Morgan's Wonderland: A Place Where Everyone Is Welcome
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Welcome to the Jason in the House podcast. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and thanks for joining us. Appreciate your time. You're going to like this one because I got to tell you, this one will touch your heart. Some really informative about big political figures that we know and see, and you just kind of wonder, gosh, how did they do that? Where did they come from? How is it that they put this all together?

And this is slightly different than this. I had a chance to interview Gordon Hartman when I was substitute hosting for Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. And we're going to talk to him today on the podcast because I really wanted to have an extended view of what he's built with what's called Morgan's Wonderland. Morgan's Wonderland. You might want to search that on your internet, DuckDuckGo or something like that.

And if you're from the San Antonio, Texas area, you know what this is about because it really is a special place. We're going to have some thoughts on the news. Then we're going to highlight the stupid because, as we know, there's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. But then we're going to get into it with Gordon Hartman. And you're going to learn about one of the most innovative, neat things that's going on in this world that is just...

Makes you feel good in Morgan's Wonderland. But until then, let's talk a little bit about the news. Touch on all different kinds of news. And if you missed this one back in December, I really wanted to highlight it again because with all the comings and goings with the new year and Christmas and all the different stories out there, sometimes these warm your heart stories are

Miss and I just want to make sure you know about what was happening in Louisiana. There was a dog. His name is Artemis and this is a special kind of dog. Now we could probably fill the podcast every week, every day doing stories about animals doing wonderful things and how lovely and connected they are to their owners. But this particular family had a four year old and a seven year old.

And evidently they have, you know, a pretty good place down there in Louisiana. And these kids were off playing and somehow wandered off. Now, fortunately, the dog, Artemis, was with them.

And as they went further and further out there, the kids got lost. And parents realized, hey, where are these kids? They're yelling, they're screaming. They finally get to the point of exasperation where they call for help from the authorities. And so Good Search and Rescue put together fairly quickly, hours after they went missing. But you can imagine these young kids, and it's cold. It's not exactly hot out. It's not like the heat of the summer anymore.

And as the story goes, they started calling and what they found when they interviewed and talked to particularly to the seven-year-old, but also the four-year-old, is that the dog always kept them in their sights. And when they got cold and they got tired...

And they had to sit down and rest. The dog laid down with them and kind of on top of them to give them some warmth and to protect them. The dog never, ever left their side. In fact, as the search and rescue was getting closer, the dog got up and started circling the kids and created a perimeter where they would not allow anyone

the search and rescue people to get to the kids. They were barking and that dog was just not going to let anybody get next to those kids until the owner showed up, called off the dogs and the kids were reunited with their parents. Now that is the kind of great story that you just love. I mean, they're hungry, they're tired, they're scared, they're away, they don't, they're lost.

And they huddled down with that dog that gave them this comfort that they will remember for the rest of their lives. I love stories like this and that dog, I'm not letting any other person come near these kids. He knew who these kids were. Just a great story. I didn't want you to miss it. Um, also want to go back and touch on this omnibus vote. It's just still really, really bothering me that 18 Republican senators, and it's just worth highlighting here. They had a choice.

They were literally two weeks away from turning the corner into the new year on Friday.

and having a Republican Congress in place. But no, they decided not to do that. They decided that, hey, we will give the Democrats the necessary votes because they had to reach the 60-vote threshold. And for those of you that haven't been in Congress, I know this gets complicated, okay? There are certain votes where you have to get to 60 votes to invoke what's called cloture.

And there are other votes where you need a simple majority. This was one that you needed to get to 60 votes. But because so many senators were saying, yeah, we're going to go ahead and join with the Democrats, they were left with no choice. And it ends up that 18, I believe it was, senators voted yes with the Democrats. You know what? I hope over the course of time, people sort out all the... Literally, there were like 7,500 earmarks, which is...

you know, the sugar that makes the medicine go down well. It's amazing how many people bend over backwards because of some road or bridge or dam or something and go ahead and sign off on $1.7 trillion. Now, remember, roughly, in very rough terms, about 75% of the budget each year is mandatory programmatic spending. It is not appropriated by Congress. It happens whether or not Congress approves it.

because it's mandatory programmatic spending. And it's not just Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security. Those are the big three. But it's supplemented by hundreds and hundreds of other programs that you've never heard of that continue on in perpetuity. And then on top of that, the $1.7 trillion. You know what's in that?

Defense. Defense is not mandatory programmatic. That requires an appropriation every year. And a lot of conservatives, a lot of people like Lindsey Graham say, oh, well, you know, we have to increase the funding for defense. Unfortunately, the Democrats say, well, if you're going to do that with defense, then you have to do it with domestic spending. Not because of anything other than, well, if you get an extra dollar for defense, then we want an extra dollar for our social programs.

You can see why we're $31, $32 trillion in debt. Anyway, all right, let's move and bring on the stupid. Because you know what? There's always somebody doing something stupid somewhere. All right, I want to go. There's been a lot of...

royalty in England and the UK lately. But I want to highlight something Prince William did. Now, Prince William seems to be the more rational person, certainly the more rational brother out there. I have tremendous respect for the Queen. I think the Queen was an iconic person. She was the right person at the right time for literally for decades.

But we got some more elves who do some stupid stuff. Now, I'm not saying that anybody did anything wrong, but the picture here has just a dude, has just a guy. I'm just saying, brother, you can't go do this. The word was, assuming the story was reported properly, that Prince William, according to foxnews.com,

went by himself to a reception at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Gloucester, England, where he witnessed Rose Farquhar marry George Gemmell. Now, here's the problem. He was really friendly with Rose. And I'm just saying, we don't know how friendly he was with Rose along the way,

But when you're a married man, you just don't go solo like that when you're such a high profile person with somebody that we think you might have dated. That's just bad form. Just saying. Not a good look. Kind of stupid to do it.

All right, next one. We always have some, you know, criminals that do stupid stuff. We could do a whole thing on just law enforcement, again, every single day. But the Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance, California. There was a robbery. It occurred at a jewelry store. Four people wearing masks went in with hammers, gloves. They're destroying glass display cases. They're grabbing as much jewelry as possible.

According to Fox in Los Angeles. Had moved, though, because you know what? That little jewelry store happened to be next door to a Marine recruiting center. Two of the would-be suspected perpetrators got away. But two of the suspects, well, the Marines took care of that. They detained them until the police arrived. And...

You know, maybe think through where you're creating these robberies. Hopefully nobody was hurt except the would-be robbers. They were detained. Police came and picked them up. Now, being in California, I don't know that they're even going to get prosecuted. I hope they should. They should. But hats off to the Marines for actually stepping up and saying, hey, wait, something's going on next door, and then getting in the fracas and putting these people down so that the police could arrive in time and detain them. Well, that is bringing on the stupid me.

All right, now I want to introduce somebody, Gordon Hartman. I literally was on Instagram and stumbled upon this and saw and then kind of clicked through until I found Morgan's Wonderland.

I don't want to tell you too much about it because I want Gordon to talk about it. But he is the founder with he and his wife. And I just really touched by what they did and how they did it. So let's hear their story. And let's dial up Gordon Hartman. Hello. Hi, Gordon. This is Jason Chaffetz. Hey, Jason. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. You know, thank you so much for joining me. I kind of stumbled across Morgan's Wonderland. I literally stumbled on it. I was just surfing around, wasting a little time on Instagram, and I saw a little clip. And I thought, oh, that sounds interesting. And I thought, oh, I'll type in Morgan's Wonderland into my DuckDuckGo browser. And then I was off to the races, and here we are chatting.

Well, I'm glad we have a chance to chit-chat. There's a lot to talk about. As you probably saw as you were going through, we're not just Morgan's Wonderland anymore. We're doing a whole lot of things to bring about more inclusion. Okay, so let's go back to the beginning because all I saw was on the website, right? And it basically said that, you know, you had a daughter, you love her, you care for her.

But tell us and walk us through this whole story and how this all came about. Well, in April of the 18 years since I had the opportunity to sell numerous businesses that I had, I was in home building, land development, mortgage company, title company, a lot of different businesses. And that was back in 2005. And

I made the decision to sell all the companies and commit the second half of my life, if you will, I was 41 at the time, towards assisting individuals with special needs and disabilities. So we sell the company and, or the companies, and I immediately started looking at the formation of a foundation to assist people with special needs and disabilities.

And that was in late 2005. And then in 2006, Morgan's Waterland, the whole concept of Morgan's Waterland was not even on my radar. What I was simply doing at that time was giving funding to different nonprofits that would assist individuals with special needs. But what happened was we were on a family vacation in 2006. And Morgan and I went down to the pool just to kind of splash around.

At that time, Morgan was a teenager, and because Morgan has a cognitive delay and also some physical special needs, her ability to co-mingle sometime, if you will, with individuals who may not have any special needs sometimes can be difficult.

So we jump, we get into the pool together and then it's a small pool, small hotel. And she and I are kind of just having some fun splashing around. And I got out of the pool and just kind of was watching her. And I noticed her continuing to watch three other children at the other end of the pool. Two of them were throwing a ball back and forth and Morgan kept inching her way down toward them. And as she did that, she got close enough to where she was able to hit the ball.

She wasn't able to say, hey, guys, can I play? She just she hit the ball. And that was her way of saying, I want to be included. I want to be a part of what you guys are doing. This looks like fun. And unfortunately, these very nice children, I mean, they seem like really nice kids, but

The young kids grabbed the ball, the three of them, and ran out of the pool because they were scared. They didn't recognize that Morgan was simply trying to say, hey, I want to be a part of this. So I jumped in the water and started having some fun with Morgan, but it kept staying on my mind about the fact that all Morgan wanted to do is I had a lump in my throat as I watched that. All she wanted to do was be included. She just wanted to be a part, and because she wasn't able to communicate that properly, she wasn't able to.

So we kept thinking about it. We come back to San Antonio, my wife kept and she and I kept talking about, you know, it's hard for us to go to certain places because of sounds and because of lights and so many different issues that Morgan has because of her cognitive special needs and being on the autistic spectrum. So what we did is we said, where is a place we can take Morgan where she's going to feel comfortable?

And we looked around and a lot of people mentioned different places to us. And we looked into them further and we said, no, that's not what we're looking for. So we said, you know what? Why don't we build a place that can allow Morgan and all of her friends and everybody, whether you have a special need or not, come to one place and enjoy it and enjoy it and have an atmosphere where everyone is included, no matter how acute their special need may be or how they may not have any special need at all.

And so that was the beginning of the discussion. So we came up with the idea of having a meeting. We had the meeting and over 100 people showed up and said, "What are y'all thinking about?" We said, "We're thinking about this park or this idea, this theme park." So we start that whole process. This is 2000 now, late 2006, early 2007.

So the idea was, hey, there's interest here. So we started with the idea of coming up with a theme park that would be ultra accessible, fully inclusive, meaning everyone is welcome. You know, when you think about it, Jason, 15% of the population has some form of special need. It's one of the largest minorities that exist around the world, a billion people worldwide. And yet there's many times those individuals don't feel comfortable

that they feel like they're included whereas at morgan's wonderland you always feel you're included because out of every four people who come into our welcome center three do not have a special need one does on the average about 25 percent of for the folks that come in but that 25 percent are able to do things they never thought they could do before they're able to ride on rides and never thought they could ride on before because what we did at morgan's one is we made adjustments we went to people and said let's take a time out and let's

build this for 100% of the population, not 85% of the population. So what I just told you was a very quick, a little bit long, but a quick story of how Morgan's Wonderland came about. And that's the beauty of the podcast because you can go a little deeper and you can tell these stories. Now, I'm looking at the morganswonderland.com website and I'm seeing these videos and things like, for instance, there's a swing and there's a child in a wheelchair in the swing.

Now, I hadn't seen that before. Tell us about some of the things that you can do that nobody else is really doing. And by the way, is this the only thing like it in the United States? Because...

I look at Disneyland and I see a lot of people with special needs there. They love the Disney characters. I mean, it's a huge operation, right? But there's a lot of things that they can't do there too. And I don't want to put you in an awkward position trying to compare yourself to Disney, but I'm just saying, I know there's a demand. So is anybody else doing this?

Well, a couple of things. Number one, anytime you want to compare me to Disney, you can, Jason. All right, fair enough. I'm going to deny you that opportunity. Seriously, being serious. In respect to our others doing it, Morgan's Wonderland, back when we built it 12 and a half years ago, cost $36 million to build.

And because many of the things that we did are unique, so we had to work with people so that everyone could get on the off-road adventure ride.

So that everyone could get on the Ferris wheel. So everyone could get on all the different activities there, no matter how acute. If someone is on a breathing apparatus, visually impaired, hearing impaired, that they could do whatever they want to do right next to someone who may not have any special needs at all.

So has that actually ever been 100% replicated? The answer is no. However, what we do know is that people have come in and taken parts and pieces, if you will, and made adjustments to train rides and other things that we have done that shows how a place can be ultra accessible. And so we know that there's been a lot of replication. We know also there's been small mortgage one lands built, maybe in the $2 million to $4 million range.

But nothing of the level of what we have done. But the beauty of that is since we have built Morgan's Wonderland, we've also built Morgan's Inspiration Island, which is a water park. Same concept, except you add water. Morgan's Wonderland sports so that everyone can play sports no matter what their situation right next to someone else.

pickleball, tennis, soccer, baseball, basketball. We also have a camp that has a zip line that goes 13 stories high that again, if someone is on a breeding apparatus or in a wheelchair, they can do it just like anybody else. Someone in a wheelchair can play 22 feet above the ground with a friend who they never thought they'd ever have that possibility to do. And then recently we opened up the multi-assistance center at Mortgage One Land, which deals with medical, therapeutic, and social determinants of health.

So we're just getting started in many ways, Jason, with respect to the whole idea of inclusion and the whole concept of saying, hey, there's a large segment of the population that many times is looked over, is not at the table, as I often say, and not given the opportunity to do things simply because we haven't made small adjustments.

You know, what we have done over at Mortgage Well Land at the website you're looking at, there's small adjustment. We're not making major, major adjustments. We're simply going to manufacturers and saying, "Hey guys, small adjustments will make a big difference." By you allowing on the carousel, as an example, someone with a wheelchair that's able to get on a platform, and that platform goes up and down like the rest of the animals, and they feel like they're part of that animal or riding that animal while they're in their wheelchair,

That allows for so many more people and opportunity, but not just for them, but for their parents and their caregivers and their friends and their associates and for them. It helps everybody bring about the whole element of inclusion. That's what we're doing. Not overly magical, but simply a timeout to say, let's make sure it's for everybody.

Well, the people of San Antonio, Texas are pretty fortunate to have you in their backyard. I'm sure you had a vision for it when you started, but how is it different now that you've had the operation? Because any business that you start, you have one idea and then you get going and you have to overcome hurdles and challenges and adapt and whatnot. What surprised you along the way and what alterations and how did it turn out maybe differently than you originally anticipated?

Yeah, first of all, I want to mention to you, we've had people from 122 countries now in all 50 states. So even though we're in San Antonio, people come from all over the world because they can do things at Morgan's One Line and Morgan's Inspiration Island they can't do anywhere else. We're the only place in the world.

We're the only place in the world that has a water park that has pneumatic wheelchairs. Our wheelchairs actually go underwater. So we have a lot of unique things that allow people full independence, full inclusiveness, if you will. What has been different? What do we have to change? You know, not a whole lot. Let me tell you why we've been very blessed, Jason. And that is when we started this process, I mentioned early on that we brought a meeting together of some folks and said, hey, this is something we think we ought to do. How do we go about doing it?

and that was a very uh beginning of a process of everything that we do you know my daughter morgan she has certain special needs both uh cognitively and physically but she's just one of i often say that having a special need is kind of like having a fingerprint everyone is a little different and that's what we had to account for how could we make this place as

as accommodating for no matter what someone's need may be.

And so what we have found is that it's pretty accommodating because we've brought individuals with special needs, their families, their caregivers, everybody into the room with us as we designed this. And I can tell you, we designed Mortgage Well Land and we did site plans and we did another one, then we did another one and we did another one. And we just kept refining and refining until we finally said, yeah, that's it. So I think we did a pretty good job. The one mistake we made when we originally opened Mortgage Well Land was this.

I felt that based on the clientele that we would have, knowing that a good percentage of people outside the norm in respect to the percentage would have special needs, that they would want really healthy food.

And that was my, I would say that that was something that people said, Gordon, this is still a theme park. You still got to have the hot dogs and the cotton candy on that. So we had to add those kinds of things, even though many of the, some of the people who come to Morgan's one land are on special diets. We actually have a set aside location for them to in privacy. If they need to,

work on, you know, use a feeding tube or have to work with a special diet. We have a special location that they can go to. So again, they feel comfortable. They know when they come there that everything is going to accommodate their needs and they can be included. They're not going to be excluded. But if they want to do something in privacy when it comes to maybe eating a different kind of food because of a requirement they have, they can't. So I would have to say that was probably one of the few things that we had to make an adjustment on is that

A lot of the folks said, you know, this is nice, Gord, but we kind of want some of that food that, you know, you get at a theme park. Hey, count me in on that because I'm going to come busy at some point. And if there ain't a good corn dog, you know, it's – I just – I worry about that. I was talking to Frazier Bullock once as a little aside. Frazier was the CFO of the Olympics here in Utah, the 2002 Winter Olympics.

And I remember hearing him speak or I can't remember if it was a speech or just talking with him. I said, you know, I asked him a very similar question and said, what would you have done different? He said, oh, hot dogs. I'm just telling you, we did not order enough hot dogs. Number one mistake we made at the Winter Olympics, more hot dogs. I can relate to what he's saying. I mean, you know.

I hate to say this, but when people go, I don't hate to say this, but it's a true reality. When people go to a place like a theme park, and when you go to Morgan's One Land, it's like going to any other theme park. It's not a park for individuals with special needs. It doesn't look like a park for individuals with special needs. It's a place for everybody to enjoy. And so we wanted to make sure, and the mistake I made was, well, everybody's going to want to eat healthy. No, not the case. So I agree 100% with him.

But it's for everybody. Some people may not be able to enjoy those because they're on a select diet, but those who want it can have it. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be back with more of my conversation with Gordon Hartman right after this.

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Tell me about the pricing here, because again, I'm going to my just looking at this thinking theme parks. You know, one of the problems that Disneyland is it's priced. It's it's so expensive and there's lines out that I mean, nobody wants to go wait for, you know, an hour and a half to go on a Peter Pan ride after having paid two hundred dollars to get in the door. How have you dealt with that?

Well, first of all, one of the things that we do, if you have a special need, you get in for free. Wow. And we made that, and that's everything we do. Not just Morgan's Hawaiian, but Morgan's Inspiration Island, the camp, our sports facility, everything we do. And the reason for that, Jason, is because I often talk to people about how Morgan is one of the lucky ones. Even though she has to deal with so many different issues because of her special need and disability.

She has resources to be able to ensure that she can do what she needs from the standpoint of caregivers, from the standpoint of medicines, doctors, therapies, all that. She's one of the lucky ones. And so I recognized that very early on that many times people who had to buy all these medicines and deal with all these therapies and costs would

but many times would not do it if we charged every time they came to morgan's one so it's free now if someone who does not have a special needs comes uh our cost right now for a ticket is uh 18 for a full day you can stay as long as you want you can go to the water park you can do when the water parks open when it's when it's warm enough and you can do all it's 18 we don't charge for parking

We don't-- the food, you can bring in food if you wish to yourself. We'll store it for you until you're ready to eat at one of our many eating areas.

because you may not be able to or you may not want to buy our food or not be able to because of special diets and or also to cut costs. Let's say there's 10 of y'all coming. We can bring a loaf of bread and make your own versus having to buy our hot dog or buy our meal. So we try to do everything we can to keep costs extremely low. Yeah, but how do you stay in business? I don't know how much money you made, Gordon, but how does this thing stay in business if it's so inexpensive?

Well, what we do is, first of all, a couple of things. Number one, between this venue and all the other venues that we have, we have worked very hard to make sure we have no debt.

And because if we had debt on everything that we do, it would cost us tremendously more. Secondly, one of the things that we are grateful for is organizations like Toyota, who is a presenting sponsor of Mortgage One Land, along with many other large organizations.

who have over the years and more in particular, probably over the last six months or past year, have really started to see all the other things that we're getting involved in when it comes to the area of inclusion. Because you don't make, every time you lose a dollar, you don't make it up in volume, okay? So, yeah, you're right. It's something where we do not make money at any of our venues. But what we do is, my foundation along with, but more importantly, and much more importantly,

it's just people coming together to say yes this is the right thing this is the stuff that needs to be done to ensure inclusion and that because of that and because of the morgan's one land reputation now in particular now that we've been around twelve and a half years and have gone through 13 seasons people want to be a part of what we're doing and we're excited about that that's why we're expanding so much more that's why next year

we'll be adding a bunch more activities to Morgan's World. And the following year, we'll be building even some more activities to deal with assisting individuals with acute special needs to make sure they feel included. So in many ways, Jason, we're just getting started. And to me, this is a passion. This is a calling. I was blessed to have a daughter who had special needs and opened my eyes to the fragileness of life. And what I have found is that people want to see those such as Morgan's and the

hundreds of millions, literally a billion people around the world, but some 49 million have special needs just in the United States. They want to see them included. They want to see them as a part of everything that we many times who may not have a special need possibly could take for granted. So all that combined is what's allowed us to be able to cover the loss, if you will, that we have on a continual basis through both Mortgage Well and all of our other venues.

Well, what a special blessing to so many people. You've touched so many families. Does it surprise you that, do you say 75% of the people that are coming through the doors don't have special needs? They just, they want to come and enjoy it as well? Yes. First of all, we didn't know if that would work, Jason. We built this place and we said, we're going to open it and we hope that concept works where everyone will want to join together and play. And what we find is

First of all, it's incredibly helpful for the individual who has special needs because

their self-esteem, their ability to see that they're included means so much to them. It is something that just, the families and the caregivers, they see it and they acknowledge how this truly has, I mean, I get letters and emails from people all the time saying, my daughter, my son, my so-and-so who I take care of never ever thought they would ride on a carousel, never thought they would ride on a carousel.

an off-road adventure ride and actually be in the car itself and actually be in a wheelchair while they're able to do that because of the way we did something different. Not overly difficult, but just got outside the box. So that's what's important to us is that we allow opportunities for everybody, but we wanted to build it in a fashion so that it was built

for everyone, but with special needs in mind. And that basically was our concept from day one. And so people come and many times don't have anyone with special needs, but they just enjoy Morgan's Wonderland. And they enjoy Morgan's Inspiration Island and all these other activities that we have. And so they're joining in. And here's the second part of it I think that's cool.

is that you have those who are helping. It helps individuals with special needs, but it also in particular is an education for people who don't have special needs. Right, right, right. Families come there and bring their kids, and basically it's an education for them to say, hey, it's okay. It's okay to play with that child who is in a wheelchair, or maybe that child who can't communicate, or that child who maybe...

has something a little different about them that are an adult. I mean, we're about all ages, you know. Special needs doesn't end at 18 or 21. It continues on. My daughter is now 29 and her special needs are very similar to the ones she had when she was two. So, and that's what this is a learning process. It's really a learning place as well, as well as a fun place. And I think that's why

We get people that come from so far from around the world to see it because it is so much, if you will, outside the box of a place that you would think, well, only certain people are going to go there. No, this is for everybody. And that's what it's all about. It's a place of inclusion. Well, I think you're right. I think that whole concept of inclusion also means maybe children who –

their special need maybe isn't as apparent and they just haven't had experience being around somebody who's

autistic or maybe somebody who's in a wheelchair who doesn't maybe or maybe has a speech impediment or you know I mean there's an infinite number of topics right and they just haven't had that experience but you know kids if they're having fun and they're playing and they're enjoying things and they're doing things like you know climbing the wall as I look at the Morgan's Wonderland camp you know

A child who was in a wheelchair is actually doing this climbing wall. Like, I didn't think you could do that. They probably didn't think they could do that. But if that child who doesn't, who isn't in a wheelchair does it with somebody in a wheelchair, then they're, you know, it's going to be,

quote unquote normal, or it's not going to scare them off like the story you told with your daughter in the pool. Bingo, Jason. I think that's the key. That's exactly right. What we are trying to do with all what we do, and remember that I said earlier, we're just getting started. There's so much more we can do and want to do to bring about more inclusion. But I think you hit a key point there. The next time there's a pool situation like that,

that may exist, we want to where somehow those children would have had an experience and would have said, yeah, come on and play. I get it. You want to play? Sure. Of course we want to play. They wouldn't have gotten out of the pool so quickly and been somewhat scared of the fact that someone who maybe was coming to them a little bit in a different fashion and couldn't communicate and couldn't say, I want to play.

They got scared. And I can understand. I'm not faulting those kids. But what we want to do is bring that barrier down. We want to allow that the next time that occurs, that those children go, yeah, play. Let's all play together. This is good. And that's what we're about. That's what we're about. Yeah. And then later when they're working together or going to school together, then it's just kind of the way life is. And there's more understanding and more understanding.

I think you're right. Explain to me a little bit more about these camps because you've also expanded to have camps. Now, one of the things I see, at least on the website, is it shows a picture with a couple of kids in a wheelchair by a fire.

I don't know what it is about campfires. I'm just telling you, campfires are magical. Campfires open up people. They talk. They think. They share. They laugh. There is something magical about campfires. At least with our own family, that's been my experience. We're blessed here in Utah to live by some of the most gorgeous big mountains in close proximity as you can possibly imagine. So you go up the canyon.

and go share a campfire, kids open up, adults open up like you don't have in any other situation. But gosh, I worry these kids growing up in inner cities, in places maybe that don't have mountains or maybe have limitations with the wheelchair, it's hard to have that kind of experience.

So I know that's but one of the things you're doing there. These camps, what's the intention there and what are you doing with the camps? Well, I do want to come back to your campfire, but let me mention why we built the camp. Sure.

Everything we do is inspired by Morgan in some way. When we noticed what happened in the pool, Mortgage One Island. When Morgan wanted to get involved in enjoying water activity, we built Morgan Inspiration Hour. Mortgage One Island Sports came about because one time we were watching baseball and Morgan was giving me the...

a sense that she wanted to play. And so we built a sports facility that includes many, many different sports, including baseball. And then the camp came about because if I was to call 10 camps in the state of Texas and explain Morgan's condition, nine of them,

Let's say that's great, but I'm sorry we can't accept her because of this or because of that. Right. And so because there are millions of children and adults who have a desire to want to camp, to go camping.

We built an ultra accessible, fully inclusive camp. It's located only about 15 minute drive from Mortgage Wonderland. Why so close? Because when someone comes to a camp for a week, they can spend one day at Mortgage Wonderland, they can spend one day at Morgan's Inspiration Island, they can spend one day at Mortgage Wonderland Sports if they want to. But in addition to that, they can go horseback riding, they

they can go on five different swimming type of activities lazy river they can do different type of sports activities they can do arts and crafts they can do a zip line they can do uh the the challenge wall that you mentioned um

earlier because it really allows an opportunity for those with and without special needs to come together. And because it's a camp that can sleep about 600 folks, many times we can have three camps going. One camp, no one has any special needs at all. It's just, it's a church camp as an example. One camp that may be children and adults with spina bifida and another camp that may be some folks that just want to have a weekend at a camp. They're all there together enjoying each other.

and having fun. And again, bringing inclusion together, bringing people with and without special needs together, an element of having fun, in this case, having a camp activity. Going back to the campfire, what we do many times when we have campfires, we surround the campfire, if you will, and when

Our campfire is on, you may see there on that website, is actually part of our butterfly. Because everything we do is represented with a butterfly. That's our symbol, if you will. And in the middle of that butterfly is actually the body of the butterfly, which is, in effect, the area where we do these campfires at the Mortgage One Land camp.

And many times what we will do is children and adults who, and this isn't because they have a special need, whether they have a special need or not, we will ask all the campers to write down the one thing that they wish they could do

make their lives better, if you will. And if that means that they want to do this or they want to do that or whatever the case may be or something that would... And they write that down and sometimes we have to write it for them or sometimes through certain help of communication we're able to understand what you want us to put on that piece of paper. And they throw that piece of paper into that fire.

to try to say, I'm going to rid myself of that. Now, that may not all be reality, but a lot of them who come and see us do have certain situations that are dire, and they want to at least have that chance for that hope. And so we use that campfire in a very unique way many times to give them that hope that maybe that child or adult who's attending Mortgage Well-Earned Camp who has cancer are

And many of them, we even have a setting at Morgans Woodland Camp for those who know, we know this will be the last time they ever go camping. And so we have a special area that they can go camping, still joining in with everybody, but to make sure that they can really enjoy it to that certain level, knowing that this will probably be their last time to ever do that. And we want everyone to enjoy that and be a part of that. But that campfire is a special moment for us because it allows them an opportunity

They try to rid themselves of that thought for a while, or give them hope that maybe a life without that might be possible. And it's amazing what that has done for so many of them to talk about how that has brought a connection with them and others that sit around that campfire. Because no one knows what everyone's writing on that piece of paper. No one knows what the other person is putting in. But collectively, they're all saying,

We're here. Things are going to be better. We're all in this together to make lives better for everybody. So the campfire is a big deal at Mortgage Well Land Camp. Well, I told you, campfires are magical. And I just love that idea and the concept of what you're doing. I haven't experienced it like you described it, but I can only imagine it. And what a powerful tool. And, you know, I'm telling you, I'm just jealous of Texas and

And the good city of San Antonio there, because you are building something that is absolutely wonderful. You're listening to Jason in the House. We'll be right back.

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Now, you alluded to what the future looks like. I mean, you could pick any one of these and go full throttle and I'd be thoroughly impressed. But the idea that I've seen like six of these different things, it's just amazing to me. You obviously know business and how to build business. That gave you the means to be able to kick this thing off and get her going. But what do you see in the future? Where do you want to go that you haven't gone yet?

Well, one area that we just opened in October was the multi-assistance center at Morgan's Winterland. It's a 165,000 square foot building that is located across from Morgan's Winterland.

And the idea of it is to allow for individuals of all ages who have special needs an opportunity to get medical, therapeutic, and social determinants of health, social service health, if you will. That may be food insecurities. That may be legal help, whatever the case may be. And many times, things like that fall through the cracks. Individuals with special needs and disabilities many times cannot

achieve the services they need because they simply don't know how to, for lack of a better term, a term that we use a lot here, able to navigate the system, able to understand the system of how to do these different things. So when you come to the Multi-Assistance Center at Morgan's Winterland, you come in, we do a full understanding of your entire situation.

both from a medical, therapeutic, and social service, whatever that need may be. And we try to understand where those gaps are and or who your doctors are, or if you need a doctor, because we have a medical home here, we have a therapeutic home here, and then we have 33 community-based organizations all within this one building. So the

So now you have all these people directly at your disposal to be able to, after we fully understand what your situation is, and we put it into our Mac now, which is a special electronic platform that we developed.

uh called the mac now which fully illustrates every one of your your entire situation whether it be a medical situation whether that be a cognitive issue a physical issue whatever whatever those needs may be and we try to pinpoint how we can work alongside you basically as a

as a coach, if you will, as a partner, as a navigator, working alongside also with this electronic platform to make sure you do not fall through the cracks anymore. Why is that important? Because I go back to Morgan.

Morgan has the doctors and the therapists and all the resources necessary. She's the exception to the rule. Why should Morgan, because I'm able to make a phone call and access some things that maybe others can't,

be given special rights or opportunities that others everyone should have everyone should have an opportunity to understand if they've got a medical problem how they can access a doctor and if they can't access them here at the mac then we go out and find a doctor in the community and through the mac nav we make sure we monitor make sure they show up for that they know where to go for the doctor's appointment make sure that everything is fully described and the beauty of that is they tell their story one time

When Morgan was growing up, my wife and I would tell Morgan's story every time we went to a doctor or a therapist or whatever. We had to tell the story over and over and over. Here, you don't do that anymore. You tell the story once.

And that story, if you will, goes out to all different folks who can help her or help the person with special needs through the MAC now. And so we think this is a whole new approach about how to make sure that individuals with special needs and disabilities don't fall through the cracks anymore. It's not fair to them. It's not fair simply because...

don't have monetary means they don't have uh access normal access that they can get that it's possible simply by understanding how to go through the process we're not giving them anything special these opportunities exist out there but they don't know how to navigate it we're going to help them navigate through this whole process no i've always thought that's one of the biggest challenges there are a lot of

great organizations that can provide great benefits. It's just there's such a multitude of them. And how do you contact them? And who do you contact? And unless you have somebody coaching you along or

I mean, I'm looking at it's morganswonderlandmac.com and then I'm looking at it and I'm seeing the scrolling list of people that are or organizations that are there to assist and they're all in one big building. It's so again, there's a degree of jealousy here because as a community, I can't believe how just wonderful this is and it's just makes so much sense and

Heaven help you. You are touching so many lives. I know you've probably gotten a lot of hugs and pats on the back, but add another one to your list here because this is as impressive as anything I've just ever seen. It's just amazing. And it's just really, really neat to see.

Well, I appreciate your comments very much, Jason. I really do because we think we're on to something when it comes to the multi-assistance center. We know we are. I mean, we opened in October. We have over 5,000 people already wanting in. We're bringing them in slowly into the process. We're only about 8%, 9% capacity right now. We'll eventually be at full capacity at about 10,000 people, but it takes time to bring everybody in because we have to go through a process. So within about 8,

18 months, we'll have everybody fully processed and into the system. But, you know, the unfortunate thing about the MAC is that it's only helping 10,000 people. Just in Bexar County alone, which is the county of which San Antonio sits in, has over 215,000 people who have some form of special need who could use

The math. We had 20 of these. We could help everybody. So we're just scratching the surface. But this is the beginning of something that we think has opportunity in many different forms that actually can play a super role in being able to assist those who have special needs that many times just don't.

are not at the table. And I think that's a lot of what we're trying to do with everything that we do, Jason, between Mortgage Well Land, Mortgage Dispensation Island, the sports, the camp, the MAC, the nest, which will be a facility we build for acute special needs in the future, along with a lot of other ideas and things that we're working on. As we're trying real hard to ensure that individuals with special needs by no fault of their own, simply because either they were born with or were in an accident or whatever the case may be,

can have an opportunity to be at the table. To be at the table to say, "Hey, we want to at least be heard. We want to at least have the opportunity. We're not trying to take advantage of the system. We're not trying to do anything. We just want to be heard." And many times, funding things like this simply don't exist. And what we believe is that the MAC will illustrate

how needed certain things that are out there right now are underutilized, could be utilized more just through being able to connect the dots, if you will. That's a lot of what we're doing at the Mac is connecting dots. So this is, like I said at the beginning, what we do is nothing overly difficult or hard. It's just getting outside the box and looking at something different for the purposes of ultimately concluding a solution to the issue that exists that honestly is sitting right in front of us.

I mean, when Morgan had that situation at the pool, we quickly started to say, hey, there's got to be a better way. You know, and then when we were told, no, Morgan can't go to this camp, we can't go. Well, there is a way in which we can do that and we can make it all inclusive. So all it is is getting outside the box and trying to do something a little different. Well, I'm telling it to you, your family, Morgan, more power to you because, yeah,

These are the types of private initiatives that make all the difference in the world. You can wake up every morning and feel great that you're changing people's lives, touching people's hearts, and making the world a better place.

Can't thank you enough. And thanks for joining us here on the Jason in the House podcast. Gordon Hartman, I really, really do appreciate it. Appreciate what you do, what you've done, and what you're going to do in the future. And thanks for joining us. Do appreciate it. Jason, thank you so much for reaching out. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about all the things that we're doing. And if people will go to GoInclusion.com, they can see all the different things that we have going on right now. GoInclusion.com. Hope you don't mind that little plug I gave there, just so that...

People can hear about the different things or see the different things that we're doing and hopefully get involved with us. We're here. We're just getting started. The need is great. And we're all about an inclusive world. Thank you, Gordon. Do appreciate it. See, there are really good people who do a lot of good things in the world. I just love ordinary Americans who do extraordinary things. Now,

The Hartmans were blessed with a lot of resources, a lot of success. But boy, talk about taking that and then exponentially leveraging that for the greater good. It's just amazing what they've done and how they've done it. They just need more of that in the world and

Gosh, I just wish we had these all over the country because what a great and amazing things that they have done. Hope you can subscribe to the podcast. Hope you can rate this podcast. That would be real helpful. I want to remind everybody that you can listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast Plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

Again, I hope you join us next week. There's always somebody to talk to, and I look forward to it. Thanks for allowing us to spend part of your day and night, whatever, with you and listening. And we'll be back with more next week. I'm Jason Chaffetz, and this has been Jason in the House.

I'm Guy Benson. Join me weekdays at 3 p.m. Eastern as we break down the biggest stories of the day with some of the biggest newsmakers and guests. Listen live on the Fox News app or get the free podcast at Guy Benson show dot com.