Listen to the inspiring journey behind the Josh Neuman Foundation on episode 319 of The RV Entrepreneur podcast.
In February 2022, the Neuman’s faced an unimaginable loss—their adventurous and compassionate son, Josh, who at just 22, left a void in their lives.
Josh wasn’t your ordinary young man; he was an avid adventurer, a talented filmmaker, and a downhill skateboarder with a heart as vast as the great outdoors he cherished. His passion extended beyond personal pursuits, as he dedicated his life to positively impacting those less fortunate, leaving an indelible mark on everyone he encountered.
In honor of their son, Chris and Kristin have embarked on a journey of their own, embracing the full-time nomadic lifestyle in their Airstream.
They’ve transformed their grief into a powerful force for good by establishing the Josh Neuman Foundation, which spreads the word to “Live A Good Story” and continues Josh’s legacy of providing clean water, food, and shelter to those in need.
In this emotionally charged episode, we delve into the Neuman’s incredible journey. From the challenges and to the triumphs of establishing and running a non-profit, Chris and Kristin open up about the valuable lessons they’ve learned.
Their unwavering determination to keep Josh’s legacy alive is nothing short of inspiring, and they share their story with honesty and vulnerability.
🚨 Trigger Warning: This episode may be challenging for some parents to hear, but it is also a powerful testament to the Neuman’s courage in celebrating their son’s life and legacy.
Tune in for an emotional and inspiring conversation about embracing adventure, navigating grief, and leaving an indelible mark on the world.
Turning Tragedy Into Purpose: The Inspiring Journey of Chris & Kristin Neuman
Founders of the Josh Neuman Foundation
Your Host: Rose Willard
Learn more about the JN Foundation at:
www.joshneumanfoundation.org
Connect with the JN Foundation:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejnfoundation/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/joshneumanfoundation
Connect with Chris and Kristin:
- Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/our_aurora_adventures/ - Josh’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@JoshNeuman
Rose’s Full-Time RV Living Coaching:
https://resetyourjourney.com/fulltime-rv-coaching/
Listen to The RV Entrepreneur Episode #319
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The RV Entrepreneur #319 Full Episode Transcript:
Turning Tragedy Into Purpose: The Inspiring Journey of Chris & Kristin Neuman – Founders of the Josh Neuman Foundation
KRISTIN: I mean, it’s the most devastating, tragic thing that can ever happen to a parent, but we have to bring good from bad.
RV LIFE: Welcome to the RV entrepreneur podcast. The weekly show for nomads, work campers, RV ers and entrepreneurs looking to earn a living or build a business while enjoying the RV lifestyle. This week’s host is Rose Willard. Let’s settle in and enjoy the RV entrepreneur podcast brought to you by RV life.
ROSE: Hello and welcome to a very heartfelt episode of the RV Entrepreneur podcast. I’m Rose Willard, your host for this week and today I have a truly inspiring episode for you. That’s not only about working from the road, it’s about a profound journey of love, loss, and legacy. Joining me are Chris and Kristin Newman, two incredible souls who have not only embraced the freedom of RV living, but they’re also the founders of the Josh Newman Foundation, a remarkable organization born out of love and resilience. I first met the Newmans back in December of 2022, when they reached out to my husband and I through email and a phone call looking for some boondocking advice, and as we dove into their questions and got to know them better, we were deeply moved by their story and why they decided to go full time in the RV, which is both inspiring and heart wrenching. The heart wrenching aspect is tied to the tragic loss of their son, Josh. I won’t reveal too much just yet. I really want the Newmans to share that part of their journey with you. So today they’ll share their story with honesty and vulnerability and how they transform their grief into a powerful force for good. By establishing the Josh Newman Foundation, which spreads the word to live a good story and continues their son’s legacy of providing clean water, food and shelter to those in need. Additionally, we’ll explore the challenges and triumphs of starting and managing a nonprofit from the road, uncovering the valuable lessons they learned along the way. So, trigger warning this episode may be a little hard for some parents to hear, but it’s also a powerful testament to the Newman’s courage in celebrating their son’s life and legacy. Before we get into this episode, we’ll take a short break to hear from the sponsors that make this show possible.
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ROSE: Okay. Hi Chris and Kristen, thanks for joining me today. Welcome to the podcast.
CHRIS: Hey there. Thank you.
KRISTIN: Thanks for having us.
ROSE: My pleasure. So I first met you, Chris, when you reached out to my husband and I back in December of last year, and you were looking for some RVing and specifically boondocking advice prior to your launching into full time Irving. And it was really wonderful getting to know you and helping to answer your questions, and you told your story and why you both wanted to go full time. And my husband and I just got chills. It’s a it’s an amazing story. It’s incredible. It’s a heavy story, but I can’t wait for you both to share it, the good and the bad. And and then also because this is the RV entrepreneur podcast, we’re going to chat a little bit about the nonprofit foundation that you guys started and run on the road, as well as your main jobs that you’re still a part of back in your hometown. So you’re doing a lot. But why don’t you guys explain to us what your RV lifestyle looks like today, and then also how you got into RV.
KRISTIN: Okay. The lifestyle we’re living right now is we basically live in our RV, traveling for three weeks out of the month, and then every single month we find a place to store it for a week and we fly back to Charlotte, which was our home base really. We lived here for 22 years and we come back here. Chris goes from here to West Virginia to work. He’s an E.R. physician and I work strictly remote. I’m a pharmacist at the hospital here in Charlotte, and I usually go spend time with my mom and my dad who are getting older and help, like, do some taking care of them and doing things around their house for them, while I also work remote during that time period. So our time period back east every time is basically centered around work and just kind of getting our mail here and doing things like that that we have to do, and then we fly back to wherever we left our RV. And then we plan travel for the next three weeks. So that’s kind of been our lifestyle since the beginning of April. So we’re now kind of on month seven, I think, of doing that. And we’re really enjoying just something really different, quite frankly, seeing the US kind of having a different lifestyle, not having the worries of having a home because we don’t have a home now all of our stuff is in storage and we’re just enjoying something different, especially considering everything we’ve been through.
ROSE: Right? No, that’s that’s amazing. And and so go ahead. Tell us a little bit about how you got into Irving now.
CHRIS: Well we’ve always had had the wanderlust. This really is not our first time doing this. When when I finished residency back in the 90s, we actually we bought a 32 foot motorhome and basically traveled the country for three months. This was before it was kind of the chic thing to do, and the only people that did it were retirement people at that time. And everybody gave us a double take because we were in our 20s, traveling the country literally full time for three months in an RV. And we loved it. That was we often will look at each other sometimes and say, when was the best times in our lives? And we look back at that, and that was just amazing. But then, you know, career start, kids come into the into the picture and you kind of get in that work grind for years, and then you’re in it and you kind of forget you’re in it. And this was just kind of our trying to get back to our old roots. We all we love to travel. We rarely go back to the same place more than once or twice. It’s always we have to see new places, new places. And I think this was just a re-ignition of our, just our, our passions of traveling. And just, you know, we love that when we’re in the RV before. So we kind of decided to do it again, you know, we’re not quite retired yet, but with the issues that have happened in our lives, we kind of felt that this was the time to do it.
ROSE: Right? Right. So let’s go ahead and tell us about your family. And that’ll kind of help kick off your story. And what happened.
CHRIS: So we basically have lived in Charlotte now 25 years. Both our kids are born here, raised here their entire lives. Like I said, I work as an emergency medicine physician. I travel now, they call them locums. So. So I travel to underserved areas. Kristen’s full time pharmacist. Luckily, she actually gets to work remotely. She was doing full time in-house for years. And you know, this just allows us to travel. So that’s how we were in Charlotte for 25 years. And, you know, our younger son is now at NC state. Our older son as again his story. Unfortunately, he passed away February of 2022, in a plane crash in Iceland. He was a big, big YouTuber and Instagrammer. He had the largest downhill longboarding channel on YouTube, 1.2 million followers. He had, I think, 180,000 followers on Instagram. He kind of marketed it as more of an adventure lifestyle sort of thing. So as a tragedy, he actually was internationally known. The strategy actually made national news. But I think in order to get, you know, get to this point in Iceland where this plane crash happened, I think we really have to tell Josh’s story from the beginning. If you want to kind of go ahead and start with that, like when he was 12 and how this all started.
KRISTIN: Oh, so when Josh was 12, he actually started it started because he got cut from the baseball team. So I always laugh because sometimes we think the disappointments in our life, we only look at it through that set of lenses. But it actually got him into longboarding because he got cut from baseball. And then he realized, oh my goodness, like, this is my passion. And then he started discovering, wow, I want to be able to photograph myself and video myself because he could see other kids doing it on YouTube, and that just ignited a whole nother passion in him. He realized he had a knack for it. So six months in, he said, I want to be sponsored. I see other people being sponsored. So he was like this budding entrepreneur. So he is.
CHRIS: At 12 years old, 12.
KRISTIN: Years old. He started reaching amazing and he got his first sponsor. Well, just fast forward that and he was forming his own company before he ever graduated from high school. He had multiple deals with different companies that were sponsoring him, not only for a board, for wheels, for clothes, da da da da da. And then he started really reaching out to other companies because he realized not only was his passion longboarding, but he wanted to take his longboard on the road and do it. And places like Switzerland and and Austria and all over the US. And so he started doing travel videography. And so basically by the time he passed away, I mean, he had done deals with LG, Prada, he had GoPro. Gopro took him to Norway to launch one of their video cameras. He had some very amazing opportunities in his 22 years of life because he had such a strong work ethic, and then they also loved how he was to deal with, you know what I mean? He was very business minded, very professional, and he was just a super driven kid. So he just basically said, you know, this is my passion. I’m going to turn it into my job. And he wasn’t afraid to go for it.
ROSE: Well, that is a young budding entrepreneur right there. That’s amazing. I wonder, you know, did you guys really you know, it doesn’t sound like you’ve pushed anything. This was just him and his interest and you allowed him to just dive right into it. You know, you are great parents. That’s.
KRISTIN: Well, it was hard because what he was doing was dangerous. And most people were like, I can’t believe your dad is an emergency room was criticised.
CHRIS: Was criticized as an ER physician, that they’re like, you let your son do this.
ROSE: Well, he’s in good hands.
CHRIS: Well, you know, my reply to that was that this truly was his passion. It wasn’t one of these little fling things that he just did. And I’m like, you know, what kind of father would I be if I told my son they couldn’t do his passions right? You know, and I think with boys, I think you have to you have to assume some risk.
ROSE: Oh, yeah. I have two.
CHRIS: Boys that boys will injure themselves. We have a lot of broken bones between the two of them. Yeah, a lot of E.R. visits. And I think that’s. I was I was kind of that way when I was a kid. I think that’s just. You have to accept that with boys.
ROSE: You do. And you need to let them take those risks, especially when they’re young. So they know how to handle their bodies and how to handle others so that, you know, when they’re older, they’re not making all these crazy mistakes, you know, or injuries out of the norm, you know, that kind of thing.
CHRIS: And as an ER physician, I see this in adults who haven’t quite.
ROSE: Right and they’re.
CHRIS: Like.
ROSE: Clumsy and. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah.
KRISTIN: But honestly Rose, that was only like part of Josh’s story because that was of course, his business side.
ROSE: Right. I know there’s another side. It’s. Yeah.
KRISTIN: So the other side of Josh. We, you know, have always been a big believer in our kids volunteering and seeing other kids that didn’t have as much as them. And so he actually went on two mission trips to Nicaragua. I think all of these things that we expose Josh to, yeah, he had a ripe heart for really wanting to make some kind of meaningful change in the world because he said, I feel very blessed that I was born into the family that I was born into. Not everybody has that opportunity, but I have an opportunity because I’ve been blessed with all of these followers to actually make a difference in the world. And so when he launched his new vision, that was his company, New Vision Media. It was new because our last name is Newman, so he took a play on that when he launched his clothing, his first drop of sweat shirts built a clean water well in Uganda. Wow. And that it seemed like when once he did that, it just was more fuel on his fire for wanting to make a difference in the world. I mean, he was volunteering his last birthday on Earth, which was when he was 22, the August before he died. He was volunteering at a homeless shelter like packaging food for the homeless people in LA.
KRISTIN: He he just felt this great need to improve other people’s lives. And it wasn’t all about him having material things. He said, If I’ve been blessed, I’ve been blessed to really give back. So once he passed away, we were in Iceland. Josh’s body was still in the water because he went down in a plane and a body of water in Iceland. But Chris and I looked at each other and said, this is not the end of his story. I mean, as I mean, it’s the most devastating, tragic thing that can ever happen to a parent. But we’re like, we have to bring good from bad. And his story can’t end like this is not the way he saw his story ending. He wanted to help so many more people and so in his honor, and to keep his legacy alive and to keep the light in the world that he brought to the world alive, and to encourage other people of his generation to really care and have concern for other people that don’t have as much as them. We wanted to be able to continue his legacy in that way, and that’s why we decided to start the Josh Newman Foundation, and.
CHRIS: He had done so much by 22, and actually he’d been interviewed. I think this was an Access Hollywood interview. He actually had an interview, quote, and I’m just going to read this off. He says, this is at 20 years old. My goal is to start a nonprofit in the next five years. I’m trying to do more charitable stuff. End goal is to have a big charity that can change lives around the world.
ROSE: Oh, is it right there? That’s what.
CHRIS: He says. By the time I’m 25, I’m going to have this and, you know, that’s one of those things where we’re like, it.
ROSE: Can’t end there.
CHRIS: It’s such a loss at 22. But yet in 22, he had done so much more than people our age have done. That’s right. And we’re like, can you imagine if he lived the full life, what he would have done, what he would have done in this world. So that was why we’re like, it can’t end this, this end here. We’re going to continue this.
ROSE: Right. Amazing. You are so right. And he lived oh such a good life. And your your whole premise around your foundation is live a good story correct?
KRISTIN: Yeah. One of the shorts on that we had made up this this is live a good story. Love it. Yeah. It’s so.
ROSE: Simple but.
KRISTIN: It’s a simple message. And honestly, I realized that living a good story to everybody looks differently. But the piece that I think everybody needs, because I think this is the way God created all of us was to serve. Right. And so I think if we if we do that in the world in whatever capacity and whatever gifts that we have, that’s part of living a good story, right? So anyway, Josh realized a lot of people didn’t have the opportunity, though. They’re born in a place, you know, like Uganda was the first. Well, he built. These people are born into a community without clean water, so they stay sick. Some of them can’t dream about being a nurse or a doctor or a teacher or whatever, because they’re not even sure they’re going to be alive. And so he said, well, if I can change those kids lives by bringing water into their community, they now can dream about, you know, being whatever they want. And now they’re kids that come into the world will also have a different set of opportunities. So it’s a generational change. It’s not just one generation.
ROSE: It is it affects many generations. And, you know, like you said, you need to have your basic necessities met first so that you can lower that stress. You can think, you can dream, like you said. And that’s so important. I’m so oh chills. So glad you guys are extending this and carrying him on. Amazing. Can you go into the nonprofit now a little bit more business side nonprofit is a business, but can you tell us a little bit about that nonprofit?
CHRIS: Well, first of all, we’re not business people. No, that’s that’s our first hurdle is we’re just worker bees. Business is not something we really have a background in. But so we really had to enlist the help of business people. First thing was you get a lawyer. We had to get a lawyer in Charlotte that dealt with nonprofits and how to apply for them. And we’re originally told it was going to be a very long process. We started this literally in March after he died and they said, expect maybe the fall. But literally I think it was.
KRISTIN: Like eight.
CHRIS: Weeks. Yeah, 6 to 8 weeks. Everything got done. Don’t know how it happened. But with the literally had it by April. Yeah. Wow.
ROSE: That’s impressive. That’s awesome. But we need a lawyer.
CHRIS: We didn’t know. We just had to fill in the spots he told us to fill in and.
ROSE: Right. Just do it and hope for the best. Yeah. And you started it just yourselves. Or was there anyone else involved initially?
CHRIS: So we had one of Josh’s best friends from college and then her dad, who actually big businessman, actually, he lives in Texas, but he would come to Chapel Hill and actually give lectures on business. And that’s actually how they all got together because Josh was in his class.
ROSE: Oh, perfect. All right, so you start the nonprofit, the paperwork’s going through, you get it back, and you say, okay, let’s go. Now what? What did you do after that?
CHRIS: Figure out how to design a website.
ROSE: Yeah.
CHRIS: Which I have no experience in. That was a lot of Google and YouTube videos.
ROSE: All these new skills. Yeah, yeah I understand and.
CHRIS: Actually the website’s doing. Find our biggest hurdle is social media. Yeah. Instagram, Facebook. Because again, you know, we’re in our 50s.
ROSE: I know we’re.
CHRIS: Trying our best.
ROSE: Yeah.
CHRIS: But we’re not from the Instagram age, so. Right. We’ve had to enlist a lot of Josh’s college friends.
ROSE: Was going to say that would be my first guess to start. Yeah. So let’s see, what are some things that one should know about before starting this nonprofit? Is this kind of like a side gig or this could be a full time job.
CHRIS: A full time job easily.
ROSE: Yeah, yeah.
KRISTIN: Paying full time job. Yes. Yeah. It takes a lot of work and it all depends on to kind of what your goals are because and that’s the kind of thing that we struggle with now is like I mean, I look back at what Josh did and he was happy if he did, like he did the initial well with his first launch of sweatshirts and then the December before he died, he committed with us to build another well in in Zimbabwe. So he was doing like that level of commitment. And sometimes it’s hard when you get a YouTube personality like him and you get a business person and they think, oh, this could be huge and this, but that comes with a whole set of pressure along with it. So, I mean, our goal is to hopefully do a water project in America every year and one abroad, because we have a lot of people don’t realize that we have 2 million Americans that don’t have clean water, which is unbelievable. Most people have no idea and then also be able to feed people. We’re very passionate about helping people that don’t have enough food. So if we could do those things every year, we would be happy. It’s not like we desire to grow massive and and it’s not totally our whole life because we still have jobs, you know, we still have other jobs that do pay our income because we’re not taking any money from the foundation. No one is getting paid. We’re basically using all the money to pay the expenses for the foundation and to put back out in order to help people.
ROSE: Okay, that makes sense. Okay. That’s good. Yeah. You still have the jobs back that you go back and forth. Do you ever plan to stop doing that? I mean, are you going to retire? How are things? What are you thinking? We have.
CHRIS: No idea. People. Originally our goal was, yeah, we’ll do this for a year or so.
ROSE: Yeah.
CHRIS: You know, at this point everybody’s like, well, come April, where are you going to be living? Where are you gonna be doing? And we’re like, we have no idea.
ROSE: Don’t know. Yeah. You can’t you can’t sell. No it.
ROSE: Changes. Yeah.
CHRIS: We’re enjoying traveling so much. Don’t it’s not I don’t see it ended in April unless it has to for some other reason. Because we’re really, really enjoying being on the road.
ROSE: That’s awesome. And then the flying back and forth, that’s still okay for you guys. I mean, that’s worth it.
CHRIS: Yeah. I mean, I’m lucky in the career I have, even in medicine and working locums and doing work is my schedule is extremely flexible and I can basically write out the days I want to work. Yeah. So other physicians probably won’t be able to do this unless they worked in the E.R.. So now what I’m doing is I’m working seven straight.
ROSE: Right.
CHRIS: Seven state shifts, and then I’m off the rest of the month.
ROSE: That’s great.
ROSE: Yeah, that’s worth it.
KRISTIN: Yeah, it’s working for now, but we try not to. I mean, when you live through a tragedy like we’ve been through, you learn that you can plan all you want, but life happens.
ROSE: Oh, yeah, it does.
KRISTIN: And so we’re just trying to just kind of have the energy for every single day and not trying to think too long term, quite frankly.
CHRIS: And then the saying is you make plans and then God laughs.
ROSE: Yep. Especially in life.
ROSE: Yes, exactly.
KRISTIN: So I don’t know. We’re just kind of enjoying it for now. And if we get tired of it or if we get tired of doing it like this, then we may get a home base. But still some, you know what I mean? Yeah, the great thing about RV life is you can do it as little or as much as you want.
ROSE: That’s true.
ROSE: Very true.
KRISTIN: Flexibility of it. It’s just a matter of wherever you want to store your RV as a starting point. Travel, quite frankly.
ROSE: Now talking about working remotely and you can do that from the RV. You can run the nonprofit, you can do your other work. What is your workspace like in the RV? What kind of RV do you have?
KRISTIN: We have an Airstream. We got the Pottery Barn, which is a 28 foot Airstream. Yeah, which we love. We’re so happy with the purchase. We bought it in February, and most of the time when I work remotely in there, I sit at the kitchen table, okay, sometimes I’ll move if I want to stand up and I’ll just put my computer over near in the kitchen area and just stand up for a while, or I’ll sit outside the RV in a chair and just use like a folding table. You know, all the ones that fold down that we use outside. Yeah, I’ll use one of those to keep my computer there and we’ll work outside if it’s a nice day. So mean. You kind of just move around wherever you’re comfortable.
ROSE: That’s right.
KRISTIN: But yeah, I mean, we don’t have a dedicated set workspace. But that really never works for me anyway, because I think it’s just not good for our bodies just to sit for eight straight hours. Anyway. It’s good to move around.
ROSE: Yeah. No, you’re totally right. So what do you do for connectivity on the road for Wi-Fi? What’s your setup?
CHRIS: So we had a router that we had both AT&T and Verizon SIM cards with. And then we have Starlink. And we’ve found really the Starlink is the most reliable as long as you’re not covered by trees and you obviously have to have electricity. Yes. Now we do have battery power. If so, for boondocking. You know, our battery power is good for 12 hours, which is we just plug it in and she can work on that. Yeah. But we had we had to find places where we either would have Starlink or Cellular. And sometimes that’s a little bit of a challenge.
ROSE: Yeah, I would say.
CHRIS: So since it was imperative that she had connection. You know, some people work from the road and, you know, if they drop their signal, they’re fine. They can work later. But since she’s clocked in at eight hours a day, we absolutely, positively have to have connectivity. So we would have to make arrangements typically to be around the city.
ROSE: Yeah.
CHRIS: For those those days we knew she was working.
ROSE: Now that makes sense. Well that’s good. It’s working for you. So quick back to that nonprofit. How did you guys file your 500 and 1C3 and did that take a lot of time. Was that what we just.
ROSE: Yeah, that was that was that yeah.
KRISTIN: The lawyer did all of it. And when we did, the lawyer said, okay, I mean he did a lot of these. He said it usually takes the IRS six months. He said, just wow, that’s that was kind of like the worst case scenario. He goes, it usually takes about six months. And then when he got it back in like eight weeks, he said, I’ve never seen one come back this fast.
ROSE: Yeah. That’s right.
KRISTIN: So I don’t know. There’s all these little signs that we should be doing what we’re doing. And definitely one of them initial ones with the foundation that okay. Yeah, this is what we’re supposed to be doing right now 100%.
ROSE: And you raise money for this nonprofit through the events that you’re holding. Like, I if I remember hearing from our previous conversations that you do some running marathon type events, that kind of stuff.
CHRIS: Yeah. So initially, you know, just with Josh’s death and us, we actually got the foundation started fairly quickly. As soon as we started, we there’s just an outpouring of just donations just because of Josh and just because of the foundation starting. So, you know, our initial start up, we quite a bit of donations that way that that is not what we’re sustaining on at this point. I mean, donations do trickle in through the website. But, you know, our one of our challenges is to figure out how to come up with unique ways of raising money. I just finished a race called the Blue Ridge Relay, which is a 208 mile race through the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with 11 of our closest friends that we all get packed into vans for 30 hours or all stinky and smelly and go run the the race together. And now it’s just a bunch of friends that decided we had done it years and years before and thought that we were tired back in 2016. But a couple of friends said, hey, let’s get the team back together and actually raise money for the foundation. So we all agreed everybody’s going to try to raise at least $1,000 between 12 of us, and we raised a total about $21,000.
ROSE: Oh, congrats.
CHRIS: So we ran that race in September, and not realizing that we’re all a little older than we were ten years ago, the last time we ran it. So it was a challenge, but we had so much fun doing it. And the same thing. One of Josh’s friends from college reached out to us and said that she was going to do her first marathon. She luckily got into the New York City Marathon, and that she wanted to honor Josh because one of Josh’s core values was getting out of your comfort zone. Yeah. Begins where your comfort zone ends. And she was like, I’ve never done a marathon. I am so out of my comfort zone. I want to honor Josh. So she raised money and she just did the New York City Marathon a couple of weeks ago. And it was it was amazing. And she raised over $1,200 for the foundation. So, you know, we like the idea of races.
ROSE: Yeah.
CHRIS: You know, that may be something we try to push forward to see if people, you know, their couch to five K’s, our first marathons, if they want to do stuff like that. We did have some of Josh’s friends from his longboarding community, actually did a fundraiser last June and raised money through auction of items and stuff like that, and also had his longboards.
KRISTIN: Josh had he had his own longboard company and he had paid to have some new longboards made, and so we were able to launch those in February, one year after his death. We were able to make those available for sale, with 100% of the proceeds going to the foundation because he had actually paid for them. So all of that money has. And funneled it into the foundation this year too. So this year has been a pretty good year, especially not to be the initial year, but looking towards the future, we’re trying to figure out viable ways to continue to add money to the foundation in ways that seem like it would fit and be in alignment with who Josh was. I mean, he wasn’t a gala person. I don’t want to have a gala, you know what I mean? I know, like, there’s all kinds of ways you can raise money, but that’s not who he was. I mean, we really do want to push the whole being outside your comfort zone. And what does that look like? You know, it could be a climb Chris and I have talked about. We may do a visit to Africa to where one of the communities where that we were able to do a water project last year, and if we do that, then we want to be able to climb Kilimanjaro. And if we do that, we will make that into a fundraiser for the foundation. But that’s the type of things that or a road race. I mean, we’ve even considered a golf tournament because it’s still active.
ROSE: Yeah.
KRISTIN: So I don’t know, it’s we’re kind of brainstorming. We’re getting ideas from other people too, because raising money is is probably one of the hardest hurdles, I think, for any nonprofit. It’s figuring out how to raise money and how to make impact, you know, think, think. That’s probably one of our bigger hurdles, right?
ROSE: I can imagine I so much that you are doing and have to be so creative. And I can imagine maybe something within the community in the future you could work on as well. I could see something with that. So that’s really cool.
KRISTIN: Yeah, we’re always up for ideas. If people have them for us, we’re always, I know as many people as we can have.
ROSE: That’s right.
CHRIS: And then again, since we’re not business people, we’re trying to figure out merchandise.
ROSE: Yeah. Oh, that’s one of.
CHRIS: Our weak spots. But we’re we’re going to mark it. We’re going to try to market these shirts here.
ROSE: Yeah. Actually the shirts.
CHRIS: Next week we’re launching Josh Josh’s second sweatshirt line.
ROSE: I saw that online.
ROSE: Yeah.
CHRIS: Designed another design. And his goal this was before he died that he was going to do another sweatshirt drop. And the money would go towards helping mental health causes and suicide prevention causes. So we’re actually launching that next week and a limited drop with the proceeds going to mental health charities and especially suicide awareness because, you know, Josh being young and he was in college, our younger son’s in college. And you know, we see now the stress that teenagers and 20 year olds are under and actually how prevalent suicide is at the college campuses. Yeah. It’s terrible.
ROSE: That’s so much stress, so much pressure. Yeah, I can see that. So that’s a great idea I love it. So for our listeners who want to get involved with the foundation, what are some ways to do that?
CHRIS: We have a website set up which I don’t know if you’re going to put a link on it. It’s it’s Josh Newman Foundation.org, and it’s Newman with an Newman. That’s where people get caught up as the website. We do have an Instagram page as well at the Jason Foundation we have a Facebook page. But really just, you know, go to the website. You know, look around the website. We have one page dedicated to just Josh’s story, which is really fantastic. It’s it.
ROSE: Is it’s.
CHRIS: Very inspirational. We have some videos on there. We actually have his memorial video on there and people just walk away inspired. Looking at this is a 22 year.
ROSE: Old I know.
ROSE: I just watched, I watched the video, the commercial the other day and some other. I listened to a podcast that he was on. He’s been on so many podcasts. I listened to one of those and just his message and what a cool kid. Amazing at such a young age. So it gives me chills every single time. And the other.
CHRIS: Way we want people to get involved is, is, you know, we say it’s not even if it’s if it’s the Josh Newman Foundation or not. One of the biggest things we’re trying to push is, is community activity. Yes. And volunteering and service. You know, obviously the foundation set up, we want donations to come in, we want to make money. But that’s kind of the one of the other things we want to accomplish is to inspire people. Yes. And you really can’t put a dollar value on inspiration. It’s, you know, it’s not a tangible thing. And service is very it’s always been important to us. Service was very important to Josh. I mean, we hear stories. I mean, since he was really kind of an internet celebrity, we get emails, direct messages, even from his YouTube channel about how literally Josh changed people’s lives. And, you know, we’re like, well, how do you know Josh? And you’re like, well, I never met Josh, but I direct messaged him a couple times and he actually responded to me.
ROSE: Oh, and had conversations.
CHRIS: That was something Josh was it was very important to him is respond to people.
ROSE: That’s right. And.
CHRIS: Just just him responding to people affects their lives. We hear stories from his friends. We did not know this until friends told us that when he would go jogging down Wilshire Boulevard, he would carry a stack of McDonald’s gift cards with him, like 10 or 20 bucks on them. And he literally would stop and talk to homeless people and he would give them the cards.
ROSE: Oh, wow, that.
CHRIS: Card is that 21 years old. And you just sit there and say, who does this?
KRISTIN: But it’s like really that kind of level of service and giving back in your community in the spirit of, of living like Josh, quite frankly, you know, and obviously people who follow us along, if we have special initiatives that are going on or if we’re asking people to do maybe like a virtual five K and raise money or whatever, like we would, they would be able to keep abreast of what we’re doing by keeping up with our social media.
ROSE: But even just.
CHRIS: Serves like we’re tomorrow. We have an event at Loaves and Fishes in Charlotte tomorrow, and that’s the type of service we’re talking about as well. I mean, we put this thing out on Josh’s birthday each year because he served on his birthday and we’re like, just it doesn’t have to be homeless. It doesn’t have to be food. Just go serve in your community. Do do something. Do something. Animal shelter, whatever you’re passionate about. And that was Josh was also do something because you’re passionate about it. Whatever you’re passionate about, go do that and serve right. So that’s always that’s another important part of our foundation is to get especially young generation but anybody to serve.
ROSE: Yeah I agree with the younger generation too. But also to just not just voice it but also follow through with it like Josh did. And now you all are doing that as well, so. Oh, awesome. So you guys, you’ve been on the road for seven months now. Tell us a little bit more. It sounds like your life is going wonderfully. I guess you kind of you did kind of elaborate on that. Was there anything else you wanted to add to that? Anything you learned.
CHRIS: To be flexible?
ROSE: Yes.
CHRIS: We we literally do not make our plans more than a month out. We’re like, yeah, we know winter is coming up. We’re going to be somewhere in the South.
ROSE: Yes.
CHRIS: We haven’t figured it out yet. Haven’t figured out yet. No. You know, our thing is we always have to be near an airport every month, right? And we have to be somewhere where we can store our for that time. We’re gone, but we’ll be somewhere in the southwest the next few months. We don’t know where yet and learn how to become a mechanic and repair person. Not that we really haven’t had any major issues happen, but you need to. You need to know how to fix stuff. I mean, I have a whole bin full. I have a 40 gallon bin of just tools and just great stuff in case emergencies happen. Yeah, somebody needs to figure out how to fix the RV and.
ROSE: That’s right.
ROSE: Yeah. No, no, no, Glenn.
ROSE: My gift.
CHRIS: She’s the idea person. I’m the execution.
ROSE: Person, right?
ROSE: You’re a great, great team. That’s perfect. Yeah. Glenn Glenn and I are great team as well. We always carried all those tools, and he he was so on top of everything. And it was awesome how many things that he learned and all these new life skills and just be able to have that confidence to know that you could you could handle that. You could take care of your RV, you’re not going to be stranded.
CHRIS: And you have to learn how to live with less stuff.
ROSE: Oh yeah.
CHRIS: Which is which is fantastic because once.
ROSE: You love it.
CHRIS: Once you learn to live with less stuff, you actually want less stuff.
ROSE: It’s freeing.
ROSE: Yes it is. You know.
CHRIS: We have some storage. We’ve already we moved our house. We purged well, we moved out of our apartment, we purged, and now we’re like, oh, we got to purge again. We got to get rid of more stuff.
ROSE: Just get rid of it. Yes.
ROSE: It’s never.
ROSE: Ending. Yeah.
ROSE: So I have to ask, did that advice and tips that we gave you before you launched about boondocking and stuff? Did you feel like it helped you?
CHRIS: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, like I said, I’ve been 25 years since we traveled in an RV that’s that’s long and forgotten. And it was different back then. There was no internet. So we had we had to use an atlas and a map to figure out everywhere we want, and we had to use a good Sam’s Manual, an actual physical manual to find out where campgrounds were and all that. There was no self. I mean, there were cell phones, but no internet or anything like that. So it’s just.
ROSE: Different.
CHRIS: But, you know, boondocking. We were a little concerned about boondocking because you have to, you know, unfortunately, airstreams the stream part of Airstream means that it’s very compact.
ROSE: Yeah, yeah.
CHRIS: Not a whole lot of storage, right? Not a whole lot of fresh water and dirty water tanks. So you have to learn how to really conserve.
ROSE: Conserve.
CHRIS: Yeah. You know, luckily we got good batteries, we got solar. You know, if we didn’t have a generator, we’d probably stay out three days, four days at the max if we really squeezed it. Yeah. So that was kind of one of our fears initially. And talking to you guys just really helped us out with that part of it. Specifically and then just, you know, and we talked to Glenn, it was like, you know, just make sure you know how to fix minor things.
ROSE: Right.
ROSE: And it sounds like you have done that and accomplished all that. That’s awesome. That’s fantastic. We truly loved helping you guys get started. And these conversations with you also sparked an idea and a realization that we want to help more. And there might be other potential full time RVers seeking this direct, efficient information without searching online and videos hours and hours on end. So, inspired by this, we decided to offer life coaching calls on our website. So if anyone else wants to learn more about that, you can visit our website at reset yourjourney.com under coaching. So anyways, I digress.
CHRIS: Now I went through I can’t tell you. It probably must have gone through 30 of your guys videos on YouTube when I first found you, and the videos are really good. But yeah, you got to do your research. You do. Youtube is wonderful. I mean, it’s wonderful. 25 years ago we didn’t have YouTube, you know, everything. You actually had to go to a library and do stuff. Now it’s it’s just easy.
ROSE: I know, talk about new skills. To make those videos. I had to teach myself learning on YouTube. How do you do this? You know, to make videos, edit videos and everything in between? So yes, I’m sure it’s cool. I love learning new things, getting out of my comfort zone, and growing that way every day. Yeah, well, Chris and Kristin, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, sharing your story and the foundation. I really love to be able to spread Josh’s word and your word. I think it’s very important, and I look forward to following along and seeing how this foundation evolves and your travels. So yeah, it’s just a great reminder in life and business to keep going. Live a good story, be a good human, you know, don’t give up. And incredibly inspiring. And your family has definitely inspired me. So and I hope our audience as well. So I’m very grateful that you guys came on with us today. Thank you.
CHRIS: Thank you for having us. Thank you. So it was.
ROSE: Fun. Yes.
ROSE: That was truly extraordinary. I can’t even imagine what the Newman family faced on that tragic day and what they likely still grapple with daily. Yet I’m deeply impressed by how they transformed adversity into a profoundly meaningful mission. This is a great reminder for all of us that in the face of adversity, there’s usually an opportunity to create something truly meaningful. Exploring the Newman’s perspective on launching their nonprofit foundation and their emphasis on seeking support from friends, knowledgeable individuals and their community was truly enlightening. This leads me to really appreciate the invaluable connections within this entrepreneur community. You all are amazing, and I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to Chris and Kristin for their openness, their courage, and the impactful work they’re doing through their foundation in this season of giving. If you are moved and inspired by them as much as I am, please consider checking out their website for the foundation at Josh Newman Foundation.org and get involved in their mission to make the world a better place and to be inspired to serve in your community in Josh’s memory. You can also follow them on Instagram and on Facebook, and I’ll be sure to put all their links in the show notes. So thank you all for listening today. It was so wonderful to be here with you, and I would love to hear what you took away from this episode and how you all are serving and making a difference in your community. Living like Josh. Also, if you have any ideas for the Newman’s, any creative ways or events that they can raise money for their charity, they’re always looking. So please share that with us in the Entrepreneur Facebook group or you can contact them through their website. But we would love to hear from you all in our Facebook group, and I would love to continue this conversation over there. Have a great week!
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The RV Entrepreneur is presented by RV Life – Tools that Make Camping Simple
https://rvlife.com
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