Episode 11: Aster Bekele, Felege Hiywot Center, Founder and CEO

As the Founder and CEO of the Felege Hiywot Center in the Martindale-Brightwood neighborhood of Indianapolis, Aster Bekele emigrated to the United States from Ethiopia and brought with her a sense of community and love. A retired chemist, Bekele started the Youth Farm Initiative, established a food production space, and continues to engage partners and inner-city youth in her work. With a focus on urban farming and cultural expression, she has been teaching young people the importance of service, leadership, teamwork, and knowledge. In this episode of Luminate: Navigating the Unknown Through Creative Leadership with Sarah Hempstead, AIA, LEED AP, Bekele shares how she made the transition to American life and how her work has contributed to a strong community. 

Transcript

Sarah Hempstead: Hello, and thank you for tuning in to Illuminate Navigating the Unknown through Creative Leadership. I'm Sarah Hempstead, AIA LEED AP principal in charge and the CEO of Schmidt Associates and the heart of the Martindale Brightwood neighborhood in Indianapolis on Sheldon Street sits two small side-by-side houses that make up the Hale Haywood Center.

Sarah Hempstead: The center serves inner city youth through urban farming, environmental preservation, and life skills education, and it embraces the values of family and community service. Through youth programming, students learn how seeds grow into plants and how to care for gardens while becoming environmental stewards.

Sarah Hempstead: The programs embrace four H principles and center around preparation for and access to STEM professions, business sustainability, and cultural awareness. Participants work in pairs or in groups and they build trust and a sense of accomplishment. And here to talk with me today about the fella Hayward Center is founder and executive director Aire Balala.

Sarah Hempstead: Thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for inviting 

Aster Bekele: me. I'm. Very happy to be here. 

Sarah Hempstead: You have such an interesting story. So you immigrated to Indianapolis from Ethiopia? Yes. In 1973. Mm-hmm. You enrolled in I-U-P-U-I and earned a degree in chemistry and then started a 26 year career at Eli Lilly.

Sarah Hempstead: And I wanna talk about all of that. Um, and during that time you started to see a need in your neighborhood and start to tutor those. Those kiddos on top of all those other things. Yes. So let's start, um, with Young Astaire. What was she like? Um, and what was it like to live in Ethiopia? 

Aster Bekele: Yes, in Ethiopia, I am the oldest girl.

Aster Bekele: I have just one older brother, 10 of us. And that means the girl, especially being older, takes care of everything. So I was pretty much responsible raising my brothers, my sisters doing so many things, community stuff. My mother was a total missionary, so we took care of so many orphans or people who were hungry or church, that kind of stuff.

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. But at the same time, my school, I was, I was pretty good in school. My father started working at usaid. Mm-hmm. When I was like a junior, and by that time there was an American community school that is for Americans where their family are there for their children to go there. Mm-hmm. He was considered a United States employee, government employee.

Aster Bekele: So I was able to go okay. To that school. So my connection to a lot of people in United States, especially in Indiana, started from that school. Oh, that's so interesting. Yep. So from that, when I finished 12th grade, I was getting ready to go to college. And I was applying to so many different schools. Well, there are universities there, they're limited.

Aster Bekele: So if there are any of us that could go to other universities, more chances to either to go to that limited, uh, university space in, in Addis. Um, so when I applied different places, there was one, like in Ohio, it was almost like I was gonna go and somebody said, wait a minute, you know the Jones? Yes. I know them.

Aster Bekele: And then do you know that they have somebody at Franklin College? Where is Franklin College? And then from that I ended up here in Indiana at Franklin College. So the connection from the school, that's the people I knew their relatives were part of the university. 

Sarah Hempstead: So when, when, so you started at Franklin and ended up at I-U-P-U-I.

Sarah Hempstead: Is that right? Yes. So I 

Aster Bekele: was, I came here. August of 73. Okay. It's exactly 50 years. Wow. And so I came here, I went straight to Franklin, and I know I wanted chemistry. Why do I want chemistry? Every medicine in Ethiopia comes from a plant. Somebody pulls out and tells me to choose. Somebody tells me to do this.

Aster Bekele: I always wanna know what's in it. So that was my purpose. That was the plan. And I was gonna do, so when I was at Frank College, it feels like, am I gonna get a lot of science in here? But what really tips everything was I knew somebody that was working at Lilly's. Mm-hmm. And they ended up asking me. Hey, why don't you work at Lilly's for the summer?

Aster Bekele: So for me, working at Lilly's that summer and also seeing what they have, that means transferring to IUPI. Mm-hmm. To come to the Indianapolis. 

Sarah Hempstead: So now that is, that is quite a difference. Ethiopia to Indianapolis. You're a young girl here on your, here without your family, right? Oh my God, yes. So, so what was that like 

Aster Bekele: for you, that 

Sarah Hempstead: transition?

Aster Bekele: It is, it was very hard. To understand one, the English language in the book is different than what people are saying, so it was almost like I didn't know what anybody was saying. And then food. I was totally in trouble. My uncle, who has been in the United States before, told me, do not take clothes, do not take anything.

Aster Bekele: Fill both bags with spices and food. That's all he told. That's probably solid advice. He told me the truth. So I came over here. I run outta my food in two months. And I was in trouble. So when all of that ran out, then my first experience, we don't have sweets. I mean, I'm not gonna say we don't have sweets.

Aster Bekele: We put a lot of maybe sugar cane in our teas. That's as far as we're going. It's different now. I'm talking about so many years ago. Right, right. So the first time I'm sitting at a table, they eating pancakes. And I said, what is it? Oh, it's a breakfast. You like it? I took a bite. It was so bitter and I just completely went like, what is this?

Aster Bekele: What is this? It's sweet. It's as good as, what do you mean sweet? This is not sugar. Really it, it had a big shock, so I had to adjust, but I tell you now, I eat it so many years later, so food is very much hard to adjust. The whole spicy had everyday breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Our body is used to that. Uh, so it took a while and they had, the family I stayed with had a hard time trying to find me a store that has all of these different things I needed.

Aster Bekele: So, 

Sarah Hempstead: so is it easier to find, uh. More Ethiopian food or international food in Indianapolis now than, oh my God, 50 years 

Aster Bekele: ago. It's perfect now because we can go to a store and find everything we need. Mm-hmm. From Franklin, we had to come to the market here, you know, the market by the city county building.

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. That's the only place I could have gotten some spices. Um, some of the vegetables we eat or things like that. So we would drive. That was spatial. Mm-hmm. You know, I can get things. Uh, slowly things start opening up, but most, I had to go to dc I had to go to DC load up and come back here. 

Sarah Hempstead: So, so I'm gonna get back to food.

Sarah Hempstead: This is gonna be a very food centered centric interview when we get back to the center. But let, let's go back for a minute for, um. To to your career at Lilly. So you started at Lilly, you're an summer intern, right? Yes. Summer intern. And that grew into a 

Aster Bekele: career at Lilly? Yes. That grew into a job, so I transferred to IEPY.

Aster Bekele: I already had the Lilly connection. They knew I was gonna go into chemistry, so it was like every summer you can come and work here. So it didn't end up just one summer. Mm-hmm. 

Sarah Hempstead: You 

Aster Bekele: know, until I got my degree, I was able to work there. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: Then from there, I met somebody that was working at Lilly and got married and when I graduated, start working there full time.

Aster Bekele: And I did a lot of research, especially, you know, out of the 27 years, half of it was insulin research and half of it is bone biology, those kind of things. But I also found out like all of those plants my mother or the village doctors were giving me, they were already in the medicine. We taken for each of designated stuff.

Aster Bekele: I brought all of those and they say, yeah, that's what we extract that from. You know, that's what we do this from. I say, oh wow, okay. You know, that's what it was. So there was a a really great connection being there. I learned a lot. I learn about all of the plans and all of the curiosity I have, and the biggest part of being there.

Aster Bekele: I remember there was a training as new employees and they say, we want our employees to be happy. I say, okay. And they said, um, we want you to do your passion in order to have a happy employee. You need to know about working here. What else you are happy about, so we can help you do it. I said like, okay, it's kind of nice.

Aster Bekele: So I said, what do you have? He said, well, you can work. Schools, you can talk. They laid out all the different places other employees have participated us. Perfect. I wanna go to IPS, I wanna talk to the students. And that's how this whole thing started. So when I start talking, I thought I was gonna be talking about science, but it ended up blending with culture.

Aster Bekele: It ended up me talking about culture. Mm-hmm. Um, and so it really. Was amazing. They will say, where are you from? Or whenever we say something, well, that's, we do it like this, or this is how I grew up. So science and culture was just being intertwined. But the other part when I was working at Lilly is how I got connected to Martindale b Brightwood.

Aster Bekele: What happened? At that time, I was engaged not to be married, you know, so my husband, then his family, he was born in Mar Brightwood, so he wanted to show me the area. He took me around. There was this double house, it's kind of the, the area is really rundown. He said, um, this is a house I was born in. Wow. So the other side of it.

Aster Bekele: The devil was empty. Imagine. So this is when I was transferring to IUPY. So that is pretty much, she works at Lilly's, but I wasn't working at Lilly's yet. So I looked at the devil, I said, well, I'm getting ready to transfer to IUPY, and uh, why don't I just live here? And he just looked at me. He said, you wanna live here?

Aster Bekele: I said, what's wrong with it? Except I knew the area didn't look great, but so well, you know, we kind of have good houses, these houses mix. Mm-hmm. And I never looked at it, so I ended up cleaning that, moved in there and he asked me, how are you going to go to school? IUPI used to be by the fairground.

Aster Bekele: That's right. And I said. I, I really literally looked at my feet. I said, walk, you know, what else are you supposed to do? So I walked from the Martin Brightwood area to there, and then still, you know, he was working at Lilly's and I connected to Martin Brightwood. My connection at that time when I was walking to school, I see all these seniors sitting on their porch.

Aster Bekele: That was heaven for me. Mm-hmm. That's home. And then when I come back, I'll go to the porch. Hi, everybody. Say hi and I'll, I'll sit right under them. Tell me. Tell me because elders are my books. Mm-hmm. Our books. Mm-hmm. So they will tell me how they, you know, they grew up, what the community's like God.

Aster Bekele: They're like, oh my God, this is great. But I didn't understand why none of the children all the way are not sitting under them and just taking all that in. Mm-hmm. That's how the whole Monday program started. I didn't even know it, and so I brought the kids. They sit down. Come on, you gotta listen to them.

Aster Bekele: Let me help you with school. I had no idea that was part of the Martindale Brightwood Future 

Sarah Hempstead: program. So tell me how you started doing that. You saw the kids in your neighborhood, you're, you're slow traveling, which meant let you know your neighbors and build community. Yeah. How'd you start to reach out to, to the kids?

Sarah Hempstead: Was it through I your IPS connections? 

Aster Bekele: No, this is, uh, so when I was walking home, one day I see students, it's during the week. I said, what are you doing here? Why aren't you in school? And they say, I don't wanna go to school today. I was like, oh, oh, why didn't you wanna go to school? So come on. Into my house.

Aster Bekele: So we're just sitting there talking and I realized they needed a lot of help. So I'll say, okay, come on. I can help you with this. I can help you with this. So I became a tutor. There were five kids. It just didn't look like I could really help, but even though it's like, oh, guess what? I'm not flanking. I got a D or things like that.

Aster Bekele: I said, oh, great, great. You know, so we moving at that. But one day one of the mothers said, can I send her daughter home? Her favorite television show was coming on. So right at that moment I said, what is wrong here? Mm-hmm. Do you, so I start pulling pictures and I say, do you wanna see this picture? We really literally set on a stone.

Aster Bekele: There's no notebook. You see the sand in the front? That's our notebook. We write with our fingers. And so this is how, you know, we get to learn and they say, oh no, these kids, they have like dirt. I mean, they, they're dirty. And I look at them. Can you look at their face? They say, yeah, do they look sad? No.

Aster Bekele: They smiling. That's what matters. They are smiling, they're in school. So I wanna know what is it that I can do for you to be happy at school? 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: And they say, do you have more of these pictures? Can you tell us more? The whole cultural connection started. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: They didn't go home. They keep asking me more, how do we go to school?

Aster Bekele: How do we do this? They keep improving. Just natural connection. They wanna hear more about me and I thought like, whoa, okay. I guess I do have, you know, more interesting things to tell them. So that's how that relationship started. Then I graduated, got married, have. My kid, the house is too small. Mm-hmm. I didn't go too far.

Aster Bekele: I'm still, you know, we moved to 38 in Sherman and I'm still there. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: But what did I do? It didn't feel like I did a lot for them and I didn't go back. I don't know. Let me see. Robert, what age, but anyway, he graduated from high school. I'm already full-time working at Lilly. Your, your son? 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: The kid I was working with.

Aster Bekele: Oh, the kid you were working with. Okay. And tall. I had no idea who he was knocking on the door and I said, yeah, who are you? He said, don't you remember me? And he said, this is Robert. You used to help me. I finished high school, joined the Navy. I looked at him, I said, what you mean? I did something? It didn't feel like I did anything.

Aster Bekele: So I just simply said, okay. We talk with them and everything. And I said, okay, when I grow up, that's what I'm gonna do. 20 years later, after my group, my, my kids grew up back in Monday, Brightwood. 

Sarah Hempstead: So how did you take kind of those initial, those initial lessons in that initial group of kids? And take it to the next step.

Sarah Hempstead: Grow it to a, to a bigger vision about how you could help. Yes. 

Aster Bekele: So how that happened was those kids, you know, I list they'd listen, let's do this list, do this. So I figure same thing came back. I'm teaching after school. Different kids. I couldn't teach the same way. It was completely different. And I was thinking like, okay, let's do this fun science.

Aster Bekele: Let's do this. I'm, I'm doing all of these things and it just, the connection was not happening. Whether I do the culture or whether I do science, whether I do fun things, something exploding. Look, this is fun science. So I was ready to give up. I just simply say, you guys, I'm really doing this. So what am I doing wrong?

Aster Bekele: Why? Why isn't it this fun? This girl raised her hand and she said, I don't wanna be a scientist. Our school is dirty. Can we plant flowers? So that girl started the program. My biggest lesson was I didn't ask. I just say, this is how they're gonna like science. Mm-hmm. So that day I got my education. I said, okay, what would you like to do?

Aster Bekele: Plant? I don't know anything about plants. So I had to go back to Lilly, tell my boss, all the people that work with me, they were plenty of biologists, plant scientists. They all say, don't worry about that. They all came with me. They transformed the school with flowers. We put science into it. Mm-hmm. Ever since then is we ask them.

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. Well, what do you think? So 20 years later is a completely different group of kids. They were a lot more pain, they were a lot more issue than the 20 years ago, the first group of kids. Mm-hmm. This time there was a lot of, there was a lot of their friends have been getting killed. There was a lot, it's just a whole lot of emotion was different.

Aster Bekele: So. What happened when that girl asked me was the scientific theory, while I was thinking, okay, I need to plug signs into come and they talk. Right When we're doing that, a student 13-year-old got killed and then they were kids. I walked in and they all just like crying and sad and what happened? Alex got killed.

Aster Bekele: Alex was not our program, but his sisters, cousins, everybody's there. We knew him. I put everything aside. Can you believe that? Right. That minute what clicked into my head was six Sigma. 

Sarah Hempstead: Hmm. 

Aster Bekele: I just simply said, put everything, we brainstorming what you all wanna do. And they looked at me. Nobody asked us what we do, what we want to do.

Aster Bekele: I said, I am asking you because you already told me you wanna do what you want to do. So therefore, from here on I'm gonna ask you. So we brainstorm, we want. All these weeds and stuff to be taken out of our neighborhood. We want more police, we want, uh, food for people. I mean, they listed everything. Then we became a resource to make it happen.

Aster Bekele: And, and then they wanna plant a tree for Alex, and it's still by school. 74. It's huge now because that was 2006. So how does the science go in there? All the scientific theory, you have a question, what do you wanna do about it? What is the process, which is hypothesis? And then at the end when it gets there, nobody makes a mistake.

Aster Bekele: Science never say you made a mistake, you just found another way to go. So take that thing that they're afraid to make a mistake, kind of thing. So it helped to solve. I didn't know. It helps to solve the social issue mm-hmm. For what they were faced with. We all cried, we all did this, but we need to talk about it.

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: So I did not have a book to do, but I know that I knew all the different part of science. Where does a plug, where does that happen? Where is the mainstream book fits When they are ready. Mm-hmm. If they're not ready, I didn't deal with it. Well, 

Sarah Hempstead: and I, I love that story because you let. The students.

Sarah Hempstead: Lead the process. Yes. And then you, and then you were flexible enough to, to come alongside it and help, help them navigate Yes. Um, their own future. But that's, it's a very, it's servant leadership, right. Um, you are serving their needs. They help. Yes. And then they let you lead them. 

Aster Bekele: Yes. That's amazing. And through that process, there are layers of things.

Aster Bekele: I, I, I was faced with that, oh, this is great. We done, now we use scientific theory. And then they start liking it, and then all of a sudden. When we get done with the program, it was one day a week. They will say, are you coming back next week? And I say, yes, I'm coming back next week after two, three weeks. I say, why you all asking me every week?

Aster Bekele: Well, you know, Mrs. There programs are four weeks, six weeks. We don't know when it's gonna stop. We never going to see you. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay, this is summer. Right? What do you wanna plan for fall? They need to be part of the plan. So that way they can see that they're not being abandoned. So we say, okay, when do you want, what do you wanna do for fall?

Aster Bekele: What do you wanna do for winter? What do you wanna do for spring? So we keep going like that. Mm-hmm. And then I will say, what do you wanna do when you finish sixth grade? What do you wanna do when you finish eighth grade? So we keep talking like that so they feel like, okay, we are okay that we can trust.

Aster Bekele: So there was all these layers of things. It needs to be taken care of. Uh, like when I was, uh, speaking at the environmental conference, one of the thing I was saying was, we are leaving a huge number of population behind because if we don't take care of this initial need, they're struggling with how are they going to care for the environment?

Aster Bekele: So it took us three years for a student to say, where is the recycle? Hmm. And it was a treasure moment. We really didn't know what was happening. They were at Park, they were looking for things and we thought they were going to get in trouble. What are you looking for? Where's the recycle? I said, I finally got my data.

Aster Bekele: That's another thing. When we doing Grant as a scientist, I know the importance of numbers, results. Mm-hmm. Impact. Once I started that. Oops, I messed up with this grant. I can't give them data. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: My data was this student smile and hug me. This student has a safe place. This student say this and was able to talk.

Aster Bekele: What number am I gonna give to that? And so how do we take care of that? And then. We go to our impact. So they were teaching me every day, but I know I have the resource to get my resource. I just to their needs. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, and you're talking about the role of kind of faith and fortitude too, right? That they needed to have enough trust in you.

Sarah Hempstead: Yes. Um, and you have faith in them that you're gonna keep going. Yes. And work through the hard things. Yeah. 

Aster Bekele: So we went through it. We went through all of those years. They stayed with us. They stayed with us. So by the time, imagine, so from fourth grade, they finished eighth grade. I just assumed they'd done with us the next year.

Aster Bekele: Five of them walked in and I'm looking at them like, great, what am I gonna do now? And one of the students say, you don't have anything for us. And I just looked at them straight. I didn't know where the money was gonna come from, but I just simply said, you're camp counselors now. 

Sarah Hempstead: Perfect. Perfect. Put 'em in a role of responsibility.

Sarah Hempstead: Right. And they did. 

Aster Bekele: And 

Sarah Hempstead: they still with us, so, so tell me where the program is now and kind of the big picture and vision for what it can be. Okay. 

Aster Bekele: I'm gonna talk about this big picture, but when I'm talking about this big picture, we gotta go back now, was incorporated 2004, I gotta go all the way back to 2004, 2005, 2006 when we had nothing boarded houses and.

Aster Bekele: I was working there trying to clear some weeds in with our 2020 garden and this man walks in, whatcha you doing over here? I say, ah, I don't know. I think I'm probably crazy and I don't anything my plants, but we trying to do this and I'm try, I, we have like eight or 10 students and I'm doing this. And he listened to everything and he looked at me and he said.

Aster Bekele: Do you know what that building is over there? I'm looking at him like, what building? He said, there's a blue building there. I said, no, I don't. He said, oh, okay. Alright. Nice meeting you. And he left the second week. He, he, he stopped in again. And the same thing. Do you know about that building? God, is that a message or something?

Aster Bekele: Why is he asking me twice? So I Googled that thing. There's a name. I say, well, maybe I should connect with them. So he kind of indirectly connect me to major tools and they help us clear some things. I found out that that's exactly where he was going. It wasn't like he didn't know. That is Dean Ellingsworth?

Aster Bekele: He was the director of Habitat. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: After some clearing got happened and stuff, he came one day and sat down. So what's the plan? I said, God, didn't I tell him about the plan? So he said, no, no, no, no. Okay, tell me more. And I'm sitting in there, we going to get this and then we going bring them. We're gonna teach them how much are you gonna need for that 5,000?

Aster Bekele: Is that all you need? For now, but tell me more. So he keeps asking me about the dream where it can go, right? He just keeps going and going and going. He basically got me with big building classrooms, all of that. When I finished that, what did he do? He's writing your name. Sarah Hempstead, phone number, and he said, I need you to call her.

Aster Bekele: I said, uh, what am I calling her for? He said, tell me everything you told me. I said, okay. And I called you. And when I came here, he said, oh, Dean, I know. I know what, and so. You also ask me all of those things. I say to him, you took that vision and drew the verse building. I, we took that drawing and I say, here, Dean came and you know the next thing he's like, call Lil Endowment.

Aster Bekele: I'm looking at him like, call Lil Endowment. He said, yeah, tell them about this whole vision. So he was right there. Mm-hmm. And I called and Mr. Willis bright answer and said, yeah, sure I can come to your office. And I look at him, we don't have a office now, he said. Habitat is your office. That sounds right.

Aster Bekele: Yes. So we talked there. We showed the whole vision and they say, this is an amazing vision. This is really good, but do like build heart, connect to community. They 10 things he wrote to us. I said, perfect. We'll take care of that. 15 years later. To the T almost so that the request at that time was 1.6 million.

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. Right. Yep. 15 years later, we applied for 2 million and we got 2 million. Who was the first person I wanna get a hold of is Dean. I went like all over email. I connected to so many people and I got him on the phone and I said, Dean, congratulations. He's trying to figure out who are you in the first place.

Aster Bekele: And I said, look what happened. And he couldn't believe I got ahold of him, but that's how a vision like that somebody patient enough to sit with me for two hours. That's how that whole thing as far as f the building and this whole thing started, I had it in here, but I couldn't think it was too much of fire to put out.

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. I couldn't think that far, but he made, he just really helped me to do that. 

Sarah Hempstead: He helped you to do that and then you planted the seed and watered it and tender it for 15 years? Yes. Right. 

Aster Bekele: Yes. And, and for all of those in, in the first 15 years. We had grants from Lilly, uh, endowment, different people, tons of volunteers.

Aster Bekele: We did not have a single payroll except I made sure that the student get paid. Why? Because a lot of time without that, that's why a lot of student get in trouble. When I raise my kids, I have a allowances, I have bank, they can open. We, we go through budgets. Where, where are these kids gonna get it from? So that was more important to me.

Aster Bekele: So no adults were gonna get paid, but students were. Mm-hmm. So it was by 2015, finally we start hiring, or adults start getting paid. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: And that took off and students start running the place. That is, this is the most amazing thing. If you talk to the students, they will say, we need to do this. We, they always say, we gotta do this for next one.

Aster Bekele: We need to change this to this. We need to improve this. That's how they have done it. We had in, in the last two summer, including this common one, we have a student, she was with us since eighth grade. She went through the whole school. Was Farm Leader Farm, this running Camps 2020. She was the director of the camp, and then this year she's a pharm D student at Purdue.

Aster Bekele: She's coming back as an intern to run it again, but this time she's going to do like the food. How does it affect our body? She's going through the whole seven weeks. All those students are coming back running it. Why? Because that girl in fourth grade taught me. Just don't tell me. Ask me. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, you, it, you're growing kids as much as you're growing plants, right?

Sarah Hempstead: And then they're growing on to grow the next generation. They grow the next generation. That's so beautiful. 

Aster Bekele: And so it really has taken off. I don't, I, I mean, I could write things now, but when I was going, it was about whatever they needed and I needed to know which books, what resource areas. Okay. That will go here.

Aster Bekele: That will go here. Who? What kind of people can I bring? 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: To make sure, and I did discovery science. Discovery science. I've never left. What happen is it gives me so much energy when they discover themselves. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: It's a huge boost. It's one discovery, another discovery, another discovery. It's huge, but it's different.

Aster Bekele: I'm not saying anything, I just. What do you wanna do and how do you discover yourself is all we do. So it's enrichment to what they learned during the day. 

Sarah Hempstead: So you're a young Purdue student that's coming back. I saw, do we get back to food? Yes. She's studying food, right? Yes. So talk to me about the connection that you're helping these young people make Between what we grow and what we, what we put in our bodies.

Sarah Hempstead: Yes. 

Aster Bekele: Now, when we started. They get so excited, the vegetable, that actually that little seed grew to this and they're all, oh my God, this happened. And say, we going to eat it. Oh no. Okay, you grew it. What do you mean you're not going to eat? So here's what I did. What kind of things you like? They like a lot of cheese, a lot of, you know, pasta sauce and stuff.

Aster Bekele: Find them. Yeah. Delicious. Yes, it's very delicious. So do I have a problem putting all the cheeses as much as the cheese they want over the each table? No, I don't. And so I remember when, uh, the. Health conscious person telling me that that was defeating the purpose. I said, okay, I'm gonna tell you this. I don't care what vehicle they used to get it in their body.

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: As long as it gets there, that's all it is. Mm-hmm. So we did that. I have a precious picture. It might have been three, four years later. This girl, we can actually see the salad, the lettuce, the green, the eating. It's not covered with so and so. We say that's it. We finally got a picture. It took a a while, but they got there.

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. In their own time. Not my time. Right. Which is 

Sarah Hempstead: listen, listening to them again. Right. That's right. Well, let me pivot to, um, we're talking about health and wellness and what you, what you put into your body. And I, and I ask this question about almost everybody that we talk to, but you, you in particular.

Sarah Hempstead: To lead an organization like that takes a lot of fortitude for you too, which takes being cognizant of your, your own health and, and wellness. Mm-hmm. What, what do you do to take, take care of you? 

Aster Bekele: Well, I would say maybe the saving grace is. Because we grown a lot of vegetables and I was there all the time.

Aster Bekele: So at least I was able to keep that. So my exercise in the state of all the gym and all the stuff I did, the farm became the exercise. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Aster Bekele: And so it was a quite different way of taking care of me. So we just did that. And the other part is to get back to my natural. Utopian food was it grew. Therefore, every summer we have a culture week.

Aster Bekele: There is a two bite rule. They couldn't say no. Nobody's food is nasty. And so we got all those rules out and we'll have all the Ethiopian food they have to take to bite and the majority of the time, can I have more? Is what happened. Mm-hmm. With all of the different things. We have different countries. We had people live in France and we still to this day, hook to, I always have a problem, create the pancake.

Aster Bekele: Oh, crepes. Yeah, crepes. Because there was an intern actually from France who did that. So everybody say, oh, I like this, I want this. There was Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, and Mexico, and all of those become culture food. And then they learn that. To bite is a rule. If you feel like you're gonna die, you can spit it out bad.

Aster Bekele: You are going to live because you know what? I'm eating it. I'm still alive. That's a good rule. And really, and then we take 'em to the international festival. So when we go to international festival, we used to get all these different food and then we'll get a table and everybody had to take a bite 

Sarah Hempstead: mm-hmm.

Aster Bekele: And things like that so they get exposed. So it became a cultural thing. And then it also a healthy thing for me. I'm not abandoning, you know, because I'm doing this and I can still connect to my food daily. Um, I have this thing, I started one day, we in Ethiopia. Doesn't matter if it's a hundred degrees.

Aster Bekele: You drink tea all the time. Hot tea. Mm-hmm. I make it for me. So it's cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and somebody walked in. Can I have some? Sure. This is what, I don't know, I don't think it was quite 20 years, but I couldn't, and they couldn't walk in there and without asking me, where's the tea, everybody. So that's how slowly when they are comfortable, they learn it.

Aster Bekele: So I learned to be patient. Wait, it's not up to me. My gift is mine. It's not anybody else's. They need to find their own. My gift is if I have it, just helping someone find theirs. Mm-hmm. And so the whole path it took off before we knew it. We have greenhouse, we getting ready to have building, we getting ready to have all of that because the student feel very comfortable.

Aster Bekele: You know, with where they are. So kind of taken me through the process, getting me matured a little bit. 

Sarah Hempstead: So if people wanna help you and they wanna help the kids you work with, what should they do? 

Aster Bekele: Oh my goodness. Um, we need a lot of help. We need plenty of volunteers. Our website is@fhcenter.org has plenty of the donations we need.

Aster Bekele: We getting ready to have this amazing build building. Finally in the state of a tent, we would like to have our students to have a hole that could really, they'll be under a roof, not safely, instead of a tent. So we get ready to have a fundraiser for that. It's gonna be on our website pretty soon. We can use any help, you know, um, they, they can give us.

Aster Bekele: So that's huge need right now. Uh, it's very nice. I'm blessed. Very much humbled. There's so many children. Our waiting list. They wanna come to us. The community's embracing us, you know, being able to be the health nutrition hub. Pretty much people look at us now. Mm-hmm. Can we come and learn how to pickle can?

Aster Bekele: Mm-hmm. Things like that. So we need a space. We need to do that. So that's what we looking for, that anybody's heart, prayers, volunteers, and donations. 

Sarah Hempstead: I love that. All right. One final question I ask everybody, if you had one book that you would recommend that. Everybody read that you're reading right now that you go back to over and over again?

Sarah Hempstead: What, what would it, what? What's on your reading list? 

Aster Bekele: My reading list. If anybody has to read, read Mother Teresa's books. That's a great 

Sarah Hempstead: recommendation 

Aster Bekele: and you learn to put faith and works together. You learn to be mission. Not evangelize. Mm-hmm. You learn to separate and look at every single person the same, and she taught me how to do that.

Aster Bekele: That's a great answer. 

Sarah Hempstead: Thank you so much for being here. I love hearing your stories. I love talking to you. I'm so excited, um, about the next step. Yes. Uh, for this, you're gonna help us Absolutely. Build it. A hundred percent. Yes. I'll, I'll come plant flowers. Yes. Oh my God. And for Ethiopian dinner. Yes. Oh, no problem with that.

Sarah Hempstead: No problem. This has been illuminate, navigating the unknown through creative leadership. Thank you so much for listening, and please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. To be reminded of new episodes and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at Schmidt Associates and at Schmidt on Twitter.