Discover Lafayette

Rachel Broussard and Keesha Buteau of the Girl Scouts of Louisiana – Pines to the Gulf, join us today. We’ve invited Rachel and Keesha to share the Girl Scout story. And, as many diehard fans know, it’s almost time for the annual cookie sale. 

Rachel Broussard serves as CEO of Pines to the Gulf and has over 20 years of service with the organization. A Kaplan native, she graduated from UL-Lafayette. Her background in the military afforded her the opportunity to attend college as her tuition was covered as a benefit of her service on behalf of our country. She first worked for Acadiana Youth, and then joined the Girl Scouts in what was then known as Bayou Girl Scout Council covering 13 parishes in the Acadiana region.

Keesha Buteau serves as Chief Operating Officer and began her service with the Scouts in January 2006.  A Lafayette native, she graduated from Acadiana High School and was inspired by participating in Girls State. While she originally thought she wanted to go into law and had the opportunity to work with the District Attorney's office in the Juvenile Division, her heart broke as she saw the "kids in shackles, little kid chain gangs." She realized that she wanted to help young people before they got into trouble. While her parents were originally a bit dismayed by her shifted career focus, she has never regretted her commitment to serving youth and believes the Girl Scouts is a perfect fit.

Today, Girl Scouts of Louisiana - Pines to the Gulf serves girls in the 42 parishes west of the Mississippi River. Participants can be as young as Kindergarten and go through 12th grade. While COVID has been tough on everyone, both agreed that incorporating technology such as Zoom has been a godsend in helping organizations learn how to communicate more effectively.

The Girl Scouts members are all female and focus solely on girls and its activities are only participated in by girls. While there is a place for the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scout organization stands firm that single-sex programming is beneficial to young girls who are fighting to find their way in the world.

"Although your daughter likely goes to school with boys, and might play Saturday morning sports and share the local playground with them, the realities of her day-to-day life are anything but the same as those of her male peers. In fact, studies show that in coed learning environments, boys receive more praise than girls when they call out in class, making girls less likely to raise their hands. Furthermore, boys are allowed to problem solve on their own during class time, which fosters independence, whereas teachers tend to step in and “help” girls, leading girls to question their own abilities." Learn more at https://www.girlscouts.org/en/raising-girls/happy-and-healthy/happy/girls-only-single-gender-empowering-girls.html

The Girl Scouts were founded in Savannah, Georgia by Juliette Gordon Low in 1912. The programming has consistently focused on service and the Girl Scout Promise rings true of what you expect from young leaders: "On my honor, I will try: To serve God and my country, To help people at all times, to live by the Girl Scout."

The goal of the Scouts is to help the girls grow as they learn positive values, to take their skills into their communities, and make a positive difference. "That is at the core of who we are as Girls Scouts," according to Rachel Broussard, "to make lasting and respectful connections, and to go out and solve problems in our communities."

Keesha's daughter is a Girl Scout Cadet at 11 years of age, having started with the scouts in kindergarten. As her mom, Keesha limits outside activities to 2 or 3 at a time to preserve family time, and her daughter always puts Scouts at the top ...

Carolyn Greco, the founder of FACET, a company that offers career transition services and executive coaching, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss her celebration of 40 years in business. Carolyn is known for her expertise in the creation and administration of career management and workplace programs, and her team provides direction on individualized career strategies.

99% of FACET's clients are corporate-sponsored, meaning the company pays the cost of helping them get executive coaching or outplacement services to find a replacement job after a merger, acquisition or downsizing occurs.

Carolyn’s group also works with clients who have achieved success and are now focusing on fulfillment as they look toward a more meaningful existence.

Each client of FACET is assigned a dedicated career strategist who is assigned to work directly with them, always available, as they find their path to the right job fit.

FACET's work with a client begins with assessing their strengths and weaknesses to adequately identify their temperament to ensure the right corporate culture fit. The company utilizes tools such as the Birkman Method, Strong Interest Inventory, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and the Personal Strengths Inventory (PSI). These assessments allow companies to place people in positions that will allow them to flourish and find their permanent place of happy employment.

Carolyn shared that many times people are promoted and the higher position calls upon different skills than they utilized before or were trained to handle. It can be hard to delegate as you make the jump into higher management as you fight the tendency to do the job in the way you always have. Having a personal assessment inventory and receive executive coaching can help managers become much more successful.

COVID has caused a major upheaval in the workforce and has led people to examine their lives, wanting to identify opportunities for meaningful employment. FACET asks these people, "What do you want to do? Go back to school? Start a business? Become a consultant? Retire?"

Retirement now has a different meaning than it did in the past. As Carolyn says, "Many don't retire, they refire!!" The pressure is off and older workers can do whatever they want. Perhaps they will enter the non-profit world or volunteer for causes that have always pulled upon their heartstrings. Many need income and they can utilize their experience to benefit causes in ways they never had the freedom to do as a younger person.

As for younger workers, more young people think about what they really want to do in their work-life than past generations did. The good news is that they are supported by their families and cohorts as they determine, "Do I want to be a carpenter or a lawyer?"

Networking is still the key to career advancement and finding a great job, just as it was in the past. While Zoom and other online services have helped us navigate the COVID shutdown, you will always learn more about people when engaging in the human magic of in-person meetings. "You always find out something valuable when meeting in person with others."

LinkedIn is a powerful tool and has become the "go-to" for finding out who to reach out to in your job search. Carolyn stresses the importance of getting your LinkedIn profile and experiences up to snuff to tell the world who you are and what you offer. It can sometimes be the "3rd or 4th" connection that you have that gets you the interview you need to nail your ideal job.

Carolyn Greco has dedicated her life to helping others live their best life through their work. Her parting advice was to "Work and personal life needs to be integrated so that you,

Josh Goree, owner of Completeful, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss his journey in building his growing empire in e-commerce.

Completeful offers a Dropshipping service that allows entrepreneurs to create an online business and sell products at little to no risk, and without having to first purchase and store merchandise to successfully fill orders.

With services such as Completeful offers, a business owner can start selling at little to no cost out of pocket, and run their business from a laptop anywhere in the world.

Dropshipping has upended the shopping experiences of consumers as online shopping continues to improve and grow in popularity. Today, about 33% of e-commerce stores use drop shipping as a fulfillment method.

To bring this home, many of you may have also heard that the former Walmart building in North Lafayette was purchased by an up-and-coming entrepreneur who is setting the e-commerce world on fire. This entrepreneur would be our guest, Josh Goree.

His story is an inspirational one for anyone wanting to have an opportunity to make passive income. Josh didn't study business at Louisiana Tech; he ran track on scholarship and wanted to be a biomedical engineer. But he became frustrated with how engineers were expected to work within pre-existing 'boxes' of thought. Josh would come up with ideas and wanted them immediately implemented.

He jumped into sales for a marketing company and learned to overcome his introverted tendencies. After approximately "500 presentations," he realized he was on the way to effectively selling products and making lucrative commissions. His goal was to buy a Raising Canes franchise.

His first traditional business that he bought was a hair salon, with no experience in the cosmetology business and with no hairdressers yet hired to work for him. Yet, over a meal at Logan's Steakhouse in Alexandria, he convinced 10 of the 14 hairdressers he met with to work for him. Josh joked that they robbed him blind, but he still made a profit and sold the salon for a profit two years after the purchase.

After a foray into being a franchisee for Jimmy John's (and he eventually had three locations (with the Monroe store recently being sold), Josh realized that the traditional retail concept limited him as to how many people he could serve based on limited capacity. He started learning all he could about the e-commerce business.

Shopify turned out to be the best bet for selling goods easily and cheaply. He sold fishing bait, bikinis, and leather jackets. "For $30 per month, you can get access to a website, drag and drop your logo onto it, and start selling." Josh learned that marketing is the key. "You can have a terrible website, but if you can drive people to your website, you can be successful. Don't believe everybody on YouTube. You can learn everything you need to know for free."

Josh Goree's advice for budding entrepreneurs: "You don't need a lot of money to get started; But, there will be times when you want to quit. Push through the disappointments. You can handle the challenges. Don't think about all the ways you may fail. You will make mistakes, but you learn from them. Just don't make the same mistake twice."

Josh began to target goods in demand in the wedding industry. He figured out how to market on Facebook and targeted all the people getting married. Trying different company names such as '"From Him to Her," "From Her to Him," Yours Personalized," and Your Wedding Things," he had success but realized the business model wasn't scalable. He was still immersed in the moment-to-moment execution of his businesses.

So about three years ago Josh built a new business mo...

Carol Trosclair and Dr. Brian Campbell joined Discover Lafayette to discuss the David Trosclair Memorial Scholarship in Kinesiology at UL - Lafayette.

Carol is well-known in the oil business and has been a Petroleum Landman for over 30 years. One of the most active women in our community, she is passionate and filled with the love of God and others. As you will hear in this interview, she is absolutely the best salesperson you'll ever encounter! "She could sell holy water to the devil himself," according to her close friend, Dr. Brian Campbell.

Dr. Brian Campbell serves as the coordinator of Exercise Science in the School of Kinesiology at UL – Lafayette. He is the faculty advisor to the Kinesiology Professionals Association. He met David Trosclair while teaching him, and recounted his admiration for this talented, modest young man who scored perfect scores in his classes. "David loved kinesiology because it involved a specialized experience in biomechanics and orthopedics and allowed him to help people maintain and recover mobility and provide exercise prescriptions.

After the tragic death of Carol’s son when he was a Senior, David Trosclair, in 2010, Carol and Brian established the David Trosclair memorial scholarship in Kinesiology to acknowledge his academic achievements. There are over 1200 kinesiology students at UL-Lafayette yet very few scholarships are offered to the students. As Carol recounts, "what an honor, but there was no money! We had to raise it to fund it."

David Trosclair tragically died in 2010. His mother, Carol Trosclair, and his kinesiology professor, Dr. Brian Campbell have worked to fund a scholarship in his name so that his legacy will continue.

In the first year of fundraising, Carol wanted to hold a car wash and enlisted the kinesiology students to assist. She realized she would never be able to get the students up at 9 am on a Saturday to wash cars. Plus, you never clear much money working a traditional car wash. So she went down to Todd's Car Wash and spoke with the owner, Todd Lemaire, asking him to partner for one day to raise funds for the scholarship. Lemaire generously countered and offered the whole month of September to allow $10 ticket holders to access his $25 car wash.

Carol was told by UL that if she raised $10,000 it would establish an endowed scholarship, if she raised $50,000 there would be a plaque placed in Martin Hall. They raised $11,990 the first year by preselling tickets. Todd Lemaire did not ask for any reimbursement for his expenses the first year, and still has not to this date on any of the annual fundraising efforts.

Kermit Duhon, of The Travel Machine, saw press coverage on the memorial scholarship. He called Carol and gave $150 to purchase tickets for his employees to get the premium car wash at Todd's Car Wash. With a bit of encouragement and salesmanship from Carol, they eventually "Sir, we don't just have a handout, we have four hands out. There are 1200 students in kinesiology with very few scholarship options. Won't you please sponsor a customer-designed vacation for two designed by Travel Machine?" Kermit agreed and his travel agency has partnered with this popular fundraising drive annually.

To date, over $600,000 has been raised in endowed and non-endowed scholarship monies to honor David Trosclair's memory. The Vacationing for Scholarships has been a huge success, all due to community support for this meaningful cause, Carol's passionate fundraising efforts, and generous supporters such as Kermit Duhon and the Travel Machine, Todd Lemaire and Todd's Car Wash, Tropical Smoothie, Roly Poly, Great Harvest Bread Company, Reve Cofee, and Judice Inn!

Carol Trosclair,

Boyer Derise, owner/founder of Good Eats Kitchen, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss his career journey as a professional chef. His story is really one of being an entrepreneur who has learned to evolve and adapt to meet the needs of today's world, especially with the challenges of the pandemic.

Boyer, a Delcambre native, always loved to cook and be around the food industry. His uncle had a diner and by the age of ten, Boyer was flipping burgers. He began his professional culinary career after graduating from the Louisiana Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge along with other local chefs such as Chef Colin Cormier of Pop's Poboy's. He learned how to cook in a traditional French culinary style and also was taught the mechanics of running a kitchen and the economic realities of keeping a restaurant open.

He began his professional culinary career with Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse in Baton Rouge. That was the beginning of a 10-year career with Fleming's, where he was the youngest Executive Chef Partner in the company’s history, taking the helm of his own kitchen at age 25. Fleming's was going through an incredible expansion phase growing from 20 to 62 locations in four years while Boyer was employed with them. (Paul Fleming, a Franklin native, was the principal behind Fleming's along with Bill Allen, and then founded PF Changs and Pei Wei; he now owns Paul Morton's American Grill found throughout the Western U. S.)

The training Boyer gained from his time with Fleming's gave him more hands-on relevant learning than any classroom education would have afforded him.

Boyer also had the distinctive honor of being selected to cook for Team USA and Dignitaries at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. This came about through his future wife, Katie, a pastry chef who had first worked at the Turin (Italy) Olympics with Behind The Scenes Catering who works for NBC. Boyer networked through Katie and was hired by Behind the Scenes to run catering Olympic Pavilions for Omega and Johnson & Johnson. Although incredibly challenged by having to work with young chefs who spoke no English while putting in 20-hour days over four weeks, he looks back and realizes the experience was life-changing. As a young man in his 20's, not a bad way to learn to "adapt and overcome" in a similar mentality exemplified by the Marines.

Boyer was in a sales role with a local seafood company when he started doing meal prep in 2016 for his sister to keep her "dress ready" for her wedding. Good Eats Kitchen, in Boyer's mind, came about by accident in connection with him helping his sister and re-engaging with his first love, cooking. Timing, of course, is everything when one makes the leap from having a "side hustle" to focusing full-time on the endeavor.

Starting out working in his home kitchen for a few people at $8.00 per prepared meal, word of mouth grew this side hustle exponentially. He had always liked the 'grab and go' healthy meal concept, especially after living in Austin while working for Fleming's. For a year, he cooked out of his home kitchen; in 2017 he pulled the plug on his day job and took the plunge full-time in what would be branded as Good Eats Kitchen. His focus has always been on "just good food", without being pigeonholed into the low calorie/Keto option. It's whole food cooking, according to Boyer Derise.

Customers can order line at https://mygoodeatskitchen.com/ or walk into Good Eats Kitchen in the Oil Center at 1116 Coolidge Blvd., Suite F. Meal choices are sure to please everyone. Chef Boyer Derise's favorite meal is the Chicken Piccata and from day one the best-selling meal has been the Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas. You can find options such as a blackened redfish or Indian Butter Chicken, and many many more! As Boyer says,

The Annual Hunters for the Hungry Food Drive will be held on Sunday, September 26th from 10 AM to 3 PM.

Sportsmen and their families are encouraged to “clean out their freezers” and donate frozen game and fish. And for the 'hunters and gatherers' among us who may obtain chicken, beef, or turkey from their local grocery, those protein-based contributions are also highly welcome. It all makes a difference to help our neighbors in need of a healthy meal.

All donations are tax-deductible and will be used to feed the needy through The Refinery Mission’s shelters and programs.

Visit https://www.h4hla.org/freezer-day for more information.

Last year’s drive was a huge success and has provided enough protein-based contributions to serve over 60,000 meals to the impoverished and homeless in the greater Lafayette community. Drop-off points in the Lafayette area include UL -Lafayette's Cajun Field, First Assembly of God in Youngsville, MC Taxidermy in Carencro, Chop's Specialty Meats in Broussard, and Giles Nissan in Opelousas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pmrsW7LIII&t=15s

Johhny Carrier, Executive Director of the Refinery Mission, explains how Hunters for the Hungry Food Drive came to be in our interview. Hunters For The Hungry’s mission is to encourage hunters and fishermen to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors by sharing their bounty of wild game and fish in order to combat hunger. Since 1994, "Hunters For The Hungry has increased awareness of its program throughout the state by partnering with all 5 major food banks in Louisiana. By conducting multiple programs such as the Clean Out Your Freezer Day and Freshly Harvested Game and Fish Programs, the organization is providing thousands of meals for Louisiana families." Locally, businessman Bob Giles has been actively engaged and serves on the board of directors.

The Refinery Mission services men in transition from incarceration, drug-related issues, homelessness, or crisis, through Christ-centered services. Providing a home shelter, the men are given assistance and education on how to become employed, healthy, and self-sufficient individuals. For more information on the work of the Refinery Mission, visit http://refinerymission.org/

Louisiana State Representative Jean Paul Coussan joined Discover Lafayette during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which ripped up most of Southeast Louisiana. He represents District 45 which covers much of Lafayette Parish.

Jean-Paul serves as chair of the Natural Resources and Environment Committee and is a member of the Joint Legislative Committee on Capital Outlay and House Select Leadership Committee. He is a member of the Acadiana Delegation, the Louisiana Republican Legislative Delegation, and the Rural Caucus. A takeaway of our interview: Jean Paul loves having the opportunity to serve in the Legislature and with his people skills, this is a natural fit that benefits all of us.

A graduate of LSU Law School, Jean Paul is a partner at the Lafayette real estate law firm of Andrus Boudreaux Complete Title. He is also a co-founder of Cougar Construction, LLC, which focuses on residential construction and rental units in Lafayette LA.

District 45 is centrally located in the city of Lafayette and is a largely residential area. Its boundaries may be roughly described as UL-Lafayette at its eastern tip,, Fieldspan Road to the western point, bounded south by the Vermilion River and rounded out by Cameron Street to the north. With 42,000 constituents he represents, Jean Paul spoke proudly of the people he represents who understand the issues and the scope of what he does as a State Representative.

Lafayette is traversed by many State-owned roads, such as Pinhook Road and Johnston Street, which many people may not realize and wonder why they are never improved. He shared that in the upcoming months there will be big news about Lafayette Consolidated Government taking over miles of state-owned highways so that improvements may happen more quickly and Lafayette can take control of its own destiny.

When catastrophic events such as hurricanes occur, Jean-Paul says it is a team effort to pull together resources. Everyone from the local elected officials, the state legislators, top Louisiana elected and appointed leaders, and of course, our federal delegation come together to determine how they can best help their constituents get back on their feet. While Hurricane Ida devasted the Southeastern portion of Louisiana, our neighbors to the west, particularly Calcasieu and Cameron Parishes, are still reeling from the havoc wreaked by Hurricanes Laura and Delta, as well as floods and freezes. He emphasized that all legislative delegations join in a nonpartisan effort to get life-saving resources such as water and generators to those most in need.

Jean Paul had just traveled to Houma early in the week and he said, "Houma is as bad as you can imagine." He along with many of his legislative colleagues have traveled to bring ice and other needed supplies to help. When you listen to Jean Paul speak, you will hear compassion and concern as well as a "can-do" attitude to render assistance as needed.

State Rep. Jean Paul Coussan, his wife Jennifer Joy Coussan, and their young family, circa 2019. Jean Paul enjoys coaching his daughter's basketball team, watching his son play football, and all the joys of being a dad and husband while he juggles work and legislative service.

There has been a high turnover in the Legislature in years of late. Once people get involved and they serve a term or two, they start to look at their options. Jean Paul Coussan likes what he is doing and in particular, loves serving as Chair of the Natural Resources and Environment Committee which oversees everything from Wildlife & Fisheries, the Department of Conservation (oil and gas issues)

"Relationships are key. It's sad to see people leave and many are leaving before term limits are up.

Nadia de la Houssaye, partner at the Jones Walker law firm, joined us to discuss her career journey in law and telemedicine.

Nadia chairs the firm’s telemedicine team and is co-leader of their healthcare litigation team. She works with hospitals, health systems, providers, and start-up companies to structure and integrate telemedicine, telehealth, and digital health platforms.

Her passion for the expansion and growth of telemedicine began in 1997 when she and Dr. Tom Vreeland launched one of Louisiana's first teleradiology networks. At that time, internet access was offered mainly through analog services which were incredibly slow by today's standards; she had to get a high-speed T1 line installed to be able to offer the technology.

Her interest in telemedicine predated teleradiology, and in fact, her fascination with technology began when she was a young girl and watched the Apollo 11 moon landing. And then, she happened to marry a radiologist (Dr. Tom Vreeland) who wanted to start a teleradiology practice. He was the first person she met who also had the same interests as she did.

Nadia recalled how back when Dr. Vreeland worked at UMC (now UHC), "there were boxes and boxes of x-rays sitting at all hospitals, not just UHC. There was a shortage of radiologists, and back then people didn’t read films 24/7. There was no sense of urgency even if the patient being treated had cancer or a stroke. Today, everyone wants things done in “real-time” and people expect quick results from tests. The standard of care has evolved with the evolution of technological advances.

Their teleradiology company, Nighthawk, had offices in Australia and Germany as well as the U. S., all with American trained physicians who were licensed in every state in the U. S. The company could provide 24 hour a day readings with radiologists working throughout different time zones. By the time the company went public in 2004, technology had advanced to where the transmission was almost instantaneous.

Everyone recognized that with technology, better care was becoming available to patients. Nadia believes that Tom Vreeland became a spearhead in the way medicine should be practiced. They were both visionaries in the field.

Technology has outpaced the regulatory climate for telemedicine. Active for the past 28 years in the American Telemedicine Association which has thousands of members, Nadia was one of about 50 original members in the group. Very few people understood what they were trying to accomplish and they were called “dreamers “  The goal was to get telemedicine accepted and thereby get providers fairly reimbursed for services rendered virtually.

Nadia de la Houssaye was an original member of the American Telemedicine Association. She is still active with ATA, whose mission is to work to "advance industry adoption of telehealth and virtual care, promote responsible policy, advocate for government and market normalization, and provide education and resources to help integrate virtual care into emerging value-based delivery models."

With COVID, telemedicine became necessary for the masses and has become much more widely accepted. But even prior to the pandemic, advancements in telehealth, telestroke, teleICU, and telecardiology transformed the ability for rural hospitals to have access to specialists they would not otherwise have.

As an example, rural patients can now get a teleneurologist online with a software app that allows the doctor to treat as if he had the ability to put his hands on the patient. CT scans are taken at the hospital and uploaded to the teleneurologist offsite. Critical time is thereby saved for the patient.

Ravi Daggula, the owner of several historic properties near downtown Lafayette including the Mouton Plantation, The Nickerson House, and Esprit de Coeur, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss his journey.

He is also a Developer of the newly built Vermilion Lofts situated at Johnston and Vermilion Streets.

Ravi is a native of India. He moved to Lafayette to attend UL-Lafayette while he studied computer engineering. He has made Lafayette his home. Ravi’s interest in restoring historic properties and his dedication to offering beautiful event venues for downtown and North Lafayette is inspirational.

While he was originally encouraged by others to invest in Lafayette's southside, Ravi felt his calling was to pour his energy into the northside. "I took it one step at a time. I wasn't looking for other projects but other projects came to me!"

Ravi believes that once you hit 35 years of age, you will know your calling. After he graduated, he worked at several jobs and eventually realized that real estate was his calling.

He harkened back to his early days in the workforce, during 2003 and 2004, when he didn't have a car and relied on cabs. His cab driver would shuttle him by the Mouton House to pick up more customers while Ravi was sleeping in the car. Once he was able to buy a vehicle he would still pass by the property because he liked it so much.

Fast forward to 2016, and his banker encouraged him to invest in a bed and breakfast because it would be a successful entity in this area. Given his love for the Mouton Plantation and finding out that the price was right, he realized this would be a good fit for investment. At that time, however, he was more into buying and flipping real estate.

Once he owned the Mouton Plantation though he also felt and saw the bigger picture, the bigger purpose in his life.

"The Mouton Plantation has made me be the man I am today. Lafayette has helped me be where I am. This is my way of giving something back. I didn't know that at the beginning."

The Mouton Plantation was built in 1820, one of the first five homes built in its genre that are still in existence in Lafayette. (Cafe Vermilionville's structure is older.)

The historic Charles Mouton Plantation House circa 1820 is one of only five properties of its era still in existence. It is a popular venue as a bed and breakfast and special events.

It was hard to run a bed and breakfast at the beginning, but "the house provided." There is good energy in the house and most of Ravi's meetings in the house were so successful that they led to other successful projects.

Ravi believes with historic properties, you are just a temporary caretaker of the house.....you hold the baton and at some point, you will pass on the baton to others.

He invites everyone to his properties with respect and dignity, especially descendants of plantation slaves who originally made the properties successful. You must listen to his words to understand the impact of his love and his heart for the best interest of others.

Very few people in our area know the history of the historic Sterling Grove neighborhood and Ravi encourages all to visit and learn more.

His second historic purchase was the Nickerson House and the owners knew of his intent to revitalize the area. The renovation is almost over, and Nickerson will be fully renovated by the end of September 2021. It is already booked through October, November, and December of this year. It offers seven acres of land for catered events and weddings.

Ravi Daggula works hands-on at his historic properti...

Our guest is Dr. Bryan Sibley, a well-known pediatrician in Lafayette who has dedicated his professional life to taking care of our youngest.

We asked Bryan to join us to discuss how the Delta variant of COVID has evolved to affect children in ways that the initial wave of coronavirus never did.

It's been a tough year and a half for all of us, including pediatricians. In the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic, children were socially distancing, not in school and playing on their school playgrounds, no longer participating in organized sports and activities. They were staying home and playing in the backyard. For the first time in years, they weren't getting sick, breaking bones, coming down with viruses. Entire days would go by with no children being admitted to the hospital or going in with their parents to see their pediatrician.

Dr. Sibley shared that 90% of children's illnesses are caused by respiratory viruses, mostly colds. We typically think that when our little ones get the sniffles it is an allergy, but last spring when all the kids were outside playing and keeping a social distance from others, they didn't get sick!

"We usually think it's allergies when kids get the sniffles, but last spring (2020) they were all outside playing and they didn't get sick! We would go two to three days with no kids being admitted to emergency rooms, no admissions for broken arms or twisted. Children were healthy. It was awesome for public health, terrible for pediatricians!

Then in April 2021, schools and daycares were reopened, the COVID vaccines rolled out, and in May, June, and July, a wave of sick children began showing up, much sicker than pediatricians across the U. S. had ever seen. While virtually no children got COVID in 2020, by the second week of July 2021, children started getting really sick with COVID, presenting with coughs and runny noses.

The 12 to 18 year old group seem to have been hit the hardest, and almost everyone that Dr. Sibley tests in that age group have been positive for COVID. Most are not sick enough to be hospitalized but they have to quarantine and they suffer. Infants and children up to age ten or eleven have not been hit as hard with COVID at this point in time.

Previously only a handful of children had been hospitalized, but in the past few weeks, 50 to 60 children per day have been admitted to pediatric hospitals. While there have been a few deaths, most children do get better and get to go home. The Delta variant of COVID has changed all of the expectations as to who will get sick.

"This is no longer a benign process for children. The COVID vaccine is not yet available to children under twelve years of age. Testing is ongoing and we anticipate vaccine approval for children sometime this school year. The reality is this Delta variant is more contagious and more severe. Children are dying. Hospitals are at a breaking point with staff, personnel, bed space.

The mask mandate has been controversial and Dr. Sibley harkened back to the last major pandemic experienced worldwide: "Last time we had a pandemic, the Spanish Flu in 1918, people got past the crisis by wearing masks. They figured it out. Germs weren't shared and people moved on. They got better." He believes it is important for the health and safety of our children and school administrators that everyone remain masked since the children can't be vaccinated yet.

The COVID mask mandate has seemingly been of great help to the outbreak of flu. In a typical flu season, there are millions of cases of flu and thousands of people die. In the 2020-21 flu season, there were less than 5,000 cases in the U. S., an unheard-of occurrence.