“Not so much here,” Dani piped in with an eye roll.

“No, but in Norway no one is paying their athletes what we get either, so we figure we can give some back.” That came from Ivan and I liked that accountability. Respected it. “So that’s basically stage one out of like twenty; we want to build a city.” Both of the guys laughed when my eyes widened.

“Well, not exactly a city,” Gio hedged, doing calm-down hands to Ivan, “but more like we’d love to build a safe, subsidized housing complex for homeless veterans with all the facilities they would need for their day-to-day. We’re talking physical and psychotherapy, groceries, a place to get their prescriptions,” he said, ticking items off with his fingers.

“Trauma-informed group therapy, and support for their families,” Ivan added, tipping his wineglass, and Gio nodded.

“Yeah, trauma-informed substance abuse counseling, treatment. And we want to do education as well. Skills adaptation,” Ivan explained. I nodded with interest at the ambitious plans these guys had, and all for an amazing cause. “A lot of these guys get a ton of sophisticated training during their service. They have a lot of skills. If they could learn how to adapt them to civilian life, they could have more success in the job market.”

“That sounds fantastic.” More of that fevered excitement ran through me. These men were big thinkers.

“For a lot of veterans the tricky part is access,” Ivan said. “In the beginning just getting to places is overwhelming. So we’d like to have all of it in one place for them. If they have most of their basic needs met in one location, then they can focus on their healing and recovery.” I wanted to be part of this, I knew the moment they started talking. But this project was not something I could dip in and out of. Agreeing to be a part of something like this was a big commitment. I couldn’t flake out on this halfway into it, and with the commitments of running Ganas day-to-day once I went back to New York it would not be possible. This was not some side project. This was a massive undertaking, and it would require my all. With all that I was going back to in New York I was in no position to sign on to this unless I made major changes. Still, the question slipped out of my mouth.

“Do you have a builder working with you?” The two guys shook their heads, but their eyes sparkled at my question.