Real Talk with Carl Povilaitis

Welcome to Heal Talk Tuesdays with Liza.
Where transformation begins as we evoke embrace the evolve.
Greetings Greetings Greetings and welcome to Real Talk with Liza.
Today I have a special guest and you know none other
that are retired and chief of police of Glendale,
Carl Povilaitis. Welcome Carl.
Thank you Liza. Nice to be here.
Right.
With all these lights. With all these lights.
Well I’m going to be talking just a little bit with you about you,
about your history, about your passion, about the things you love.
And then of course the thing that we all love, the
reason we are here together, is the yellow duckies.
Right. So. It is duck season.
Is duck season.
Is it really duck season?
No.
It’s duck season in one day. Right.
That’s one thing I didn’t even check to see where is the real duck season.
I think that’s in the fall but I totally remember it’s been a long time.
But it’s duck season in Glendale for a yellow duck.
And that’s next month.
That’s next month.
So.
So the adoptions are open.
It’s duck season.
It is duck season.
It’s going to be a fun not only a fun event but today
is going to be fun because we’re going to do real talk.
We’re going to do humor and this is why I love this gentleman.
He can be serious when he needs to be serious but who he is is just human.
But all heart.
That’s what I know you as.
So thank you for saying yes to this interview.
My pleasure.
You served with the Glendale Police
Department for approximately 32 years correct.
I did.
Yeah.
So I was a little bit worried about the general community for the set.
I’ll add maybe get ahead of your questions but because I didn’t grow up in Glendale.
But Glendale has become home.
I came here in 1990 when I was hired by the Glendale Police
Department and shortly after that I moved to Glendale.
And so Glendale really really become home.
So I’ve had the pleasure of both working
and really serving the Canadian Glendale and
living here for the last 30, almost 33 years
now with 32 years of police department.
Wonderful.
I know I’ve known you since you were in the black and white.
Yeah.
I was finished.
You were just listening.
And black hair.
Yeah.
I’m full head in here.
Things changed over 30 seconds.
We changed.
We evolved.
We evolved.
We evolved.
We evolved.
Yes.
We evolved.
One of the things is how has our community changed?
You know, but then the restaurant.
Well, this is a good food here.
I can testify.
I can testify.
That’s a number of lunch meetings.
But you know, one of those are a unique community.
It is a very, very special community that I’ve gotten to know in a number of ways.
Obviously one of them is working in the police department and being
very actively involved in community policing throughout my career.
I’ve gotten to know various classes, community
and the richness of the cultures that are here in Glendale.
And it’s like, you know, you can find any kind of food, which
is almost like you can find any kind of people in Glendale.
But I think, you know, what I also see in Glendale is a willingness
of people to come together to make this community better.
And I don’t mean that just from a standpoint
of public safety on a police department.
And I mean that in terms of the various organizations in this community that help.
It’s like, you know, I’ve always had a passion
for giving young people a good start in life, a big believer in scholarships.
It’s like, you know, I’ve met various people throughout the years.
One of my friends had two daughters, who won’t say his name.
And he’s older.
So you’re going to get a little older.
But he insisted that both his daughters get an education.
Because he’s a little enough to come from the time where it’s like,
for the most part, women may not have been in professional careers.
But he did not want his to party, depending upon
a husband for their well-being and their success.
And I just kind of look at that in terms of human beings.
It’s important to give kids a good start.
It’s like, you know, an education is something nobody can take away from.
They can take away your property and, you know, that kind of stuff.
But what’s up in your head?
They can’t do that.
And, you know, whatever follows you, it’s like, if you have an
education, you have the tools to rebuild, retool, make the world better.
And this community really comes together to make things better.
And there’s a plethora of organizations, you know,
we’re here to talk about, “Kawanis” a little bit.
But, you know, whether that’s your money in really society or, you
know, the various scholarship foundations of
the community foundation, the Virginia Gos.
And I know I’ll leave all sorts of people out because,
you know, for our own friends, our friends over in Rotary.
You know, professional group.
I mean, there’s just a lot of people who really
focus on the well-being of this community.
And it’s not just looking for somebody else to do that.
There’s people who will, there’s sleeves and make it better.
That’s, I think, what’s really unique about my little.
Exactly.
Well, we do have a lot of organizations that give back to the community.
And there are organizations that we know of that are
doing things for children and making lives so better.
So, I know because I’ve been in this community, in Glendale since 1976.
You have to be five years.
And from the time that I was in high school, our city has evolved.
And we do support our police and fire department.
And because they too are the best, we have the best first responders, I believe.
And that’s because of what the community does for
the police department and what they try to do for us.
Which brings us to now that you have retired.
You have more time to do more civil work in community work,
which you are now more involved with the Glendale Kiwanis.
Would you like to share a little bit to our community who don’t know
what Kiwanis stands for, even though I’ve been there for 30 years.
As a member for you to explain, because you are incoming president.
Yeah.
So somehow, even when you say retirement, I have more time for other things.
Somehow that time gets occupied.
But there’s always been a commitment to trying to make, you know, my personal
goals, to try to leave this world a little bit better than I found it.
Whether that’s in terms of public safety,
and I will agree that, you know, the minimum
amount of the Glendale’s public safety
services, police and fire are the best part.
And we’re very, very fortunate.
But that’s also part of a relationship between
the community and its first responders.
Because if there’s not a relationship between the two, it doesn’t work.
It can work, but it will not work well.
And that relationship and engagement is what
makes this place a part from other people.
It’s not only having to leave with people in the organization, having good
people in the community and the ability for people to work together towards that.
And I don’t believe we’re having people involved in their community
because you can’t really understand the community unless you’re kind of
getting out and getting to know people and, you know, if you’re not willing
to roll up your sleeves and do some work, that makes it really hard.
And it’s like, you know, if you’re always
expecting somebody else to do something, then
it’s never going to get done. Sometimes you
got to go, okay, we can make a difference here.
It’s supposed to look at your right-wing,
who can fix this problem while maybe it’s us.
And Kiwanis is one of those service organizations in Lendel
that helps make the community better and it focuses on kids.
And, you know, somebody that I knew from a professional life used to say, you know,
up to the age of three you learned to read and from three on you lead to learn.
So literacy is really important.
So it’s like, you know, I guess something typical guy usually usually when I’m putting
something together, I don’t read the instructions until I have left over products.
But if you’re doing it right, if you don’t, you know, someone hands you something like a puzzle
and hands you instructions, if you don’t have a read, you can then put the puzzle together.
I could then shoot me.
You don’t need instructions.
It’s awesome.
Some people could do that.
Yeah.
Some people could do it very innately.
Other people knew that.
But the ability to read gives us the, gives us the
ability to human beings to learn something we don’t know.
You know, if you don’t know how to fix your car
these days, I guess you go to YouTube and watch that.
But you know, you can get a manual out or something
and read, go, okay, this is what I need to do that.
And that’s a capacity that, you know, we have.
Right.
And giving people that is something is the same.
Can’t take away from them.
And so when you look at young men and women,
kids in our community, they’re our future.
And so, you know, we want them to be better than we are.
We want to have a better place, have more opportunities in order to do that.
We got to get them up to the right start.
And so, Kiwanis looks at doing some things.
I mean, we’ve been involved in reading this fundamental literacy programs.
We, we develop service leadership programs in our, you know,
elementary, middle and high schools and community colleges.
You know, to try to get other people to come to the community.
I think he is.
The K is the builder’s clubs, the circle K clubs.
Thank you.
You know, for those that may be developmentally disabled, the
action clubs so that everybody can contribute in some way.
And Kiwanis, it’s like, we have people who contributed in some way.
I think some of my favorite projects over the years
of the community brought gardens over on Monterey.
Because they’re still there.
And it’s like, you know, that was growing and
growing and different people come and go with it.
It’s like, you know, but, you know, if you don’t have a big enough, you’re
harder to live in an apartment and you cannot grow any fresh vegetables.
They like you.
That’s now an opportunity.
And it’s still there and it’s still being used.
Well, people don’t know the things we did.
And it took a couple of days for us to do.
I mean, some very generous people in the community donated the lumber, you know,
Kiwanis and some of those kids groups that we just talked about donated the labor.
And you know, and over a weekend we put that together for other people to enjoy.
And I think, you know, if you’re looking for the essence of Kiwanis, it’s
people who are investing of sometimes their money, sometimes their labor.
A lot of times their time and energy to invest in our younger generation to do that.
And it’s that some of the things we also do benefit, you know,
benefit adults as well because we’re also looking at families.
You know, getting people off to that good start.
You know, if, you know, we’re big supporters of a sense, you know, if you have a
family and, you know, somebody’s lost their job and they don’t have a place to go.
They don’t have food.
It’s like trying to get all those pieces back in place and get them
services and get them started, you know, Kiwanis is more than really.
Kiwanis is more than groups that that’s there.
And we do raise funds and we give to those organizations.
We give not only scholarships, but we also
give back to some of these big organizations.
I know we help the Red Cross at one point, the
Salvation Army and the Sentia, even the YMCA YWCA.
Any time that they have come and apply for scholarship,
Kiwanis has also been very open giving back to the community.
And that’s what I said.
It’s really, it’s there’s there’s multiple pieces to Kiwanis, some of
which is financial support and that’s important to these organizations.
It’s one of the organizations that will support other
organizations that do good work in the community.
And then there’s also the part of us that you know will do that if you will the physical labor or you know if you don’t
think of the physical labor that will go in and work with young people to help them develop and expand their horizons.
And also teach that you know it’s not all about what you can take from
something because if you need something we want to make sure it’s there.
But it’s also important to give back.
And when you say when I talk about retirement, you know I consider myself very
fortunate, you know, the police department was very good in the city of London.
It was was very good to me and I got to tell you I really enjoyed my career,
but I also a big believer in giving back and I will do all work in there.
But as I said my goal in retirement is to continue to be able to work with you.
So you can go in anywhere else you stay right here.
Stay right here.
This is this is this is become this has really become
home for for me and it’s said where else can you do that.
It’s like, you know what I said is I look at some of the
time that I am some of the things that I think are important.
At least from a personal level.
This allows me to give back and try to help continue to build our community.
And it’s a nice thing about being part of a group like Kwanis is I’m
with a bunch of like minded people who also will be who give other time.
In fact, maybe a lot of give a lot more of
their time and energy that I have over the time.
I know I have a little bit more to give, but it’s like I think that’s
one of the coolest things about the organization is people will do that.
But there’s a third piece of this where in order to
do this, as you said, we financially support that.
Some of that comes from the generosity of the membership, but other,
but we also do the fundraising in order to make this all work.
And yet the community involved, we’d love to see more people.
We’re always looking for people to come join us as part of the club, but we also looking for
people who may be they don’t have the time, but are willing to help us support these organizations.
And over the years this community has been very, very generous.
Right. Well, we do meet on Fridays at noon.
And right here locally at the Alex Club.
Our members come together. We have lunch. We have program.
And truly, Kiwanis is a service organization.
And I know we have other organizations in the community.
The reason I’m saying it’s very touching, especially folks
members that we have now who benefited when they were young.
And it was Kiwanis.
I remember a story saying we didn’t have much.
And, or we have a member who said, I, our family didn’t have much.
And he was part of K-Kids.
And then went into the builders and circle K.
So he was immersed in learning what Kiwanis and service and getting
and volunteerism was throughout from elementary and high school.
And when he became an adult, he joined what we call it.
The big boys.
Which nowadays we have a lot of women in our club.
But it’s the big club, which is the adults, the
members who are professionals that we meet once a week.
Hopefully most of us come in once a week.
But we’re always there to give even if we don’t come every week.
And yet you are so wonderful in doing this.
Because you sit away from your retirement and your passion back
into the kids in Kiwanis, which your passion is flying in a way.
And sit on driving. You fly to a lot of places.
Which is another time we’ll talk about Carl.
Hopefully you will grace me with another time.
We’ll talk about other things because I truly want to talk to you about.
But today our intention is the duck race.
That’s right.
Right.
We have lots of ducks that need to be adopted.
We do.
So I’m going to put the link right after our YouTube, the information.
But the duckies need to be adopted.
So if you go to.
Let us know if you can click on the duck race.
The duck race.
Or you can go to duckswerkids.org.
The ducks for kids.org.
Glendale.
Right.
And then it’s team.
Three.
One.
Three.
Six.
Oh seven.
Which is my team.
And find my name.
And I’m going to put the link over there.
Because I want you to adopt and help my team be the winner.
But we’ve got one.
It’s going to happen at the May 4th.
Where do you go park?
Where do you go park?
Right here in Glendale.
And there’s going to be thousands of kids.
We’re going to have vendors.
Yes, we’ll have vendors.
We’ll have sponsors.
We’ll have sponsors.
You’re going to watch.
Where do you go park?
There isn’t a lake in where do you go park.
There isn’t a lake in where do you go park.
But by 11 o’clock in the morning, there will be two lakes.
And upper lake and a lower lake built in where do you go park?
For summer and the ballpark of 20,000 rubber ducks.
About to race through the park.
And all by the way, if you adopt a duck, you have a chance to win $10,000.
That is the grand prize.
Because this is our primary fundraiser.
And these ducks that you’re going to adopt, they’re $5 each.
Or you can buy a kayak for $25.
And that gets you into a drive for an extra $500.
I can’t put the next $500.
So there’s a little bit of chance to do that.
But all the money that comes from this duck race supports the.
organizations that we’re talking about.
It supports scholarships.
It supports kids.
It supports early learning.
It supports really is fundamental.
It supports leadership groups in schools.
It supports the census.
It supports the salvation army.
It is part of what helps people who need an extra hand in our community.
That’s what does it.
And you know what?
This is a great event just to bring the kids to.
I know.
It’s like so much fun.
Kids and rubber ducks.
I mean, just to watch their eyes get really big.
Has all these ducks go from an upper lake to a lower lake?
And the event will run from a level of fun.
It’s a fun thing.
I’m going to take a look at where that duck is going.
And because there’s 20,000 ducks, we don’t do it at just once.
We’ll run several heats.
So between 11 A.M. and 2 P.M.
The final race will be just before 2 P.M.
That will determine where the winner is.
But kind of like a track meet, we run heats in the winners of each heat.
Get set in the separate area and then we do the final race.
Just gathering all those.
It’s so long.
It’s just a lot of fun.
And just to watch the smiles on the kids’ faces
and the looks of amazement and the enjoyment.
And the pictures of the men would pick you all the hair of the heat and go in here.
The somebody’s going to watch the ducks down.
It’s just a–
And we have the police department and the fire department.
Fire departments there are the fire departments there.
But their homes.
Yeah.
Fire departments, I can’t do this without the support of one of their fire.
Because we use water.
We send them down and we pump the water back up to the top lake.
And we recycle it.
And we do it again.
But it’s just a lot of smiles on the kids’ faces.
They just have a lot of fun watching that.
So if you have kids and May 4th, it’s a Saturday.
So the first race starts at 11 o’clock.
Feel free to bring your kids out.
Yeah.
One of our affiliated Kiwanis clubs will be cooking burgers and hotdogs.
Oh, that’s right.
It’s a burger.
I haven’t seen the final menu, but there will be some food and water out there.
And it’s just a good way to spend a few hours with your kids and get that fun.
Exactly.
And if you find your way to buying a duck or a five or a ten or a duck.
You know, help me, please.
So I come on a competing team.
I should be.
But it’s the thing that I tell people is competition should be good nature.
And realize that all this funding goes back into our community.
Exactly.
It all goes back.
Our sponsors have been driven better.
So everything coming from this race will be reinvested in our community.
You know, amazingly, this is our 19 year.
Our 19 year.
And so over the 19 years, we’ve invested.
We’ve reinvested $1.4 million.
Back into the community.
Back into Glendale.
Back into Glendale.
Back into Glendale.
Back into Glendale.
Yeah.
You know, that’s the generosity of this community.
That’s the hard work for the Kiwanis Club.
That’s the generosity of people who are viewing this.
And so, you know, is that I would invite you to adopt some ducks.
You know, it’s your chance to win $10,000.
We have a couple of $1,000 prizes in there also.
But, you know, by having some fun and having that chance,
you also have an opportunity to not only win
somebody but do some good with having fun.
And please come out and see us on that day.
It’s great to have kids.
And even big, I’ll say kids, you know, little kids and the big kids.
They’re big ducks.
They’re big ducks.
Yeah, we’ll have some big blow-up ducks.
We should have a duck walking around and set it all over the place.
We’re like, “It’s like a lot of people out in Detroit.
Enjoy a couple of hours with us.”
Right.
And it’s a nice.
It’s not only about money.
It’s what the money does.
It brings smile and it brings joy.
And it helps maybe one person, maybe a group, maybe a family.
We never know who is the beneficiary of your $1 or your $5.
And this duckie has been a part of my card.
This is my second card that my duckie.
It’s already got a lot of sign.
But people who say, “What is that duck in your car?”.
Because it’s always in the back window and everybody gets to see that.
And I’ve had kids say, “Hi, passing by.
That’s what we do.
We bring smiles to your face and your children’s face.”
So with that, I want to say, “He’ll come on.”
He’ll come on.
He’ll come on.
It’s a wonderful organization with us.
It’s really good people with good hearts who really care.
And I’ll just like the people who are watching this, people have good hearts.
And so that’s one of the people who have good hearts.
That’s what makes us so much.
And we invite you to join us, not only at the park, but also call me.
Let me know.
And I’ll be more than happy to give you an application.
With that, I want to say thank you so much
for being here, being part of the community,
and giving back to the community with Heart and Soul.
Thank you, Heart.
Thank you.
Thank you for the invitation.
It’s always wonderful to see you.
And with that, thank you for being part of the real talk Tuesday’s.
It’s not always about healing.
It’s about giving.
See you next week.
Bye-bye.

Embracing Change, Embracing Change, Embracing Change