Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington

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Music 0:35
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Dave Washington 0:48
day Las Vegas. Good day Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. I have a few announcements to make, and then we have the wonderful, the great person who works in our neighborhood, and she is a veteran, is Miss Evelyn Pacheco. She'll be on the second half of the show. We'll have April Washington, our eldest daughter, who got the double nickels just a few weeks ago. She is five, 555, okay with that first announcement I'd like to make, I'm going to deal with the birthdays, because there's quite a few starting off with my baby sister Monita Armstrong. She just she has a birthday this week. My colleague, Eugene Campbell, birthday is this month. Deceased and an ancestor and a great lady, Miss Mary fountain. Tom Peterson, former Assembly Woman, Clara Thomas, another ancestor, Joanna Wesley, Cynthia Wilson, longtime family friend, Cherie Sullivan, and she has a big function coming up. She has a milestone birthday coming up, as I recall, Sandra Harvey, certainly Billy Knight Rayford. She's a longtime member of our community, a great educator, Jeff Walker, who is an ancestor. We appreciate the work that he did with new ventures, Capital Development Company. Attorney Lee gates, long time friend. We lived in Vegas, heights together. You talk about going back a ways. Tracy Jackson has kin folks, my aunt Ruby's son, Tracy, wishing that brother a happy birthday. Roosevelt Williams, the third birthday, Jeanette, johnette Hodge birthday, arleetha Stevens, she and I sit on, along with gene we sit on Frank Hawkins board of his housing and I'm the chairman of that board. We have some great meetings with Frankie's doing an outstanding job with that particular organization, Joanna when Lynn Clark, again, these are birthdays of folks that live in our community. Then on the anniversary side, which I don't get to do very often, but certainly want to recognize and salute my brother, Leon and Shirley in Washington, 40 years this this month, 40 years of holy matrimony. And then some long time, Las Vegas and friends. That's Ray and Flossie Christensen. They're like Marcia and I, 53 years, 53 years of holy matrimony. A great couple. You could tell they are a loving couple always out doing different things and living life. Congratulations to both of those couples. With that I'm going to bring in, and I'll have some other announcements in the latter part of the show, but I certainly want to recognize at this time Miss Evelyn Pacheco, hey Evelyn.

Evelyn Pacheco 3:38
Well, hello there. Hello there. Hello everybody, and and thank you again. I appreciate you because you are out here giving great information to those of us in the community, especially those that don't have a voice. I appreciate

Dave Washington 3:53
you for sure. Let me say this just give a little bit of that military background, if you will. I know you've been on the show several times, but we may have some new listeners, and I want them to know this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 jazz and more. And sometimes we do a lot of work on the plus side, but Evelyn is on the Veterans Affairs side, so go ahead, Miss Evelyn.

Evelyn Pacheco 4:13
Well, yes, I, I just recently did a bill up in legislation that did not even get a work session. But we're not going to go through that right now. But the bill is involved in data. Because when I did the bill previously, AB 305, they said women weren't interested in the trade. So this time, I said, Okay, well, let's get the data right that we need. So the data was to get data for veterans and for women that have applied for these apprenticeships so they can stop saying we're not interested in the bill. Didn't even get a work session. They said it was confusing and all that. But we also have a Nevada sisters United that. Me, Sergeant Dixie and Donna Lee, which are two Vietnam veteran women. We do it once a month. We go to US vets, and it's not like we're going in there trying to, you know, take over anything. It's just to go in there and simply sit and make sure these women veterans that are in there, they have questions, they need claims or any more housing, you know, because you only got a certain amount of time you can be at US vets, if your house there, right? And so we go there every, every month we do that. And also today, we go out every first Tuesday, at 1230 we meet at the elevators, the main elevators, and we do visitations with the veterans. And it's really humbling, you know? And and we got American Legion plus 51 DFW. We got fleet reserve. We got else, Dave and all of us just meet there, and we go to the hospital rooms and just, you know, bring some joy, or some crossword puzzles, a $5 gift card blankets. I mean, it's really humbling, right to no doubt. Plus, if you don't have any family and you're sitting in the hospital, and, you know, it's kind of it's nice, right, to have somebody come in and chat with you.

Dave Washington 6:23
Yes, for sure. You know what, Evelyn, I have visited a number of friends and, you know, in the rehab facilities and other folks, when you go by and see their room and just see the look on their face of sadness, you just say hello, and it seems to perk people up. So I understand exactly where you're coming from. And in that vein, I got my daughter sitting here. I think I'm going to purchase some tea cakes for you. When you make some of your stops, you can give out a Tea Cake or two to some of the clients that are or patients that are in some of the logos. We'll hook up on that because I think it's important. And this is, this is God works, Evelyn, there's no doubt. Because again, people get lonely, and like you say, when they're in a city and no one's there, come coming by to visit, that is heartbreaking. So God bless you. Keep doing what you're doing. Continue on. My sister,

Evelyn Pacheco 7:14
it, I mean, it is, though it's and everybody's like, Oh, you're just like, No, that's the you're right, because they'll be all grumpy when you go in the room. And then next thing you know, you're like, Okay, we got to go to the next room. We only got, you know, it's really cool to hear the stories, right? And what, you know. And then, plus we have today, we had all, all branches, right? We had Air Force, Marines, we had Navy, Army, go, Army, me. And it was, it's cool because we joke about each other, but nobody else can joke about us, right? We but, but we can do it, but it's just really humbling to listen to. And we had women today too, that we visited today so and it's, you know, once a month to do this

Dave Washington 8:04
that is excellent. I can tell you. I remember when Steve Miller with his football team would go and visit people at hospitals, and the joy that you bring to people, particularly if they had had no one to visit them. And these, these young men with their football jerseys on just the jersey they don't have on the full football gear, but for these seniors and others to see them, it just brings a level of excitement to a person's life. And again, in our second half of the show, when I talk to my daughter, April, we'll be talking about our loss of humanity. But that's wonderful work, Evelyn, so there's a couple other things that I know that you're doing that we probably need to shed some light on, so our public will be aware of these. And long as I got this platform, as I've told you many times, young lady, you have a seat at the table or a spot on the telephone line and come in and talk about it, because you're doing great work. And I, you know, I always, I know this dude is crazy, because I always get excited because you're excited, and I love your energy. So tell us about some of the other things that you got going on at this point in

Evelyn Pacheco 9:03
time. I want to bring up veteran justice, treatment court too. I think that's some awareness that we need to really be talking about. And we need volunteer mentors, because, you know, the Vietnam Veterans you know, are leading the way for that. And we got to wake up around here, because once that happens, and everyone's gone and they're tired and they're saying they can't do it anymore, then what, you know, and I just think that those that I'm not saying that you know, everybody needs to jump on because everybody doesn't have time during the day. And everybody doesn't, you know, but those that that are not doing things during the day or maybe work at night, we need some, some veteran mentors for Henderson veteran treatment court. We got justice court downtown, we got district court. We got veteran treatment court in in North Las Vegas. And they need mentors and and those of us just to go on it, like you said, right, just go in there and support. And here's my card and offer services that you can because we need that, right? We need that other part of this, other part of the support. So that's something else I would love to bring awareness to is too. If anybody is listening, you know, and thinking about how they could help and support veteran Treatment Court would be the perfect place to go in there and be supportive of veterans, you know, and especially those on got in trouble, you know. But hey, don't let your past dictate your future, right?

Dave Washington 10:39
Ellen, we got about a minute. We got about a minute and a half. So would you tell us about, okay, you got, you got a couple nice things that are going on, I think the public needs to be aware of, and I'll see if I can give, Wes to give us another half a minute so you can get both of those. Get both of those in, if you would. Thank

Evelyn Pacheco 10:54
you. I apologize everybody. I got so much going on, I want everybody to know and and then so I have a summit. It's our fifth National Alliance of women in trade Summit, and it's about bringing awareness to for women in non traditional careers, because we know that's really big, right? And to me, that's where the money is. Non traditional careers is where the benefits is. That's where the money is. And being women are taxpayer and citizen. Why are we not able to access 100,000 a year or more to be working? And it's going to be at CSN. It's September 26 from 10 to one. We're going to have raffles and speakers. We're going to have catered food. And it's just really a big you know? And then one other thing, we got a pipeline program that we do to help women get into trades. And that's very important too, because we have done that. And we help you with your resume, your your CPR, your forklift awareness. We help you to interview for getting into trades. We got union partners go on field trips. We have, I mean, there's a whole lot going on with that, and that's another thing that we do in October. And my email is Evelyn at Nevada, spelled out wit.org That's Evelyn at Nevada, wit.org and my phone number is 702-801-6591, so you can just, you know, get information, Sure,

Dave Washington 12:31
absolutely. Well, Las Vegas, once again, this is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. And we had the wonderful miss, Evelyn Pacheco. She's doing wonderful work. So for those who are interested, and again, as she mentioned, there's a nice sum of money that won't and great benefits in these non traditional jobs. So Evelyn, thank you again and again. Maybe we'll get you on early October to talk about that other program that you just gave us information on. So thank you again. Thank you

Evelyn Pacheco 12:57
again. So much. 702-801-6591,

Dave Washington 13:01
all right, take care. Evelyn, thank you. You too. All right, thank you.

Dave Washington 13:11
Once again, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs, plus on 91.5 jazz and more. Have the second guest that I missed. It mentioned early on. That's our eldest daughter, April, who just turned five, five a few weeks ago. So welcome to the show,

April Washington 13:27
April. Thank you. Thank you for having me again.

Dave Washington 13:29
Yes, absolutely. Got a few announcements I need to make, and then we'll get April to give us some feedback or an update on some of the things that she's involved with, particularly with her look back non profit organization. Last week, I mentioned poems that angel had written our middle daughter, and I said that the one that she had written about the soldiers was the night before the show. That's not true. She told me she wrote that poem 10 years ago. So oh, she said, Oh, they won't know. I say, I will know. So I like to keep you going to be on these shows. I'm not a journalist, but certainly when even as a talk show host, I want to give factual information. So with that again, in setting those poems up, the one thing that I want to talk about again today with relationship to those particular points that you can listen to last week's show, but I talk about the loss of higher humanity, April, I talk about it. And again, here's another example loss of higher humanity. He is 11 years old, which we used to do this kind of foolishness too, back in my day, and I'm 74 years old, rings the doorbell, runs off and get shot in the bag. Now, I just heard that there's going to be charges brought up on this gentleman, and that's sad and unfortunate, but kids do all kind of pranks, man, but it's nothing that should cost in their lives. So again, our lack of humanity concerns me big time, also something that I heard. It on another program today that I had not heard about was how the government back in the 30s, and I think it was in the 40s and 50s, if I remember correctly, but it was in St Louis, where the government used the folks in a small black community. It's more like a projects, kind of an area, and they drop chemical mist on them, trying to see what kind of reaction or what kind of disturbance will bring to their bodies as fellow human beings. And this, again, this is done by our government. And later, some of these people started to develop cancer. So one of the things that we got to be very, very cognizant of, in my humble opinion, as a veteran of United States Army, we got to be caring about people. Let's, let's, let's get our humanity. Y'all back together like it should be as fellow human beings. I did get a text today, earlier today, from our commander of American Legion, post 10, Commander Jeff Jones, the post post 10 at Doolittle, and H will have a soft opening from one to five today, today, yeah, today, because we'll be aired today Saturday. Everybody knows that the show is taped, so no suspicion or no no secret, if you will. And then they will do a re grand opening at 5pm and again, that came from post Commander Jeff Jones today. And something that I mentioned last week, and I have the date for sure, it is the Armstrong Foundation. In honor of Sammy Armstrong, his family has a golf event, scholarship golf event, October 4. It's a Saturday at alliante golf course, and it's a 7am shotgun start. I know many of you guys know dusty. I don't have a number on dusty, but those of you who know her, or someone who knows and do to include Elgin Simpson, because it has one of these. What do you call the deals where you go in and you go in and you take a picture of it and you can put it on your phone. What are those things called? A screenshot? Yeah, you do screenshot, but whatever the heck it's called, and they give you all the information on how to sign up, et cetera, et cetera. But I think we should support considering how much Sam did in our community. So with that, April, Washington, how are you?

April Washington 17:21
I am doing pretty good. How are you? I'm

Dave Washington 17:23
doing well. So April, tell us a little bit about what you got going on with respect to your nonprofit, as well as your T cake business, without talking about any kind of pricing. Okay,

April Washington 17:34
the look back, cause I found it back and I started working on it in 1999 after the birth of my son, David. There was a little boy that was left in the car on accident by his parents, and David was at that time, I think he was eight weeks old. So I went into a panic mode and said, Oh my god, I have to do something to help these parents remember their children. So I started with bumper stickers. I started with. Then I went to auto shades. I went steering wheel covers, billboards to decorating. Well I started. I started with putting a banner on the back of, on the back of my car. And then I know the commercial vehicle we own, I draped it so I've done everything I can to remind the parents. At that time, it was for profit. I was doing that on my spending my own money doing it. But that got costly, paying for billboards and all that stuff. It just got costly. So what I decided to do, because talking about humanity, we have such a need for resources. So what I decided to do now was to assist families with because I know parents, sometimes we think about kids being left in the back seat of vehicles or being left in the house, you know, and there's no air, you know, because they have a job interview or you know. So I decided I would help with with bill pay. So when once I we became a non profit, I decided to assist with bus passes, assist with bill pay. If a person has a cell phone that needs to be paid. I sometimes will do that because I know in order to keep employment, you have to have your phone on right? I usually don't go to because I'm because we're so small, you know, I don't have the, you know, the capacity, or the the money that the big, the larger nonprofits have. So I, you know, we sit down and I have families fill out a form, and we go, we decide from that point if we can help them or not. Nine times out of 10, most of the families we do help, you know, some people do try to take advantage, you know. So I do it once per calendar year for each family, due to making sure that people. Still held accountable and responsible for something

Dave Washington 20:04
right for their family. So are you 501? C3,

April Washington 20:07
I am. I am. We became, got that license in December.

Dave Washington 20:13
So do you, do you have a website yet? Or no,

April Washington 20:17
I just have, I just have my fist on my Facebook page. I haven't had time to build a website yet, but I know I need to do that. But yeah, most people just contact me by phone or word of mouth or on Facebook.

Dave Washington 20:30
So I'm saying I'm thinking about in terms of contributions or donations to to the nonprofit. How would they go about doing it? How will they make contact with you? If someone wanted to do that, oh, they

April Washington 20:41
can call me at my phone number, at 702-272-9396, so they can inbox me on Facebook, or they can email me at t, s, t, I m, n, y@a.com,

Dave Washington 20:54
so do you think that sometime in the near future you will have a website?

April Washington 20:59
Yes, yes, I will. I just juggling with a full time job, the tea cakes and everything is just, you know, just trying, trying to keep myself from being overwhelmed. So I'm just taking my time.

Dave Washington 21:11
That's a perfect segue into talk about the tea cake business.

April Washington 21:15
The Tea Cake business, actually, I'm about telling myself now I learned how to bake Tea Cakes because when I was a kid, you know, knowing that when I look back on it, now, being that my father was a firefighter, I shouldn't have been doing this, but I kind of talked, you know, watched my mother bake as a child, watched my grandparents bake as a child, and I would come home from school and pretty much follow what I saw my mother do. And you know, you guys would come home, so I made some cinnamon toast, but it paid off. I did was responsible. I didn't burn anything up and but you know, that's what started then, you know, our cousin Cassandra, I had my enchiladas on the market with the cookie dough man, and she was the one that said, April, why don't you think about, you know, making tea cakes, because we had a cousin in Los Angeles, that man. So I said, okay, and I took the rest, took my great grandmother's recipe and ran with it. And that actually helped me build, look back costs, you know, I would recycle that money into helping me purchase products, right?

Dave Washington 22:27
So without calling any names of any of the big box stores, I know you had an opportunity and possibly could be a millionaire by now, had you went along with their idea of you putting what do you call it into your product to make them last long yet on the show?

April Washington 22:44
Yes, I went to a big store and they wanted them, but they wanted me to put preservatives. I'm not going to do that, because that's going to make them taste different and that's going to ruin them. They're not going to be tea cakes. They're going to be more like one of these little things that are on the shelves that have all the what is it? The little fake stuff, put it the fillers. And I didn't want to do that. So, you know, yeah, it did. Yeah, I could have been retired and making a lot of money, but I didn't want to, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do that. And then as far as mass production, I have a couple of of the natural stores that want them also. So I've been working on that because I have my now that I have my my UPC codes and everything. I can do that now. I can do that now.

Dave Washington 23:33
So I know that I've heard you talk about people ordering from different places in the country.

April Washington 23:40
Yes, oh yeah, I ship them all over Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles. I think as far as I want to say, as far as New York, y'all ship all over the country, and that warms my heart, because tea cakes are sold in other places, like they're sold in Houston. They're sold in Houston at different restaurants, but they would rather have mine, and that that makes, that warms my heart, that they'd rather have mine.

Dave Washington 24:06
And you think that has something to do with not adding the the other ingredient?

April Washington 24:10
Yes, I think that has something to do with it. And I do, I do them a little different than everyone else, yes. So, you know, I've, uh, my mother's favorite one I make now is karma pecan. Every time she she tells people, I mean, ma, ma, that was our secret. So now I make more of the karma pecan. Now I also make them vegan. Also make them gluten free. And then so I make them four different ways. I make them. Well, I make them five. I make them, oh, shoot, actually, I make them six. I make the big Texas, the big Texas size. I make the silver dollar size. I make gluten free, vegan caramel pecan. And that was another one. Oh, and the minute the little tea bites. Well,

Dave Washington 24:55
I got to say this. Wes for your edification. When I was down in here. Used to going through all my medical issues. I had to eat a gummy to get me going west. I eat my gummy, and I had a whole six pack of tea cakes. I ran through all of them. I ate one. Wes to know they laughed. I ate one. I laid down, I said, Oh, man, it was so good. I had ate up the whole pack bed that I was supposed to give them to somebody else. But that's life. I mean, they were, they were so good. They they have a different taste. And my grandmother, Miss Watkins, Rena Watkins, she used to make a very nice tea cake. And I would imagine that Aunt Magnolia and Aunt Ruby, I would think that they may know how to do them as well, but yours has a very distinct taste to them that that I recognize so. So how long have you been doing

April Washington 25:52
that? I've been making those about 20 years. Also about 20 you know, people tell you should be rich and you should be Yeah, I know. But you know, God, if God wants that for me, he'll, he'll provide that. Like I said, I have other I've had, I had a couple of coffee shops that wanted them, but when covid hit, they backed out. I mean, big coffee shops here in the city, they have three and four different locations. They wanted them. I sat down and met with them, and they wanted them. But when covid hit, and it just so I was like, Okay, well, just wasn't meant to be at this time.

Dave Washington 26:23
Okay, Wes said we got about three minutes. So go back, if you will, and give some further indication of how people can get hold of you, with respect to make a contribution or donation to, without talking about any kind of money, but to contribute it to, to contribute to the payback program.

April Washington 26:42
Okay, so yes, for for information on the look back. Cause, look back. Cause I said payback. It's okay, Dad. Look back. Cause you can reach me at 702-272-9396, you can reach me at t, s, t, I m, n, y@aol.com, or you can inbox me at Facebook, or you could inbox me on the look back. I have a look back. Pay a look back. Cause page, I have two. So you could also inbox me there if you need products for it to if you know someone that needs to be reminded regarding their children, where we saving all God's children from harm? Thank you.

Dave Washington 27:18
Well. Well said, and I can tell you that, once again, our humanity isn't necessarily driven by, in my humble opinion, about money sometimes, and we know we live in a capitalistic society. That's that America is built on capitalism, perfectly understood, but everything that we do in our life to be pleasing to to God and to our fellow men. You don't have to make a bunch of money. You shouldn't go broke doing it. I'd say that. I mean, you should certainly be trying to ensure that everything is good in your life. But I think all of us have an obligation, and I think it's important too. And I think you found yours, April, you know what your purpose in life is, and I think knowing and working your purpose is pleasing, and I think that's something that we should all be about. And I do some things that I've been challenged on, saying, Why do you do that? Because I'm just a benevolent type of a person. It's part of my DNA, and I don't apologize for it, it's just, it's who I am. And I think a lot of this, again, is Gene driven by somebody called Madea Eugenia, Washington, my dear always was doing some money. You ain't got much yourself. Well, gotta provide. Gotta provide. Mother, you don't need to be giving away your money when you need this and you need that. But she she just wasn't worried about a lot of things. So we honor you, my dear, and we always think about you. To include cat and on Dada tipo, these are my brother and sisters who are ancestors now, and my mom and my dad. We don't forget about the folks, the ancestors of the community. So once again, April, thank you for being a part of the show today. And I certainly want to thank Evelyn Pacheco, because she's always doing outstanding work as you are, April with your nonprofit. So keep rolling. This is veterans of as plus so in 91.5 jazz and more, we'll talk to you next week. You Oh,

Music 29:47
all the smoke in the air till they hate when they stare all the pain that we bear.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai