Well, let's say hello to Yvette Camarano, who runs a program called Get Off The Streets.
Hey, thanks for coming in.
Thank you for having me.
You
weren't once before,
right?
Yes.
A long time
ago.
Many moons ago, huh?
Many moons ago.
All right.
You made fun of my last name.
I made fun of your last
name.
You
did.
With my name, Rosen, I made fun of your last name.
I got some nerve.
Hey, yo, Camarano.
Hey, Camarano, come here.
Hey, you.
You.
Over here.
Detention.
I'm telling you, I don't like your attitude, Camarano.
Get over here.
All right.
Before we get it to get off the streets, let's find out a little bit about you because you're a real entrepreneur.
You got a lot of businesses going on, right?
I do.
Name some of them.
Oh, well, there's a cake popping roll.
It's been around for nine years.
Camerano County and Tech Services has been around for 13 years.
Level Up Racine has been around for five years.
And then there's a bunch of other projects under Get Off the Streets that I've been working on for a bit.
You try to keep tax cheats out.
You try to keep people out of jail by doing their taxes.
I
try to keep them out of trouble.
Yes, I do.
Has there ever been anybody on the planet who hasn't fudged a little bit on their taxes that didn't report something?
You know, I don't want to know.
Or you're like the lawyer.
I don't know if you're guilty or innocent.
Don't tell
me.
All right.
And what's the other thing?
We're baking?
What was that?
Yeah, cake, pop, and roll has been around for nine years.
My sister started it, then she had the fire, and then she broke her legs in three places, and then I said, okay, I'll take it over, and we'll continue to work on it.
And she never came back to it, but here I am.
We're doing it.
Oh, that's good.
I'm very
good.
Cakepopandroll.com, if you want
to taste.
Oh,
wow.
And J's On The Go has it in their shop.
Wow,
look at you.
Yeah.
Getting people out of prison, you have cake popping.
Well, that's pretty good.
Yeah.
Let's talk about get off the streets.
What is that program?
Well, the program started after my brother passed away.
Officer Wilson passed away.
I was new in Racine.
It became a pilot program here in Racine.
And the next thing you know, I was, you know, doing the Easter basket collection and giveaway.
I was.
just making my video game store like a space, a safe space for kids to come and play games.
I would feed them.
People would come and donate, you know, bananas, oranges, chips, you know, all kinds of things.
And so then there was an opportunity to teach them how to play board games, card games and how to play chess.
And and then it went on from there.
It was it's basically the mission is making things accessible.
And at first it was the kids who can't afford it.
But it wasn't just things.
It was work-based learning across all of my businesses.
It was just being open to teaching them whatever it is they wanted to learn, right?
And sometimes I'd have kids come into the store and they would they would act like they work there and they would be like, hello, how can I help you?
And what would you like?
And I mean, they were just amazing.
I found out quickly that they just want to feel purposeful.
and they want to feel like they belong.
And so...
You know, I... The other day, this is about a week or so ago, these kids at three o'clock in the morning on a weekday, three o'clock in the morning, were on the skateboards, going down the street, banging on people's windows at three o'clock in the morning.
Very scary, too.
And the way I found out was, I asked my neighbor across the street, you got your camera on this last night?
He goes, yeah.
I said, check 302 in the morning.
He said, yep.
I see them going right past you.
I was banging on the windows.
Yeah.
Three o'clock in the morning.
These are young kids.
Their parents don't know they're out at three or two in the morning on a school night.
How does that happen?
When I opened up the video game store, I opened up for bar people.
I didn't get bar people.
I got I got kids that were coming in late at night.
And so I don't know what else to say except for I was there.
I opened my doors.
And I did what I could.
I mean, I know my mother knew when I was out past 10 o'clock.
I mean, she knew where I was.
I was right in front of the house.
She could look out the window and see me with all the kids.
But, you know, at 10 o'clock, you're in on a school night, 9 o'clock, or sooner.
I mean, and you didn't want to face the wrath of my father.
He never laid a hand on us, but you never knew when he was going to snap one of these days.
So my brother and I were kept in check.
Yeah.
You know, your father's going to find out.
Oh, no, no, no.
But he never laid a hand on us.
He pushed the cap.
But we didn't know that as kids.
Of course.
We thought, you know, oh, this is the night.
This is going to happen.
And he, you know, give you the look.
Yeah.
And the look was sometimes worse.
But that's the way we grew up.
But to be out on the streets at three o'clock in the morning at a school night banging on people's windows.
I know it's harmless kid stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a ding dong ditch.
I know it's that kind of stuff.
It's frightening though to hear a boom, boom, boom on your window at three o'clock in the morning.
Right.
Startling.
But yeah.
OK.
So talking about the soapbox derby you got coming up.
So I've been working on the soapbox derby, the Southeast soapbox derby initiative for about eight months now.
It got stalled because it got into a car accident this year.
But.
McHenry soapbox derby and the Chicagoland soapbox derby have been helping me just recreate the soapbox derby here.
It was here about 15 years ago in Racine and I'm just wanting to bring it back.
It's a STEM program.
Now, what's that mean?
That means that the kids hands-on can build the car and learn about gravity racing.
And the one car I do have is a Mario themed car.
Can you imagine
having a Mario themed race here in Racine?
I guarantee no one in the nation is doing this, but this is what my goal is.
I'll teach you
gravity.
Watch
this.
I just dropped the pen.
That's how gravity works.
Very simple.
We're chatting this morning with Yvette Camarano and Camarano Camarano Camarano, right?
Yeah,
Marano, hey.
Come here.
Come here.
What are you talking?
Who's it talking to over there?
You know, we were talking about the program is get off the streets.
And I mentioned before we went on the air today that my dad's from Brooklyn from the streets of Brooklyn and my mom's in the streets of the Bronx.
So we were living in the Bronx.
And I guess my mother told me they made an effort.
They came to a conclusion one day when we were little kids.
We're not gonna live in the Bronx and I growing up on the streets in the Bronx not gonna happen even though I thought I went back to it years later seemed like a nice neighborhood to me But you know, that's during the morning.
It's nice outside people are she said she wasn't gonna let us grow up on the streets in the Bronx So they moved out to Long Island, Massa Piqua, which was a brand new community at the time was new schools knew everything and But I wonder how my life would have been different growing up on the streets in the Bronx.
I mean
It was your stories.
Yeah, your stories about it.
Yeah.
Now, my brother was about eight years old when we left.
I was a little younger than two years old, but they were smart.
They said, we know what it's like growing up on the streets of Brooklyn and the Bronx, and we're not going to have it for our kids.
So they did it.
You know, now people say, I don't want my kids growing up on the streets of Racine at night and you're doing something about it.
And that's pretty good.
It's get off the streets.
And how many kids you got involved in your programs?
So gosh, I think that I.
calculated about a thousand in a span of two years.
And now it's diminished because I moved from the brick and mortar on the 215 to 410 Main Street.
So right now, for the summer program, I went along with the Racine County summer program.
I do this every year with them.
And so I had four students working on different
types of businesses.
So two 15 and a half vintage shop, retail, resale.
And then one of them was doing inventory for video, the video game portion of it and repairs.
The other one was doing some accounting.
The other one was doing cake, pop and roll.
So yeah, variety of different opportunities.
Here's
something.
There's something you hear a lot.
Kids don't learn money skills in school.
No, they have home economics, they have all that kind of stuff in school, but they never teach you how to invest money as save money.
and what to do, and when to start saving for retirement, kids say, well, I'll start retiring, well, I'll start saving when I'm 70.
Too late, too late, and you'll find that out when you're 70 years old, didn't save a dime.
You gotta start earlier than that.
You gotta start in your 20s and 30s, start thinking about investments, and they don't have to be big, just put a little money in, a little money, and you'll be surprised how much they grow.
So you teach money skills to kids, huh?
Yeah, so as a business accounting teacher, one of the things I did teach was personal finance.
And what I did was, you know, textbook is all well and fine for structure, but it's more important for the kids to get a glimpse of what it's like to really be a business owner.
And I bring that to the table.
I've got lots of experience and I was very open with them about where I was in my business and what happened or if there was a problem.
And it just, anything I did with the kids, it was always work-based project.
Okay.
What do you like?
What's your idea?
Let's flush it out.
What's your logo look like?
What's your brand?
Who are you gonna serve?
Come on, let's get this rolling.
And they were excited.
In my classroom, it was all about imagination, creativity, and then pulling them into what the possibility of their future could look like.
And so I did get a lot of, I think I had a really good attention span
especially for those kids who had trouble focusing.
Everybody loves money.
All these kids love money and they want money.
And we come sometimes we come from economic challenges at home.
So they see the struggle.
And so I was fortunate enough to be able to do that with them and bring them along into my business journeys throughout.
You know, I watch these YouTube videos, police videos.
And it kind of breaks my heart when I see them stop a car with teenagers.
And I'm talking about 15, 14 years old driving a car when they shouldn't be.
How they get the keys, I don't know.
And they got drugs and a gun in the car.
And if that's the way you're going to start your life in 15, not going to end well at all.
Because all it takes is one gun from you and a gun from another person and somebody wants to show they're a big shot and it's all over.
And the drugs aren't going to help you either.
It just never does.
So that's...
Probably another thing you wanted to do, keep the guns and the drugs away from these kids.
Is that that must be a full-time job just doing that?
It starts by showing them that their dreams, imaginations, ideas are very important.
Someone's got to, someone's got to be talking to these kids about how, how, how their life could be if they wanted it and show them the path and hands on is more, it's just more powerful.
when you actually show them how to, and then they apply, that's more powerful than a textbook.
You know, I say this, there's a video, and I still have it on my phone, it's a YouTube video, and a guy who owns a bodego, which is like a convenience store in the city.
And it must have been an inner city, these are inner city kids, and they come in with their report cards, and if they're good grades and they made improvements, the guy lets them take whatever they want in the store.
Well, you can fit in your arms, take out there, and sometimes they'll give them cash and they can spin a wheel, but they have to have a good report card.
And they run in with a report card, the report card day, and they have the video of it.
And one kid promised he would go from a 97 average to a 95 average to a 98.
He did it.
Nice.
Other kids did well.
And one girl, she went from a 95 to a 97 to 100 percent, which can't get higher than that.
and a report card was $100 in everything.
Nice.
She got $100 cash, and he said, you could pick whatever you want in the store.
And she picked out a dozen eggs, orange juice, and some things for her family.
Nothing for herself.
And I said, well, I mean, she could have picked anything in that store.
And those are the items she picked, and she got the $100 too.
But that's a good program.
These kids now fight to see who can get the best grades to get whatever they want in that bodega.
It's amazing incentive.
And it's a real nice video.
He puts out a lot of them.
And I love to see that kind of stuff.
Let's talk about the, it was a two 15 and a half.
Yeah.
So when I first came on to racing, you know, I was a
video game store slash reseller slash repairs and cleanings refurbishing the old systems the calico's
swept the streets at night I
just started to I mean people started to see the kind of work I was doing and they started to donate and then I had
I did have like a, you know, reduce, reuse, recycle.
I have that.
You'll give it a second chance.
Please don't throw it away.
Just bring it.
We'll fix it, right?
That kind of thing.
And then next thing, you know, I was going to state sales and then next thing, you know, the state sale companies were donating.
They were donating.
They were like, you've got to come and pick this up.
You've got to come and pick this up.
And I'm like, oh my God.
So then next thing, you know, I have like clothing and I have like, okay, I coach purses and I'm like, oh my God, what am I going to do with this?
And then I'm like, okay.
5, 10, 15, and 20, even if the coach purse is worth more than 60 bucks.
Coach purse?
Whoa.
Yeah.
Like, so my, my, my fee, my flat fee thing, 5, 10, 15, 20, that's all I wanted for whatever it is I had in there.
And I had a lot of things like suspenders and ties and, and, and purses and oh my.
And it
just went on.
It went on.
How do people get involved in this?
You know, the best thing to do is to call me 224-813-4050.
Wait
a second.
You blew through that number.
Oh, yeah.
224-813-4050.
But yeah, I mean, and that's just that's just two fifteen and a half vintage shop.
That's the reselling.
That's to fund the programs like like so you got an idea or like Vintec, which is financial and digital literacy or like
My goodness, the Southeast Wisconsin soapbox derby, Mario themed, hello.
I mean, right?
And give these kids opportunities to get involved and do things.
And these are amazing programs.
So yeah, that's how they get involved.
And if the feds are after you for your taxes, she can help you out there too.
I
can.
I'm now with a company called 10X, The 10X Accountant.
I'm a managing director for them.
And so we can definitely help.
We have
We have lawyers on our team, we have
other accountants,
so we can help.
You know, one day I get a call, this was a couple of decades ago, I get a call, and I tell you that my tax lady's been doing my taxes for like all my life since I'm 18.
And I get a call and says, Mr. Rosen, we have a question about your taxes.
And I remember her saying, never, ever, ever, ever talk to them.
You tell me, I will talk to them.
So I called her up to Laura, she goes, say no more, give me the phone number.
She calls me back 10 minutes later.
All right, everything's fine.
Because she used to do that.
She used to work for the IRS, too.
And she knows what to say, what not to say, and to avoid more questions coming up.
And it was just a simple question that she answered it.
But I would have gone all over the world.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe.
It could be.
I don't know.
And that just raises more questions.
So recently, a lady came to me and said, oh, my God, I got a letter.
There might be a lien.
I don't know what to do.
My husband used to take care of this.
Turns out that he disappeared.
We didn't, we don't know where he went.
She doesn't know.
Then she says to me, actually a week later, FBI agents were looking for him.
Oh no.
Yeah.
And then she's like, but he dealt with all the financials.
So I have no clue.
I helped her.
You know, we scheduled the hearing.
We went and we got all of her transcripts just to see.
what's attached, what history is attached to her social security number.
And then we took care of it.
You know, I have in my home, she said, you're not supposed to keep something more than seven years, but I saved them.
I don't know why I do.
I just figure one day I'll be in court.
Mr. Rosen, we want to go back 30 years.
What do you got?
I just have a feeling they can't go back that far.
But anyway, so far, so good.
I pay my taxes.
That's all.
Yeah.
She says, here's what you owe.
Here's what you're going to get back.
Okay.
I'll write a check and I write the check immediately.
Yeah.
Texas sends me the thing.
I don't want any lingering money floating around it.
Hey Yvette, thank you very much for coming by.
I appreciate you.
Get off the streets.
That's your program to help people, help kids get off the streets.
And adults too.
Adults too, yes.
Young adults, adults.
How young are the kids you work with?
You know,
They used to be, they were five years old, but they came with their brothers and cousins, and now they're like teenagers.
Okay, that's good.
Again, is there a website people can go to?
Yeah,
eventcamerano.com.
Okay, Camerano is spelled C-A-M-A-R-A-N-O.
Camerano.
And I'm all over social media.
You can't miss it.
Okay, she's the queen of social media.
Get off the streets.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Have a good day.
I appreciate that.