Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: City Radio.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Back again with Peachtree City Radio where we talk about all things under the A and living in Atlanta Southside suburbs. I'm your host, TJ McGraw and boy do we have a stacked show today. Josh and Rachel Boyd from the JRB Dream Team are here on the show and I'm going to be talking with them about a great opportunity that you need to take advantage of. And I'm happy to tell you today's show is really going to highlight a cause that's near to my heart. Anyone who knows me knows that I love the outdoors, whatever it is, trail running, hiking, or just kicking back in the woods. I spent some time with the Southern Conservation Trust at their annual Run the Ridge event last weekend and I'm thrilled to tell you that we have the president and CEO of Southern Conservation Trust, Chris Chris Doan, with us as this episode's feature interview. We're going to get you excited about the Southeast biggest nonprofit organization that you may have never heard of. Be sure to stick around to the end because I'm going to tell you how to keep more of your hard earned money every year when tax season rolls around. All that right here on the south side's number one podcast, Peachtree City Radio. All right, you must know by now that I love real estate and I've been blessed with every day that chance to help others reach their goals and find their dreams through real estate. So before we dig into the meat of the show, I want to tell you about Josh and Rachel Boyd. They have an inspiring story of perseverance and grit. After getting tired of the rat race, Josh and Rachel set out to build wealth through investing in real estate. The success they found is inspiring and and they're well on their way not only to building the wealth they set out to do, but they're moving beyond that and building a lasting legacy for their kids and their kids. Kids I caught up with Josh and Rachel at City center park in Fayetteville to talk to them about their plans to give back and share what they've learned along their real estate journey. Before I roll the tape on that conversation, I don't want to forget to tell you about their upcoming seminar they're holding to share their strategies and lessons learned with you. So mark your calendar for March 29, 10am at the Fayette County Public Library in Fayetteville, Georgia. There's limited space, so go over to events.peachtreecityradio.com to register for this free event. Let's hear from Josh and Rachel Boyd of the JRB dream, Josh and Rachel Boyd from Real Brokers, excellent real estate agents, but not only that, they're amazing investors and they have walked the walk and been through the journey, and now we're going to pass it on to the community here. So welcome. Thanks for, thanks for coming on the show today.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:01] Speaker C: Thanks for the opportunity. Excited to be here.
[00:03:03] Speaker D: Yeah. Thanks for having us.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Awesome. So before we dig in, you all are, we're doing a class.
I'm going to be there, too. I'm going to, I'm going to take a little bit of credit, but it's all, it's all you guys teaching the class at the Fayette county library on March 29. Tell me the name of the class.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: It's, it's a Beginner's Guide to Real Estate Investing.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Right. Beginner's Guide to Real Estate. Brick by brick, Building wealth.
[00:03:26] Speaker C: That's it. That's it. We're, we're pretty fired up and excited about it. I mean, we started our investing career right here in the Coweta, Fayette area. And so this is home for us. And I know we got the call about would, would we consider talking with other people about it. We're like, absolutely. It changed our life. And I don't know, it's, it's kind of fun to have a chance to talk to other people about it and see if it can help somebody else, too. So.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And I know you both are big on paying it forward and, and sharing the lessons that you all have learned. So let me ask this question to start off.
Who, who should come to this class? Like, who is this class for?
[00:04:03] Speaker D: Yeah. So we always say that we made a ton of mistakes at the very beginning and we weren't really sure how to jump in. So if that sounds familiar, if you're a person who doesn't know where to start as far as real estate or is maybe just interested and wants to learn more about real estate investing or if you've made a couple of mistakes and you want to see if you can fix that or move in a different direction, I think anyone who just has questions or interest or has been in it a little while but wants a little bit more information or just to connect with other investors, I think all, any and all of those people are welcome.
[00:04:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Just to back that up, too, if you're interested, but you don't know where to start or maybe you've heard about real estate investing, but the only thing you know is what you see on tv, which is really cool. Don't get me Wrong. But. But there's more ways. I kind of think it's for everyone, to be honest with you. I think it's going to be fun.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Whatever, whoever you are, wherever you are, it'll definitely be a learning experience.
I know for one, for me, you mentioned, you know, you've been in it and you're like, maybe you're stuck or hesitate. I did a flip that completely spooked me and things went awry. And we've been there.
[00:05:17] Speaker D: We've been there.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: But I think one of the things is I didn't. I thought that I had all the knowledge and all the. Everything I needed to know going into it, but I didn't take anything. I didn't go to a class like this. I didn't. I didn't network with the people that I needed to network. I think that's pretty cool. We probably cover that class. Yeah, it's a building team. I didn't really do any of that. I thought I was doing it, but not, not really. I didn't do it very well. So I ended up getting into some. Some hot water and things went squirrely. I got out of it by the skin of my teeth, but I was spooked beyond belief.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: So we'll have to share some funny stories, too, because we've got a couple. We were talking about one earlier of a house that we had. That we had a rental house one time and we foreclosed and got it back, but there was a tarantula running loose in the house, a snake. And so, yeah, there's some. There's some pretty funny stories. But the one thing that'll set your mind at ease and for maybe for anyone that sees this is thinking about coming. You don't know. You don't have to know everything. I like it to think of it this way. Who, not how. And now we're going to talk a lot about, like you said, TJ Net networking, how to figure out the who's. Because if you have the right who's in place, you don't have to know how on everything. We're going to cover a little bit of that. So, yeah, it's gonna be great.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: So tell us why you. Why you're doing this. What is the what is the reason behind wanting to. To. To share your experiences and help other people?
[00:06:48] Speaker D: Well, as Josh said, we had some rental houses, and our very first rental house, we were kind of accidental landlords. We wanted to sell it, and it's still on the. Sat on the market for probably about a year and nothing happened with it. So we had the bright idea, well, we'll just rent it out. And that was our first foray into rental houses or anything like that. And we tell everybody that we made every single mistake that people could possibly make. We ended up having to do multiple evictions and we basically had to renovate the entire house after, you know, we had some tenants who caused some major damage. So, I mean, we want to try and help others not make some of those mistakes. If we had networked or if we had asked questions or if we had a team at that time and didn't just kind of like jump into having a rental house, we might have been able to avoid some of that. So we definitely, like you said, we want to pay it forward and we want to try and help people avoid some of the mistakes that we made and maybe help jumpstart their rental portfolio a little bit faster than what we did.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: So what are they, what are we going to learn?
[00:07:53] Speaker C: Well, I think one of the first things we're going to learn is we're going to talk a lot about the different types of real estate investing. For example, it seems like everybody knows about house flipping, but we're going to talk about another strategy called the BRRRR strategy, which we actually use a lot, which is a little bit different. We'll talk about rentals. Everybody knows about rentals, but not everyone knows that there's single family rentals, midterm rentals, and then short term rentals. And they all have different upside and they have some different challenges. So if you're out there and you're thinking about, well, do I want a rental house or an Airbnb or what's this new player on the block called pad split? We're going to talk a little bit about that, and then we're going to talk about another strategy that a lot of people don't talk about. And it's a way of investing in real estate without actually having to own the real estate but still have a piece of the pie. And it's a great opportunity for someone who is maybe just wants to invest a little bit more passively.
So we'll go over that as well. But I think when people walk away, the big thing is we want them to see that there's more than just one strategy. And then we'll talk a little bit maybe about some of the math that's involved in all of that. But ultimately, you know, I think the biggest reason to come is just to talk and ask questions. We're real passionate about helping Folks. Well, we're planning on being a resource for anyone we can. It's going to be great.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: So we're going to leave with strategies. Yes, potential strategies. What else are we going to leave with when we're through with the class and you pour it into us?
[00:09:27] Speaker C: Well, I know too, there's, it's a lot of information to digest and so you're we weren't going to put it out there yet, but we're also going to have a free guide that we're going to give to everyone that comes in attendance because we want to make sure when people walk out the door there's so much. If you're like me, I like to get information and then go home and read through it and kind of ponder it, do some more research.
And we're going to talk a little bit briefly about some of the systems that we have in place because some of these strategies you can actually invest in real estate while working a full time job somewhere else and it still work on a system that doesn't require all your time. We're going to answer that question. TJ what do you do when you get the plumber phone call at 1am and this may surprise you, but on we own several rental properties and we're going to talk about what happens. But a little news flash, I never go to a property at 1 o'clock in the morning to plumb a toilet.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: You ruined my final question for you. That's what.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: How many times have you been out in the middle of the night to take care of a flat toilet?
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Well, that first house we told you about a good amount of time. But these days we, we never have to do any of that because we've got systems in place.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: I do want to mention, like you, you all are real estate agents. We all are real estate agents.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: And, but I know that the reason I like working with you and partnering with you both is that you're all about giving value first because what did Zig Ziggler say? If all the listeners know who Zig Zigler is, it's the more people you help get what they want, more you get what you want. So that's definitely kind of my unofficial motto. I know that you all kind of.
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Live by that as well.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: We do. We kind of have a saying in our business that we're stronger when we all work together and we do help people buy or sell houses for sure. And we work with a lot of investors and things like that. But we also just live by the motto that God has given us a lot and to whom much is given, much is expected.
And so we actually take, just take joy out of helping other people because we were once the person that needed help.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:43] Speaker C: So it's, it's kind of fun.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: It brings us full circle back to the beginning. It's, you're paying it forward. So I can't wait for the event. It's March 29th at the Fayette County Library in the center of Fayetteville. All the information, if you go to petricityradio.com click the event link. Take you right to the event. You can sign up there. All the information will be there. Futurecityradio.com Click the events. See y'all there.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Thank you all.
[00:12:10] Speaker D: Thank you. We're looking forward to it.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: I always love talking to good people. Now go register for the Beginner's Guide to real estate investing two hour seminar events. Peachtreecityradio.com I know you've thought about it. Here's your chance to find out if it's really for you.
I recently attended the annual run the Ridge 5K 10K trail run in Fayetteville, Georgia. This is one of my favorite local events put together by the Southern Conservation Trust, a local organization whose purpose is to keep and maintain a good balance between development and natural green space. Now, usually I'm on the trail, traversing the roots and the rocks with the other runners, but this year I stayed back to talk to some of the participants, a couple of the sponsors, and Joe, who can take most of the credit for starting this annual event about seven years ago. I only have audio from this event, so if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to see some footage and pictures I took with my phone, including a selfie with Fayetteville's mayor, Ed Johnson, who did an excellent job kicking off the race as grand marshal of the event. Let's listen in. All right. Good morning. What's your name?
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Ted.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Ted, what do you think about the race today here at the Nature Ridge in Fayetteville?
[00:13:30] Speaker B: I'm looking forward to it. It looks like we got the weather's behind and so it should be a good race. This is my third year coming here.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: All right.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I usually run it too, but I can't judge. Instead. Well, good luck out there today.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: What's your name?
Lindsay. How do you feel about this little damp morning here at the at the Ridge Run the Ridge nature area.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: I'm honestly really excited. Nothing. A little mud doesn't hurt anything. So we'll see how it goes? That's right.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: If you don't get muddy, you didn't run, right.
All right. Good morning. What's your name?
Gary. How do you feel about the, the weather this morning? You gonna have a good run?
[00:14:08] Speaker B: As long as it don't run, I rain, it'll be good. All right, the weather, the centralizer, great.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. It's good for a run, right? Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: But the rain and it's supposed to not start until late later this afternoon, so that'd be great.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Good temperature. We'll stay dry out there.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Oh, thanks, sir.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: All right, moving on to our next vendor here, Alloy Personal Training. How are you? What's your name?
[00:14:31] Speaker B: My name's Brianna.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Brianna with Alloy. So tell us a little bit about Alloy.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Alloy is small group personal training, which for US that means six members or left in any one of our 60 minute sessions. We're all strength based and catered to members that are 40 years or older. Definitely accept people younger than that, but people that are new to the gym, new to strength training, really want that small group atmosphere, but also the guidance.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: All right. Good morning. What's your name?
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Dave.
[00:15:00] Speaker A: Dave, how do you feel this morning? The, the, the 5k 10k run the ridge Southern Conservation Trust. I haven't done a lot of 10k.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: So far, so this is one of my first ones, especially in this condition. Yeah, that feels good, but we'll see how it goes. Cool.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: So do you do a lot of trail runs?
[00:15:15] Speaker B: I just started this year.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Cool. So I started with the Atlanta Trail.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Runners and they're up at the Atlanta area. Awesome. Awesome.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Well, stay dry out there. Good luck. Have a good run.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Right here with Joe Domileski from the Southern Conservation Trust. He actually started the run the ridge 5k and now 10k. How's it going?
[00:15:37] Speaker E: It's going great. Always a lot of fun having this race February of every year. We created this race when the park first opened and it's been fun to see it grow over the years. This is our seventh year.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah, we had pretty good showing today, even though it's a little damp out today.
[00:15:59] Speaker E: Yeah, great showing. We added a 10k option this year, which was a lot of fun. What also makes trail running a lot of fun is the unpredictable conditions during year two. We actually had to reroute the course due to flooding and then we actually rerouted both the 5 and 10k this morning because of flooding near Ginger Cake and Whitewater Creek.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: It just makes it more interesting. Right.
[00:16:23] Speaker E: I'm a former road runner and That's a lot of fun. But once you do trail running, you never go back to the road. Trail is always unpredictable. The weather, the conditions. But wow. In nature. And this is such a great park.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks so much for creating this event. It was, it's so much fun. I'm a little jealous I didn't get to run today, but it was good hanging out with everybody.
[00:16:46] Speaker E: Hey, thanks. And thanks for being out here and to everybody listening, please come back next year. It's always in February. We'd love to have you out at the Ridge Nature area in Fayetteville, Georgia.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Hi, Marsh. High five.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: All right. I'm excited about our feature interview today. Particularly excited because I love the outdoors and I just love what, what this organization is doing today. I have the, the president and CEO of Southern Conservation Trust, Chris Doane. Welcome. Thanks. Thanks for coming on the show.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Hey, thank you. Thank you for having me.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. So, like I said, I'm excited about this. I love outdoors, I love trail running, I love hiking, all that stuff. And oftentimes people in Fayette county don't really know that the Southern Conservation Trust exists. They're not sure what it is or if they've heard of it. They might know like the, the ridge or, you know, one of the other nature spaces that you have. So I guess just give us, give us the brief rundown of what you know, what is the Southern Conservation Trust? Let's start there.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: So the trust has actually been around for 30 plus years. It was a grassroots effort many years ago in Peachtree City and there was a number of folks over in Peachtree City that were aware of the Line Creek corridor. A lot of folks in, in Bay county are familiar with the Line Creek Nature Preserve. And the grassroots effort was, is to do take the steps locally via a volunteer advocacy group to secure the Lime Creek corridor and basically make sure that it was sort of frozen in time. And if anyone that's ever been there has actually appreciates the, the stream that runs through there and the trails and that sort of thing.
Who would have known 30 years later how that has now become an island in a sea of development over there with a Home Depot and Plantar Ridge and that sort of thing. So beyond that, that was where everything started. But 30 plus years later, the Southern Conservation Trust was started in 1993, so.
And 30 years later, the Southern Conservation Trust not only identified other spaces and spaces for outdoor recreation, nature preserves, that sort of thing in Fayette county and is either either owns those or like the Ridge. We actually manage that for the city of Fayetteville. The trust also has the Fayette Environmental Education center in downtown Fayette where we do tons of environmental education programming for field trips and homeschool kids and adults alike. And we extend that programming out into the community for sure. And then we also are a land trust, so we actually own a little over 6,000 acres of land across multiple states. We also hold 235 conservation easements across 13 states. So it's pretty amazing that an organization that started out as just a group of volunteers advocating for Line Creek has become what it has in 30 years.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. I did not know that you owned land in other states.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: That's.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: That's great. I just learned something there. That's cool. That's right.
So what, where's the. It's grassroots effort? How did, how did you get involved? I'm curious about that.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: So I had worked in corporate in Atlanta for many years, and then I also broke off about 20 years ago and started my own business. It was sort of a, sort of a milestone moment for me of actually saying, hey, I've always, always decided or always thought I would start my own business. And I did that. I had my own business for about 18 years. But what I also did was probably 10 to 15 years ago as I actually had a little, had a little, a little more flexibility as a business owner. I started getting involved in a lot of causes that were important to me and many of those causes were related to outdoor recreation. Trails. You know, being back in the woods, I certainly had helped out on a number of organizations like the Friend of Chattahoochee Bend over on the, the west side of Coweta, and also got involved with SORBA Atlanta, which actually builds mountain bike trails or shared use trails, I should say, all over Atlanta. So shared use meaning for both mountain bikers, hikers, runners, and even equestrians in some cases. So you mentioned outdoor recreation to kind of lead us into this segment. But outdoor recreation is where I really got involved in advocacy efforts in our region here. And actually that included working with not only land trusts, but municipalities, cities and counties, the state of Georgia, that sort of thing. But, but I really put my passion or committed, had a passion towards the outdoors and actually setting up access via trails to metro Atlanta to actually get folks like you and I out in the outdoors, get them in the middle of the woods and appreciate not only maybe the health related benefits of that, but the mental wellness benefits of actually being in the middle of the woods and getting away from everything that seems to consume so much of our time. So obviously there's a natural fit between those volunteer efforts and what I was really passionate about and of course what we do at the Southern Conservation Trust, which is actually having green spaces that are publicly accessible that promote outdoor recreation, the health and wellness benefits, getting people out in the middle of the woods and the benefits that come with that. So I started, I'm just celebrating just a little over a couple days over my one year anniversary at the Southern Conservation Trust. And it is something that very much aligned with how I like to spend my time and where I like to my passions and more or less my purpose for that I have aligned to at this point in my life. So it's good marriage and it's something I'm, you know, just really, it's good to, for all of us to come to a point where we align our time and effort towards things that make an impact. And that's what the Southern Conservation Trust has done over 30 plus years. And that's something that I was very anxious, very energetic about joining the effort of making an impact in that way.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: So yeah, I, and I was, I was about to mention your passion's obvious just from hanging out with you the other day at the run the Ridge, which we'll get to in a minute. So it's great. I love to see that people align with their passions. So not, not just for the organization but for your health and well being as well. It's always great when you're doing something you love.
[00:24:23] Speaker B: So yeah, you have to, you have to be careful though because once you get me talking about some of these things, a lot of times I don't shut up and, and so, but that you're, you know, hopefully as you said, people realize that hey, this is something that's, it's not only about my passion but it's something for, for all of us when we have aligned with something that makes an impact on the community is to, it's, it's, it's like opening up a Christmas, seeing your kids, opening up a Christmas present on, on Christmas morning. When I see other people that get excited about the work we are doing, that really, that gets me excited just like I would be excited for my children, you know, and that lets me know that we're doing something that makes a difference in the community and that you can't, you cannot get excited and not want to talk and talk about that because you see the impact you're making. So.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great analogy. Opening a Christmas present because. And like I said before, I think that, that not a lot of people know that, that these properties exist like right in our backyard. So I guess that's a good segue into what, what do we. Because I see a lot of people, they'll post on a Facebook group or like where, where can I go hiking? Or. And everybody thinks you kind of have to go either to the north side into the, into the mountains or above Atlanta or you got to head down to Pine Mountain or, or over to Cowetta county. But we have it right here in our backyard. So tell us a little bit about what, how we, how people use the spaces and, you know, what they're there for.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: So the ridge is a great example of that one. It being inside the city limits of the city of Fable, but yet just a couple miles east of Peachtree City, it's in the neighborhood of 300 acres of forest, you know, trails, streams. It basically sits right in between, heading north to south, the Whitewater Creek and Ginger Cake Creek. So. And it is the ridge that runs parallel to those two watersheds. But yeah, the, A lot of people do think they, they've got to go out of town, out of county, whatever, to actually get in the middle of the woods. And the. Yet all they have to do is drive either a couple miles west or east in Fayette county and they can be right in the middle of the woods and be there by themselves as if they were in the mountains, if it be Pond Mountain that are Appalachians or whatever. So, so, and that's the beauty of it is, is you can, it's not a two hour trip to North Georgia. It's about a 15 minute, you know, scoot one way or another. And to, to be able to get into that space. And, and we have a number of those not only at Fayette south metro area of Atlanta. I always think this is a little bit outside of Fayette county, but Cocker Mill park over in Chat Hills is a great example of an 800 acre site. It's in south Fulton county just like the ridges in Fayette County. And, and the, and the value that these sites bring you is, is you can go to Cockermill park and get lost in the middle of 800 acres. You're all by yourself back there in the middle of the woods and you, you, you. It's almost hard to believe that you are in that space and you're still, yet you're still in Fulton County.
It's the same thing. We obviously growth is, and development is something that's rapidly happening in Fayette County, Coweta county and that sort of thing. But there are still pockets in these, there are still pockets. There are still opportunities to get out in this kind of space and get away from every everything for as long as you would like. And so, and you're, you're exactly right too, that it's amazing in spite of how long the ridge has been there. Of course Lime Creek is certainly a hotspot for activity. But as long as the ridge has been there and been accessible, publicly accessible, there's, there are people that still don't know it exists yet. I know they would appreciate knowing it exists because they would take advantage of it.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: So yeah, I believe that 100 for sure.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: So you do events and all that stuff and then just recently and, and part of the, before we came on here, the, the, in the beginning of the show we talked about Run the Ridge, which is, which is an event that you do every year. It's seven years now, I think. Is that correct?
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: I love it. I love to participate in it. This year I, I, you know, hung out with my, with my Petrie City Radio banner there. Right. Tried to talk to some folks. Was a little bit rainy, but it was a great, I still think it's a great event. I like, I think when it rains a little bit, it's like part of the fun with the trail race.
[00:29:15] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:29:15] Speaker A: So tell us a little bit about, about that, that Run the Ridge event and then I know you have other events as well. Give us, give us the, the rundown.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: On the, the Run the Ridge event is was it is or, or just most recently it was the seventh edition of it. It's often been partnered up, if not for its entirety, with Trails for Truce, which is another program that we actually offer, which is back to some of the earlier points, is a program that promotes outdoor recreation trails to veterans and military personnel and of course offers to them basically our advocacy of these spaces actually offers them spaces that they can go and actually find, you know, benefits in those spaces too. But yeah, the Run the Ridge is a great, great event this year. We actually upped our game a little bit on our timing and, and yeah, it is a, it's not a tough mudder, but it is an event that is rain or shine and that did add a dimension this past weekend to the, the technical part of it in, in some cases. But we always get a good, have always had a good response to it. It also sort of is a self fulfilling type thing too because we do use it as a fundraiser to actually do registration fees and sponsorships to actually generate funds to extend our ability to make impact. So we may, we, we will take those funds and actually reinvest them and more things for our environmental education program. We. We may take funds in the future to invest in the building of more trails and that sort of thing. So it really does. It really is used as a sort of a. Sort of a community event to actually introduce folks to the ridge, but then also extend the. Our ability to make impact going beyond that. So we, we also have a spring event this year. We'll have it. We. Well, and every year we have our spring event. This year it's called Backroads Bikes and Brews. It's actually a spring fundraiser that we have at the Scarborough Pavilion down in Brooks. And anyone that enjoys fishing or kayaking or being on sort of a large patch of green space where there's a lot of opportunities to walk in the woods. And in this case, it's a great family event. They'll be. We're. We're feeding folks and we have. Lime Creek Brewing is a partner of ours. It's a big event that actually comes up and comes up about a month from now in March. And again, we use it as a fundraiser to then turn around and use those funds to extend our ability to make impact on this community. And then our last I mentioned Trails for Troops, we actually do a quarterly Trails for Troop events where we actually, the primary focus is having an event that is centered around awareness for our military, our veterans, PTSD and those types of things, and then the benefits that trails actually bring to that particular group. But it's actually an open series events that we do once a quarter to actually bring awareness to the challenges for veterans. But also being an open event where folks can sign up and actually we'll do a large group hike or a large group group run. We've done it at the Ridge before. We'll do it at. In Peachtree City at Flat Creek and or Line Creek. And this past year, this past fall, we actually took it out of county and took it to Brown's Mill park in Coweta County. And usually we'll have 50, 50 or more folks participate in that. So.
And then the other primary event for the Southern Conservation Trust is we actually have our golf tournament in the late summer fall that again, the. We do that at Flat Creek, Flat Creek Golf Club in Peachtree City. And the goal of all of these, all of these fundraising events is to basically set the Southern Conservation Trust up to Basically to extend the amount of impact that we make on the community and we demonstrate that through our actions and our. In the. What we. What we are able to offer the community and we, we continue to want to grow that inventory of events, programs and or educational type things.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: So yeah, it's amazing. I don't think we mentioned it but just to be clear of everybody, if everybody hasn't gotten it by now, this is a nonprofit organization and it's truly giving back to the community.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: We are a 501C3. In fact, just a little intel on that. We. Other than your large corporate type nonprofits like Piedmont and Piedmont Hospital and that sort of thing, we are one of the larger nonprofits in the area and given the scope of our stewardship responsibility across 13 states and then our local local basically initiatives for the owning nature preserves and our environmental education center, we. We have a nice.
A decent sized staff. We're probably one of the larger nonprofits in the area. And with that comes. We are in a spot to really make a broad amount of impact in the area too. So. And, but yeah, we definitely appreciate there's three ways. There's always. For us there's always three ways to actually contribute to at least our nonprofit in this case is one.
We have a lot of volunteer opportunities. We have days out at the ridge where we'll leave work, days where we actually rebuild bridges and trails and that sort of thing with the Peachtree City Rotary Club has always been a big, big partner with that. They'll bring an army of 30 or 40 Rotary Club members actually over to participate that in one of those days. But, but we also. The three ways to contribute is through volunteerism. We have a lot of businesses that say hey, I've got, I've got tools or I've got products. And they will donate things and donate items in kind. And then of course there's always the opportunity for corporate spons and event sponsorships and that sort of thing. So. But we try to, we. We try to provide multiple ways for individuals to contribute to the effort that we. And make an impact with us. And, and that's. That's a lot of times that's the, that's very, that's very consistent across all nonprofits of ways to contribute to the effort, you know.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's. And you get outside, you know, you get in the.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Well. Yeah. I mean if you really dig the outside and you really want to work in the woods or you want to work, you know. Yeah. I mean for me and that that goes back to some of my history. You know, I spent a lot of time working in the woods over the last 10 to 15 years of actually helping build bridges and trails on, in, you know, green spaces. And for me that's almost the best of both worlds to be out there and work and give something back, but also then, then turn around and bring your family the next weekend and not only take a hike or a bike ride, but then to show off what you worked on too, you know, so, so it's, it's a two, it's a win win for me. And so we, we love folks that want to participate in that.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: Excellent. Yeah, I can tell you that I, I, one of the reasons my family loves the, the, the green spaces, particularly run in the, the ridge over in Fayetteville. Those, I think those are the two we utilize the most. But we'll take an afternoon and electronics stay in the car and we're just out there with, with the kids walking around. They grumble about it on the way, but when we're out there, they, you see their faces light up and they're actually, you know, absorbing other things besides a screen, which is really, which is really great. So not, not only that, but tell me like, why is, why is having green space so important to the community?
[00:37:47] Speaker B: So I, I, I appreciate your point that you just made on that. And we, you know, we actually have summer camps for example, and I'll start, start with that. We, we actually have summer camps, both Camp Wild and an adventure camp that we do during the summer. So we'll actually post, I think it's somewhere around six different sessions of summer camps and for both younger children, elementary school age children, as well as more or less a middle school range of children. And you know, and those, they have a variety of different exercises and programs that will happen over a balance a week to introduce those children to environmental education or introduce them to outdoor recreation opportunities like tree climbing and kayaking and hiking and archery and stuff like that. But you know, for some of the children, even in our community, they have, they have been so used to using one of these. And when you get them out of the, out in the woods and this, this is a, this someone would say there's no way this is possible. Some of these children have never been in the woods.
Yeah, it goes back to the example I was giving you. You get them back in the woods and you introduce them to something totally new.
And again back to the example I mentioned a minute ago. It's as if we just have opened up a Christmas present for them that they had never been introduced to. They. They had been introduced to hours upon hours of devices. But the.
The benefits the. Of introducing them to a new environment. The I've actually the.
The. The. The things they see along the way. If it's wildlife, if it's whatever. The, the. The total experience is like taking them to a natural version of Six Flags or something. And it's like it is. That gets back to. To my passion too is it's so exciting to see the. Their eyes light up when you've taken them to a new experience like that. So for. But it goes way beyond that too. You know. And it's not just for those children. It' and you know, we really found during COVID seems like Covid was not that long ago, but yet it was. It seems like it was a long time ago, but we really found during COVID and this happened with a lot of our green spaces in our area is a lot of folks got back to basics. They actually realized all this stuff that was so important to me that or you know, getting out and being involved in so many different things. It was so important to me. It really wasn't that so much important. You know what getting out in the middle of this green space and staying six foot apart and getting back to basics. Actually a lot of them realized that they needed to you know they were in a spot where that provide us an opportunity to minimize all the distractions, all the things that we thought were so important and get back to the things that really are important. And that's actually having a work life balance where we put our time in during the day but then we actually go out and we enjoy spaces like this and we. We use it to play off of each other. We need time in our green spaces like this to actually balance out the hectic schedule and all the other things that grab for our attention. And that's one of the. If there. There was. If there was any.
If there was any great benefits that came out of COVID that is one of them that it got us back to what is really important. You know. And Lime Creek and I mentioned Cocker Mill a second ago. I think the ridge was the same way as they were all hot spots for activity because you couldn't go anywhere else. Yeah, you couldn't go. You could. You know, you couldn't. We couldn't go play organized sports. We couldn't go in some cases couldn't go to restaurants, you couldn't go to church. We were doing so many things virtually. But those green Spaces were definitely a space where you could get out there, get in the middle of nowhere. And, and, and I think it, I think it basically, it renewed people's interest in the, in the value of those type of spaces. And so anyway, that's, we the Southern Conservation Trust, and then some of the other, some of the other non profits I work with, I was already a big fan. I was already in those green spaces. But I think it actually was a good exercise. A lot of folks that had gotten way away from those things. Yeah. And it brought them back to nature in a way. So.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I had mixed emotions about that because we, my family loves to camp, so. Yeah. But all of a sudden it became really difficult to get camping reservations. I know, state parks, everything, which was nice. I really like to see the, the popularity of it because the more people utilize it, the more, you know, it'll be available for us. But yeah, we have, we have, we.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: Have kind of gotten our setup. Not only adults, but our kids set up so many of them. And it is what it is culture today. But we've gotten them so attached to devices and things today that the, that any opportunity to park this thing at the, you know, park this thing and get away from it. I think that's, there's great value and, you know, great value getting them out in the space and saying, leave it in the car, leave it, whatever. Because it's part of that balance I was talking about. It's, we've gotten so attached to some of these things and it's just, I don't think it, I don't think it's a positive thing. And, but there are, there are, we have local options to do that. And that's, that's great things. So.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there's not to go down a rabbit hole here on devices and electronics, but it is, it's, it's. More and more studies are coming out of how detrimental it is to mental health. You're just staying on, staying on a phone and not to mention relationships, you know, getting, taking the family out or going on a hike with a loved one and just connecting in nature is just, there's, there's so much value in that, for sure.
Tell us about the, we kind of glazed over it. Tell us about the, the environmental Education center.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: So the Fayette Environmental Education center is actually located on 14 acres in downtown Fayetteville.
We, One of our trailheads that you can enter into the education center is actually in the parking lot of the library that's downtown. So it's Sort of a natural fit that you have the library and then you can park in the same space and take the trail up to our fade environmental education center. We are actually located not only on the 14 acres, but we're actually located on one of the oldest homes in Fayette county built in the the late 1830s, which is cool. So there's a historic significance to our site.
We have a full menu of programming we cater to. I think this past year we served somewhere around 26 to 2700 constituents, students, whatever. And that was a combination of field trips and homeschool days and lunch and learn days and that sort of thing.
And that goes even beyond the borders of Fayette county too. We'll have schools that bring field trips from Henry, Spalding, Cowetta counties, as well as a lot of children in Fayette County.
And again, it's sort of like our local version work. A local version of someone, someone you would take, you know, all the, all the eight year olds for a field trip to Fern bank in Atlanta. We're not a Fern bank or a Georgia aquarium, but we are. We do provide programming that, you know, middle school, elementary school teachers really appreciate. And we are actually in a building phase right now with the campus of actually building out some of our, some of. Some of that 14 acres to also include some walking trails. We do have some walking trails. I wouldn't call them. They're not six or eight miles of hiking trails like the ridge has, but a couple miles that actually integrate well with our campus as well as again, the library and Walton communities.
We're partnered up with ripple glass on our campus, where down off Grady street, which is the south end of our campus, we have a ripple glass unit where folks can drop off their glass. That is. I did not realize how big a demand there was for folks wanting to drop their glass off in Fayette County. But we are constantly having ripple glass actually pick up, you know, this large roll off container, pick it up and take it off and bring an empty one back. Because there is a demand for those types of things. And we're building out our amenities on our campus to be not only things we use in our environmental education programming, we do have a full time staff that manage that and do an awesome job at that. But also build the site up to one day to host more partners, the 4H Club or the Master Gardeners or other groups like that that are involved in our community that would like to take advantage of our space. That's one of the biggest assets we bring to this community as well as other communities is back to that. The land we own, we have land that is ideal for environmental education events that go beyond what we offer or research projects or tree planting projects and that sort of thing. So we encourage local organizations that our mission aligns with to, to get hooked up with us and come up here and do their own events up here as well. So, so it's, it's exciting and it's exciting to have such a large footprint of land in downtown Fayetteville. To be able to continue to continue to tell our message and tell about the impact we're making and encourage more folks to want to get on board with us and, and support that somehow some way.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. It's what a great thing for the community. And I've learned a lot just talking to you here about the things you do. And I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what the Southern Trust, Southern Conservation Trust was doing. But what I'm going to ask a two part question kind of to wrap it up. What did we miss? Anything about where the organization today there was something that we missed that we didn't talk about and then what the second part of the question is, what's, what's in store for the future?
[00:49:04] Speaker B: We haven't missed missed much. I mean our three pillars of our organization on a high note are basically conservations and stewardship. That's why we actually hold easements, are very involved in the conservation of land all over the Southeast.
The second pillar being natural spaces, green space, which obviously the ridge and us not only owning four of those, but actually taking care of those on a local level and then the environmental education part of it. So I kind of tease the future development of looking forward. I kind of tease the future development of our campus here. We also are in a spot where we don't want to stop at just having four nature preserves and managing a fifth one.
We own a number of properties that are candidates to become new nature reserves.
We actually may, if things align well in the future, may purchase other property that we say, hey, that would be another spot. If it's the habitat, it's wooded, it's whatever other spots where we could actually build new nature preserves and again continue to have all these little islands of natural spaces that are publicly accessible for everybody to enjoy. And I think that's probably the one of the stronger or more significant directions we'll continue to pursue because we, we don't want to stop at where we're at, but continue to look for opportunities like that. So we own right around.
I think it's right of the 6,000 acres. I think it's right around just below 50, 50 different parcels of land.
There's a number, a number of them in our area here in metro Atlanta area. And, and we are going to one by one go through each of those and actually try to identify those that are the best candidates to create the new the Ridge or the new Morgan Grove or the new Sam's Lake or whatever. And so that that is the future. And that also to the point about the Fayette Environmental Education center, the biggest asset we bring this at this point is the land.
We have the land to do these things and to allow other folks to have access to that. And that's sort of the gold bar we bring to this discussion. And we're not content with just sitting on owning land. We're really about opening that up for everyone to enjoy and to share those experiences because without all of the benefits and values you and I have just spoken about. So the, the only other part of that is, is to and I appreciate your time today, too, as is elevating our messaging because again, it is surprising. There are folks that have spent their entire life in Fayette county and they don't know we exist. And I'm like, how can that be? You know, and, but to continue to get the messaging out because we feel like once they find out about us and they find out that we're offering, they are going to, they would, they will appreciate those things and want to take advantage of those things. And you shouldn't have to go to Pine Mountain or go to Appalachian Mountains to enjoy some of the things we offer. And, and it's about, it's about getting the word out and making people aware of that. So.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love that. And let me. So I ask everybody that comes on the, on the show here, I asked them to take off their, their hats. Well, in this case, take off the president CEO of Southern Conservation Trust hat. And if someone were to, because you live and you live and work in the community, someone were thinking of moving to Fayette County, Peachtree City area, what would you have to say to them?
[00:53:09] Speaker B: I would say the communities are very welcoming to folks. Certainly our communities on the south side of Atlanta have not been developed like what you find on the north side of Atlanta. It's kind of a little bit of a secret, though, too. It's kind of like, well, we've got a secret down here and you don't want to tell too many people, but you would find the communities and the people you find in Fayette county, the municipalities in Fayette county, it's a very welcoming community. They very much. There's a lot of pride in this community about what we do have. There is development in this community, just like in metro Atlanta, all over the place. But there is a reason people appreciate what we have here is because there's still. There is development, but there still is a sense of community. And I wouldn't say small town, but a sense of, you know, maybe small town, maybe it's more welcoming, more of a sense of community that's still welcoming. Whereas you go some places in Atlanta, it's all glass and concrete or roads going everywhere, and it's like, you know, neighbors don't talk to neighbors, you know, And I think you, I think you find that still find that in our communities here in Fayette. I would say you find that over in Coweta as well. And I feel like people just like green spaces. I feel like a lot of people still long for that sense of, you know, neighbor to neighbor community feeling. And I think we know in today's culture in a lot of areas that we've gotten away from that as well. And people, people long for that. They long for that, those community relationships. And it's still important. And that's what you would find out here.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. That's a great way to put it for sure. And what you're doing, you and the Conservation Trust is doing to combat. Is not the right word to, to have this symbiotic relationship between growth that's inevitable and maintaining, you know, the nature and green space. I think it's a great.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a balance. And you know, we all know when, well, life in general, we all know when our life gets out of balance. Well, this is a, this is a very similar to, very similar example to that is trying to balance those things out. And sometimes it's like, it's like one side of the. One side of the scale seems to be, you know, heavier than the others. And. But yeah, and we know, we know people, again, like community, people need that and they appreciate that. And like, we all, we all need balance. And so we're trying to offset it as quickly and as strategically as we can.
And that's also why back to the beginning of the Southern Conservation Trust, that that's what that group of volunteers saw 30 plus years ago. They said, hey, we want to balance out what's going on across the railroad tracks over there in Peachtree City. And again, of Course, at that time, there was nothing around the Vine Creek, there was no Planter Ridge, there was no Home Depot or whatever you see over there. But even 30 years ago, they were thinking about how do we keep things, how do we maintain a balance of green space versus development? And it's, it's a, it's amazing in a way, but it's also, it's interesting that they saw the need for that so many years ago and, and the need is still there.
[00:56:51] Speaker A: So, yeah, probably more now than ever, I would say.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: Probably so. Yeah.
[00:56:56] Speaker A: So how do we. What if we want to volunteer, if we want to donate or if we just have questions and want to reach out, how do, how we do that? What's the best way?
[00:57:03] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's always the web address. I'm going to send you to SCT landtrust.org There's tons of opportunities to learn about environmental education, learn about our green spaces, learn to learn about ways to contribute via volunteerism, donating, signing up for one of our events and attending. We, we take, we try to take good care of folks like at the Run the Ridge and make it a, make it somewhat something that people are going to enjoy. And so it's just again, S s c t landtrust.org and of course we're active on social too. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, we may even do a little bit of some of the other things that are appealing to a younger demo. And so, but we're not hard to find if you, if you, if you do a little bit of looking. And, and we also, as I said, we're really interested in partnerships and partnerships with organizations and companies. There's a lot of companies in our area that are into what's called sustainability programs where they want to get involved in the community. They want to be a little more environmentally sensitive. So it's not always about corporate sponsorships. Sometimes it's about basically having those partnerships. So we can actually extend our programming out to business environments too. It's not just about field trips, so. But just they should go to our website, connect with us. I have a team of folks that are very responsive and, and want to, are very interested in talking to anybody that wants to learn more about us.
[00:58:46] Speaker A: So, yeah, I can attest to that for sure. Just going through the, the sponsorship of the Run the Ridge. They're very responsive for sure. And you blurt, you jumped on the opportunity to come on the show. So I really appreciate that.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: I think it's been a great, great talk. This is something that's I it's close to my heart because I love the outdoors and I know you do and getting out there. So, so thanks so much for your time today and.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:59:09] Speaker A: Thank you. I'll put all the links and stuff like that in the show notes if you're, if you're listening. I mean, you don't have to rewind it and catch the web address. That'll all be in the show notes and I'll get the social media links in there as well, for sure.
[00:59:21] Speaker B: Yes. Thank you, Chris.
[00:59:23] Speaker A: Thanks so much.
[00:59:24] Speaker B: All right.
[00:59:29] Speaker A: Man. I could talk to Chris all day long, but I promised you all I'd save you some money.
Up next, the real deal. I'm going to tell you how to keep more money in your pocket come tax season. All right. I just want to throw it out there that if you are considering a move, we have a full service real estate team ready to help guide you through the process. Whether you are selling or buying in Fayette county, if you are planning a move, chances are you have questions and that's why we offer a free strategy session to help you get off on the right foot and that's available to you whether you hire us or not. We'll make sure you get the head start with all the information you need. Regardless, just go to petricityradio.com contact to reach out.
Do you want to save some money on your property taxes? I can see your head nodding out there, so pay attention to the next minute and a half. If if you're a homeowner in Fayette county or you're planning on becoming one, this is for you. We're going to break down everything you need to know about the homestead exemptions, which can help you lower your property tax bill. First, let's look at the basic homestead exemption available to all eligible homeowners in Fayette County. If you owned and occupied your home on January 1st and it's your primary residence, you can claim this exemption. This exemption applies to the first $2,000 of an assessed value of the school portion of your taxes and $5,000 of the assessed value on the county portion of your tax bill. That can add up to significant savings. You can apply for the homestead exemption year round, but the key date to remember is April 1st to have the exemption applied to the current tax year. Make sure your application is completed and submitted on or before April 1st. It's important to note that you can only receive tax reductions for one property and the property must be your primary residence. Now, if you're a senior citizen living in Peachtree City, there's even more good news. Peachtree City offers a senior homestead exemption as well. To qualify for the Peachtree City Senior Homestead exemption, you must be 65 or older by January 1st of the year you are applying for the exemption. Also, you must have already applied for the standard homestead exemption through the Fayette County Tax Commissioner's Office. There's also an income requirement for your household income must be less than $30,000 calculated using your federal adjusted gross household income. If you meet all these criteria, the city exemption is a flat reduction of $5,000 off your property's net assessed value. To register, bring the completed application and necessary documents to city hall by April 1st every year. Remember, Peachtree City residents must register or re register each year for this exemption. So whether you're a new homeowner in Fayette county or qualifying senior in Peachtree City, be sure to take advantage of these valuable homestead exemptions. They can make a real difference in your property tax bill.
[01:02:34] Speaker D: Thank you for joining us today on Peachtree City Radio.
