075: Helping military families stay connected, no matter the distance, with virtual story time featuring Sally Ann Zoll

Jen Amos 0:00

Hey everyone. Happy New Year. Welcome back to another season of holding down the fort Podcast. I am your co host, Jenn Ramos. I'm a veteran spouse and goldstar daughter and returning to season four now I think it's season four of holding down the fort. I have active duty military spouse, a mental health advocate, and military mom, genuine strip. Gentlemen, welcome back. Hey, thanks

Unknown Speaker 0:21

for having me. Glad to be here.

Jen Amos 0:23

Yes, and I have to say real quickly. I love the sound of your mic.

Unknown Speaker 0:27

Thanks. Hi. You're someone who helped out with that.

Jen Amos 0:30

Yeah, I wonder who that was? No, but seriously, it's great. Like, I bet you if you go back to like the previous episode, you're gonna see the progression of like your audio. So yeah, you. Alright, well, gentlemen, we have an awesome guest today. This is actually someone you personally invited. So let me go ahead and bring her on. We have Dr. Sally amsel, who is the CEO of United Through Reading, proud army spouse of over 30 years and army mom. So Sally, welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 1:00

Thank you so much. I'm just excited to be here and talk with two such energetic people who are so focused on serving on military families. So thanks for having me.

Jen Amos 1:09

Ya know, it's our pleasure. And Jenny Lynn, I thought I'd check in with you first because you actually thought of Sally to join us. So what compelled you to bring her on to our show? Oh, man, as

Speaker 2 1:18

we kind of talked offline. I mean, I've known Dr. Soul for almost a decade now, since my husband was a baby Ensign on USS george HW Bush helping out with United Through Reading events on the ship. So that was my first introduction. I'm at the time I had a toddler and was pregnant with our second child and United Through Reading showed up at all of our Family Readiness events and some things on the ship and provided books for kids help set up an awesome story station on the ship. And so I am the proud owner of about 35 Mini disc of my husband reading everything from Dr. Seuss to Eric Carl, and telling us about his daily life on the ship. And that was all thanks to unity3d. So I've long been a fan of Dr. Sol and United Through Reading and have spoken for them a couple of times and continue to beat the drum of storytelling. So yeah, I

Jen Amos 2:13

think that's incredible. You know, again, genuine, thank you for bringing her on. And I know that in our upcoming episodes, we're going to have people that you know, in our community to be joining us as well. So I'm very much looking forward to having conversations with you know those mutual contacts or with those contacts of yours. So, Sally, for people that are hearing about United Through Reading for the first time, tell us briefly what is it about and what compelled you to start it?

Speaker 1 2:38

First of all, thank you for the compliment. And thinking that I started it I didn't know. Readings been around for 31 years, and I have only a little over 14. But it started here in San Diego. It was a small San Diego based Navy century program that was started by a woman who her husband, Mike in Vietnam for a year when the daughter was a year old. And when he came home, the dog recognized seminar. So very familiar story as Jane. Kelly you and I'm sure she like she heard over and over again. Thanks. So she was trying to think about what was that could have kept them connected. You know, they did that little video cassettes, and they wrote the letters and numbers and what could have really created an emotional bond. And so she thought about reading, and what if, today, it had a video of VHS tape, I think back in the day that it had her husband reading a couple of her child's favorite stories. Wow. I'm down to a naval base San Diego and talked to a couple of commanding officers of the ships and said, Would you be willing to let me come before you deploy and set up, you know, here on that on the pier, my corner. And of course some of your sailors are would be willing to do that. And they can leave the VHS tape behind when they go. And so as you can imagine she had a couple who said, That's crazy. I don't think so we've got him on. And she had a couple of said, Sure. You know, what do we have to lose? Let's give it a try. And so what they found is that when those two shifts came back, those children really did have a much better integration with their parent. And it was not that tentativeness there was there was nothing like that at all. And so from that it just really became word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth. So it's very simple what it is. We provide the opportunity for a service member to be recorded. video recorded reading a book and we get the video sent home to the child. And we also get the book sent home to the child in almost every place. And so say is it's just simple, but it has such a profound effect on our families. Because it does make that reintegration so much easier. It does make the spouse at home feel supported because he knows that his wife is deployed is thinking about them in a took time to read a book to the children. And I make sure officers deploy. They're like they're participating, you know, in something that's going on at home, and dad and Airforce dad who was at home. And so if you said after dinner, he said to the history of the phase two little kids, he said, but it puts mommy's gonna read your story. And he set him down on the couch and putting the disc and his wife started reading the story while he ran to the kitchen and did the dishes. When his wife called later that night, after the kids had gone to bed, he said, Thank you, honey, for watching the kids while I did the dishes. So that made her feel that she really did have a part in the family routine that night. So it's those simple moments that just makes such a difference. Yeah, I

Jen Amos 5:43

can imagine how powerful that could be. You know, I remember when I was a military child, and my dad was gone once at a time, he was gone months at a time, you know, there was no like, video call or nothing, right? It was always interesting when he came back, because I feel like he would like break mom's rules. You know, and like, give me money. When I asked for it. You know, like you do all these things when you know, when he's around? Unfortunately, I did have like a pretty good bond with him. But like, you know, how wonderful would that have been to have, you know, a service such as yours, where it's like, I could have seen my dad read a book to me and have that same book, you know, in my hands. jennylyn, you heard about United Through Reading, you said about a decade ago? Can you share a little bit about what that experience has been like for you to, you know, be able to benefit from this organization?

Speaker 2 6:31

Oh, yeah. So our first like big event, a UTR did an event on the bush. And it was like, there's like a craft station with a certain book. And we got to take the book home. And, you know, they talked about their program. And we got to kind of see the setup on the ship of what it was going to look like when Matthew would sit down to record. So during the deployment, like I said, I think we received, I don't know, 20, some odd, it was mini disc at the time. Now you can get them digitally. And it's super fun. But we have like little mini disc of Matthew, reading all these stories to Braden, and he was 18 months old when the ship left. And so as he got older, and really kind of understood that that was daddy on the TV. I mean, Matthew babysat a lot like we have a very similar dish story, and that I had a newborn who took a lot of my time and attention. And so Braden would be very content watching dad read stories. And for us, it wasn't just the story connection. It was also like he would sit down and tell us about his day. So because by the time we got the disk, they were far enough away from where they were the day he recorded that he could be like, hey, today was the fourth of July and we had a picnic and we didn't you know, so we got to hear about those little daily life, things, which was also really connecting. And then doctors all said we also keep we get the books too. So a lot of the books that Matthew had read, we would have at home. And Braden could flip through them. And you know, that was when my kids are really young. And then immediately following the bush deployment, Matthew did an AI to Afghanistan and was able to work with United Through Reading and take a mobile kit to the fog there. And so we had 20 some odd more MiniDisc of inbreeding. So like I said, I've been in that point they were a little older. So we probably have like Eric Carl to you know, Dr. Seuss berenstein bears like we got a heap regress the book as the boys got older. And now we've gone several years without a deployment. But UTR has an app now. And so we have the app. So we're ready for our next deployment. And when we signed up for the app, we got another book that was age appropriate. So United Through Reading started my boys on the Percy Jackson series, we got the one from them, we've now purchased 15 more, because they love it, you know, and you won't find a bigger advocate of story and storytelling and reading than me. So this program and the people that brought it into our laps are particularly special to me. Well, yes,

Speaker 1 8:58

I think Matthew might get the prize actually, for a number of recordings. And Matthews, he got to be one of our most prolific users. But not only that, he and Jalen have continued to push forward our story and tell the benefits of what we're all about. And again, it's very simple benefit, but it just makes such a difference. We believe in getting the books in the homes of children as well. There's attorneys research that says more books in the home, the better educated the child will become. There's just a direct correlation between books in the home literacy and education. That's also a direct correlation between reading to a child and how successful they will be in school. And there's a statistic that came out several years ago that said that only a third of all kindergarten children had ever been read aloud to now to all three of us. I'm sure that just seems incredibly unbelievable. By the time you're five has not had a book read aloud to them. But that is a very lie. And they're listed as statistics. So if we can help, you know, flatten that curve to use that tournament record for a year, if we can help get literacy into the homes and make it a routine for families who don't have that routine, that we're doing something valuable. And for those families who do have a routine, like Jenny Lynn, and Matthew, in terms of reading to the boys all the time, it's just part of what they do to be able to continue that routine, and support them in that routine, we think is incredibly important.

Jen Amos: 10:30

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like there's so many benefits to what you're doing, you know, not just in an educational standpoint, but also the bonding of, you know, the service member with the kids while they're away. And so I think it kind of really makes that distance away from them not feel so distant, I think is the best way I can try to describe it. I'm curious to know. So you know, you have a very impressive background. Sally, you have a doctorate in Educational Leadership and Management, and a master's degree in special education from USD and a Bachelor's in elementary education for Purdue University. So tell me what is being the CEO of the United Through Reading mean for you?

: 11:12

Well, it's the best thing we've ever been able to do in my entire career, that's for sure. I started out teaching elementary school and then became a special education teacher. And it was always tied in to the reading component of education. From there, I became an administrator in technology at a large High School, and started my doctorate in focused on technology. And that was back in the day, when we called it software. We didn't call it stuff like computers and software, and not technology. So I've always been interested in technology and and how it applies to education, how it can help us do a better job in the education process. And at about that point, I was approached to talk to a software company in San Diego, and that was just starting. And they were creating k six education, software and math and reading. And they asked me to come and join them. And I said, I don't know anything about business. I'm an educator, and they said, Well, we need you to set up product develop, we need you to hire project managers. And I said, I don't even know what a project manager is. I said, Well, they will be people who will go in and do professional development for teachers. And I said, Oh, you mean staff development. He said, I don't know what staff development is. So we figured out as between his business expertise and my education expertise in my interest in technology, that I would be a good fit. So I helped grow that company. It was a very small company at the time, we helped grow it to several 100 million dollars that became Johnston's learning was owned by Jonathan's yearbook, people in the classroom people. And so I was just very intrigued by that, growing a local business to a national level, and started another software education software company, I did the same thing. So comes around to this other little nugget. My husband is not only an educator, but retired Army. And so we're a military family. And our son had just gone reserve status when he was mobilized to go to Iraq in 2003. And his son was 18 months old at the time. We did not know about a knife and reading, because it was really a Navy program in San Diego, and we were Army Reserve. And so we were out of that very narrow kind of silo or a loop. But I said to my son's wife, who is a teacher, you should record Corey, reading some stories before he leaves. And she said, Oh, what a great idea. And so she recorded him breathing five stories. And I thought she was crazy. He only had three days to mobilize and take his company to Iraq for the invasion. And so he was doing this at the middle in the middle of the night. Long story short, Cory was gone for 14 months with no money. And so when he came home, of course, season was over two and a half. But Ethan had watched Cory read those stories every single day. I mean, every single day, for over a year, at midnight, when Cory came home to the San Diego airport, Ethan broke right and went running to his daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, screaming, yelling, smiles just like this. And when we were looking around, and there were so many children who were hiding, and you know, putting their heads down, and not reaching out, and at the time, to be honest, we had no idea why we just was so glad. And so grateful. 2006 I was approached by United reading to take over from the founder. And when I started hearing all the stories from everybody saying that meaning of vacation was so much easier because of this. It just went

Unknown Speaker: 14:46

Ah,

: 14:46

it's just a little slow to figure that out. So it was like all the pieces and parts just came together in terms of our personal experience in terms of our support and military families in terms of my education background, my technology background. It was Like a Godwin, you know, it was just like, I had to pay attention to this one because this was meant to be.

Jen Amos: 15:06

Yeah, it just sound like everything in your life aligned for you to be. Exactly, exactly. And I think that's who you are, you know, 14 years later, like still running it. It's incredible.

: 15:18

It's a blessing for me. As I said earlier, he said, it's the best work that I've ever been able to do. And I feel blessed every single day.

: 15:25

Honestly, that was a new UTR story to me, I did not know all of that. So that was super fun. I'm actually sitting here like trying not to tear up because I just really love united to reading. And I also want to say, in addition to like having this ability for the service members, I mean, now they have an app, they also have a mobile story station here in San Diego, that's the neatest van that drives around places. And like you open it up. And instead of having, you know, a 15 passenger, there's like a comfy chair and a pretty floor and like a whole library set up. So they can be everywhere, which is super fun. And I got the opportunity to work with United Through Reading a couple years ago when I was teaching here in California and bring them to my school. And we did a reverse United Through Reading and that we had our kids read to their parents, and then get the videos out to their parents. So I happened to be teaching first grade at the time. And so I had kids that could not read with their parents left, who could read before they got home and said they got to send a video to mom or dad with them like reading for the first time for them to hear. So it was super fun.

: 16:39

As a first grade teacher, that gives me goosebumps, because I know what it's like the first month of teaching first grade, you think, oh, why don't you teach first grade because they cannot do this. And they can't do that. And they can't stand in a line in about March or April, when they start to read you say, this is why I teach first grade is like watching this flower unfold this miracle. So you're right, Jenny Lynn, that that had to be just such a gift for those parents to just watch what.

Unknown Speaker: 17:10

Yeah, yeah, I

Jen Amos: 17:11

can I can imagine how much of a tear jerker that could be. So thank you, gentlemen, for talking through that, because I could tell that was so impactful for you to share that and the experiences and, you know, turning it around to have the kids read the books instead, that's just Well, I mean, for a parent, I can only imagine. I mean, I can only imagine how speechless, you know, you can be able to experience that. So Sally, I have to take a moment to applaud you for being an army spouse for 30 years. That's a long time, I think, to be in this space. And, you know, like I mentioned, a lot of our listeners, or a lot of the people who tend to reach out to me are fairly new military spouses. And so if you don't mind, any words of advice to our spouses that listen to the show, particularly the new ones,

: 17:57

I would say, network as much as you possibly can, and reach out, open yourselves up, talk to people ask them for help recommendations. And if they say, Oh, I know somebody say get that number, get that email address, just really put yourself out there. Because it's tough stuff. And as much as our military tries and makes an effort to support our spouses and families at home, it can be a slog, and especially if you've had no experience, if you've grown up in a military family, then you're not quite as deer in the headlights. But if you haven't, and this is the first time, it's tough. And so I would say you know, you're doing a great service. So there are many others like you out there who are doing the same kinds of things. Just get on the blogs, get on the the web sites and YouTube and just listen and talk and, and reach out. That's what's going to save you That's it. It's that military spouse community, that's gonna hold your hand and being there when your spouse is gone. That's what you need to do. in your hand, like,

: 19:03

Yeah, go ahead, Daniel. And oh, yeah. Oh, I mean, again, in addition to storytelling, you won't find a bigger advocate of community than me, especially within the military, spouse, community. I mean, they are the people who, you know, came around, and I've been fortunate to live in communities that are military heavy and communities that are not and in both instances, community is what kept my family going through whatever the military was throwing Yes, at the time, you know, and so yeah, reach out, talk to somebody go to the meetings, like, it may be awkward. It may be weird at first, but inevitably, there will be at least one person you can talk to who will lead to somebody else who will lead to somebody else. And, you know, I feel confident in coming on this podcast because of the community I have in the military spouse community. I just kept showing up to stuff and I've had great mentorship and great friends. And that you know, that's really set me up Well for the job I do now and the things I do on my personal time like this.

Jen Amos: 20:05

Yeah. And, you know, Jalen, I imagine that you are setting such a positive example to your sons as well. You know, I think about my own experience in the military, like growing up as a military kid. And, you know, unfortunately, my family didn't really instill that sense of community. And so after we had lost my dad, we all kind of, like isolated like, we all internalize, like the death of dad and almost acted like, it never happens. And I had to learn later in life, you know, the importance of community, I was even almost skeptical of community. I was like, I was like, what do they want? What are they in it for? Right? And so now, unfortunately, you know, 20 plus years later to be doing a podcast like this, where it's like, wow, like, there are people who genuinely you know, just like Sally here, genuinely want to build that community. And I know, offline, I said community like 10 times, I was trying to explain to Sally what the show is about, but that's really what this is all about is community, we thrive in community, we grow and community. And, you know, the biggest thing is we can prevent, you know, mental health issues, I think, if we're together, and we remind each other, that, you know, this is not an easy life, but it's okay, we have each other. So, Sally, for people that want to get involved with UTR, or they want to, you know, benefit from the organization tell us like, what are the first action steps to get started? It looks like other okay.

: 21:24

First thing I wanted to say is that people ask this question all the time. So I'm anticipating

Unknown Speaker: 21:31

the door because the ground floor No.

Jen Amos: 21:36

I just I love it when people are comfortable with like, Oh, I'm gonna let you know, sometimes I feel like guests are scared to be on the show. And it's like, it's just like, it's okay. You can drink water. Anyway, go ahead, Sally. Yeah.

: 21:51

So what are the things that people ask us all the time, and, you know, we can Facebook and we can FaceTime. We can do you know, a variety of live back and forth conversations. And so we don't need to do this. And our response to that, then a proven response is that what we do is provide something that's repeatable, and reliable. So if Matthew is in Iraq or Afghanistan, and he calls me when at midnight, because that's the only time he can get to the phone, if he can get to one. My guess is Jerry Lynn is not going to wake up the boys, you know, and if she does, and then the connection goes away. It's disappointing. It's not a positive experience for anybody who's not a positive experience for Matthew, not for the boys, gentlemen, that then is left to deal with the boys who are now awake, don't understand why daddy went away, why are we Oh, we're gonna stay up now. So what we provide is this recording, that is, we call it mommy or daddy on demand. So it's when the children it's when the family needs it, if you get up from your nap, or when you're eating breakfast, it's the best screen time you could possibly give your child. And so when the child needs it feeling sad, or just missing or excited about a new book, or whatever. So I want to make that point to everybody that this is completely different from any kind of social media that you use, that's in real time right now, don't want that we want our families to stay as connected as much as I can. So if that works for them, and they have that ability to connect that way, that's awesome. But this is just another way that is more reliable, and definitely repeatable. And so you know, when you read a book to a child, and they say, read it again. And then they say with us again, and then they say, we cannot read the story. What we know is that the kids in jennylyn will probably tell you this, that they will do that with their recordings. Let's play it again, play it again, play it again. And there's great research that says that it's more important for a child to read one story over and over and over again, then you read 25 stories, once you get a context for them is creating vocabulary for them, that it's creating a whole slew of things that are very important in that developmental stage or 3d. So that's my one. My other one I just wanted to speak to is the app which you mentioned and gentleman mentioned, as well. I'm very excited about that. And quite frankly, it saved our lives this year with COVID. Because we have just started developing it. We actually gotten it to a release stage, just as COVID hit. Things shut down. We couldn't get in front of people. We couldn't even get mail to ships. We couldn't mail anything to ships, you know, the mail was shut down. There were so many opportunities where we could not go to a yellow ribbon event. We couldn't do these things. We were able to share with everybody the app. This gentleman says all you have to do is download it and we use IDB to verify that you are which is Very simple. And once you do that, you can select one of your own books, you can select one of our ebooks, you can do a variety of things in terms of reading that book, and get books at home through Amazon. And the children have that. That's also available for Vets as well. So if your husband's about the veterans community, Barry, we're really pushing for them. We have lots of grandparents and aunts and uncles, and retired vets who have been wounded will ill and injured. And so we want them to know that this is available for them as well.

Jen Amos: 25:31

Yeah, and you know, what better place to promote this mobile app and everything that you're doing then through a podcast? Because no audio so look at that. It's all works out.

: 25:41

And so to answer your question, because I'm really kind of hijacked your, your your question is to say, go to our website, nice and reading.com.org. And just go to our website, and we'll show you what to do with the app, you can also go to the App Store and download the United 3d app, and we're on Instagram and you're on Twitter. But the website is probably the best way to just really sort out how you how you want to use it, if you if you know, for example, that your husband is going to deploy it to a certain unit or certain command, we actually can look at our current list and say, we have a story station setup there, or no, we don't want your husband life to run it on a number of occasions, so by using our website is really the best way and we will be glad excited over the moon to connect with you.

Jen Amos: 26:30

Yeah, well, Sally, thank you for just doing such incredible work with you. Tr and, you know, continuing to make our families or military families feel connected and saying, I think genuine, I just wanted to see if you had any closing thoughts that you wanted to share to Sally or even to our listeners? Well,

: 26:48

yes, one thing I want to point out is, is UTR really is everywhere, like Sally and I are both based here in San Diego, but like we met UTR in Norfolk, so they really are everywhere, they can go everywhere. She's really serious about if you're deploying and you want a station to call them. That's exactly what Matthew did for Afghanistan. And he took all the equipment and he was the UTR guy. No, you know, it is just such a good service. And even though we have 47 DVDs, we of course have our favorite we watched the fourth of the reason I talked about the Fourth of July picnic is because that's the one we have 4000 times on repeat. And you know, we have benefited so greatly from United Through Reading that I really wanted to have Sally on today to share with our listeners because it made such a difference for us. I know it makes such a difference for everybody that uses it.

Jen Amos: 27:39

Yeah, absolutely. And again, gentlemen, thank you for talking through that because I can voice

: 27:45

I can I'm sorry. Yes, I would just prior every time I've spoken for United Through Reading, I've cried at the podium and had to like, you know, get this whole number.

Unknown Speaker: 27:56

And when she does we say Michigan.

Jen Amos: 28:01

There you go, Hey, it's okay to cry. It's okay. You know, I mean, I have like therapies. So that's where I do my stuff and everything. You know, I'm sure like, what is it? I was just talking to someone before this meeting or before our interview, and they want to connect me with a goldstar doctor to bring on the show. And I was like, Oh my god, I don't know if I can handle that. So you know, we'll see how that goes. Jenny Lynn, maybe I'll be the one crying when that conversation comes up. But Sally, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on our show today. I just want to make sure I've covered all my bases. So is there anything any final thoughts or anything else you want to share with our listeners here at holding down the fort? Oh, no, I

: 28:37

think you're doing a fabulous job. Such a great service to military spouses of military families. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for having me. So brilliant to bring Jalen on. You made a great team. And I know you were just going to do wonderful things for our military families. So thank you so much for that.

Unknown Speaker: 28:55

Yeah.

Unknown Speaker: 28:57

Thank you.

Jen Amos: 28:59

I feel so good right now. All right. Well, let me go ahead and wrap up to our listeners. We hope that today's episode gave you one more piece of knowledge resource a relevant story to make confident and informed decisions for you and your family. We look forward to speaking with you in the next episode. Until then, tune in next time.