Welcome to REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart! In this episode, Jen sits down with three-time Emmy Award winning actress, author, comedian and everyone’s favorite TV mom, Patricia Heaton, from the hit sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond." They discuss Patricia’s book Your Second Act, the moment she quit her job as a hostess at a local Cleveland restaurant, moved to New York City, and never looked back! They also dig into her sobriety journey and what inspired her to give up alcohol for good 3 years ago. Patricia also shares about her faith and humanitarian work for impoverished families in the developing world as a celebrity ambassador for World Vision.
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REINVENTED With 3-Time Emmy Award Winning Actress Patricia Heaton
JE: You guys better strap in for my next guest because she is a household name, a beloved three-time Emmy-winning actress and everybody's favorite television mom. You may recognize her as Debra, Ray Romano's wife in the hit CBS sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond, as well as Frances “Frankie” Heck on the ABC sitcom, The Middle. She is so much more than that. She is a real-life mom, an author, a model, a comedian, a recovering alcoholic, and a humanitarian. I cannot wait for all of my readers to read about her inspiring journey. Patricia Heaton, welcome to the show.
PH: Thank you. I don't remember modeling except when I was a starving actress in New York, and I modeled shoes for this shoe show for buyers.
JE: I know we just met, but I feel like I know you, and we were besties in a past life. I say this because I have been reading the digital copy of your book, Your Second Act. It is such a great title. It fits the theme of my show to a T. In reading your book, I noticed many parallels between our lives. Life wasn't handed to you on a silver platter. You worked hard, skinned your knees, cried your eyes out, and second-guessed yourself every step of the way. Both your dad and your brother were journalists. I, myself, am a journalist. You moved to New York City at a young age, as did I. After graduating college, you worked as a waitress at a local Cleveland restaurant.
I have to share this with my readers because it was such a great story. When you were working as a waitress, your high school pal, Kathy, called you and said, “Let's move to New York City.” Without a second thought, you wrote a note and left it at the hostess’s desk for your boss, saying, “I quit. I'm moving to New York.” You never looked back. I myself did the same thing. I moved to New York City with two nickels in my pocket, no friends, and no family here. Looking back, what would Patricia Heaton say to that young girl who took that leap of faith to get to where you are now?
PH: At that time, I was in an up-and-down emotional play in my life because my mother had died suddenly when I was twelve. This is in the ‘70s. There wasn't a lot of, “You are going to go into therapy. You are going to have grief counseling.” There was none of that. You sucked it up, and you moved on. I still had that informing my emotional state. On the one hand, it was like, “New York.” I found my tribe. I loved it, but there were still a lot of emotional ups and downs that I was dealing with. It was a tumultuous nine years that I was there.
The thing that always kept me going was this strong desire to be an actress. That has been in me since I was little. It is a curse and a gift at the same time because you need that foundational drive to make it in the entertainment industry. The problem is that it doesn't guarantee that you are going to make it. You can have that drive and have it not work out the way you want. What do you do about that? How do you move away from that? That was a lot of my struggle. I was like, “God, why would You create me this way and have every door shut in my face? I can't seem to move anywhere.”
It was that drive that kept me going, and you need to have that. I'm grateful for it because it kept me going through those times when I wanted to give up. When I would look at the alternative, it is like, “Go back to Cleveland and work at that restaurant again.” No, if I'm going to work at a restaurant, I'm going to do it in New York City.
JE: Another similar experience that you shared in your book is that everyone you had grown up with was like having babies, getting married, and buying homes like normal people, living normal lives. I'm not normal. We are one and the same. I'm in that same space now. All my friends are getting married and having babies. I didn't go to school for the MRS degree. I followed my passion like you did all the way to New York City.
I have to share this from your book if it is okay with you, but it was powerful because I want people to peel back the layers of Patricia Heaton and see you didn't just become a three-time Emmy Award-winning actress overnight. You wrote, “I was living with two roommates in an apartment in Hell's Kitchen,” which is not far from where I am now, “Sleeping on an old crappy futon next to a dresser. I had picked up at the Salvation Army.”
“Not only did I not have a career in acting, but I also didn't have a career in anything. I was either hostessing at various restaurants running the Xerox machine at People Magazine, or proofreading and mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley. I have to know, looking back, how does it feel to look back at that struggle and to where you are now, where you are able to send the elevator back down to others who are maybe in that same space?
PH: I remember proofreading it at Morgan Stanley and these people who are my age, a lot of them, worked there in mergers and acquisitions. They were going off to the Hamptons on the weekend, and I was doing my little off-Broadway play 99-seat theater for free in Hell's Kitchen or Theatre Row. I never felt envious of those people driving their Porsches out to the Hamptons because I was happy on that little stage, doing my craft, learning my craft, and getting better at my craft.
I still loved it. Even though I saw my friends doing a traditional life, in my mind, I assumed, “I'll have kids someday.” It wasn't in the front of my mind. I never thought I would own a home. I thought we were always going to be looking for a crummy little apartment with a few more closets. I loved what I was doing. I wasn't depressed. I didn't want that life for myself back in Ohio.
It is a wonderful life to have. It is a great life. It is just not for me. I like adventure, travel, change, and not knowing what is coming. I like having unexpected adventures and meeting new people. In our industry, you get to meet new people all the time. You get to meet people every day doing what you do. Those are all things that I love, and that is my personality. I recognized those other things are happening to other people.
Sobriety Journey: Change is like having an unexpected adventure and meeting new people.
JE: It didn't bother you and keep you up at night.
PH: Not at all.
JE: I like what you said. You said that you were rich in other ways. You were rich in what was important to you. It is your first love, which is acting.
PH: There were times when I thought this was not going to happen. I moved to LA after several years of struggling. I had a few little victories in New York, but mostly it was a struggle. I moved to LA and back auditioning. Here now, I'm 28 or 29. I had to buy a car from Rent-A-Wreck. I was able to afford $1,500 for a car. That is when I thought it was getting to a point where I had to think of a backup plan, a plan B.
I took a trip to Mexico with the church I was attending at the time to work at an orphanage. That changed my life and outlook. As much as I was created to be an actor, it was the center and focus of my life. As a person of faith, God needs to be the center. The trip to Mexico helped me with that shift. I saw that as much as I loved acting, I could go and work in Mexico at this orphanage for the rest of my life. I got such a sense of peace there.
There was a paradigm shift within me of like, “I still love being an actor, but I could go to Mexico. I don't have to be an actor.” It was a prayer thought in my mind of like, “God, I'm going to give it over to You. You open or close whichever door. I will go through it. Make it clear I should go back to Mexico or keep auditioning.” The auditions kept coming. The beauty of it is that I always saw that as an either or prospect. I either work in Mexico and orphanages, or I go on and try to be an actress in Hollywood.
What happened is that I have been blessed with this beautiful career, but I have been able to use that platform now with World Vision, an organization I'm an ambassador for, to bring awareness and raise money for clean water, education, and health. I was able to do it for Mexico, but far beyond that in Africa and Jordan with refugees. It wasn't an either-or prospect in the end. I was handed this beautiful career, and I was able to use that platform.
JE: I want to get to World Vision in a second, but it is interesting that you did bring up your faith. When I think of Patricia Heaton, I think of this unicorn in Hollywood. There are a lot of Hollywood actors and actresses who are not outspoken about their faith. They hide in the shadows. They don't want to discuss it because it is controversial.
You are rare. You shared such beautiful sentiment on Twitter back in January, at the beginning of 2021. You wrote on Twitter, “If you are a common sense person, you probably don't feel like you have a home in this world right now. If you are a Christian, you know you are never meant to.” As a fellow Christian woman referring to our final resting place, our home in heaven, I am curious. There is so much turmoil, havoc and division in our world now. What advice would you give to people who are losing sight of simple Christian philosophy when regularly confronted with the struggles of everyday life? What would you say to somebody who is in need of a little bit of hope this season?
PH: One of the problems that have happened in our world, especially in our country, is that religion has gotten mixed up with politics. First, we have to separate our Christian faith from politics. Those are two different things. I tend not to. I don't care what anybody's political viewpoint is. It is just a viewpoint. I look at what people do in their life and how they treat people. That is who they are, not their political opinions. You can end up being friends with anybody on the political spectrum if you look at people that way.
Religion has mixed up with politics. Christian faith and politics are two different things and must be separated.
JE: I always say, “Politics is too religious, and religion is too political.”That is my philosophy.
PH: If you remove yourself from a lot of social media and from the things that gee up those feelings, and you remember what a gift you have been given in Christ. Because of that, we are called to love people as we have been loved. There is no getting around that. Martin Luther King said, “You can come at us with your racism. We are still going to love you. We are going to love you until we wear you down.” If everybody took that attitude with their political enemies, I'm going to love you until you are worn down with love. That is what we are supposed to do. It doesn't mean you have to do anything that is against your moral outlook on life. We are called to love our enemies.
Remove yourself from social media and remember what a gift you've been given in Christ.
JE: Love your neighbor and enemies. Love each other. There is so much division.
PH: It is impossible without the love of God in you. That has to come from God inside of you because it is hard to do.
JE: You mentioned social media. Looking at something like Twitter, which has completely destroyed the public discourse in America, people can no longer have different opinions anymore.
PH: You can have opposite opinions for people and from people, but everything has to be filtered through love and a sense of gratitude for our lives. It is not like people can't disagree. Twitter is an interesting place because it can be truly awful. I have met wonderful people on Twitter, like people I adore and some whom I have never met in person but I hope to someday. I have met some people in person because I love them so much on Twitter.
It is not the thing itself. It is not Twitter. It is human beings. All social media has exposed us and our flaws. God bless Anne Frank. She said, “I believe all people are basically good.” That is not necessarily true. Social media has brought out a lot of stuff that shows us that maybe we are not good. There is a dark part of us, and it is there. Social media has brought it out.
JE: It exposes a lot of the ugliness in the world. There are some positive components to it. It is admirable that you use your platform in such a positive way. You inject so much love and light into the world at a time when we need it most. Speaking of putting out vulnerability and beautiful honesty into the world, Patricia, you have embraced and owned your struggle with alcohol and celebrated several years of sobriety. Congratulations. That is a huge deal because I know that it is a daily battle. It is a decision you make in the morning when you wake up and when you go to bed.
Alcohol addiction is something that many of us can relate to, whether it is a friend or a family member. Someone close to me in my life whom I love asked me if I could join him in going to an open AA meeting with him for moral support. I'm not going to lie. I was a bit nervous because I don't struggle with addiction, but I have a lot of loved ones who do. It was impactful for me in attending and hearing from a group of individuals who are brave and are actively working to better themselves each day. I thought to myself, “That takes courage and guts.” Are you able to share a little bit about your journey into sobriety?
PH: I nipped it in the bud before it became a problem. I'm Irish Catholic in Cleveland. We have a big drinking culture in the country, and it has become more with the pandemic. It has become more for women. The alcohol industry has normally targeted men, but in the last several years, they have targeted women, which is why you see the rise of skinny vodkas, Rosé All Day, mom's night out, girl's night out, play dates with wine and things like that.
There is a drinking problem in the country. I noticed that. In my book, Your Second Act, I talk about how things change in life and how you cope with it. A lot of times, as a woman, your identity has been as a mom or as an actress. In my case, the boys are out of the house and not working as an actress. My show ended. Those are things that anchor you in this life as to what your role was. When those things go away, you are floundering. You can embrace the uncertainty, pour yourself a drink and watch some TV or hang out and not look at it. I found that happening.
Your Second Act: Inspiring Stories of Reinvention
One of the signs for me was that I would start ordering cocktails at lunch. I never ever used to drink at lunchtime. I'm getting up in the morning and thinking, “If I'm going out to lunch with someone now, that means I could have my Prosecco.” At a certain point, age-wise, you don't process it. You need your sleep, and it is disrupting your sleep. Your metabolism changes as a woman. It slows down. The alcohol quickly adds pounds. There are not a lot of good things about it as you get older.
I was able to stop Peter Boyle, Frank, on Everybody Loves Raymond, my father-in-law. He was a recovering alcoholic. He once told me the way he resisted temptation when we would all go out after a taping was to think about that 1st drink and think about taking the 2nd and the 3rd and where it would lead, how he would feel and what it would do to his life. People in AA have a name for that. I can't remember what that process is. You have given yourself time to make the decision not to. He told me that many years ago, and it stuck with me.
That helps me in a situation where you are going to a party or even it is a nice evening. Maybe you are sitting outside at a beautiful restaurant with a great view, and you were like, “What is wrong with a little sparkling something?” I do that walkthrough in my mind, and I think I'm going to embrace being fully here and not having to alter my state of mind.
JE: Knowing that is such great advice. You are self-aware. Kudos to you because you have nipped it right in the bud, which is difficult for people to do. That sounds like advice for, like, “I'm going to have one drink. Let me think about how I'm going to be acting and feeling after my 5th, 6th or 7th.” As part of Your Second Act from your new home in Nashville, Tennessee, you are focused on helping others this holiday season navigate the holidays without the booze. I laugh at saying that because a lot of people need booze to get through the holidays, dealing with their in-laws.
I know that you have Mocktail Mondays on your social media, which is fantastic. You share fun recipes and different drinks, fun, tasty cocktails for people who want to skip out on the alcohol component of it. I saw a funny meme that said, “Be sure to bring up politics at Thanksgiving dinner. It is going to save you money on Christmas gifts. Follow me for more holiday tips.” My readers, you ought to follow Patricia Heaton because she does this fun thing, Mocktail Mondays. What are some advice or tips you can give to people who don't want to touch the booze and want to stay sober this holiday season?
PH: A lot of restaurants and bars have adopted a mocktail menu. I was a big bourbon drinker. I loved bourbon old fashions. If I put sparkling water with bitters in it and a slice of orange and maybe maraschino cherry, it does something to your brain. It fools you a little bit. It gets you over that hump and also gives you something to hold.
Sobriety Journey: If you want to avoid alcoholic drinks, mocktails are a great choice. It fools your brain a little bit into drinking alcohol.
JE: You don't feel as socially awkward. You are not that outcast at the party that is drinking a bottle of water.
PH: There is a company called Seedlip, and they have these little additions that you can throw flavored little tonics that you can put in your sparkling water. It makes a refreshing alternative to having alcohol. There are also non-alcohol beers that are good. There are ways to do it. Once you do it and commit to that, it gets easier every time. It is like going to the gym. You work that muscle. I realized that even though I'm a social person, there was always a little bit of heightened energy before I would go to a party or before I would go out. Part of the drinking was to tamp that down because you feel this weird energy attention. A lot of people have that. That is also why we grab drinks and stuff.
I have found that living on a planet where you feel your feelings is a great thing. You talk about self-awareness. It is good to observe what is going on in you and think about where it is coming from and what you can do to change it if you are not happy with those feelings. We need to continue to progress as human beings, especially as we get older.
JE: The first three words of your book are the three Bs, bread, booze and burrata. The minute I read that, I'm like, “She is a woman after my own heart.” You were like, “I gave it all up.” I'm like, “What? How?” I am curious. Are you able to pinpoint the moment you decided to give up drinking alcohol for good a few years ago?
PH: It was clear to me. I had another one of these prayer thoughts, and I said, “Lord, I feel like I would like to stop. There is no way I'm going to be able to. You are going to have to do it because I won't be able to.” I tried it one time with a friend of mine. We lasted six hours before we were like, “Let's drink.” Within 24 hours of saying that little prayer thought, I went to have dinner at my son's house with his friends and a couple of my other sons. It was one of those things where you were cooking and having wine. You are eating and having wine. You are cleaning up and still having wine. You are at a big long table playing a board game, and you are all having wine. This is over the course of 5 or 6 hours.
I'm filling up my wine glass continuously. I felt completely fine. I was trying to make a joke about something at the table. I started to say, “In our family, it is a tradition.” I couldn't finish the sentence because I couldn't pronounce the word tradition. I tried three times and I still couldn't pronounce it. My son, at the end of the table, said, “That is great, Mom. You can't even talk.” I was in front of all these young men, and I was embarrassed. It was a blip. I don't know if they even remember it. For the rest of the evening, I felt fine. It was that one little blip.
I have a light bulb moment. I was not only embarrassed, but I thought to myself, “What is going on in my bulb brain? What is the alcohol doing to my brain that caused my synapses to misfire on that word?” Even if I don't think it is, it is doing something to me. I went to bed that night. I felt fine. I slept through the night. I met a friend for breakfast who has been sober for years. She had been out with me a few days before, where I was drinking at lunch. I said to her, “You are the first person I'm telling this to. This is the first day of not drinking anymore.” She was like, “What happened? I was with you at lunch, and you were drinking Prosecco. You were the only one in the restaurant drinking.” I told her the story.
Sobriety Journey: Alcohol causes synapses to misfire even if you don't think it is doing something to your brain.
What was interesting is that in the middle of having lunch with her, I started to sweat. It didn't come out of me while I was sleeping. My body was processing out of my system. That day was like an immediate answer to prayer. In a way, God knew this was the way to wake her up to what was going on with her body and what the alcohol does. I have not had a drink since then. I'm grateful. It was a prayer answered.
JE: I congratulate you. I'm sure you have helped and guided many people along the way in sharing your story and being vulnerable. It is a difficult thing to have to say, “This is an issue. I got it handled. I'm going to nip it in the bud. We are going to get back on track.” I have so much admiration for you for owning it.
PH: I love drinking. I celebrated it a lot in my life. It is not a responsibility but it’s to show the transitions in life. It can be okay to have a season of drinking. It can be okay to say, “This is not for me anymore. I'm different, my life is different, and my goals are different. I'm going to change things up. I don't have to keep doing the same thing I have been doing all these years.”
JE: One thing that I have noticed about this particular holiday season is that maybe you feel the same way but depression and anxiety feel like it is on the rise. It is higher than ever before. You are candid about something else in your book about your experience with depression. You said that you were deeply unhappy in college. You realize that the depression you have been experiencing since losing your mother in the seventh grade wasn't due to her passing or the lack of counseling you had received for it. It was also because you weren't pursuing your passion. I thought that was interesting.
PH: There was no counseling back then in the ‘70s for kids like me. Maybe there was, but we didn't access it if it was there. That combined with this pursuing journalism, which was good for me. I can write well because of that. I wasn't happy. It was separate from my mom's death. I knew that at some point, I had to make a choice, and there was no one in my family.
It is not that they weren't supportive. We don't know anybody in the entertainment industry. There was no way anybody could know if she should pursue it. I don't know. What does it take to get to make it there? It was not anybody’s fault, but there was no one in my corner except for the occasional person who would give a little word of encouragement.
In the middle of my junior year, I trepidatiously called my dad, and I said, “I'm going to change into the theater from journalism.” He was like, “Okay.” I thought there was going to be a big pushback, and there was none. I realized he probably didn't think I was going to pursue it. He thought I would probably come home to work at the TV station. It wasn't a big deal to him because he didn't think I would do it. When I told him I was moving to New York, he said, “No, you are not.” I said, “I'm not asking you. I'm telling you.”
In a nice way, because I love my dad. He was like, “Okay. I will give you a little money if you are going to do this.” That changed it for me because I was depressed about studying journalism. There is ego involved in that. I remember I was doing a story for the school newspaper on Greek week, and I was interviewing some fraternity guy about whatever float they were building for Greek week. I thought to myself, “He should be interviewing me because I'm so much more interesting than he is.”
JE: That is an actor's ego phrase. You were more interesting as a subject than being the interviewer, which is fair. You are way more interesting than me, Patty.
PH: To be fair, Greek week floats aren't that interesting.
JE: From one sorority gal to another, I'm a Tri Delta. Which sorority were you in?
PH: I was a DG, Delta Gamma.
JE: You are an anchor. What do they say, anchor planker? That was a great chapter at the University of Florida, my alma mater, where I graduated and went to school. I love what you said to your dad, “I'm not asking you. I'm telling you.” That reminds me of another wonderful quote, and if I could read one more quote from your book because it is that good.
I'm pimping it here. I want people to go out, buy it and read it because it is powerful. There it is, Your Second Act. You said, “I wonder how often people don't pursue their passion because they feel that they need to get permission from someone first. How often do we take the road of what is expected of us even though it is a road we were never meant to travel in the first place?”
I found myself in that very same position not long ago, working for a national network for nearly a decade. Fast forward to where I am now. Had I kept my wagon hitched to them, I would never have had the freedom and flexibility to be my own boss and to tell the stories that I want to tell without fear or favor, without corporate overlords breathing down my neck.
That is the thing about reinvention. Sometimes you have to go broke, lose the person you thought you loved, lose a job, switch career paths, and watch your friends turn into foes to get to where you are going. As the author of Your Second Act and living it yourself, what are some lessons or tips for somebody out there reading who is itching to reinvent themselves and looking to embark on that second act in life like you are?
PH: We are living in a great time for that because we have all started to work remotely, and we have seen what is possible through the internet. The last few generations, and the ones that are coming up, are more interested in having a meaningful life, choosing carefully what they are doing, considering why they're taking the jobs they're taking, and figuring out what they can do. They don't want to be a cog in a wheel. They don't want to be grinding to be able to afford their car.
The last few generations are more interested in having a meaningful life and choosing carefully what they are doing. They just don't want to be a cog in a wheel and grind to afford their car.
JE: Get off that corporate hamster wheel.
PH: In some ways, it is a good thing. I did a lot of different survival gigs trying to become an actor, but none of those contributed to my career other than paying rent and paying for headshots. You learn about people, yourself, and how strong your commitment is. You learn different skills and the different things that you are doing. You learn about perseverance. There are a lot of things that can be learned when you're not doing exactly what you want to do.
It is easier now to fashion something that is meaningful to you than it was several years ago when I started out. You have to know that failure is a possibility and sometimes you’re failing over and over again, but they are not failures. Those are lessons. You learn something from the failures. They become lessons and not failures. That is the best way to learn anything. To change is to fail at something.
You also need to prepare to seek out people who are good at the thing you would like to do. Learn from other people. On the internet, there are many classes you can take online that are much less expensive when you are doing them online, and you can target them specifically. You don't have to have a four-year college education to do these things. You can target specific classes and figure out what you need to learn to do what you want to do.
You want to have a plan. You want to surround yourself with people who are supportive and knowledgeable. You have to have a lot of perseverance. You have to want to work hard and be able to work hard. You have to be okay with failing. Sometimes you will change course. You won't know if something is right for you until you try it. It is okay to say, “I tried it. I have realized that is not the direction I want to go in. I have learned that it is this the direction.” If you think of everything as a life lesson that you are drawing from to learn about yourself and your place in the world, there is no reason not to pursue those dreams.
If you take everything as a life lesson you're just drawing from to learn about yourself and your place in the world, there is no reason not to pursue those.
JE: That is wise. Become friends with failure. If you have a dream, go for it. Pursue it as you did. If it means getting out a one-way plane ticket to New York City, do it because your future self will thank you. There is so much power in going for something. I always say, “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission.” I remember this one instance when I interviewed Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx on the red carpet. It was an exclusive interview for this national network that I worked with.
My boss at the time said, “How do you score that? How do you do that?” I'm like, “What do you mean? I did it. I booked the camera crew. I got an audio guy, and I got some lighting. I stormed the red carpet, and I did it.” It was like the number one trending story on dot-com for a minute there. There is power in that. Go for it.
Speaking of Your Second Act, Patty, your advocacy for impoverished families and the developing world comes at a critical time when marginalized communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. This Christmas of 2021, you designed a scarf called Wrapped in Hope. Everybody who might be reading this blog, this gorgeous scarf that was designed by you is part of the celebrity-designed artisan collection in the World Vision Gift catalog, which I have here. I have my catalog and scarf, but all the proceeds from the sale of the scarf support World Vision's vital humanitarian work.
You have traveled to Zambia, Jordan, Uganda, and Rwanda. That is insane. It is inspirational, and a lot of people don't realize this, Patty. This was an epiphany moment for me in reading about your journey, but second acts can also come in the form of being in service to others. It doesn't have to be all about yourself but about what you are doing for others. That is why I'm inspired by you. It is because I look at you doing all of this. How is participating as a celebrity ambassador for World Vision been your second act?
PH: I love to travel. It doesn't feel like work to me. It feels like one adventure after another and meeting wonderful people all over the world. It makes the world a smaller place. When I open the paper, if there is a story about Zambia, Rwanda, Uganda, or Jordan, I know those places. I know people there. It makes the world a smaller place for me. It has made me appreciate what we have here. People don't understand. We take clean running water, electricity, education, and food for granted.
When you have been able to travel and have that privilege, you understand how much the rest of the world is struggling. We thought we struggled during a pandemic. Imagine having all these issues with illness and not having access to running water, electricity and medicine or vaccinations. It has made me appreciate everything that we have and made me determined to use my platform to raise awareness and money for World Vision.
I did my research. You have your hard-earned dollars, and you want to make sure that if you are going to give them to a charity, they are going to go to a place that is going to get the most bang for your buck. $0.86 of every dollar at World Vision goes directly to programs. These programs are completely sustainable. World Vision will be in an area for several years until it is sure that when they leave, the community can sustain the programs.
It benefits people for years to come. I felt like that was the organization to get behind because it was not a one-time thing, “Here is a soccer ball for Christmas. Good luck.” It is not that. It is getting infrastructure and teaching people how to do business, micro loans and community savings groups to start businesses, girls' education, and ending childhood marriage. It is everything.
JE: You can even give a goat. You have given a section in the catalog.
PH: Melissa Joan Hart, who is my friend and neighbor, has this wonderful little banged bracelet that says, “Faith, hope and love,” on it with a little heart charm that puts them all together. You can buy gifts for your family. You can buy stuff for yourself, but you can also gift a friend a flock of chickens to a village. There is a whole Noah's ark of livestock that you can give people that benefit everybody in the village, and also school supplies. One of the biggest things is child sponsorship through World Vision. You can go to any country. We have a new program where the child chooses you. You send your picture in, and the child will choose you, which is a nice way to connect.
JE: I love how you are empowering families over there in the most remote areas of the world. You have witnessed villages receiving clean water for the first time. You visited healthcare clinics and helped assemble bicycles for local residents. What a beautiful, meaningful gift to give this holiday season. To all my fans, you can receive it too. I feel like I'm on an infomercial. You can receive a beautiful scarf when you donate $100 to the World Vision Fund, which empowers kids and families around the world to lift themselves up out of poverty. What a priceless gift to help more than 3.5 million children around the world and over 100 countries.
There are countless people in the world finding hope, finding their voice and purpose, and passionately reinventing themselves in all kinds of extraordinary ways. I have found tremendous hope and inspiration from the people I have brought on the show, and you are certainly one of them. Patty, thank you so much for sharing Your Second Act with the world and for lighting a path forward for others who are on their own journeys of reinvention.
PH: Thanks, Jen. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you.
JE: To all my readers, be sure to rate, review and subscribe. It’s available on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, you name it, it is there. That was Patricia Heaton. Thank you for reading.