Dale Pfeiffer and Kelly Finley

[00:03] DALE PFEIFER: My name is Dale Pfeifer I'm 69 years old. It's November 19, 2023, and we're in Mobile, Alabama.

[00:12] KELLY FINLAY: And I'm Kelly Finlay As I love to say, I'm ageless, but November is my birthday month, so I celebrate all my true Scorpio. Right? Yeah. Thank you. It's November 19, 2023. We are here in Mobile, Alabama, and, gosh, the person sitting across from me has become a really true friend. And I'm excited to be here to talk about so many great things that he and his partner and the community are making happen right here, right now. You ready?

[00:45] DALE PFEIFER: I am.

[00:46] KELLY FINLAY: I love it. First of all, you are. I told you you're magical. I told you that, and you smiled. Others have called you creative. Let's. Let's take them back down memory lane and letheme people know who you are. So where were you born?

[01:00] DALE PFEIFER: I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[01:03] KELLY FINLAY: Cold.

[01:04] DALE PFEIFER: Very cold.

[01:08] KELLY FINLAY: And what brought you here to mobile?

[01:12] DALE PFEIFER: Actually, where we were, my wife and I, Reba, we were going to go to New Orleans to live because we both love music and dancing, and she wanted me to retire from the it industry. And so we started looking at houses in New Orleans, and they were very expensive. And we had. Reba had saved up all her life to buy her retirement home, cash. But in New Orleans, we were, you know, we couldn't buy the house for what she saved up, and we didn't want a mortgage. So somebody said, why don't you check out mobile? It's only a couple hours away. And so we ended up buying a really beautiful house here with everything we wanted. And so that's basically what brought us here. We wanted to travel. Reba had been to 37 countries and.

[02:12] KELLY FINLAY: 37.

[02:13] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, 37 countries.

[02:14] KELLY FINLAY: How many countries have you been to?

[02:15] DALE PFEIFER: Canada and Miami, if you consider that a foreign country?

[02:23] KELLY FINLAY: You know what? I'm from Detroit, and, like, Canada's right across the street. It's literally. I feel that. I feel that. Wow. So New Orleans, and you say it's a tad bit pricey here. Let's go to mobile. The person who told you about mobile, were they from here or had they been just passing through?

[02:42] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, they. That's an interesting story, too. We methadore. We came here from Winston Salem, North Carolina, and we met with, like, a dinner group every week. And the woman that told us about mobile, she actually lived here. And one of their. One of their daughters went to Auburn, and one of them went to Alabama. And so she informed me, she says, you're going to have to pick a. So I thought, okay, that was easy because I picked Alabama years ago, before I even moved here, so. But anyway, that's. That's kind of the story behind that you moved from.

[03:21] KELLY FINLAY: Now, would you consider that Midwest coming from that part of the country to the south?

[03:32] DALE PFEIFER: No, it's. No, there's.

[03:35] KELLY FINLAY: What would you call that? There's a reason I'm asking this.

[03:38] DALE PFEIFER: You mean where we moved here from?

[03:39] KELLY FINLAY: Yes. Yes.

[03:40] DALE PFEIFER: It would be coastal, you know, eastern coast, very similar to this. Not too far from the beach, in the mountains, Appalachia, all that, but colder.

[03:52] KELLY FINLAY: Right. And was there much of a transition? Did you have to find a new way to do things? Or do you feel like you and Reba just picked up in a new place and a new zip code and you made it your spot?

[04:05] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, that's kind of the reason we wanted. We wanted a fresh start. You know, I had been married before, and she had had other relationships before, and so we wanted to start fresh and, you know, basically buy a house and retire and travel. That was our plan.

[04:21] KELLY FINLAY: I love how you two think, by the way.

[04:24] DALE PFEIFER: And we adjusted pretty well. Of course, Covid hit. We moved here Christmas Eve, and Covid hit in January.

[04:34] KELLY FINLAY: I didn't realize it was that close to Covid when you moved here.

[04:37] DALE PFEIFER: Yes. And so all of our plans for traveling were just kind of, like, blown up. So we were. I was retired. I'm an author. So that helped me because I, you know, wrote a lot during COVID You.

[04:50] KELLY FINLAY: You wear so many hats, and so.

[04:53] DALE PFEIFER: But we. We did. We adjusted Rebo, like, the warmth and I, we were introduced to Mardi Gras mobile style. That was an amazing experience.

[05:05] KELLY FINLAY: That is three weeks of. Wow.

[05:07] DALE PFEIFER: We were, like, at every parade. We had bags of throws and just loving it. And we thought, man, we had no idea that mobile was the original Mardi Gras was here. So it was totally fascinating to us. And we loved it all. We danced in the streets and we loved it.

[05:27] KELLY FINLAY: You know, I was going to ask you about dancing in the streets and the two of you meeting, what was that like when you first laid eyes on Reba?

[05:34] DALE PFEIFER: Well, we. I had been married for basically all my life to two different women and had family life, and I was not. I was not going to get married again. I bought a little house in a historic district in Winston Salem and fixed it up and calculated how much my retirement would be and how much I could afford. And I was just happy to just live in that little house. And I had gone through recovery, and I was in the midst of my recovery, when I met Reba. So I went to AA meetings and celebrate recovery. And the rule in AA is you shouldn't get into any kind of relationship for at least two years. A lot of people break that rule. But I was pretty strict about my recovery. I tried to follow everything by the book, and it paid off because it was very successful. And so I was real reluctant. But when we. We both loved dancing, and that was the. I remember the serenity prayer, enjoying every moment. So I took the time to think about, what are the things I really like to do besides riding? I like to dance, and I like riding my bike. So we met every. Every week it went to Salem. They opened up the streets, and a band, different kind of band, came in every week. So we went out and danced. We didn't know each other. And we would dance by ourself because there were about a half a dozen of us that would just go out there and dance. We really didn't care whether we had a partner or nothing, actually, a lot of fun. And then one day, I said, well, what? I asked her to, you know, dance with me. She thought I was a drunk from down the street.

[07:32] KELLY FINLAY: Why did she think that?

[07:33] DALE PFEIFER: I had no idea. But I was carrying. I had water at the time. You know, later on when she told me that, I said, that's really funny because I don't drink anymore and stop drinking. And so. But we. Every week, we would meet and dance and meet and dance, meet and dance. Then we started dating, and then it got more serious, and that's how it kind of all went. But she was the most loving person I ever met. She used to feed the cat colonies in Winston Salem, and I was shocked whenever she opened her trunk one day, and it was just full of cat food. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is.

[08:15] KELLY FINLAY: That could have gone in one of two ways.

[08:16] DALE PFEIFER: Really eccentric.

[08:18] KELLY FINLAY: That could have gone one of two ways. So when you danced each time. Right. So with the different people, what type of dancing was going on during those. Those times?

[08:35] DALE PFEIFER: Well, on Friday night, it was a mixed bag. Every week with a different genre, you know. And so we kind of danced to whatever. We do a lot of two stepping, and if the beat's right for two stepping, you can two step to any genre of music, you know? That's right. Kind of like salsas. Like that, too. Yes.

[08:53] KELLY FINLAY: Yes.

[08:54] DALE PFEIFER: So. So we do a lot of two stepping, but we also just do a lot of our own freestyle dancing. You know, I grew up in the, you know, the soul air. So James Brown was my. My guy, you know, I feel good.

[09:09] KELLY FINLAY: It's like that could be your mantra that follows you everywhere you go.

[09:14] DALE PFEIFER: James Brown.

[09:15] KELLY FINLAY: So that was then. Do you and Rebo still do that? Do you find yourself no matter where you are? Music drops, and it is. The world is your dance floor.

[09:23] DALE PFEIFER: Even last night, you know, we went to that gathering last night, and we were the only ones that dance. And that's all. A lot of times the case, we're the only ones that are dancing. But we just. It's such a bond that we have, and we love to do it. And Reba is actually from Appalachia, and so she plays the spoons, and she does flat footing.

[09:45] KELLY FINLAY: Wait, she plays the spoons?

[09:47] DALE PFEIFER: Yes.

[09:48] KELLY FINLAY: You two could not be more creative.

[09:51] DALE PFEIFER: And it's really neat to watch her do that, especially because Reba was born without her left arm, you know, so she's, you know, she's got that handicap, but. And everybody, you know, watches her plays. How are you? How can you do that? And. But she's just such a natural nut. And so we throw a little bit of flatfoot dancing. When we're dancing in Mobile, Alabama now, people probably don't recognize it, but somebody from New Orleans, we were down at the spotted cat, and an older lady was in the corner, and she goes, are you guys from down here in Louisiana? We said, no, we're from North Carolina. She says, you dance like you're from down here. Because we have that soulful, you know, kind of those steps that you would maybe have in Louisiana.

[10:42] KELLY FINLAY: That soulfulness also helps you to connect with other people in different ways without saying a word. Cause I watch you. I see you at different events, both of you at different nonprofit events, you know, art walk. And the way you two move about the crowd is very interesting, and it's with love. And it's important because of, you know, what, we're really here to talk about driftwood housing and what that means to so many people, help us understand. What is driftwood housing?

[11:16] DALE PFEIFER: Well, when we moved here to mobile, you know, like I said, we were. Our plan was, we're gonna move here, you know, set our house up and then travel the world. That was our plan.

[11:33] KELLY FINLAY: Right.

[11:34] DALE PFEIFER: But that wasn't God's plan.

[11:35] KELLY FINLAY: Right?

[11:37] DALE PFEIFER: Far from it.

[11:38] KELLY FINLAY: Right. He's got a sense of humor.

[11:40] DALE PFEIFER: So we both love jazz music. I love a little more. She's more of a blues person. I'm more of a jazz person. But central Presbyterian church had jazz on the roof, and in our neighborhood, we thought oh, that sounds really cool. Let's go visit that. Of course, we went down there and we danced, and we met some really cool people there. And I looked up at the. On the wall, and it said food pantry, you know. So we talked it over, and we thought, well, let's. Let's do. You know, they. They have Monday and Tuesdays where they need help. So we went over and volunteered Monday and Tuesdays, and it was half a day. And we met a lot of really wonderful people there, and we were very both into love and unity a lot. I mean, we're just, you know, that's just who we are. We just love. And actually, what's really crazy is she's a Democrat and I'm Republican. But we were able to talk about things with respect. With respect. And understand the other person's point of view without getting into too many fights. We could have a couple.

[12:49] KELLY FINLAY: Can you teach others how to do that?

[12:51] DALE PFEIFER: Well, I'm hoping to. It's like, because, you know, she's a retired school teacher, and she meets with all her liberal retired school teachers every month on Zoom, and they are, like, constantly talking about politics. And I told her, I said, it's so funny because there was a time when I would get together with my friends, and all we did was talk politics, and it was all republican politics. So, I mean, you just form these groups, and you really don't know too much about the other side of because you're so busy criticizing them. And, you know, so when I got to know how Reba really felt about this, we actually agree on a lot of things.

[13:37] KELLY FINLAY: Do you think if you take the title off of it and if more people did that, we could have healthier conversations?

[13:42] DALE PFEIFER: I think so. I think if we just, you know, listen to what the other side is and be more, you know, like, okay, you be you, and I'll be me. That was our song when we were dating. You be you and I'll be me. We had to, because we had really different ideas about life. So, you know. So, do you see?

[14:05] KELLY FINLAY: Do you sing, too?

[14:06] DALE PFEIFER: I do. Yeah.

[14:08] KELLY FINLAY: You sing.

[14:09] DALE PFEIFER: That's my guitar. Yeah.

[14:11] KELLY FINLAY: So I've never heard that song. You be you and I'll be me.

[14:15] DALE PFEIFER: Okay.

[14:15] KELLY FINLAY: How does it go?

[14:17] DALE PFEIFER: Why don't you be you? It's a john. What's his name? Ubu. And I'll be. I can't sing right now, but we, you know, we. The story is we started serving at that food pantry, and then eventually Connie. Who runs the food pantry?

[14:42] KELLY FINLAY: Connie G. Yeah.

[14:44] DALE PFEIFER: Connie Ghdev. She asked me if I could help with the. Help with the homeless people that came to there. They didn't have cars. They just walked up and they gave them food.

[14:57] KELLY FINLAY: And this is in the heart of.

[14:59] DALE PFEIFER: COVID Yeah, this is in the midst of COVID And we had. We were serving thousands of people food. It was quite amazing and long days, but there were some that she would call me during the week and she'd say, dale, you know, so and so is here, and he needs this or that chapstick or whatever. So we would start caring for them. So one day we were at the beach at Dolphin island, and I picked up a piece of driftwood. And, you know, it just reminded me of all the homeless people that I've ever met in my life. I've kind of, all my life reached out to homeless people in every city that I've lived in and tried to help them. And they're really interesting to hear their stories. Just like I'm telling you my story. There's some just unbelievably interesting stories out there. And I plan to write about that in the future.

[16:03] KELLY FINLAY: Why does that touch you in such a way when you imagine yourself seeing that piece of driftwood?

[16:10] DALE PFEIFER: Well, I mean, in my life, I've kind of drifted too. I mean, I was never homeless, but there are circumstances that happen in life that cause you to move. And my dad moved a lot. He was an alcoholic, and we moved so many times. And it really. It's disturbing because you're moving from one school system to another. He knows. And then when I got married, same thing. And then I kind of understood a little bit about why my dad moved, because stuff happens, and it. So I could really relate to that being a crisis, and it's followed up by some disruption of your living style.

[17:01] KELLY FINLAY: For those who are not familiar with what driftwood looks like, describe it.

[17:06] DALE PFEIFER: Driftwood is usually down here. Pieces of cypress go in the water or live oak trees that have died and they rot. And then they just drift in the water and they can lodge somewhere for a while, but then something, maybe another storm will disrupt that and then it'll move along. And over time, it would just breaks down that driftwood. So it's got holes in it. It's rough.

[17:38] KELLY FINLAY: It's kind of like our lives.

[17:40] DALE PFEIFER: It is. Especially people that are homeless and they're chronically homeless because they didn't really want to be there, but they're there, and then there's no easy way out of it.

[17:53] KELLY FINLAY: Do you find that when you make the connection with the different homeless people that you have that they look at you and think, how do you know what I'm going through? You have it all together. How do you know?

[18:06] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, I'm sure that that comes to their mind and they don't know. But, you know, I've been through a lot of crisis in my life, which I don't go into a lot, but I've been through a lot. And you go through divorce. It's a lot. I lost a daughter when she was 21. She was a gay daughter. So, I mean, I've dealt with a lot of things in my life. An alcoholic dad, you know, just a lot of different things that. A lot of introspective things. I struggle with anxiety and depression through my life. So I understand a little bit about mental illness. It's one point I thought I was bipolar, but I learned that I wasn't, and I had a happy day. I'm so glad I'm not that, because I would have days where I was really depressed and days where I was, like, very anxious, but they didn't last. It's kind of like it would blow away. But very rollercoaster life have great moments and very low moments. And the low moment was, you know, right before I started into recovery, I was suicidal and I didn't want to live anymore.

[19:33] KELLY FINLAY: First of all, I am so proud of you for even sharing that because that takes so much strength knowing you're in front of a microphone, knowing you're talking to people, but your power is in your words and in your moves and how you're helping to change the trajectory of so many families. And I'm a big believer, and we go through certain things that give us empathy for other people. And now it makes even more sense how you connect with so many people because you've walked those roads, you've been there and you've survived.

[20:08] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, I had a son that was a crack addict. And, you know, we've had all of the, you know, all of the crises that people go through with teenagers, you know, you know, we've had the out of wedlock child, you know, and how to deal with that. We had to rescue my son and literally take him to a rehab drug clinic. Fortunately, it worked. And he's free. He's been free for decades, but we've been through those periods. And I think the hope for everybody is that you might be in a really desperate situation, but it's not going to stay there, that there will be someone that comes along and helps you to the next step in your life.

[21:03] KELLY FINLAY: But I hope you, you know, because I always talk to you about social media and how you connect with so many people. I hope you hit your own, like, button for all that you're doing, because you are amazing again. You could have used all of what you've been through, and that had taken you so many steps back, and you. And you only focused on you, but you're looking outward. And as a parent, that's a big deal because you have every reason not to along the journey, because I know we've talked politics along the journey. Do you find that your politics, when you and Reba talked about politics, that that impacted how you healed or how you moved? Because sometimes certain people who are on the left or on the right, they think, well, we have to do it like this, because. Did that ever play into any of your thought process?

[21:56] DALE PFEIFER: Well, I think now is a time of really rethinking where we stand as an individual and picking those things that really matter a lot, you know, and maybe letting go of some of those things that you thought were so important, you know? So I think through this, and because I, you know, that you be you and I'll be me kind of thing, and, you know, I'm at a place where now I accept people the way they are. I'm not so interested in changing them. And I learned in recovery, that's called codependency, when you're trying to change everybody. And it's like, that's what I was doing all my life, is trying to change everybody. Of course, it was to my christian religion. You know what I mean? It's not a bad thing. But the thing is, we've got to accept people where they are in life. You know, we gotta accept them. You know, we have to accept our gay neighbors. We gotta accept people that are of a different religion or atheists or Buddhists or. You know, and love is really the way to connect with people, you know? So working with the homeless week, we have it all there, you know what I mean? And I think the best expression of Christianity is through love. And so. And my wife and I agree, even though we're different, maybe in our politics somewhat, we're changing. We both believe in democracy, you know, and democracy, you know, if we get a little theological here, the root word for democracy is ecclesia, which is the same word that's used for church. So Jesus actually, you know, pulled that from greek history, and that's what he called the church, but it actually was the democracy that was established in Greece. So it's kind of like, to me, that especially going through what we're going through right now, and we're going for it. I gotta let my neighbors, who may be, they might think completely, 100% differently than me, but because of democracy, they have a voice, and we can't silence anybody, you know, and try to make them all like us, like, you know, our little group, you know?

[24:29] KELLY FINLAY: Right. Cause that's boring. That's. That's. That's vanilla. And you want. I think that as long as there's respect, people can think left or right or wherever, but when we lose the respect and we lose the love, then we stop listening. I love that you're taking us to church on Sunday.

[24:48] DALE PFEIFER: I feel this way. You can have very strong thoughts, and I do. I have very strong beliefs, but I believe that love is greater than any of my beliefs because my beliefs are fickle, you know, then they change.

[25:01] KELLY FINLAY: That's your next book. You just titled it. I'm calling it right now.

[25:07] DALE PFEIFER: We're fickle. But, I mean, if you asked me, ten years ago, I was in the Tea Party movement, and I went to DC and I marched, and, you know, I was completely in that vein. You know, I'm still a fiscal conservative. You know, that's kind of one of.

[25:27] KELLY FINLAY: The reasons why we all should be.

[25:29] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, I mean, we're out of debt. We don't do debt. And so it just makes a lot. And I'm accountant, so it's like, it makes sense for me that we have a budget trying not to spend more than we're bringing in. So, I mean, I'm still that. And Reba agrees with me because she's. She has saved all her life and gone to 37 different countries on a teacher salary. So she is definitely a fiscal conservative. So we, you know, we're able to, like, find unity, you know, in these things.

[26:01] KELLY FINLAY: That's right.

[26:02] DALE PFEIFER: But it's where we spend our money, you know what I mean? That's where we get into, you know, into the differences and stuff like that.

[26:08] KELLY FINLAY: But when we talk about driftwood housing, what's the mission?

[26:13] DALE PFEIFER: Our mission is to provide affordable housing to the chronically homeless and then wrap services around them because they need different services. You know, things like, some of them don't have even an id, so we'll help them get an id, we'll help them get their paperwork. We'll help them if they have mental illnesses. We'll help them if they need to get a job. So we'll surround them with all of these services while we're housing them. We kind of do the housing first model, which is a national model, but we'll probably, I always tell housing first here in the area. I said, we'll pick up the people that you can't because they have very strict rules of who can qualify for housing. For instance, I'll give you one. It's really kind of hard for me is if we have a double amputee individual, and I won't tell you his name, but he's been homeless and mobile for 20 years. Wow. He lost both legs in the process.

[27:28] KELLY FINLAY: While he was homeless.

[27:29] DALE PFEIFER: While he was homeless, because he didn't have access to health care, he got an infection and just let it go, and he lost one leg. 2nd. 2nd said, but what happens is he does make $740 a month. So he would find a trailer that's real cheap and live in it. And so as soon as you live in a trailer or you live with an aunt or uncle, or you live with somebody to take care of you, even if you're homeless, you're disqualified from housing first. You have to literally either be living on the street or in a shelter where you go in at night and then leave in the morning, you know, but if you live with someone, you're exempt. Well, a lot of homeless people aren't going to live in the street all the time. They're going to find somebody that will house them, you know, makes sense. Yeah. But as we all know, it's very difficult to house anybody, even relatives, for more than, you know, a short period of time. So they end up getting kicked out. Driftwood.

[28:37] KELLY FINLAY: That's right.

[28:37] DALE PFEIFER: They're living here and then they're kicked. But that process eliminates them from federal housing. So what we hope to do is identify those people, like Larry, who, for whatever reason, they're chronically homeless. They have nowhere to go. Desperate. And so we're gonna pick up the people that, that haven't gotten the help. And so Larry will be our first, the first person we house in our village.

[29:08] KELLY FINLAY: I'm so excited. Tell us about that.

[29:10] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, well, we're building micro and tiny houses. Basically. A micro house is 120 sqft. It's big enough. It's kind of like about the size of this airstream trailer we're in. We'll have a single bed, and we'll have a, you know, cabinet space of about nine foot, refrigerator on the bottom, and a microwave on top, and cabinetry. And it'll have heating and air conditioning. We'll put a split mini in there, but it's just a place where they can call their home. It's very small, but they're out of the elements. You know, they're not going to be an outside. During hurricanes or, you know, in, you know, in cold weather, we'll allow pets. So a lot of them have pets, and that's why they won't stay in shelter. So there's another group that we can accommodate. There's no place in mobile where couples can go. So if you're a married couple, you literally have to split up, and the man has to go to the men's shelter, and the woman has to go to the woman's shelter.

[30:13] KELLY FINLAY: And all that you're saying makes so much sense to people with a heart. Right? But there were obstacles along the way. Share some of those obstacles.

[30:22] DALE PFEIFER: Oh, yeah, there's all kinds of obstacles. When we first started, it was, I used to go to city council meetings, and we had one. One of our districts that they were going to propose an ordinance to criminalize homeless people and find them, you know, and it was like, so a whole group of homeless service providers got together, and we would go to city hall and just protest that these are not criminal people. They're just. They had a rough time. They're lost, maybe I say a lost coin, but there's hope for them, and we need to help them, so not criminalize them, because that would only dig them deeper. So that was one of them. The other one is what we call NIMBY or not in my neighborhood kind of syndrome that you don't want your property value to go down. You think of all these economic reasons why you don't want to have homeless people in your neighborhood. And sadly, we had a building, not us, not driftwood, but an associate of ours who loves the homeless people, too, had a building that would have been perfect. He spent a lot of money and a lot of volunteers, like, engineered how that his facility could be used. But in mobile, we have rule that if the neighborhood is not in agreement to the zoning change that you might need, then it's just dead. And we had that, too. In our early. We had a building we were interested in, and we couldn't get the zoning because the down the Bay community, they didn't want it. They didn't want it.

[32:08] KELLY FINLAY: How did that make you feel?

[32:09] DALE PFEIFER: Well, it's so sad because these are people that really need our help, and they're just not getting it. So we came up with a plan that's affordable. I've been speaking a lot of Rotary club groups and stuff, and Sunrise Rotary Club here has helped us a lot. They are responsible for us receiving eight acres of property and they're also considering doing our hygiene center covering that, so. But they've been, and then one of the members of that gave us a 7000 contribution and that's how much it costs to build up one of our little micro homes.

[32:55] KELLY FINLAY: I'm glad you mentioned that because there's going to be people from around the world who are going to be listening to this. Okay. How can people help? How can they pour into what you're doing? Obviously money and time, but talk to them, help them to understand how they can help you and then you help others.

[33:14] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, well, you know, my sister in Knoxville sent us dollar 500. So if you want to help somebody, realistically, we're all volunteers that are on the board. We have no salaries, no overhead. Really, everything that we do currently is to build microhomes and tiny homes for those that need help. We don't have to spend millions, make, you know, spend these millions of dollars on a facility when we only need, you know, between seven and 15,000 to build these little houses. And so basically our, our website is just simply driftwood housing. Www.driftwoodhousing.com. and then we also have a Facebook group, Driftwood Housing, and we have a newsletter. So those are all mediums, social media, you know, our newsletter and our website all contribute to people, you know, helping and they can, you know, make contributions to us. We are a five of us, 501 charitable organization. So we're, and we've been vetted, you know, so.

[34:31] KELLY FINLAY: And you update everyone with what's happening. I love the fact that you have a trailer with a license plate.

[34:36] DALE PFEIFER: I mean, that I know every little detail. I'm thinking, do people really care that we, you know, I painted the wheel fender black and yes, but to us it's exciting because we're getting, we're going to be the first community in Alabama, and we have, we also are working with a Gulf coast alliance, other communities like us, and we hope to help other communities. We're a little bit further along than the other ones. But Huntsville is going through the same thing with not in my neighborhood, they're having a hard time getting property.

[35:11] KELLY FINLAY: So you're going to be the first of this kind in the state of Alabama?

[35:16] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah, except for maybe legal's landing, which is a veterans community.

[35:23] KELLY FINLAY: What keeps you up at night?

[35:27] DALE PFEIFER: Oh, I guess, you know, just all of the, there's many, many dangers, toils and snares on this route, and it comes from people that are homeless that we're serving that are very, very difficult, have difficult, complex situations. And then also the neighborhoods and then the government regulations and healthcare regulations and just. It's on every angle. There's frustration. But we were gonna do this, and I'm not one. I'm a little OCD and I write books, so it's like, I don't give up things.

[36:13] KELLY FINLAY: And you're fiscally conservative. Hello. You know how to manage your money.

[36:17] DALE PFEIFER: Project manager.

[36:18] KELLY FINLAY: So as we wrap up, I want to know, what's the legacy that you're hoping that you leave behind when people say, Dale Pfeifer

[36:31] DALE PFEIFER: I think, you know, that I. That I enjoyed life and then that I genuinely loved people and were kind. Kind to people. And the twelve step comes to mind on twelve step program. It's to help people. That's the whole thing about the twelve step. And once you are in your happy place, help others. That's the legacy I want to do, you know, bring somebody out of that hole that I used to be in, you know?

[37:08] KELLY FINLAY: And I love how you say you be you and I'll be me.

[37:11] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah.

[37:11] KELLY FINLAY: Thank you so much for allowing me this opportunity to talk to you again.

[37:15] DALE PFEIFER: Well, thank you.

[37:16] KELLY FINLAY: Anytime. Your family.

[37:17] DALE PFEIFER: Yeah.