008 – Jeff Aider and his wife open a new college prep school for special needs and dyslexic kids.

Transcript:

Tom Couch: This is the Special Fathers Network podcast. The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for fathers to support fathers.

Sometimes the mentor father is just there to answer a few questions. Sometimes they become good friends. It’s a proven support system for new fathers with special needs kids. If you’re a father looking for support, or if you’re a dad who’d like to offer support, go to 21stcenturydads.org.

David Hirsch: Hi, I’m David Hirsch. This is the Special Fathers Network Podcast, stories of fathers helping fathers.

Jeff Aeder: I’ve got a lot of craziness. Mishegoss, is how we say it in Yiddish.

Tom Couch: That’s David’s guest, Jeff Aeder. Jeff is a busy man. He and his wife, Jennifer Levine, started the Wolcott School for kids with learning differences in Chicago.

Jeff Aeder: We are going to build the most attractive with the best curriculum and teachers.

Tom Couch: He’s opened Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed, a kosher barbecue restaurant where all of the profits go to charity.

Jeff Aeder: So when somebody suggested “Barbecue for the Perplexed,” I was like, “That’s perfect.”

Tom Couch: Nearby he opened Milt’s Extra Innings Deli, where profits also go to charity.

Jeff Aeder: It’s a small place, but I have 13 special needs adults that work there in three different shifts.

Tom Couch: He started a Jewish baseball museum.

Jeff Aeder: I decided to focus on the history of Jews in baseball, because I love history.

Tom Couch: And he’s a mentor father in the Special Fathers Network.

Jeff Aeder: If I have any knowledge that I can share with somebody else, I would love to do it.

Tom Couch: He’s an amazing guy, and he’s David Hirsch’s guest today on the Special Fathers Network Podcast. Here’s David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Being a father is very important to me. Being a good father means being a successful role model for your child, helping them be happier, more fulfilled, and productive members of society.

I’ve started a number of charitable organizations designed to increase the role of fathers. One of them, the Special Fathers Network, is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs.

Tom Couch: So let’s get to it. Here’s David’s conversation with special father Jeff Aeder.

David Hirsch: We’re talking today with Jeff Aeder, a real estate developer and social entrepreneur. Jeff, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Jeff Aeder: My pleasure.

David Hirsch: You and your wife, Jennifer Levine, have four children: Molly, Sadie, Clara and George. And you live here in Chicago.

So think about your dad a little bit. Is there some advice that he might’ve given you verbally, or is something that he did by example without even saying something, that really resonates with you when you think about your dad?

Jeff Aeder: Yeah. I always think about the importance of your reputation. You don’t die with anything except for your reputation and the way you’ve treated other people. And I also remember, in a time when I was struggling, there were a few things to point out about my strengths, he always talked about my honesty and how honest I was.

And it became a self perpetuating prognosis, because I’ve always held an incredible amount of integrity and honesty in everything I dealt with, because that’s what I was known for to my father, and I never wanted to let that down.

David Hirsch: So reputation, honesty, you didn’t mention the word integrity, but it sort of goes along with those. Those are some of the lessons that your dad sort of helped nurture in you. So were there other father figures along the way when you were growing up, any men that you admired or role modeled yourself after?

Jeff Aeder: Well, Uncle Milty, who we’ll talk about later, who is the uncle I named my restaurants after, he was a lovable ne’er do well. He was the guy who had millions of stories of all the opportunities he had that didn’t work out for him. And he never had his own children. So during those years, when my rebellion was in full force, I spent a lot of time with my Uncle Milty. He had a house up in the Catskills, and so we used to go up there and gamble on the horse races. And he had a special place.

David Hirsch: And what was the relationship—he’s an uncleon your dad’s or mom’s side?

Jeff Aeder: My dad’s. And he was nonjudgmental about me. He was the uncle role, so he didn’t worry about those parts of my life which were spiraling in the wrong direction. We fished, we gambled, and we did things, and that was the relationship.

David Hirsch: So if there’s one thing you think of when you think of your Uncle Milty, what’s the big takeaway there?

Tom Couch: Um, he was extremely unpretentious and self deprecating—and he had a lot to be deprecating about. But I still think of him. He used to keep all of his clothes for 50 years, saying, “This is going to come back in style, and people are going to say I was a man way ahead of my times.”

David Hirsch: That’s funny. I was sort of curious now what role spirituality has played in your life.

Jeff Aeder: I think that spirituality has played a big role. I consider myself extremely spiritual. And when I look at things that have happened to me in my life, I always look at it as part of a bigger picture. And so I am not an observant person, because in my view, God or the higher being really does not need to be praised all day long. They need to see you doing actions which are trying to make the world a better place.

David Hirsch: So the old adage that actions speak louder than words.

Jeff Aeder: I hope somebody up there is understanding me.

David Hirsch: Well, it’s a good life philosophy to live by. It’s one that I ascribe to as well. So where is it that you met your wife along the way then?

Jeff Aeder: So my best friend from college, from University of Richmond, married her best friend from high school, and we met at their wedding.

David Hirsch: Really?

Jeff Aeder: Yeah. They were the maid of honor and best man in our wedding.

David Hirsch: So out east, then.

Jeff Aeder: Yeah. And she was working as a high powered corporate attorney in New York, and then she moved out here.

David Hirsch: Okay. And she still practices, or not?

Jeff Aeder: No, she worked for a few years. She was an administrative law judge. And now she is the president of the board of Wolcott School, and she’s there most days doing whatever needs to be done.

Jennifer Lavine: We come together to create something that really has never existed before. Wolcott is a school for teenagers who are bright, talented kids who are seeking more than an education.

Jeff Aeder: Wolcott will be an extraordinary tool to the kind of successful path that I’m talking about. You go get ‘em, and don’t give up, and don’t ever doubt your ability to succeed.

David Hirsch: So let’s talk about Wolcott School then. You and Jennifer are cofounders of Wolcott School, an independent college prep high school for those with learning differences. That could apply to reading, writing or math. From what I remember, you bought a building from the Union League Club of Chicago Boys and Girls Club.

Jeff Aeder: It had previously been that, but it had been bought by a developer who went bankrupt. We bought it from the bank.

David Hirsch: Okay. So you bought it at a good price.

Jeff Aeder: Good price.

David Hirsch: Excellent. So what was it that motivated you to do that?

Jeff Aeder: Well, when my oldest daughter Molly was in sixth grade, we were talking to a counselor about where she should be thinking about for high school. And they had said that, given her learning profile, there’s really no great place here. You could move to the suburbs and go into a large school, and she would be in the special education program there, or there are good boarding schools.

And boarding schools are fine if that’s what you wanted, but it clearly wasn’t what we wanted. We didn’t want to move to the suburbs, and we also didn’t think that Molly would thrive in a large school environment. So we moved out to Deerfield and then she went there.

Her learning struggles—she’s dyslexic, but she’s also had visual processing struggles—and so maneuvering herself socially in a large complex situation is just as tough. So if it was a class with 30 students, or even if it was more just walking through the halls with tons of people, we didn’t think it was a great environment for her.

So at that point in time, my wife and I started doing research. She did a lot more of the research and found out that there was no reason it didn’t exist here in Chicago, except that nobody had taken ownership. And at which point we decided that we would take ownership.

David Hirsch: Wow. So Molly is in sixth grade. You’re sort of at a fork in the road with where she’s going to be tracking to go to high school, and you took it upon yourselves to do something, not just for your daughter, but thinking that there must be other kids here in Chicago that would benefit from this type of learning environment.

Jeff Aeder: Right. And that goes into the spirituality thing, and that is that I certainly believe there is a reason for things. And so people say, “You created the school for your daughter.” And I say, “There would be a lot less expensive ways I could have dealt with in a very positive nature her learning without having to start Wolcott School.” But I did become aware of it, and we became aware of the need in Chicago for it. And at this point, we loved Chicago and felt that, yeah, there are a lot of other people who are going to need this help—and let’s do it.

David Hirsch: Okay. So, Molly’s situation enlightened you and Jennifer about the lack of this type of educational facility here in Chicago. And it took you how many years to go from sort of coming up to speed, educating yourself, to Wolcott actually opening?

Jeff Aeder: It took us about a year to educate ourselves. We visited a couple of different places. Jennifer went to a lot more than I did and saw what was out there. And then we had parents and people here in town who are specialists in learning disabilities. By the time we finished that, it was probably a year, a year and a half, and I had, I think about a year and a half left before she was to start high school.

At that point in time is when we found a building. My wife and I bought the building and started going. People had given us a lot of different advice about starting in the basement of a church and growing slowly and all that stuff. And my idea was, because I also had struggled a lot in school and certainly had struggled with self confidence, I knew I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the basement of a church in my school years. We wanted to have a full high school experience for Molly and for the other students.

So I said, “We’re going to build the most attractive, with the best curriculum and teachers, and the best of everything that they had to offer.” So my vision was that if you build something that is spectacular, it will be a success. If you do something in which you compromise, then the students are not going to want to be there. And I wanted to be for students who wanted to be at this place and thought it was cool and not feel that they were second class citizens.

David Hirsch: I think it’s an amazing motivation on your part. I remember visiting there a number of months back and thinking, “Wow, this is really a special place.” The kids seem to be very engaged, wanting to be there, like you said, as opposed to like….just think back to maybe when you and I were in high school, maybe that’s not the place you wanted to be.

It’s like your parents are making you go to school or society is making you go to that school. So there seemed to be something different going on there at Wolcott. So you started, I think the first class was in 2013. And you started with 33 students?

Jeff Aeder: Yeah, it was a freshman and sophomore combined we started with, and Molly actually did go to boarding school her freshman year. It was tough for us. It was tough for her. And we were thrilled that we got it open in time for her sophomore year.

And when you think about what we accomplished and the timeline it was, I would never, ever recommend it to anybody else. I mean, it’s only a parent who refused to accept the “no” who would have created that because it just… We started construction of it without having the money to complete it. Every rule that you’re not supposed to do, we did. And it worked out, and we’re very fortunate. But clearly it was not the way anybody would recommend you start.

David Hirsch: Well, that’s why I think of you in a positive way as a social entrepreneur. You had this faith, whether it’s your spirituality, that type of faith, or just the belief in yourself and the mission that you’re on to follow through. And not the blindly “build it and they will come,” like “Field of Dreams.”

But there’s some of that going on, which is that you and Jennifer had this vision, and you’re willing to act on it, as opposed to spending a lot more time planning and thinking through everything, and dotting all your I’s and cross all your T’s.

And whether it’s your personal will, or divine intervention, or a combination of the above, you can look back and say, “Well, it’s a little unorthodox about how we went about doing this,” but I think the proof is in the pudding. So how many students do you have now?

Jeff Aeder: We have 125 students.

David Hirsch: Is that your capacity?

Jeff Aeder: 150 is capacity. For next year we’ll have 143, and then the following year we’ll have 150. We just completed in November a brand new arts and athletics center that we just built, which is a state of the art theater, and the gym is spectacular. This year we won our conference in basketball, so we’re gonna have our first banner coming up. We were nine and one. Great basketball team, and it’s been spectacular.

I should mention that within each of these projects that I do, there is one consistent theme, which was kind of our second objective at Wolcott, and that is that it was to be inclusive. We did not want to create a school for rich kids. We wanted to create a school that served students of average to above average intelligence with a diagnosed learning difference that we could help. And so we admit students irrespective of their ability to pay. And once they’re admitted, we go out and try to find enough tuition assistance for them to be able to attend. And 50% of the students are getting some sort of tuition assistance.

David Hirsch: Okay. So from what I remember hearing or reading, the cost is about $37,000 a year.

Jeff Aeder: I think it’s now at $43,000 a year.

David Hirsch: Okay. And what you were referring to is what I remember as your “blind acceptance policy.” So you have these applications, you’re just looking for the students who would be the best fit for what it is that Wolcott offers, and then, like you said, if they don’t have the means themselves, if their families don’t have the means, then you try to figure out how to connect those dots.

Do you know much about the family structure for the students that are attending Wolcott? Do they come from two parent families, single parent families?

Jeff Aeder: Yes, they cover everything. I don’t know the percentages, but there are a number of two same-sex parents. A number of them are adopted. They come from a whole wide range. We’ve had people move from Malaysia, from Santa Fe, New York, Boston, all over, to come to the school, who found out about us and thought that it was the right place for their kids. So it’s a wide, wide range of family structures. Single mothers who were never married, who adopted children. So it’s a whole wide range.

David Hirsch: Talk about the faculty, because I remember this being like what I thought of as world class.

Jeff Aeder: World class. Unbelievable.

David Hirsch: How do you attract those people?

Jeff Aeder: It’s all mission oriented. When schools like this start up, they make compromises on their acceptance policies, because they need to get people in there. They need to get full payers. They need to get all sorts of things. They take students that are not appropriate.

Our head of school, Miriam Pike, the board told her day one, “Do not make any compromises, because we don’t want to have to spend years recovering from trying to cut corners.” And so we’ve been very stringent on that. And Dr. Pike has done an unbelievable job attracting just world class people.

And what is interesting is that the school was originally founded with my oldest daughter Molly in mind. My three younger kids, unbeknownst to me at the time, are all dyslexic. And so they’re all going to Wolcott, and they’re very all very different from each other. And each of them loves the school, and they love the teachers. That’s clearly what they would tell you they love the most. The small class sizes—they think it is absolutely spectacular. So I would never have guessed that all four of my kids would have gone to the school, and given how different they are, that they all would have liked it.

David Hirsch: That is an amazing story. Thank you for sharing. Any surprises along the way, positive or negative?

Jeff Aeder: Absolutely. I mean, my wife always says you plan everything, then you add the kids into the equation, and then it’s all up for grabs.

David Hirsch: So let’s switch gears. One of your other passions, because it’s not just about Wolcott, is Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed.

Customer: This is very unique.

Customer: They make kosher food fun.

Customer: Where else can you get kosher barbecue?

Customer: Nowhere else.

Customer: Hands down, you’ve got to come.

David Hirsch: I’m perplexed. Where’s the name come from? I know where Milt’s comes from. That’s your Uncle Milty. What’s going on with the “for the perplexed”?

Jeff Aeder: Well, it was a double entendre. I mean, it has a lot of different meanings to me. So when somebody suggested “Barbecue for the Perplexed,” I’m like, “That’s perfect.” So there is a book written by a 12th century philosopher, Maimonides, called “The Guide to the Perplexed.” And that is my Uncle Milty. If you had to describe him in one word, it would have been “perplexed.”

And then having a restaurant, which also because of the inclusivity aspect is kosher, nut free, has gluten free items, vegan items, so everybody can eat there. So having a kosher barbecue is perplexing in and of itself. And so combining all these…the name, when I heard it, I’m like, “That’s it.”

David Hirsch: But what motivated you to open up a restaurant? That’s what I’m not clear about.

Jeff Aeder: I am very proud of my Jewish background. I’m a tremendous Zionist and lover of Israel. And I wanted to try to help build the Jewish community in an area which did not have a observant community yet. It’s a small observant community, not a large one, but one where a lot of people come after college.

And I was hoping we’d do a lot of educational things, speakers at the restaurant, and I wish we could do more. Unfortunately, you can only do so many things. But I loved the idea of starting a restaurant where a hundred percent of the profits go to charity.

David Hirsch: That’s what I found very interesting. And it’s not one charity, but my recollection was that the charity switches month to month.

Jeff Aeder: Right. So that was also about the idea of inclusivity. You know, we’re all part of this community, whether it’s the Lakeview community you define. So we’ve supported the Nettelhorst School, and the Lakeview Pantry, and Sharsheret, which works for Jewish cancer patients, and the Ark. They’re both Jewish organizations. We try to do projects with them. We try to call attention to their good work and let their people know about what we’re doing.

And I’m very interested in the idea about how success is measured. My father once said to me, after we opened for a while, “So are you making money?” And I said, “You don’t understand. This is not what this is about. It is about, are we doing a lot of events with the community? I mean, there are a lot of other things that we’re trying to create.

Are we employing hard-to-employ people? Do we have special needs employees? Are we giving to different charities, and are people getting interested? There a lot of different things that we’re doing, which is how the success was to be judged there. We’ve been open five years now, and we’ve been a tremendous success in my book.

It’s also been a success for me personally, because I love being more involved in the community. I love the people whom I’ve met through it. I love the effect on my children and my wife from being involved in it. And so it is something that makes me happy every day, which seems almost impossible, given how fickle the restaurant business can be. But five years now, and going strong.

David Hirsch: That’s awesome. You mentioned it supports a dozens of charities, literally a different charity a month. And you mentioned the Ark, and you hit a hot button for me. My grandfather, Sam Solomon, who was my father figure growing up. I’ve spoken a lot about him, written about him—he was my role model as a young man, and as a young adult for that matter

He was a pharmacist at the Ark. He was actually a pharmacist, with his older brother. And they sold their business to the Cooper family and it was renamed Solomon Cooper drugs. So for 45 years in his retirement, he was a volunteer pharmacist at the Ark. And they named the pharmacy after him 17 years ago, when he passed away.

So what I love about the story you’re telling about Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed is that the motive wasn’t to create a profit oriented business in the traditional sense, but really to build community. In so many different ways, bringing people together that wouldn’t otherwise come together. And it’s sort of like a higher calling, a purpose, and I admire you for that.

So that led to creating something called Milt’s Extra Innings just this past year. So what was your motivation for doing that? What’s your vision?

Jeff Aeder: Well, once again, it was a combination of things. One is that an opportunity was presented when the space next door to Milt’s became vacant, and there was a little restaurant there, and I realized that people cannot live in barbecue alone.

But also my sister has a daughter, Zahava, who is a lovely 21-year-old, who had gone through the Keshet program, which is an organization that serves intellectually and developmentally disabled youngsters. And then she went to Israel for a couple of years. And my sister was talking about what was the next thing for Zahava, and they were talking about maybe there was a program in Brooklyn or whatnot that would be good for her.

And Zahava didn’t want to go to Brooklyn, in my mind. Now, I’m projecting. Maybe it’s just I didn’t want Zahava to go. And I also found out that 70% of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are unemployed. And so I said, “Well, that’ll be interesting.” Because we’ve always hired adult employees at Milt’s, and these are people who have kind of aged out of the school system. And maybe what we should do is create a partnership with Keshet, where we can employ their young adults.

Zahava worked there, and we can hire a lot more. And so that was what Milt’s Extra Innings became. It’s deli style, a lot of takeout foods. We deliver. And it’s a small place, but I have 13 special needs adults that work there in three different shifts. And it has exceeded my expectations as far as the amount of happiness that I get and they get from working together.

It’s also opened my eyes to their potential. You see somebody with a disability, and you don’t see all of their strengths, and you don’t see their aspirations, and you don’t understand about what their potential is. And so being able to work with them and see it, you understand that people want to work, they want to be relevant, they want to interact and all those sorts of things.

And so this new project is one which has opened my eyes, just like Molly helped open my eyes with the Wolcott School. So Zahava has opened my eyes here. And you know, we still have work. It’s only been open for a few months, and I can still see that certain things need to be refined and whatnot, but it’s a guaranteed success.

And what I hope will happen next is that I will add in a group home. And have eight or so of my employees or people of similar statuses that live in a group home, so that people have as full a life as possible. And what I’d like to do, once I am able to put all that together, I would then like to educate other communities about how they can do it.

So I’m very fortunate because Keshet has been my partner in this. They do all the training of the employees. So Keshet has been wonderful, and they’re very interested in the group home. And so hopefully we can create something. We keep on looking at places to see ideas and try to create something that’s innovative and effective and powerful.

David Hirsch: Well, I love what you’re doing with Milt’s Extra Innings. And I think part of identifying what people’s abilities are, as opposed to what their disabilities are, is what I heard you saying. And certain people have gifts, but they might be masked by a physical disability or an intellectual disability. And if you can identify what their gift is and make sure that that type of work is what they’re tasked to do, they can flourish.

And I love what you were saying about doing something beyond just creating meaningful work, which is part of how we define ourselves. In many ways how we define ourselves is by our work. And to create some level of independence, so they’re not just sort of sitting at home and dependent on their parents or their families, but they’re getting out of their house, they’re engaged in the community, they’re interacting with people.

And then the second idea is to create a living and learning environment, where they can thrive and create some independence. It’s got to take a huge weight off the parents’ minds too, which is indirectly of assistance to your sister and her family, to know that their daughter is able to make a headway on the world. And so you’re doing God’s work. It’s just amazing.

Jeff Aeder: Well, my sister is a spectacular person, and she’s just an inspiration so many ways. And so to be able to have a family where my brother, sister and I are completely in sync with each other, despite the fact we’re very different, and we all have kind of a similar outlook.

David Hirsch: I love it. So on of the things I skipped over, which I’d like to go back to, is you’ve created the Jewish Baseball Museum.

Recordings: “In the eighth inning, Greenberg walloped that apple for a home run.”

“He rounds third, and the Red Sox will walk off with a win!”

“Is he a Greek kid?” “I think he’s Jewish.” “We got a Jew first baseman. I didn’t know that.”

“You aren’t supposed to be a ball ballplayer if you’re Jewish. You ought to be an attorney or a doctor. But not a ballplayer.”

David Hirsch: John Ide [?] was the one that put us in contact with one another. I know he’s baseball fanatic as well. So what is that motivated you to start the Jewish Baseball Museum?

Jeff Aeder: Well, I think by now you, and anybody who’s listening to this, probably has understood that I’ve got a lot of craziness…

David Hirsch: A lot of different interests.

Jeff Aeder: Mishigoss is how we say it in Yiddish. And we’re touching only the surface. So I just become very obsessed with things. And I have been a baseball fan all my life. I had baseball cards as a kid, and at one point I had collected every single Topps baseball card from 1951 until today. Then about a year or two ago, I sold it, and I decided to focus on the history of Jews in baseball, because I love history, and the more I read, the more interesting people I read about. There were a lot of lessons and a lot of people that I was very proud to be associated with

The two largest collectors of Jewish baseball memorabilia—one because of a divorce, the other passed away, both ended up selling me their collections. And so I have 5,000 items of Jewish baseball memorabilia, ranging from Sandy Koufax’s game-used Jersey from 1963, to Hank Greenberg’s game-used bat, Al Rosen’s rookie bat. You name it. I have hundreds of bats, hundreds of uniforms. I have 2,500 cards, all but ten cards that exist of Jewish baseball players. I’m only missing ten.

David Hirsch: Do you know when ten they are?

Jeff Aeder: Yeah. I know there’s ten, and they have maybe one copy of each of them, or two or three copies that exist. And I’ll get them eventually. But if you’re one of those people listening who have one of those cards, take it easy on me on the price.

David Hirsch: Is this a physical museum or a virtual museum? What’s your vision?

Jeff Aeder: So jewishbaseball museum.com is a virtual museum on that site, which is extensive. On May 6th they’re doing an opening of an exhibit of live stuff in New York at a synagogue for five months. I was just talking to the lady last night who wants to do that.

And then the restaurant, Milt’s Extra Innings, is all adorned with my Jewish baseball memorabilia as a place to display it. I display a small piece of it. And as there are auctions of anything that’s interesting. I still bid on everything.

David Hirsch: Okay. I love that. That’s so inspiring. So Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax, Jerry Reinsdorf, Theo Epstein—I remember seeing something about each of them on the website as well.

Jeff Aeder: Steve Stone. Alan Rosen, who’s won the triple crown. And then this year’s World Series had Jock Peterson and Alex Bregman, both of them hitting home runs. The first time two Jewish players played against each other, and each hit home runs.

David Hirsch: Well, just an amazing story. So, why did you agree to be a mentor father as a part of this Special Fathers Network?

Jeff Aeder: If I have any knowledge that I can share with somebody else, I would love to do it.

David Hirsch: Excellent. Well, thank you for being part of the group. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we wrap up?

Jeff Aeder: The only thing I would say is that when people hear about what I do and things that I’ve done, they question why I don’t play more golf, or this or that. And I don’t do want to be viewed as a martyr, in the sense that everything I’m doing is because I love doing it. And so I am very much blessed that, even a bad day at JDI Realty, or at Milt’s or Wolcott, it’s still a great day.

And I can’t think of any time I’ve gone home saying, “I wish I hadn’t done that, or I wish I wasn’t involved in this.” And I have gotten way, way more out of being involved. I’ve taken more out than I’ve given. And so while I would say to people when they’re trying to look at meaning and whatnot, is find something that you love to do. To me, that is the key. If you love to do it, you’ll be good at it. People will follow you because you have passion, and you’re going to have a fulfilled life.

David Hirsch: I think the way John mentioned it when he introduced us was that you’re a hall of fame match. That’s how he referred to it. I think that is a compliment on a very high order. So if somebody wanted information on Wolcott, or Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed, or Extra Innings, where would they go?

Jeff Aeder: Milt’s is miltsbarbecue.com. Milt’s Extra Innings is miltsei.com. Wolcott School is wolcottschool.org. And the Jewish Baseball Museum is thejewishbaseballmuseum.com. Actually, we’ll have another one soon, because we’re starting up a resale shop to support scholarships at Wolcott. And then I think it will be movecycle.com. So I have a lot of websites.

David Hirsch: You’re keeping some web developers very happy with extra employment as well.

Jeff, thank you for taking the time and many insights. As a reminder, Jeff has just one of the dads who has agreed to be a mentor father is part of the Special Fathers Network, a mentoring program for fathers raising a child with special needs. If you’d like to be a mentor father, or are seeking advice from a mentor father with a similar situation to your own, please go to 21stcenturydads.org.

Jeff, thanks again.

Jeff Aeder: Awesome.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network is a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs. Through our personalized matching process, new fathers with special needs children connect with mentor fathers in a similar situation. It’s a great way for fathers to support fathers.

Sometimes the mentor father is just there to answer a few questions. Sometimes they become good friends. It’s a proven support system for new fathers with special needs kids. If you’re a father looking for support, or if you’re a dad who’d like to offer support, go to 21stcenturydads.org.

David Hirsch: And thank you for listening to this Special Fathers Network Podcast, stories of fathers helping fathers.

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network podcast was produced for 21st Century Dads by Couch Audio. And again, to find out more about the Special Fathers Network, go to 21stcenturydads.org.