our early education centers, we've got family advocates who walk alongside the parents. I've been at one of our centers when a car is broken down and then Sergio the family advocate, he's like all right let's go. Went out there with the mom was like all right what are we going to do? How are you going to fix your car? If it's not going to be available today, how are you going to get your child to and from school? What about work? I mean really it's a partnership and so you feel like you're never alone. Wow. Yeah, like it's such a lot of things that you guys do and I like that the wraparound mentality I think is very valuable especially I mean a lot of the themes of the different non-profit leaders I've been talking to what keeps coming up is just relationships and community and you guys provide programming and assistance and things like that but also there's people 24-7 that's impressive. Do you work 24-7? No. Okay. It takes a bill. And we have a few employees that do that and not all the time not all together. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. How many employees do you have in something? We have 300 employees. That's good about it. And when you're talking about families too and just to say a little bit more about what Angie was saying, I think the value of being in Oklahoma City is all of us non-profits really work well together. So not only are we wrapping care around a family with the services we provide but we're also doing that with our partners. We're a United Way agency so that we are automatically partnering with other United Way agencies to say hey this family needs a service we don't do because there are things that we don't do. Really? Yeah. I didn't realize that our partners do beautiful. Sure. So I love that that it's also about how do we take care of that family whether it's us or Pivot or Calm Waters or Rain Merge or City Rescue Mission that how do we best serve them and meet them where they're at in the community. Yeah. So I mean I heard a lot about that. Where's what's a program that you want to specifically may highlight and dive into that maybe your biggest one or maybe favorite? Yeah. I don't know if that's legal. Have favorite programs like Canfame, Child. Let's dive a little bit deeper into one of these programs.

[01:07:02:32 - 01:08:25:40]
 I would say yeah I don't have a favorite because they're all wonderful. I would say Motherhood Matters might be a really great one to talk about in a way because it's really connected to community. We started that program recognizing how do we support new moms and caregivers where they're at. So we reached out to City Rescue to Pivot to Rain Merge to CSU and said you know what we're really good at supporting pregnant women helping parents understand developmental needs resources in that zero to five space. Can we partner with you to do that? City Rescue is great at housing and really working on those resources for the parent and workforce. So we thought what if we put our staff where they're at so if they're at City Rescue Mission our infant and maternal health liaison goes to City Rescue and teaches the parenting class. Teaches probably one of my favorite classes which is infant massage which I need to explain. Yeah let's circle back to that. Now how we'll circle back to that but really how do we also go where the client is at because as a community you want a client in any family because we're also all clients. We use resources all of us. How can I get the best care where I go rather than send me to four different places.

[01:08:26:55 - 01:09:39:50]
 So we take our expertise in that birth to five space in community. Yeah. Would you like me to talk about infant massage? Yes we should talk about infant massage. So yes so as you know babies are wired for connection right when they're born and they don't do it through words like all of us do sitting here. So infant massage is a way you really teach a caregiver how to build that trust and connection with a baby with massage and there's all sorts of ways that it's helpful for the child. It helps them if the child is dysregulated during the day or feeling stress in their bodies or maybe the family just had a lot going on that day and it's this way you teach a parent that they can really connect with their baby through touch and help that baby calm down and learn regulation before words can teach them that and it's especially important for moms who may have experienced their own trauma or had reasons they didn't understand the power of touch or it wasn't done in a way that was healthy for them. So it's a really powerful parenting tool that parents can learn in our motherhood matters program.

[01:09:41:54 - 01:12:57:59]
 Any programs you want to highlight? Yeah so I think Head Start and Early Head Start is one of my favorite so I have a nine-year-old son and at one point okay so have you ever been around a baby who's learning who just started eating right and they're in their high chair and then they take something and they drop it and then you pick it up and then they look at you and they drop it and then you pick it up and they do it again and you're like what are you doing to my life? Do you know what that is? I don't. That is their brain growing and their learning cause and effect. You're doing a little hypothesis when I drop this my mom's gonna pick it up and then I'm gonna keep seeing if that happens again and so I think really understanding that 90% of a child's brain grows before the age of five and that there are all these different growths that happen in the neurons it's a million a second I believe like this is big stuff and so it's really cool because in our centers for the early Head Start it is four children to one adult so we have eight per classroom and if you are watching right now you are probably like my goodness that is an amazing ratio those kids are getting all of the special attention and what's really cool is that we have babies all the way up to age three in the same classroom so the baby is watching the one that's crying that's watching the one that's walking and so they're all learning from each other and they're growing we also do something called conscious discipline which I love and it's about regulating your emotions and so it's taking breaths it's being able to speak and share what your emotions are because if you cannot self-regulate if you can't calm down well then when you get you can't learn you go to kindergarten you can't learn you go to third grade you can't take the test right and so all of this is related and it all starts in early childhood and so I love that and I really do love that Sunbeam like Sarah was talking about motherhood matters that's a relatively new program and it's another wrapper on support for the families we serve and families in our community and I think too when Angie's talking about 90 percent of the brain developed by age five like we say that's not the main event I mean that's the main event that's not the warm up so it's so important that we really pay attention to how do we care for a family when they have children birth to age five because that then sets the trajectory for that child's life if they have maximum brain development and they know how to self-regulate and they are curious and they're learning they're going to do better in school they're going to do better later in high school they're going to do better later in work that we have to wrap care around that whole family for that child to be successful too and so really it's like a two generational or maybe three generational approach for helping grandparents and so I mean I think about it a lot of the things I just wouldn't know how to do unless I learned them from someone else and that's the same thing with families in our program maybe they they just haven't been around people who said what do you want to do what makes you happy what kind of career do you want and help them have that confidence in themselves and also connect them with the resources and support I mean it's really beautiful the programs that we have and the partnerships we have with other non-profits

[01:13:00:03 - 01:14:16:24]
 I mean former middle school teacher myself and speaking by that time obviously it's not impossible but it's like man there's probably some things that I mean I worked a little earlier to be easy on everybody yeah so I like the zero to five approach for sure we call it the foundation of the house if that foundation isn't solid it is hard to put up walls it's much more costly to do that repair work right or think about when somebody thinks I have to fix my foundation they feel like it's over in their house so we really talk about birth to five is foundational to later learning yeah I appreciate that some people do a lot of good very clearly in our city in our state and so I love I love to hear about all of that and we could go on so much longer I'm sure and there's all sorts of stories and things but the story I really want to hear is how did you end up on the Oklahoma City Non-profits interaction podcast what to put it differently how did you find yourself in this nonprofit work Sarah CEO Angie see if I got it right chief development and marketing officer how did you get how did you give those roles just briefly tell us that journey

[01:14:18:37 - 01:17:16:52]
 sure so I actually knew the person in this role before and I saw it posted and I was like okay that seems like a really interesting job and then I went ahead and I looked at every page of the website and I watched every YouTube video and I think I looked at every social media post and what I realized is that I had actually volunteered at Educare Oklahoma City which is owned by Sunbeam now for two years many years before and it was my absolute favorite opportunity I love the program I love the people I love the staff the mission everything and so then I decided I needed to convince them to hire me and I did and I'm on year eight so yes wow nice yeah that's good I mean it's good too that you can finish them that's part of your role probably finishes with people to get involved and influence with a smile yes excellent it's good to hear me all right CEO did you dream of this when you were a little girl like uh how did that happen you know I'm gonna piggyback off of that little girl so when I was a little girl my sister was born when I was eight years old my little sister and we had lots going on in our family we had a lot of family stress lived in a very small town and I became her primary caregiver in many ways my mom was wonderful but there was too much going on and so I knew at that point man I love little kids I love them and I got a bike when I turned 10 that had a bike seat on the back so I could carry her around town and so that's how I knew when I was younger I would always get into helping I'm a licensed clinical social worker and have done a lot of years in mental health and specialized in infant mental health so when the opportunity came up at Sunday like that's where I want to be I really want to be focused on that early intervention and really that wraparound support for families because when you grow up in a small town families step up for each other you know everybody knows the kids everybody knows what the needs are and in Oklahoma City then we have that opportunity to really be that support for families yeah that's great because not everybody has the opportunity for the family to pass down some generational wisdom there some people just don't have like I mean I don't think I'm unique my parents weren't perfect you had all the answers love your mom you're great but we can all learn something and there's science and things and all the evidence-based practices that are really fun I'm married to an early childhood teacher so I get to hear a lot of that which is very exciting so that's actually convinced me you know going on a date with her so like all that stuff but it's great to hear about all that Sunday was doing

[01:17:18:03 - 01:18:44:25]
 again so much stuff but it's all clearly very beneficial we're making a big impact again on the city of the state and the only other thing I would say highlight to as many of us in this community really focused on mental health we know since the pandemic that is something that you know mental health has had a stigma for a long time I think it's a lot less than it has been but still it is something that now we see higher prevalence rates of mental health with young children with adolescents and that really takes the community saying who's going to provide more mental health services how do businesses get behind it how do we schools get behind supporting our youth so I'm also really excited that there's so many of us really focused on mental health in our community yeah and Sunbeam does employee assistance programs you said businesses and so we partner with many different businesses and organizations in Oklahoma City where we provide those services and I've had a number of friends who work at those agencies and have said how helpful Sunbeam's mental health has been and they usually get I think six free sessions per incident and so it really helped them kind of change the trajectory of where they were at that time and be stronger and more confident and so mental health for everyone yes mental health is health yes exactly

[01:18:46:22 - 01:23:49:50]
 well tell me your mission again just so we can all contextualize all the different programs some of that mission again building brighter futures with all children and families covers the gamut it does well I definitely want to get us a chance to talk about how we can get involved we as in the listener the whoever's out there how can we get involved how can we help how can we be a part and partner with all the things that Sunbeam is doing I and Angie will have lots to say about that but I like to start with just come see us come see one of our early education centers come learn more about us because I think if you have an interest in young children or in supporting families of all shapes and sizes and ages really come see what we do because then it might better connect you to who we are that we have great opportunities for partnerships in many ways yeah so there are so many ways to support Sunbeam let's look at foster care so the first one please please please share that we are a foster care agency and a great one because we were looking for foster care parents all the time we do believe in reunification and so while the parents are working on themselves you know we're making sure that their child is in wonderful care and providing that support to our foster parents so please help us spread that word we're always looking for partners to help us with some of our events like our grandparents raising grandchildren holiday event we always need people helping us shop looking for businesses to support either by donating their time of course financial donations are always great and we also of course financial donations speaking of we are looking for partners to help us raise money so we can do the great work that we do every day that's another way could be an individual or it could be a business we even have some businesses that have put on food drives for one of our early education centers because we do know that a lot of our families are struggling to keep food on their shelves and so that's a great way to support as well follow us online share about us tell your friends about us just talk about the great services being done and just pick a non-profit support if you want to support something we would love that if another mission speaks to you then go support that mission or support a different mission every month or every year just to really help out our community absolutely yeah did you hear angie said picking out profits support them that is what i hope i don't want any listener of this show i mean you can get through maybe six or seven episodes but then it's about time you know start thinking about which one to support or maybe i'm at least finish off the first season i'll give you that but there are so many great organizations all different kinds of missions there's something that probably speaks to you and a lot of organizations make it very easy to get involved too if you can do a food drive if you can hook up a business with you like there's a lot of different ways so thank you for highlighting all of those so love it that's what we try to do on this podcast is help uh help people know about the opportunities to get involved things like that so well a lot of great stuff we learned about something today about you guys i really appreciate that i do want to turn a little bit to talk about oklahoma city because my last question here is going to be about oklahoma city and i want to ask you guys okay so we can start with you what is oklahoma's best kept secret which i purposely made is a very broad vague question yes because there are many best kept secrets um yes there are i will accept less now that we have the thunder waiting i think more people know about us than ever when i travel i always wear a thunder t-shirt because i'm like i'm so proud that they're part of our city but i would say the six degrees of separation is not true in oklahoma city and you might argue with me but i believe there's only two degrees we are all so connected when i talk to anybody of a non-profit or a business do you know so-and-so oh yes here let me connect you to so-and-so that this community this city of ours really functions like a much smaller community that relationships are at the front which is why i think we've built a lot of success over the last especially the last decade that it's really solid relationships and leadership that say working together we are going to be much stronger and that's unique in oklahoma city i think so too i mean you're both of you are not native oklahoma so both of the city is that what we call it yes but yeah there's something about this place i'm not native here either but i've been here 10 or 11 years and there is something a little different about this place and i like it yeah and i like what you said

[01:23:50:56 - 01:27:40:47]
 maybe one degree maybe two degrees some i say one but that's fine that's fine yeah but you're right everybody just kind of know everybody yes it's a very widely spread out in a way um still a lot of people but it's somehow somehow different somehow different but i think that's helped us really build a community that is much stronger with everyone knowing each other and working together and how do we solve problems like i mentioned mental health we now have the city coming together to really assess the mental health needs of oklahoma city and that's philanthropy businesses the city non-profits saying hey we know this is important look at what our maps projects are doing i mean pellamar is being built as we speak so i'm really i do think it is that connection and those relationships that are really seeing our city take off and why is that it hasn't yeah oklahoma's best kept secret what do you think angie i think it's the restaurants every time i have friends visit me they're like oh my gosh i had no idea and i'm like okay so we're gonna go to mott you like a food network yeah that chef's been on the food network a lot of times oh you like guy well you know we're gonna go to the saucy sicilian because he's been there and we can go eat the same things he did so i think that our restaurant scene has really exploded in a great way and that people when they come visit they're just surprised at the high quality that's here in oklahoma city well and the best kept secret at sun beam then is our food scene true yep we have at our six centers we have a chef at every location so our little ones do family dining they're exposed to tofu and chickpeas and roasted broccoli and asparagus and we partner with the lkc food hub and so we really um know that exposing children to really diverse foods flavors and spices teaching the families how to cook so when you said that i'm like hey that's one of our best references our food scene for our interests it's probably good to not only eat dino nuggets all the time no no yeah they are because they're going to reject it the first couple times but then they really embrace the flavors and the taste and so there you go yeah that's a good one that is our best cup but yeah the food scene here is impressive it's pretty good my food um and there's one good stuff right here oklahoma city's the hopping place to be that's that's what we learned today and sunbeam is a great organization it's also what we've learned today even from when i visited your facility even from the moment you walk in you have your receptionist is giving coloring pages to kids providing that just front of house just great service and caring for whatever reason the kids were there these kids they were in need that just needed some coloring pages and i think that is a good little small look at what the organization's doing just caring about kids and families and everything wrap around we mentioned that a bunch of times and and it's impressive so thank you all are welcome at sunbeam all are welcome at sunbeam it was great to learn about all the different things going on and there's so many different ways to get involved including i guess the food scene there come do a tour you can dine with us yes yes yes have lunch for the kids yeah all right sounds good sounds good

[01:27:41:49 - 01:29:57:45]
 well um sarah and jee thank you so much for being on this episode we do appreciate just your time and your energy and your stories and slight little squabbles about degrees of separation we like all of that we like all of that so uh thank you to you too for that yes thank you for having us and especially for shining the light as we like to say on nonprofits in oklahoma city it really helps all of us because we are part of the business community we're business with a big heart and we want people to know what we're doing out there so thank you very much it's a it's a cool community part of the oklahoma nonprofits scene and i'm privileged for my small role and just kind of getting to highlight these things exactly what you're saying thank you well to everybody listening today i definitely want to encourage you guys to share up this episode get the word out we talked about sunbeam today but we have great conversations like this on every episode that comes out every other week so stay tuned if today wasn't the organization that you know lit your fire you want to jump up and volunteer with there's probably one coming soon so stay tuned everybody on whatever platform or you listen or watch this thing and before we close i want to thank a bunch of people today first of all this show is brought to you by fiafu media and your host is me jake doberins want to definitely shout out rose records where we are right now recording taylor moore is our editor and has given us this allow us to be in this space here today super appreciative of him and joey renee creative did all our graphic design and all the things that i am not skilled at doing and finally i want to thank our sponsors all the different businesses and organizations and individuals that have poured their heart into this project to get the word out and to allow us to explore different channels and avenues for spreading the words and highlighting these amazing nonprofits right here in oklahoma city so thank you to them and thank you to our two guests sarah thank you