#1359 Camp Sweeney
Dr. Fernandez has served as Camp Director for Camp Sweeney since 1991. Listen to the end for a chance to win a FREE spot at Camp Sweeney!
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Scott Benner 0:00
Here we are back together again, friends for another episode of The Juicebox podcast.
I don't do these very often, but today's episode is also going to give you the opportunity to win something. I'm going to be speaking today with Dr Fernandez. Now, Ernie has been the camp director at Camp Sweeney since 1991 he's a pediatrician, a diabetes specialist, and I think after you listen to this, you're going to also realize he's quite a lovely person. Ernie is going to give away. He'll explain to you the details as we're talking he's going to give away a slot at Camp Sweeney to one lucky kid, and guess what else us? Med is gonna sponsor this episode, and they're gonna send a second child to camp Sweeney absolutely free. Details on how to enter are at the end of the episode. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. Don't forget to save 40% off of your entire order at cozy earth.com All you have to do is use the offer code Juicebox at checkout. That's Juicebox at checkout to save 40% at cozy earth.com you can get on my mailing list by going to Juicebox podcast.com and scrolling to the bottom. And later, you'll see why that's important. Today's episode of the podcast is sponsored by us Med, and this is usually when I tell you about how we get our diabetes supplies from us Med, and the phone number to call, and the website you can go to, and all that great stuff. But today us, med has said, don't worry about all that. Scott, tell them about that another day. Today, I want you to tell them that we are sending one lucky child to camp. Sweeney, absolutely free. There'll be details at the end of the episode on how you can do that. Thank you so much to us, med, US med.com/juicebox,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 2:06
thanks Scott for having me on board. My name is Dr Ernie Fernandez. I'm an assistant professor in pediatrics division of Endocrinology at UT Southwestern I'm also a private pediatrician in the Dallas area. Drives me the most in life when people know me well, know me as my passion and the honor of serving as the camp director of Camp Sweeney the last 41 years.
Scott Benner 2:23
Ernie, 41 years you've been the director of the camp. 41 years, it's
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 2:27
been an incredible, wonderful experience. You know, this is the 76th year of Camp Sweeney, and for me to be been part of it for these 41 years has been extraordinary. That's
Scott Benner 2:38
awesome. So camp Sweeney has been is it in one location, or is it throughout the country? How does it work?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 2:43
It's in North Texas. We've served over 35,000 kids over these years, and what we do is we operate three, three week sessions in the summertime. Kids come from about 35 states and four countries in 2024 and sometimes we'll have even more countries, depending on the year. Has a pretty good reach around the world. No
Scott Benner 3:02
kidding. I'm assuming the camp owns property. How much property is it on? Just
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 3:06
under 500 acres. About 470 acres,
Scott Benner 3:10
just under 500 acres. That sounds like a lot of acres to me. Wait, I guess I gotta figure out what the camp is, so let's jump into it, and then we'll pick around a little bit. So I'm there for a week. So
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 3:21
you're there for three weeks. There are three, three week sessions, and it's like any other summer camp. As far as the experiences, the summer experiences, you know, in the daytime, the kids get to pick from 34 different activities. We have a big lake with slides, trampolines, jet skiing, fishing, you know, we have all the soccer fields, lacrosse fields, football, baseball, Paintball is very popular, volleyball, cross country, hiking rivalry. We even own our own FCC radio station called kpsc, and it broadcasts on the whole North Texas area here. And the kids learn how to broadcast. They'd have a video production studio, a podcast studio. They do crafts, you know, they do CrossFit, weight lifting, all those normal camp things. Then at night is just like a regular camp. We have big camp fires with a live bands that come out. We take everybody to a nearby city in Dallas to do what. We rent out, water parks. We ran out trampoline parks. We have dances, we do we hike and do overnight camp outs. We do all those normal types of camp activities.
Scott Benner 4:20
Are the kids split up by ages? Or what's the age range?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 4:23
So the kids are five to 19, and they're all there at one time. There's about close to 300 of them at a time. It's the largest program for kids with type one diabetes in the country. They're they're all together for really a specific purpose of how the program actually works through it, through its inspiration and mentoring cycles and what kind of sets camp Sweeney apart. And I'd love to share a little bit about how camp Sweeney has kind of grown a little bit over the years, please. You know, in the 1980s you probably, if you think way back to your early days, the DC CT, which was the big diabetes, you know, complication control trials, where. Being released, and they were ending, and the results were coming out, and it started to become incredible. And for people like myself, who was taking care of kids with diabetes, that just by implementing the different regimen plans that were coming out in those days, you could have profound effects on kids lives, not you know, their quality and their longevity of life. And it was really exciting for me and my colleagues to see that, that that was something that that we could seize on. Because, you know, prior to that time, when you were treating patients with type one diabetes, it was a little bit tough, because we didn't have the tools or the technologies, nor did we have the data that we could really, you know, change outcomes. And so we were looking at, I was, look, we're looking at Camp swinging, and we're saying, Gosh, canceling such a great kids come from all kids come from all over. How can we use this program to affect kids lives, not just when they're, you know, six or 16, but when they're 36 or 46 right? And that is what I have spent my whole life trying to do, and would love to share a little bit of that with you and your audience. You
Scott Benner 5:59
know, I'm interested. How long have you been an endocrinologist? Well,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 6:02
since the early, late 80s, early 90s. I started at Children's at UT Southwestern in 91 but I had been there before, prior to that, in training.
Scott Benner 6:12
What drew you to being an endocrinologist?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 6:15
I was a pediatrician, and when I took over camp Sweeney, you know, it drew me to take care of kids with diabetes and and it's what I've been doing all my life since, wow,
Scott Benner 6:26
do you have diabetes in your family? I mean, there's just the connection that you built once you've met the people. It was
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 6:33
just the incredible children that inspire me every day, and the things that we do with them, the things that we're able to help them with,
Scott Benner 6:40
that's beautiful. Well, for people who don't know about camp, I'm looking at the website while you're talking and there's so much happening. Just on the front page of the website. It's freaking me. There's a lake there. There's the I've seen kids on Jet Skis. I'm seeing kids climb. It just looks so kind of awesome, actually. Can I ask about how you manage diabetes for the kids, absolutely. And,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 7:01
you know, that's what I love to share with because, you know, when we started looking at how you change long term effects, we came up with what's called our four pillars. And the first pillar is called normalcy. You know, when someone's diagnosed with type one diabetes and they're just like any other child, they're just regular kids, and they're going through life, and one day they feel bad, and they go to the doctor, and suddenly are diagnosed with this condition, and things change. You know, suddenly, you know they want to be have blood sugars and CGM and, you know, different types of regimens and pumps, and suddenly, the child and family get transformed into this world in which they're focusing on many things and thinking about going to a camp out, or going to their friend's house for a sleepover, playing soccer, then become a little bit of a challenge, and everybody is constantly a little bit outside the circle. Long ago, we realized the first pillar of Camp Sweeney was creating a place where they felt normal. And so we have a large staff. We have about 160 staff members that that work at Camp Sweeney and of them, 70 are amazing counselors, which I'd love to share with you in a minute. But 20 of them are our medical staff, and they are from medical schools around the country. We recruit all over the US and also here, from UT Southwestern their medical students, residents and our attending physicians. We want to create an environment where their diabetes disappears, so we have a year long program where our medical directors actually kind of scour through all of the data in an amazing way. They aggregate everything from the summer before, whether their kids are on OmniPods or they're on mobys or they're on Riley links, or they're on empty eyes, and they're able to aggregate all the data for every age and every gender of every day they're at swinging. And they run them through this algorithm. And I'm not kidding. This is something that these medical directors are incredible, Dr Edward Carey and Dr Sumter, and they go through that, and they come out with a protocol for each day, for each part of each day, for each type of regimen to maximize the control while they're there. And so imagine this, this facility. We have this beautiful facility up on the hill. It's called our medical center, our Ryan Medical Center, and in there there's this huge control room. It's like NASA, it's all glassed in. And all these medical professionals stay in here. The kids never see this. This is all behind the scenes. And they sit in front of all these computer monitors that are on the walls and on the screens, and they sit there all day and they're seeing all the data come in from where the kids are at paintball. They're low, they're going, you know, in the cabins, wherever they are. And they apply these protocols that have been developed throughout the year to maximize their yield, whether it's changing their sensitivity factor, changing their ICRS, whatever it is, it's been recalculated based on the data that was that's been aggregated each year. And the results of that is amazing. The time and range for most of these kids, and in fact, in 2024 was about 86% when if you look at the nationals, just average of an adolescent in the country, you know the time and range is under 50% and so. A lot of this comes from all of this passion of these people doing this work behind the scenes. But the net result is that while the kids are there, they don't know any of this is happening. They're just having kids having a great time. Everybody changes pods same time. So we all, you know, changes CGM, and it's just in the background. None of that affects how they play paintball, how they're all doing lacrosse, whether they're playing baseball, whether they're right, you know, doing whatever they're doing. And so for 18 wonderful days, their diabetes disappears. And I can't tell you how many kids tell me that, oh, in the last three or four days, oh gosh, in three days, my diabetes comes back. But for those beautiful 18 days, it disappears. And that's the first of the four pillars that makes Sweeney a little bit unique in the way that that is harnessed,
Scott Benner 10:45
right? Do you allow parents to follow CGM while they're there?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 10:48
We don't, for a number of reasons. One, it is a vacation for the parents. And second, we have a very complex technological system there. We actually own 300 brand new iPhones. We just bought another set of iPhone 14 this year, and every child is transferred to one of our iPhones when they arrive. And we have this whole algorithm how we do that, so that their CGM go over, everything comes over. It's we've taken us forever to master this, and then it's all in our systems, and it's all being monitored all the time. And as I said, it's a large medical staff. And the medical staff we even have, obviously, a night staff that checks the kids at midnight, 12345, in the morning, going through all those cabins, making sure all that data is working, that nothing is out of charge. The Kitchener, you have to charge all these millions of devices, making sure that everything is staying in sync, that we're that we're able to make those adjustments so they're always being monitored 24 hours a day. The kids just don't realize it, because the entire medical center is up in this, in this big, giant building that the kids don't actually awesome. They
Scott Benner 11:49
almost made me cry, Ernie, can I call you? Ernie? Is that okay? Absolutely. Yeah. I swear to God, I was crying a second ago. I just like, just thinking about people looking after other people and and the kids getting a break and everything. You know, if you give me
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 12:02
a moment, I'd love to share these other pillars, because I can do them fairly quickly, and they tell you how it all comes together. Yeah, please. You know, the second pillar that we discovered many years ago is so kids get diagnosed and they feel different, and now they feel normal, but then they have to overcome their anxieties. And you know, all children have anxieties. We all do. Every one of us, every human, has anxieties, but kids with type one have amplified ones in many different areas, socially, in so many different ways. And so trying to get kids to overcome those is the key to success long term with these kids. And so what we do is we have a system that we developed way back in the early 90s in which we take these 70 amazing counselors that we hire, mainly from the Midwest. They're brilliant individuals. And I won't there could be a whole nother podcast. How we find these people. They're all incredibly brilliant. They all have GPAs above 3.8 3.85 is the average GPA of our staff member. The mass majority come from Notre Dame because we have an arrangement with them. And they come in and they're developed intensely for three weeks before the first child even arrives, because they have to be able to deal with this, what we call zoning model, this confidence model that we have, that we've developed over all these years, and it's how we get kids to have insight into their anxieties and how to get empowered to overcome them. Because kids have a lot of challenges. Some kids have Asperger's. Some kids have, you know, have developmental delays because they may have Down syndrome. Perhaps, maybe they have situations where they're oppositional defiant, perhaps, maybe they have issues where they've been bullied, where they've had tremendous where they've been victims, where they've been excluded. And what happens? Some have OCD, and we have the system that we have, where we allow our staff members to create situations where these kids can quickly identify their anxieties, and then they have plans for each one in a very safe environment for them to shine, to sparkle above whatever is holding them back, whether it's a public speaking, whether it's climbing up something they've never tried to do for something athletic, something, whatever it is, we have a plan. In fact, every morning, we get up super early, like it's six in the morning, and we go through every patient's chart, and we look to see where they are on these anxiety scales and where they are on these confidence scales. And every day, we put together a new plan to see how we can push that child to have that chance to really sparkle for that day. And it's an amazing thing, and it's an important part of how these pillars come together. The third pillar is something that we take for granted. We live in a very venial world. I call it the Tick Tock world, where the things that are valued tend to be incredibly venial. If you're great at at being a bully, you're valued. You see it in the media. If you're great at tearing other people down, if you take risks in your life. You're a substance abuser. If you're somebody that's worried about how they're dressed more than they are about including other people. People tend to value those things. And so kids are always in a free fall of trying to figure out what's real. And so for 18 wonderful days, we inspire these kids to value things that are real, things about. About them. And every day, these kids get so good at even the five year olds get good at this. They get in these groups, and they identify some virtue that they've seen in their little brother group or their little sister group, where they meet every afternoon. And it can be kindness, caring, helping the environment, including someone doing something to make someone else's life better. And they earn these little virtue beads that are colored based on the type of virtue, and they wear them on their wrists. But the thing is, each one of those virtues is identified by somebody in their peer group, and then the person starts to recognize that in themselves, that they really possess these things, and it makes them incredibly empowered to know that they can do stuff other than just the way they use their jargon or their language or whatever the world wants them to do. And finally, the most important part of swni is service. You know, when you have a chronic illness like type one, it's all about ourselves. We're always worried about, okay, am I going to make it through soccer practice without going low? Am I going to have trouble getting through that math test with God being high and getting blurred vision? It's always taking care of ourselves. And we all live in a world where I myself when I'm hungry, you know, I think, oh, I need to go eat, or I'm thirsty, I need to go drink. We always think about ourselves. And the problem is that we live in a world with others. And a lot of people think, Oh, these are my friends, or these are my people that are in my fifth grade class, or this is my soccer team. They're my friends, but they're really acquaintances, real relationships. Real friendships come from investment, from sacrificing each other, doing something for somebody else that's a little harmful to yourself, maybe, but better for them. And that's what gets these kids to start to learn how to develop those kind of relationships. And how do you do that? How do you teach a child to do that? How you teach myself? I mean, here I am, I'm a bit older, and you think, Oh, how would I ever learn to do that? Well, you do that through inspiration. You bring these 70 amazing counselors in, and they kill themselves. They work 18 hours a day for 77 consecutive days, no days off. And they do that because they're driven to help these kids. And these are, these are staff members that could be doing anything with their summers. They're very bright. They're sought after by many people, but they choose to do this passion, and the kids see that, and the kids are inspired. So then you create situations within the program. We do this mentorship program for all the kids 14 and older. Adopt everybody that's 13 and younger, and they're one on one, paired to be mentors, and they want to emulate what those concerts are doing. So they start sacrificing things for their junior mints. That's what they're called. The younger kids are called Junior mins. The older kids are mentors, and they sacrifice things for them. It happens all the time, and it's amazing. Sacrifice time. They sacrifice their merit tokens. They sacrifice a lot of things, and it becomes incredible. And they don't just stay together. It's summer. They're together, usually forever. I mean, they continue to keep up with each other throughout the year, right? And that's critical, because you know what happens is, after 19 days, all these kids go home, and they go back to the world they were in, where they were a little different, but they know what it felt like to be normal again. And they go back to all those anxieties and make them make poor choices, but they know how to overcome them. They go back to that world where they're being bullied or they're tempted to use language or bully others, but they remember what they possess that's better than that, that gives them greater satisfaction. And then finally, they've learned how to build the types of relationships that don't just last through elementary school or middle school, but for lifetime, they become better sons, better daughters, better brother, better sisters. And why do we go to all this trouble? Because all of the data shows that when you can grow a person, you can get get these children to do this, not just when they're six or 16 or 26 but when they're older. It has a profound effect on how they do with their type one, and how they do with many things on their lives. And one of the things we do in our data collection is we reach out to kids 10 years out, 15 years out, and we see how they're doing, check that the different objectives we're trying to accomplish. And that's how we're constantly adjusting these pillars to make them more successful. For these kids. I know I said a lot in a short time, but I know we have a very short time in this podcast. I don't want to bore everybody to death, but that's a little bit about how Sweden works. Hold
Scott Benner 19:08
on a second. Let take a second, because I'm gonna, I'm gonna forget a couple of my questions. So I want to go back to pillar two for a second, when you see these professionals come out and spend this time with the kids and help them with their diabetes and the and the social part of it, are you getting reports back from them later, like, how is that impacting their themselves professionally, and how they're dealing with children once they're back in their lives?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 19:30
The professionals teach the counselors how to look for the signs of the different types of anxieties and how to work. That's what that three weeks of development is about. Okay? Now we get ourselves into situations where kids have what we call pathological DSM, you know, diagnosis where they have severe generalized anxiety or severe depression. Those kids, we have to refer to somebody to come in to talk to them, and we talk to the parents about getting them the kind of help. But most of the generalized anxiety that we treat a cancer. Of art are routine things that need to be met and need to be overcome. You know, hypophobia. How many kids do you know with type one, I know in my practice that are terrified about going low, and their parents are terrified about going low, or they're terrified about being in a social situation, terrified about trying something in a sports wise whether they had diabetes or not, they had those fears, but then they have diabetes amplifies it. How do you get them to overcome those things? And we have a whole system that our professionals teach our staff how you do that, and it's basically a little system that they learn and they become very good at, also
Scott Benner 20:34
the professionals themselves, though. I mean, where this is coming from for me is that I've interviewed a lot of doctors over the years, and one more recently told me that as he was getting into endocrinology, maybe the most valuable thing that he had done was to go work at a diabetes camp. And he said that seeing diabetes in real life happen in front of him just exploded his understanding of what he should be doing for people. And I'm wondering like you bring all these professionals in debate, did they ever report back to you that they leave with more than they came with? Yes,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 21:05
well, you know, all of our counselors are pre med, so they all become doctors themselves, right? And so I have generations and generations of doctors that tell you that working with these children inspired them to pick the vocation and career that they're going through the people that help us train our staff members don't get to work with the kids directly, because they're they're just working. What's so critical about our program is what's called devotion. Each staff member has a group of children that they're, that they devote themselves to, and so everything goes through them, the way they communicate to the medical staff, the way they communicate to the professionals. And so because you want that one to one relationship to be able to inspire those kids, when you have a lot of people working with one child, it diffuses the effect of the inspiration that they get and the desire to want to do that. And so that's, that's one of the ways that these pillars work, awesome. And so the staff that work with these kids are more profoundly changed than the kids themselves. It's the same thing with the Mentor Program. This is, I always say this to everybody you know, the mentors, the older kids that that are working with the younger kids, are way more transformed than the younger kids are, because once you learn to serve and you get devoted, it transforms your abilities to do that, it makes you a much more powerful person in your life.
Scott Benner 22:24
Yeah, no, it really does sound crazy. I keep trying to picture like, you know, people showing up to do something for someone else. And I take a lot from what you said there, like, you know, when you do something for someone else, it does really, it really does kind of supercharge you in a way that you don't expect, you know, before you do it. And I just was wondering how many of those pre med, you know, medical students end up going back and being changed by because it sounds like you've been changed by it significantly. So I would it's why
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 22:49
I do this. You know, everybody at swni is a paid person except myself. I am the volunteer, because my life would be totally different if I hadn't had this opportunity to serve. And it started early on, when you first start seeing that you can change a path for a child. Let me tell you something. It just drives you to want to figure out how to make it better. You know, we spend year round preparing for these programs. We have meetings. I have meetings every night, this week, and all throughout the year, working on the little tiny details of every part of these pillars, like how the kids trays are put out, you know, where what music is played, what volume is played out, how you matrix the kids so you know exactly which type of child sits next to. Everything is so carefully calculated and planned out. It takes months and months of work to make that happen. And you know, the program doesn't end at the end of the summer. We have what's called PFC life. Our motto is perseverance, faith and courage, and so PS, PFC life operates throughout the year, from August through May. And it's, it's run by some of these ex counselors that that are now finished college. You know, they're, they're, they're actually been accepted to medical schools, but they, they choose to defer medical school for two years to go out there and do this mission of trying to help kids. And they do them in communities all over Texas, all over the United States. Just this week alone, last night, they were down in Austin doing a big laser tag for any kids without not they don't have to go to swni. They just show up. And we have these events for these kids. We're in communities three or four times. Tomorrow night, we're going to be doing a big trivia thing in Anna, Texas. Then Thursday, we'll be back down in Houston doing another big event. This weekend, we'll be down in San Antonio doing event. I know you know, you probably heard in the Chicago we're not allowed to sit cities around the country. We'll be in the north shore of Chicago on December 8 for a PFC life event. And anybody from the Chicago area with type one can show up. We're going to have a video game truck out there. We're going to have all sorts of entertainment for the kids. And then we'll be talking to parents about how swni works and and making that happen. On January 12, we'll be in Washington, DC. We'll have another big event. You know, there, you know, we're in different states every single month. We're in different cities. Every single week, three to four times a week. And these are all free events for kids that have never even had to go to swni. Never want to go to swni. They just have to have type one. And they spend some time together. And maybe they're inspired by some of our staff to do some of our pillars, and maybe to be inspired to come down to Texas and come down to camp Sweeney. That's part of all of this. I mean, we're not there necessarily to recruit them to come to Sweeney. It'd be great if they did, but we're there really to kind of help normalize these situations and be there for for kids in different parts of the of the country and of Texas.
Scott Benner 25:34
Do you think that families of like both faith and non faith would find because you've used the words faith and devotion a couple of times, and even though I don't believe that you've said it out right? Like, these are fairly like religious terms, right? So like, is it a religious base camp, or is it not? It is
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 25:50
non denominational program? People say, What about the virtue component? Well, the virtue component is just the character traits that we all possess. No matter if we have faith or not have faith. We all possess the ability to be kind, to be caring, to be empathetic, to, you know, to help our environment, to be inclusive. And there are a lot of people of faith that work at our program, and there are a lot of people that are not. It's a wonderful mixing ground. But what has everybody in common, of course, is the passion they have for the for these kids with type one, right?
Scott Benner 26:21
I wouldn't want to scare off people who are like, oh, you know, I'm not looking for, I'm not looking for this impact, but I love what you're saying. Like, don't get me wrong. Like, I just want to make sure the people listening understand that it's for everybody. It's for everyone. Yeah,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 26:35
absolutely. Did
Scott Benner 26:35
I stop you before you got to your fourth pillar? I think I did. No,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 26:38
the fourth pillar was service. The fourth pillar was how we how people look beyond their own needs, that to build those relationships, right? And and that's a key issue.
Scott Benner 26:49
Tell me again, three weeks. And how many times a year do you run the camp for three weeks? All right, now this isn't an ad. I'm just here to remind you, keep listening till the end, and you're going to find out how to enter the giveaway to win a free slot at Camp Sweeney for your child. And we're giving away two today. One Ernie is going to give away. He'll give you the details about how he's going to give that one away. And then we're going to pick a second child at random. Both of these will be at random, and that second child will be completely covered by us, med, US med.com/juicebox, but all the details about how to enter, and trust me, I want to make it super simple to enter will be at the end of the episode. So
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 27:32
we have the three, three week sessions in the summer. You know, a lot of people say, Well, you know, what, if I live real far away, how do I get my kids there? Well, we have what's called a point to point service that's also available that people can from any city. Can fly their children to DFW, and we meet them there at the gate, basically with our staff, and take up the camp. Most families like to come down to Texas to least bring them, they'll use the return service that's available for that. You know, our website has all the the enrollment information on there. You know, it costs us about $6,700 to have a child there for three weeks. That's our cost. We ask our families to pay 4700 I spend my whole year fundraising to supplement every single child $2,000 to come, because I feel type one is expensive as it is, and it puts a lot of stresses. But in addition to that, 50% of the kids that do come get significant financial aid above that. I mean way above that. Some people come, you know, if they're on Medicaid or, you know, it's based on financial need for just almost nothing. We provide campership aid, and about half of our kids do qualify for that. You know, our motto has always been, we've never denied a child, a child with diabetes that comes to swni for financial need, we try to always make sure that we have that available. It gets tougher and tougher in this economy to raise that money. We're not a public organization. We're a profit, a non a private nonprofit, yeah, and so, you know, but
Scott Benner 28:59
I just did the math earning. I think the low number you need is 1.8 and that's, seems like that's the low amount of what you have to fundraise every year Am I
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 29:06
did 2.6 million a year is what we give out charitably every year. Wow. But that's, you know, that's my job. That's what I do. I mean, my job is to do that. You know, parents job or to take care of their kids. Parents jobs are to try to meet their needs. And you know, if Sweeney Can, can help in any way, you know, we try to make that available. You know, they can go to one of the meet and greets. We have virtual meeting reads that are available seven days a week. If somebody just goes to the website and signs up for one, one of our program directors will get right on them and go through all the little details, because people have a million questions, what do we do with our Riley Lake? What do we do? You know, with the laundry, how does the laundry service taken care of? Do you have dry cleaning? You know, all those questions that people have. You know, that's what those, those virtual one on ones are. Who's
Scott Benner 29:48
asking you about dry cleaning at summer camp?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 29:52
More kids, more parents. And you want to know? I mean, it's unbelievable. You know, 40 years ago, that would have never been asked, okay? Mm. It. But nowadays, it's really the thing, you know.
Scott Benner 30:03
So if I can come in right say, I come to campus, we need to drop my kid. How long am I there as the parent before I'm vamos and how long am I there on the drop off? About
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 30:12
two to three hours. It's a fairly extensive process. We do a big session before you come that we do over the phone that gets all the preliminary gluco information, all this, you know, depending, I mean, I'm putting words in your mouth, depending on what regimen plan you're on. You know, we get all of that information ahead of time, but then we go through a fairly extensive procedure of being interviewed and making sure that we're not missing any nuances in the child's care, and make sure that you feel very comfortable with how they're moved in, and that all this stuff is taken care of. We want parents to feel very comfortable. We want the child to feel very comfortable. We don't want this to be an experience where, oh my gosh, I have this anxiety. I think first time, parents all have a little anxiety, but I'll tell you how they get over this. You know, everything we do is broadcast at night at Camp tween, so all of our things are broadcast live, and everybody watches everything. Parents always joke about it, that it's kind of their proof of life concept. You know, we have these flag laureates every night, and parents are we have 1000s of people that watch that live every night, people from different sessions and everything. And we every event, whether it's a campfire or it's a, you know, a talent share whatever, all broadcasts live. And, you know, it's become very sophisticated over the years. You know, you have multiple media people and stuff that that make these things happen. And you know that every one of those parents is glued to those, those things there, you get feedback immediately. My child wore the same shirt two days in a row. What's up with that? You know? You know, I mean, you get everything back. It's just amazing how much I don't think parents miss a beat after that and after the child has come to camp. Sweet for many years, they typically travel to Europe, and you can't get a hold of them until
Scott Benner 31:52
the flag lowering, but I did see Milan. Well, yeah, once they get comfortable with it, right? How about the kids like once, once a kid gets there, a new camper, does it take them a couple of days to I mean, I'm sure everyone's different, but is there kind of a marinating period?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 32:09
You know, it's pretty quick, because we're very quick to identify, and I'm not going to go into this, we're very quick to identify anxieties. Long before the child even arrives. We're ready to meet that like, if we feel a child's insecure, like they potentially might be homesick before they even come, because we could tell that by the pre camp interviews. We are ready for that the second they arrive. I mean, we have we're ready to put them in left brained activities. We have things that we do right away to meet those kids needs so that they can become feel comfortable and secure. Because we don't want anyone to feel insecure. We want everybody to feel good. We want everybody to feel, you know, like they're part of that. And so we tried to anticipate that long before they arrived, right? So that we're successful with that. It's
Scott Benner 32:52
awesome. So Ernie, people are listening, don't know, but I, I figured we wait about a half an hour before we bring this up, because I figure people who are still listening are very interested. You're very generously going to do a giveaway for one listener of the podcast to send their child. Now you said that most kids pay 4700 and they have 2000 taken care of by you. But for this one person, you're going to ask people just to pay $500 that the amount is to pay
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 33:18
the just to pay the deposit. Only you know, once that that is awarded through through this podcast, we will contact our registrar, can contact that family and give them a special link and a discount code that would let them sign up. That's
Scott Benner 33:31
awesome. Okay, and we're gonna figure out how to give it away. But I would love for people to visit your website. Now, I know you can't go changing your website to accommodate my giveaway, so I'll take care of the giveaway on my side. But what is the website, if people want to go check out, is it just campsweeney.org It just
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 33:48
campsweeney.org and it's spelled a little funny, because it's got its camp and then S, W, E, N, E, y.org, a lot of people that leave out that E between the N and the Y, okay,
Scott Benner 33:58
all right. And there I'm looking at it right now. There's a tab for camp life. What parents would want to know how you can help summer live. Keep up with Sweeney. Join our staff. There's a ton of set you can make it, by the way, if anybody's listening, this doesn't have a kid to send to it, but thinks it sounds amazing. You can make a donation to camp Sweeney right there on the website as well. Help Ernie dig through that 2.6 million he's got to raise every year. My goodness, gosh, thank you. Must be out there hustling. Man,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 34:24
it is not easy. But you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. 41
Scott Benner 34:29
years. What's the biggest difference generationally? Like, what do you see change each generation about what the camp needs to offer people to keep kids engaged?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 34:40
The superficial answer, of course, is all the technology. I mean, obviously staying up with all the technology and being on the cutting edge of what people are going to have and the tools that they're using to treat their type one diabetes, that's what's probably changed the most. Obviously, year to year, everything is got a new version, a new type. Highlights come. Now with a new pump. Actually, you know, before camp, I'm always looking way ahead of what's coming out to be prepared for that. Yeah, but actually, what is deeper that has changed the most over the generations is, really, there's a lot of stuff, you know, loss of value in our kids. I feel that the way media is being delivered to children these days is very targeted, and often vulnerable people are very subject to being devalued because of what is being, you know, driven their way through the channels that they become obsessed with. I could tell you my non diabetes practice, my regular pediatrics practice. You know, we struggle with so much anxiety and depression because there's so much addiction to to so many of these devices and these these social media streams that really lure these kids into basically thinking that that's what they need to do to become successful, is, is to is to be on that. And so Connor in that has taken a lot of work on our pillars. But fortunately, the basis of what we do with our kids, with the four pillars, is very successful in dealing with that, right?
Scott Benner 36:01
That's, yeah, listen, it's hard not to, like you said, it sounds superficial, because people say it all the time, but it's not. It's not lost on me at all. Like you can get a an incomplete or, you know, overly shined up view of what the world is. And now, if you're trying to make you know what is pretend online into reality. There's no way to do that, right? You're gonna fail at that every day. And so you're saying that these kids, younger and younger, are seeing something modeled in front of them that is unattainable, and they're striving to attain it, and then it's becoming a source of depression or anxiety for them that they can't get to it, am I understanding that right 100%
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 36:41
and you know, that's what one of our missions is. One of our pillars is to over, try to overcome that, and get kids to recognize what they really have right that that is, you know, gives them their superpowers.
Scott Benner 36:54
So, on top of everything else, at Camp Sweeney, they're not going to be on tick tock Instagram or whatever for three weeks.
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 37:00
No, you know, you you probably didn't pick up on this earlier, but you know what we I said, we have our own FCC radio station. Yeah, you may ask me, why on earth does the summer camp have a radio station? And, you know, it's so hard to get license. Takes years. You got to go to Washington. You got to plead your case for the SEC. It's difficult, and it's a big investment. And that was because in the early 90s, we realized that the media kids were being bombarded with had messages that were not positive for them, and so we recognized way back when, that we needed to create our own media sources. In those days, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have all this. So we said, You know what, we'll build a radio station. The kids will program. It will select music and programming that is, that builds these kids up, as opposed to taking kids down. That's how it all started, actually, you know. But once you have a radio station, it's difficult, because you got to keep it running year round. And so we have a local high school that has a broadcasting class, and they broadcast for us in the off season, and then we, you know, we run it the rest of the year. It's kind of a long, complex thing we've done, but, but it's all about what kids are hearing and what they're listening to and what they're seeing. Even our counseling staff, that's just remarkable in our other staff, you know, we have 160 total. You know, they're not allowed to have any cell phones themselves at Camp Sweeney. So when staff come, they're given a camp Sweeney iPhone, which is a real iPhone, but it's all locked into the apps that we use, and so that we're not bringing in social media from the outside, you know, because it's so easy for a staff member to get sucked in themselves and then, yeah, you know, you've lost their ability to inspire. I have a few people
Scott Benner 38:34
in my life. I'd give you $4,500 just to take them away from social media for three you wouldn't even have to let them swim in the lake. If you could just get that accomplished. I think it would be worth it would be worth the
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 38:43
money. Yeah, you know, you know, you just have to look for the good, you know. I mean, there's good things the media does, but so often these kids, these vulnerable kids, are very lured into it, and it, it doesn't help their overall, overall well, being, right? And that's what we're about, is, you know, it's great that these kids have a phenomenal time at camp Sweeney in the summer, but it's better for me to see them when they're 36 when they're 46 having a fantastic time in their lives. You know, being productive. You know, doing wonderful things while having to deal with a lot of the challenges and burdens of type one is bestowed on. It's interesting. You
Scott Benner 39:21
brought that up because it was my next question, because you've been doing this for so long, you must know adults who have gone through campus, kids. And is it, I don't know if it's a thing you're trying to quantify with, like, you know, follow up surveys and everything, but do kids end up having more desirable adult outcomes after after being campers,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 39:41
absolutely and when we do our data mining, which we do in August, to rebuild our pillars every year, we contact a significant number of people 10 years out, 15 years out, and we have specific objective questions we ask that are mapped to what we're doing to improve our our pillars each year. And. It's hard to get these kids, first of all, because they don't live at home anymore, and you have to go through a lot of going through parents and going through people they know and to get to them. But we do that, and we have a set now, anecdotically, I have many patients of mine that went to Camp Sweeney, whose children, sadly or happily, have type one now, and also go to Camp Sweeney again, in the second generation that I've taken care of them. You can see those parents, you know, and you can see how they're affected. But from a more I don't want to get away from the fact that we're very data driven. And so all these pillars sound great, but if they're not really affecting the kids, then they're not great. And so we spent a great deal of time looking at our outcomes to make sure that the work we pour into doing this is something that's that's worthwhile. Yeah, I
Scott Benner 40:44
mean, that's what I'm taking away from. I'm wondering why you're not running NASA instead of this, I thought I'd ask the question. You would say, what you said, you know, like, I want to go back to your points, like you set up pillars. Anybody could say, Hey, here's some things. These are our rules, and we're going to go with these because it seems right to me, and I'm the one setting it up, but you're looking at enough data to tell you, like, I'm assuming the pillars were different five years ago, is what I'm saying. Like, you're a general, very
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 41:09
different 41 years ago. Because when we first started this, you know, we said, okay, these sound like good ideas. They could work in theory. And so many things did not work. I'm telling you, this was not, you know, swni Today is totally different than it was in 1991 it's different every single year. Because what we do is we create from those, from that data, we create what are called objectives, and then the objectives become initiatives, and initiatives go into the pillars. And so there's a whole process of a lot of people working on this. And it goes down to the micro detail. I mean, just how the snacks are figured out. You know, every single class, how it's taught that we make the right objectives in basketball this year. How did we do with paintball? What were the How did that work out? Were we able to reach this type of child? Were able to affirm this type of child, if a child had Asperger's, was the music not where they were sitting, was it too loud that it caused this? All those things are constantly looked at and reviewed to be adjusted in a micro level, there's a lot that goes into it. I gave you the Reader's Digest version. I mean, it takes the entire year to make this happen well, and it
Scott Benner 42:15
takes decades to see things that need those adjustments too, right? Like you have to, I'm assuming come together in meetings where somebody says, Hey, did you notice that in this thing we had the music was so loud, people kind of were disinterested and didn't care, and then you have to make that adjustment. Next thing you're not just saying, like there's a magical decibel level where people
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 42:33
there is for every type of activities. We have it written, we know what the we know what they are. We know the types of songs, we know the beats, all these little things are very carefully looked at. We have a very careful plan of how we roll all those things out. And every year we change it a little bit to make it better and to make it better. And we look at the parent feedback that comes back immediately. We look at our physicians feedback that comes back immediately. We look at the blogging that's happened all, all summer long, by the people that are observing, because we have people that's their job to watch. You know how staff are doing, and then we start looking at the kids that are number of years out. So all of that comes together to help us adjust. Are you?
Scott Benner 43:11
This might seem disconnected for a second, but there are you a family man? Do you have children? Are you married?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 43:15
I am not. No, this is what I've done. I've made. I had that choice. I had to make that road change early on in this program, because it was, this is what I you know, I run my practice. I teach at UT Southwestern. I do this. So it's, it is something we do. I have a lot of great people that help me. I mean, we have a wonderful staff that runs, works year round, doing all these things I
Scott Benner 43:38
couldn't imagine. Actually, I was sitting here thinking like, There's no way he's married and has kids, because how would he do all this stuff like that? It really does feel like a, I'm not trying to butter you up, but like it feels like it felt like a selfless endeavor, as you've been talking about it the entire time, and I was trying to figure out where you'd come up with all this time if you had, you know, those other responses absolutely, you
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 43:58
know, that was a decision I had to make early on, because I said, you know, it's either this or not. And as this grew over the years and it became bigger, it became something that, you know, you realize it becomes important to kids and important to families, and you want to make sure that you're meeting their needs every year you we glossed over this. But, you know, I laugh a little bit about raising the amount of money we have to raise each year. That is an incredible endeavor. I do that almost every day. Yeah, last night, I can't tell you how many emails I sent out last night, pleading and begging. You know, I have a little event next Thursday, and we're trying to get, you know, that's one of our one of, I do three big fundraisers, and it's one of them, and it's one of them, and just trying to get that event going is, is quite, quite the trick. But, you know, I find that that if people have a mission, people and it's a good mission, other good people come and join, and they all come together, and they, they say, how can we help? You know, what can we do? And and that's, that's how you grow things. You know, together. Yes,
Scott Benner 45:00
$4,700 cents a kid. That's right, exactly,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 45:03
yeah. And do you know that's one of my admissions is to try to get people, kids sponsored. Probably not appropriate. But canceling that org, we don't have a link to this, because it's we. I never link our fundraising things to our main website, but if you put slash gift, it has the fundraiser I'm doing next week, and that has an online auction and stuff. And if somebody felt the compulsion to bid on one of those things or give towards that, I would it would be great. You know, as I said, all of these fundraisers, I don't usually tell our families about I do it, you know, because I they're burdened enough, and so that's why I don't have direct links from our website for them. But I do have indirect ones that I give people that I try to fundraise. You know, one of the other things is that, you know, breakthrough T, 1d which was formerly jgrf, you know, they do a lot of great work in our country, and I try very hard not to try to take any funds from them. So all the fundraisers that swni does is really, in the non diabetes world, I go to people from my general practice that I take care of, and that's the population that I try to raise money. And so then I have to teach them what type one diabetes is, because none of them know anything about it. I have to try to inspire them to want to give, right? And so it's a little bit of a taller order, because I don't try to go after the people that they go after, because I feel that's they. They do such good work. And I don't want to, I don't want to, to cross that, that line with them. It's
Scott Benner 46:27
interesting. I'm looking here you have a silent auction. There's some great stuff here. There's sports tickets and getaways and hotel I know.
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 46:33
I'm sorry that I said that. I don't usually tell people about this. I'm
Scott Benner 46:37
happy to tell them about it. I'm just going to tell you, you're going to have trouble getting people bidding on these cowboys tickets, though, who I
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 46:43
know I know, very promising, does it? I
Scott Benner 46:46
mean, I'm not going to tell you that I grew up in Philadelphia, and yesterday was the best day of my life watching the Cowboys suck for four hours, but I
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 46:54
don't think you would ever be even interested in that, but,
Scott Benner 46:58
but this is awesome, man. Do you really? You're doing really great work. I don't want to, like, I don't want to embarrass you, but this is really wonderful. I mean, just really,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 47:07
yeah, I mean, we're just starting. I just have those things. If you were to accidentally put, you know, between you and me, you would you would put slash 5k up there. You would see one of my other websites that I've that's an that's a big family thing that I do, but that's not till May. But people are welcome to look at all those things.
Scott Benner 47:23
I hope they do like I said, we're gonna, we're gonna get a bunch of people tell them about camp Sweeney so they can come look at it. One person's gonna win. You know, basically it's gonna cost you $500 to go to camp Sweeney and nothing else for your kid for three weeks, which is just, that's just insane. I really appreciate that. What else can I do to help get the word out seriously? Take these couple of minutes at the end and tell me. End And tell me we
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 47:43
would like to serve as many kids as possible in the summer of 2025 we have extra capacity this, this coming year, just to get to know us. If you can't come to one of our events, you know, if you could just go under, under the parent involvement and just sketch, you know, schedule one on one. You know, you could talk to me or to one of our program directors, and have time, you know, to visit and learn a little bit more of, really, what we're about going through a typical day, what the kids do, what? What are the things you know, going through the schedule, you know, making sure the child gets excited about this. You know, if anyone has any medical providers that want us to send stuff to their offices or do a virtual lunch with them, sent, you know, to talk to their medical providers, to give them information. That's what we're here for. Is to is information, is to share what we offer, you know, to try to get as many kids to Sweeney as possible every year. The last year was the first year that we were 1% off on our enrollment. We're always in 100% capacity, always. And last year we were at 99% and I was thinking, how did that happen? And it happens because sometimes you don't get the right ages or genders to fill everything exactly right, right. But I think the economy in the last year or two made it more difficult for some families to be able to it. And so I think people don't realize that we do have campership aid available. You know, for children, we try to make it work for them as best we can. So that's one of the reasons why, you know, we try to get out everywhere to tell them, You know what we're about. Because I think a lot of people don't know about our program, and I would love them to be be part of the swni family and our mission. Well, I
Scott Benner 49:13
hope this helps you do that. I really do. I appreciate you taking the time to come on and explain this to me. It's really wonderful. I forget how, like, somebody got me in contact with you. Yeah, a listener that, I guess, that sent a kid they, they sent me an email, and they're like, you know, you should, you should talk to Ernie from, from this beautiful camp. And I'm just really glad we did this today. Thank you. It
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 49:33
was, it was a listener from the north shore of Chicago there, I think, a wonderful, wonderful family, Mr. Sharon, you have Sharon, I think you must have met him at some time, and and his little boy, I think is a youngster, maybe seven or eight years old, and comes from that from Chicago there. Yeah. In fact, they're the ones that are hosting the big meet and greet that we're doing there with the video game truck and all. Okay, you happen to be in the Chicago area. That's going to be quite the event coming up. Out there on
Scott Benner 50:01
can I learn about that at Camp sweeney.org No, we
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 50:04
actually don't have those on there. I wonder if we should. But yeah, they are on there. Absolutely. They're honored that that that on the bottom, where it has all of the events that are scrolling on the bottom. It absolutely has that on there. So this is the December 8, the Chicago Oh,
Scott Benner 50:16
I see the scroll. Okay, I'm scrolling now. Oh, you have so much going on. That's why it's not right there in the front.
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 50:22
It definitely would be on there. Awesome. There's so many things that I apologize. It's hard for me to keep up with all that different. I
Scott Benner 50:28
don't know how you're awake. When do you sleep? Exactly? Not much. Is that the answer?
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 50:34
You know, there's plenty of time for sleeping. You know, you have to find time to serve. Can
Scott Benner 50:38
I ask you one last question? It's got very little to do with this, but more about about this thing. You've been involved with swni for 41 years. I haven't asked you how old you are, but you're not 43 so no, you give a lot of thought to how to, like, how do you pass this torch to someone else at some point? Absolutely,
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 50:55
I think about it all the time. I feel like I have another easily, 10 to 12 years. But there's so many people that do help. It's true. I'm the only one that really kind of does this year round. There are a lot of people that believe in this mission and passion, and I know that as it gets to be that time, somebody will submerge, to come up and be and do this. Because, yeah, 7576 years is just the beginning for Sweeney, you know, right? People always ask me, What are you going to do when? When diabetes cured? I'm always asked that question by children. I always say, you know, when diabetes is cured, we will be done. That will be our mission for that. But knowing what I know in all the years that I've taught this, I know that working towards secure is working towards the kids that have diabetes now and giving them more successful, healthier lives, and that's really the cure we can give. I mean, that's what we're about. There's a lot of stuff in research that I'm excited about and could be coming down the pike, but the one thing that is sure is that kids have diabetes today, yeah, and they need to feel good about themselves today. And that's that's really what our mission is. And what swni is
Scott Benner 52:07
you can't undervalue what it is to be hopeful, to know people are out there trying, whether it happens or not, they're trying, you know. And I always tell people that you should live like a cure is not coming but, but hope, like one it's right around the corner. I just mean by that is like, sometimes I worry that if people think, Oh, it's this isn't going to be much longer, that they maybe don't take as good care of themselves in the moment, thinking it's not a forever thing. But I like that balance. Just take great care of yourself today, be ready for when it comes, and then, you know, hopefully it comes in your lifetime and you can enjoy it, but until then, there's a ton of value. I think you've been talking about it the entire time. You've been talking really and understanding that there are people out there hammering away and on your behalf, whether you know about what they're doing or know who they are. I think that should make people feel good.
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 52:54
Absolutely true. Yeah, no, absolutely that is absolutely true. And
Scott Benner 52:58
I only asked you the last question honestly, because I've built this thing now, and I don't think I work nearly as hard as you do, but it is my 24 hour a day job. And I do wonder, like, I see all the people it helps, and you think, like, well, once I can't do it any longer, like you've got this fully formed thing that you know what it does for people. Like, how do I make sure it continues on? Beyond me, I struggle understanding what to do about that, so I just thought it was interesting question to ask you that's all well, that
Dr. Ernie Fernandez 53:26
is so important, and you are so kind to do this and to share the Word of sweetie to others. And we're hoping that this first conversation to families across the country to come visit our website and maybe visit do a virtual one on one with us, and just talk to us. I
Scott Benner 53:42
hope so I really do. All right, Ernie, I appreciate you taking this time with me. Hold on one second for me. Okay. Was I right? What a lovely man. So we're gonna pick two kids, right, absolutely at random. Ernie is gonna cover one of them, minus the $500 although we're looking for ways to get that 500 covered. But at the moment, one of you is gonna win a $500 all inclusive trip to camp Sweeney, just for 500 bucks instead of $6,700 what it usually costs. And one of you is gonna get an absolutely free trip to camp Sweeney. That's three weeks of camp, Sweeney on us. Med, now what are you gonna do to win? Well, I'm gonna tell you about that in just a second. Hey, kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know? What else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community, Juicebox podcast, type one diabetes on Facebook. Of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. Me. Okay, I'm back. Here's all you have to do to enter ready. Now the first thing is, we want to make completely sure that your kid wants to come to camp Sweeney. So first you're going to go to camp sweeney.org and spend some time there, really figure out what the camp's all about, where it's at, and if this is something your child is genuinely and truly interested in doing. If it is, that's step one. Step two. If you're a listener of the podcast, which must be because you're listening right now, but you're not following or subscribing in your app, just go back into your app and follow or subscribe. So if you're in the Apple podcast app, hit follow. If you're in Spotify, hit follow. Other apps call it subscribe, but subscribing or following is basically the same thing. So go into your audio app and hit subscribe or follow if you're listening online right now, that's cool. Just, you know, go into Apple podcast or Spotify any free audio app and follow or subscribe to the show. Okay, so now you've gone to camp, sweeney.org, you've looked around. You're super sure your kid wants to come. They're awfully excited. You've hit subscribe or follow in your podcast app where you're already subscribed or following, and then all you do after that is go to Juicebox podcast.com scroll to the bottom and subscribe to the newsletter with an email address that will reach you. That's it. Everybody who subscribes from right now, which is, let's see when's this gonna go up, November 15. So from November 15 at midnight until you know what, let's do it. Let's do it straight through Diabetes Awareness Month and through the weekend. So let's call it December 1 at midnight. So from now until December 1, at midnight, Eastern Time, everyone who subscribes to the newsletter follows the podcast and checks out campsweeney.org is entered. Then we're going to do a random drawing. And let me make sure I say how I'm going to do this first the first person I pick out will be the winner of the camp Sweeney Award, and the second winner will be the person who's going, thanks to us. Med, how's that sound? First one I pick is that? Second one I pick is us. Med, and I'm gonna pick a couple of extras in case one of you gets flaky, or something like that, or your kid, you know, is like, I don't want to go to camp. Whatever Am I done to happening? We're going to pick a few. How many will I pick? Just to cover myself, I'm going to pick six. Okay, six names. We're going to get the first two locked in to go to camp, and then those last four, I'll find something nice to send off to maybe a little swag from the website, or something like that. Campsweeney.org look around, make sure it's something you want to do, subscribe or follow in your podcast app, Apple podcast, Spotify, anything like that at all. Apple, Amazon music. I Heart Radio anywhere you can get audio. And then go to Juicebox podcast.com scroll to the bottom and subscribe to the newsletter. Now you're saying, Scott, what if I'm already subscribed to the newsletter? You make a fair point. If you're already subscribed to the newsletter, you can go down there to the bottom at Juicebox podcast.com and hit contact, and that gives you an opportunity to send me a message through the website. In that message, just say, I want to enter the camp Sweeney giveaway, and I'm already a newsletter subscriber, that's all you have to do. I'm incredibly excited to bring this opportunity to you. I was really touched to hear from Ernie. He's just a lovely person. After talking to him, it motivated me to reach out to us Med, to see if they could help me send another child. They very graciously and immediately agreed. It's awesome. I'm feeling so good about this, especially around World Diabetes Day and Diabetes Awareness Month. I hope you're excited as well. I'll talk to you soon, and if you want to do me a rock solid one, even though I wasn't supposed to add it in here today, hang on for another minute and listen to this ad from us med. I used to hate ordering my daughter's diabetes supplies. I never had a good experience, and it was frustrating. But it hasn't been that way for a while, actually, for about three years now, because that's how long we've been using us Med, US med.com/juicebox, or call, 888721151, 887211514, us. Med is the number one distributor for FreeStyle Libre systems nationwide. They are the number one specialty distributor for Omnipod, the number one fastest growing tandem distributor nationwide, the number one rated distributor in Dexcom customer satisfaction surveys, they have served over 1 million people with diabetes since 1996 and they always provide 90 days worth of supplies and fast and free shipping us med carries everything from insulin pumps and diabetes testing supplies to the latest CGMS like the libre three and Dexcom g7 Nine, they accept Medicare nationwide, and over 800 private insurers find out why us med has an A plus rating with a better business bureau at US med.com/juicebox, or just call them at 888-721-1514, get started right now, and you'll be getting your supplies the same way we do. Thank you so much for listening. I'll be back very soon with another episode of The Juicebox podcast. If you're not already subscribed or following the podcast in your favorite audio app like Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do that now. Seriously, just to hit follow or subscribe will really help the show. If you go a little further in Apple podcast and set it up so that it downloads all new episodes, I'll be your best friend if you're ready to level up your diabetes care. The Diabetes Pro Tip series from the Juicebox podcast focuses on simple strategies for living well with type one. The Pro Tip episodes contain easy to understand concepts that will increase your knowledge of how insulin works. And so much more, my daughter has had an A, 1c, between five, two and six, four, since 2014 with zero diet restrictions, and some of those years include her in college. This information works for children, adults and for the newly diagnosed and for those who have been struggling for years. Go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on diabetes pro tip in the menu, or head over to Episode 1000 of the Juicebox podcast to get started today with the episode newly diagnosed. We're starting over and then continue right on to Episode 1025 that's the entire Pro Tip series. Episode 1000 to 1025 the episode you just heard was professionally edited by wrong way recording, wrong way recording.com, you.
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