The Voices for Voices TV Show and Podcast Episode 52 with Guests, Tamia and Tim Woods
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all donations are 100 percent tax deductible today's gas joining me in studio are the
parents of James Woods and the founders of the do it for James Foundation
please join me in welcoming to the show Tamiya and Tim Woods
thank you absolutely for our audience the topic today is it's
gonna be pretty deep so we just want to let everybody know that uh
the content is going to be deep, and it you may hear some uh
graphic words being used and describing situations, so I just wanted
to share that in case you have a little one at home
so let's start with your son James growing up when you
found out that you were going to be having a child and the excitement that
you had leading up to that and then with James being born can you describe that a little bit
well of course she knew first
you know when she brought it to me, we were out eating one night, and you know I'm thinking you know it's just a
regular day yeah, she says you know I have something to tell you know so I like okay as I'm eating my chicken you
know not knowing what you know she was talking about and then she told me that she was pregnant yeah, I was like oh you
know I was a little shocked, but you know I wasn't scared or anything you know
it's just some different news at first so I made sure that it was something
that she wanted to go through with and of course she chose because she's likes life, so she told me she was she
planned on keeping the baby I said all right well I'm gonna be a dad yeah from that moment on you know I made sure
to try to always go to her appointments and everything I missed only like one at the very beginning, but I made sure that
I was always there for appointments I made sure that she was okay you know health-wise, and you know something new
for me you know I never had a kid before, so you know good as a guy you usually know guys you know get a little jumpy
or scared or whatever but yeah, I figured hey why not I was a kid once I made it
yeah, why not my kid also yeah, we I was I was scared at first
um but it was a learning curve you know of course it'd be in our first child but we
was ready I think we were team players in every aspect of James life, so it was
It was a we made sure we had did what we had to
do to take care of James so it was one of my
fine yeah it was a lot of fun stuff he was a fun kid so
so did James like to like to do what were some of his interests so we I
had a dog before we had James you know the dog was about a year older than him okay 11 months but a year but that
was his best friend so a lot of times you know he'd go as a baby he raid the
refrigerator you know him and the dogs right there together pouring milk all over each other at one
in the refrigerator and we weren't you know we didn't have much money back then
and he emptied out the entire refrigerator on the dog
okay you know her being a dog she's just sitting there you know she's enjoying whatever she can eat and she's just
hanging out with her best friend you know he learned about refrigerator locks yeah
okay I didn't even have a four-year-old daughter I had no idea there was such a thing of a refrigerant we have the
locks on the cabinets but the yeah, they wrap from the front to the
side they latch you on and they're really hard to open if you're you know a child
figured out how to scoop the chair up and did the freezer next we had to buy another one yeah well yeah, he was always
uh he was always getting into stuff and mine was always working you know yeah, he
was smart very smart but always a happy you know baby he was very
spoke well early on and um
he learned how to read early on, so you know his vocabulary grew really quick
oh my God it's like how did you yeah to be able to process the word definition
he was really intelligent he could figure out problems and you know he's playing video games and you know I play
video games all the time so he's Dad if you try it this way, I'm like I got it you know
and then I'm sitting here thinking I'm like well let me try it yeah it works I'm like oh my goodness this is
embarrassing Tim and I we met at the bowling alley
is where we met and so as a young child like he had his own bowling ball
uh it was like at three he was like three right yeah somewhere around three four
um I think it was three though he had his own bowling ball was like a fire design and we had his name engraved in
it and he just bowled at a younger age he kind of grew out the love for that
um but we were like always a bowling family like he loved anime and playing games with his dad uh
it just looks awesome we tried to like we knew that early
on he would be our only child because of difficulties I was having
um so we just made sure that he had his best friends around a lot of the times
his cousins made sure that he stayed having a social life with people around his age you know
we felt like it was important because you can't always hang around old folks
yeah, that's no fun no you need some kind of childhood yeah
Now Sports so he like bullying at
a younger age and then they progress a little bit when did sports that he
have an interest was it watching sports going to a game listening on the radio that's like
that's like really, he you know I watch sports all the time on TV, so he watched the baseball games the
basketball the football the track and field wrestling you know he saw all of them on TV
then a lot of times I used to go out with my friends and play football or basketball and you know he'd be right
there with me watching you know because sometimes she'd be at work, so I'd take him with me you know I'm like hey you
hang out with you know such and such y'all the same age you know they'll sit there, and they'll watch us and sometimes
they're running down the sideline while we're running you know he took it he took a small interest in everything
everything but he did like he didn't start like with all his success and
track he didn't get his first time to run track until 10th grade oh wow so covet
happened nine and we we're bought like basketball like we love basketball so at first, we
we’re trying to push that so he did like different aau's or different tournaments or programs that they would have and he
would be good at it he was really good in defense, but he never took off as far as offense went and he just didn't
like it organized basketball he loved it like playing with his friends but you
know organized sense he didn't want to, and our rule was two game you had to do in high school
you had to do two sports or work okay that was our rules and so he did three sports that's a competition
yeah, he's maybe gonna make sure he don't have to work we had no problem with that you know he made his choice he stuck
with it he didn't quit yeah, he tried basketball his ninth-grade year he was
on the freshman team he did make that, but he didn't do it, so it didn't work it
didn't work out so he asked us could he do track and
we were like oh well you know we were going back and forth, and I said well you still have to do basketball he said well
if I excel on track, can I just do track he did not want to do it he didn't want
to do basketball he did not want to do basketball, so we said okay deal and he of
course covet happened so he was kind of disappointed in that then we let him not play basketball
that year and then once Springtime came around, he and he enrolled in track
for Streetsboro and he was getting out there but he
actually had success he ended up lettering the first year and awesome
he decided to do hurdles I'm gonna do hurdles
it seems hard you missed you're gonna get the hurdle it's going to hurt his dad did hurdles
okay his dad did hurdles
and but, he ended up he lied he did once he did it, he loved hurdles he
literally better at it the more he did the more he did he loved it I don't know why it was weird yeah, but he loved it
and then he went into condition so when he did the 300 hurdles he the
monkey got on his back that last hundred meters so he would be in the lead every time and then the last
hundred he would run out of rap and so he said he needed to do something to
work on his endurance and then that's when he got into cross-country and so he added cross-country
and he did well in that he got to socialize you know so that was always a
plus he can't meet more and more friends more friends like he really started because he was the only child so you
know more people to hang out with the better yeah and so then we found out about after cross country last year then
we found out about the indoor track, so he never did 60-meter hurdles before, so he didn't know
like what to expect or anything and he still ended up having success in
this this first time ever doing it he finished 22nd in the state
um and you know with indoor track it's a little different so with regular Sports you are going up again schools in your
District but indoor track is everyone in Ohio and then Pennsylvania Michigan
Canada has was there New York
um just a whole bunch of different wants to come to that meet Nick assignment they sign up and participate so it was
more like different levels of people so for him to like actually to have that kind
of success it's not the same people you don't you know go hey I know how just to
run so I can be no it's the new experience each time he ended up doing
really well in that and then outdoor track he did phenomenal and
that's really when he took a peek, he ended up going all the way to Regionals
just shy of states for outdoor track
um but he didn't stop there like even after his junior year
um his coach at that time coach King, she got him hooked up with personal trainers
so all of this he was doing with the help of the coach at the high school and
Tim but no one likes specializing in hurdles until
that time in the summertime and he met with Coach Jenkins yeah and he pulled off more time off of his
his time so right before he passed like he literally was like going to set some
some Big Time Records he was already a top five athlete in the hurdles
at his school without even doing senior year or freshmen oh my gosh that's
awesome I get happy when I talk to you yeah
that's what she's supposed to do I'm his fan did you do cross country as well I
mean I participated in it briefly I stopped and the reason why I stopped
doing cross-country was because I couldn't gain muscle mass okay, and it was keeping my strength down when I
could feel it trying to grow go up, so I told Coach I was like I gotta stop he was like you don't want to stop I was
like no I don't but I have to I was like I got other goals and cross country wasn't one of my you know I was just
doing it just to pass time mainly I did cross country okay for food
I didn't I did I’m from Columbus and right where Capital University is so
about three miles to the East is
um East Moore High School and so if we ran from East more to Capital, they had a
graders ice cream right across okay yeah it can't go wrong got Traders then in college I ran for
Columbus State we got free food there too okay yeah so, the common thing you can never go wrong even the workplace of
my first manager coming out of college his he was successful and doing well
but he was the first one in the morning that he would find that oh it's so-and-so's birthday or it's so-and-so's
anniversary and he'd walk across like the building, and he'd come back with like a huge Place he'd go to Subway you
get all the all the veggies everything and they're like well
what do you want on your sandwich and he's like we'll put that on the side and they're like we probably shouldn't do that because you know we're supposed to
go on the sandwich and so he would take that home and then he'd have a salad with it like at a different time and he
would tell us about all these like thrift stores yeah really, it's like his planning
process which is awesome so James
were a good student as well so this wasn't limited to family and
sports he was a good student what type of what type of subjects
did he like or do well at or is he interested in that's hard to say he
definitely liked his Sociology class yeah, he liked his Sociology class for
sure and he loved to debate he was wanting to major in pre-law when
he got to college but those were like the things that interest him right we used to do like
Friday movie night and that's the nights were like we would do like 90s movies
because we wanted him to see like these are the things yeah like these are the good movies and
um so we know that we took a notice there
that he didn't he liked comedy, but it wasn't high on the list he liked more
thought-provoking movies or Series so like he liked stranger things or he
liked 9-1-1 that series with Angela Bassett he loved thought provoking uh
type of movies and shows but he did like the comic book stuff too because he The
Flash was probably his favorite show yeah you know every time the flash came on, he had it on too, so he even recorded
them so he never missed any of those he was Dad did you see I'm like no I didn't see it, yet he was like well let me tell you what happened I'm like well yeah you
might as well because it's gonna be a while before I get it yeah that so is that really that at that
young age when he was already speaking at a at a young age
reading talking about words definitions explain things that those continued throughout his childhood and
um yeah, he was a thinker he was definitely a thinker even if it didn't show all the time he was always thinking
right yeah, he's analyzing in his head it wasn't maybe a quick answer as like you tell there's thought and yeah
he had wit too yeah and he just I don't know like I don't
know how to explain it you know I tell people all the time you really don't get to like
really grasp how well you did as parents and how well your child is until like
their mid-20s or when they start getting married and having their own life
um but fortunately and unfortunately, we get to see that
now at the age of his forever age of 17.
um and we got to see really truly how much of it like we believe the angel on
Earth you know how well he was how mannerable he was he was always mannerable
um Tim and I we would buy him simple things you know if I didn't cook that day like Wendy's chicken nuggets or Taco
Bell, we love Taco Bell he would say thank you he will always stay every time he gets
food you know thank you Mom thank you Dad like we didn't have to yeah
thank you look at this you know yeah you don't
have to say thank you for the stuff that someone has to do boys laugh at that like, but he was a memorable person very
very like you know a lot of people say always appreciative right always when people would say you know um
they you know you gotta take in all your hugs and kisses because when they get a teenager you're not going to get
them well I didn't get my kisses I snuck a kiss a couple days before he passed, he died when he was asleep but
um he never stopped giving me my hugs and like you know it was just he just
was so loving and it always like we said it was always memorable he
always said hi he was never disrespectful our neighbors they're 80 years old
late 70s 80s and he would cut their grass for him every summer and
um even when it wasn't during the times where he cut the grass Mr. Rich, he
would like to sit in the garage and just wash the cars and stuff and James loved
to walk everywhere and he would walk and just stop and talk to him you know and
just have a conversation with them he it didn't matter how old you was what
you look like or anything he just was always very welcoming in that sense he didn't talk a
whole lot like but he didn't get that for me it's like more like Tim men of a few words sometimes when he was except
for like when you're around your friends you know but wait a minute like you can't answer like how was this like
you're just going through all these things you did about it you know that's funny too because
we can go bowling he'd go to the football games after school we come back from Bowling hey James how
you doing his Mom hi Dad you know here's some food you know thank you and everything so how was the game oh you
know it was okay you know every time you know it was okay who won well, we won
it was close at first, but they pulled it out at the end you know it's a little basic stuff right so after he passed
turns out there's Patriots going around one of these pictures is he'll
standing there with like this green hat like octopus hat and he says
they were looking at it they're like wait this is the film in the middle of a crowd of people and yeah and we asked
the context of the picture well it turns out this is at a football game, and he grabbed a bullhorn from one of his
friends and the hat and he started screaming to pump the crowd up he never told us about we asked him all
the time how was the game, and we got this beautiful picture of him
too it was full of surprises yeah, he liked
it yeah, he'd like to have fun be outside be around people and regard with her
family friends at the game and yeah that that’s when did uh
Blended social media or getting a phone maybe when did that
maybe enter just in general like when he's always had a phone oh since man
yeah, about six years or so because you know he has ton of grandparents you know
grandparents great grandparents you know from both sides of our family total I mean they're all it's a lot of them big
family and so he collects money because you know here take five dollars you know
So eventually he gets to the point where he's almost rich and you know we're still going to work every day
you know he wanted a phone, and we was like I don't know he was like well I got my own money I could buy it you know so
that's how that started in Naruto was like you could never spend more than half of what you have so even if you had
two hundred dollars you weren't allowed to spend but half of it because you always have to have money and you
know if you keep spending how can you replenish it and when he purchased his
own phone because we was like he said I have money on person he still stood by
that rule so we couldn't go back because you know we told them hey these are the rules that he went within the room we
can't go back and say no yeah you can't negotiate again so it was like all right well we got him
a phone yeah because he said one ever since ever since and then with him playing video games all the time a lot
of time you know I couldn't play with them okay, so I was like you know what let me just get him an Xbox Live you
know so he's online and he's playing the game I didn't get him a headset at first but he's online he's playing with other
people and whatnot and he could hear the people talking and he's like well wait a minute they're kids like me how come I
can't talk to him you know so I was like all right, so I got him the headset and you know all the way up
until he was no longer here, I still going there I'd unplugged the headset just to listen to what they're talking about and
you know sometimes they might say it a little something that's off the wall, but we all did yeah, I mean even me as an
adult now playing Call of Duty
yeah, but yeah, we would tell them like they don't let these kids get you the fish so we always yeah, he had his phone
and from there and social media and stuff and video games and him interacting with the world
a couple of people he met they're still his friends up until he was no longer here yeah so yeah but yeah, we just was
always like open so we you know in order for him to have his phone he had we had
to have his code to his phone that was not a negotiable you know we he never gave us a reason
to where we would have to Snoop on him all the time constantly, but we did you
know check his phone we did what we were supposed to do as parents you know when he was younger more oh
yeah, more but him being 17 and a half
um our goal was to teach him how to make wise decisions and try to guide him along that way
and create we were really trusting family in an open family
um and so that's what we did we did not check his phone every day
um and I we still to this day stand behind that I don't think that you should
check your 17 and a half or 18-year-olds phone every day because then they'll
start to hide stuff you know they have abs for that, and different things is we always created like more of a trusting
like even if we had a discussion and he didn't like the way that I talked to him
or different things like that he was always very respectable in a sense, but we taught him, and we embraced him
speaking up for himself and really expressing his feelings we just were very adamant about
allowing him to have a voice and instead of saying don't do this because I said
so we were very like don't do this and here's the reasons why or if he got
a bad grade in school we would give him facts you know we would tell them okay
if you don't want to go to college or if you don't do good in this here are the salaries between a high school education
and a PhD and these are in between of course you may have some people who go
outside of the box but these are the averages this is what you can expect and that's how we spoke to him we at we were
big on educating him and treating him as these kids these kids are understand a
lot and that's what we were very adamant about doing with them with that so
yeah, I think that's a I have a four-year-old daughter and I'm just envisioning how the progressions as she
she grows of how to handle the situations because
they just continue to at a younger and younger age process information fast
know where to go what to press and those types of things and to hear
hear that I like that because you're giving
you're giving the individual a chance so it's not just okay no we don't trust
you so we're just gonna lock it down right now it's okay we're going to give the facts we're going to give you
know time and Room to Grow Again in the high school but then especially in the
college what happens building those habits of
doing those things through high school as opposed to like okay he's at college
now we're gonna try it and yeah cut the court too late so you're you
took that opportunity to do that so I guess turn into the page back to
the November of 2022
I think it that from what I I've read not about uh
this particular situation but just how Society I think views bullying and
extortion and Andin particular that society and certain individuals think
that oh something will happen over time that okay if we have conversations that
those are good and that may prevent something but to have a tragedy
happen in such a short amount of time from kind of start and into uh
to passing I think that's something that Society needs to understand as well
that it can happen quick so here today not here tomorrow that okay well we'll
talk at the end of the week because I'm busy at work and my books and those types of things that uh
how did just the events that unfolded did that
surprise you time wise of yeah of the 20 hours you know less than less than a day
yeah, you know throughout his whole childhood
you know we took our personal experiences we say Hey you know this is what we did blah blah blah you know
alcohol drugs gangs violence you know late to school, or you know tardiness or
you know every little thing that we could think of and whenever it popped up or whatever before it popped up, we
talked to him we tell them hey this is what it is you know like she said we're giving the facts and say hey this is
what you have to look forward to if you continue this path or if you partake in this adventure or whatever and
we did that with everything you know we didn't sugar coat anything we didn't use the nice little kid words, so we talked
to him like he was an adult I mean he had the vocabulary anyway, so we talked to him like he was an adult like hey
look this is what you can expect blah blah blah say extortion on the other hand something we never knew anything about
and we can't prepare him for something we don't know anything about yeah and if someone would have said something and
brought it to us and we would have heard about it beforehand we would have talked to him, and I have no doubt that he would
still be here yeah, I think that's why we go so hard the way that we do we just
truly feel like education is key and we didn't get the privilege and I say it's
a privilege because our child is not here, and we didn't get the privilege to know what sex extortion was until after
he passed and there's tons of different levels of sex extortion there's tons of
different ways to go about doing it and a lot of parents rightfully so they have
certain views are understandings, or they think that if their child was in dire need or
an emergency that they would come to them, but we did too you know
um and we have to understand that when you're dealing with that, I say James
type of sex extortion when you're dealing with James type of sex extortion these are professionals right so this
isn't just you and I talking and we're winging it they know exactly what to do their true con artists they know what to
say they know how to get into the kids brains and that is exactly why they target young children and very
impressionable children you the FBI we did a speaking
engagement with them and one of the things that stood out is a lot of people think that you do take it's over time it
takes grooming you talk to the kids and they're establishing relationships, but they said
the average amount of time it takes for one person to share a picture a private
picture is eight minutes wow eight minutes eight minutes and let's tell a
stranger right but we have to like we always say we have to bring ourselves
down to the children nowadays and how they're on Instagram they're on
different things and the way that they talk when we were growing up, we met outside at the playground well their
playground in a sense is Instagram they don't you don't see a lot of them outside anymore the way that we were
when we grew up and so you can't always take things away
from them but you have to teach them how to act appropriately online with James
um this isn't another misconception is a lot of people think that like it's catfishing so they're switching pictures
um but these are actual in James case these were actual videos
so they were on a live okay video like live action with them not live like um
like how we're live you know but a private message, but they would video call just like FaceTime and they
screenshotted him doing that video so
um it wasn't just always you know like we have we have to learn how they're
doing things even when they were like threatening him and he was sending money they coached them what to do and they
drive on isolation he was with me we were actually at a college fair and they
we’re threatening him little did I know to get away from me
um and I didn't know so I gave him space and it wasn't that he asked for it I
willingly gave him that space because I wanted him to make the decision on where to go to college instead of me making it
for him and they took advantage of that opportunity and really got to him
and three hours later he was gone so we have to
you know just make sure that we come down to earth when we're speaking to kids when we talk to kids we talk
directly to them and we allow them to ask questions and engage with us
um because it's important Tim and I we will always
educate the parents speak to the child yeah and I think that's important
but I'm trying to learn as a college instructor of not talking down to the
students but a little bit with and some people say well you're trying to be
friends like no I'm trying to relate to things that they're going through relationships being away from home a
bad grade a situation where they wake up and they don't they're in a dark place for
some reason or another and to just talk down and luckily or unlikely for me to
talk about my struggles anxiety and depression and the like to say
I've been I've been there, and I still am there certain day like it just happened
and that kind of thing happens and I in the sense that I I've gotten
from when I started to teach in that way be a little bit more relatable the
feedback I've gotten has been positive and so I teach marketing courses but most of the feedback I get is around
well you know thanks for you know talking about your mental health and you know, and people come up after
speaking and that's like the one thing that they bring on like thanks for just sharing and being open about whatever
whatever that is yeah, they will teach you some things and they are big on Mental Health right
now like they are like how can you help me deal with certain
situations they're very open about it where when we were growing up, we were ashamed you know to have to deal with
depression and anxiety or other mental health needs we were afraid to address
that and it dwindled down you know from our parents and our grandparents or if
you were depressed and you were considered you know crazy or different things like that where kids nowadays
they are not afraid to say I need help, and this is what I'm dealing with
and you have to give me my space and respect that and so it's amazing to see
the progression that even the kids nowadays are really teaching us
so that's that strategy of speaking to the students and then speaking to the
to the adults how did that approach come was that something that you just automatically thought of as you were
preparing maybe the first couple talks you know with kids you know
their attention span is a little shorter, so our thing was you know just actually
talk to them to where they're engaged and paying attention you know we don't want them sitting there on their phone or talking to each other, so we just try
to talk to them specifically you know ask them a few questions to make sure they're listening and keep our attention
on what we're saying with the parents it's a little different you know you could tell the parents something and
they're instantly going to start thinking they're their own kid you know and from that moment on you
know it's just whatever we tell them they're thinking about their kid so they're going to listen we have to make
it relatable so James represents the students, and we represent the parents or
even the eyes the uncles because everyone is affected when someone passes away and especially as traumatizing as
James has passed so we have to be relatable to be able to get our message
out and for people to receive our message as well Tim was always adamant
about making sure we talk to the kids I was the one was like oh we gotta educate
the parents we gotta educate his parents and he's like the kids and I think that's you know as we
grow and of course we're still a New Foundation but we just speak with our
heart we speak from experience unfortunately and we're just trying to do everything that we possibly can do to
reach as many people as we can, and it starts with the kids it really truly
does because our son went to no one during his last hours no one so even if
we educated you Justin it means nothing if we don't speak to the child
but you just never know you never know, and I think that's another misconception when
a tragedy happens some people say oh well If the parents gave them another hug or
if they'd spend more time together or if they put whatever those things that try
this or this or this that you've did everything it had humanly possible of
giving hugs telling him he's a beautiful person and so that that should be
for anybody listening or watching us that this is a true-life story yeah
there's no handbook there's no that's going to guarantee this is going to work everybody is a case by case
if there was, I mean there would be a book out there already yeah and that is true like we did
everything I think we have a flaws yeah, I think our Flawless we worked but
um but we definitely tried our absolute best because you
always want better for your child and we did who told him he was a handsome
you know we told them these things then it’s just that these evil monsters
they know how to overcome everything that you told them, so it doesn't matter
how long you beat something into your child, and you give them words of encouragement uh
it's kind of even hard for us as adults if someone was to actually receive 200
messages in 19 and a half hours of constant negativity how you can take it
and it didn't matter if you blocked, they would get you in a nut from another number it's the same as spam We complain
about getting one or two calls a day and we block them and then they call us from another girl right but what happens
when it turned from two to two hundred yeah and we are complaining and
they're not even saying anything to us right they're just calling right so imagine every time you have that phone
call and then they told you were horrible you'll nothing you'll never
have another day of positivity your trash will make your life a living hell
like all of these things that they have said they were saying to James in words
imagine every time you answered that spam call in 19 and a half hours that
beaten and could you take it
at all so we have to realize that you know he
worked so hard as a young man he made sure he treated everyone with respect
and we know this it's not just us and having a biased opinion right we receive
letters from young children how much he was an inspiration to them you know
we received text messages tons of letters tons of messages even for months it'll be four months
um it'll actually be five months on the 19th, and we still have his friends
or people he touched who come and play Uno with us that wouldn't have happened if he was an evil kid, you know and so he
worked so hard on that and they played they saw that, and they played on that and it really just he didn't know how to get out of it, and he knew we had his back he's seen
it we had to have his back multiple times in different situations, so he knew that but when you have professional
adults that are preying on very impressionable young children are young
adults this is what happens and so that's why we that's another reason why
we have to make sure that we educate everyone on this wow
and so now James he's living on yes still through you through
friends through the community and so they do it for James Foundation uh
when did that come about was that instantaneous when you were able to, I'm able to think a little bit or it was
instantaneous because we were in the middle of an interview with some news
channel and the woman asked she was like oh so sad are you going to start a
non-profit or anything and my wife here instantly yes, we are you
know and you know I was shocked I was like well I didn't know we were doing that yeah, I guess we are okay so
here we are it took about what a month and a half later on January 13th
we got up and running yeah but yeah
I didn't know we were doing it didn't either, but it was something that
needed to be done but she said we were doing it and I said well hey I thought about it it's a good thing to do you
know I hate for people to feel the way we feel so why not you know and this way
you're going to be able to touch even more people by all the different channels and the ways and the events
and the speaking engagements and then bringing that all back to about Dow Jones so
that hopefully Empower some of the students of oh my gosh I didn't but
that's my friend was telling me something I didn't I didn't believe him or maybe something starts to happen with
them and if we can help one person, I mean help everybody yeah, I mean I got
this huge helping three billion but helping one person you got to start listen to you gotta start somewhere and
that's one less person that has to question something if they should talk to somebody or whatever those next
steps are and that's a that's a win and then being able to continue going there's got
to be a big for you very yes and it's beyond like you know what James story it
was said extortion but if you like just to dig deeper into what truly's extortion is
um his child pornography it's harassment torture sexual assault
um extortion I mean there's so many different things that so many people
suffer in silence and some people have lost their lives to that and we
have to break it all apart we talk about the extortion but we're trying to uplift
everybody from being comfortable with standing up for themselves how many
people do you know who've been molested or raped and are afraid to admit that are even afraid to make a complaint
because they feel like no one will believe them or no one will listen
um and a lot of times it's with someone who's very close to you but if we
Empower them to speak up Beyond sex extortion but if they go like
we have this tip card, and it tells them on like how to report something well if
they just so happen to go on the FBI and maybe they're not a victim of sex extortion maybe they're a victim of rape
or maybe they're victim of cyber bullying maybe they're a victim of somewhere but something but they know
there's a place to report it now yeah do you wanna do you want to read some of that we'll put that in the show
notes definitely okay but if you want to redirect get that in the transcript it can
well first thing says if you ever become a victim want to say extortion it's stop
all communication you know that's one of the best things you could do because you know their main
goal is they want to get money it's all about money, so you stop communicating with them how are they going to get it
they can't you have to you know stay in contact with them cut all communication
block the Predator but do not delete the profile or messages because you know the authorities, they're going to need that
so you know hey this person was bothering me oh man well first thing I'm gonna do I'm gonna stop I'm not gonna
answer anything I'm not going to accept no calls or whatever I'm a just stop then I'm gonna go report it
report it immediately to your local FBI field called his number they got a
website you got different ways that you can say hey this is what's going on to me right
now actionable things not I guess oh well if you go check this out it's like okay
well here in the moment I need to stop before I might be able to reach out until tonight or later, but I can stop
right now and that might be the thing that stops yeah right because they'll just say hey, we can't get anything out
of Justin he won't answer any of our calls blah blah blah we tried all our tactics let's go to someone else well
eventually they're going to run out of someone else's to go to and that's another thing and that's why we
have this plastic cardis because we want them to take a step away from the phone yeah so if you
take a step away from the phone because that's where they're torturing you that's where they're harassing you and
you still are acting in fear you're trying to hurry up and get it taken care of all of these different things that
you are fighting with on your phone that if your child if the younger dog even an
adult if you can step away from your phone and follow these things then
another life is saved and so that’s one of the things that was
really important is James last Google search was how to get an Instagram page shut down he just did not know his next
steps so I guess what we do and what we're speaking Yeah, we're speaking
trying to guide the children on how we would have guided James
what we would have wanted him to do and that's where this came from and because
he was on that road I mean he was on that path like for that Google search to be when it was, he was if that card would
have been with them or in it somebody that would have told him or referred
back to anything or even still you know as parents we talked to the
parents hopefully they go, and they talk to their children yeah and they say hey this is out there this is what you do to
avoid it if you do get wrapped up in it this is what you do if we would have known anything about what's going on
we could have already went to him and said hey this is what it is he would have had this car
and even still yeah if he would have went through anything and I'm like look James it's not it's not as bad as you
think yeah because that
they're going to show pictures you know the FBI states that every two out of three kids have
already done that and the youngest is 10 and they also said in five years every
single child will have done it and the youngest will be eight so they say that you should stop saying if but when your
child becomes a victim, so we have to be real with that like you know numbers don't lie and we have to understand that
the world that we're living in is just completely different and even if we don't want our child to be out there
exposing themselves even if we don't want them to make these kind of decisions, we have to still teach them
how to overcome it because that's what we are right as parents and as loving
and caring trustworthy adults we're here to love our children through their mistakes they're going to make mistakes
we all make mistakes, but we have to be able to love our children through
them and teach them it doesn't take away that the punishment behind it as far as
parental punishment not we try to make sure that the kids know that if they
happen to share a photo of themselves not of other people but of themselves
that they will not get in trouble from the FBI that they need them to report it
so that they can get the pictures shut down, but it doesn't eliminate the punishment
from the parents because of course you because it comes with the territory, but we want you to take the punishment
don't in your life so and so there's many different ways
you're reaching out to the community you're speaking to students the parents and then you're also putting together
events so an upcoming event and I know you have other events probably
prior to it but in August what event do you have and how can people find out more about it
well there's a 5K walk slash run day of fun yeah, it's a day of fun
but yeah, it’s on August 5th yeah Streetsboro City Park
and you know whoever's welcome if you want to come up come on up you know have fun you know sign up run
there's going to be a lot of different things there mainly food because you know they're going to be hungry
yeah, but there's other vendors and stuff too other vendors so and that's what we're welcoming we want other
so the first part of the day is the walk run and then the second half is the food
trucks and the vendors so some of the things that we already have registered will have many self-defense
classes we’ll have the suicide hotline there counseling
um hopefully we can get a couple of counselors to be there we want to have at least one role
full of Education what to do how to do it how to handle it we want people's questions to be answered and for
everyone to understand that they have options, but we also want art we'll have
different like volleyball and basketball tournaments just a mini one for right
now but just different things to have fun really truly we are hoping to raise
enough money to where we can give out over ten thousand dollars in scholarships to college and kids but
they have to be there like you have to call them to be eligible
um and part of that is really to try to get them involved and away from the
phone away for a little bit of time let's have some have some fun so how
can how can our audience support donations where can they do that
how can they get donations to the do it for James Foundation so you can go to
www.lets.difj.org it's Les do it for James and over there you can donate to our
organization and the donations are to help us continue to speak and do
different things but also giving back to the community to the students and the kids we recently did a sponsor event
where we sponsored track student or track athletes, and we gave them track
spikes shoes a t-shirt a tip card of course and a wristlet for the they were
in need and all they had to do was just write to us who they were why they
decided to run and that's something that we're going to continue on doing but you can go on there and donate but
also on our website is the educational tool so it has different videos on our story, but we will continue
to give information as much information as we can on how to fight against this
how to educate yourselves and different avenues that you can go to if you need to talk to someone that's coming on down
the line as well we're just trying to open it up and really have an open communication with this and then people
can also reach out follow do it for James Foundation on Facebook and
Instagrams right now and yeah to grow it at some point in the future to follow
who who's supporting how they're supporting the events learn more about James yes and is in our closing
minute any anything else that we need to cover uh
just you know learn what you can share it with your children you know make the world a better place by sharing
education and knowledge yes and you and you matter and if you're ever thinking about committing suicide please stop
whatever you're doing and dial 988 absolutely well to me and Tim thank you
for coming in person to the studio for sharing James story how he's
continuing to live on in the lives of you and the community and for everything
you do and I want to invite our audience if you're able to attend to do it for James Foundation5K coming
up in in August and at the at the very least it's free to follow on Facebook
and Instagram and learn more and educate and be a part of your child's
life a nephew a niece any way to do that and if at the very least you have his
the tip car the checklist we had a we had a guest that perfectly said that
Pilots need a checklist, and we need a checklist for the things that we're doing and so this is this is perfect so
thank you very much for coming and joining us thank you for having us you're welcome so much you're welcome
and we want to thank you for joining us on this episode of Voices for Voices podcast and it's a special thank you for
our in-studio guest Tamia and Tim Woods parents of James Woods and founders of
the deal for James Foundation for spending some time with us today so until next time I am Justin Allen Hayes
I hope you have a great day and be a voice for you or somebody in need
[Music] [Applause] [Music]
thank you
Please donate to Voices for Voices, a 501c3 nonprofit charity today at: https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/donate
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