Eric Benitez and Leslie Loewen

[00:02] ERIC BENITEZ: Hi, my name is Eric Benitez. I'm 20 years old. Today's date is Tuesday, May 3, 2022. I'm currently in my dorm room at Stanford University. My partner's name is Leslie Loewen and up until now, we have no relationship. But I'm really excited to see if we have one after this.

[00:29] LESLIE LOEWEN: All right. My name is Leslie Loewen. I am 48 years old. Today's date is May 3, 2022. I'm in Fresno, California, sitting in my office at Fresno Unified School District, and my partner's name. My conversation partner's name is Eric Benitez, and I, we are a StoryCorps linkup, and hopefully we will connect after this and maintain our conversation.

[01:05] ERIC BENITEZ: So Leslie's bio, as it reads is. My name is Leslie Loewen I am a lifelong Fresnan. Except for college in San Luis Obispo, wife, mom, daughter, sister, and friend, I love what I do working with students, teachers, and leaders in Fresno unified to be better and do better for kids each day. I love my new life on the farm we recently moved and spending time with family on lots of adventures. I believe we are all called for a greater purpose and to make a difference with the life we are given. My passion is to serve others.

[01:43] LESLIE LOEWEN: I'm excited because my partner has name is Eric Benitez and his bio reads. I am a 19 year old Hispanic American born and raised in the Central Valley of California. I graduated from close high school in 2019, and I am entering my third year at Stanford University where I'm majoring in political science. My parents are mexican immigrants who have given me everything to get me where I am. I aspire to one day serve in our federal government and uphold the systems that allowed my family to progress in this country.

[02:25] ERIC BENITEZ: Right. So one thing that immediately jumped out to me, Leslie, is that you work in education. Education is something I'm very passionate about, and in the beginning, when I was trying to get matched with someone, I really wanted it to be someone from Fresno. Something that I try to work towards diligently is education equity. So I was pretty fascinated when I read a little bit about you and found out you work on campus culture and things of that nature. So can you just tell me a little bit more about your job and about your passions and how you are able to express those in the day to day?

[03:04] LESLIE LOEWEN: Well, I'm super lucky. I feel really blessed to. To get to do what I do. As far as I can tell, we're the third largest school district in the state of California. You know that about Fresno because you went to Clovis High school, our neighbors. And so we are pretty large. And as far as I can tell, I'm the only campus culture manager in the state. And so what we decided about 20 years ago, as we, our activity directors, you may have had, you know, a relationship with one of those on your campus years ago, the activities directors were sort of, I don't know, branded like Julie from the love boat. You're too young probably even to remember that. But, like, as a cruise director, you know, like, you do all the fun stuff. And we really said we're more than root beer chugs and pies in the face. We really set the tone for how we treat each other. One of the first persons I worked with on my school campus said, like, we really want curb appeal that goes deeper, right. So that when you walk on campus, who we are just emanates from everything you see being the students, how they treat each other, how they treat visitors, how the teachers treat one another. And so we said, it's really about the culture of what, you know, of the campus, of what we want to, who we want to be, what we want to do and the why there. And so really to dive deeper into what are the activities that are getting his excited to have a sense of belonging instead of just acceptance or, and just find their, find their family, find their kind of way they do things. You are my son's, my oldest son's age. It sounds like he graduated in 2019 as well. And one of the things that we always said in our house is like, we have house rules, right? So when all of the, all of our kids friends would come over, we just say, hey, you know, we don't know how it's doing your house, but, like, this is, this is how we roll. These are the House rules. And we just wanted to make sure that we taught those house rules, that we kept benching those house rules for our schools so that, you know, kids coming in, felt comfortable, could talk about that. And then everyone we meet kind of knew who we were. And so I love it. And I get to work with. I don't have as many kids as I used to, but I, that I, that I speak to on a daily basis, but I got 75,000 kids who are my kids. So when I was teaching earth science and chemistry and the leadership, I had, like, I don't know, 100, 5200 kids a year, and now I get to work with about 50 that then go out to impact about 300 middle schoolers. And I, so, I mean, it's it's. It's now layered a little bit more. But I also work with a lot more adults, so I'm excited. You graduated in 2019. You're at Stanford. You're in your third year. I am interested because the pandemic, a little bit, had a. Had a wrecking ball impact on. On my boys, who are kind of in the midst of, well, I have one graduating this year, and then Larry said one that's your age. So it kind of had a, like, how. How are you still at Stanford, in your. In your dorms and surviving? You look great.

[06:53] ERIC BENITEZ: Thank you so much. Yeah, that's really, really kind of. I'm really inspired to hear about the work that you do. I'm surprised that you are the only one in this state a little bit before I, you know, share more about myself. I think that, frankly, the work that you do is, as you mentioned, you're one of a kind. And something that I was surprised at was knowing that other students who come from immigrant backgrounds don't feel comfortable, because I am fortunate enough to have felt very comfortable throughout my entire career in public school in California. I know that's not the case for everyone. Clovis High School didn't have a campus culture coordinator, but whoever was, you know, sort of in charge of those things, I think did a good job. So I'm all for this. So, yeah, please do keep up the good work in that regard. Regarding the pandemic, very interesting decision that I made immediately when I got sent home from Stanford in March of 2020, which was that I would note, take any gap years or gap quarters, which is a distinct decision that not a lot of my other peers made. But I came to Stanford with the purpose of enjoying my time and graduating. And I am somebody that, as much as I like to be spontaneous, I enjoy structure. And when I have a goal, I like to see it through. It's something that got me to this place. Um, when we were sent home for the pandemic, I didn't really know how to adjust. Everything was new for everybody, including my own younger brother, who is four years younger than me, so mirrored my experience throughout college. I was at home, he was in high school, both doing zoom from home. I took a lot from the pandemic. It allowed me to cultivate relationships that I was for good or less good reasons, kind of allowing to deteriorate, especially with my family. I'm the first in my family to move away for college, and my family really needed me, which was an interesting concept because my parents had always been very, very kind and gentle and supportive. So I didn't really know, per se, that people needed me, including some members of my extended family. But it's very interesting to know how those feelings get stretched when you move away and you're not physically present. So the silver lining was that I got to spend a lot more time with my family, and it helped me develop in ways that, as much as I've developed here, Stanford couldn't do for me. I needed to be back there, and it was invaluable. It was invaluable being back here now in the dorms before this quarter. So a couple months ago, maybe two or three months ago, I could say that I had spent more time at virtual Stanford than at Real Stanford. And now I'm entering my third year, and I've just crossed the threshold back into more real time at Stanford than virtual time, which is very odd, because I'm about to enter my senior year at this university. It makes you realize that the things that we have, the people that we see on a daily basis, my roommate, who isn't here right now, they're all transient according to conditions that you cannot control at all. And it's very scary, because in this environment, in this school, around the people that I'm around every day, you notice that a lot of people are afraid of uncertainty. And when they don't know what's going to happen and when they aren't in control, they are very, very afraid. People that I hold in the highest esteem and the highest regard break down completely for good reason when they don't know what will come next. And every single person and yourself included and everybody on this earth was, you know, completely thrown into, you know, catastrophe in one way or another. Some people lost things much more serious than. Than I did. Fortunately, I'm fortunate not to have lost anyone close to me due to Covid. But for one reason or another, everything changed. And for me, there are things that change for the better. And one of those better things is, now that I'm here at Stanford, I appreciate everything. I take time to stop and smell the roses, to say hi to people and walk in the sun, and I didn't necessarily do that before the pandemic.

[11:50] LESLIE LOEWEN: So I'm an. I'm taking notes because that's just what I do. I think it's like the lifelong learner teacher in me. I love what you said about your goals and seeing it through and having that determination, that's really key. I'm reading a book called Atomic Habits, although I'd encourage you to read it. It talks about shifting your goals from a goals mindset, like an outcome goals mindset, to an internal. So making it more that the structures and the process get you there so that when you graduate, then it's like, oh, now what? And I think that goes back into what you're talking about, that fear of what's next. Next. I just had a conversation. We just took our youngest to school to register for classes and kind of see what it was about and check out the dorm. Just like you, he was super excited, but then he said, but, mom, then I had a panic attack, and then I had. And then I. And then I was calm and excited, but I was. I didn't feel like, am I. Am I more excited than I should be or less excited? Like, all of that. And he talked about his friends, about moving on from friends and. And, like, you during this pandemic. It's funny, at my son's school, he's in high school. At my son's school, the vice principal, well, they call it different things. The learning director, I think, is what they call him. Learning director is a friend of mine since I was two years old. We grew up on the same street together, and we're, you know, best friends. And his counselor I worked with in my first year's teaching, and her husband was a photographer for all of our school pictures up until now. And their deputy principal, you know, I started teaching with him and actually lit him on fire in 1999. I partied like it was 1999. But when it hit the fan, those folks, like you say, those relationships coming back home, really nurturing those people in your camp, using every tool in your tool belt, really helped all of us. And I said, look, like I didn't hang out with any of those people when I was in high school like I knew of them, or in college shortly after. But 20 years later, when I'm struggling as a mom, as a wife, we're supposed to have answers. I don't know if you know this. And as a teacher, like, I'm supposed to have the answer, too. And I put on the administrator hat, oh, my God, I'm supposed to have all the answers. And half the time I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm just making it up as I go. But like you say, when we panic or in fear, I just think we get away from, like, my goal is to love God and love others and serve, build and lead. And I put that, like, on my email, my personal email stuff, like, just to remind myself. Like, that's. And so every process that I should be doing should be towards that end. And so I try and I'm, I love deep. And so that means, like, if you cry, I cry, which I got a little misty when you're talking about your family. But I try not to get emotional. I try and stay in the rational so that I can, so that I can make the impact that we want, so I can be in someone's camp and have people in mine so I can know what tool to use when I need it. And I loved it that you now appreciate sopping and smelling the roses. I said in my bio that we just moved, moved out to the farm. And one of the things that I love, both of my grandparents lived in rural areas and both were immigrants. Actually, both sets on each side. A little bit different story for them, but they had to struggle and figure things out. And I moved out to the farm and everyone, you know, everyone loves the blossom trail in the valley. They go and they see all the blossoms. What I love and what I think people miss once the blossoms drop, the new teeny, tiny baby growth, if you can imagine, like baby chicks come out and they're all fluffy and cute. Well, the new leaves come out, unlike we've got vineyards and so all the little grape leaves comes out and they're like little dots, like little bright green puffballs. And all the trees, all the leaves on there, they come out and they're curly leaves and they come out and they're like, they're like every tree has feathers instead of leaves. And then yesterday I said, oh, I'm in big trouble because I went for my walk around our farm. And now, like you say, you stop and smell the roses, the cherries are ripening. And so now I'm going to be wooed by these beautiful, awesome, delicious cherries when I'm supposed to be walking and not eating and exercising and not snacking. So I now have snacks on my walk, but it's just looking at those things and like, I think before I would have been bothered by the fact that I had, you know, bug guts all over my car. And my car's never clean anymore. It's always dusty. But now I'm excited because unfortunately, those were bees that were pollinating all my, you know, all my great, just new growth, new life. That's that I see around.

[17:57] ERIC BENITEZ: It's very interesting. Yeah, absolutely. As much like devastation as the pandemic caused, it allowed a lot of things to be incubated that never would have been. Pollution was down. Historically, the earth recovered from massive trends in climate change, and it got a little bit of a break from consumerism and equally humans, like you mentioned, we got a little bit of a break from the outside world. And what I mean to say that as lovely as the world is, there is danger with seeing yourself in respect to others. And it's relentless. It's relentless here at this university. It's relentless in the workforce, it's relentless in society, at every level of success, every level of every age, every socioeconomic status. And it's not something that anyone can overcome. You cannot secede from society by choice very easily or very cleanly. So there was such value in some ways to really notice that a lot of the relationships that we have, unfortunately, are not healthy. And there are things that people do simply to do that aren't healthy. And being alone with yourself, I'll talk a little bit about how being alone with yourself for extended periods of time is also bad, but at least in some sense, being with those you love only and every day and with yourself and cultivating yourself, as you mentioned, moving to a new place can show you that because you're no longer in, you know, as much as you love your old communities, you're no longer there. So you've really got to work on yourself. You've got to work on your environment, your family, and they get a lot of attention, and you start to slowly rebuild those roots. And it's moving is one example, and it provides you opportunities to build new roots. But the pandemic gave us opportunities that humanity has kind of never seen before. To just wipe everything and build from nothing. It's like when you get to college. I liken it because when I got to college, I started doing what I thought would be best, given everything that I had done up until then. I took all the good and only did that and things that I thought that I could maybe do better or not do in order to be better, I didn't do. And no one questioned me because it was the only thing that they knew. So the betterness that we exhibit now after the pandemic, it's real. It's real, and there's so much good that comes out of it. There is a lot of, like I mentioned, peril in being alone. Extended amounts of time. Mental health is a serious, serious issue, even more so now. It devastates me. Stanford lost a student just in the past couple months, and it just wrecked me because that could be. Anybody knows what's going on inside someone's mind. It could be anybody. It could have been me. It could have been one of my peers. So as much as we should take advantage of those new opportunities we get from the pandemic, creates a lot of danger. And as humans, we should be more vigilant of each other, which is why I was so excited to hear about your work. Because to some, it might seem, while we already have learning directors and activities, what is culture? Culture is.

[22:13] LESLIE LOEWEN: You can say it. It's fluffy, right? It's fluffy. Right? You know.

[22:17] ERIC BENITEZ: You know it's in the margins, right?

[22:21] LESLIE LOEWEN: Yeah.

[22:21] ERIC BENITEZ: When our teachers taught us to read between the lines, they weren't saying, read the white space. They were figuring out, figure out what matters that isn't written. And the culture in a public school, in a university, in a workplace, it matters deeply. And if we don't address it, it'll foment itself, sometimes in very negative ways. So addressing those things, calling them out and making them present, making them a position like yourself, is just amazing work.

[22:55] LESLIE LOEWEN: Well, I know it's had a direct impact on my family. You know, I. My students, I always say they're my kids, like my biological kids and my non biological kids, right. My non biologicals, they learn a lot about. I'm an open book to them about our family and kind of what they do. And because I think that's by sharing all of that, we all. We connect and we get advice from. I mean, I'll take it from anywhere, but one of the things that has sort of grounded me in this work is, is that if you don't know my story or where we're coming from or that you don't know that I care. I taught chemistry, and you're at Stanford with some smarty, smarty pants alongside you, right, who, like, are like me, that love chemistry. But most people think we're crazy, right? Like, most people, chemistry is where dreams go to die, right? Like, that's. That's the worst. Like, poke my eyes out. Why do I have to go to chemistry class? But if I could connect with my students in a way that look, like, can we just understand that? Like, we're all made of atoms and we're just trying to figure this out? And I really just. My hope is that your kids are okay when they're sick and you don't give them too much of one thing and not enough of the next, and we can make sure that we're all safe. And if you want to go in the medical field, you're going to need to know this, because all those interactions are chemical. In your body. Can we just do this together and kind of figure it out? And once my kids understand, my students understood that I cared about them, then we could have a different conversation. Like, the learning, the listening was all different because they knew I wasn't sitting there just because I love chemistry and just hammering them and shoving it, shoving it down in their throat. It was more of teamwork. It was more like, we're in this together. I got to get what's in here into your brain somehow, and. And how I'm going to do that just is through loving on you and making sure that we're all on the same page. And if I have a bad day teaching, right, that affects all of you. So I might think it's the best lesson in the planet. And you're like, that was terrible. But if we can work together, then we're all learning. And then I have it again. I have another tool, my toolbox for next time when I run into another student that learns like you, because we all learn a little bit differently. And so when my kids were in this whole midst of this pandemic and things and they were on Zoom and I don't know how you did on your virtual. You could really start to tell the professors or the teachers who really cared. It was cameras. Not for just check the box sake, attendance taking sake, but it was like, I want to see your face. I want to see how you're doing. And the ones they worked for, my biological, you know, my boys worked for. They were the ones that reached out and said, hey, I noticed your camera went off a little bit. I noticed that you're a little bit distracted, like, what's up? What's happening? Because, yeah, we need to be, like, what you said, vigilant, right, about helping one another and not kind of dropping the ball. I'm sorry for your loss at school. It's rough. When my son was oldest, was a sophomore, his lab partner committed suicide, and it was awful. And we're in our family. We're just dealing with one of my cousins. It just was overwhelming. And I look at that and go, what more could I have done? More could I have done? You know, could I made another phone call? Could I have sent a quick text? And then how much are we allowing other people in? Right? Because I. They're in another city a couple hours away, and so watching each other, you know, how much is oversharing, you know, like, I would hope that if I was at a place where I wasn't okay, that I'd humble myself and. And then the folks around me would come alongside and go, hey, look, I see it. I. There's something. There's something that's not. Let's talk. You know, I don't think we can walk past that anymore. I don't want to walk past that anymore.

[27:48] ERIC BENITEZ: Yeah. It's very scary to know that those things are there and that. I think I know that now. From what you've told me, you care deeply. I care deeply as well. But there's only so much that we can do. That's the scariest thing. Like what I mentioned earlier about we're not in control. We're not. We're not goddesse. I'm also a Christian. I'm Catholic. So there's only. There's only so much. We have limits, and that is so difficult to put ourselves below this higher power that we believe in and do, you know, fight the good fight and then realize that there is a limit to what we can do. That's the hardest thing, because I'm sure you would love to prevent that from ever happening again, as would I. It's just we have to wrestle with that. And it's interesting to think that for one reason or another, these things make us contemplate what our role is on this earth. I think a lot about that, and I try to just do that. Atomic habits, practice of living by principle, because you can get lost easily if you are going to a goal, if you use your ends to justify your means, you might find yourself doing some very unethical things or doing things in a way which you aren't happy with. The future, something that I tell as an anecdote, quite frequently, is oftentimes I don't have the best memory. I used to have a great memory. I don't anymore. I don't know why. Maybe I need to, you know, eat more vitamins or something. Omega three or like, antioxidants. But sometimes when I'm like, oh, I don't remember what I, what I did there, to be perfectly honest. I can just think of what I would have done in that situation. And it is almost a hundred percent of the time what I did do, because I have morals and principles that I set a few years ago. Unwritten, really, mostly religious. Some just my own thoughts that I do not abandon for any reason because they're pretty basic. They're not, you know, these massive, like, ideas as to how to live life. They just make me think before I do. And therefore, if I don't remember what I did, I can pretty much figure out what I did. And I'm very proud to say that because consistency is extremely important to me. Um, it's what makes you moral. It defines your word. My father always taught me that your. The word is the mark of a man, man being. Person. Um, and it is. I mean, you are only who you are tomorrow. You are not necessarily who you were yesterday. But I would love to be a very similar person to who I was yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

[31:15] LESLIE LOEWEN: We were talking about technology in one of my recent, I think it was in our church group, talking about technology and how, like, all the information, like you said, I can't remember, like, all the information is there for us. And then I was thinking the information was there for me when I was younger, too, and even for my parents generation, but they had to seek it, and there's something in that seeking and that searching, right? Like, I had. I had to look at a globe if I wanted to know. We're talking about Ukraine, actually, that's where my great grandparents escaped from. And so we're looking. We had to get the globe out. We had to get the encyclopedias out. You looked at all, you investigated, you searched all of the map all around, took in all of that input, and you processed that, maybe not consciously, you know, you weren't looking at what surrounding countries were there. You just had to find them because you were searching. That's different from when I just asked Google, where's Ukraine? I just pop. It pops up. And so you don't. There's not that searching and that seeking. And so I asked myself, like, what has technology done for us? Yes. It's. I mean, it's amazing. Allows us to do this right at the same time, are we searching and are we seeking? And like you said, do we have those grounding principles, those anchors that are in our lives, that anchor us back to the why? So if it doesn't, if it's not something that says, am I loving God, am I loving others? Am I serving? Am I building? Am I leading? Like you say, your foundations are simple. I mean, I don't think that's complex either, right? Like, in my classroom, my rules were, don't be a jerk to your neighbor. I don't know. Like, listen, let's do this, you know, together. Let's figure it out. It wasn't complex. But like you say, like, I love that I want to be tomorrow who maybe I was yesterday, or little modifications here and there, but we want to make sure we're anchored in those truths. And I think if we do a little more time searching and seeking and diving into the external or the ancillary parts of our questions, right. Dig a little deeper, ask a few more questions. Maybe we are more present and we do remember more because we are interacting more with it. I think at the time I missed now with all of my grandparents and my great, I had, I had great grandparents that told me those stories and I missed that. So I'm consciously spending more time, hopefully with young people, intergenerationally, generationally, to make sure that we share our experiences. Cause I'm loving that you're at Stanford and doing your thing and I'm such a. Congratulations on getting through this. And in three years, hopefully you'll graduate and chart your path and whatever I can do to put you in touch with and facilitate, like you seeking and learning, now we're connected, now you have that and now you get all the ancillary parts of what I have too. Like all my peeps are your peeps, right? My grandma used to say, oh, I met a new friend today and soon she'll be family. And it didn't mean that she was going to be family. It's just today, I met a new friend today and his name is Eric. And soon you'll be a part of my crew. I'm a nerd and I am a weirdo, so welcome.

[35:25] ERIC BENITEZ: Yeah, it's a pleasure to meet you. I think that sadly, this generation is averse to making new friends. And I might tell you that by, you know, culture, some culture here on Stanford's campus. And I'm pretty sure I can speak to wider trends, even in my brother's, I would call it generation, because I know to my parents, maybe to yourself, young people, we seem a little bit closer together. But when you're here, this guy looks miles away. There is this trend to be the cool guy. I know that that's existed for far beyond me, but now it's gone to the point of don't approach anyone because you don't know if they like you. You must know that somehow in advance. Um, and I tell this to my mother. My mother's like, what on earth is that principle? You go up to someone and ask if they want to, you know, be your friend or if it's someone you're interested in, ask them if they want to have a coffee or see a movie. And my mother and my father met each other this way, and it's actually foreign to me, which is quite sad. I wish that this is a very structured interaction and I love it and I sought this, and I waited, as I love to tell the facilitators, months for this and was eager to do it, partly because I sort of lacked that, even at Stanford. And I know that that can be wildly opposed with some views of college, which is like, you meet a million people a day. You do, but it's very different kind of meeting people than this, and there's a place for everything. But I can tell you, I think with certainty that more people, I think at least more people my age need, and they need it more frequently, they need it to be available. I'm equally timid when it comes to going up to new people and just making friends. That isn't socially acceptable. I think, and I would dare to.

[37:48] LESLIE LOEWEN: Say, I'm going to challenge you on that. I am a relationship builder, and so I am obnoxiously friendly and I have had much success. So I'm going to encourage you to be obnoxiously friendly and see what happens. Again, we were just in Idaho. I now have three cell phone numbers of college kids and a grandma who was willing to give her granddaughter to my son because he was so delightful to her because I was obnoxiously friendly. So channel you're in it. So my street name for my kids is mama Low. I'm everyone's mother, so that's what my twitter handle is. And Instagram and mama low. So channel your inner mama low and go out and be obnoxiously friendly with someone and build and just say, if I'm a relationship builder, what would a relationship builder do in this situation? Like, you'd ask just one question. You'd. You'd. The grandma who was willing to give her granddaughter over in marriage already, her name was Leslie, and so we just connected by first name. I said, oh, of course, you were supposed to be out tonight. And it turns out that was the first time she had been out in seven months because she had lost her husband. And she just, she sent me a text and she said, thanks for not thinking I was weird, you know, when I asked you to dance, you know, fellow Leslie's on the dance floor, so I'm just gonna encourage you because you're a great, you're great, and it sounds like you have fabulous parents, and it's just so nice to talk to you and so obnoxiously friendly. And if you are a relationship builder, which you are, sounds to me like you are. If you're a relationship builder, what would you do in that situation? You'd ask that girl for coffee and you wouldn't care.

[39:47] ERIC BENITEZ: I think I might. I wanted to just. I don't know if we need to move on or something in conversation, but I wanted to end with a comment specifically from a person in my generation that you work with every day. I'm not sure how often you hear it, and I mean it deeply, that your work matters. Okay. I have seen. I know some people think, you know, what is this? What is culture coordinator like? What? I'm sure there's a lot of students that actually do show you love. They call you Mama low. But I want you to know that your work matters deeply. There are kids who need it, who need to hear it. And you know as well as anybody that you have plenty of experience. It's often the people who don't say anything to you at all who might need it the most, who just take it and they sit with it. They need it deeply. So please take it from at least someone like me that what you do make changes lives every day. It makes people have different outlooks on school, on relationships, and on their whole life. And you can change the trajectory of someone's entire life by being who you are. So thank you on behalf of, you know, at least the 75,000 kids that you work with, and if not every young person. Thank you.

[41:26] LESLIE LOEWEN: Thank you, Eric, again, you make me cry, but that's. I'm a Marissa. Sit down. Thank you. And hopefully you can make a difference, right. In whatever you do, whatever you choose, however you choose, to use your gifts, God gave you gifts, and so I'm just excited to see what that looks like. And if you need my help, that's it. We're now connected. So thank you. It's been awesome talking to you. Appreciate this opportunity.

[42:10] ERIC BENITEZ: Likewise.