Team Peri Foundation Featured with Lori Finkelstein on JM in the AM

Uh Lori Finkelstein is with us live via telephone. Her daughter is the founder of Team Perry. Um Team Perry Team Perry Foundation is dedicated to the art of uh stepping out of line. Sometimes stepping out of line can be messy and chaotic. Sometimes it's fraught with disaster. Sometimes it's done with grace. Learning to embrace facing the unknown and venturing outside the norm is how you challenge and ultimately discover your full potential. The team Perry Foundation, we met Perry at a bowling event like must be six, seven years ago and uh Team Perry Foundation is a not forprofit founded by a young woman named Perry Finkelestein with a rare form of musculardrophe. She uses an electric wheelchair. She has seen firsthand the amount of injustice and bias that exists and they try their hardest to bring uh disability inclusion awareness everywhere the corporate sector healthcare industry to everybody they can reach. They actually have an event coming up this Sunday a bolathon out in Woodmir. We'll talk about that in a moment. They have supported some amazing causes including some their foundation has supported some amazing causes including some very dear to our community such as High Lifeline, Team Lifeline and Camp Sima. Lori Finkelstein, a pleasure to welcome you to JM and the AM. >> Thank you so much. I really appreciate uh being here. >> You you have an amazing daughter, but I guess you know that, right? Um I know and sometimes uh frankly it's a little overwhelming because she has drive and ambition that I know my husband and I really never had growing up. So we don't know where she got it from but um she's she's pretty amazing and she's always pushing herself. It is remarkable and um obviously you know those of us in whatever you want to call it normal regular you know situations are generally not aware of the encounters that people in her situation in her case a rare form of musculardrophe face when they're in the general public and I guess as her mother you could attest to the fact that sometimes it's very difficult the relationships the transitions the uh you know dealing with people who are not are not fully understanding just how much she's suffering physically. I'm sure you've seen all of this up close and personal. >> Yes. I mean Perry's 25 years old and we've been on quite a journey going from being a mom to her with a child. I have two older children and this is you know a child I have who everything was totally different. She never hit any mark or any any milestone that she was supposed to hit. So from 25 and on, it was a whole new world for me and I did not always accept it gratefully. As you can imagine, it was pretty tough. But along the way, we've learned an incredible amount and we've had a lot of help and some really wonderful people and organizations who helped Perry and our family. And one of them, of course, being High Lifeline, Team Lifeline, which really showed Perry to Camp Simha, which you know is the happiest place on earth. that she is able, not just able, but she is she was encouraged to step out of line and be her own person. And I think that's where it all started, that she knew she had something special and she could use it. >> Lori Finkelestein's with us, Perry's mom, talking about team Perry. And once she realized that she had that capability of stepping out and uh you know and and and you know accomplishing things then all of a sudden it seems like uh there were no limits. It seems like everything that she could have pursued or wanted to pursue she was already on the road to doing >> right but it was a lot of hard work. I know when she hit college and she went to Adelfi University undergraduate and then she got her MBA from there as well, she realized how far she could go. Um she was in a leadership program at Adelfi and she didn't understand at first why she was there and then she realized that she had a voice. not a voice that she could use, let's say, on the radio, which is why I'm talking with you, but a voice a voice on on her computer, on her phone, um that she's able to use her words. And now at this point, she has a thriving podcast where we've had, I think, over 117 podcasts uh she produced and has online. And um it was all about how people have stepped out of line in their life. And it's inspired by the actor Alf Borstein who had done an a great show as we all know Marvelous Mrs. Masel and she had accepted an Emmy and talked about her grandmother who survived the Holocaust because she stepped out of line and she encouraged everybody to step out of line. Perry heard it, took it to heart, started the podcast and we actually had um Alex on our podcast. Uh I think she was maybe 99, number 99. Um and then that in inspired Perry to do a TED talk which just came out um a little over a month ago with Mind the Olive being the narrator to it to give Perry her voice. So, um, Perry's taken a foundation and done keynote speaking and, uh, basically has started a community of everyone, not just people with disabilities, who are stepping out of line. And I think she's able to inspire people um, from her work and the way she lives her life. She doesn't just say, "Let's inspire, let's do this." She just the way she lives and conducts herself and pushes the limit is how she can do that. >> Unbelievable. It's incredible. >> The whole thing is unbelievable. Team Perry, by the way, folks, is Per I Team Perry. Per I The Team Perry Foundation is all over social media. You can just search for it. The podcasts are available at team perry.org. If you want information about speaking engagements, sponsorships, donations, the events, everything that's going on with Team Perry, it's all there on the website, team perry.org. team pri.org. And Lori, this Sunday you got another bowlathon. You got another big bowling uh uh event for team Perry. This this event which is happening at 5:00 at Woodmir Lanes out in the five towns. It very simply supports the foundation and its work. Right. >> Yes, that's correct. We always have a good turnout. We have a lot of fun uh selling raffle tickets. You can find out more information on our Instagram account. Just look up team Perry Foundation. Um, and you can always message us at ask team perry team and then pri.org and we can send you that information as well. Uh we are hoping to raise um at least $12,000 and uh we're pretty much on the road to that and this money is to support our current project which is called the Perry project where in essence Perry has realized that the caregivers in hospitals, parents or children who were in hospitals or sisters uh brothers who are with their siblings or children in the hospital for a long term um are mentally getting exhausted and need some kind of pickup. And Perry decided that she wanted to focus on these caregivers. And we've been delivering uh kits and bags and love to uh so far we did NYU Langome at Minnola and we did con children last week and we already have Stony Brook Childl Life Hospital in conjunction I believe with the uh Ronald McDonald Center um in Stonybrook and we plan on hitting every hospital in the New York area particularly ones who have helped Perry. Well, I'll tell you as somebody who has had some, you know, experience during my lifetime hanging out in hospitals for different situations, and I'm sure obviously uh you have for obvious reasons. Uh I always I always describe it that for the caregiver in the hospital, it is a draining experience. And anything that can be anything that can be done to help them out is a big boost. And obviously Perry thought of this and and now she's doing everything in her power to help them out, >> right? I mean, she's done this. We've done toy drives. We've done like even perm baskets we would give to the hospital whether somebody is obviously Jewish or not when they receive a basket on perm time it gave them such a lift >> to know that somebody's thinking of them um and I as you know spent months in the hospital with Perry and it's draining exhausting and you have other children and not everybody has an organization who's going to bring them food so just something you know we we've donated gift cards to Door Dash get a meal on team Perry um just to give somebody some light in the hospital. And that is exactly the project right now that we're focusing on. Perry has raised a million dollars for other nonprofits and she raised $50,000 for a scholarship at Adelfi and this project right now is what we are focused on. Um it's an amazing project and all the proceeds from the bowling event are going to the Perry project. >> Team Perry Bowlathon is this Sunday starting at 5:00 pm at Woodmir Lanes. Information on the website team perry.org or as uh as Lori just said, it funds this brand new project that Perry has undertaken. Uh raffle information is there on the site. As Lori said, you can go to the Instagram account, find the raffle information, a whole bunch of info regarding Team Perry in general. And the website has everything that we've been discussing, including an opportunity to donate and support the cause. And uh I I remember the first time we met Perry, my wife and I met her at one of your bowling events in Manhattan. And we just we were so impressed with the incredible work that she's doing. I'm so glad she reached out to us to get you on the air because whatever we could do to help out, we're very anxious to do so. And I hope the event goes well Sunday and I hope that uh it's please send her our best and I hope that uh the foundation continues to grow with a amazing success. >> Thank you so much. So appreciate this. Really thank you so much, Malcolm. You're wonderful. >> I appreciate that. My pleasure. Send our best to Perry. Team Perry, everybody. Team Perry. Peri.org. Check it all out. Buy some raffle tickets if you're in Woodmir Sunday. Head to the event. Contact them through the website or through social media and you could follow up on all of Perry's projects. More coming up. You're listening to a Thursday morning edition of JM in the AM.