Answer the Call | CC Dads' Club

They grill for hundreds at Boys Bowl, hang the Christmas lights every winter, and run the parking lot on football Saturdays — but the real work of the Catholic Central Dads' Club is building brotherhood between fathers and sons. In this episode, Dads' Club leadership joins Slightly Less Scripted to break down what the club actually does, why membership is automatic for any dad, grandfather, or guardian, and how "outsiders" become family fast.

We cover:

• What the Dads Club is and why there's no initiation or time commitment.
• The annual rhythm: football season, Boys Bowl & Champ Stock, Christmas Lights, Unity Nights, Christian Service with St. Aloysius, and the Father-Son Steak Dinner.
• How fundraising supports tuition assistance and the Father Kaufman Student Activities Fund.
• Why only 2–3% of 1,000+ eligible dads participate regularly — and the challenge to change that.
• The advice CCDC leaders give students on networking and persistence.

If you're a Catholic Central dad who's never gotten involved, this is your invitation to answer the call.

Subscribe to Slightly Less Scripted for more conversations from the Catholic Central community.

#CatholicCentral #DadsClub #SlightlyLessScripted #FatherSon #Brotherhood #podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Welcome back to slightly less scripted podcast. We are here with Aaron Freel from the class of nineteen ninety-three. And John Schmitz, guys, welcome. Thank you for your time today. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

Awesome. Could could we just get a quick introduction from the both of you guys? Maybe we'll start with John first and then Aaron after.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Oh, sure. Okay. Uh John Schmitz. I have uh two sons that go here. So I have a rising sophomore and a rising senior. Um I've been becoming the vice president of the Dads Club. I've been the treasurer for the last couple of years and then was a volunteer the first year.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Oh all right. Uh thank you. Uh I'm Aaron Friel. Uh I have a class of 93. I have uh uh three sons. One graduated, uh JT in 24. I have a rising junior Brody, class of 28. And I have a seventh grader Liam, who hopefully will be a class of 32. Um I am coming off of vice presidency, so I'm the new president of the dad's club for this year. Before that, I was uh uh you know a freshman dad and then uh helped out and volunteered sparingly throughout my uh uh JT's uh uh tenure here at Catholic Central.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

Awesome. Cool. Thank you for the introductions. I think the first thing that I kind of wanted to get started with was maybe for um new parents coming into the school next year, what exactly is the dads club? Just a quick overview.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Okay. Uh quick overview is that you know, we are basically um here to, you know, uh support our sons here at Catholic Central. Um we are a very casual type of club that we want dads and any um guardians of uh the sons uh men here, uh young men here at Catholic Central uh to have an outlet to help uh support their uh you know sons here at Catholic Central. I mean the mission of the Dad's Club is to um you know facilitate and give an opportunity with the high school spirit uh in in the tradition of Catholic Central and uh the Brazilian uh traditions of uh teach me goodness, discipline, and knowledge. So we try to establish that uh here at the dad's club and uh we try to make ourselves available. Um you know, we have monthly meetings and uh you know, we just want to uh have them experience uh with their sons the opportunity of what a great uh high school this is.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

That was a good answer because one of my questions was gonna be what is the mission of the dads club? But you just included it right in the in the first answer. So but um We did our homework beforehand. Yeah, it's perfect. I would assume no less. Um I guess then we'll we'll go to John with Um, why did you uh end up joining the Dads Club in the first place? What what caught your eye about it?

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, so uh when our oldest started, Joey, um I came to a meeting at the beginning of the school year. Um, all the dads were there. Um Sesante came in and gave a talk. I think that was his first year that he was here. And uh then all the dads club board members stood up and talked a little bit about themselves and uh and shared some of their background, their experiences. And I thought, well, that's really cool. This is a neat group of guys. I asked afterwards, like, what can I do to get involved? The first thing they said is parking. So show up for the dance, help with parking. So I showed up for the dance, uh, helped with parking outside. It was like great, you did a good job. Now help with football games. And then it just kind of keeps rolling from there. And as you show up, show up more and more often, then you get to talk with the the group that's that was the uh uh the board at the time and all the volunteers and start asking and learning more and more about the Daz Club. And it it was something that that I really wanted to participate in, um, you know, be at the school, be present, have my sons um see me as present at the school and helping and volunteering, something that they could carry forward uh as they grow and mature over time to see, hey, this is something that that people should do and can get a lot of um reward out of doing it.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

And then Aaron is president now, so he kind of gave us an answer about why he joined. What would be your recommendation to you know, dads coming in on why they should join?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Why is it a positive experience to, you know, kind of be extra involved instead of I mean, I I would recommend that um you know, you'll uh meet a bunch of great guys that just have a uh passion for the school and helping out uh their sons and see them grow from freshmen all the way to um uh senior year. So uh for those who haven't seen the uh graduation at Catholic Central, it's a uh nice uh ending to the uh high school career. And so we'd want them to experience everything if they can from freshmen all the way through uh their upperclassman years up until that graduation point. And we want to make sure that we do have some dad's clubs that have gone the extra mile. We always recommend dad's clubs to come back uh back or stay on um if they would like to. We have one uh dad's club member that was here, you know, five years after his son graduated. So we were um I'll give him a shout out to Tim Goodchild. Uh um, we were extremely grateful to have him help out in any means. And that goes into like, you know, uh our mission. It can be any type of um father figure for the young men here. It can be a grandfather, it doesn't have to be a specific dad, it can be um any guardian, anybody that would like to help participate, we will accept them with open arms. So um we think it's an experience that just to interact and um with your uh sons uh is a great experience.

SPEAKER_03 6:08

Would you say that for the dads club at CC we talk a lot about like the CC Brotherhood for the students? Would you say that trickles down into the dads club that you guys get to kind of form a sense of brotherhood as well with the dads? Oh, yeah, it certainly extends there.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

I know Aaron's a graduate, I'm not. Um, so the whole brotherhood was something that I heard about, didn't really know what it was going to turn into. Was it just a nice talking point, and that was about it, or is it something real? Uh I can say for my part, I certainly have experienced it uh coming in um as a could have been considered an outsider, no CC background. Um, I went to public school growing up, so I didn't know what this experience was going to be like. Um, my son was entering it, didn't really know how to prepare him for it, other than to say, hey, this brotherhood thing sounds great. And then thinking, you know, hey, there's a dad's club. Maybe that exists for the dad's club too. Maybe there's an aspect of that that trickles into it. And it certainly does seem to permeate into the dad's club quite a bit where you develop that that brotherhood. And then what's kind of cool is that your sons see you doing that in a group setting. So not only do they have the upperclassmen and their relationships to look at and see what the brotherhood means, they can also see the parents that are participating, not just the dads, but also the moms, and see that there's this real community here that cares for itself. It's not just that the dads are here because they want to somehow ensure that their sons are going to be successful here. There's that piece of it, but we're also here to help all the other boys that are here as they're growing and maturing during their time at Catholic Central.

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Yeah, I think that's well spoken. We always tell the kids, you know, don't be a 245er. So it's kind of nice to like when the parents kind of lead by example and also are here at the school. But I think it's a unique perspective, you know, coming in as a quote unquote outsider, but being able to experience it and feel it. It is kind of one of those things like, you know, I came from public school and went to school here, graduated, and it was kind of hard to explain to maybe public school friends of that feeling of going to Catholic Central. It's almost like you all you have to experience it a little bit. So I think that's cool that the dad's club is still involved in that aspect in terms of brotherhood and camaraderie and stuff like that. Um, in terms of the the time commitment, uh, you know, an interested dad, is it something that's where you'll kind of take volunteer time as someone can give, or is there a certain number of things that they have to attend and come to?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Um we try to uh uh approach it as a laid back uh type of atmosphere. Um we'll take all the help we can get, and if you want to be fully active in all events, we welcome that. However, we don't want to scare off like uh freshman parents trying to get used to this whole environment of this is just a awesome school. Um brand new. It's a transition from you know uh middle school, uh elementary all the way into the high school. So we don't want to uh scare off any potential dads, but we let them know that you know come to a meeting. We have monthly meetings. Um we try to uh make ourselves available for um every aspect of everything throughout the school year. We primarily are uh with the ground running with the football season, so we're helping with making sure with parking, but that's one aspect of with the park with the games. You have a lot of things we help inside with merchandising 50-50. Um and then we have other events uh that are asked of us uh for like you know, as John mentioned earlier, like helping with the dances for parking. Um you know, so we we what would want them to you know come to a meeting, get a sense of it. Uh you know, we don't uh force uh people to like join a certain committee. We encourage to say, hey, what here's what all the stuff that we do, what we offer, anything um you know, uh strike your fancy, anything that you know catches your eye. But uh yeah, we try to have a uh laid-back atmosphere, but try to let them know um what we're doing and then you know let them decide on their own from there.

SPEAKER_03 10:07

Yeah. You touched on uh a few of the events that you guys help and participate with. We get like a quick maybe overview of the school year, maybe some of the important dates or meetings. I know you guys do monthly meetings, but I'm sure there's certain ones that you probably like, oh, we'd really like if you guys come to this one kind of thing. Like a quick school overview of the calendar year.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Yeah, so maybe I'll do the first half of the year. Sure, right. So um there's there's a welcome back event that takes place. Uh the dad's club, the mom's club uh are typically there for that. So that's first opportunity. Um we try to have tables and booths at a lot of those events, and then we encourage the dads to come over and chat with us, give them an idea of what we do. Our board meetings are once a month. Um, we do publish it on the school website. Uh, the the best place for dads to go to to figure out what we're doing is our um is this is the parent newsletter. Um, it's probably the least read thing that dads look at in their email. Uh, so that's the first thing that we get asked is how do I know what to do? And we say the newsletter. And they go, I don't read that. Like, well, please read it. Right. Scroll all the way down to the bottom below the mother's club, and then you'll find the dad's club section, and I'll have some links and items down there. Um football season's huge. Um, and not just for the football games, but also for boys' bowl and shamstock. And so, I mean, we grill and feed hundreds of boys for the Shamstock event that takes place, whether everyone's out there playing flag football. Um, from there, uh, we we would do fundraising um in the first part of the year. So we have unique fundraisers that take place, and the money from that goes to uh tuition assistance to the school. It goes towards a student activities fund that we started a couple years ago in honor of Father Kaufman. And that's that's a unique uh fund where students that want to start a new group or activity have some seed money that they can petition the school for um for help. And they can also come to us directly during our board meetings. Um, and we've seen that participation grow over the last few years where um before we just used to fund banquets on demand. If we were asked to, we could help out. But then students notice that we were there and we could potentially help fund their group or activity if they have some purchase that they need to make that perhaps the budget for that year doesn't support the dads club could consider supporting it. Um and then once football season is done, once that first fundraiser is done towards the end of the year, we start to transition to more unity style events with the dads. Uh we have uh around Christmas, sometimes it's before, sometimes it's after. We have a cigar and bourbon event at a nearby place out in Livonia. We encourage dads to come out too. It's very low-key, it's very social, it's very unity. Uh, we have a few breweries that we go to where we set those up as well, um, where we get dads to come out to. Uh we'll you know, typically pay for the dinner or something to kind of get the started, the starter going. Uh, and then we transition into um early spring. I'll let Aaron talk about those events.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

So with the early spring, um, I mean, uh we help out with um um the thing that comes to mind it's not early spring, but it's towards the end of the year is the um steak dinner, like father and son. So that's a big thing that I was tasked uh a few years ago with doing, and it's a really cool event. So we try to get uh you know, I think we usually have about a 150 to 200 people, so it's roughly, you know, what 75 to um hundred um dads and sons at the event. We usually have a speaker and we just uh want to end the year on a high note and we have a steak dinner and just uh for them to just have their own uh father-son time just to reminisce, and you know, the speaker um you know just uh talks about his uh experiences and that'll go right into um what in we do right around January through into spring is like a big thing that uh not many people know as Christian services for the Dad's club. Uh we partner with St. Eloish's downtown Detroit. Um the past president who is actually um going to help us with the Christian services is uh uh Alvin uh uh Evan Wilkins is that he's going to assist us, but it's a big thing to give back to the those who are less fortunate than us and um have the boys uh put things in perspective in life that you know um um try not to uh s assume things that we're giving a great opportunity and have them be humbled and help others is a great feeling. Um just to um see the smile on people's faces that you know people take the time because I think sometimes um you know people in that situation get down and you know uh we want to make sure that you know um help off help out our fellow man. And so uh, you know, I think that's a big thing that we try to emphasize that not many people may know of as Christian services, so that's a huge thing that we want to uh help with. Um some things we do also do are called on spur of the moment. Uh one thing that we did this recently is that uh we were asked to help out with uh parking duty that uh we had Catholic League um track going on the same time with a huge thing that uh Aaron and the baseball team are doing for like a bringing back alumni baseball uh people to you know open uh a cool thing that they did for the baseball section uh of the athletic wing uh near the football stadium. So uh things like that to help out with that. Um so I think uh that's what we try to do is we sort of answer what is needed from us from the school. Um we also try to end the year um in regards to like having like a final um meeting and then try to prepare for what we're going into in the fall. So we try to um you know John had mentioned a lot of things that we do and we sort of end it with um you know the Christian services, uh, you know, with the meetings, and then try to make sure we have a one final meeting to, you know, maybe review what we did and then go into uh planning for the next year.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Nice. Thank you guys for the for the overview. Uh would you guys say that the kind of steak dinner of the sons is maybe like a capstone event for the dads club each year? Yeah, it'd say that one.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

There's also a golf outing that we have, Father Sun golf outing that precedes it typically. Depends on the weather and and when we can get the golf course and all that. But that uh that that's a nice end of the year.

SPEAKER_03 16:37

That's gotta be special. And it uh that's gotta be special for you guys. I was gonna ask in terms of uh you have to be part of the dads club to participate in either the outing or the steak dinner, or can anyone sign up for those events? So anyone can.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Uh, and there's a little bit of uh we always get the questions like, how do I join the dads club? Um so to make it clear to everybody, if you have a son here, if you had a son that was here, you are in the dad's club, correct? By default. By default. Um there's no like initiation ceremony or formalized thing, you have to volunteer a certain number of times. Well, you're you are by default. There's no sign-up sheet.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

There's no sign-up sheet with all the names. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Just had to have had a grandson, a son, anyone affiliated with the school, we will always welcome any assistance that anyone would want to do and help for the dad's club.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Perfect. So if there's any question about it, that's right. You are in the dad's club. That's right. Default. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

That's kind of an important thing you just touched on, too, that grandfathers can be involved too.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yes. And so we want to emphasize that that, you know, by the definition of the name dad's club, but if you take a step back and break it down, uh grandfather was at a point a dad and still is a dad. So we, you know, we'll welcome anyone.

unknown 17:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:53

No, I think I think that's a great way to do it too, and makes it more approachable, you know, at any time that someone could just be like, okay, I want to come to an event. I don't have to feel obligated to have this signed up sheet or feel initiated into it or whatnot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

And our our approach is a little bit different from the mothers' club, who have, you know, uh a tight structure on the committees and what the committees do, and then a commitment that's expected when you sign up for a committee. We realize that dads' times are very much drawn in lots of different directions. Most of the dads are working dads, and so they can't be here during the day, the evenings, they have to then decide do I spend time at the school volunteering? Do I spend time with my family? Do I spend a little bit of time for myself, maybe? You know, to go to the gym or relax if we're lucky. And our dad's club is structured in a way so that way you don't have to make that long-term commitment. If you can just come during the fall and help with parking and we don't see you again till the steak dinner, great. That's fine if that's if that's what it means. If you come to a couple of our unity events and you hang out just in that atmosphere for some camaraderie and socialization, fantastic. Do you want to be an awesome volunteer throughout the whole year because you're looking for something to fill into that time slot that you have available? Great. Right. If we don't have a committee, maybe we'll make up a committee because you've become this person who coordinates certain things. So there's there's a flexibility to the dads club that's kind of built around the availability of the dads. Sure. Um, and we really want to encourage dads to show up more often. Um, you know, there's a a theme that I think Aaron and I are going to try to help resonate within the dads, which is answer the call. That's that's kind of what we're here for. The school has a need, the boys have a need. We see a need within the community. We want to be there to answer that call. Awesome. We want to be there to support the community.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

That's awesome. I like that phrase.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Oh, that's a great, yeah, it's a great uh phrase for the for the year, for the for the club, the motto for the club. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

It's true to form to the group, too. I mean, the dads club has always kind of filled in the cracks that needed to be filled at Catholic Central and in such an important way that just kind of binds us all together. And it's been an incredible camaraderie, I think, amongst you guys, as well as a great opportunity for father-son bonding. There's so many opportunities for dad and son to kind of get together with other fathers and sons and work events, or you know, a lot of times, like when I first came here, I came to the opening dance and my dad was kind of scared to become a part of the dads club. He's like, I don't I don't know any of those guys. Like, what am I doing? But I have to drop you off at this dance, anyways. Right. I'm gonna have to pick you up. And we live in Heartland. Might as well stay there. I might as well stay and work the you know, the parking lot or whatever, you know, and he ended up having a great time. So I think just taking that first step is really important for new dads. Do you have any advice, either of you, for kind of dads to just kind of just take that plunge and just get involved?

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Um advice would be to just uh you know, basically write um as your son is a freshman, go to that open parents thing, and you know, the dad's club will be there and just listen to what we have to say, and then you know, we try to lay out everything uh that we have and we try to have uh cool events. One of the things that I think is gonna we're gonna try to do as a continuous in the fall is that someone said, Well, you know, wouldn't it be nice to have like uh dads and sons play cornhole on the football field and at the same time simulcast a lions game. So we love it.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

Yeah, it would be that's yes, it would be cool.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

So I said we said, is that possible? And like we talked to, you know, I don't know if it was uh uh you, Sean, or uh someone like can we feed uh the game from a computer to the thing, yep, we can be done. And so we did it, and it'll people raved about it and loved it. And I think it's one of those things that like we took a chance and we're gonna make it into uh probably uh see if we can do it yearly. And just as we map out the year at that initial event, just see like what interests you and we want everyone to be comfortable and sort of try to put the fathers in what your sons are doing. This is a totally new experience for the sons. They have no idea. Who their classmates are gonna be. That's the way I was. Uh I'm educating myself, but in the fall of 89. And so I when I graduated here, I still keep in touch with classmates to this day. Uh it'll be approaching uh uh when CC turns 135 years. So I mean, I think it's you know, friendships that'll last uh lifetimes and you can meet uh fathers that you can build relationships with that will last as long as your sons uh interact and same with you. So I would take that approach as you know the first thing would be it comes to the you know the parents thing just because you're gonna have to learn like what the school is, what's going on, everybody's gonna be there, and the mother's club.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

So um it's probably special for you guys because I'm sure that you know the sons come home after an eight-hour day of school, you guys come home after maybe an eight plus hour day of work, and then hey, how was school? That was good. So then being part of the dad's club maybe lets you guys get a little bit of a eye-opening into what goes on at the school to know what the drive is, to know what some of the events are, like boys bull. Because I think you know, probably not all the sons are going home and telling all the details of what happened. They might just be like, Oh, yeah, there was a boys bowl assembly today, but you actually get to experience it, you're like, holy smokes, what the heck was that?

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Yeah, and and it gives you an in to start asking them more questions. Sure. As you notice, most boys as they're growing up, they're not extreme talkers to their dads. They tend to tell their moms everything, and then you know, a week later you find out, you're like, Really? He told you all that stuff. Why doesn't he tell me all that stuff? Probably because he'd tell you that and you'd tell him he screwed up and why did he do that? Um, but if you know, as part of the dad's club, as you're here and you get to experience some of these things and volunteerism, then you do have those starter conversation or scenarios that you can bring up with your sons to try to engage a little bit more. Hey, I saw this at the school, or did you know this about the school? Um, I know one thing that was one of the cool things that we do throughout the year um is the Christmas lights up front. The dad's club owns all those lights. We put all the lights up and we take all the lights down. They always look awesome. And and we and we get lots of cool feedback on that. Everybody, a lot of people think the school does that. No, that's the dad's club.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Um, I don't think many people know that the dad's club does that. I always tell people they're like, oh wow, CC put up the lights, and the dad's club put up the lights.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Yeah, and if you need volunteer hours, it's mostly the dad. Ideally, it's the dad standing around watching the boys do everything. And then, of course, we kind of step in and go, hey, we've been doing this for like 10, 15 years. The lights go more like this, and you gotta spin them around and you don't want to wrap them like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:35

Exactly. Super supervisory. Uh I have to ask one question that I was walking out of here to come uh meet you guys, and I'll give a shout out to Evan Samuelak, a current student here, I think sophomore, maybe going to junior now. I always forget the years because I got a lot of kids. But uh, he was walking by he goes, Who's on the podcast today? I was like, Dad's club. He goes, Oh, interesting. He's like, Can you ask a question for me? Said, Yeah, Evan, I'll ask a question.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

And he wanted We can't guarantee it'll make it on the air, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Understood. It was good, it was a good question. He just wanted some advice about you know what would you tell basically, maybe someone that's not your son, but some future advice on setting yourself up for success, basically. So that was his question. I wanted to throw it out there. Oh, like one of the the kids that are Yeah, one of the current students is just like, I want you to ask whoever's on the podcast today, the dads, what advice would you give, you know, to me to basically help me up for some future success? Oh, well, I'll I'll give one.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

I think we we each probably have some good ones. Um, so one thing that most dads do when they first meet is we compare what we do for a living. That's how you start conversations. You know, what do you do for a living? Oh, I do this. And then people in similar professions start gravitating towards each other, but you also hear the different profession sets that the dads club has. And what I've noticed is that then you start thinking, okay, I I'm, you know, if you're an engineer, I'm an engineer. I can talk about engineering, but I can't talk about business. I can't talk about the health field. There's other fields that I just don't know that much about. And as our sons are trying to decide what they want to do with their lives, what classes to take, they look to you for advice. And they're like, Well, I can tell you about this, but I can't give you all that information on that. Go look it up on Chat GPT. What's unique in the dads club is that as you listen to the professions that the other dads do, you suddenly discover that you have resources who can talk to your sons. So I had a dad recently that asked me to talk to his son about my profession and give him some advice and suggestions for how to approach ending the high school year, what colleges to go to, what you might do with that job out there in the future. Um, and so we we have that opportunity. That's one thing that the dads club kind of offers, not by mandate, but just situationally. Yeah. That we have those resources, and then as the dads and sons start talking, you discover that you've got firsthand knowledge that somebody can pass on on a lot of different industries or topics of interest.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Cool. Yeah, um, I would say uh, you know, use the resources around you and network um to go off what John said. Um you know, the you meet so many interesting people uh in life in general, but let's just break it down to Catholic Central. There's so many different uh things that people do. You'll interact with like everyone's background from teachers to faculty to the mother's club to dad's club. Um I would my our advice would be you know, um put yourself out there, um see what's available, ask questions. Um that's what I try to do with my own sons and whatever, ask questions. I was always taught, and you know, don't want to speak down with what I'm about to say, but only the wrong questions is the ones that are not asked. So always ask questions um because that's well you'll you'll never know you know what you may have thought of if you didn't ask the questions. And um continue to uh try and persevere. Everyone seems this you know related to like you know, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. If you have a goal, you know, stick with it. Um anything is possible, uh, but just get out there and just meet people. Like um, you know, I think when I was growing up, I was a shy individual, but then I probably you know unbiased broke out of my shell here at Catholic Central. And so I would just recommend to, you know, um interact and you know, ask questions.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Cool. Thank you guys so much for your time and for answering the call at one to be on the podcast. And thanks to all the dads club members who help out throughout the year. I think a lot of times, you know, you guys are kind of a little bit more uh unspoken of in terms of what you guys do around.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Unsung heroes of the school in many ways.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

But the dads are always filling in the cracks.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Filling in the cracks has an incredible, long-standing tradition here at Catholic Central. You guys are deeply embedded in what makes us special. We're very honored for the work that you do here. Um, I'm gonna leave one last carrot on the stick for any potential dads out there thinking about joining. Um, as an incoming freshman, you know, your son's taking many jumping into a new pond, meeting new people, taking a lot of risks personally. It means so much, and I can speak from experience here, to see my dad go and do the same thing that I was going through the same time, to go go to dad's club meetings, meet new people just like I had to go to class and make new friends. To see my dad set that example really helped me when I was growing here. And I know that's the case with many guys. So if you're out there, if you're listening, if you're considering going to a meeting, please get involved. These are the guys right here that can help you do it. And uh, we thank you guys so much for being here. Anything else? Any final words?

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Uh I guess one final item, and it's going to play off of what you guys just said. That that's a challenge that we want to solicit to all the dads here. There's a thousand plus sons here, which means there's a thousand plus dads. We probably only get two to three percent of the dads that participate even intermittently in the dads club. If all of you could just participate once throughout the year, we would see a huge difference. That that scope that you talked about, Sean, where the boys see their dads participating and then they want to do that or they can feel more called to do that as they grow up, that'll just multiply 10 hundredfold versus what our influences right now.

SPEAKER_03 30:17

And I'll echo what they said earlier, which was you're already part of the dads club, so you might as well come to something. That's right. And then if you need information, obviously these are two great resources, or the website or parent newsletter, which obviously is you know, part of the communications team. I'll also encourage you to read because we spend time on that.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Right. And so uh just to uh end with um you know, I think John wrapped it up, but uh, we try to emphasize, and I think you guys have mentioned it throughout this, just answer the call. It might not be immediate, but anything that you can think of uh with throughout your son's career here at Catholic Central uh would be greatly appreciated.

SPEAKER_03 30:55

Cool. Thank you guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Thank you.