In a busy world where not enough people take time to really listen to one another, the organization Someone To Tell It To does just that – listen to create better relationships and to bring the best out in people. What also make talking to someone and someone listening essential today is the loneliness and depression that many have suffered since the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

The theme is To Come Alive. With us on The Spark Thursday were Michael Gingrich and Tom Kaden Co-Founders and CEOs of Someone To Tell It To and Jeannie Zappe of Mechanicsburg, who swam the English Channel two years ago at age 55. She’s be the keynote speaker at the event.

Gingrich explained what Someone To Tell It is,"We started this because of a friendship that Tom and I had about how about we how we supported one another and how we were someone each other's, someone to tell it to. And we believe that all of us in this life, all human beings, need others in their lives to tell their stories to. We all need to be heard. We all want to be recognized. We love to be respected, and we certainly want to be loved. It starts with listening to one another and getting to know one another. That is so important. And because we live in a time where there is such an epidemic of loneliness and disconnection with people emotionally, relationally. We believe that the work that we are doing is helping people to reconnect. Helping people to come alive in their lives and in their relationships."

Someone To Tell It To has trained, professional listeners to talk to, but they're not therapists -- they listen and talk. Kaden talked about the organization's history,"What we found probably in the early years, in the first five years, it was literally Michael and I just trucking ourselves around to make ourselves available for people to be heard. And we try to utilize every social media platform. So we would have folks like this woman who heard your radio program reach out to us through email. But we at that point in time utilized Skype. So we'd zoom with or Skype with somebody from Uganda, Africa, for example. And it's just grown every year. But we also meet people face to face if our listeners are local and probably over the last five years, our teams have just expanded significantly. So now we have a lot of teams of listeners who make themselves available for we call everybody someone."

The theme of the Saturday event is "To Come Alive" and Zappe is a perfect example of someone who lived her dream. She said she had lots of inspirations for swimming across the English Channel. Did she ever waver when she was doing it? "There are no sharks in the English Channel, but there are jellyfish and there is current and cold. And the water was cold and it was 63. And you don't wear a wet suit in any of these swims. Wet nsuits are for triathletes, basically. I'm thinking about how wonderful it is to be alive, in all seriousness. When I went in at 10 p.m. and I pulled an eight hour dark swim, which is about the longest you can get, and you don't have a choice, you go when the pilot says go. But I literally was saying to myself, Don't wish this away. This is what you wanted. Be grateful. Be grateful. Your body can do this. Isn't it amazing that I get to do this? I get to do this. And I swear, I mean, it was the most amazing feeling in the world to swim that thing and. And then to land on France.

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