Transcript generated from the episode’s audio. Speaker names are identified from the context of the conversation rather than from recorded speaker data, and automatic transcription may misspell names and terminology. Please refer to the video for the authoritative version.

David Raubach: I want to thank you for joining us on today’s episode of The Cancer Project Podcast. We’re really privileged to have Tara Green with us, the executive director, founder, president, CEO, you said janitor, all of the above of Tenaciously Teal, which is a fantastic organization that provides care packs and other services to patients going through cancer treatment. And Tara herself is a cancer survivor, and so we’re really excited to learn more about Tenaciously Teal and then talk to Tara about her experience and her story. So, Tara, thank you for joining us.

Tara Green: Thank you so much for having me.

David Raubach: Yeah, so tell us just I guess in terms of getting to know you, Tara, where did you grow up? What Who is Tara the person kind of before your experience with cancer?

Tara Green: Yeah, well, I grew up as a pastor’s kid, so I moved around a lot. I came to Oklahoma City in 2003 for college. That was a little bit of a culture shock.

David Raubach: Yeah. Where were you at before that?

Tara Green: I was in San Diego.

David Raubach: Okay. Oh, wow.

Tara Green: Yeah, big culture shock. Junior high and high school and actually a couple years of college and transferred to Southern Nazarene here.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: And graduated and you know, fell in love with the city and have been here ever since.

David Raubach: Yeah. What did you do? What did you study?

Tara Green: So, I got my degree in social work. I later went to OU and got my master’s in social work.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: And then started my career as a child welfare worker.

David Raubach: Oh, wow.

Tara Green: And yeah, I did 6 years in the field

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: And helped them formalize their prevention program to keep kids in the home and keep them from coming into custody. So, I helped do some like the policy and training for that later in my career with child welfare, pre-cancer.

David Raubach: So, you were working for the state then.

Tara Green: Yep.

David Raubach: Okay. Yes. So, I don’t know if you know this, I’ve been fostering or been part of the foster system for a long time.

Tara Green: Okay.

David Raubach: Adopted three kids out of the foster care system.

Tara Green: It’s amazing.

David Raubach: Have two little girls with the foster care system that are with us right now as a placement. One is almost two and one just turned one, so that’s a house full of kids.

Tara Green: Yeah, I love that. That’s amazing and so needed.

David Raubach: Yeah, it is. I think I read a stat recently that the foster care system in Oklahoma is short 600 families, so meaning that there’s, there could be 600 additional placements needed. And the, for those not familiar with the foster care system, cuz you mentioned keeping the kids at the home, the goal really is either reunification or prevention like you talked about.

Tara Green: Let’s not, what can we do to help the parents so the kids don’t ever even have to come into custody?

David Raubach: Right.

Tara Green: And if they do come into custody, what can we do to work with the parents to get the kids back to their biological parents? To them and in a safe space and where they feel supported and

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: Regulated.

David Raubach: Yeah, wow, that’s a tough job.

Tara Green: It was very tough. It was very tough. In fact, I remember my first like pick up, as they call it, where you were removing kids from the home, and my parents had moved from San Diego to Oregon at that time, so I was calling them on the way to the shelter. They don’t have the shelter anymore, thank goodness, but I was just sobbing and my mom’s like, “Are you sure this is the right career path for you?”

Tara Green: And then thankfully I was asked, I just did a year of the investigations and then was asked to help bring this prevention or it’s called family centered services now, to yeah, help formalize that and keep kids with their families if it’s possible. And a lot of times it’s not, so kudos to you and your wife for stepping up and doing that. It’s just a really needed thing.

David Raubach: Well, and all three of the kids that we adopted, we adopted because the biological parents actually asked us to adopt. And so, it’s kind of the, all three are kind of neat stories, just because like all three of the kids, we took the kids home from the hospital, and all three of them, the reasons that we had to do that.

Tara Green: And then, before we get, sorry, I’m going to interrupt you before you get into it. Can you lower your mic just a tad?

David Raubach: Yeah. Just down. Down. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I’ll just start that again. Apparently, we’ve made the podcast about me. So, all three of the kids that we’ve adopted, the biological parent actually asked us to adopt, and it was the, just a realization. I mean, we and we have, we’ve maintained relationships with the biological parents. We have a 7-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 3-year-old that we’ve adopted. And we maintained relationships with their parents, and so it’s, that’s, it’s overall been positive. But yeah, certainly the goal with most kids is for them to go back with their biological parents if it’s possible, if it’s safe,

Tara Green: Right,

David Raubach: etc. So, what did you do? So, you worked for DHS for a while, and then what did you do after that?

Tara Green: Yeah, so then I transitioned into Tenaciously Teal full time. Yeah, so I did, when I was diagnosed, I was working in the field. I had like a caseload of like 15 families, and I would do intensive services with them, seeing them weekly. So, just really gaining like rapport and just supportive services and counseling for them. And then when I came back from my chemo treatment, I got a job at state office, and that was a little bit cushier job.

David Raubach: Yeah. Yeah.

Tara Green: I got to travel around and train new workers and tell my crazy field stories and help them learn from my mistakes. And yeah, so I did that, I just, policy and like review for the state, for family centered services.

David Raubach: Okay. So, I believe it’s 2012 is when you got diagnosed.

Tara Green: Yep.

David Raubach: And so talk about just kind of everything that happened around the diagnosis, what how you even figured out that you had cancer, what treatments were like, cuz I know that all kind of impacted your decision to start Tenaciously Teal as well.

Tara Green: Yeah, absolutely. So, I don’t actually like tell this story a lot, but since we did talk about child welfare, it gives me the opportunity to share that I did do 6 years in the field and had put in my time, and they were

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: Now formalizing this group in Oklahoma County, and I had applied to, you know, get out of the field, right? I had done my time. 6 years in the field is actually a really long time. Most of the case workers that we work with, I mean, 2 or 3 years is like, and you just have to take a break after that.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: So, I had applied for all these like different promotions and positions, and David, I literally had like eight interviews.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: I think, and I’d been told no, and a girl can only be told no like so many times. And I’m not a terrible interviewer, right? And I was like, “What is happening?” And that eighth one, I was like, “Okay, if I can’t get my career right, I’m going to get my health right.”

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: And because I had gone to the doctor and had complained about pain and just something just didn’t seem right. And I was just kind of told, you know, “I think you have cysts, you’re good, everything’s fine,” but it just kind of increasingly got more painful, and even though I was like advocating for myself, I then kind of poured myself into my career cuz I was like, “Okay, this, I guess I’m fine.

David Raubach: Right.

Tara Green: I’ll just work through it and really focus and really like, you know, just pour myself into these families and helping them.” And then so, when I had that like devastating last no, I was like, “Okay. Like what, I come back to Tara, right?” And so, I at that point was like, “Do I have cancer?”

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: [clears throat] And I started Googling like pre-cancerous doctors, pre-cancerous conditions, and this was all done from like my couch

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: That week that I took off work and was just there sulking, really. And found a doctor. His name is Dr. Parikh. He’s retired now, but his son is still in practice. And I went to him, and it was just kind of like the stars aligned for him to be concerned enough that we did a laparoscopic surgery, and at that time he still was, you know, saying it was a cyst, but when I came out of surgery, he was like, “No, that it was a tumor.”

David Raubach: Wow. So, when you say when you came out of surgery, like literally on the table?

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: The bed?

Tara Green: Yeah. Yeah, he did a laparoscopic surgery. I was kind of waking up from surgery, and it, he, yeah, just broke the news.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: And at that point, there’s still like this like glimmer of like, “But it may not be malignant. It may be benign.” And I remember my family like really holding on to that, and at the time I was like, “No. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not. It’s not.” And I already like just kind of started preparing myself in my head.

David Raubach: So, it’s cuz in the back of your mind, it was like you said you had even been Googling

Tara Green: Mhm.

David Raubach: Cancer symptoms, so in the back of your mind, there was this possibility that something like that was going to come up.

Tara Green: Right. Right.

David Raubach: What, is there, just out of curiosity, is there anything in the, in, maybe this is like advice for women who are hearing this now, is there anything that you would have done differently from a health or screening standpoint, like looking back?

Tara Green: I, so, like Dr. Parikh was like my fourth opinion.

David Raubach: Oh, okay.

Tara Green: So I mean, I always encourage people to get second opinions.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: I will say I think, to, I initially trusted my primary care physician and his initial referrals. You know, I was like 24 when I first got referred for a laparoscopic surgery. Not the one that they found the tumor, but we’re going back from when I first started kind of complaining about it. And my wish in retrospect was that I would have questioned the referral because at the time he’s like a really well respected physician in my community and you know, he’s like, I’m going to refer you to the doctor who delivered my children, and of course now again, it’s like that retrospect thing, hindsight’s 2020, but I didn’t need to go to, I wasn’t pregnant, right? I didn’t need to go to a doctor that delivered another doctor’s kids. I needed to go to a specialist because I was having, yeah, specific concerns not related to having a child.

David Raubach: Yeah, I think that’s something that we talk a lot about at the Proton Center is the importance of a getting a second opinion or a third opinion. We like to think of, I’ll just use the word cancer treatment broadly. We like to think of cancer treatment is like there’s like a playbook, you know, surely there’s a, there’s a well, if you have this you just look it up and then this is what you do, but it’s as much of an art as a science and every person is different and a lot of cancer diagnoses are different and there’s actually different ways to treat even the same diagnoses or diagnosis and different doctors will have different opinions on what to do.

David Raubach: A surgeon may recommend surgery because there is surgeon, and radiation oncologist may recommend radiation because they’re a radiation oncologist, and so yeah, I think that’s good advice. I think to really think like, okay, what is the issue that we have here at hand, and then who is literally the right person to go and talk to about this specific issue.

Tara Green: Yes, yeah, 100%.

David Raubach: So did you do that initial laparoscopic surgery?

Tara Green: So I did that initial laparoscopic surgery with that physician, and he actually misdiagnosed me, from now what I know from my oncologist later, and because he didn’t know what he was looking for, like honestly David, it’s like you know, it’s those mistakes in life. You think again, the hindsight’s 2020, but I remember sitting in the waiting room and looking at like all these pictures of like babies he had delivered and the people around me were pregnant, and so like again, it just goes to like, who are you talking to, who’s the expert on like the issue, you know, you have

David Raubach: Well, the other thing too is you know yourself and you know your body and you know what you’re feeling better than anybody else outside, and so it’s just so important, if there, I mean, you said it was like it was your fourth opinion. By the time I finally got Dr. Parikh,

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: Yeah, so and it, but you kept going back because you knew that something wasn’t right. So he tells you that you have a tumor. We don’t know yet if it’s malignant or benign. What were the next steps after that?

Tara Green: Well, I was referred to OU Stephenson because at the time they had the only gynecological oncologist in the state. So this is 13 years ago, and so I was scheduled for a really intensive surgery. They called it debulking surgery, which I described as, like they try to get as much cancer out of you as possible to give you the best chance of survival as possible, and it was a successful surgery, a long 8 hour surgery, grueling, yeah, like very difficult, very very hard recovery.

Tara Green: And then I did 16 months of chemo, 6 months of like intensive chemo, and then 10 months of maintenance, and I was on some clinical trials that are now some standard of care for women fighting ovarian cancer.

David Raubach: So at what point did you, did they figure out it was malignant? Was there a biopsy? So there was a biopsy, and then you got biopsy results.

Tara Green: So Dr. Parikh thought, cuz so he was my second laparoscopic surgery. He was the referral that I found for myself, right, from doing the research. He, his office did the biopsy, and so he was the one who actually told me that I have cancer.

David Raubach: And so then you’re at OU, you do the surgery. Obviously that’s grueling. Chemo’s also grueling. Describe chemotherapy for somebody that has not been through it.

Tara Green: It’s poison. I mean I literally thought I was dying first round. I just remember being on like the ground like just suffering, and I’m pretty tough. My my friends, my family would say I’m tough. I have a high pain tolerance. That’s why I was able to live with that for so long and work and still do the hours that I put in at the state, but it was so hard, and I just remember the thing, thinking that first time, like, am I going to be able to, do I have to do 15 more months of this?

Tara Green: Yeah, like it’s not possible, and you know, it’s hard advice to take, but it was that like, one day at a time, and then it became like an hour and moments and minutes at a time.

David Raubach: I remember we had Shannon Miller, the Olympic gymnast, on as a guest, and she went through chemotherapy for ovarian cancer, and one of the things she talked about was trying to figure out how to set goals that were achievable, and she said one of the goals that she, it got to a point where, again, this is like an Olympic gymnast, is in shape as you can possibly be. She’s young at the time, and you were too. She said, “I, one of my goals, I would have days where my goal was, can I walk around the living room table,” and then that’s it.

Tara Green: I love that. I’ve always been a fan of Shannon Miller. I’ve gotten to meet her too, a few times, at this. But I did the same thing too. Like how many times could I like walk around the couch that day, just get up, get a little bit of like sunshine. That was like a big thing for me, you know, to get outside and sit up and enjoy the sun and, you know, do a little journaling, read a devotion.

David Raubach: To talk about the mental aspect of all of this, because there’s a, that physical toll, but there’s also a mental toll as well.

Tara Green: Yeah, it’s again, just to not over use the word tough, but it is, anybody’s been there knows, cuz you’re trying to overcome the physical, right, mentally, but then also you’re dealing with people who are grieving your diagnosis, people who are worried you’re going to, you know, not make it, just the grueling schedule of like chemo and blood draws and recovery. I really had to like focus in on, so my faith is like just priority, primary for me. So there was a lot of like prayer, but also just like being grateful for like the little tiny things.

Tara Green: Like I remember one day that I was so sick and I really didn’t know like how I was like going to get through like those moments, that day, and I started like looking around my room from my bed, and I saw like these beautiful like fuzzy socks I had on that like brought me joy, and I was like, oh my gosh, thank you God that I have like warm feet right now, and then, and I have this blanket, and I have this bed, and I have, you know, like a couch I can go to, I have family and friends who are calling me and supporting me, and like I remember just being overwhelmed with like the gratefulness and the joy from focusing on the socks.

Tara Green: It started with socks, but like then I could like expand from there, and I, you know, not to sound cliche, but like really when you like focus in on like what we all have, you know, to be grateful for, like down to the little things, then sometimes you can just be like overwhelmed with like the goodness of life and the little things that help you conquer like those big things like cancer.

David Raubach: That’s beautiful. I love that, and I think that’s a great perspective to have, to just say I need to, I need to find, I need to find those physical wins, but I need to find those emotional victories as well, where I find something that I can focus on that’s positive, because there’s so much negative. What was the, you mentioned family and friends and that support system, what was meaningful for, in, in for you, that they did? I mean, what were some things that you said, well, I really appreciate this, and especially I’m asking this question in the context of maybe people now that have family members or friends that are going through cancer, and they’re thinking, well, how, I just want to help, but how can I help?

Tara Green: Yeah, so I will tell people like do something, you know, and not be afraid of like doing the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing. I think that paralyzes people sometimes, and then they miss the opportunity to really like love and support someone going through a really difficult time, but things that like specifically people did for me, like one lady who just would not, friend would not take no on not doing my laundry. You know, I was like no, please, no, no, no, and she was like absolutely not, I’m doing it, and that meant so much, and then another friend offered to take my dog to doggy daycare.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: So like on chemo days, like he was like tired and snugly when I got home. Of course people like brought food, which is, you know, I’m can be iffy, right, with the chemo diagnosis. We didn’t have like DoorDash and stuff like that at the time, but something like a gift card like that would be great. So, you know, whatever people were feeling like, or whatever I was feeling like, I had people I could call on that

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: Would bring that, you know. I think a lot of it is just knowing that somebody’s there for you. You know, like even if it’s just a message or a word, or it, even if they’re not necessarily doing anything profound, it’s just, I just know that this person’s in my corner.

David Raubach: Right, 100%, cuz I still remember, this was 13 years ago, the people who showed up.

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: That did like, were consistent on the text messages or the calling, and maybe didn’t even do a grand gesture, just like sign, like a funny meme.

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: Like doing something that will make someone laugh in those situations like just helps bring light into like a dark situation.

Tara Green: I think that, I really like that you brought up laughter, because I think that’s one of the things we talk about this at the Proton Center, like it’s okay to smile. Even though we’re in a, we’re going through something dark. Like actually, what somebody, and you would know this better than I would, but if you’re going through these dark places, in this dark journey, the last thing you want is everybody around you to be super somber and

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: Down, and you actually need that reprieve of a smile or a laugh or a joke. That’s okay.

David Raubach: Yeah. Yeah.

Tara Green: So Duck Dynasty was like big when I was going through chemo, so I’ll never forget, like my friend was like, when Duck Dynasty was on, she’d come over, we would like laugh, she’d paint my nails, like, and it’s still like an inside joke with us, you know, like good old Duck Dynasty, like it brought a lot of joy on some hard days.

David Raubach: I watched that show. That show was funny.

Tara Green: It was funny. We would quote that show, yeah, that was a good show, very entertaining.

David Raubach: So what, and I know this is a kind of a loaded question, but was there, were there points where you had to really face the reality of dying or death, cuz you had stage four cancer?

Tara Green: Right, absolutely. Well my oncologist, and they’re charged with like telling you, you know, like the difficult news, nobody wants to, but she sat across me, she’s like, you’re going to die from this disease.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: So it was a very bleak, very, you know, grim diagnosis. I got down to like 90 lb too. I was, you know, scaring myself, like looking in the mirror. I remember FaceTiming my best friend from high school, she’s still my best friend after all the time, and when she picked up, she just started crying when she saw me, you know, and I remember that being a really poignant moment of being like, oh, she sees it, like I’m going to, you know,

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: She feels it, so

David Raubach: Absolutely, and that continues into survivorship too, right?

Tara Green: But I was just having a conversation with a survivor yesterday that I was like, I think I’ve been successful in that, like I don’t focus on that, like I, I can’t, like I can’t spiral down, that, that’s some darkness I don’t want in my life, that I try to strive to like bring joy and light and

David Raubach: Right.

Tara Green: Happiness, so if I focus on that, that is, you know, the opposite of my goal.

David Raubach: Yeah, yeah, no, I, it, it, I’m glad you mentioned survivorship, because we know that the journey with cancer doesn’t end when treatment’s over, so maybe talk a little bit about what the first six months or year after treatment’s like, and just thinking like, I’ve got all these follow-up visits, I’ve got these scans, you go for your first follow-up scan, and that’s when there’s this question of did the treatment work or did it not work, is the cancer back, like, so just talk about just kind of that initial period once the, once that round of treatment was done.

Tara Green: Mhm. It is like this like kind of wandering feeling a little bit, because you’re, you know, chemo is tailored to the person and, but then so regimented, so you’re like, well, I’m a Tuesday Wednesday chemo girl, like that’s what I’m doing on Tuesday Wednesdays, then I’m going to be sick for a few days, and like you just kind of get the schedule, and then thankfully and miraculously I was declared cancer free, and so now I’m not back on a treatment schedule, and so you’re kind of in this period of what do I do, is the cancer going to come back, like you mentioned, am I fully healed, is there something they’re not seeing.

Tara Green: And then unfortunately, I think, and most survivors would say this, those people that did really show up, of course they kind of like are checked, that box, which is fine, is a normal like human like thing to do, but you’re suddenly kind of a lot more alone, in a sense, for some people. Especially, I’m very grateful I had like a really big support system, from my dad being a pastor and pastoring, you know, in different places across the country, so you kind of get used to like, okay, yeah, people checking in and stuff, and now you’re kind of like, okay, now it’s like back to life, I guess I’ll like go back to work, and

Tara Green: What do I do? Yeah, like pack a lunch for, you know, that kind of stuff, you’re like, wow, okay.

David Raubach: So at what point, we’ll shift gears a little bit and talk about Tenaciously Teal, so my understanding is that the origination of that is you just actually started going and visiting people that were going through chemotherapy, so talk a little bit about kind of that, obviously we know what Tenaciously Teal, or we’ll get to what Tenaciously Teal is today, but how did it start?

Tara Green: So it really, I mean, the catalyst was the recovery from that surgery.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: The debulking surgery, and so the next day they were like, you have to start walking the halls to get stronger so you can go home, and this is like right before Christmas.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: So I’m like motivated to get home for Christmas, thinking this could be my last Christmas with my family

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: And at the time they lived in Oregon, I had plane tickets home to go, so I was like motivated to walk these halls, and I did, and that’s where I noticed people that were just by themselves day after day, as I’m walking these halls as much as I can to get stronger, and like every day the guy next door is there by himself, and just thought, being my job with child welfare for six years, I was really comfortable, not only like growing up as a pastor’s kid, but I’ve knocked on people’s doors and was like, hey, we need to talk about, you know, we got a call about abusing your children or neglecting your children, those are hard conversations to have.

Tara Green: So it just kept stirring in my like heart and soul to like go and like talk to the guy next door, cuz I was like, why are you by yourself, you know, I wanted to like just let them know that like I noticed and somebody there cared, like, I didn’t know him, but I knew he was fighting cancer, I knew we were on the cancer floor at, you know, one hospital in one city, and there were that many people that were by themselves, and that just really stirred in my heart.

David Raubach: Wow. So from there, so you’re doing this, you’re going through treatment, or you’ve just had surgery, you’re trying to recover enough to be able to fly back to Oregon, and you’ve started this process of, I, seeing and noticing people, and I mean it, I think that speaks to just the empathy and compassion that you just have naturally, where you’re going through this ailment, but you’re also noticing that other people don’t have somebody coming to visit them, and how can I step in and help them, so where, how did it evolve from that point?

Tara Green: Well, so also too, I was like in treatment, I had all these like flowers people were sending me, or in the after surgery, and so that’s, was like, I would give those away cuz I didn’t need like 11 like flower arrangements, right, and so then I noticed like how much that, like, just, not, I don’t know if deflated is the right word, but like it just immediately brought like heart to heart like care, you know, and when you’re just like, hey, I just want to give you something.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: And so as I went to treatment, you know, there’s like 60 chairs in the chemo room, and there’s like, full, there’s so many people fighting cancer, I just remember being overwhelmed by that, and again we’re like in one city, one state, one hospital, and then again I just saw more of the same, people by themselves, people who remind me of my child welfare clients who I knew were really struggling just day to day, and they didn’t have like poison being put in them and that suffering.

Tara Green: So I just really wanted to do something that was tangible support, and that’s like where the care packs evolved, that Tenaciously still Teal started with, was like things that I used to fight cancer.

David Raubach: The first care, do you remember the first care pack?

Tara Green: Yeah. I have a picture of it, and it was just a lady right outside my room, her name was Judy, an older lady, and I just, yeah, I’ll never forget her eyes and her smile and her just surprise of like, what this is for me, like I was, you know, kind of carting around my IV pole, and

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: So you’re there for like 8 hours too, and so yeah, I was just kind of like meander

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: Around the chemo room, and then have conversations, and I just always thought it was, people are cool, like they have a great stories, and probably some of your interest in doing these podcasts, you know, it’s like hearing people’s stories.

David Raubach: I think there’s so many beautiful stories. We’ve just had our patient graduation ceremony that we do every 2 weeks at the Proton Center, and we were graduating patient number 6,404. [clears throat] I think, I can’t remember the exact number, but it just made me think back like, oh, this is 6,399 or 6,403 stories that happened even before this person, and it’s just neat to think about being a part of touching somebody’s life as they’re going through something that’s, for most people, the most difficult thing that they’ve ever gone through. What was in the first care package?

Tara Green: So it was fuzzy socks, was, and chapstick, hand sanitizer, Kleenex.

David Raubach: Yeah, just very practical, like

Tara Green: Just stuff you would use. I drank like a lot of green tea, so it was green tea, and I, but I would write a handwritten note in each one that I gave. That was important to me, for people just to know that this wasn’t just like chapstick and lotion and fuzzy socks, but it was someone who cares, and it was looking for those people who were by themselves, like Judy, that was just right outside my room, and I had, you know, I don’t know, three or four people at the time, and she’s there by herself, fighting.

David Raubach: Yeah, that’s amazing. So Judy so Judy, Judy’s number one. What, so what point did you think, well, this is just a ministry that I have while I’m going through chemo, or what, where’s the where’s the point where you’re like, well, maybe this is actually something I could just do on a regular basis, or this actually could be what I do full-time.

Tara Green: Yeah, it evolved, right, you know, initially it was kind of like, well, I was done with chemo and declared free, and like I was like, oh, I felt good about what I did, I got that promotion finally and went to state office, and then it was just kind of posed to me like, are you going to keep coming back to the chemo room, and first I was like, no, absolutely not.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: That part of my life is over.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: And then I just kind of thought about the Judy’s and the guy that on the OU floor after my surgery that got the first flower arrangement, and I was like, if I don’t, who will, and maybe I should.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: So it just kind of, yeah, kept going, and we had social workers then at the cancer center that were like, hey, have you ever thought about like helping with this need, like, I know you’re doing the care packs, but they were needing like resources for people, like just to get to treatment, like just gas cards and stuff like that. So it kind of evolved from people, like I just, seeing a need and being like, oh, there’s like a gap in services here that we could, that someone should be filling, right, so

David Raubach: When did you, when did Tenaciously Teal, well actually I should ask this, but where did the name come from?

Tara Green: So teal is the color for ovarian cancer awareness, and with having people, you know, kind of all over wanting to know what was going on with me, I had like a little blog spot called Tenaciously Teal, and so when we formalized, okay, my best friend that I mentioned earlier, I was trying to think of any other name to call it, cuz you have to have a name first, actually, to like get it formalized.

David Raubach: Yeah, the first question the state asks when you go to create an LLC is like, well, what’s the name of your company? What’s the name?

Tara Green: And I thought of like some pretty dumb names, and just, like, all these things, I’m talking to her, and she, in her graceful way, was just like, Tara, you’re an idiot, you, it has to be Tenaciously Teal. I was like, really? Okay. That’s why I said earlier, I’m like, I never thought I’d be like spelling it, like, all the time.

David Raubach: Yeah, yeah, Tenaciously is one of those words that you hear a lot, or not necessarily a lot, but you’ve heard, like, it’s not an uncommon word, but it’s one of those words that, then when you, if somebody’s like, well, how do you spell it, then you do actually have to think like, okay, I mean, I know the word, but how did, how do all the letters go together?

Tara Green: Yes, it has a little cadence.

David Raubach: Yeah, it’s not the easiest word to spell.

Tara Green: It’s not. It’s not. It’s funny, I was out somewhere the other day and I heard some guy, he, guy, he said luck favors the brave, and I was like, oh, I love that term, that’s cool. I was like, what do you think about the word tenacious? He’s like, it’s a lot more aggressive to be tenacious, and I was like, yeah, I agree.

David Raubach: There you go, that’s a good slogan. So, you’ve got the, you’ve incorporated, I guess, and then did you set it up as a not for profit at that point?

Tara Green: We incorporated in March and then we got our designation, like, in July.

David Raubach: Okay, so right away you did all the IRS paperwork, and in what year was this?

Tara Green: 2014.

David Raubach: 2014, okay, and so, so now you’ve got Tenaciously Teal, you’ve got the company, you’ve got the not for profit. What were your goals at that point? Like, did you envision what it is today, in 2014?

Tara Green: Oh, absolutely not. No, no, it’s unbelievable, actually. I mean, we’ve had like five office iterations, if you will, if you count like my closet, you know, initially, and each one we’ve been like, oh, wow, we won’t, we won’t need any more space, or we’re good. And, you know, our most recent one, we renovated it, got a grant to do that, we’re in the Chesapeake Community Plaza, where the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits owns, and so we renovated that, it’ll be 4 years this September, and we’re not like looking for new space and more space, but like this space was like, wow, this is like, it’s 3,000 square feet, and it has climate controlled warehouse and stuff for all our items, but yeah, we’re like kind of pushing the walls

David Raubach: Cuz you started, the fuzzy socks were in your bedroom.

Tara Green: Yeah, where they were getting stored somewhere in your house.

David Raubach: Yes, yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Tara Green: Then it kind of like moved to my parents house, so really there’s probably like 10 iterations, if you count like someone from their church was like, we have a business in downtown Bethany, and I had this little closet, and I thought, wow, we have a closet, of like, what, I have like a key to a place where we store items, not just in my house. But yeah.

David Raubach: So you’ve gone from one care pack to Judy, to thousands of care packs. How many care packs did you guys hand out last year?

Tara Green: Almost 6,000. We’re at 54,000 care packs.

David Raubach: That’s amazing.

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: That’s incredible. And those are all, most of those are unique individuals. And

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: And it’s not just in Oklahoma City now.

Tara Green: No, we go to treatment centers across Oklahoma, and then we mail them nationwide. We’ve even mailed some globally, but we focus on, you know, United States.

David Raubach: So talk about how those care packs get put together, because I think one of the neat things that you guys do is you actually get volunteers to help with that process, and we’ve had, like for example at our breast center, Premier Breast Health Institute, you, I don’t know the right nomenclature, but it’s a care pack night, or care pack party, that’s right,

Tara Green: Yeah, care pack party.

David Raubach: So talk just a little bit about that, and how you’ve kind of partnered with the local community to actually put these care packs together.

Tara Green: Yeah, we’re actually doing a community one at Premier Breast again this October, so we invite the community to come and put together care packs. We’ve done it where we’ve hosted them at like different businesses, like that, or private, you know, groups for team building. We’ve done a lot of work with like Paycom and different like oil and gas companies here, where we just come in, make care packs. We get people to write notes, we put a handwritten note in every care pack. Fuzzy socks and handwritten notes are something that we’ve not changed.

Tara Green: Really haven’t changed the care pack items. I mean, they speak for themselves, but yeah, it’s really cool to see like families bond together, you know, and give back, and of course like everybody knows somebody who’s fought cancer. Most families have been touched personally by cancer, and so I do feel like it’s a way for people to fight back with care and love, and pay it forward, you know, for the people who are going through it currently.

David Raubach: What, how are you personally staying connected with the cancer community, cuz it’s, I mean, obviously now, as the, as the president, you’ve got this organization that you have to run, it’s easy to kind of get stuck focusing on the administrative work, and just everything that takes, to from a leadership standpoint, but I know you think it’s really important to just stay connected with where you came from.

Tara Green: Absolutely, that’s the fun part for me, is connecting with the people and seeing how much of an impact just that kindness, a smile, like, you know, does for somebody. Just recently we brought a bunch of care packs to Parkland Health in Dallas, and I was out there, there’s this lady sitting by herself, I’ll never forget, her name was Aurora, and she’s just sitting there kind of smiling, looking at me, and I was like, are you a cancer fighter, and gave her a care pack, and she just started like crying and hugged me.

Tara Green: And she’s like, I just was told that my cancer has spread now to like my lungs and my liver, and she’s there by herself, and but that human connection, that moment of like giving her a hug, and being there for her, cuz I was like, you just found this out? Like just now? And she’s like, “Yeah, like just now. I was just in there.” And then she was getting in a Uber like to go home.

Tara Green: And those are the things that like keep me fighting, like in the administrative like aspect and fundraising, and going out there and telling people like what an impact this is making, like what a light this is shining in the midst of the darkness.

David Raubach: That’s, that’s beautiful, and I, it, it’s just that, like you said, it’s that daily reminder of why you’re doing what you’re doing and why Tenaciously Teal is so important. What, so I want to talk about the gala that you guys put on every year, because I’ve been a few times, and it’s an amazing event.

Tara Green: Thank you.

David Raubach: But one of the things that I really love about it is the, the fashion show that you guys do here, the runway walk. So talk about why you started doing that, and just what the, and maybe describe it as best you can, so we don’t have the visual here. What it is and why why you wanted to do something like that.

Tara Green: Well, so when I first started doing it full-time, it’s like, “Well, you need to have a fundraiser.” And so we did, we started in a house in downtown OKC with just 50 people. And then the next year we’re like, “Well, let’s do a fashion show.” Because we do empowerment shoots and brave shaves for women. That was something for me like, you know, you really struggle with loss of identity, and you know, just femininity with like cancer. And so we do professional makeup and photography and style them.

Tara Green: So a fashion show is just a natural fit, and the second Care Box and Cocktails, when we did a fashion show, we of course didn’t know what we were doing at all, but there was so much like joy and excitement and empowerment, and then these women were coming up and like, “Man, I haven’t felt beautiful.” And “My husband has looked at me like differently.” And just like it was just so beautiful. Like we were there to raise money for more care boxes and financial assistance and brave shaves, but we like ended up accomplishing so much more by putting these women in beautiful clothes and doing their making makeup and showing them how beautiful they are and cheering for them.

David Raubach: Yeah. Yeah.

Tara Green: You know, and that’s like the fun part about, I think, and you may agree like it’s a gala, but like when that fashion show hits, it’s like everybody in the crowd is like your biggest fan for them, and it’s really cool.

David Raubach: I think it’s amazing, and I love that you do it, and I, you’re right, we didn’t touch on this with your experience, but it’s certainly something, as you’re going through cancer treatment and you’re losing weight, or your body’s changing, or if you’re going through breast cancer treatment and you’re having surgeries, you’re losing your hair. There’s just this, I don’t know. It gets to the point where it’s hard to even look in the mirror some days, and you just are like, “What’s happening to my body?”

David Raubach: And you said some of the women have commented, “I hadn’t, haven’t felt beautiful in weeks or months or years even.” And so they create this opportunity to celebrate, even if they don’t look the same as they did 2 years or 3 years earlier, that there’s, you’re still beautiful, and we’re going to celebrate that together.

Tara Green: Yeah. Yeah, it’s really cool. It’s a fun, I can’t even like really take credit for it, cuz it was, and just the whole community of Tenaciously Teal. Like it belongs to the community. It belongs to like hundreds and thousands of people, and people who’ve been received a Care Box or been on our runway, that are like believe in it now and are part of it, we call it the T Teal family.

David Raubach: So I, I think it’s one of the highlights of the, I go to a lot of charity events, I think it’s one of the highlight of the charity calendar in Oklahoma City.

Tara Green: Oh, thank you.

David Raubach: Runway show at the Tenaciously Teal Gala. I can say that.

Tara Green: Can we get that sound bite?

David Raubach: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean I think it is. It’s it’s really it’s just so neat. And so you mentioned the empower shoots and the brave shaves. So what are, what is that?

Tara Green: So we did trademark a program called Brave Shave. So it’s just an opportunity for women to face hair loss with courage. We are able to do them at our office in Oklahoma City. We cater them, and as I said, do the makeup and photography. But it is just giving people a choice. So my mom is a breast cancer survivor, and you know, your hair is going to fall out. A lot of people don’t realize it falls out really quickly, like within that first 2 weeks, when you’re like bombarded by so many things.

Tara Green: So the last thing you’re like is like, “Oh, I have a choice in this matter of how I lose my hair.” But I think we found like giving people the opportunity to be like, “Hey, here’s a brave shave. We’ll support you. We’ll come alongside you. We’ll let your friends and family come.” Which I think is a beautiful thing about it. It gives family and people who care about this cancer fighter an opportunity to come and support. And so yeah, it’s just an experience for them to have a choice.

David Raubach: Yeah, I, it’s neat that you guys are doing that, because I think, no, having friends that have gone through breast cancer, or other, or the other cancers, where the chemotherapy is going to cause hair loss. There is that point, I, it does happen fast. It’s a snowball. I mean you, you’ll get a few strands here or there that fall out, and then suddenly clumps are falling out, and

Tara Green: Yeah.

David Raubach: To have to turn a negative into a positive, and say, let’s, we’re going to, we’re going to actually lean into this. We’re not going to be afraid of this transformation, and bring the support system together, and create an opportunity to do it in a safe space, and with people around you that are going to encourage you, is really neat.

Tara Green: Thank you.

David Raubach: Facilitating that.

Tara Green: Thank you. It’s really cool, like every time someone comes in, and you know, they’re like a little defeated, right? And then as soon as it’s done, it’s like the energy shifts and they’re like just feel lighter and empowered.

David Raubach: It is one of the, I’ve, I’ve heard, and Shannon Miller talks about this, it was, it, for her it was one of the more traumatic points. It’s the thing when she thinks back, like what were kind of some of the lows along the way. She talks about, well, one of the lows was realizing I was losing my hair. That was one of the worst points of the process.

Tara Green: See, and I and I completely agree, and that’s why I’m so like an advocate for doing the shave and having that choice, knowing like when it’s going to happen. You know, you don’t get a lot of choices in the cancer fight. Like that’s one thing you can, and it’s way more traumatic for it to just fall out like you said. It’s just like happens so quickly and suddenly.

David Raubach: So, to wrap up today, Tara, thank you so much for your time. This has been amazing. I really appreciate you coming on. For those that are listening and are thinking, “Well, I, I’d really like to support Tenaciously Teal. How can I get involved, or what’s the best way to support this organization?”

Tara Green: Yeah, so we do have our Care Box and Cocktails is coming up July 25th, so at the Criterion. Tickets are going on sale next month, March 15th.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: And yeah, if they’re interested in like hosting a Care Pack party, they can get on our website, tteal.org. We always need groups to do collection drives.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: Oologah FFA just collected over 2,000 fuzzy socks, that people can be, you know, excited about and grateful for. So anything like that is always so beneficial. Of course, we need sponsorships for the gala, and we just rolled out a Care Crew too. So even just like $10 a month sponsors the shipping of one Care Pack.

David Raubach: Okay.

Tara Green: Shows up on someone’s door in a teal color package, maybe just on the moment that they need it. Need to be reminded that somebody cares.

David Raubach: And that’s, that’s something, all of that information that you just described, they can find on the website, tteal.org. And then, if, if somebody has a family member that’s going through cancer, even if they’re watching this and saying, “I’m going through cancer. I’d love to get a Care Pack.”

Tara Green: Mhm.

David Raubach: How would they go about that?

Tara Green: They can go on the website as well. Just on our homepage there’s request a Care Pack. And we will mail it to them. So we have like a little card, we’ll write in their name and that they requested it.

David Raubach: So, and I know, and I think it’s okay to say this, you want people to ask for the Care Packs.

Tara Green: Absolutely. Yes.

David Raubach: Yeah, we just had a company sponsor a thousand Care Packs, you know?

Tara Green: So we have the Care Packs, we want to get them out to the people who need it, who need that reminder. And I will say, just, you know, we have had people who think, “Oh, I don’t need the fuzzy socks. Oh, my friend doesn’t need the,” but some of the people who’ve been most impacted by it are the people who don’t need the resource necessarily, right?

Tara Green: It started from that, from people being alone and needing that reminder, but there’s a lot of people out there like me, included, who had a great support, but like when that little thing showed up on my door on the right day at the right time, it meant a lot. And it’s amazing how much a gift from a stranger, too, can have an impact.

David Raubach: It’s just like cuz it’s so unexpected.

Tara Green: Yeah. It’s just like, and that’s, I would say I’ve said this before, like I feel like as humans, like that’s what like we were meant to do. It’s like be in community and care for each other and look out for each other. And so this is just one way we make it easy for people. Someone’s fighting cancer, we’d love to send them a little love, little Care Pack.

David Raubach: Yeah.

Tara Green: The T Teal Care Pack.

David Raubach: That’s great. Well, thank you so much, Tara. I really appreciate your time today.

Tara Green: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. It was awesome.

David Raubach: Mhm.