Ep40 Lauren Abercrombie and Mia Fortunato—How Two Childhood Best Friends Built a 6,000-Square-Foot Social Club for Neurodivergent Adults

Lauren Abercrombie  0:00  
You know, we have people who are in their 30s now who have not had any socialization until starting Inclusion Fusion because there truly isn't anything that has been so valuable for a lot of our members, and it gives them a safe space where they can come hang out and be themselves without having that social pressure of being anyone but Themselves.

Scott Groves  0:23  
Welcome to Henderson HQ. This is the podcast where you get all the stories behind the businesses that make our community tick. Don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for watching the Henderson HQ podcast. Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter. Follow Instagram. All things Henderson HQ. Today we're talking to two new friends of mine, Lauren and Mia, who run a business called Inclusion Fusion, which is an adult center for people that are neurodivergent and have autism and experience that lifestyle. And you guys, I've looked at all the Instagram. Val came out and did some content with you guys, and I think what you guys are doing just serves like a super special need in the community because I know quite a few people that have been diagnosed with autism. So I guess we'll just start there. Of like, how how does someone decide to make a business out of adult interaction and activities and whatnot for people that are diagnosed with autism?

Mia Fortunato  1:19  
So Lauren and I are childhood best friends, so we can start there, and that's kind of the foundation of everything that we do. And so, growing up in Henderson, we are raised here. We went to Coronado High School, and we've just been friends ever since we were seven years old. And so, we grew up in the social scene here, but then we also grew up in the disability community. We've been involved in the disability community since we can remember. Lauren's younger brother is on the autism spectrum, so he was diagnosed when he was two years old, and so Lauren and I spent a lot of time within the community, within the autism community, volunteering at several organizations that he was involved in. We were very active in his therapies, and then once we got old enough, we started working professionally within the field, and we started a nonprofit in high school where we did an annual prom for neurodivergent teens and adults, and so yeah, so we've just been involved ever since. And when we saw the success of a single prom and saw the success of one single event that we did every year. We thought, how do we do this every single day, and how do we make a community within the community every single day? And so that's kind of how Inclusion Fusion was born. We saw the gaps within the community just being so involved, and then also just growing up with Mason, Lauren's brother, and seeing what happened to him once he graduated, and seeing that he didn't have any type of social opportunity after he graduated, because these teenagers who are neurodivergent, they go from socializing every single day in high school, and then once they graduate, it drops off. There's there's no social opportunities after high school. We see it in the neurotypical community, and so if it's tough in the neurotypical community, it's tough in the neurodivergent community. And so, if

Scott Groves  3:09  
it wasn't for jujitsu, I'd have no friends.

Mia Fortunato  3:11  
Exactly, and so creating that community for neurodivergent members and utilizing our own experiences as young adults here in Henderson, what we like to do, what we consider to be a fun community, a fun social space, and then inclusion fusion happened, and so we now have a very large community, and we do weekly social clubs where the same members come back every single week, and they meet with the same people, and that consistency just grows friendship over time, and then we also have fun events. We do trivia nights and craft nights and big parties. And in October we have our annual Halloween party. So anything that adults like to do to hang out and socialize, that's what we have at Inclusion Fusion for our members.

Scott Groves  3:54  
Nice, Lauren. Tell us about your brother Mason because I think there's a lot of misnomers out there about what autism is, and obviously it's a pretty wide spectrum. I've learned more about this from owning a school than I ever thought I would know. And a couple of my friends who play professional poker-they're definitely very, very far on the spectrum. And it was always just like you know, we we all went to school. I'm 47, so into the school, and this wasn't top of mind. There was you know always kids that would fixate over certain things. It was just like, okay, that's kind of the different kid in class, right? There wasn't really a diagnosis for it. So, can you tell us a little bit about your experience with Mason and kind of what we need to know about autism to like talk about this respectfully?

Lauren Abercrombie  4:33  
Just like you said, every single person's experience is so different. Really depends on who you're talking to, but for Mason specifically, you know, he was like Mia mentioned, diagnosed at two years old. So luckily, he was able to get the resources that he needed at a very young age, and we had a very supportive community. And he went to fantastic schools and had really just a supportive environment all around. So for Mason, he was. Able to get early intervention and have key people in his life to help him grow, and it was really cool too. Like even socially growing up, you know, he hung out my friends, and my friends are his friends, and his friends are my friends, and so he was able to really grow in that direction. But you know, his experience was all in Henderson, and he went to the pipeline where he had a lot of the same peers that he was able to grow up with, which I think helped. There was a lot of stability in that way, and he graduated in 2019. He's 25 now. He holds a job, and he's had it for about three years now, and loves it. He is so well supported, and it is everything that he loves. So having that from you know where he was at two years old was really cool to see what he's going into now, and you know this is just the beginning of his adulthood.

Scott Groves  5:52  
You know, you mentioned that growing up in the in the school system with the support network that they have, like that familiarity of the same social group, right? I'm I'm just pulling from things that I've seen in like the social zeitgeist. How important to people like your brother is that like familiarity, the routine, the consistency? Because I can only imagine, and we see the same thing with like public services for kids that are either homeless or in the foster program or whatever. It's like they get to 18, they age out, and there's nothing. And it's like, okay, well, you just took away this safety net. How important is that idea of familiarity and routine? And then, like, what happens if if parents don't find people like you, or if adults don't find people like you? What happens when that goes away after school's over?

Lauren Abercrombie  6:33  
We definitely see an increase of isolation, and you know, we are very grateful to be able to serve that for our families and for the members because you know we have people who are in their 30s now who have not had any socialization until starting Inclusion Fusion, because there truly isn't anything, and being able to have that has been so valuable for a lot of our members, and it gives them a safe space where they can come hang out and be themselves without having that social pressure of being anyone but themselves.

Scott Groves  7:05  
People that are on the spectrum, or especially if they're pretty far along, are they self-aware of the fact that they're like different, quote unquote, or they they show up differently than maybe somebody who's not autistic would be? Like when they're together, is there just more of a sense of like community because they all know that they socialize differently, or like, how self-aware are they of of the difference? And I hope I'm coming across the right

Mia Fortunato  7:27  
way. No, you're fine. Some of our members are very self-aware of their diagnosis and what treats their autism bring them, but then some of our members don't. They are not aware, and so they're just them, and that's just how they travel through the world, but yeah, does that answer your question?

Scott Groves  7:42  
Yeah, because like one of my friends is like he he very much knows that like I don't know if the word is he should, but he knows that it's like culturally normal to like look somebody in the eyes when you shake their hand, and he just can't do it. It's like it's not part of like how his brain works. He's like, I know it's kind of weird. I can't can't look at you. Pleasure to meet you, whatever. And I was just like, oh, okay. So he's very aware that there's a difference in the way that he approaches social situations than other people do, and I'm just thinking like how much that would, how much more comfortable that would be if you were around other people that kind of had the same the same type of differences. You know what I mean?

Mia Fortunato  8:15  
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then I also do think that it is ingrained, especially in earlier therapies, that these social norms are ingrained in a lot of autistic people, where they're taught about the eye contact and they're taught about just social norms. That it really does make you question, like, why is that a social norm? Like, why is it a social norm to look someone in the eyes whenever even neurotypical people have a problem looking people in the eyes? Like, I think that times are a little bit different now, but you know, a couple decades ago, it was it was totally normal that in therapies that neurodivergent people were taught these specific social norms. But I'm hoping that we're going into a direction that it's accepted to not follow those specific social norms.

Lauren Abercrombie  8:54  
Absolutely, and I think that too. Over these past few years, the community has become very neurodiverse forming, where we are listening to like the members of the community who are sharing their voices and their experiences and what they liked and what they didn't like about how it was growing up and how it should be for the next generation. And that is something that I think everyone needs to know. If you're getting into this field, if you have a neighbor, friend, whatever that is, you need to know the experience of the individual that you're talking to.

Scott Groves  9:20  
So, how do you do it when you're looking at like scheduling programming? Because, like, like you said, there's this croft stuff and there's this trivia night stuff and there's this stuff and whatnot. And I imagine people that can hyper fixate on things are pretty good at trivia. How do you guys build your curriculum, right? Because you two are not neurodivergent, from what I can tell. So, it's like, how do you get feedback from the audience of like, hey, what matters to you? What would make you comfortable? What would you enjoy doing? Like, how do how do you build what Inclusion Fusion is doing on Tuesday of next week?

Lauren Abercrombie  9:47  
Well, everything is placement based at Inclusion Fusion, which makes it really easy. So, what

Scott Groves  9:50  
does that mean, placement based?

Lauren Abercrombie  9:51  
What that means is before any member starts Inclusion Fusion, we have everyone go through an enrollment process. So, during the enrollment process, they. We'll come in and meet with one of our placement directors, which will then really help us better understand them as like an individual. So we'll kind of see where they're at, what they're interested in doing, so they can let us know if they like to hang out, play video games, they enjoy playing trivia-based games, crafts, whatever that might look like. And depending on you know their wavelength, it's really important for us to match them with people who generally share their same interests are where they're at too, and that's kind of how you form those friendships. You want to be friends with people who you can understand, who you can relate to, who you share common ground with. If you don't share common ground, it's going to be really challenging.

Scott Groves  10:35  
Doesn't matter what's going on in your brain if you don't have anything in commonality.

Mia Fortunato  10:38  
We match them with peers that we think that they'd get along really well. We kind of just push them in that right direction, support them in that way. That's like, hey, you should meet so and so because they are totally like you, and I think that you guys would get along really well. So that we we see a lot of success in. So that being one of them, how we place our members, and then the consistency really helps because they see the same people, same staff every single week, and then all of our programs are very member-led. They are very vocal about what they like to do, what they don't like to do, and then we have a wonderful programming team that makes all of the activities and programming that's different every single week. And they really do listen to our members and they listen to what they like to do, what they don't like to do. So, for instance, we have a video game group that meets on Sundays, and they they game the entire time, and so that's just what they decided to do. We have arts and crafts groups that meet throughout the week. We have groups that just love board games, and we have all girls groups. So people who just want to be with the girlies, they really like that. It takes a village with the schedule. We have a meeting every single week to thoughtfully place people to move around our calendar to make sure that this is a really great time to have this social group because we have this staff to support it. We even match our staff to the groups, so we would never put a staff member who doesn't know how to play video games into a video game group. And so, luckily, we have a lot of gamers on our staff. Our staff is really cool, so everything is really thoughtful, and it does take a village, and we have a wonderful team.

Scott Groves  12:02  
So I want to talk about that a little bit because, like, obviously, it's great to have a great idea, and in anywhere where you can serve a need that isn't currently being served, that's a business idea, right? When you're sitting around thinking about, like, oh, I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to own a business, like, cool. What, what, where is a need or product that's missing? Now let's go design it, or do it, or offer it, but there is a chasm between idea. I want to help people. We think we have a great idea and a functioning business. There's leases to sign, and there's staffing, and there's marketing, and you know, you guys are not. I don't think you're funded by the city or the state, so it's like you have to make money, right? So it's like talk a little bit about getting from ideation to now we have people here several times a week actually being served in the community like that. That had to be just an epic journey. It

Mia Fortunato  12:45  
was an epic journey. Like it, it genuinely was. We started when we first started our. I think that our business was completely different. We were doing some one-on-one sessions, so not everything was group-based, and we it took some time for us to gain some trust within the community because we are young. We started when I don't even know how old we were. We're 28 now, so eight years ago. Eight years ago, 20. And we also, you know, take some time to build the clientele and to build that following. But the need was there, and once we hit the ground running, it was like a domino effect of just members wanting to be involved and wanting a community. Everyone craves community, even neurotypical people crave community, and everyone else. Yeah, everyone does, and so

Scott Groves  13:30  
that's why people can't stop talking about CrossFit or SoulCycle or being a vegan or whatever. Like they want to identify with

Mia Fortunato  13:35  
everyone wants a community. Everyone wants a third space, and so it was hard work. And but I think that what made it ultimately work is that we love what we do. Like genuinely, we love what we do. We love our jobs. I argue that we have the best job in the entire world. Loving what we do and just sticking to it and doing it with each other, it was it was worth it. And

Lauren Abercrombie  13:55  
listening to our members, I think that our members really helped us get to the direction of where we are.

Mia Fortunato  13:59  
Yeah, we started very broad. I think that we were yes trial and error. We started very broad. We were doing life skills and all ages, and we were doing more than social and one-on-one sessions and dance, and we were just doing a lot. And we were able to, I think, capture everyone's interest. But then, as the years have gone by, we've definitely narrowed in on our niche. The

Lauren Abercrombie  14:20  
reason why, like, they were all coming was because social. They want to be community.

Mia Fortunato  14:24  
Yeah, at the root of it all, it was all social. They wanted community, so we've really just invested everything that we have into social.

Scott Groves  14:30  
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Lauren Abercrombie  15:36  
I'm gonna have to think about that. Do you have anything that comes to mind?

Scott Groves  15:38  
Have any fights with the city or your landlords or anything yet.

Lauren Abercrombie  15:41  
We have a wonderful landlord, right?

Mia Fortunato  15:42  
Yeah, crazy. We have a wonderful landlord. Our last building was was that was a struggle to get through. Our last building just wasn't the best space for us, but it was during COVID, right? And we did what we could, and our landlord was not as accepting, and our space was too small. And so once we moved into our new space, which is now 6000 square feet. It's so much better.

Scott Groves  16:03  
That's a lot. So, like, what what do you offer on site? Like, let's say I had an adult, maybe an adult that was living with me, or I've got a child that's getting close to 18. I'm kind of freaking out because maybe they're going to lose their social group at school. Like, what what does your place look like? And maybe we can grab some pictures from your Instagram and splice it in. But like, what would I expect to experience if I was bringing a family member there that was neurodivergent?

Mia Fortunato  16:24  
I mean, we could tell you what was going on tonight. So our groups start typically like after work hours. A lot of our members rely on transportation, or they're in school themselves, or they have jobs themselves. So we started yesterday around like 4p.m. and then we have social groups. And so we have a big social group at 4p.m. We have a big social group at 6p.m. We have a cooking group at 430. So our whole space is being utilized up until around 8p.m. As that's on Fridays, but then on the weekends we have events. So tomorrow night we have a big craft night. Well, we'll have around 100 people, and we're all making craft.

Scott Groves  16:53  
100 people.

Mia Fortunato  16:54  
Oh yeah, yeah.

Scott Groves  16:55  
How many staff do you guys have?

Mia Fortunato  16:56  
Well, we're around 20. Yeah.

Lauren Abercrombie  16:58  
Holy cow.

Mia Fortunato  16:58  
Yeah. So we had trivia last weekend, we had around 100 people there. Yeah,

Scott Groves  17:02  
wow. How big do you think the community is? Like, what percentage of of adults are diagnosed, you know, with autism or neurodivergent? Like, do we have any do we have any ideas?

Mia Fortunato  17:14  
I don't know specifically, but I know that there's a lot more adults that we have not reached here in Vegas and Hagrid.

Scott Groves  17:20  
I was having this conversation with a friend of mine. I I told him that you two were coming in because he's definitely on the spectrum. He's a computer programmer, and I was telling him about this interview that we were having, and you know we were having the argument over like what causes autism and is it just better diagnosis and whatnot. He's like, "Come on, Scott. He's like, "Diagnosis has just gotten better. When you were a little kid, there was some uncle that was like awkwardly like fixated on whatever toy trains or Dungeons and Dragons or video games or whatnot, and like didn't quite fit in socially. They were autistic. There just wasn't a diagnosis for it. So how do people like maybe they made it through school under the normal path, quote unquote? Do do some adults become aware or get diagnosed much later in life of like, oh yeah, this is this thing I've been dealing with for a long time, and then do they seek out people like you? Or

Lauren Abercrombie  18:06  
absolutely,

Scott Groves  18:07  
yeah.

Lauren Abercrombie  18:08  
I think it looks different for everybody, but we have members who come to us, and it just presents, you know, in different ways.

Mia Fortunato  18:14  
Yeah, we have older members who just recently get a diagnosis, or they're not diagnosed, but they suspect that they have autism, which everyone is welcome, and so yeah. But I think that just with services and doctors and science getting better, we have a lot of older

Lauren Abercrombie  18:32  
patients.

Mia Fortunato  18:32  
Yeah, and and it's just becoming more accepted in the community over time. We're still not perfect, but you know we're moving the right direction, having conversation. But we do have a lot of members that get a later diagnosis in life. Yeah.

Scott Groves  18:45  
So, Laura, are you guys donation fueled, or do people pay like a membership cost, or do you get funding from the state, or a mixture of all the things, or how how does it work? Because obviously, 20 staff has to get paid. The building rent has to get paid.

Lauren Abercrombie  18:57  
So we do accept funding from the state. A lot of our members receive funding from Desert Regional Center, and they provide a respite voucher to attend. But we do have a membership fee, and that voucher from Desert Regional Center helps pay for a portion of the cost towards inclusion fusion membership.

Scott Groves  19:13  
And are you guys a nonprofit? Can people donate, or are you a for-profit?

Lauren Abercrombie  19:16  
We're we're a business.

Scott Groves  19:17  
Okay, yeah, probably makes it easier to run. I'm kind of interested in in how you did the marketing, right? Because there was like obviously a tactful and a very not tactful way to talk about this conversation. I even asked you some questions before we started recording, like how do you how do you market for people? Like, I mean, obviously the word autism is now known in the social zeitgeist, but if you would have been trying to do this 30 years ago, you know, blessing and a curse. People my age and my generation. The only thing that we knew about autism was the movie Rain Man and like counting blackjack. You know, and so it's like, well, that's kind of nice that they did a movie about somebody that did have some some different needs and whatnot. But it like also created this really narrow version of what autism was, but. Like honestly, until I was probably in my late 20s, my only thought about autism was like, "Oh yeah, that movie Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman, whatnot. So, how do you advertise to the community, or is it all word of mouth? Or

Mia Fortunato  20:11  
we've been so lucky; it is a lot of word of mouth. As far as marketing goes, social media we post. I've ran our social media since the beginning, and it's really easy. Our members are incredible, and they are so fun. And then I also have a little bit of a marketing background. I went to I went to school and I studied PR and ad, and so like a little bit. But as far as our social media goes, our members make it really easy. And then it's also just how involved Lauren and I were in the community. A lot of the members that attend Inclusion Fusion we've known since we were seven years old. Like we've known our whole lives, and so I think that people just knowing us, us staying involved, yeah, word of mouth,

Lauren Abercrombie  20:50  
very family centered community, and also with like the neurodivergent community, it very much is like you need to know who you like. You need to know someone in order to find out these services. That's a different conversation, but I definitely believe that has a lot to do with it. Like, if you know, you know, one person who comes to inclusion fusion, they mention something about it. Word of mouth goes a long way.

Scott Groves  21:12  
Yeah. Do people or adults that have autism? Do they? Is there like a therapeutic path? Like, is there things that they do to to get occupational therapy and stuff like that, or like what other services do they have?

Lauren Abercrombie  21:25  
Services are definitely limited more so for adults than there are children. There are now, and my brother was younger. There wasn't many services growing up, but now there are significantly more than there were in the early 2000s, which is wonderful. But Nevada still definitely lacks a need for more therapeutic approaches. I know that a lot of our members might voice something of just like having more available therapists who understand what it is like to be on the spectrum, have ADHD, and being able to relate to that, and knowing that you know it isn't the same approach as it might be your next

Mia Fortunato  22:00  
client. There are therapies available like ABA, which is behavioral therapy. There's occupational therapy. There's speech therapy, talk therapy. So a lot of our members they grew up in that therapeutic system, but then once they graduate, they have places like Inclusion Fusion where they they can socialize, and to me that's really great therapy. So by Ling, yeah, it's the best medicine.

Scott Groves  22:21  
My ex-wife was a speech therapist, lovely lady, and she worked in a clinic that had occupational therapy and whatnot. And they would work with people of of all varying types. But I remember we were talking one time, and she's like, "Yeah, she's like, "Man, the treatment plan for people that are neurodivergent are so different from person to person and whatnot. And I was telling her, "It's like, well, yeah, we're married. We're about as closely aligned as two, you know, human beings could be, and you and I are totally different. So just imagine, like, our plan, right? Like our therapy plan. How I would talk to a therapist is totally different than how you would talk to the parents. She's like, yeah, that's true, because there was, you know, a lot of conflict over, like, do we follow this treatment plan or do we go with this? Because I, and also, this is 15 years ago. Things were still so new that it's like a lot of these treatment ideas were in their infancy, and so I just love what you guys are doing about like, hey, all that other stuff aside, we're still human beings and we need a place to be social. Tell me some of the success stories of people that maybe came in a little worried about being there, and then like have had whatever breakthrough or broken out of their shell or just feel at home. Like share share some share some

Lauren Abercrombie  23:23  
victories,

Mia Fortunato  23:24  
really good ones. Like it's just it's amazing. We have some members that they start with us, and their social anxiety is so severe that they just can't be in a group setting. We do allow them to take it very slow. We provide support when needed. We can offer that support for the first few times, or offer a smaller group. We have some smaller groups, some bigger groups, but we have members who have started with us with severe social anxiety, and then now they're attending our events with 100 plus people, and so it it really does work, and the exposure really works, and just getting to know people and building that trust. And I would say that we have a couple dozen members who are like that.

Scott Groves  24:00  
So you've had them come in where they have like crippling social anxiety, can't be around a group of people, and now they're attending the 100 person trivia night.

Lauren Abercrombie  24:08  
Oh yes,

Scott Groves  24:08  
that's awesome.

Lauren Abercrombie  24:09  
Yeah, I would honestly say too, about 95% of our members who come to Inclusion Fusion for the first time struggle to maybe even get through the door. Um, I think being someone new and coming to like a new space, no matter who you are, is very daunting, and so that's one thing that we really take into consideration is for someone, especially if you haven't been around socializing, we really want to take that process slow and meet them where they're at. So being able to one, you know, you just come in, you see the space, you get to meet some of us with the, you get the whole space to yourself, so you're not like overwhelmed meeting 2030, people at once, and it's very intentional. Then we'll take it a little bit slower. You'll get to do the placement, and the

Mia Fortunato  24:52  
placement is with Jason Matics, who are the coolest guys in the entire world, and so they're really easy to get along with. They're really easy to love, and so that kind. Eases some anxiety, so they have to go through a few steps before, yeah, before coming to a group. And then whenever they do come for a group, we always assign one of our staff members to be with them the entire day. So whether they need support or not, there's still that first person contact that meets them in the lobby, introduces himself. Their whole goal that entire hour and a half is to introduce them to as many people as possible. Sit near them, just create that really good connection, and then hopefully the next week they know everyone and they have a friendly face

Lauren Abercrombie  25:30  
that they got to know really well through our staff. And it usually takes about a month to get adjusted. The consistency is the most important aspect, and you know they see the same people every week, like Mia mentioned. And being comfortable in a space means so much.

Scott Groves  25:42  
You mentioned exposure, and I preface everything I'm about to say with the fact that I barely graduated high school, so I don't I don't have a degree in psychology, or I don't know anything about exposure therapy, other than a very good friend of mine that I used to do jujitsu with down in California. His son is severely autistic, the coolest kid. Like he's like Scott, if I get woken up one time in the middle of the night again about like space trivia because his son just loves everything space and he's like he'll he'll wake up in the middle of the night he'll be like dad do you know how many plan how many moons Jupiter has he's like no son I don't remember how many moons Jupiter has he's like 13 or however many there are he's like just want to make sure you knew and he's he's just like the coolest kid but when they were finding about the diagnosis and the the doctors were giving him really horrific news about probably won't be able to socialize, won't like physical touch, won't like this, and his dad was just like, "Well, I guess he's going to go to jujitsu with me every day and be exposed to it. And it was-I remember there were some sessions I was there where it was very uncomfortable for him. But over time, now you see the kid and he's like he's a drummer and he does jujitsu and it's like you can tell there's something off a little bit socially if you have a long conversation with him but he just just feels like one of the kids right and that was very much because his parents didn't shelter him and didn't allow him to go into that kind of world of isolation. It's like no no you're gonna be out here doing everything that we're doing so that that just rung a bell in my head because you use the word exposure. How important is that to people that are neurodivergent of just being exposed to more things on their own pace? It's the backbone. Tell me more. Yeah.

Mia Fortunato  27:10  
Well, think about like riding a bike. The only way to learn how to ride a bike is to get on the bike. Right. And so the only way to socialize and get over that fear of socializing, or like just get comfortable socializing, is to actually socialize. Like you can talk to your therapist, you can talk to your parents as many times as you want about socializing. But like to

Lauren Abercrombie  27:26  
do it, you got to show

Mia Fortunato  27:27  
up. Got to show up. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's scary for everyone. It's scary for me showing up to a brand new place with brand new people. So yeah, exposure is definitely key.

Scott Groves  27:36  
Is Mason like your biggest cheerleader?

Mia Fortunato  27:38  
He's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, he's cool. He comes pretty much every day, and he's yeah, he's awesome. He loves it. Yeah, he loves it. So we're really grateful that we get to share it with him.

Scott Groves  27:48  
Are you comfortable talking about the cost of what it costs to attend and whatnot? Yeah, tell so tell us what a member a membership fee is, or how much that gets covered by the regional center or whatnot. Like if if somebody's looking for you guys' services.

Lauren Abercrombie  27:59  
Yeah, so it definitely depends on what our members are interested in setting up for. So we have our weekly groups that meet once a week for an hour and a half. That's 225 for the month, and then Desert Regional Center covers 125 of that. So it leaves families usually around $100 in a pocket.

Scott Groves  28:15  
Yeah, 25 bucks a week. That seems worth it. I pay more than that for iced tea.

Mia Fortunato  28:18  
And also, like it is important to note that all of our groups they have a great ratio of staff to member. Everyone is getting supported in whatever way they need supported. Whether you are a high support member or a lower support member, we always have staff available, staff there to even just make the games fun. And so, and then we have a great space and great activities. And you know, with that, a fee is necessary to

Scott Groves  28:41  
the more seasoned members that have been there a while. Do they become mentors for the newer members that are very experienced in that torso and zai?

Lauren Abercrombie  28:48  
It's really funny. Our members love when we get new people throughout the doors; like they love it. So anytime someone's new, yeah, and it's also really cool. Like we're very grateful. I a lot of members have really high retention. So like this week, they were talking about Fright Night, which is our big Halloween event that's coming up, and they were just hyping it up and talking about like how cool it is and like you got to try

Mia Fortunato  29:07  
it. They love the traditions because we we try to do similar like same events every. Like every year, every year we do Friendsgiving, every year we do a New Year's party, Super Bowl party stuff like that. And so when it's coming up, they get really excited

Lauren Abercrombie  29:19  
and they want to share with their friends. I guess.

Scott Groves  29:21  
So, what's the what's the long term plan? Is you open one in Summerlin and then franchise this? You build a build a business across the nation because, like, I don't know that something like this. Again, I had an ex wife who was a speech therapist. My my current wife got lucky on the second one. My current wife worked in education and whatnot, and I don't recall hearing about anything like this in the areas of Los Angeles where I live. So, what's like? Do you guys have big giant business goals to like franchise Inclusion Fusion?

Mia Fortunato  29:47  
We we'd love to have more locations. We'd love to expand outside of Vegas and have other locations. For now, our only location is Henderson, and we love to invest everything we got into this current location. Our community is awesome. Our staff is awesome. But one day, yeah, one day if if we can expand, we'd love to. We like to think this is just the beginning.

Scott Groves  30:05  
And how long has the new location been opened?

Lauren Abercrombie  30:07  
Couple years.

Scott Groves  30:08  
You guys been around doing this for a a while, and this is not like. I mean, I can tell you're running your business like a business as soon as you said you have 20 staff, because I know I know how daunting that is and payroll and this and whatnot. It's like it's a lot. So, what type of people are you looking for to work there? Like, how do you guys select? Because obviously, it probably takes a very unique personality to work with people that have a very unique personality, right? Yeah. So, how do how do you guys source staff?

Mia Fortunato  30:32  
We love anyone who's social and energetic and positive, and so that's kind of the qualities that we're looking for-just someone who can really be social in any given situation, is

Lauren Abercrombie  30:41  
that the kind of person that you meet and you are like, I feel like I've known you my entire life,

Speaker 3  30:45  
yeah.

Lauren Abercrombie  30:45  
But somehow I met you five minutes ago. But

Mia Fortunato  30:48  
we're a little bit mixed with like family and friend connections that kind of helped us start Inclusion Fusion. And so, our one of our managers, Jake, he's my cousin, and he's been with us since the beginning, and he's very instrumental with everything, and then my sister is our office manager, and so there's a few family members. We've just been so I wouldn't say lucky because like I I want to say that Lauren and I have something to do with the people that we've attracted to our company, but we just have really great people that work for us, and just we and they love you start working, and we're like I feel like you've been working here your whole life. Like this is just so great, and so and it's just very genuine connection. Like you could tell, like the difference between like a structured social group where you just kind of like go, but it's so genuine. Some of our staff started as volunteers. Some of our staff through friend connections, like siblings of staff or friends of staff, girlfriends or boyfriends of staff, and so a lot of it is like like word of mouth. But then sometimes it's someone who walks in our lobby and says, "I'd love to work here, and they are the greatest human being ever.

Scott Groves  31:51  
What are some other services that you wish Henderson had, either for this community or other communities that you've come across in your time working in this field? Like what what's missing? Like, do you guys do outdoor activities, or does somebody need to create a, you know, inclusion hiking group, or where what's what's what's missing that you guys would like to see available?

Mia Fortunato  32:09  
I wish that we had more walkable areas. I go, I go and I visit places like Chicago, or like we went to New York City a couple years ago. I wish that Henderson was a little bit more walkable because I think that with walk like walker friendly areas in town, it really does boost community and that whole third place where people connect outside of their homework and they go somewhere. So we love going to like the district and stuff like that.

Scott Groves  32:34  
You guys do outings, or is there like liability issues and stuff with that?

Mia Fortunato  32:37  
Every so often we do outings. We took them to the Golden Nights game, which was awesome, and we sometimes take them to the movie theater, some Silver Knights games, the anime convention, things here and there. But we really do try to focus on our events and everything at our space because that's where we have the staff to support the space to support it safer and everything like that.

Scott Groves  32:57  
And there's more familiarity, which is important.

Speaker 3  33:00  
Yes.

Scott Groves  33:00  
Yeah. What What else is important to your clients? Like, what what do what do they care about? Obviously, the social party is what we're trying to replicate, so that there's not that isolation at home. What else do they care about?

Lauren Abercrombie  33:12  
Well, you know, it's really sweet. Last week, I was talking to one of our members, and they said it's just the people. Like, does not matter at all. Like, what Inclusion Fusion is doing or what they're doing that day? Like, as long as they're with their people, that's all. And I'm like, wait, that's actually

Mia Fortunato  33:26  
that's really yeah. They care about kindness and acceptance, and they feel that

Scott Groves  33:30  
it's just a human trait, right? It's like I go to jutsu because I want to be included, and our and our six a.m. culture is very different than our 6p.m. culture and whatnot. It's like it's just a human condition. So I think you guys are doing like I don't know, for lack of a better term, the Lord's work. I don't care if I don't care if you do as a nonprofit or for profit because everybody's allowed to make money. Tell people how they can get in touch with you if they have somebody that might be a good candidate to come check you guys out and kind of do an interview and whatnot. And so where where are you guys physically, and then where can they find you online?

Mia Fortunato  33:57  
We're located on Sunset and Sunset, right next to FLM Chocolate Factory, or that is

Scott Groves  34:02  
easy, easy landmark.

Mia Fortunato  34:03  
Yes,

Scott Groves  34:04  
like go to FL Make a Left, my favorite sushi place is right there. There's movie theater right there. Right at the

Mia Fortunato  34:08  
galaxy,

Scott Groves  34:09  
I can do everything right there. Yeah.

Mia Fortunato  34:10  
Um. So that's where we're located. They can reach out on our website. That's probably where I would tell them to go and schedule a tour. That's where everyone starts. Is they tour our space. They get to know us a little bit more. We go over all of our programs and what we offer, and then we take it from there. So yeah, that's our website www. inclusionfusion. org.

Scott Groves  34:26  
I appreciate you being here. Like you guys are filling such a void that's needed in the community, and I just I love when I find businesses that are like, we had an idea, we had a passion, we care we care about fixing this problem, and like so we went and made it happen. So kudos to you because a lot of people try to make things happen, and it it fails for a myriad of reasons. So the fact that you guys have a very successful business is just like all the props to you guys on what you guys are doing.

Mia Fortunato  34:48  
Yeah, thank you for the kind words. We love what we do, so we'll continue doing it forever.

Scott Groves  34:51  
I would have never guessed. Oh, hey,

Mia Fortunato  34:53  
we could talk about all day long.

Scott Groves  34:55  
It's awesome. Well, thank you so much for being in. We'll make sure we get this out to everybody.

Mia Fortunato  34:58  
Sweet, thank you.

Scott Groves  35:01  
Hey, it's Scott Groves with the Henderson HQ podcast. I hope you got something out of that episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps the show grow. And by the way, if you are a business owner or you know a business owner who has an interesting product, service, or just an interesting backstory, please, please get in touch with us. Email us at thehendersonhq@gmail.com. We would love to interview you because that's what this show is all about. It's about building community, supporting local, individually owned businesses, and just making Henderson a great place to live. And don't forget, go to hendersonhq.com and make sure you sign up for our newsletter. We send out a once a week newsletter, no spam, about the most interesting local businesses, hotspots, restaurants, community events. Thanks for watching the show. Really appreciate you.