Exploring the People of Hope Museum with Catholic Charities USA’s Kevin Brennan

On August 1, 2026, from 11AM - 3PM, the People of Hope Museum from Catholic Charities USA will be visiting Mary Queen.  This incredible traveling exhibit shares 42 powerful video stories of Christian service across America, inspiring us to support our neighbors in need. From a digital poverty simulator to interactive data walls and even a chance to record your own story, this museum is designed to awaken empathy and spark action. Don’t miss its visit to Mary Queen on August 1st. Experience firsthand how kindness and community can drive real change.

Learn more and see tour dates at: peopleofhope.us

jennifer@myparishpodcast.com

Transcript

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Welcome to Mary Queen Stories, the official podcast of Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary Parish in Lexington, Kentucky. Our mission is to receive God's love, proclaim the greatness of the Lord, serve joyfully and make missionary disciples of Jesus Christ. I'm your host, Jennifer Longworth, communications and parish life coordinator at Mary Queen. Today on Mary Queen Stories, my guest is is Kevin Brennan with Catholic Charities USA Welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me, Jennifer. It's great to be with you. And the reason you're here today is because we have a special event coming up at Mary Queen on August 1st, and that is a visit from the People of Hope Museum. What is the People of Hope Museum? The People of Hope Museum is a traveling museum that's going across the country for two and a half years, sharing stories of Christian service and trying to promote empathy and really call all of us to find ways to serve our neighbors who are most in need in our local communities. The museum is brought to you by Catholic Charities usa, and it really relies upon the good work being done by the staff and volunteers of Catholic Charities agencies all over the country. Of the staff and volunteers of those agencies in it, there are a number of components which maybe we can get to, but really the central one is there is a wall of digital stories, video stories from 42 Catholic Charities staff and volunteers from all around the country. And each one of them tells a particular story, a profound story of a time when they helped a neighbor of theirs who was in need, who was facing one of the most challenging moments of his or her or their lives. And the storytellers talk about how they helped that person, but also how that act of kindness changed them. So when I hear the word museum, I get bored. Well, this is unlike museum. Any other museum you've been to, I would wager to guess the museum is actually a truck. That's how it's a traveling museum. It is the size of a semi truck and really larger because when it parks, it expands outward. And so it's a novel thing. But when you're inside it, you don't feel like you're inside a truck. You do feel like you're in a museum. And why it's not boring and why it's different from many other museums is it's so deeply human. I mentioned these 42 stories. When you watch them, they're on all kinds of topics of food insecurity, homelessness, disaster relief, stories about veterans, about moms, about seniors, about people struggling with drug addiction or mental health challenges. And they're so human and so relatable, the stories you relate to as the viewer, you'll find yourself relating to the person telling the story, who's, generally speaking, the person who was doing the service. And you'll also find yourself relating, depending on the story, to the person or the family that they're talking about, the one who was in need. We have found that visitors to the museum, they really connect on a basic level. And it awakens, I think, in everyone who comes through the door to the museum, the kind of innate desire we all have to be generous with our. With our time and our attention and our talents, really, to help others when we see a fellow human being in need. So if I go In, I see 42 stories of the. Of visual, audio, both reading, watching a mixture. What are we doing here? Those 42 stories are all video stories. So. And that's just one component of the museum. But you'll walk up to what we call kind of the Stories of Hope wall. There are four digital screens, and on that screen there'll be loops of a person looking at you, kind of inviting you to hear their story. The way that they look on the screens is like if you've watched the Harry Potter movies, how there are the portraits where the people in the portrait are moving around. That's kind of like the reel that you'll see of each person. And you can click to choose to listen to an individual person's story. And then after you've listened to one, another one will come on. But we also have them tagged by theme, where you can click on the screen and choose a specific theme. Let's say it's homelessness. And you can see the stories within the museum that are tagged homelessness. So there are a number of different ways to navigate to different stories. You can watch them on a loop, but each one is different. But they're all compelling and moving in their own way. Okay, great. Now, you mentioned that the stories are just one aspect of the museum, so I know a couple of the other ones, but I'd rather have you explain the. Then the me fumble through it. When you first come into the museum, really the first exhibit within it that you'll encounter is a digital poverty simulator. And so this gives you the opportunity to step into the shoes of a person or family who's living on the margin, struggling with poverty or other complex challenges. And, for example, there's a story of parents who have a child with a significant physical disability, and the family is living on the edge of poverty. And you get prompted with Decisions that that family would face, right? That something goes wrong. And you have to choose between paying a medical bill or another meeting, another need. And so it puts you in the mindset of people who are struggling all around the country, but. But in your community in the Lexington area, and the types of decisions that they have to make on a daily, weekly, monthly, annual basis. So that's really the first thing. Then there's also an interactive data wall that has poverty figures from all across the country. And there are different categories of poverty. You could choose senior poverty, right. And you could see different data points showing you what the level of poverty is for seniors around the country, what it is in Kentucky, what it is in neighboring states to Kentucky. And you can compare across a whole host of categories, homelessness, health insurance, debt. So really, you can learn a lot there about the struggles that our neighbors, both in Kentucky and around the country, are facing. There's also a audio library. We have about 15 books where the authors agreed to have their excerpts from their books featured in the museum. These are excerpts from books about Christian service, about community building, about poverty, and related topics from authors like Oprah Winfrey and Arthur Brooks and Pope Francis. And then the last element of the museum I'll mention is there's actually a recording booth where you can record your own story or testimony on someone who gives you hope and why that person gives you hope. And those recordings come to us and might be featured on our social media channels. For the People of Hope Museum, about how long should someone expect to be in the museum? You know, that's up to the visitor, I'd say, to a degree. But, you know, some people go through it in about 15 minutes. We've had some visitors who are really moved and touched by the stories and stay for, you know, more than an hour. But I would say if you want to experience a number of the exhibits within the museum and watch a good number of videos, you know, the videos are short. They're about two to three minutes, but there's 42 of them. And often once people start watching, they want to continue or they want to explore other categories of stories. You know, I would say, on average, you know, our visitors are there, you know, 20 to 30 minutes inside the museum. But as I said, we've had people stay and kind of watch every story there is, so it's really up to the visitor. Is there anywhere else people can watch these stories, or do you have to visit the museum? A very small number of them are online on our website, peopleofhope Us, just to Give people a taste of what they'll experience in the museum. But for the most part, they're only accessible through the museum. We really wanted people to experience the stories for the first time there rather than online because the screens are large. It does feel like that you're. And we intentionally shop the stories. They're not produced in a real fancy way. There's not B roll. It's one person looking at the camera telling you a real story from their life of service. And we want them that was intentional because we want it to feel like this is someone just like you telling you, as I said, a real relatable human story. When did you start the People of Hope Museum's tour? The tour started at the very end of March. So it's been through a little more than three months, I guess, that we've been on the road. As I said earlier, it's a two and a half year journey for the museum. So we kind of started the first visit was in New York City. It was parked on the street in downtown Manhattan for a few days. And we've gone kind of throughout the Northeast for the first few months. And we're starting to move south a little. And we're excited to be visiting Kentucky. And then in 2027, we'll be more on the western half of the United States. Where did this idea come from? My colleague, Bill Gangliff, who, if you had to choose one person, I would say it was his idea. But he likes to say something along the lines of a good, good idea has no owner. But really, the origin of the People of Pope Museum comes from the Lilly Endowment. Lilly Endowment has a Christian storytelling initiative, and they invited Catholic Charities USA to apply and to receive a grant to help promote Christian storytelling and lift up stories of Christian service. That's. That's Lilly Endowment's goal with these grants. And so when we were invited to apply for that grant, a group of us here at Catholic Charities USA started thinking about, well, what stories would we want to tell and why? And really, we wanted to shine a spotlight on the selfless, noble work that Catholic charity staff and volunteers do day in and day out all around the country, in Lexington and the rest of Kentucky and all across 50 states and five US territories. But the why was another part of it. We wanted to inspire people to follow their example and to do likewise, to find ways, in an era when we spend so much of our our time on our phones and isolated and living our lives digitally, to inspire people to find ways to encounter those around you and especially Those around you who are in need. There is need in every corner of the country. And these, the people featured in the museums. And those 42 stories are great exemplars of the critical role that volunteerism and Christian service still play in our society and how much we need that, really, now more than ever. We need to be attuned to the needs of those who are suffering around us and find ways, big and small, to do what we can to help. So this project did not get thrown up overnight. It sounds pretty complex about how long have you been working on this? People are shocked, I think, sometimes when we tell them how quickly it came together. It was not overnight. It took us about a year from, you know, finding out we'd been approved for the grant and starting to work on it and then getting the museum on the road. We shot the stories, the stories of hope. We brought all the 42 storytellers from around the country to our office in Alexandria around this time last summer. So about a year ago is when we shot the videos. And then we. As I mentioned, there are a number of different components of the museum. We. We had to work on all those components. We. We found a partner that specializes in in these kind of mobile tours, and our relationship has been wonderful with them, and they helped us work out the route and the map. And we had to go to each agency and diocese across the country and see if they were interested in hosting the museum. And overwhelmingly, they were, which we've been so grateful for and excited about. And so all of that came together. And then, yeah, we hit the road the last week of March and have been on the road since. In some ways, it's been a long journey, but the journey has just begun because we'll be taking these stories all across the country really well into 2028. Yeah, that's really, really, really cool to see something, just an idea with grant money behind it, turn into something pretty significant. I'm looking forward to having you here in Lexington again. That's August 1st at Mary Queen. Eleven to three. Or when the museum will be open at Mary Queen. Yes. And we're so excited to be there. We really hope that your listeners will come out and see the museum while it's at Mary Queen. As you said, it's exciting to see this idea turn into reality. It can be kind of daunting when you have a big idea like this that our team had here. But what's been so gratifying for us is the response from people who visited the museum has been so overwhelmingly positive. That we do feel confident in saying that it's worth your time. And the reason for that is not because of us at Catholic Charities usa. It really is because of the work that the volunteers and staff of Catholic Charities agencies around the country do every day to help people in such critical and selfless ways. That's the spirit of this museum, and that's what we're just trying to. It's those stories that we're trying to bring to people and hope that people find inspiring. And so I guess part of the hope would be people come to the People of Hope Museum and then are inspired and take action and take future steps. Do you have something connected with the museum that allows people to take those further steps while they're still on fire? Absolutely. There's actually at the very right beside, before you exit the museum, there are two different things you can do. There's a wall, and we have these little note cards with prompts on them about what will you do? And people write their own notes about, you know, inspired by their experience in the museum, of how they hope to live as Jesus did or help serve their neighbors in need in different ways. And they put them up on the wall and we keep them up so that after it leaves Lexington, when it's at the museum is at its next stop, people will be able to read the notes that the folks in Lexington wrote. And then the other thing is, and the even more tangible thing is there's a screen by the exit of the museum and one by the entrance where you can click to learn more about how you can sign up to get involved, to volunteer with your local Catholic Charities agency to support the work of your local Catholic Charities agency. So throughout the country, wherever the museum is, really, we're hoping that people who visit it and are touched and inspired and want to find ways to get involved, we offer the best resource for doing so is to get involved with your local Catholic Charities agency. Okay, great. Now, as a guest of the Mary Queen Stories Living Our Mission podcast, I ask everyone what part of the Mary Queen mission statement resonates with you the most? And as a review, that is, receive God's love, proclaim the greatness of the Lord, serve joyfully, and make missionary disciples of Jesus Christ. That is a. That is a tough question because they all resonate with me. But I would have to say, proclaim the greatness of the Lord. And I'll say it for two reasons. The first is a personal one, which is that my daughter Mary, who is in just finished third grade when she was in second grade, was in the Christmas pageant at our Catholic grammar school where I live, and got cast as Mary, perhaps thanks to her name, you know, said the line, my soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. Anytime I hear it or hear a reference to it, it makes me think of my wonderful daughter Mary. But that's so sweet. The. Thank you. The other reason is it's so aligned with what we're talking about, Jennifer. Right. With the People of Hope Museum, that all of this, every piece of content in the museum, everything that Catholic Charities does nationwide, is of course, rooted in the gospel and the gospel call to love our neighbor as ourself and to find ways to serve our neighbors and to live up to example of and teachings of Jesus in the gospel. With the museum, we're traveling around the country proclaiming what following that gospel call can mean both for. For society, for our communities, and for the. For us individually. The way that it changes you and deepens your relationship with God by. By encountering those in need. Yeah, twofold answer there. But for. For both reasons, that's what I would go with. Oh, I love it. I love it. There's no wrong answer on the mission statement question. If people want to learn more about the People of Hope Museum project, where can they go? They can go to peopleofhope us to learn more, to see all the tour dates. And yeah, we hope folks will come out on August 1st to see the museum for themselves in person. Thank you so much for joining me today, Kevin. Thank you, Jennifer. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening to Mary Queen stories. To connect with us, visit mqhr.org podcast until next time and always, Mary Queen of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.