Awakened in America
Awakened in America
S1 Ep #8: Being African American in a Liberal State
Host Z and Host Jess sit down with Shenita and Todd Moore to discuss their lives and experiences growing up in a state that considers itself Liberal.
You're listening to awaken in America, two m inds on a journey to create d ialogue about diversity, inclusion and optimism. Hello,
Speaker 2:Wakened. Thanks for joining us again today, we look forward to presenting to you being African-American in a liberal state. We'll have some guests on today who will be sharing their experiences of living in two liberal cities in California and looking at their lives from childhood to adulthood. I may also share a few experiences of my own. We look forward to enlightening you as usual, and we hope that these stories resonate with you because t hey a re true. Take care, be safe and be well.
Speaker 3:Well, awakened hope. Everybody's doing great. It's your hosts, Jess and Z. And we are so excited to have our guests on today. We have the lovely couple of Shanita and Todd Maura with us. If you want to say hi to our listeners,
Speaker 2:Hello nurse. Hi,
Speaker 3:And we just a quick introduction on Janita and Todd. They are West coast based. They are parents of two lovely teenage daughters, and they've been married almost 20 years. It's 18 and a half. Shanita is an actress and Todd has a career in the n onprofit industry. And the way that we actually got connected is through a woman. I used to hang out with at the park with our little kids and we moved neighborhoods. But before we moved, she told me about this amazing organization called children's clothing giveaway. And at the time I was h ad a lot of baby stuff and my kids had outgrown and I didn't really know what the best place for it was. And she said, there's this amazing woman named Shanita who started this organization. And she will come to your house and pick up what you have, that you are no longer using and then give it to families in need. And, um, you know, I live in LA, so that all sounded amazing to me. And I'm thinking like, who is this angel of a person that will just show up and do that for me in her free time? And then I met her and she actually is a real life angel. And so she and her husband, Todd, this is actually what they do in their free time. They service families in need. I think the organization is actually expanding to service people outside of California, even. So that's super exciting, but it is called children's clothing giveaway. And the website where you can learn more about this is www dot children's clothing, giveaway.org. And I don't know if you guys want to say a few words about kind of how you started the organization itself and any items that you're looking for with the holidays around the corner or anything like that? Well, the organization
Speaker 1:Was actually spawn from
Speaker 2:Just having an excess of children's items when our daughters
Speaker 4:Were younger at the time, the church that we go to, a lot of the women there had children around the same age. So a group of us had an idea to have kind of like a, an exchange where we would bring things that we weren't using anymore, or our children had grown out of and we would exchange them amongst each other. And so we did this a couple of times and what I seem to notice was the pattern or the trend was that afterwards I was left with all of the leftover items that no one wanted to take back home. And so the first couple of times I t ook them like t o like Goodwill or like other, my local n onprofits. And what I found was that, you know, of course a t Goodwill, they were selling them. But then at these other n onprofits, they were also doing the same, like they had like little stores and they would sell the items. And I said, you know, it's really kind of unfair that the people that would need these items have to now purchase them rather than just having someone give them to them. Right. So kind of where it all started, it started at our church and it started with these moms. And then it kind of just grew into this event that we do twice a year. Our, of course, this year, we haven't been able to do it, but leading up to this year, we were doing it twice, sometimes three times a year. And one thing that I can say is we've never had a shortage of donations. We've always had enough for the amount of people that have ended up coming to these events and everyone leaves with more than what they even came or expected, y ou k now, to get as far as, I mean, clothing, anything that you can imagine for your children, cribs toys, stuffed animals, diapers, formula, you know, just the whole gamut of what you would need for your children.
Speaker 5:And what we've learned doing this is a lot of generous people out there that want to help, but they just don't know necessarily that we're aware. And, um, you know, we've met a lot of wonderful people freely and gladly give. So, um, it's just been a blessing all the way around. And, um, you know, when the Nia Shanita where new parents, you know, financially with a new kid and stuff like that, it was kind of beating us up. And we always wanted an organization that would, you know, freely give stuff like that and it didn't exist. So you know how they say, uh, you know, uh, necessities is the mother of invention. So we need, we were in need our sales. And we were able to come up with this, this idea of gifting people, things that you don't even use anymore. So, you know, why not let somebody else with it? You know, and children's supplies, the children grow up so fast, they go through that stuff so fast and for you to pay full price for something, and you're only gonna use for a few months. It's like, it really doesn't make sense, you know? And so along
Speaker 4:Those same lines, because we are still kind of at the level where we are, we really don't have a lot of grant funding. So we don't have to go through the whole process of what a lot of nonprofits have to do. So like a lot of people will say, so I can just take this. I don't need to like, prove to you that I needed. I don't want to have to fill out paperwork. I don't have to show you my ID. I don't have to, you know what I know, you know, we are giving this to people who say to us, they're in need. If you're not in need and you go and do something else with this, guess what? That's on you not going to affect us. It's on you. If you're being shady and doing things that you shouldn't be doing, you know, I'm not going to worry about it. And my intentions are to help people who are in need. So if you're taking advantage of that, then you're going to have to answer for it. In my opinion, you know, as a Christian, I'm saying, you're going to have to answer for that. You know, if you're being shiesty or whatever, but yeah. So that's basically how we got started. And now we have, I mean, on both ends of it, we don't have to go looking for donations anymore. And we also don't have to go looking for families because everyone kind of comes to us. We just have to link it up. We have social workers that reach out to us. And like Jesse was saying, now we have people in other States that will say, you know, can you please help out this family? We're an organization. We don't really know where to go to help them, you know, get clothing for their children. And winter's coming, they eat codes that, you know, what choose things like that. And we can kind of pull from our supply and, you know, box it up. And for example, this last request that we filled for something like that out of state, they were in Missouri who were going back and forth. And I was saying, you know, we can get all these things together, but it's probably going to cost you about 60,$65 to ship it out. I said, we can ship it. Or you guys can pay for the shipping since we're sending it to you. And my oldest daughter heard the conversation and when I was done talking to them or messaging them, I can't remember if it was like reading an email and talking to them on the phone. She goes, mommy, I'll pay for it. And I said, what do you mean? She says, I'll pay to ship the box to them. And I was like, are you sure of like, it's going to cost a lot. She's like, no, yeah, I'll do it. And she did it. And it kind of, you know, it touched both of us cause we were like, okay, we're doing something right. If our child's who kind of helped spawn this idea for us, you know, when she was just a baby and didn't even know it, if she now at 18 has that same spirit of Iranian people. Yeah. So it really, it was really, yeah.
Speaker 3:Great job, mom and dad. Yeah. And then I know you guys usually have events, um, like you were saying, there's a holiday kind of drive that you do every year, right? Shanita.
Speaker 4:Yes. So we didn't do it in 2019, but the two years previous to that, we did have like a holiday Christmas b ased event. And then we even, I think we got a t the last one, we got some donations from like toys for tots know, things like that. But of course with what's going on this year, you know, we were on the fence about whether or not we wanted to do something. And then we had a very generous offer from one of our donors. He linked us up with the company that he's employed by and the ir, u h, th eir team has committed to help us get some new gifts for some of our kids. So it's going to be a smaller event tha n wh at we're normally used to, but it's better than us not having done anything this year, as far as, you kn o w, e vents are concerned. So we're really, really excited to be able to do this for some of our families. So, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I think that's a really great way that for my friends that are kind of looking for ways to get involved in ways to help and give back partnering with an organization like Shanita is, you know, or she does organization itself. I think the person she might be talking about is my husband presumptuous. But, um, yeah, I mean, he was blown away too, just by, you know, Todd and Shanita and the dedication they have to this organization. And we had them over for dinner and had this conversation about how we could get more involved. And then Steve, my husband got in touch with internal people. I believe HR who then use Nita connected with they think offline without his involvement. But the bottom line is, you know, he works at a big company. There are a lot of parents like us, that kids are outgrowing things quickly in these early years. And so the hope is it'll be very easy for, you know, people to donate things and hopefully be able to do something for the community, you know, around the holidays. So if there's any other people, any listeners that are, I guess, really anywhere in the country that think they could do something similar to help children's clothing giveaway by organizing something, you know, it really just takes a few emails and a few kind of setup phone calls to get the ball rolling if I'm right. E xactly.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah. That's I mean, because, you know, when we first started, it was like, you know, we just had a few tables and we had maybe 20 people come by and that was great. We were like, yes. You know, we helped 20 people, you know, so it's like everyone, you know, you have to start somewhere. So, you know, we just kinda kept doing it and it just kinda kept growing and getting bigger and getting bigger. And on that same kind of trajectory, we're hoping that in the coming months or a year that we can actually have a facility where it would almost mimic what a Goodwill would look like, but of course, no one's going to be spending money. They would just make an appointment with us to come in, bring their family and kind of just chop for what they need for their family. And then that way we can kind of do it year round. So one thing that we encourage people because we have a lot of people at our church that want to help a nd w e're like, u m, collecting for our events and they say, well, I don't have any children. I don't have anything like that that I can donate, or I don't have any young children, I should say, we would say, okay, well, if you want to make a donation towards, you know, something we'll be doing in the future, you're more than welcome to do that. So they'll give us like$25 or$50. And if we have any that where we need to kind of, I call it filling in the gaps where we know that something is typically really popular at our events, and maybe we didn't get a whole lot of them to donate it. I can then go out and purchase those things and make sure that they're there. So we would say like underwear or socks or things like that. And then that kind of helps make up the difference. So if there's anyone who is out there that would want to make a donation to us, and they can't like, say for example, like you said, they live in another state and it wouldn't be feasible for them to send us, you know, all of their used items. It wouldn't make any sense for them to ship them to us here. That would be another way that they could help us continue growing and help us continue doing this is by making a monetary donation, which they can also do on our website.
Speaker 3:That's a great point. Yeah. And do you have an email address for the organization, for people to get in touch with you or an Instagram page or what's the best way?
Speaker 4:So, I mean, any platform is fine, but they can, there's a form on our website that they can fill out or they can send us an email. The email address is similar it's children's clothing giveaway@yahoo.com. Okay, great. Great.
Speaker 3:And then just really quickly, I wanted to mention, because I also thought this was so amazing. Your daughter Taya also sells art
Speaker 4:Art show right.
Speaker 3:In conjunction with your organization.
Speaker 4:Yes. So she's an artist, very town. This is the same 18 year old. I was talking about earlier, very talented artist. Last year, we did kind of a fundraiser art show with her and she raised quite a bit of money. It was her first art show ever. And we had a really big turnout. She sold a lot of original pieces and it was very, it was wonderful. And we did something similar with her just like a couple of weeks ago, you know, because of everything that's going on. Of course we can't do an in-person art show this year, but she's kind of, well, not kind of she's, ticktock famous. Uh, what is her number now? She's like maybe 150,000 people or so follow her on Tik TOK. Like she's working well, he's pretty cool. Tase art on Tik TOK. I'll just go ahead and plug her great. She did kind of an online raffle and it was like make a donation to children's clothing giveaway and you'll be entered into it, you know, like a raffle for me to draw something, an original piece for you. So she just wrapped that up and has the winner. And she was just talking to me this morning about emailing the woman to get the, like the specifics of her piece. So amazing. So yeah, she definitely does a lot to help and promote the nonprofit. So we're really appreciative. It's amazing.
Speaker 3:The more is, are family goals over here, teenagers involved, everybody at this philanthropic stuff. It's pretty remarkable. So, and that's what it looks like when you start the ball rolling. Right. And from a young age. So on that note, u m, so yeah, like I mentioned, we had dinner, we were talking about giving back and their organization and ways we get more involved. And then Todd actually kind of got my wheels turning about something that Z and I have been talking about at the same time, which is what brings us to today's episode. We're going to be discussing race in different parts of the country. And as everybody knows, I think I'm new to this discussion. I'm learning as I go and I'm trying to absorb, you know, things along the way. And this particular topic is really interesting to me because you know, big cities on paper are diverse, different parts of the country a re diverse. You know, there's different races represented, but I'm trying to understand, you know, from my own personal benefit and, you know, interested in places that I can raise my family, where is it truly inclusive in this country? You know, where people really recognizing, appreciating, elevating different races. And it's not just all about, you know, the majority. So something that Todd mentioned, we were just talking about, you know, where are you from? Where'd you grow up, blah, blah, blah. And he said he was, spent some time in Oakland and also spent some time in Los Angeles. And so one of the things that you mentioned was kind of the difference in, y ou k now, his experiences there, which is kind of what leads me to what we're going to talk about now, unless there's anything Z that you want to add before we get going. N o, I t hink i t's, I think this is going to be a great episode and I hope that you stay tuned in. Great. So anyway, Todd, we will kind of turn it over to you. And is there anything that comes to mind to share with our listeners? Like I said, when you think about your experiences growing up in those two different places,
Speaker 5:Um, well growing up in Oakland, uh, it was quite different from, uh, Los Angeles, especially, you know, being in school and, and stuff like that. I can honestly say that I learned more of my history and my heritage in elementary school and junior high school. And even in the first two years of high school, I learned more about myself in the Bay area a nd Bay area schools than I ever did in Los Angeles schools or even the college I went to in Los Angeles. I don't know why that is perhaps, you know, a Bay area maybe i s a little bit more progressive. Maybe they have people in those areas that put together curriculum. I don't know why that is, but I learned a lot more black history if you will, in Oakland t han I ever did in Los Angeles. I remember it was times when, when I first moved to Los Angeles, I was 16. So I was going to be a junior in high school. And then when it got around Christmas time, usually in Oakland and in the school that I went to, we recognized Kwanzaa. And when I mentioned that down here in Los Angeles, people looked at me like I was saying a bad word. So yeah. They just, they didn't know what it was. And I'm like really young about quiet. Okay. Whatever. And so it was just amazing that the things that I was exposed to in Oakland at a young age and people in Los Angeles school districts, maybe didn't, wasn't exposed to those things. So it was quite different along with, you know, my parents and family members, you know, making sure that I knew my history and you know, where we came from and things like that. And I guess the biggest difference was I felt like in the Bay area, I learned about black history and it didn't start as slavery, but down here in Los Angeles, you know, when we start with our history, it started to sleep and it's like, okay, well, where were you before that? You know? And, um, you know, I think it's just, it's sad and, you know, prayerfully things can change, but you know, that's how I was in my day. I don't know how it is now, but that's how I was in my day. And I went to Berkeley high school, which is right next door to Oakland. And they had a whole African-American history department, like the whole building dedicated to African-American history. And that's when I learned, you know, African Haitian dance. And, and we had, uh, we had people come and present African ceremonies and, you know, black history was a big deal and things like that. And you know, down here it was like, we're not going to do nothing. I mean, you know, in the high school I went to down here in Los Angeles was basically, I would say at the time it was probably like 70% black. And it's like, we, 70% black, no, ain't even talking about none of this. Okay. So, and I loved the school I went to, we don't get me wrong. Crenshaw high was wonderful. Shout out to all the Crenshaw people that went there. But you know, now that I'm older, I see that we were what's the word we were just, um, we would just pass through, let's put it like that.
Speaker 3:Did you notice a difference in the racial makeup of the staff at the schools? Did you feel like there was an association between having more African-American teachers in one school versus another, or was it pretty the same?
Speaker 5:It was the same, however, my history teacher in Oakland was black and my history teacher at Crenshaw high was white. And, you know, the history class I took was an African-American history class in Oakland, but then in Los Angeles, they didn't offer African-American history at all. We touched it when it came to the civil rights section of the book, but, you know, after touching it, that was it. And it baffles me that black history is not considered American history when black folks built the country that we call America, it baffles me how, you know, it's just not recognized at all. So, you know, I mean, how can you talk about America and not talking about black people? I see deal to the brain.
Speaker 2:That's why we're discussing all of this.
Speaker 3:And this is why I think when Z and I kind of just organically picked topics to discuss education was I think the very first one that came up c ause we're like, there seems to be a major g ap here, knowledge gap in how we got to this place. You know, I think when, you know, George Floyd, COVID when all o f these things k ind o f came together, there were a lot of white people like myself going, like, how did this happen? You know, and I think a lot of it goes back to how we were brought up in school and how, the way we were taught education history. And of course it's painful and it's dark and heavy and ugly, but it's our history, you know, and just a misrepresentation to not acknowledge that part of it and give' em proper, you know, attention to it. So that's something, you know, I think Z and I share that, but that's definitely a focus of mine f or my own family. And that was a big catalyst for why we wanted to start the podcast was to do better for our own children. And it's still something I plan on continuing to refocus on as they grow up and as their schools change and their teachers change their friends, o ur goals, and all that, really trying to do my part within the school to make sure that, you know, diversity and inclusion are main priorities for the school.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And actually, you know, tied, it's kind of funny because as Jess and I were talking, as we were preparing for this episode, I was telling her how I was speaking to an uncle of mine. I'm originally from New York and from Queens. And I was speaking to an uncle of mine a couple of weeks ago, who still lives, he lives in long Island now, but he was saying how you said, you know, Mako Mex used to come to the mosque at the end of the block. And I said, what? I said, Oh yeah, they used to be a mosque there. Like it wasn't the literal block that our family house was located in. But it was like, if you crossed like a major street, like it was on that subsequent corner. And I knew that there were a lot of Muslims in the community, like, you know, obviously they would be dressed and you know, their attire. And, um, and I had a couple of friends that I went to school with that were Muslim, but, but I really didn't like make the association, like, I dunno, I think at some point the mosque moved and when I was maybe a teenager or something, and so, you know, I kind of, I guess, forgot about it. And then he was like, yeah. And you know, Muhammad Ali used to come by and be there too. And I said, what? No. He was like, yeah, they used to give out like$50 bills and$20 bills. So the kids, and I said, are you kidding me? Yeah. He said, I shook his hand. I said, s o, y ou k now, here I am. I'm like, y eah. You know, I guess those stories weren't told to me, and I don't even know what sparked the conversation recently, but I was just like baffled. And I've told Jess before that, I feel like where I grew up in Queens was a microcosm. Like, I don't know most, I dunno if the listeners know of the rap artists, like kid in play and thought I'm Peppa, but they grew up in my neighborhood. Like literally, they were like the next town over and you could walk there and like maybe eight blocks and, and play at a store. And like, I would go to the store as a teenager, you know, and like walk by kind of see if they were in there to wave. And I went to high school in Jamaica, Queens and, uh, you know, big daddy Kane is from there and like LL cool J and so a lot of rap stars, but also in the neighborhood I grew up in, which is Corona Queens. Um, Nat King Cole was like three blocks away. His house, uh, Langston Hughes was in the community. As I said, Malcolm X. He actually had a house that was not far from where we lived in the next, which was East Elmhurst. So Corona Nissan, so like neighboring communities. And so they lived there Langston Hughes. As a matter of fact, I used to go to an afterschool program, like a homework program. It was run by an African-American director and assistant director. And the library was called Langston Hughes. And just to, you know, just to show how things change. I went back there like many years later, maybe I dunno, in my twenties and the population had changed in the neighborhood. And so they used to be like, primarily African-Americans in the homework assistance program and now was predominant Spanish, Hispanic, Latino. So, you know, I was like, but those same directors were still there. Wow. You know? And so I kind of was like, wow. You know, everything that I learned was I feel like it gave me such pride, like the florist on the corner owned by a black person, the dry cleaner is owned by a black person, you know, several black churches. I attended the black church. Like, you know, the influence of African-Americans was so strong that, you know, I kind of grew up, I feel like in a microcosm, a small bubble, because you know, now when I think about my kids, I'm like, where can I go and find that again? It's like, it doesn't exist. And I'm like Oakland, not quite, you know, like, and it's definitely not where I grew up because that area is now becoming because like the, like my grandparents, like generation has side off, then their children moved out of the community. And so now it's predominantly like Latino and Asian. And so it's like, you know, and they used to be like all homes, you know, like very few apartments, you know, people may have rented, but they were visiting, you know, like a floor in a home or something like that. So now you don't even have that. Like, you have all these different dwellings because, you know, no one went to the city and said, Hey, we don't want these other dwellings, you know, this kind of thing. So, but i t, you know, this whole like episode kind of spread up the feelings that I have of, O h, I want my kids to have the same courage that I had. Like, you know, I never had a fear o f walking into a room with all white people because I was so proud of myself, you know, I had that sense of s elf-worth and I think that's, you know, one of the things that I think is important in a ddressing on our po dcast i s that, you know, we need to think about this as a systemic issue because everyone needs to have se lf-worth, you know, you don't want to live amongst people that don't okay. Because people that don't have self-worth those who commit crimes and do other things. And it's really because they don't believe in themselves, or they never had someone to encourage them or support them and the same opportunities or the same opportunities, you know, so on and so forth. And so we need to recognize that all of that begins in the educational system. Yes. It starts at home first, everything starts at home. So, you know, those factors, we can't necessarily control as a society. You have whatever parents you have, but once you get into the educational system where a large amount of time is spent by children, I mean, eight hours a day, you know, then we need to control those factors. We need to have perhaps more black educators and not just in primarily black schools, like that's not really, you know, that's great for black people, but that's not great in terms of everyone being educated the same way. And so,
Speaker 3:And it's not cheap teaching our children inclusivity, you know, I mean, I spoke with someone today who works at a school and my question was like, how do you, you know, they're young, but how do you make them inclusive at such a young age at this school? And she gave me a pretty good answer. You know, it was, you know, we draw from all different parts and we're really affordable and we give grants and all of this stuff. But I really think like some of your suggestions, you like having a more diversified staff or having guest speakers come in that are representative of all different races and all different professions, you know? And it's a real thing. When I think about it as a mother, you're trying to teach your children that the world is their oyster and all these opportunities are there for them. But then if you're white and that's fine, but if you're not white, your kid is looking around and going, well, why is everybody I aspire to be white also? You know, not like me. And, um, I don't know how we fix that, but that's like you said, kind of what spurred this episode, thinking about all of those things and how we can hopefully shift, make some changes. But I think it's important for white listeners like myself or white people like myself to just have that compassion and that empathy for other parents, you know, that are other races, minority races, trying to teach their children by example, you know, and, um, just kind of opening their eyes to this situation because it is a situation, all of a, you know, a lot of the children's movies, the blonde hair, you know, light colored skin, that sort of a thing. And I know that's a challenge for a lot of minority women that are raising girls, you know, how do you teach them based on the mainstream movies that they're beautiful and, you know, the, they don't look like Cinderella. Exactly. Their hair might be different, but it's still beautiful, you know? And it's, my heart goes out to you raising daughters because my kids, because of their white privilege, I don't even have to lose any sleep over that per se. You know, for them specifically, I lose sleep over what that's going to do to them in the longterm. You know, if I don't raise awareness for it at a young age and say, everyone's beautiful and make a point of educating them because the media might be telling them something else, you know, but we, I think as parents owe it to our children to highlight this or raise awareness, you know, and, um, I nosy, you're always a good resource for books and things like that for children. So if anybody wants to email us info@awakenedinamerica.com, be glad to send those resources over. For sure.
Speaker 2:I was going to say, just to mention that for a minute, as Jessie mentioned, I have a lot of, I have a lot of children's books and I would say probably 85 to 90% of them have a black face on them. Some kind of way, I'm a person of color or something that I've made a point to do that from the time that they were young. But the other day I saw my child using her tablet and she was doing something that was educational, which is great, but it was about history. And so it had six characters up, I think one was like Lincoln. And I d unno, there was only one black person and that person was over Neale Hurston. And I was like I said to myself, Oh, Zora Neale Hurston, like, cool. Right. So my daughter was at the point of clicking. Like she had already listened to one. So now she was selecting the next person and she skipped over this, or I know her son and I said, wait a minute, why are you skipping this? And, um, I was like I said, you need to learn about Zora Neale Hurston. And I know she, we have some other book of black women that, you know, have contributed greatly to America and Darnell Huston's also in that book. And so it was just, but I was just like baffled. I was like, all this work that I'm doing and you don't big Zora Neale Hurston. And I said to myself, you know, this is what I mean, it's like there has to be reinforcement from so many different areas and different people. Like it wouldn't have been enough probably for me, even as a young child to have had my family keep telling me that I was beautiful or this and that it's, uh, you know, going to the homework assistance program where they talked about Kwanzaa and they talked about, you know, they had poets and they had black art and they had black dancers. And, you know, like if I didn't have that cultural experience tied to it and seeing it for myself, then I probably wouldn't have felt the same way. You know, I wouldn't have grown up to think the same way that I think today. And I say, you know, for my daughters, I can, you know, shout from the rooftop about everybody, you know, that has contributed every black inventor. And, but it won't make a difference if it's not reinforced somewhere. And so, you know, I feel like, you know, we all pay tax dollars into the educational system. And the issue that I have is that it's still not equal based on full paying taxes into the system. And you know, so we're supposed to be all benefiting from the education, the free educational system. And it shouldn't matter what the proximity of your house or your apartment or where you live. Cause that's not written in the rules. That's not in the by-lines. Uh, so really we need to hold our senators and our Congress people, you know, we need to hold them accountable for changing this. And, you know, we don't know what the voter turnout is going to be, but I hope that you know, that the response will be that we've all learned something from the last four years. I hope that we've all learned that it's our civic responsibility to get involved. It doesn't matter. Like, you know what you do as a profession. It doesn't matter where you come from, but if you're a citizen or trying to become a citizen, like you need to get involved and you need to make sure that we hold these people accountable. Like they're getting paid from our tax dollars and we're not getting the output that we should be getting. I mean, we have police shootings that don't happen in other countries. That's a problem. Why do we have kids shooting in schools? And why is that happening in America? Yeah. So, you know, there are so many reasons why this is not just a, an African-American black lives matter issue. This is an American issue. And if America doesn't do a better job of educating and supporting single parents and nourishing our kids with food and, you know, clean environment, if we don't do a better job yeah. If we don't do a better job in all these areas, then the future is going to be bleak for everyone. You know, there, there are no dollar signs that can put you in a bubble. I don't care if you do fly to Mars, you know, you're going to have problems on Mars because you have people at any time, you have people you're gonna have some types of social issues.
Speaker 5:And I love what you said Z about, you know, us being taxpayers, you know, when the police harass cue abuse and when schools, miseducate, and ms. Guy we're paying for that. Yes. Not only in the figurative sense, but literally I'm paying you to harass me. I pay your salary and you harass me. I'm giving my money for you to harass me. And that's what makes it so painful. It's like, I'm paying for the police, I'm paying for the schools and you're going to miseducate me and abuse me. And I'm literally funding you. And it's like, you know, if I wasn't paying for it, maybe it wouldn't hurt as bad, but it's like, I'm literally paying out of my pockets for you to arrest me. Right. You know, and you know, it's just, like you said, we all got to get involved. And we all got to, you know, make sure that we hold people accountable that need to be able to count. And one thing that I wanted to just m ention is also along those same lines and not to l ike, you know, bring in negativity, but just not allow, u m, people who oppose this progression and this growth to deter you. B ecause if I turn on the television
Speaker 4:One more day and see another story about someone trying to sabotage the election by, I mean, going to, I don't know if you saw this headline Z Baldwin park, which is a black neighborhood here in Los Angeles, was it last night or the night before someone lit fire to one of the ballot boxes and burned up a good majority of the ballots that were inside of them? Yes. Probably with the, yes. With the assumption that the ballots an d t h ere w ere going to be voting a certain way. Um, y eah. So that, you know, you would pinpoint and go to a black neighborhood if you were in opposition to t h at h orrifying y' all. Ye ah. And then a couple of days ago, I can't remember what state it was in maybe Virginia or something. I don't want to say the state, but it was their final day I think, to register to vote. And they were trying to do it electronically and someone somewhere cut some cable that crashed the system to delay pe ople. It's like, ag ain, I think it was Virginia. It's like, okay, if we're going to be fair about it, let's be fair about it. Like why all of the, you know, un derhand,
Speaker 6:Cheating, cheating,
Speaker 4:Just being purely, just evil, just keeping people from doing something that's everyone's right. To do, you know, it's just, it's appalling. And it's like, I, for 1:00 AM ready for this election to be done and over with and behind us and hopefully on the right side of where it should be so that we can put to bed. A lot of these people who are doing things like this, I mean, they just need to go back wherever they came from and just stay there in my opinion, because it's just, it's horrible. I mean, and we watch BBC news sometimes, and it's like other countries are laughing at us right now. I mean, and we, you know, I don't want to go off on like too far on his hand t here, but we went to Ethiopia last year for a couple of weeks and just looking at the news and things like that, just the whole spin of just being an American is so different when you're on the outside, looking in, like when we're in the midst of this, it's like, O h, you know, like, but it's like, there's so many other things going on in the world. And you know, I know that we're concerned about, you know, our lives as Americans, but it's like for people just to be so s mall m inded and think that I just, you know, this is what I think, and this is what has to be i s just wrong and not including other people on other races and other ethnicities and the things that they go through. And it's just, you know, it's sad just to witness that, you know, I m ean,
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah. Other countries definitely are laughing at it. You know, they
Speaker 5:See the hypocrisy that I think we don't address. We call ourselves United, you know, and they're like, okay, I thought you guys were United States, you got to red and blue States fighting each other. Right. And you know, you have one section of the country that wants to q ueue, you know, other sections of the country. And it's like, they laugh at our name United States of America, you know, walk around p ompous, like, H ey, w e're the number one country. Right. You know, our president is the leader of the free world and all this stuff. And it's like, it's a ll misleading. What are we doing? You know, like what, what was that? And it comes down to, and I think you guys mi ght've m entioned this on your podcast, it comes down to our foundation and what we were built on an a c count, yo u k n ow? Exactly.
Speaker 3:Just, yeah. Yeah. I was going to say like other countries, we're not the only ones that mess up, but their countries have handled their mess ups, you know, better over time. And I'm thinking of the example. See, I think you came across about Germany teaching Holocaust in his secondary curriculum. Right. So they're not brushing it off. Yeah. They're confronting
Speaker 5:Right. Or not pretending as if it didn't happen.
Speaker 3:And
Speaker 5:I think that's one of the problems with America and why we haven't gotten as far as we could, because we've never dealt with our sin problem of slavery and mistreatment of humans. And, and, you know, until, you know, we lament those scenes. And what I mean by l ament is until we are able to feel the pain of those who were oppressed and acknowledge it, w e'll never get that far because you have to address it in order to heal from it. And so what I'm saying is America's never really healed from the, o f slavery. That wound is still fresh, you know, and, you know, I was sharing t he timeline w ith s he n eeded, you know, we were 401 years w e've been misreading and, you know, it's only been, what was it like 60 years or 50 years or something like that, that we were able to do the things that we enjoy today, like vote or, you know,
Speaker 3:Or you put it like that. It's really,
Speaker 5:I want to be grateful for that. Right. Right. We've been enslaved and mistreated and segregated longer than we've been free, you know, and, you know, have we made
Speaker 4:Progress? Yeah. We can use the same bathroom. We can sit at the same water fountain, you know, can we live in the same neighborhood? Can we, you know, can we buy property like
Speaker 3:That to schools be funded the same,
Speaker 4:You know, that's the progress that we got to get to, but we'll never get there until we, you know, have these conversations like this. That's what, yeah. And that's what he says. Sometimes when we're talking, having conversations like this, he's like, I hate to hear people say, Oh, well, get over it. Don't play the race card, get over, get he's like, we haven't even addressed it. Well, how can we get over something we haven't even addressed yet? You know? Like, can we at least talk about it first? And it's like, it's, it's baffling because you know, just when you're saying 50 years, you know, our parents can tell a story. Now, grandmother, grandmother, my mom can be a story about when she was a little girl, how she couldn't drink at the same water fed as a white person, you know? And it's like,
Speaker 2:No that's age generation.
Speaker 3:Yeah. For those people that are saying, get over it. It's like, have you ever once had a discussion with another person that's not white about race and really tried to understand that point of view venture to guess the answer is probably no, because it's uncomfortable. You know? And that's, I think why we're trying to do this podcast is to encourage people to step out of their comfort zone so that we can normalize this conversation so that we can all learn and grow from it and hopefully move on and progress because we're not going to be able to do any of those things until people are faced with the reality of the feelings, you know, and understanding the other side of this. And I think anybody that questions, whether or not this is relevant today, it's like you said, Todd, when you put it in a timeline and you think about just, you know, one generation ago, the daily basic things that were not afforded to people of color, it's really m indblowing
Speaker 2:And said, yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's why I think, you know, the word tired is very suited. I said, you know, I was watching Don lemon on CNN one day and he said, w ait, just tired. And I said, wow, Don lemon said that, like I was first shocked that he would say that. And then I was like, yes, that is it tired?
Speaker 4:You know, it's funny. I put up a meme the other day that I saw online, it spoke so true to me and to a lot of people that saw it and it basically say a nap, won't help if it's your soul that's and it's so true. It's like, when does it all like get better? You know, it's like, I mean, just what, what was like a week or two ago, there was another police shooting of another innocent black man in Texas. It's like, when are we going to get off of this whole, like, you know, police brutality, just do whatever they want to do. Thing. I mean, like a nightmare, it's a nightmare recurring nightmare, right? Y eah. Waking up to the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 3:And then something that we just totally take for granted, or at least I did, you know, in my previous life being able to just not worry about stuff like that. Cause I'm white, you know, and not having to worry about that for my family. But like we talked about, I think in one of the most recent episodes, if you're a person of color, this follows you throughout your life, this fear of things like this happening, it doesn't matter what level of success you've achieved in your life or how many accolades you have under your belt. I t just because of your skin color, you have this fear following you kind of ingrained in you from a young, young age to fear law enforcement to have to worry about not being given the same opportunities and y ou k now, having your rights disregarded and all o f these basic
Speaker 4:Or just people not liking you, just because of the color of your skin. I mean that those people still exist. I was telling you last month, you know, we were in Brentwood, running in Herrin, mind your own business, get out of the car and a white man walks back to it or walks by us and says go back to Compton.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 4:It's like,[inaudible], it's mind blowing, it's mind blowing content, but your assumption to think we should go back there because blacks were not allowed to come to Brentwood. So run an errand. Right.
Speaker 3:I'm glad that you can laugh about it. Cause I'm humiliated on behalf of that person and the, you know, the race that he was representing that day. Like, I mean, I just can't, I can't imagine,
Speaker 4:I can tell you, I can laugh about it only because I know that all white people are not like that. There's a select few that choose to just be that way and behave that way. And I think as a black person, you know, Z and Todd could probably attest to that as well. It's not like you get used to it and normalize it. It's just, it's not surprising as much as I would think it would be. Right. You know, because it's almost expected though.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, unfortunately like if you're in a store you expect to be followed or eyeballs or like you come to like that. Yeah. When I mentioned that on a previous episode, you kind of you, before you get into the store or before you get into the elevator, right. For a lot of times they're already thinking, let me move to the back corner, let me move here or there, because you know, so then someone doesn't assume that I did something, if something does go wrong and that's another big thing is the assumption you're criminalizing us constantly. So, you know, you know, it's, Oh, you know, I've, I've seen cops do this and I just have to say this, I've seen cops say, well, they were acting suspicious. I'm like, well, how would you feel if you constantly are worrying that cops are like looking at you? Like you're a criminal when you're not, I said, maybe you would start to just feel like you're an ed, because you are afraid that they may actually do something to you, like kill you. Like maybe that's actually a warranted concern based on everything that's happened. Circle evidence. Like maybe that's why they're an edge because they're afraid for their life. Why are you running from the police? Well, I don't really want to run, but something in my mind just tells me instinctually, let me get the hell away from this person who might, you know, I mean, you know, the isn't let me just meal and get on the ground because Oh, I have something in my pocket. And if I go to reach for the something in my pocket, and I even say that I have something in my pocket, I'm going to reach for it. I might get killed. I don't know. Why would I think this way? Why would I possibly think all these things when the cop is trying to stop me? I know we don't. And so for people that are saying like, again about the cops, you know, going down that worm hole, how are black people supposed to feel when you come into our communities? And it's not to say, how can we make your community better? What kinds of things do you need in your community? Or even, I mean, let's even say something like if it's, if there are drugs being issued from a certain point, everyone in the community is not trying to do that. So perhaps you can have a conversation with some people who want the drugs out of their community, you know, like have these conversations with people. It's like the only time we can have a conversation is when someone's killed. So someone has to be killed. There has to be a homicide in order for these conversations to take place like that doesn't even make any sense. That's a waste of taxpayer dollars for it to get to that point. Because
Speaker 3:Then what happens when you have a homicide, you have all these homicide detectives, then you have the coroner, then you have the, I mean, that's a waste of resources when you could have just had conversations in the beginning. Exactly. And I was going to say to that end, I don't know, Todd, if you, one of the things we talked about in a previous episode was the need for law enforcement to get more involved in the communities that they serve. And hopefully the idea being, you know, once there's a better rapport established that we can minimize the things that happen out of fear or emotions taking over. And, you know, we can actually, u h, not have such a tense relationship between the people that a re supposed to be i n protecting us. So I think the, actually you w ere g oing t o kind of ask some of those questions, but I'm just going to do that if that's okay. Okay. Yeah. I was just g oing t o say like growing up in Oakland versus LA, did you feel there was more of a sense of community among law enforcement or did you feel, did you notice a difference between the two places that you lived in terms of feeling more supported or not supported or fa ll? Li ke,
Speaker 5:That's a good question. When I was, when I lived in Oakland, I played football and two of my coaches were police officers. So I learned at a young age that not all cops are bad, you know, w hen I had a relationship with them. And so I didn't look at the police as the enemy, but when I had my first encounter with the police outside of those two relationships, it made me think about, you know, what they see when they see me long story short, me and my brother we re r iding our bikes in our own neighborhood. And the police came up on us and told us to put our bikes down and they just questioned us. And they asked us, did we live here? And while we ri ding o ur bikes and I'm like, u m, i t's n ight, Saturday, I'm riding my bike. Why are you out of breath? Uh, I've been riding my bike. Um, you know, and so they, you know, they just questioned this. And where do you guys live? What are you doing over here? We live right there. And, you know, we kind of had to like prove our sales, where we lived and stuff like that. So when that happened, I was 12, 13, I think, 12 or 13. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, you know, they didn't beat us up or nothing, but they questioned us and I felt like I did something wrong when I was just riding my bike. Right. And so then, you know, the Rodney King thing happened in 92 and that was right before my family moved back down to Los Angeles. And so when I got to Los Angeles, I noticed that there was a lot of tension between law enforcement and the community. And, you know, one thing that always made me scratch my head was that the police say that they are here to protect and to serve. And I didn't see a lot of surges from the police down here in Los Angeles, you know, in Oakland, like I said, you know, we, I had two football coaches that were serving t he community by coaching kids and stuff like that. But i n Los Angeles, I really didn't see that much, you know? And, u m, you know, it, I never saw like programs where police would, you know, try to set things up, to connect with the community and stuff like that. I mean, I know it does exist, but I just personally haven't seen it, you know, my little section of Los Angeles, but down here, when I moved down here, I was always told you c an n ot trust the police. Try to be squeaky clean when they ask you anything or when they pull you over, when t hey pull you over. Right. Right. And so, you know, I got pulled over once in Oakland, on my bike, but then in Los Angeles, I got pulled over. I would t hink about four or five times questioned, you know what y ou're doing? I have to prove myself. I g ot t o show h im I'm not doing nothing. Then I can go on my way as if I have to prove I am who I am and stuff like that, but I never got assaulted or anything like that, but I'm n ot g oing t o l ose i t.
Speaker 3:The fact that that is a fear of yours or a thought of yours, that's the problem. You know, the fact that you preface it with, I haven't been assaulted before, but it's like, no one should have that. Even as t he possibility from a law enforcement, you know, especially somebody who founds a charity, you know, a n onprofit organization and spends their free time, literally people in need. R ight.
Speaker 5:And I remember when, uh, the George story thing was happening and all the protests were happening. My daughter was concerned when I would take our dog out for a walk. And I was like, why is you? Like, I don't want the police to think you stole the dog and you know, do something horrible and I'll lie. You know, I understand. And you know, that's just something that we have to deal with being black in this country. So, but on the bright side, I always tell people, not all police are bad and that's one profession where everybody has to be good. You can't have bad apples in the police department. You know, you just can't. And if you have one, they have to go, yo u k n ow, no t b e moved to another precinct. Exactly, exactly. And so it was baffling is that a lot of these cops that are on the news for doing what they've done, they all got history behind. They had a record, al l o f t h at r ed flags. And it's like, why di d I s till ha d a job? They sh ould h a ve b een fired from the first of fense, but th ere's a d e al h ere. And it's like, you know, you know, like Chris Ro xy,
Speaker 4:You can't have bad apples as pilots. You know what I'm saying? You just can't say, Oh, he's a good pilot. But every once in a while the plane, the police can't be bad. And so, you know, that's one p rofession where you can't have a bad day. That's just what you signed up for. You can't have a bad day and you can't abuse your power. And when you do that, you have to go, you have to, you have to be able to c ount t hem
Speaker 2:Of weapons too. Cause they carrying weapons to mean firefighters, go into homes, firefighters, service, you know, an entire community. You don't really hear about firefighters, assaulting people, but you know, there must be some association with, I have a weapon, I have power and I have control. So, you know, perhaps their psychological exam needs to change about, you know, how you feel once you get a weapon. Cause maybe you answer certain questions, a certain kind of way, then you need to not work on the forest simply because you associate a weapon with power. I mean, who knows? I mean, there's so many remedies that we could probably things that we could probably do, but first it's like, we have to convince people that something needs to be done, you know, acknowledgement. Yeah. We're trying to convince. And then in the midst of that convincing, we have people who are trying to abductor a governor, you know, so, um, duct and like kill a governor. So, you know, yeah. I just want to point out too, like Todd was saying, it was struck me. He, you know, he has his own fear and whatever psychological effects that's had on him. And then his teenage daughter is also now receiving that it's being passed down to her because she's worried for her dad. And that's something that we can imagine is why people, I don't think
Speaker 4:That stems from not being in a neighborhood where it is primarily African-American, it stems from being in a neighborhood where there are very few African-Americans. So, you know, our daughters get asked all the time, Oh, you live in this area. We thought maybe you were brought in for school everyday, you know? Yeah. So it's like, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't, it's like, you know, it never, it's just the city. Like we were talking about earlier with having children, little toddlers versus having teenagers. It's like there's pros and cons. Like you want them to be in a good area that you think is a good area. And then they have a whole nother set of problems, you know, whole nother set of problems being stopped and asked if they live like, you know, our same daughter walking, the dog police pull up, you know, Hey, uh, Oh yeah, yeah. She, mommy. He said that I wasn't in the crosswalk, but I was like, Oh yeah, yeah. So it's like the same situation that you're trying to get away from per se. You can't get away from it because guess what? You're still going to be black. You're still going to have Brown skin, you know, unless you live like in the middle of nowhere around n o other people, you know, you're going to be subjected to situations like that regardless. Or until something changes, like seeing the same something, y ou k now, until something changes, it's going to be the same, basically.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well I guess the way I'm feeling is this just reinforces this idea of how this problem is so systemic. And so a part of our culture and it's going to take everybody's effort to shift things and it really starts with conversations. And hopefully those conversations empower people to take action and make change within their own lives and start small within their own families. And then hopefully it grows from there, you know, and voting, changing policies and legislation. Those are all very, very important. Um, Z I know you read some things, we talking about how it can be daunting at times to feel like you don't know enough on now you personally, but for people who maybe don't feel like they should vote because they don't know enough about the policies, but it is people's lives on the line. And people's childhoods, people's families, their emotional wellbeing for everyday life. Everyday basic life. Everybody deserves to have a happy, healthy upbringing, you know, in a safe environment where they're not worried about their parents getting pulled over for walking their dog, their family dog, you know? So that's kind of where I'm at. I don't know if you want to share any thoughts.
Speaker 2:There is no perfect universe. And I don't think that African-Americans are naive, that these changes are not going to happen overnight, but the change is going to require persistence. So if you're gonna, you know, do it halfway, then you might as well not do it. You need to make a decision that if you're going to be anti-racist, then that's going to require allyship. And that's going to require you to come out of your comfort zone. And it's going to require you to take action and let your Congress people know rights to your senators and let them know that this is unacceptable. That it's not okay. That every day in America, an innocent person of color is killed. Like you can't frame it next to Oh well there's crime and they kill each other. You cannot frame it next to that, because that is not the same thing. And perhaps that wouldn't even happening. If you hadn't, you know, cause the redistricting of lines and created this systemic problem with poverty and such, we wouldn't even be there for poverty. Yeah. So please, I implore our listeners to take action. You know, just do anything that's positive in the way of helping someone other than yourself, you know, because if you help someone other than yourself, then that's going to trickle down and what we need now, black lives matter, George Floyd's murder. Unfortunately, you know, there is a trickle down effect and I think people are more conscious. People are more woke and people are more inspired to take initiative, take that same passion and don't let that flame burnout. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Don't let it fizzle out. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because that's the flame that every person of color in this country is constantly blowing on to keep lit like every day in our lives. That's what our lives are like.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And just going back to, when I was talking about my daughter earlier, you know, she likes to hang, you know, hanging around with their friends a lot. Um, this is all of course pre COVID and the majority of her friends are Caucasian, white girls. And we still have to have the talk with her. You know, that talk, even though you're with your Caucasian friends, you know, there's some things that you can't do. Some things that they can do per se, you know, they can be obnoxious and do things, but you can't do that because if you get too much attention or someone thinks that you're the ringleader, then that negative energy is going to come down on you before it's going to come down on them. And so we just have to keep reminding both of our girls that I was meeting. Well, my daughter was with a couple of her friends one night and I was meeting up with them, walking the dog to kind of pick my daughter up. If you will. They were at a football game at the school. And a couple of her girlfriends were being really obnoxious to an older woman who was doing something that she shouldn't have been doing anyways. And as I was walking up, I'm looking at my daughter and I'm like, you know, you're not going to do what they're doing because a whole different light is going to be shine on you. So you need to say goodnight to your friends and let's go home. You know, exactly. You can't get away with what these girls would do to this older white woman or say to this, not do, but say to this older white woman, you can't do that because I feel, I know that it would be blown out of proportion and her energy will then be directed towards you. So if you're with your friends and they decide they're to do something like that, you got to step away from them. And just having, you know, those types of conversations in 2020 with our daughter, who's now 18 and who can go to jail, even if she didn't do something wrong, you know, is a scary thought. So, you know, she wants to drive now and she wants to go get her driver's license. And that kind of opens up a whole new can of worms. So, you know, every time she wants to take a step towards being an adult and doing things on our own, we have to, yeah, we get nervous and we have to say, Hey, you know, remember you're a black girl, you know? A nd it's like, yes,
Speaker 3:Anybody is questioning. Whether there are racist things happening, racist, sentiments felt in this country. Here we are, you know, with this lovely family started this great organization, which is how we got in touch. And she's here in 2020 talking about her daughter that she has to coach on how to not be yourself all the time.
Speaker 4:Exactly.
Speaker 3:To not feel free, to be herself all the time. So yeah. Life lessons. Yeah. I think that's really important. Thank you for sharing all of that. I think it's, um, hopefully really eye-opening for a lot of people, like I said, who feel like we're past this, right. You know, we're not, we're in a big city, big liberal city, and we still are, um, dealing with this stuff here. So please vote and please open your minds and your eyes and your ears, and really listen, you know, to the, the people around you and the people who are willing to share stories like this and hopefully take it to heart and let that be something that inspires you to make changes. And I think one of those is supporting African-American owned businesses. And just to tie it back to children's clothing giveaway, I don't know if there are any items that you guys particularly are in need of if you know, any families that have specific needs right now, if there's anything our listeners can prioritize or like age ranges or gear anything diapers
Speaker 4:Well, for us right now, we're just, we're focused on this holiday event. So with the exception of maybe collecting, I like, I think someone was saying like blankets and things like that with the exception of maybe collecting things like that, we're kind of putting on hold, accepting tangible donations until after the new year, this, because we want to focus on the holiday event, but we do actually have a connection with other people in the community that service like the homeless people that live out on the streets. And if we were to get things like blankets and coats and things like that, we could definitely pass it on to them because we know that they're actually going out the street and taking these items to people. So again, just what I was saying earlier, if there's something that sparks a desire to donate to children's colon giveaway at this current moment, it would be a monetary donation that would definitely help us. Once we get into the new year to kind of expand and be able to help people more. After the new year, we would be back on track with accepting, you know, gently used items, anything that pertains to children, clothing, books, shoes, some small furniture, items, toys, stuffed animals, bottles, anything that pertains to raising a child because we get requests or pregnancy. We get requests all the time for a wide range of items. And like I was saying earlier too, you know, we are so blessed in that. We never have a, well, not, never more often than not. We have what we're being asked for, which is such a huge blessing. And if we don't have it, we take those monetary donations and we're able to go out and buy it for the family. Um, we had a young woman a couple of years ago who she had just gotten out of jail. We of course didn't ask her what her situation was with that, but she had just gotten out of jail. And she said that, u h, the courts would not let her have visitation with her six m onth old, unless she had a crib for the baby to sleep in. When the baby came to her house, we were able to give her a crib mattress, all of the, you know, sheets, bedding everything because a donor gave it to us and we were able to pass it o nto her. And then she was able to see her child. So, I mean, just, I mean, that's,
Speaker 5:There's a lot of stories like that, but one of my favorite ones is a young lady was she was in need of, she needed a car seat in a, i n a K orea or something like that. I don't know. Oh yeah. She reached out to us. We had it. And we set up an opportunity for her to come and get it. And she told us that if she hadn't got these things, she was contemplating having an abortion and she would have terminated a pregnancy if nobody helped her. A nd she reached out to us, I don't know how she h ad learned about it. A nd we gave it to her and she was like, thank you because I was this close to a board. And that brought a tear to my eye. And I'm like, man, we saved the life. It's crazy how, you know, people were in need. They really n eed things. A nd for us to be able to be in a position where we can ill, it's humbling.
Speaker 4:And a lot of times they're not able to jump through the hoops that they would have to jump through with some of the other organizations where they have to wait for months, or maybe these organizations only help once a year or once they help you once they don't help you again, you know, it's just a wide range of, you know, kind of red tape that some families have to go, you know, have to go through. So to be able to fill requests or have the things that people need on the spot, it's definitely a blessing. And it's, you know, it encourages us when we get tired and we're like, you know, we run into roadblocks with things when we know that we've helped a child or their parent, or, you know, a family, it just really, it blesses our life. It makes us very happy that we, you know, we can help, even if it's just in a small way. So,
Speaker 2:Well, for those who are listening again, that is www that clothing giveaway that org. And now you've actually heard from those who founded the company and the organization. So please don't be shy. You've heard this stories and you know, a lot of people questioned sometimes nonprofits organizations. Is it really going to get to the person? Some people want to make sure that it actually gets to the person that's not, you know, somehow other manipulated or like you said, donated for cash or what have you.
Speaker 4:That's one thing that I definitely try to do on our social media is, you know, of course I have clearance from the parents t hat I asked them, you know, when we give you these things, we would love for you to share photos so that we can show our donors, the things that t hey've donated, we can show them where it's going. You know? And for the most part, a lot of them are really open to that. They love that. T hey're because they're so excited that they have something that they really needed and they didn't have to pay for it. And they didn't have to jump through hoops to get it. So, and then, you know, sometimes even they'll say, well, I'll send a picture, but you know, maybe don't share it publicly. And I'll say, okay. And sometimes I'll share it with the donor. I'll say, Hey, remember t hat?
Speaker 3:That's that for me, once I said, Hey, remember that I almost cried the day you picked up my kids cribs. I was like, I hope they find a good home picture is adorable.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, the mom was so, so happy. She was so happy.
Speaker 3:That was awesome that you did that though. That like made my day immediately. It was like sending it to my husband. Like you got to see this look,[inaudible]
Speaker 4:Having this kind of effect or just having this ability to be able to help these little children who, you know, it makes their little lives easier. You know what, it'd be able to have a nice, comfortable bed to sleep on. When, you know, in some cases they might've been on the floor or they might've been sharing a bed with several other siblings and now to have their own little toddler bed or, you know, whatever it may be is just, it's so special to them, you know? And they don't care. Someone used it before them, you know, it's like, it's my now, you know, they're excited about it. And it's like, it could be a bed. It could be a stuffed animal. They're just, you know, they're over the moon. And the events that when I tell people all the time, I'm like, if you really want to get a firsthand experience to see how blessed or how excited these families or these children feel, just come volunteer at one of our events Monday, and you will see firsthand how excited these families are. And a lot of them, and we try not to keep families waiting, but a lot of them will wait for as long as it takes to come inside to get some items, you know? So we will definitely keep persevering and keep, you know, Lord willing growing this nonprofit as far as we can take it. Like I said, it came from such a little idea and, you know, we only have like a few pieces of clothing out and a little, you know, swinging in the car seat for our first one to now we're like, our storage is full. Like I cannot, I can't even open the door. You know, we have so many donations, so we are definitely
Speaker 3:Congratulations. Really. Thank you. Thank you for your service. Really. It's a beautiful story to share and inspiring, and it's perfect timing with the holidays coming up and the year that it's been, you know, so thank you again for dedicating yourselves to helping others. And hopefully we can all, uh, aspire to do the same.
Speaker 4:Yeah. All right.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much, Anita and Todd for spending your evening with us, it has been really informative and inspirational, emotional and enlightening. So I just really appreciate you feeling comfortable to share everything that you did because I know it's hard to be you and you are so graceful with the way that you communicate your feelings and all of that. And I hope that our listeners can take some solid takeaways and be inspired like me.
Speaker 4:Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you for listening to awakened and America. If you enjoyed today's podcast, be sure to subscribe and leave a review. You can also find us on Instagram at awakened in America. That's awakened underscore in underscore America and remember be mindful, be grateful. And most of all be you.