Dana Jonson [00:00:09]:
Hello and welcome back to special Ed. On Special Ed, I’m your host, Dana Johnson. Thank you so much for joining me today. We’re going to go on an inspiring journey with Mark Ostrom, who is the founder of Joy Collaborative, a remarkable organization where compassion and design intersect to create life changing spaces for youth with life limiting conditions. With a rich background in architecture and design, Mark has turned his expertise and passion towards making a profound difference in the lives of medically fragile children by establishing Joy Collaborative. Mark, welcome to the show and thank you so much for joining us today.

Mark Ostrom [00:00:43]:
Thank you, Dana. It’ll be fun conversation, I have no doubt.

Dana Jonson [00:00:46]:
I know. I’m very excited to hear all about Joy Collaborative. It’s very interesting. However, I need to play my disclaimer first, as everyone knows, so. So let’s get that out of the way.

Disclaimer [00:00:57]:
The information in this podcast is provided for general informational and entertainment purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction at the time you’re listening. Nothing in this episode creates an attorney client relationship, nor is it legal advice. Do not act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in or accessible through this episode without seeking appropriate legal or other professional advice on particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer or service provider licensed in your state, country or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction.

Dana Jonson [00:01:18]:
Mark, thank you so much for being here. I would really love to start with your background and your journey and how you came to Joy Collaborative because it is a unique. What’s the right word? It’s a unique endeavor.

Mark Ostrom [00:01:31]:
Experiment. Venture.

Dana Jonson [00:01:33]:
Experiment. Endeavor. Exactly.

Mark Ostrom [00:01:35]:
Idiotic moment. I don’t know what it is.

Dana Jonson [00:01:37]:
So why don’t you tell me a little about your background and how you got here?

Mark Ostrom [00:01:40]:
Sure. So my background is. When I was a kid, my parents always used to give me grief because I was always the organizer of the neighborhood kids and we do different things all the time. And that was just kind of my. My zest for living. And I brought that into my first college degree, which was a music major and just loved seeing kids drive through the arts. And unfortunately there were really no jobs when I was graduating college as a senior. And so I finished that program, stepped back and stepped back into the architecture and interiors program, which was something as a creative kid, was always something I was drawn to, the curious part.

Mark Ostrom [00:02:14]:
And one of the legs of the stool for Joy Collaborative is when I was going to design school, I worked for the Cleft Palate clinic at the University of Minnesota filing insurance claims. And I’m sure some of your audience will appreciate the amount of no’s that I receive from both dental and medical insurance companies for years, for years and years and years. And unfortunately that would still be a job today if I was still there. But I really ended up becoming sort of a campaigner for these families who had been denied coverage and just really, really loved that work. It was really complex treatment and got to be very expensive. So, you know, on those days, maybe once a quarter when I would meet with a family and be able to slip them a check for maybe $10,000. And I remember one day when a dad started crying because they had barely made a mortgage payment. And so, you know, I ran right into my boss’s office and said, I just had the best day of my life.

Mark Ostrom [00:03:05]:
How can I do that again? And so we put a curriculum together. I started teaching to other practitioners in the area, but really just enjoyed the relationship building that I knew was necessary on all sides of the insurance payer side in order to make those moments happen. So that’s sort of one leg of the stool, the other one comes from a design project. So one of my first built projects that I had the pleasure of working on was the Rainforest Cafe, which opened at the Mall of America to great acclaim a number of years ago and had three hour lines waiting out the door and all that. But for me it wasn’t about the attention it was getting. It was about I would go to lunch there once in a while and just sit in the back corner and watch people come in and they’d hang out in the mall and they’re trying to keep their kids wrangled together. And it was really a tough time for some, but they would come in. Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:03:56]:
And pretty much instantly body language changed, the family dynamics changed, the energy shifted and I was like, this is what we need to bring to those families that I knew were struggling. And so I had the idea for what is now Joy Collaborative when I was an intern basically in my first job and did some research. And you mentioned at the beginning that it’s unique. And I did some research and I could not find a pediatric focused design firm outside of one woman in Israel. And I thought, well then you’re crazy or she’s rich because I can’t feed. Why is nobody doing this? And so I just put it on the shelf and continued on to my design career and had great opportunities and worked for great firms doing all different kinds of work. But I got to the point where it became very transactional for me and I just really lost my mojo. I was not enjoying what I was doing and ended up actually being diagnosed with depression.

Mark Ostrom [00:04:50]:
And when that day happened, I looked at my counselor and I said, well, we can’t keep going like this then, can we? And so basically dusted off the nugget of a business plan that I had. I took an entrepreneurship program at St. Thomas, which is known for doing that kind of work, along with a program I attended called Studio E, which is focused on entrepreneurship and started from my kitchen table 2017 nights and weekends. Reached out to make a wish and said, hey, what do you got for me? And they gave me a very, very challenging project and we can talk about that later. But it turned out great. And from that they started referring me to Ronald McDonald House and Shriners. And I was like, this is exactly what I was hoping for. And so in 2019, we formed a board, just a few of us kind of bootstrapping things.

Mark Ostrom [00:05:38]:
And then June of 2020 got our 501C3 and now we have more than 5,000 people accessing our rooms in the Twin Cities.

Dana Jonson [00:05:46]:
That’s amazing. So let’s talk about what Joy Collaborative actually is, because you and I know we’re talking a little bit about it, but for the audience, what exactly is it?

Mark Ostrom [00:05:57]:
Well, I would welcome you to check out joycollaborative.org We’re a highly visual brand which gets me very excited. But what we do is we create spaces for youth with life limiting conditions. And you mentioned medical diagnosis. We’re also working with kids experiencing poverty and homeless work in partnership with the design community. So that’s architects, builders, vendors, interior designers, contractors to bring relief and joy to our finger quotes customers. So we deliver specific solutions, context of the problems that we are working in. And hopefully our audience has lived through Covid and we now have a better appreciation of what OneSpace works for us and when it doesn’t, we serve individual families and we serve larger program organizations like the ones I mentioned. So where other organizations might focus on a one time exotic vacation or a visit with a celebrity, we fill the gap between a Make a Wish and a Habitat for Humanity.

Mark Ostrom [00:06:54]:
And we create lasting environments and we’re supporting daily needs of families and programs who are looking to advance whatever their goals are.

Dana Jonson [00:07:02]:
So what does that look like when you’re looking to design a space? Maybe give me an example of a request that was made and how you make that. I know it’s very hard because we don’t have visual right here. So but what does that look like? Say if a family contacts you and says, I need something done, is it for the child for them to be able to function, Is it so that they’re comfortable in their space? What does it look like making those changes?

Mark Ostrom [00:07:28]:
I will give you a recent example and one that is on our website so people can check out Hans’s Wonderland and the story. And this is for an individual family and we can talk about, you know, larger program project as well. But Hans referral came through to us from Crescent Cove, who is a local organization that is a palliative care provider, hospice care for young children. And Hans is 7 years old. He has severe brain damage and many other chronic conditions. His family lives in a small town. His mom was an artist working out of her home trying to create her own business and her dad was a minister at a small church. They were caring for Hans in a lower level bedroom that was not too much bigger than his medical bed.

Mark Ostrom [00:08:13]:
The room on day one when we went to a site visit, you know, there was a very large screen hanging over his bed where he spent a lot of time underneath and two oversized kind of, you know, lazy boy loungers. And that was the space where he was receiving, you know, medical care. It was where nurses were expected to do their charting. And it was where he and his siblings were trying to have fun together. And it just, it was fighting them on every one of those aspects. So they were trying to figure out, oh, how we, how can we, you know, rework this room? And we’re like, well, wait a minute. The room next door to this is basically a storage area. And they’re like, well, we can clean that out.

Mark Ostrom [00:08:49]:
So we, we took out the demising wall, opened up the space and started to create a multi sensory environment and an attractive environment for Hans and everyone else that the family wanted to attract to them. So it became first obviously a focus on him and his care. So we needed to create basically a clinic grade facility in a home to accommodate charting. That would happen 247 with spontaneous fun events for family and to hold about three walk in closets full of medical supplies.

Dana Jonson [00:09:22]:
Wow.

Mark Ostrom [00:09:23]:
So, you know, I love these challenges and the design team that attacked this project, I mean, just fully embraced it and came up with something like I’ve never seen before. I’m very, very proud of that project. And you’ll see again, it’s hard to describe, you know, everything that happened in the design, but I mean, some, you know, a huge wall of cabinetry that encloses a charting station that can be tucked away so that when there is a nurse not present or when that staff isn’t there, it all is private information that can just be tucked away. Nobody even knows it’s there.

Dana Jonson [00:09:57]:
I will have in my show notes all your, your website information and stuff if you’re listening to. Incredibly visual and it’s very cool to look at. So definitely go to the website so that you can see how all this plays out.

Mark Ostrom [00:10:10]:
I want to kind of continue to address the design solution within the storage. There are very large cabinets to hold his mobility devices and those were everything from wheelchairs to walkers to, you know, storage that contained a lot of fidgets, activity toys, stuffies, things like that. A quiet space. His dad also was a musician sort of part time. So we created a little space for them to hang out together. And then, you know, one of the jewels of the space was an oversized. We called it a circle of life rocker. I don’t know if that’s quite the right term for it, but an oversized basically rocker that he and his siblings could sit in together and breed.

Mark Ostrom [00:10:49]:
He loved being read to. And so the idea behind that, it’s a half circular piece. So the idea behind that was not only could they pull it out and rock in it, which was comforting to him, but it could be tipped on its side and turned into like a service counter. And then it could be turned once again into a little climbing device. Very cool.

Dana Jonson [00:11:09]:
That must take so much imagination.

Mark Ostrom [00:11:12]:
You know, when we saw the original design from the interior designer and Dewan was just amazing, you know, the contractor and I took a step back and said, can we really pull this off? And with the help of three millwork companies, three cabinet companies, we were able to do that work. Without them, it wouldn’t have happened. So we were dedicated to pull off the design because it was so purposeful and it was so beautiful.

Dana Jonson [00:11:34]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:11:34]:
So it was, it was indeed a challenge. You know, it took us a little bit longer maybe to complete the work, but the family, you know, the testimonial that we got back, not only is, you know, Hans Kollmer in his space, which was the goal, it’s, you know, now they’re having pancake Saturdays with neighborhood kids. The one that’s going to sit with me the greatest is when his. When we, you know, finished the project and his mom said, you showed us how to live in our space. And this is coming from a creative person.

Dana Jonson [00:12:00]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:12:01]:
You know, that they were struck, they were struggling every day with how to take care of this kid who had demands round the clock. You know, his circadian rhythm was off the charts. He, you know, he needed to be changed all the Time, I mean, it was just, you know, I mean, your audience knows this.

Dana Jonson [00:12:14]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:12:14]:
But for her to say, you know, we were struggling with what we had and trying to make it work and you could see their efforts, but it was pretty chaotic. And so coming at it through the design lens for us to be able to kind of really, you know, focus on the different elements I mentioned and really piece together something that really supports them and sort of the community that they’re building around Hans is quite a proud moment.

Dana Jonson [00:12:37]:
Yeah. And that’s, I mean, one of the things I wanted to talk about, but I want to hear about a larger project too, and how that plays out. But you know, that impact of the rooms, and I think, you know, why they’re so necessary. And one of the reasons I was thinking, you know, that takes so much imagination, is not just the imagination, but not everything is easy to take from your imagination and make it work. Right. Like you’re describing this rock and it sounds fascinating, but you could think of that. But that doesn’t mean that you have the skill to put it together and make it functional as well as pretty or useful or any of those pieces, you know. So I think it takes a lot.

Dana Jonson [00:13:17]:
You must have a large team of people that you involve in these projects to make these things come to life.

Mark Ostrom [00:13:23]:
Yeah. I mean, what you see are. I mean, these are technologies. This is very high tech kind of solution. Even though it’s built, we have to figure out all the different pieces that have to come together from electrical to power. There is special lighting in this room. Yes, yes. These are challenging rooms.

Mark Ostrom [00:13:38]:
But I mean, we set the bar high intentionally to do so. Because if we set the bar low, then we can’t lift that bar up. We gotta stay high. And when we start with our kids and when we do an interview process with them, the list that we ask them to create is a list of 10 items that 1 Mom and dad can’t say no to and don’t have a budget. And the only thing we have to respect is gravity. So this is a time to. To ask for those things that you don’t think you can possibly even get or that fulfill some kind of desire or some kind of functional need that’s really working against you. I mean, that’s our whole MO.

Dana Jonson [00:14:19]:
Yeah. And that’s wonderful. I mean, I think it’s wonderful you do it for children with life limiting conditions. I also think that’d be great for anybody. Right. I mean, to be able to organize your space in a way that is functional and inviting at the same time. And I have a lot of children and they have a lot of different needs. So I can absolutely respect the difficulty in managing space and the services you need to put together as well.

Dana Jonson [00:14:46]:
What does this look like when you’re doing it on a larger scale? So when you have a more industrial type assignment.

Mark Ostrom [00:14:54]:
Yeah. So I have a real beef with some programs on HGTV or those kinds of programs where things look great. And in my position, you know, we’re only here, we’re only in your life for a short period of time. We’re going to leave you something that you’re going to be living with for a long time time. So we need to make sure that you can maintain it, that whatever we specify is something that you know how to. That you can easily take care of that. We’re not going to leave you with something complicated or something that is, you know, not durable, especially in the cases for a lot of our folks that.

Dana Jonson [00:15:22]:
We’Re working with, durable is key.

Mark Ostrom [00:15:24]:
We know what can happen. We know what can happen. You know, we can only do so much. We’re not, you know, we’re not going to build everybody a concrete prison. Like, that’s just not. We can do better than that. So I’ll give you an example for firefighters for Healing is a. Is a really cool transitional housing space here in Minneapolis, one of the first of its kind in the country for people, children and firefighters or others who have been injured by fire and are without a home or cannot live at home because of the treatment that they have to receive.

Mark Ostrom [00:15:53]:
So it’s attached. Minneapolis is known for its skyways. It’s attached by skyway to Hennepin Health, which is a top caregiver in the region. And so folks can stay in this facility for free for as long as they need to. And then it’s easy access through all times of the year back to their treatment, which for a lot of people, especially at the beginning, can be twice a day.

Dana Jonson [00:16:15]:
Wow.

Mark Ostrom [00:16:15]:
So Jake, who’s. Who’s became a friend. But before I started Joy Collaborative, I reached out to a number of executive directors and asking for some guidance. And we became fast friends years ago. And when he had the inkling to build their first facility, he asked me for some help to review the plans and what they were up to. And the. The spaces were great. They were providing all these amenities.

Mark Ostrom [00:16:37]:
It’s very much like a Ronald McDonald house. If you’ve been there, you know, there’s housing, quarters, there’s laundry, there’s communal spaces, all that. And I Said Jake, you forgot about the kids. He’s like, what are you talking about? I’m like, there is no space for kids who are recovering from burn here to just be kids. You know, if you don’t want to be out in communal space or you don’t want to be in your room, or your parent doesn’t want to be in the room with your beeping or your, you know, your crabby, today, there’s no place for you to go. So we, we carved out a small space there. Again, it’s on our website for kids now. Firefighters for Healing once a year provides a summer camp called Camp Red where all their families and kids can go and just have a great time in the summer.

Mark Ostrom [00:17:18]:
So canoeing, kayaking, games, firefighters come in with water hoses. I mean, it’s just a blast. And so the, the room became centered around Camp Red. And so that kids who maybe were staying there in January and February and would have no idea about Camp Red would know, hey, there’s this great summer adventure that’s coming that’s brought to you by the community and other firefighters. So the space is. It’s a comfortable space. There is some technology in there for kids to do some interactive gaming. It’s heavily themed towards firefighters.

Mark Ostrom [00:17:50]:
There’s a giant Dalmatian puppy in there that’s been getting some great attention on Instagram. And then one of the pieces that we find people really liking is being able to adjust the room setting while volume of sound and light. It’s also immediately adjacent to a window so you can see outside. So that’s great. But when we were working with the original program, we said, okay, everybody, like, it’s summer camp. What’s your favorite thing to do at summer camp? And that’s relaxing and fun. And everybody came back to hammocking. Well, our room is like, really? And so, I mean, that’s a huge thing here is to be able to just grab a hammock and string it up between trees.

Mark Ostrom [00:18:25]:
I mean, you drive by anywhere in Minneapolis in the summer, you’re going to see it. It’s wonderful fun. And so we said, well, we don’t really have the space in here to do a hammock, but what we could do is create the ceiling could be our sky. And so we created this really cool image looking up into the trees that you would be seeing at Camp Red. That is very, very relaxing. So we’ve got stories of kids who are awake at 2 in the morning because they’re in pain, and they go into the space. And now they relax. So that’s just a great story of how we are.

Mark Ostrom [00:18:54]:
We’re just starting to do more of that kind of clinic based work and expand what we’re doing beyond just single family, although we’ll continue to do both.

Dana Jonson [00:19:02]:
Something I wanted to ask you about, which was really the impact. I mean, I’ve heard that it’s wonderful to hear about a specific situation with a child who had a wonderful experience as well as his family. But I know in relation to what you were saying about the sky being there, we have a therapeutic school around here that everything in it was designed for calm. And you just walk in, I mean, from the lighting to the paint colors to everything. And it doesn’t on its face look different necessarily than a waiting room in a, in a school. But I always say, I’m like, I would like to just come here for one hour a day and sit in your waiting room. And that would be my meditation time. Because just those small pieces that you don’t think about, whether it’s the paint color or the fabric on the couch or the, the exact shade of the lights can make such an impact on you physically and emotionally.

Dana Jonson [00:19:57]:
So where does that fit in? Do you ever, you know, do, do I presume you also take all those things into consideration? But what are these results? I mean, are you, do you follow up and find out like, what kind of changes have been made in those environments and with those, either families or organizations as to how it really shifts their results?

Mark Ostrom [00:20:16]:
Yes. So in school I very much was a data junkie. So this is important to us. So a couple things are happening. One is we do post occupancy surveys 60 or 90 days past the completion, every project with a very simple interview process that we just go through and hey, you know, how did this work? What’s not working, what’s better, blah, blah, blah. And we get it. We’ve been getting a 95% success rate. So that tells us that we are on the right track.

Mark Ostrom [00:20:41]:
We also get personal stories of things like Bennett, you know, Bennett’s mom calls us and says, hey, guess what? Like, my biggest fear was our kid wasn’t, was gonna, he’s disabled. He was gonna grow up alone. Well, Now I’ve got 12 kids in my house who won’t leave.

Dana Jonson [00:20:55]:
That’s amazing.

Mark Ostrom [00:20:56]:
We have, you know, Finn, who was very isolated with ADHD and cystic fibrosis and really wasn’t taking to his academic or physical medicine plans, gets done with our space. Now all of a sudden, friends are coming over, he’s he’s doing his, his compression vest on a regular basis and he’s advancing academically now. He’s got a space for himself that he can control and advance. Because the whole reason, Dana, to do this is to shift the trajectory of somebody’s outlook on themselves, to provide them with hope, to provide them with some other tools that can get them out of a space that’s working against them. And I don’t mean space, physical space. I just mean headspace.

Dana Jonson [00:21:33]:
Yeah, emotional space, physical space. It all ties in together.

Mark Ostrom [00:21:37]:
Right. So this is to your question about data. So the next step for us is this fall we’re starting a research program with the graduate college at the University of Minnesota Nursing School to talk about the benefits of the work that we’re doing for individuals and the community at large. So that is very exciting to us. And the reason that they came to us? Well, two reasons. One is they saw a clinic project they were really excited about. But to talk about, you mentioned a school project. We were working with public schools and, and finding that a lot of them, you know, with the rise in neuro atypical kids, neurodiverse kids, that they didn’t necessarily have the space that they could allocate.

Mark Ostrom [00:22:16]:
Here In Minneapolis and St. Paul, our public schools are pretty jammed. So there was not a lot of flexibility.

Dana Jonson [00:22:20]:
I think they’re pretty jammed everywhere right now. Yeah, you can throw that out there.

Mark Ostrom [00:22:24]:
I’m sure that is true. But, you know, we were directed there by a local foundation. They said, hey, we really want to help these schools. What can you do? And it became very clear that we weren’t going to be able to do anything in the school, in the physical school. And we said, well, wait a minute, what if we brought the space to you? So we did some market research last summer, created the Joy Mobile, which is a multisensory environment that can travel to schools, to clinics, to events, and provide visual, audio, tactile options for people. And what we are seeing is kids high on the spectrum who are sensory seeking or even neurotypical people who are just looking for a place to relax. And I don’t know, I don’t know, many people who could, who couldn’t benefit from a little stress relief are finding their center within 10 minutes.

Dana Jonson [00:23:14]:
That’s amazing. I love that idea. I love putting it on wheels and being able to take it places. And I’m immediately thinking back to the pandemic where we were all stuck inside and suddenly landscapers suddenly had no free time because they were being taken inside. You know, Interior decorators were suddenly packed. And, you know, I think we did really suddenly become very aware of our physical surroundings that we never really paid attention to before and how important that is and how it impacts us. And I think it’s easy to ignore, right? If it’s, if the space is functional, because it has to be, then, you know, you say, okay, well, this is the way it has to be so that I can work. But you’re not thinking about all the other ways in which it impacts you, whether it’s the lighting or, or how you’re sitting or, you know, the other things that you’d like to do.

Dana Jonson [00:24:07]:
I also love that you’re bringing in other kids. These projects are bringing in other kids. It’s preventing this isolation that a lot of children go through when they have life limiting situations. And by bringing in other children, you’re also bringing awareness. You know, I always say I have a whole lot of hope for the next generation and, and bringing in awareness of these kinds of disabilities and life limiting situations that children are in is important. I think people avoid them because they seem sad. But to bring children in and let them know that this doesn’t have to be depressing. Right.

Dana Jonson [00:24:45]:
It doesn’t have to be a bad situation to be around a child who has these issues. It can be fun and you can engage and you can find things in common and you’re making that happen.

Mark Ostrom [00:24:56]:
And these people can be a bright spot in your day and they can be a bright spot in your company.

Dana Jonson [00:25:00]:
Exactly, exactly. So what other kinds of partnerships do you do? Like, do you have specific organizations that you work with regularly or do you sort of move around?

Mark Ostrom [00:25:11]:
Well, there’s a. There’s a vetting process for us to do our projects. Keeping in mind we’re going to be balancing individual family homes versus programs. So we have to figure out against our capacity what we can do. But we also want to make sure that we’re serving as many different kinds of needs at this point as possible. I mean, our ultimate goal is for this to be, you know, have a design division actually doing more projects rather than a smaller group of volunteers. So that’s where we’re headed. You know, we’re teeing up a project for a literacy program for a low income population in St.

Mark Ostrom [00:25:41]:
Paul that’ll serve 100 kids a day. We’re starting to work on the front end of a holistic sensory dental clinic. We were just invited. I’m so excited. We were just invited to. Well, the Joy Mobile was invited to the Minnesota State Fair. I’M not really supposed to link that out yet, but I can’t help it. It’s super exciting.

Mark Ostrom [00:25:59]:
I mean, the Minnesota State fair is the second largest in the country and gets 1.8 million visitors in place. So it’s crazy awesome for exposure and it’s a benefit. And for this to be a benefit, I mean, the Minnesota State Fair, like a lot of other organizations, wants to be inclusive and they’re struggling with how they can do that in a very dense situation. So this Joy Mobile, with its attention on acoustic separation should really, really be helpful. We’ve seen it already happen.

Dana Jonson [00:26:28]:
I could see that being its own entity, the whole Joy Mobile component. I actually went to, I was at the theater in New York not that long ago, and it was a show about children with autism. And they actually had cool down areas. So they’d put in specific areas and booths where if children were overstimulated by the noise and the lights and what have you, they could go calm down, calm themselves down and then come out and rejoin the theater. And I thought that was a really interesting concept. And I think I’m starting to see. I was at the Cliffs of Moore in Ireland and they have a meditation room like all the places. So it’s starting to pop up in places that creating these spaces is really important.

Mark Ostrom [00:27:14]:
Well, and it started, I mean, a lot of this started in healthcare where nurses and staff were being stressed out and didn’t have any place to go other than a cafeteria or maybe their car. So those kinds of spaces in healthcare now we’re starting to see in neurodiverse places that are serving neurodiverse populations. But also, I mean, this is a great benefit to anybody, to your point. It’s a great benefit to anybody. So, I mean, that to me is so exciting for everybody to see what’s happening. I mean, I know our airport’s starting to do things, so I mean, that is really profound.

Dana Jonson [00:27:47]:
And I mean, I gotta tell you, airports are really overstimulating. I cannot imagine going through it with a child who has serious sensory issues. I mean, that would be a nightmare. So what are some of the bigger barriers that you run into? Because it sounds so wonderful and it’s got such wonderful results, but it can’t just be that easy.

Mark Ostrom [00:28:06]:
Well, you’re talking to an optimist, so.

Dana Jonson [00:28:08]:
You gotta be okay. I can tell that. I can see that. I actually really like that. I’m not as much of an optimist, but I do like that vibe.

Mark Ostrom [00:28:15]:
I’m not a fan of the structure of Nonprofit. Let’s just. I’ve not been shy about putting that out there. It’s really hard to fundraise all the time. Yeah, like that’s just not a great. So. So things like the Join Mobile where we can charge revenue streams, you know, create revenue streams for us. Creating our own Joy rooms at home program.

Mark Ostrom [00:28:32]:
So we can design homes for or we can design for people who are at home. We’ll start bringing us revenue streams. You asked about partnerships. We are, we have a partnership with Make a Wish. As you probably are well aware, you know, having some kind of access to nature for kids is really important for their sense of well being and calming aspects as well of just as just like exploration, creativity. So we’re starting to create a series of joy sheds for them that our second one will be built now this summer and that’s a pilot project to start working with them. So. Oh, I love that.

Mark Ostrom [00:29:05]:
To try making these spaces. Well, the cool thing about Make a Wish, you know, you can go to a home builder store and get something that you can plunk in your backyard, but it probably won’t be insulated. It might not be all that durable and it certainly, well, it certainly is not going to be that creative.

Dana Jonson [00:29:21]:
Right.

Mark Ostrom [00:29:22]:
So the beauty in partnering with Make a Wish is the design requests and challenges come from creative kids.

Dana Jonson [00:29:29]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:29:30]:
And so you know who kids are. Right. They’re going to want, you know, they.

Dana Jonson [00:29:34]:
Don’T have as many boundaries as we do.

Mark Ostrom [00:29:35]:
No. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s like that, that you know, it, you know, as adults, it’s been beaten out of us. So kids, you know, it’s like, hey, I want the, the pink dollhouse. I want the superhero thing. I want whatever that is. So those kind of character attributes will start coming in through the Joy Shed program. So that’s pretty exciting.

Mark Ostrom [00:29:52]:
But you did ask about challenges. So certainly trying to figure out how we balance the number of volunteers that we have on any given project. There can be on an average about 30 and these projects can take a year. So it’s really about communication, it’s about engagement, it’s about setting expectations, all of that. So dedication to any one of our project really, really takes some time on the part of the volunteers. But I tell you, once we’re done and you see the change in that kid, you’ll never forget it. And a lot of our volunteers come back. So that means we’re doing a good job.

Mark Ostrom [00:30:24]:
The challenges are. You mentioned Covid and the rise in renovations, residential renovations and commercial too. It is getting a little bit harder to find people with excess time to do the work that we’re asking them to do. So on our side, it just takes more time to put out those requests and capture them and it might be, hey Mark, you know, I love what you’re doing. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s this time of year. I, you know, I’m booked out for the next six months. Check in with me then and you know, let’s talk that. So the balancing of the desires and the abilities, we just have to manage that.

Dana Jonson [00:30:59]:
Yeah. I was going to ask how long is the planning phase versus the implementation phase? You know, does it. And I think you answered part of that, which is finding the right people who have the availability to donate their time for that planning component. Because I would imagine it takes a number of people and once you have an idea to design it, I mean to really know whether something’s functional or not functional and to figure out how you’re going to meet all those needs in whatever the space is. So is that the part that you think would take the longest is the designing component?

Mark Ostrom [00:31:36]:
It’s the whole process. I don’t want to segment just in design. It’s really the whole process because it ebbs and flows depending on who’s available and what their skill set is. So sort of the whole arc of a project. What’s curious to me is our in kind projects, those that we don’t charge anything to the recipient take about a year.

Dana Jonson [00:31:52]:
Okay.

Mark Ostrom [00:31:53]:
And that is, you know, probably two months of programming. So that’s interviewing, asking lots of deep questions. As you can imagine, some of these get really personal and really uncomfortable. So we have to really understand on fully what we’re trying to address. Then presenting that out to the design community and saying, hey, we’ve got these different opportunities. What do you think? What’s your time frame, blah, blah, blah. And then lining everybody up on their schedule so that they can execute on a cohesive way because somebody coming in and one time and then a month later we get a different trade and another trade that’s just a disaster and we’re never going to have a great project. So it does take time to line all that stuff up.

Mark Ostrom [00:32:29]:
So now conversely on projects now we’re being brought into where it is a fee for service, that’s different. Now we’ve got, you know, people that we’re going to be hiring or the client will be hiring, which will advance those. And those will not take a year, those should not take six months from Start to finish.

Dana Jonson [00:32:43]:
How long do those take? I mean, I know you can’t tell with. It depends on the space and the size. But when you’re able to pay people, and that makes, you know, it makes people more available quickly.

Mark Ostrom [00:32:53]:
So, yeah, that works. It is interesting. But, you know, but even them, they, you know, they still have to find time in their schedule, you know, so we were approached by a very large foundation last fall. We are starting their programming actually next week. And they would like renderings done in about a month and a half. And that’s a pretty aggressive schedule for us to really understand. This is a very complex facility, but they have a presentation to their audience and they want to have something to say, hey, we’re starting this. Let’s get behind this.

Mark Ostrom [00:33:23]:
So that one, their goal is to have something started or built within six months. And I don’t see why that can’t happen.

Dana Jonson [00:33:30]:
You really are an optimist. I love that.

Mark Ostrom [00:33:32]:
The only way we’re going to get it done. Dina.

Dana Jonson [00:33:34]:
It’s true, it’s true, it’s true. What do you see as a future of not just Joy collaborative, but this type of design? Because I don’t, you know, I think that when, as a rule, when we look at designing things, we try to look at what’s functional, we try to look at what we like, but this is a much deeper level of design. This isn’t just, oh, we made it functional and pretty. Like you’re taking so many components into consideration. It seems like its own type of design. And do you see that as something that’s going to emerge in the design world?

Mark Ostrom [00:34:10]:
Hope so. You know, when I started looking at doing this kind of work, like I said, there really wasn’t a company focused so heavily on pediatric and sensory as we are doing now. But it’s broader than that because I mentioned we’re doing medical conditions, which is a whole landscape to itself. But to talk about kids, when I say life limiting conditions, we’re talking about kids who are, you know, experiencing poverty. You know, that’s. That’s 1 in 10,000 kids in Minnesota. If it’s homelessness, it’s 1. It’s 6,000 kids on the streets every night in our state.

Mark Ostrom [00:34:43]:
I mean, these are kids who by no fault of their own, are in a predicament or a situation that we, as designers, if we can help them, should be able to help them.

Dana Jonson [00:34:52]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:34:52]:
So it’s, it’s. I mean, I. If you can’t get motivated by that, then just don’t call me because we you know, these.

Dana Jonson [00:35:01]:
My number.

Mark Ostrom [00:35:02]:
Well, yeah, I mean, kid, it doesn’t matter. I mean, there’s, there’s a project coming up, if we can talk about it later in Ukraine and I. And you know, kids just want to have fun. It doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter any of that. Kids just want to have fun. And our goal, our goal is to bring the best possible design to them, to lead them to bravery and courage and independence like that. That is what gets me going every day.

Dana Jonson [00:35:26]:
And I’m glad you brought up the poverty and the homeless component because some of those children are our most vulnerable children. And you know, if you add any form of disability to that, they are in a really horrible position. And when you talk about life limiting situations, I don’t think of just, you know, the physical or, you know, a severe illness. I mean, if you look at some children with just processing issues, they cannot function, you know, if the light bulb is making the wrong noise, you know. And so there are so many populations for which this type of deep dive design could really change how their day goes or how their classroom goes. And it can also change. I mean, the way I’m looking at it, as I’m thinking about schools and imagine a teacher having a space like that that would help them manage their classroom and also be an enjoyable place for them to be, you know, and, and for them to be able to function at their highest capacity.

Mark Ostrom [00:36:30]:
Yeah, they struggle. I mean, it’s hard enough, you know, if, if 1 in 6 kids in our country has some sort of disability, you know, multiply that in a classroom.

Dana Jonson [00:36:38]:
And those classrooms are pretty full right now.

Mark Ostrom [00:36:40]:
And, you know, and to have the skill set and to be able to manage all, all of that without the tools is a challenge. So there certainly, I mean, we have helped schools. Certainly there are, you know, some, I don’t want to say furniture, but manufacturers who are starting to address that, which is great. So they can find corners, they can find spaces that kids can decompress in. Yeah, certainly I’d like to be able to do things a little bit more holistically than that. But to say that we started in 2020 and have had this kind of, you know, growth, you know, the future looks so great for us and being able to come at it from our point of view. So for us to be able to forecast two years out is really hard because we’ve had such great opportun opportunities come to us.

Dana Jonson [00:37:16]:
Right.

Mark Ostrom [00:37:17]:
You asked about kind of the future and moving forward. You know, I’d Love to be able to at some point, you know, maybe we can go back and talk about tips and tricks and things like that, but to do some public speaking is what I want to be doing next year. I’m not there yet, but I feel like kind of our, you know, our position and how we’ve been approaching design is different than just starting with the aesthetic and, you know, certainly, you know, families out there, hey, you could, you know, you could punch things in on AI and, you know, good luck with that. But, you know, there’s a human aspect, there’s an empathy aspect that AI, he’s just never going to be able to pull up. So, you know, having deep conversations with people who are really talented and do this for a living create a much different outcome.

Dana Jonson [00:37:56]:
Yeah. And I just. It sounds. Looking at your website, too, it’s so visual. It’s so neat, you know, but to know that there’s more behind it than that, you know, to know how much goes into planning those spaces and how much you are accommodating and trying to address within those spaces is just amazing. I mean, that seems like such a daunting task. So I’m very, very impressed. And I definitely would love to have you back again to talk about tips and tricks for families who are trying to create a space and maybe can’t afford to hire you or you’re just not in their state or whatever the situation is.

Dana Jonson [00:38:34]:
But why don’t you tell us a little bit about what upcoming things you mentioned? Ukraine, and I piqued my interest. So what kind of upcoming things is Joy Collaborative doing?

Mark Ostrom [00:38:43]:
Well, I mentioned the Joy Mobile, so that’s super exciting. And that, you know, to your point about scale, we’re exploring right now turning that into a franchise model so that could serve them from here across the country. And I do not see any reason why that can’t happen at all.

Dana Jonson [00:38:59]:
No, absolutely.

Mark Ostrom [00:39:01]:
We’ve been invited to the USA Games, which are Special Olympics. Olympics that’ll happen in Minneapolis in 2026. We’ll be creating multiple spaces for their athletes and their fans together. And they approached me. They’ve had. Well, we have spaces for the fans and we have spaces for. For the athletes. And I’m like, wait, that’s so off brand.

Mark Ostrom [00:39:22]:
Like, hold the phone right now. So we’re talking about. We called it the Special Olympics Lounge. I don’t know, I’d like to do something a little bit that. That is really celebratory and gets everybody together, but they also need spaces for, you know, they’re bringing in these amazing athletes from all over the country, they want sensory rooms and it’s not for the reason that you’d think. It’s not to calm them down, down before the event. It’s to bring them into a space after they’ve lost. And some of these people have never lost before.

Dana Jonson [00:39:51]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:39:52]:
And so we need to create a really comfortable space for them where they can really hold some heavy emotion and then come back on a better side. So I’m very excited about what that can look like.

Dana Jonson [00:40:02]:
What an interesting perspective. I had not thought of that, but you’re right. And to be able. That is, for a typically developing person, a very difficult and strong emotional situation that you have to process. So that’s amazing that that is something that they’re thinking of and addressing. I think that’s fabulous.

Mark Ostrom [00:40:22]:
Yeah. Because, I mean, imagine. I mean, I’ve been to some of the games, but I still have a hard time because I don’t have the conditions. I haven’t grown up with somebody like that. But, you know, maybe you’re traveling from who knows how far away, so you’ve left your family, you’re on a plane, you’re in a strange place. I mean, line up all of the things that go wrong, all the. For you, you know, and then you’re trying to compete and have this beautiful moment. I mean, it’s just.

Mark Ostrom [00:40:46]:
And then you lose. I mean, it’s just. And even if you come in third, you know, whatever it’s like, you know, we still need to be able to, you know, help support you. And, you know, this is an overwhelmingly positive event. So we just have to be mindful of those, those number of people who are going to need some help. So. But the, the, the Herculean task ahead of us right now is. I was invited, well, almost two years ago now, after the war broke out in Ukraine, train to be a consultant to interview families and children immigrating into Poland, so displaced by no fault of their own.

Mark Ostrom [00:41:22]:
And so we spent time putting together. This was. Ido, was the research partner, along with the client was the American Refugee Committee, or elite. And they’ve done projects like this before. We spent time there. You see the highest and the lowest of humans, human behavior, you know, it was. It was very monumental to me, very, you know, emotionally charged, for sure. And to meet and interview these kids and that, That’s a separate conversation.

Mark Ostrom [00:41:49]:
But what happened is, is the project sort of was put on hold. It was called Havens, and it was, it was intended to provide services and spaces to families displaced Persons. And it sort of went on hold. And then about a year ago, I got a call from the Rotary. The Ukrainian president. The Rotary Ukrainian president sent me an email and said, hey, we heard what you are doing, what’s happening? And so that’s taken some time to develop. We are now at the beginning of creating a partnership with Rotary Europe and Rotary United States to create Joy Rooms International. So we’ll be designing them here and moving them and installing them over here.

Mark Ostrom [00:42:27]:
Dana. To a school for special needs kids in a zone.

Dana Jonson [00:42:31]:
I love it.

Mark Ostrom [00:42:32]:
Come on.

Dana Jonson [00:42:34]:
I mean, you can’t make this up.

Mark Ostrom [00:42:36]:
You can’t. And I’m like, wow. So it’ll. It’s gonna happen. I don’t know how it’s gonna happen. But we, you know, we’re starting to connect the dots talk. You know, Minneapolis is the largest, sorry, the. The number one ranked airport in the country.

Mark Ostrom [00:42:49]:
And so we’re talking to some of their carriers about, you know, doing that and bringing things into Krakow, which is a distribution site. And it’s just. But, you know, you just break it down and we’ve got amazing champions all over the globe here trying to help. Help us out and help these kids who, you know, who are. Who are working in bomb shelters, schools. So for us to be able to create Joy Rooms, this is going to be a pilot project that we’ll launch here, I don’t know, in the next year or so.

Dana Jonson [00:43:15]:
So that’s amazing.

Mark Ostrom [00:43:17]:
Hopefully sooner. I mean, the need, obviously, is every day, but, you know, we have to be able to tee everything up. So we’re working on everything from, you know, somebody in their, you know, their basement, you know, renovating for their. For their kid who’s got need or, you know, we’ve got one family right now who have kids on the opposite side of the spectrum, so that’s going to be fun. And, you know, to these other, you know, whatever. Whatever comes our way.

Dana Jonson [00:43:38]:
Yeah.

Mark Ostrom [00:43:38]:
Is just really exciting.

Dana Jonson [00:43:39]:
Can you imagine that? Like, just based on an idea you had, what you said as an intern, and you are now internationally bringing awareness to Joy Rooms, you know, on all levels.

Mark Ostrom [00:43:54]:
You trying to make me cry on your podcast?

Dana Jonson [00:43:55]:
I’m just. I think it’s amazing. I mean, do you ever sit around and go, oh, my God, I can’t believe I did that?

Mark Ostrom [00:44:00]:
This. You know, it’s funny. I mean, there, there is a lot of pride here, but I, I’m not one to look back and I probably should do a better job of that. I’m all. It’s always about what’s next. What are we doing tomorrow? Like, come on. Like, the need. The pipeline just does not end.

Dana Jonson [00:44:15]:
No.

Mark Ostrom [00:44:16]:
You know, and that. And that is. It’s. It’s horrible. It’s a tragedy, but it’s also an amazing design opportunity, and that’s how I look at every day.

Dana Jonson [00:44:23]:
Well, I. I think it’s amazing. I really do. I think it’s absolutely amazing. I. I suspect this is going to catch on and you will be the person. You’re going to be the guy. You’re going to be the one teaching design schools how to teach people to do this.

Mark Ostrom [00:44:41]:
I think I’d love to be one of many. I appreciate that. I’d love to be one of many. Thank you. I would love to be able to do that.

Dana Jonson [00:44:47]:
I’m so glad you’re bringing this to the world. It’s so necessary, and you can see the success through your work, and I just think it’s amazing. So thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you so much, everything you’re doing.

Mark Ostrom [00:45:02]:
Thank you. And, you know, for your. For your audience that’s listening. If you’re captivated by this, you know, take a look at our website. Follow me on LinkedIn. I post a couple times a week something about around the work that we’re doing and, you know, just, you know, for those in the, you know, either philanthropic world or corporate people who want to, you know, kind of get involved in our projects, I mean, we’ll figure out a way. Absolutely.

Dana Jonson [00:45:25]:
And I will have. I’ll have all that information in my show notes. So if you’re on the go right now and you’re like, I got it. I got it. See this work? I’ve got to find Mark. You know, I will have all that information on my show notes, so go back and look at that and find it. And I really do would love to have you back to talk about more tips and tricks when you’re into, you know, public speaking and. And that sort of thing.

Dana Jonson [00:45:48]:
I think it would be wonderful.

Mark Ostrom [00:45:49]:
I’ll be ready.

Dana Jonson [00:45:50]:
Excellent. Thank you so much for joining me.

Mark Ostrom [00:45:53]:
Thank you, Dana. It was a great conversation. Great to meet you.

Dana Jonson [00:45:56]:
Thank you so much for joining me today. Please don’t forget to follow this podcast so you don’t miss any new episodes and leave a review when you have a chance. If there’s anything you want to hear about or comment on, please go to my Facebook page, special Ed on Special Ed, and find me there. I’ll see you next time here on Special Ed. On Special Ed. Have a fabulous day.

Disclaimer [00:46:15]:
The views expressed in this episode are those of the speakers at the time of the recording and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company, or even that individual today Sat.