Today, in good news, Farz tells the story of San Antonio's kindest philanthropist, Gordon Hartman! Gordon created Morgan's Wonderland - an amusement park that makes attending amusement parks possible for people with disabilities. We'll talk about the mission of the park, the cool rides they created to make sure that everyone can ride safely. Learn even more at https://morgans.org/
Today, in good news, Farz tells the story of San Antonio's kindest philanthropist, Gordon Hartman! Gordon created Morgan's Wonderland - an amusement park that makes attending amusement parks possible for people with disabilities. We'll talk about the mission of the park, the cool rides they created to make sure that everyone can ride safely.
Learn even more at https://morgans.org/
Hi Friends! Our transcripts aren't perfect, but I wanted to make sure you had something - if you'd like an edited transcript, I'd be happy to prioritize one for you - please email doomedtofailpod@gmail.com - Thanks! - Taylor
Taylor: Fantastic Four comes out on Friday. I've actually wanted to go see it
>> Taylor: In the matter of the people of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA096. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not.
>> Farz: Boom. We are back, Taylor, for another live recording that's live for us, but not the listeners. How are you?
>> Taylor: Good. I don't know how we do otherwise. Like in Jurassic park, when he talks to himself in that video, do you know what we mean? Where he's like, john, I would like record my half. And then you record your half.
>> Farz: We're just like John Hammond and Malcolm.
>> Taylor: Ian Malcolm and I did tell you that saw Jurassic Park. Then you went and it was good.
>> Farz: I know. I've actually wanted to go see it. I just haven't. It's just like I haven't mustered up. It's just when you're cozy at home, it's just tough to be like, let me get up and put on pants. Like, I just don't want to, you know.
>> Taylor: We did see. We also saw Superman yesterday.
>> Farz: I heard amazing things about Superman.
>> Taylor: It was great.
>> Farz: So he's my least favorite superhero. But like, if it's a good movie, it's a good movie.
>> Taylor: Yeah, that's fair. No, it's good. It kind of like resets a bunch of stuff. He's very cute. So there's that. And then also I. Fantastic Four comes out on. Well, it's already coming out by the time we do this, but my friends from college, Ian and Jeff, wrote it and I'm very excited for it.
>> Farz: No way.
>> Taylor: Yeah, they've been, you know, writing for TV and movies for a long time and this is their first, like, really, really huge one. So Ian Springer and Jeff Kaplan, who wrote the story for Fantastic Four, first steps.
>> Farz: Did you go to college together? That's awesome. That's awesome.
>> Taylor: They're awesome. And they both live in LA now, but I think Jeff was on our trip to Italy in 2001 that we studied abroad together, where I even met Juan. So I've known them forever and very excited for them.
>> Farz: You have such cool friends, you know. And me.
>> Taylor: All encompassing. I know.
>> Farz: Cool.
Welcome to Doomed to Fail. And I'm Taylor, joined by Fars
Well, I'm going to go ahead and share a story and it's something that I.
>> Taylor: Wait.
>> Farz: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Sorry.
>> Taylor: Sorry, everyone. Welcome to Doomed to Fail. We bring you history's notorious disasters and greatest failures. And I'm Taylor, joined by Fars.
>> Farz: Are you ever stunned that I never remember this? No, it's just like, it's as far as, like, he doesn't. No. Okay. I sort of shared this with you via an Instagram post last week, I guess, and I just got so into it and decided I want to do a story about it. Little bit of a spoiler alert. This is not a doomed to fail story. This is like a unbelievably uplifting and heartwarming story. Which nice is very anti my new usual subject matter. And I'll be honest, like, I. I'm not like a super emotional person, but this like legit was like causing me to have issues. Just like it's very, very heartwarming and I hope you guys like it because I'm going to cover the world's first and only ultra accessible theme park designed for guests of all abilities.
>> Taylor: Oh, I love that.
Morgan's Wonderland in San Antonio is ultra accessible for anyone with special needs
>> Farz: So I'm going to be talking about Morgan's Wonderland, which is based out of San Antonio or it's located in San Antonio, Texas. And I'm going to start by getting into what does ultra accessible even mean? We, I think we all know what accessible means. What does ultra mean? So I'm going to go off of the definition that they use on their own website at morgan's world, morganswonderland.com which says that it is, quote, removing both physical and economic barriers that confront children, children and adults with special needs. This means that those with and without special needs can come together in a fully inclusive environment for better understanding of each other. It's great. Supernovable cause. And based on what I've seen on their website, at least on the economic side of. The economic side of things, they really do live to live up to what they preach. Basically anybody with a disability or special needs can access the park for free. Anybody.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: Adult tickets only cost $38 for a day pass. By comparison, I went on Universal's website and they're great because they've actually incorporated flex pricing, which means they can bump the rates up depending on the day you go to be as not accessible as possible. the tickets seem to range between 110 and $150 a piece. And that's. And then they upsell you at the end of the, of the cart process with 80 to $100 per ticket upsells on additional fast pass.
>> Taylor: Right?
>> Farz: And then I don't know if you ever bought food or drink in any of these parks, but it is, I watch a lot of like Dave Ramsey content and like the amount of people that call in crying because they had to take a HELOC out on their house because they want to take their kids on a trip to Disney. And it's like, what are like, it's very not cool.
>> Taylor: I mean, just so many. I have so many thoughts about that. Like, what? So it's way too expensive for a family of, like, five. You know, a family of four. And I wouldn't. I don't really. I want to do it. And it's also just, like, the whole thing is so expensive. They make everything so expensive. And also, is there, like, probably a fee at the end? Every time I buy a ticket and there's a f****** fee, I want to murder someone.
>> Farz: Also, correction, Taylor. You are a family of five.
>> Taylor: Oh, that's true.
>> Farz: Thank you.
>> Taylor: Could you. Could you imagine my tortoise on, like, Splash Mountain?
>> Farz: Can you imagine little Mickey ears on him? Oh, see, this is how you get sucked in this. I end up getting a HELOC on your house.
>> Taylor: That is the first time I've ever wanted to genuinely go is to find the tiniest pair of mouse ears for Ben Franklin's ghosts.
>> Farz: Him next to, like, the girl who's dressed as, like, Belle or something, and.
>> Taylor: She, like, I bet I could put a little tutu on him.
>> Farz: I love it. Okay.
>> Taylor: Anyway.
Gordon Hartman founded Morgan's Wonderland to accommodate people with special needs
>> Farz: So that's the economic side of. So let's get into, like, who founded it, what it's all about. So the guy who founded it is a guy named Gordon Hartman. He was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. And I. I love, like, these inspirational figures that nobody knows anything about this guy. Okay? 15 years old, he launched a landscaping business. By 19, he. He started a home building business. By 23, he started his land development company. Eventually, he would grow to become the largest home builder and land developer in San Antonio for about 22 years. Like, this guy made it, like, big time. He would marry his wife Maggie in 1991 and would give birth to their daughter Morgan, I think, in 1993. The exact dates aren't there. I think the family actually does like to be somewhat private. It's somewhere between 93 and 95 is when she was born. And Morgan, unfortunately, was born with a cognitive and physical. Was born with cognitive and physical special needs. She was born with a syndrome called Tatton Brown Ramen, which. It's a genetic disease. And so it has varying degrees in which it kind of affects you, but in some cases, you can suffer from extreme intellectual disability as well as physical disability involving your joints. So she was seemingly more on the extreme side of things.
>> Taylor: That. And I thank you for pausing for me. I'm, like, taking a deep breath. Remember how I did work at the. At a hedge fund? You remember? And. But. And I complained about and all the things. But when I worked there, the. The CEO's daughter had a disease that was really bad as well. That was like very, very, very, like, rare. So part of the profits of the hedge fund did go to research for that.
>> Farz: That's awesome. That's awesome. At some point. And again, details about this seem to be kind of scant as well, but there seemed to have been gone on a family trip, the three of them together, and they were enjoying some pool time at a resort. And Morgan wanted to enter the pool and play with other kids who are throwing a ball around. And as she approached them, she was basically just outright rejected. The kids just didn't want to play with her. They took their ball and they went home.
>> Taylor: Totally.
>> Farz: Gordon, the father, would later say, quote, I'll never forget the look of anguish and dismay on Morgan's face. So I decided there had to be a way to bridge the gap of misunderstanding about people with special needs. That incident was a tipping point for Morgan's Wonderland. He also had a TED talk that I. It's not in the outline, but he had a TED talk about something about how any environment. It was something along the lines of, you're. You're not disabled. You're only in an environment that doesn't facilitate what you are able.
>> Taylor: Yeah.
>> Farz: Which is very true.
>> Taylor: Totally.
>> Farz: So in 2005, Gordon sold all of his business interests and set out on a new endeavor of creating Morgan's Wonderland. The process started by establishing the Gordon Hartman family foundation of 501c3, whose initial interest was developing and building this theme park. He went about acquiring about 25 acres of continuous land around San Antonio, as well as consulting with doctors and families and therapists to figure out how he can go about achieving this. The outcome in 2010 was the launch of Morgan's Wonderland. The cost of about $50 million, with completely new and novel rights to accommodate any and everybody. Nobody makes this stuff. Like, they don't make attractions for this demographic. And so, like, for example, the carousel, they had to create that, and they had to make it so that it didn't have flashing lights, it could accommodate wheelchairs, it didn't have loud music, so that people with sense, sensory sensitivities weren't feeling overwhelmed. This was kind of the part that I like a little bit broke down, was they have a swing that's made to secure a wheelchair too, which I thought was really touching and beautiful because I thought about when I was a kid, you know, one of the first and simplest enjoyments you have as A kid is. You go on a swing set with, like, your siblings or whatever, you just push each other and, like, feel the. They talked about how any child should be able to feel the wind pass rushing past them, like on a swing set. And. But like. But again, it's not something that everybody can do because if you have a kind of disability that doesn't allow you to hold your body upright and you have specialized wheelchair contraptions for, like, your spinal balance, like, you need to have that with you. They created a ride called Jets Wonder Bikes, which is a hang glider type thing where you can get on and get lifted up in the air. Again, all wheelchair accessible. And they. You can actually physically manipulate it. Like, you can pedal it. But they also were like, well, some people can't pedal. And so they added hand cranks. So the kids were able to kind of tinker with it and play around with it as well. I love the fact that every ride description on their site included pictures and it included what the ride does, who it was for, as well as options to stop the experience to ensure that no kid was too frightened or overwhelmed by being there. So they literally had like. There was one. There's like, it was. Again, this is in an outline. Sorry, I'm like mumbling a little bit. But, like, it was. It was a. It was a theater style. It was like a 3D theater concept, but they had like kill switches for kids to, like, hit if they wanted, like the thing to stop shaking as they got scared or something. It's like they thought of everything.
>> Taylor: That's lovely.
>> Farz: Seven years after Morgan's Wonderland opened, the family launched Morgan's Inspiration island. So that's 2017, which was basically a splash, splash pad, water park concept. And like, I felt honestly s***** and guilty because as I was reading some of this stuff, I was. I never. It never dawned on me the things that you would need to do for these accommodations to exist. Like, I never, never experienced them. So one thing was anyone who visits the park was given free by the park wheelchairs that were waterproof and came in multiple different sizes to make sure that everyone felt comfortable and weren't going to get their actual wheelchairs soaking wet.
Morgan's Multi Assistance Center provides free services to families with disabilities
All that was done. All that's provided free of charge. They also provide waterproof bags for ventilators, people that need oxygen, and this one, again, never thought of. But there's people who have exposed tracheas because they don't have the capacity to breathe without having an exposed trachea, and they provided covers and accommodations for them as well. All this stuff is given free of charge to anybody who visits. In 2020, they launched Morgan Sports, which is a three acre complex designed for anybody to play SP. I think as of right now, they support pickleball, tennis, basketball and softball. And they also, much to the credit of the San Antonio spurs, partner with them to create a completely free league for kids with or without disabilities to join.
>> Taylor: That's amazing.
>> Farz: Yeah. Like, it's this guy. Go ahead. Sorry.
>> Taylor: No, it's just like, I think, like you were gonna say, like, it's so lovely to have money and do good things with it.
>> Farz: I'm gonna get that too. Like it's such a. Well, I'm gonna go into detail about that.
>> Taylor: Okay.
>> Farz: In 2021, they also launched Morgan's Camp, which was an overnight stay away camp for kids of all abilities to join summertime activities. Like a climbing wall, which also incorporated a police system with wheelchair ramps to make sure that any kid wants, wants to, can do that. A zipline which had seats insured for accessibility. That one was very unique. Like that was not a normal zipline. I saw the pictures of it. It was not like one that you just like strap yourself to from the chest.
>> Taylor: Right.
>> Farz: Like it's made for anybody to be able to kind of get on it. It's more like a ride, almost like.
>> Taylor: An open, open swing.
>> Farz: Basically. Basically that their overnight cabins are designed with rooms for kids to park their wheelchairs next to their bunks. And they have a medical center on site, which is awesome. The one that I thought was really, really cool. I mean, all that stuff was, is really cool. But they started this thing called Mac, which is Morgan's Multi Assistance Center. And this is just like an all around facility in San Antonio for families of kids with this or anybody with disabilities to provide completely free medical, non medical or therapeutic services to the families. They have facilitators there they refer to as navigators who intake families to understand what their needs are and where the gaps in services are and what they can do to kind of bring those two together. They provide on site medical and therapy as well, as well as off site home visits, again, all free to the families. They even started a facility at Mac called Morgan Salon, which provides haircuts, styling, nail coloring, coloring of hair, all that stuff. And the difference here is that there's no time constraints because sometimes people who get sensory overloaded, like you need more, you need to be different with it. Differently. Right. And so the whole thing starts with like the stylist who is also trained on the different needs of their clientele to evaluate the customer, hear what they actually want from, like, an outcome perspective, but also assess, like, their needs and make sure that whatever they're doing is met to accommodate those needs. In 2020, Gordon had to shut down operations due to COVID 19.
>> Taylor: And also, I imagine that they were, like, very susceptible. Yeah, exactly. Like, they were, like, very following the rules very closely because of the people who attend there. Yeah, a lot of folks have been for yourself place.
>> Farz: Yeah, totally. So he pivoted and he took his staff and the people that worked there, the ones that were, like, in character costumes, stuff like that, and they would do home visits for kids and, like, do little dance parties on their porches. They do virtual galas for people as well. Like, this guy just would not give up. He would not let anything disrupt kind of achieving this mission. And so this goes to the money piece of it. So the vast, vast, vast bulk of funds used to provide all these services, they came from Gordon himself and his family. He basically contributed as much as he could to. To the foundation to kind of go through doing this. Rough estimates put the amount of money that he put into it himself, about $86 million.
>> Taylor: Wow.
>> Farz: And the family themselves have committed to donating 95% of their wealth to, throughout their entire lifetime to this mission. Toyota has been a substantial sponsor. Like I said, the spurs have been very, very helpful. The fc, the football club over there has also been really helpful. So is the YMCA and donors, as well as, like, the parks themselves, generating some ticket sales from the adults who would visit or through merchandise sales and things like that. And I was. I was like, again, I kept getting, like, emotional over this s*** because I was like. I was like, what? Like a stark contrast. And, like, I kept being like, this is also America. Amidst, like, news of, like, the bad that goes on. Like, this is also here. This is also here. This also exists. And it's something that we should be really, really proud of. They are going to do some. I couldn't actually tell if it was a movie like, or documentary they were going to do on the topic, but something seems to be in the works that's been, like, optioned, which I hope brings this to light and lets everybody know this exists. And I will say not to toot my own horn, but as of this morning, I am part of Morgan's Giving Society. We'll be sending me a Morgan's butterfly lapel pin, which you can see the butterfly on their website, as well as their favicon that I'm totally intent on wearing, because this is absolutely incredible. This guy's incredible. His family's incredible. So this is not doomed to fail. This is doomed for hope, whatever.
>> Taylor: Yeah, it's a little bit. A little bit of a hopeful story. That's lovely.
>> Farz: Very, very lovely. And honestly, as I was going through it, I was like, why wouldn't anyone, why wouldn't everybody send their kids to a camp like this or to attend a water park like this? Because I think, like, that's the thing when I was growing up that, like, because you didn't see it every day, you didn't know how to interface with it. You didn't know how to interact with people that were differently abled. And I mean, I know me as a kid, I wasn't like the most outgoing with things that I was uncomfortable with or didn't understand.
>> Taylor: Totally.
>> Farz: I think exposure is the way you overcome that.
>> Taylor: And so that.
To make things more accessible actually help everyone, Taylor says
That's such a good point. I feel like we've touched on it like, a little bit. Like, I feel like when I talked about the. Remember the thalidomide babies in the UK who, you know, were. Were had like physical deformities and how people hadn't seen anyone like that in so long because they just sent them to asylums.
>> Farz: Yeah.
>> Taylor: You know, and you're like, that is not. That doesn't. That is not a way to handle that situation, you know. And then I also watched a video, I think Cory Booker posted it on Instagram the other day, but it was from a woman who was talking about how she was in a wheelchair and how things that are. To make things more accessible actually help everyone. Like, you know, I never noticed the number of corners in my neighborhood in Los Angeles that had like a ramp versus a curb until I was pushing my kids in the stroller. And I would, like, avoid the ones that didn't have, like, the ramp, you know, because, like, they were built for people with wheelchairs, but they help people on bikes, help people with strollers. Like, they help people with carts, like all sorts of different things. And then like, things like subtitles, like, they are originally created for people who can't hear, but they're helpful for literally everyone that.
>> Farz: I use subtitles.
>> Taylor: Yeah, everyone does these days, you know, so, like, things that, like the adjustment adjustments that they're making there to accommodate people can probably be helped and used in other places as well. Yeah, you know?
>> Farz: Yeah, absolutely.
>> Taylor: Not just for them.
>> Farz: Anybody who goes to morgan's.org if you scroll down a little bit, you can see there's a picture of Morgan there And beneath it is, it says Morgan's family of entities, where it has Morgan's Wonderland, Inspiration Island Camp, Sports Mac. You can go on any one of these and click to, to donate because, like, I don't like, yeah, this guy's exceedingly wealthy. Or actually, if you go to the footer, you actually click on a donate link right there as well and just give directly. But like, we want to encourage this kind of thing and I think the more people help, the more they feel a part of it, the more they actually think about it and, I don't know, make it a part of their muscle memory. So hopefully folks can give.
>> Taylor: Yeah. Awesome.
>> Farz: Yeah, thank you.
>> Taylor: That's lovely.
>> Farz: I know, I know. I had like pepper in a plane crash on the last episode. Just to balance out.
>> Taylor: I know for real now. It's nice to, you know, hear good things. I think especially with someone who is rich doing something good and helping people, like, it's hard to see that sometimes. And there are people who are doing it, but. But it's probably true that a lot of people are doing it, aren't telling a lot of people.
>> Farz: There's so much too.
>> Taylor: I can think of like four billionaires, but there's like hundreds, you know. Yeah, yeah, those people, probably people. I mean, this is. There's probably people doing some good somewhere.
>> Farz: It's like that saying of like, everybody thinks that we're so polarized. And if you go on Twitter, you think like, oh my God, everybody's so angry and upset about everything. And then it was something about like how like 90 something percent of the content is generated by like 10% of the people. And I think that's the noise that you pay attention to and we all hear. But like, I didn't know this guy even existed. He. His. He probably lives 45 minutes away from me, like San Antonio. I literally didn't even know this guy existed. And. And like, I didn't even know this water, this park existed, or the series of parks existed.
>> Taylor: So I have a tiny spoiler for Superman. So pause here for 10 seconds and fast forward. Do the third fast forward. Lex Luthor literally has a pocket universe in which he has a bunch of monkeys just typing s*** online like literal monkeys. It's hilar.
>> Farz: That's different from our modern thousands of.
>> Taylor: Monkeys on Twitter being like, f*** Superman. It's really funny.
>> Farz: It is. Not that I believe it. I believe it. Cool. But that was my story. If anybody knows. Again, going back to what Taylor was saying, like, this can't be a one off.
>> Taylor: Tell us some good stories. Yeah, yeah.
>> Farz: Tell us, like, if you know of something that's going on, like, in your. Or, you know, people like this, I'd love to hear about it. And I think, like, it's useful to elevate that because you get. It's easy if you watch the news to get, like, wrapped up in, like, the negativity, but, like, there's still a ton of positivity out there, and so I'd like to give that a voice, if possible.
>> Taylor: Nice. Nice.
There will be more episodes, I think. Anything to announce? Nope. No announcements. But please follow us on social media
We can end with that. So I think. Was it the last episode that we ended with? The world is being destroyed via climate change. Don't. Don't worry about it.
>> Farz: Yeah, we are. Yeah, we're very confusing podcasts at times.
>> Taylor: Everything's fine. Awesome. Well, thank you.
>> Farz: Do we have any. Anything to announce?
>> Taylor: Nope. No announcements. But please follow us on social media. Iamtafilpod. And then also, I think I'm gonna release our compilation episodes every Thursday, which is, like, if you haven't listened to everything, because we have over 200 episodes, you can go back and look at different topics, and I'm trying to put them together for you. So there will be more.
>> Farz: Yeah. Thank you, listeners, and thank you, Taylor.
>> Taylor: Thank you, Forest. See you soon.