Marianne Ambrose on Storytelling, Sign Language, and Saving the Ocean

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[00:00:28] This podcast is your compass to navigating the exciting journey to San Carlos, Mexico living. Get ready to turn your relocation dreams into sun soaked reality.

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[00:00:54] Marianne Ambrose - Author: Well, aloha and Mahalo. Rob, thank you for having me here. Yeah, it was a wonderful [00:01:00] experience at meeting at the St.

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[00:01:22] Robert DeForge - Host: Fantastic. Now, tell me a little bit about your book you showed me at the, at the dinner and, uh, kind of interested in that.

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[00:01:32] Marianne Ambrose - Author: The book is called Underwater Acts of Kindness, and it's our first book of the series of the Acts of Kindness series. And my books are written for animation movies with sign language characters, and a soundtrack by local Hawaiian artists, Lucy. And the perfect way and how it started was um, I lived on a sailboat in Hawaii.

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[00:02:20] I laughed. What? And lo and behold, I walked down to the Alamo Mall with my deaf friend, and I see this tree of folk Manus puppets, and I could put my hands in and I could do sign language with the chicken. With the gloves and one thing led to another. From there I called the folk Manus puppet company. I explained who I was.

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[00:03:02] And they're like, yeah, we loved it. So, uh, the book is called Underwater Acts of Kindness, uh, and uh, we featured Noah the Hard of hearing Whale. Who comes down on a Hawaiian vacation from Alaska and we have a glow in the dark party, just kind of like at the yacht club, right? Everybody's out having a good time.

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[00:03:46] And he teaches his sign language, the A, b, C alphabet. Now Dr. Fingers has a YouTube channel now, so you can learn the ABCs, the 26 letters and then, so go out and play the Apple app games that I've created also. [00:04:00] And he's also recruited by a sea turtle called the General of the New Earth Army to recruit.

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[00:04:23] The book was put on the social emotional learning curriculum, Hawaii Department of Education, and. We rededicated it down to Boyton Slat, who is Ocean Cleanup, who is making headways of the Great Pacific Garbage patch. Now, I wrote this in 2016 and in 1997, captain Charles Moore. Sailed across the Great Pacific Garbage patch during the Transpacific sailboat race, which happens every two years from California to the Hawaii and the Wiki Ki Yacht Club.

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[00:05:17] Guadalajara on the river, so if you get a chance, we rededicated it to Boyn Slat Ocean Cleanup Organization. That's how the story goes with the first one. And, uh, I went into studio during the pandemic to record the book of Manoa Valley Studios, where Lucy and the Perfect Wave recorded their soundtrack to it.

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[00:06:06] So. I talk about hearing loss as my background. I have a degree in audiology and communication disorders. I was a social worker with the deaf and I was of service over in Hawaii, and the creativity just started. Why? Because we have a half a billion people worldwide now with a hearing loss. We have millions of moms and dads coming home from being of service.

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[00:06:47] Or we may be later in life in a hospital having. Nursing care going, I'm thirsty, I'm hungry, and change my diapers. So again, it's, the book is written for all ages of the heart and uh, the creativity just kept flowing. I [00:07:00] got back from sailing and Lucy and the Perfect Wave came out with another album and I just went, tears of Joy.

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[00:07:31] And so we just, this past Monday, uh, I was not there because I was up in Canada, traveling back here to Mexico. Uh, I met up with my captains that I sailed with in Mexico to Maslan. I got to go the Alaskan Way and up to Vancouver Island and share the stories too with the books and, uh. So Leon was in Hawaii and he went to the Hawaii School for the Deaf, and he presented a water unit.

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[00:08:23] We have the Monarch, uh, dancers, et cetera, and it's a beautiful story and it talks about first birthday luo and being kind and what happens. Rob is the bullies realized they didn't know sign language and that's what it was really about. And so they all got to learn sign language. So we're encouraging everybody again to go to our YouTube channel, learn the finger spelling, alphabet, the ABCs.

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[00:09:10] Uh, cool acts of kindness for climate change. And again, they're all ages of the heart. Uh, would lose c Lynch as a singer and I made some trailers and uh, yeah. And so that's

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[00:09:27] Marianne Ambrose - Author: Oh, well thanks for asking Rob. What I did when, uh, I returned back from my sailing book signing tour, um, my friend Marilyn Ranchers was a special education teacher, uh, Kamile charter schools, and she introduced me to donors choose.

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[00:10:06] And the kindness of Hawaii, uh, Subaru, uh, last year gave $25,000 to classroom teachers requesting products. Uh, in 2019, the kindness of Good Morning America over a weekend raised millions of dollars for teachers in the United States of America. So when I went into the school, they were all excited.

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[00:10:53] Look at the bus stop, look at McDonald's, look at the beach. You know, this is our, this is our island. Uh, we gonna need to keep it [00:11:00] clean. And uh, yeah. So if everybody can be of service to find 10 kindness things to do, what a better for will we all feel better about ourselves?

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[00:11:19] Marianne Ambrose - Author: Um, is being more mindful. Um, and, uh, you know, I'm grateful I got to travel through different countries, um, and, um, with me and my own having a hearing loss, it's, it's a challenge, uh, you know, not being that fluent here and as Espanol, uh, and, uh, you know, reading lips is a little bit different. Uh, reading Mexican, Mexican lips.

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[00:12:11] I'm, I'm working in Pakistan, working on the books, the graphic designers, the app games. I'm on the World of Ability podcasts every Saturday with Kurt Rosoff. I'm being interviewed by the Disability Channel with Jay Stone, which was part of the grant that I won. And, uh, I'm sharing that, I'm sharing that kindness.

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[00:12:46] With deaf schools deaf and letting them know, sharing this story, multiplying the acts of kindness, that we wanna get these books and coloring books out to them. And now they have, uh, apple App games. I've created them. So you can do the [00:13:00] ABCs Games, counting the life jackets in the water after the boating accident, and sign language numbers, counting rainbows.

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[00:13:15] Robert DeForge - Host: How do you stay motivated and and inspired? I mean, it's kind of an emotionally challenging subject.

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[00:13:30] Um, I listen to the universe. I didn't get it at, I mean, I say I got it at first. Not everybody gets me. I. But, um, and it just kept channeling to me. And so it was like, this is my next, my purpose. This is my, my next life purpose. Uh, at, you know, I wanna say middle age, but, um, it, you know, and timing was everything.

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[00:14:11] So it's catch 22. Yeah. And also the, the climate, climate change and, um. So I know we're doing the good work and I'm grateful that my team, we've all relocated from Hawaii, uh, for own personal or financial reasons. Um, and, but we're still doing it. And we got Clean Water Foundation, uh, that's gonna be marketing the books worldwide into like 25,000 locations with a place called Island Earth.

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[00:15:00] I love the characters. They're fun. They crack me up. I, I wake up and I a new character and I'm like, oh my gosh. And I have a great playwright, Suzanne Sims. They're funny. And I got my deaf friend too. And, um, they're great characters and messages. So again, no one has. Done anything with sign language characters in animation movies.

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[00:15:25] Robert DeForge - Host: Maryanne. Go. So give, what's the most rewarding feedback that you've, you've received from your readers? Can you gimme an an example?

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[00:15:51] They're, they're good stories. Um, here, uh, local security, uh, friend. And Mexico read 'em and he's like, oh my God, that's a really good book. [00:16:00] I'm calling my, my wife, she was, she's a Walmart manager and I'm like, I'm on Walmart and I'm calling my daughter. So once Word gets out, uh, and that's what we're doing and uh, it's gonna be great.

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[00:16:21] Robert DeForge - Host: Okay, Marianne, I want to incorporate more acts of kindness into my life every day. What kind of advice can you give me?

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[00:16:41] Okay. I learned that from Reverend Tim at Unity Church of Hawaii. So if it's coming to you in the morning. Go for it. And if not, put it on a back burner and, uh, just share it. But, you know, I, we try and do things in, in number of 10. Uh, so your acts of kindness is you can learn the 10 a, b, c [00:17:00] letters, uh, this week, or you can learn out 26 letters for somebody out in the deaf community.

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[00:17:25] And he, he was sitting in the car and they were talking about. Antarctica being green, and, and, and mom has explain four years old, okay. With cochlear implants. And I'm like, he is my new inspiration. I had a beautiful journey with Scott, signing for him. Uh, a very happy, pleasant, kind deaf man who lost his hearing at age seven.

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[00:18:14] That's awesome. And yeah. That's

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[00:18:19] Marianne Ambrose - Author: Uh, well, uh, first of all, Leon McLachlan is gonna, they're gonna be marketing the books in 2025, uh, to Island Earth. These locations will be opening up in Beverly Hills, Sedona, Scottsdale, from my understanding. And they'll go worldwide.

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[00:18:57] And uh, anyway, I saw, I saw her [00:19:00] in Vancouver and she had gotten back and she was, uh, they won the Emmies and um. Los Angeles for sh gun and she was a makeup artist and she happens to be a, a Canadian goose puppet and rabbit acts a kindness no bully. A friend of Harry, the hard of hearing rabbit, and these are like, kind of like characters.

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[00:19:36] And anyway, she's her Canadian Goose friend. Uh, we're gonna be shipping her the books. Uh, her friend too is sister is a sign language interpreter up there. Uh, they know the Netflix producer, so I'm putting it out to the universe at Netflix. Will take a look at this, uh, to bring 'em to a series. Again, no one has done anything with sign language characters.

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[00:20:17] Okay. And we introduced. The books and the characters too. And they were very excited. Uh, they posted it on Facebook. Uh, what a beautiful picture of us. Uh, IL and Judy, another author. Um, we're gonna be reading, uh, in. English, uh, they're English speaking private school and her son does animation, so I'm really excited to see where that takes off.

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[00:20:58] Robert DeForge - Host: Who's that? Guess who?

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[00:21:00] John outta Min Minneapolis. He's got the puppets, he's got the books he's reading on TikTok for us now. And we're gonna have a special day this month. Uh, for the Rabbit acts of kindness. No bully anti-bullying book, uh, because we're not being naughty or nice. We're being. Not a bully, but we're being kind.

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[00:21:43] And I'm being interviewed for, uh, the Disability Channel out of Toronto. So.

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[00:22:01] Marianne Ambrose - Author: Yacht Club.

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[00:22:08] At San in San Carlos. Well, thank you Maryanne. Thank you very much for being on the, uh, on the program, the Expat experience, and I'll have links below for all your contact information so people can check out your website and, and access your, your books and all the rest of, of your great. Thank you, Mahalo

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[00:22:28] Robert DeForge - Host: Thank you.

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