An Army of Normal Folks - Joe and Kelli Carson: We Had No Idea How Small Our World Was (Pt 2)

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

The Carsons had “The American Christian Dream” of a nice house and golfing at the country club. But then their son spent a weekend as a homeless person and everything changed. They have since sold their dental practice, founded the Memphis Dream Center, and have lived life with people who didn’t look just like them. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Joe and Kelly Carson right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Estet Herndon.

But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or

just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you guys sold your business and you're picking up bread from Panera and you're not making peanut butter and jelly because your son told you when he was homeless for two days.

Well, except for us because that's about all we could afford at that point. You're doing waters, you're cooking breakfast, you're actually trying to build relationships, you're being consistent. Your motives, by the way, the turkey person story, if people serve in soup kitchens or give turkeys on Thanksgiving, please don't stop doing that. Don't misunderstand the intent of the story and the lesson of the story. The lesson of the story is what is your motive

and how consistent are you willing to be? And your motive has to be simply for the edification of someone who is not as quote blessed as you. So, now you're there, but you don't have a thing yet. You're just handing out free bread and eating breakfast once a day. But good on you, doing more than most. But I think you must, something clicks in your head

that says, well, this actually could develop into something and we need to make it bigger than just a Thursday breakfast, right? Is that kind of how that... I'm reading into the story, but I want to hear from you. I would say even more than that. It was the sense of how do we view the challenges of our city from an accurate perspective. I knew how to view them from a suburban perspective And there is an urban perspective that is just as tainted In many ways and so I think when I say an accurate perspective very few people take the time to ask

We want to solve a problem, but we see a visible problem. We see kids with no shoes, well, we need to go get shoes for the kids. And so we think we're solving a problem, but you don't recognize that there is something behind the reason that that child has no shoes. One of my guests about six months ago said, I think he quoted Bishop Tutu, but it was somebody really smart, but someone like that. He said, we can continue to pull kids out of the river and save their lives, which is a beautiful thing, but eventually we need to go upstream and figure out why they're in the water in the first place. Yes. Exactly. Absolutely.

And so what we did is we literally shifted. So as we were meeting a tangible need, we were really learning. So every week was a matter of what's going on, how did it happen, what are you doing about it, where do you go? And when they would say, I don't know, then I would start researching. And so, and I will tell you that so many who are lost in a very precarious position, don't recognize that we do have many life preservers

floating around in the water. They just don't know where to go to get them. Yeah. And they're not aware. They're not aware. And so in the seven years that we did ministry on the streets, you know- You're saying the people you seek to serve,

there's life preservers everywhere, they just don't even know where to grab onto. They don't even know where to grab onto. And so like we were able to get- So they need a conduit. 26 men housed permanently off the street. None of them had been on the street for fewer than five years.

We were able to get them permanently housed in the city of Memphis. How long into this work? Several years. But, all it was, and we didn't provide them any housing or any money. We just connected them. All we did is we kept asking questions and we would introduce them to the life preserver that was already there.

And you just continue to make those connections. And many of them, well, I was going to go to the Social Security Office, but I didn't go. You know, and, well, I'm a veteran and they told me I can't just do this. Well, did you realize that veterans get preference if you take it this way? And so just walking them through all the hoops that are there, but they need an advocate. Most people that are locked behind what they see as an impenetrable wall simply need an advocate to show them that there are doors already there.

All right. So again, I'm trying to keep it chronological because before that, at some point you founded the Memphis Dream Center based off a Los Angeles illustration, I think. So take me to that to then get to where we're going. So in 2010, and I want to say it was a barna. Chronologically, that's two years after selling the business. It was the 2010 census. Yeah, but there was a study. I think it was Barna, but I'm not positive now.

I'm trying to remember. But anyway, Memphis was named to the hungriest city in the nation. Really? And yes, in 2010, meaning that we had food insecurity rates higher than some third world countries in certain zip codes of our city. And there are several zip codes that are complete food deserts still to this day, meaning the residents have no access within that zip code to healthy food. There are no groceries, no fresh produce.

So if you don't have a car and you don't have a way to get there, you don't have a way to healthy food. There are no groceries, no fresh produce. So if you don't have a car and you don't have a way to get there, you have another way to get there. Or if you don't have gas. I mean, if I don't have money to put gas in my car. So what we realized was that families and children were literally walking to the corner, little market or gas station, and that was their sustenance. And then we began- Which is Cheetos and now a lighter. Absolutely. Hot Cheetos. Hot Cheetos and now alighters. Absolutely.

Hot Cheetos. Hot Cheetos. Hot Dachshund. Hot Cheetos. But anyway, so we had a school principal, actually went to church with, that taught in a Title I school here in Memphis. So we started asking her questions. And she said, you know, I have children that from the time they leave school on Friday

until they come back on Monday, they do not have a meal. They may have a bag of cookies or a bag of chips, but they don't have a meal. We knew that some people were doing the weekend backpack program, that type of thing, but they were only doing it for – which it was good. I'm not that into criticism, but for say 50 children in the school, the 50 children that need it the most according to the counselor or whatever. Well, so we started thinking what if and Pastor Matthew Barnett who leads the Los Angeles Stream Center founded it said to our pastor, what if you guys buy some old bread trucks or

some kind of trucks and just start feeding kids, giving kids food? Your kids need it, you know? And so we ended up purchasing a fleet of old trucks and we started... Old, old, old, old trucks. I'm envisioning like the old mail trucks. Yes, exactly. One of those types. Or stick shift. We had a couple sento trucks.

I was like the only one who could drive, but nobody knew how to drive a stick ship. So basically we started with this one school where this principal was. She said all of my children need food on the weekend. It was at the time. It's not, it's now a charter school, but it was Shannon Elementary in North Memphis. That's Frayser area. Yeah. So yes.

So anyway, so we started there, 242 children. And we thought, what if we provided them a food bag for the weekend that would cover seven meals and five or six snacks, I think, and that's how we started. And so we started looking at what could we put in there and that a child could do themselves if a parent's working. Because many of our parents that are working, especially if they're single moms, are working hourly jobs

and they're working on the weekend. So we did pop-top tuna with crackers and you know things that would get them through a weekend, oatmeal they could put water with. And so we started doing that. Well it quickly turned into, as schools began to hear about it, hey, Colin, can you do, my kids need this, my kids need this. Where did the money come from? Well, so we started with our church just donating food on the weekends. We would have a bag, fill a bag. Again, I had no budget at the time. We didn't have a lot of budget, but we… And donors. I mean, people are generous,

when you… Especially when you start talking about children, you know? And so that's how we started doing what we do. We founded the Dream Center that year because we thought, and that was another thing, funding. We need to be able to sustain this because more and more. And so by the end of that first year, I think we were doing about a thousand children a week. Are you kidding? No. A thousand children a week. Are you kidding? No.

A thousand children a week? You were showing up at schools? And so every Friday we would show up to the schools with a group of volunteers. We would hand out the bags. The schools were amazing. The principals, they would let the children up 15 minutes early on Fridays

so they could come through the cafeteria and get their food bag for the weekend. Were the kids appreciative? They were. Now, I will tell you a couple of our schools- How much of that food went home and was stolen by older kids? Well, we don't know. They're in, we don't know.

The kids, what we figured out too was the children would take out the things they wanted and we started noticing things being thrown on the side of the road, like canned goods, which a family could use. The parents would love it. But the kids don't want it. We also realized we had to put some snacks in there or they wouldn't want the bag. We would put a bag of Cheetos or something fun for the kids too. We did that and then that evolved into some other things.

So we call our feeding programs Feed Memphis. And we have several things that run under that banner. But that's what we did for a couple of years. Then we started realizing what was happening. It makes me angry when I hear what you just told me. And I have no dog in the hunt, did it? Come on, you can't be that understanding that when you drove down the street and you think about all the work and all the volunteers and money that other people could have been spending on their own children laying in the gutter on the side of the road uneaten. Please tell me that had to have bothered you. It bothered me. I don't think I was ever angry. I think it bothered me because I knew that

the families and the parents needed it. And the principals were great. We went to the principals and said, hey, this is what we're noticing. They called the kids in and it stopped, which was crazy because they said this one school in particular, he said, if you do that, we will stop this. You will never get a bag again. And- Because they were throwing them out the bus. Almost overnight, it changed.

Really? We had a few like on buses, and used the Kansas weapons. They were throwing them at each other. All the crazy things with kids that could happen didn't happen. My kids would have been the same thing. Exactly. I don't know.

And so then we started, so that has evolved into a couple of other things. So we do a monthly, well, and COVID's like everything. COVID changed everything because we could, the schools weren't in session. When COVID hit, we were doing about 6,500 kids a week. And we're like, how are we going to get? How many volunteers? Well, on Thursday evenings when we packed the bags, we probably had about 120 volunteers coming out every week to pack.

Where? At church? Mm-hmm. Or in our, we had a food warehouse. We have a food distribution warehouse, and they would come to the warehouse. And y'all would pack 6,500 bags. Every week. Mm-hmm.

And arrange to get them to, that had to have been 20 schools. And we would load them on every truck, and then we would them to that had to have been 20 schools. And we would load them on every truck and then we would have teams of 10 to 15 volunteers go to every school. 10 schools. Yeah, to go to the schools and pass them out on Friday afternoons. And then COVID hit and we can't be at school. So we started doing the drive-throughs where parents could come drive through.

And we did it at the schools. And because the schools were providing hot meals, well, on the day they were giving out the hot meals, we would go with the red bags and the parents could take the bags home. Then during COVID, we secured a partnership with DoorDash and they began delivering the red bags to the homes for us. For free. For free. And they paid. Shout out to DoorDash. And Amazon did too.

And Amazon did food boxes for us. And so what we did, family food boxes, what we realized, and then DoorDash said we are hiring. And so what was really amazing is some of the moms who were receiving the red bags began to drive for DoorDash and it gave them a job. And they would come and pick up their kids' bags and pick up 20 others and go deliver them. Which was really a cool. It was really a great, it was really a great, we got to see a lot of things come together, but again that was 10 years of sweat equity. And so that has, but that has all of all, what we realized at that point was if we can get them to the doorstep of the family, no food is wasted.

was if we can get them to the doorstep of the family, no food is wasted. We'll be right back. Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Ested Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr. and Charlemagne the God.

We're gonna take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So now we do several things.

So we partner with another organization that serves refugee empowerment, REP, and they serve about 200 children every afternoon and families in the Binghamton area who are immigrants or refugees. And so we provide food for them every month and they do a weekly, basically it's like the weekly food bags. We take the pallets of food to them every month and they do a weekly, basically it's like the weekly food bags. We take the pallets of food to them and then they distribute it. We have a pop-up grocery once a month and we literally transform the gymnasium at one of our dream centers into a grocery store.

Where families get to shop, they get to choose what they want. Where families get to choose what they want rather than us just giving them something we're like, we want, I want to go choose what I… I mean, there are some, my kids may not want green peas. My family doesn't need that. I don't want to take that. And so we've, we've, we've evolved as we've learned. We've evolved realizing if we can provide dignity and if we can provide an experience, like we ask ourselves often, what would I want? What would I want somebody to do for me today? And so now families come in, we have fresh produce, fresh meat.

Amazon provides us about 25 pallets of new returned items every month, because they get a lot of returns and we pick up about 25 pallets a month from one of our local Amazon warehouses so families get laundry detergent, hygiene products. This is a pop-up grocery store. We call it our pop-up grocery and we set it up on Thursday and Friday. Families come in on Saturday. They have shopping times. So they're assigned a time.

They sign up for a time to come in. They have about 20 minutes to go through and get what they need. Do they have a limit? Yes. Yes, they do. Based on their family size. Based on their family size. And so our volunteers that are, know they have a, and we've tried to make it again where they're not a number. And so they have a really tiny little blue or yellow sticker and they just stick it on.

And that way nobody has to ask them, how many do you have? You know, they just know as they come through, our volunteers know, oh, they're a family of four under their family of five or above. And they get their food according to how many are in their household. And they get to choose it.

And I think that's great. And then we have a shopper that goes with them and somebody to carry their groceries as they shop into their car. Yeah, so we load them in the car. So we try to create that five-star experience is what we like to call it, where they feel like they are valued. We have people in the waiting area visiting with them. We have snacks and drinks, coffee, water. And so we want them to come in and feel like drinks, coffee, water, so that you know, and so they, we want them to come in and feel like you're the stars of the show today, you know, you're, and so we do that, then we have food

boxes, and we do provide a monthly food box, and we pivoted to that. And those are all delivered directly to the parents or the caregivers. So we do a couple different things. We have the second Sunday of every month, we call it doorstep delivery. And on Sunday afternoon, volunteers sign up and we have a box labeled with the family's name and address and phone number and the volunteer picks it up and takes it, delivers it to their doorstep. The goal of that is that they're going to the same doorsteps every month and they're beginning to develop a relationship with that family.

And then we deliver food boxes to several schools and the parents come to the gymnasium once a week and pick them up. One of the schools, we actually take our trucks and park in front of the school at the end of the day and the parents pick them up, come up there. What is the Family Advocacy Center? So our Family Advocacy Center, we really, that is our Highland Dream Center.

We have two locations and that is an area, basically you walk in, we have a cafe, we have an indoor playground, a trauma-informed playground for children, we have a laundry trailer where families can do their laundry, we have a baby boutique. We provide school uniforms. We have a small food pantry there. And it's basically we work a lot. We partner with DCS. So that's all. Most of the families that come there are referrals from Knowledge Quest, Agape, several nonprofits, but a large percentage are from Bethany Children's Services or DCS. And what we realized when we opened this, we started meeting with DCS and we actually had in mind that we were going to do something to support foster families because there's

such a crisis in Shelby County of children in the system. It's not just Shelby County. Yeah, not just Shelby County. The whole country. And so what we realized as we began to meet and talk with DCS, she began to talk about all the kids in the system and we're going every day and having to remove children from their homes and this and that. And I just, we were just sitting there and I looked at her and I said, so who's walking with the families who are losing their children?

Is anyone walking them to a place of health and wholeness so they don't lose their kids into the system? Because we all know once a child's in the system, I don't care how good the foster home is, the statistics are horrendous, you know, being becoming in prison, homelessness, never graduating high school, all the stats. Prostitution. Yes, that go along with that. And she said, you know, that's a good question. And I said, so what if we, you know, that's a gap. We are always looking, where's the gap? Why don't we step into that world? And so we now with our Family Advocacy Center, we focus on the preventative side. So how can we walk a family to health and wholeness so that they won't lose their child? Or how can we support a kinship

family so the child can stay within the family and not go across town? That way they can stay at the same school. They get to see their family. Because honestly, if a grandmother that's already living in poverty gets a call and say, hey, we're removing the kids, can you take them? You have to have a bed for every child. There are four children. You have to have a bed for every child. You have to have some type of a chest or something for them to put their clothing in, or we can't bring them to you. So we provide now twin beds and chests. We support a lot of kinship families so the child can stay within the family unit even if they need to be removed from maybe mom or dad. It's not healthy. If an aunt can take them, if a grandmother can take, you know, something like that where they can be in a healthy

home, they still are within the family unit. And then we have what we call parent cafes and those are small groups basically for peer support groups for parents or caregivers. Read to Lead? Yeah. Read to Lead is the star. That's the star. Out of everything we do, I think it not only is the thing that we do best, but it is the most important thing that we do to change a generation.

Tell us. So Read Delete is an after-school program, but it's all about literacy and leadership. But honestly, we don't really focus a lot on literacy, which is amazing because the statistics, let me get that out right, the statistics tell us that if a child can't read by third grade, you know the story. I do. Right? us that if a child can't read by third grade, you know the story. I do. Right?

There's actually another really great organization that's nationwide now that was started in Memphis called Coaching for Literacy that has done an enormous amount of research and the demographics that they throw out there. But they say exactly, if you boil all the research they've done down, if you're not reading on grade level by third grade, you're like 70% more to be in poverty, in jail or whatever. So by third grade, all the work we do after third grade is great, but the work up to third grade is really what's the most important and formative according to the metrics. Absolutely.

Up to third grade you read, you learn to read. After third grade you read to learn and if you can't read, you can't learn. And so it is true. And so this is our tenth? Started in 2015, Read to Lead, with 20 students. We did a pile a year. So we, yeah. 22nd graders.

22nd, we start with second grade. Because that third grade is the issue, right? So we started with second grade. At the end of the year, 85% of those students could read at grade level. What was the starting percentage? 10. 10.

And the- Basically none of them. But just, let's just hang on. Yeah. Just the fact that in the United States of America, that only 10% of second graders in a city school system can read on grade level, that in and of itself should scare us to death. Well, I mean, we're what? We're ranked almost 30th, I think, in the world now, education system in America. So our school systems are failing. I mean, there's no doubt we've got to change something or we're going to continue to fall behind. And it's a whole, it's not the school system. It really does take a village. It's all of us working together, including the parents, the teachers, the nonprofits,

the churches, whatever that may be. Grandma reading stories at night. It's interesting. Now, this is one of those up a tree squirrel things, but I have an office in Shanghai. I have an office in Hoechman. I do business in 42 different countries. So I see the world as a function of my business. There is poverty in Vietnam, unlike y'all have ever seen in Memphis, it's even worse. But in Vietnam, like 98% literacy rate. So it's not just poverty.

It's also not just having funding for schools because the schools in Vietnam oftentimes don't have walls. They look like a thatch hut. Wow. It's true. But their kids have 98% literacy. So what's missing? The family. That's exactly right. Exactly. Exactly. And so for us, so the kids, and then what we did was the first two years,

we focused heavily on literacy. And we added, we thought, we'll start in second grade, we'll add a grade every year. And of course then we had other schools calling like we did with the feeding, hey can my kids come? And so this year- You know you're feeding the kids and teaching the kids, when do they just say why don't you just run the school? Go ahead, I'm sorry.

Actually they've tried to hire Kelly. Not surprising. So this year we have 203 children in the after school program and we have two sites. Call it Read to Lead. Yes, Read to Lead. One in Frayser, one in Raleigh. And what we realized a couple of years in, we thought, you know, let's all sit at the table.

Let's have parents. Let's have school administrators. Let's have teachers and let's have our team. And let's talk about what the kids need. And so as we began to talk, I'll never forget that evening, we just started doing whiteboarding, started whiteboarding it. And we had this whole list of things the kids, you know, a list as long as my arm of things they wanted from an after school program. I said, okay, we're one program, we have the kids a couple hours in the afternoon. Obviously, we can't do everything. Tell me your top three. And they had different things, but everybody around the table said

exposure because they said the children, many of them never step outside their neighborhoods. We took the kids one day down to the pyramid bowling and we pulled up on the bus and they were like, Ms. Kelly, is that the ocean? Is that the ocean? They had never seen the Mississippi River and they lived 10 minutes from it. And so we realized, so we developed an enrichment program along with the literacy and the leadership piece. And so now our kids... and the leadership piece. And so now our kids... It is phenomenal to me. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it is phenomenal to me

that a child growing up in Memphis, Tennessee had never seen the Mississippi River. It's only the biggest river like ever. And it's only four miles. This isn't just Memphis. I know. One of my best friends grew up in Chicago on the South Side in Inglewood where our son, he lives here in Memphis now. He said until he went to the army, he had never left a 10 block radius and had never

seen a white man in person, only on TV. I interviewed a guy early in this who grew up Southside Chicago in his dream. Now, this is his life dream was to see the Sears Tower. He grew up in Chicago. He couldn't even go outside his three block radius. It was too unsafe to cross his three block radius just to get to downtown Chicago to see a building that was his. If your dream, if your quest for life is to get across town, how in the world are you going to have dreams of being an accountant or doctor? And the answer is you won't. You won't. If you've never seen it in person, not on TV, if you've never seen it in person, not on TV, if you've never seen it in person, you

can't dream of yourself being there. So it's interesting that even the parents had access or what you say? Exposure. Exposure, access, same thing. Yeah. So now the kids plant and grow their own garden. They have music production classes. They have tap and ballet.

They have culinary arts classes. So they learn to cook food on their own. Yeah. So, and we teach them how to cook. All while reading? Yes. All of this is part. So we do five days a week. And now we've expanded to three hours in the afternoon to fit everything in. They get a hot meal before they go home. And then the parents, we do family dinner nights once a month. So we're all sitting around the table eating dinner together, visiting, talking. We have other things throughout the year, field trips, different things

like that. And then two years ago, have you ever heard of Ron Clark, the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta? Ron Clark, you should watch his story on Amazon Prime, but he was a young teacher that grew up in, Amazon Prime, but he was a young teacher that grew up in, I think, North Carolina, I don't know, somewhere, ended up in Harlem, like his second year of teaching, and got one of the worst classes this school. They kept having teachers quit. And he began to realize, if I can just, number one, build relationships with their families, and number two, teach them to their bent. These kids have high trauma, high ACEs, like I don't, they can't be expected to sit in a desk for eight hours a day and learn. So he developed all these alternative methods of teaching and now he has an academy in Atlanta that's incredible.

I think this is, stand together and I think Mr. Beester supporting him. Yeah, they have. Atlanta that's incredible. So we sent our team down there for training and now we do something called we've done the last two years it's called the amazing shake and it's something with the Ron Clark Academy and schools from all over the nation participate and internationally actually. And internationally, actually. And so basically, the amazing Shake teaches kids life skills and soft skills. So if you walked into our Dream Center read to lead program today, some of the children would probably come up, shake your hand and say, hi, my name is So-and-so. What's your name? Have you ever visited the Dream Center before? Would you like to have a tour of the Dream Center? You know, and these are third graders, fourth graders, fifth graders.

And so we began to teach that within the amazing shake as a competition. And so the kids prepare all year. And in the spring we have last year, we had 40 entrepreneurs, executives, businesses come out and we set up our gym. And they have 40. They had 40 stations. At one station, one of the Toyota locations came out and had a car and the kids have to sell a car. And so they go to there and they have to learn to sell a car, sales experience. One was like the Tonight Show and they're interviewed. How do they do an

interview? And then the winner gets to go to the national competition in Atlanta. Well last year our judges could not decide on one winner, so they said, we want to pay for five kids to go to nationals. One of our girls made it in the top 30 of the nation. We were so proud of her. And it's all these competitions, they have to get up and answer questions in front of the crowd, they have to go to different stations. It's incredible. And our young guy, I think he's 36 now, that leads it, young black man, and Lino has such a heart for the kids, but he's incredible. And so what we are seeing when Joseph, we're not so focused on literacy anymore, what we're seeing

is as we give the kids things and we put things in front of that, and they drive all of our enrichment classes. Whatever they want, we do our best to get it in front of them. We've done robotics. We've done, I mean, it's incredible. Coding all the things. But anyway, we let them whatever they want, we do our best to get it there because then they can start dreaming about their future. What we've seen is now literacy rates, grades are going up. So at the end of last year, one of the schools, Coleman Elementary, where our kids come from,

some of our kids called us and said, we want you to know that we just got our test results back and every second grader in your program is reading at or above grade level. And they said, and every student in your program scored higher than any of the kids in the school on their math and literacy test. And it's not that we're sitting every day teaching that, it's that we are exposing them, we are getting

them excited about learning, excited about their futures, and they're dreaming about what could be. Do you know who Gary Karpov is? He was the world championship chess guy in the 80s. It was Kasparov and Karpov, the two Russian guys. Karpov was a scientist and he did a study and it was a 20 year study and his control group were kids that did not play chess who went through all kinds of testing prior to the study and his other group was a group who tested just like the control group did prior to chess but then taught them chess and taught them a lot of chess. Basically, it came out after three groups of like 50 kids each over the course of five-year studies, maybe it was four groups. At any

rate, it wasn't that smart kids played chess, it was that chess made smart kids. That's exactly what we're seeing. That's it. It's the spatial recognition. It's the planning ahead. It's the ability to think about what your opponent's next move is going to be. So it's anticipation. It's and all of that Exercises the synopsis in your brain and it in your brain is muscle and it actually Increases that muscles ability to function To me that's exactly what you're saying That's exactly same thing and we do, you'll need to come out this fall. We'll have to

make sure you get an invite. But we do at the end of the year, what's called Read to Lead's Got Talent. So it's America's Got Talent, and it's Read to Lead's Got Talent. And the kids get to showcase everything, like all of their enrichment for the year. And so what was really exciting for us is two years ago, a little girl sang a solo and a little boy played the guitar. He had learned, he had taken the guitar class and played. And she sang, we had a voice coach come out

because she was really interested in singing. And so a FedEx executive come out, came out once a week and coached her and gave her voice lessons. And she sang and her mom was just was crying and we were like oh you're so excited she goes you don't understand she said when we brought her here at the beginning of this year she wouldn't even look anyone in the eye she was so shy and now she's up singing and this last year she wrote her own song and sang it because

we did a songwriting class. So the evolution is quite apparent. It's amazing. That's a long way from taking one day old Panera rolls and handing them out in a park. We've allowed the people that we serve to kind of tell us what the next thing was. So really, other than the guys on the street, once that study came out and told us how much hunger, you know, that we were the number one hungry city,

we began like, okay, what does that look like? Where are the food deserts? Where are the kids really going? And so at the time, North Memphis, 108, right? 107 and 108. 107 and 108. 107 and 108.

That's where it started. 108. 76% of seniors and children literally were what they called considered hungry. Food insecure. Food insecure. And so we were like, oh, that's crazy. I mean, aren't those the people we're called as believers to take care of? The orphans and the widows, right? The seniors and the children. And so we just decided that we would step in. Well, we called the school system when we started with the red bags to say, hey, we're

just letting you know we started with a school with a park next door. Hey, we wanted you to know we're going to go to the park next door on Friday and we're going to hand these kids this. So if the kids run over here before they get on the bus, just know what's going on. And they said, well, why don't you come onto the school campus? And then it was like, why don't you come inside? Why don't we let them out early? We'll let the kids out early on Fridays. And so the school system invited us in. And then one of the principals said, can you help us with our literacy? So we started reading to them, then he said, what about an afterschool program? So we started an afterschool program.

So you're saying the principal and the teachers, they actually cared. They do care. No, but there's this narrative out there that the teachers and the schools don't care. But they do. They do care. They're just so under resourced and they're dealing with generational poverty. They're having to do everything except teach. I mean, they really are. It's they're in such a challenging situation. Hey, everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the home stretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question.

This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astaad Herndon. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha B, Roy Wood Jr. and Charlamagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me,

Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["The Next Question"] So, five plus million meals provided to children since 2011. 621 children have enrolled in Read Delete program since 2015. 83.3% of children in your program have seen an increase in reading scores and a decrease in school suspension. More than 300 adults have graduated and received their high school diplomas through your family enrichment program. And over 400 families resourced 355 school uniforms, 77 twin beds,

278 baby store visits, 115 food boxes and counting. Those are old stats. Those are stats from a year ago. But the most recent stats I could get. But the bottom line is, this is a dentist and a mom. Who had no idea what we're doing. And we still don't, to be honest. But the point is, our belief set that the thing that's really going to change our culture, our society, as an army of normal people seeing need and feeling it. That's exactly right. You are it. What does it make you feel like? I think for me, it's extremely humbling. I think it's humbling that the families

that we get to walk alongside allow us into their world and allow us into their world, and allow us into their lives, and call us friends. I think for me, you know, I have a group of moms that I get together with about every six weeks, and we go to, we have a girls night out, we go to dinner, and they're all single moms, and whose kids are, have been or are in our program. And a few months ago, we were out, and one of them said, Miss Kelly, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for being our friend. Thank you for being with us. We need you. And I looked at her and I just said, you know, Teresa,

thank you for saying that, but I want you guys to hear me and I want you to really hear me. I need you so much more than you need me. And that's it for us. It's, Our world has expanded and I've learned so much from the people I get to walk with every day. I've learned that people living in poverty are some of the most generous people you'll ever meet. I know that when they bring me a gift, it is a true sacrifice, that they're giving up something to give to me.

And they are compassionate, they love their neighbors, they love us. I've never felt so loved. So for me, it's, and I think I heard somebody say this recently and I'm going to steal it because I think it's, I would much rather focus not on what we have done, but how much still needs to be done. Because there is great need and there are people every day that just really need someone to look them in the eye, to give them a hug. And again, say, I believe in you, I care about you. You know, you asked me how I feel, I think it's humbling, but I don't feel like we're done.

You know, there's so much more to be done. I, we, six to eight weeks ago, did a segment on Care Portal, and understand, aren't you guys working? Absolutely. How how's it work for y'all? It's great. So we get referrals from care portal portal probably daily I get an email or two and if

we can fulfill the need depending on what the family needs whatever is on the list whatever they need we've provided a lot of beds through care portal. Are you aware of sleep in Heavenly Peace? Yes we are. We've actually, Alex and I have discussed Sleeping Heavenly Peace. Well when I was reading the twin beds and the bed thing and all, man that almost seems to fly right in. There are a lot of connections like that. I've actually reached out to them. Yeah and this is one of my passions, is connecting. Because there are answers in the city. It's just like you're talking about the life preservers

that nobody knows are floating out there that can save you. And the challenge is, is the people that have them don't want to talk to the person who has another one. And if- Oftentimes there is this weird thing going on. We're siloed. If we would just work together, the solutions are available.

And we are beginning to see that. In the disaster world, we built an entire communication platform just to deal with that. And we are now, with these last two hurricanes that have come in, organizations are working together now like they've never worked before.

And you just have to get people talking. But we're seeing that in the city. I think we're beginning to see, I mean, we have some amazing partners, HopeWorks, Agape, KnowledgeQuest, as I said before, I need to stop naming because I'll miss somebody, but beginning to work together. And hey, and we have a whole brochure we've made now that if I can't meet that need or if I can't help you, here is someone who can. The connectivity.

Yes, yes. So, which is honestly what Care Portal is about. Exactly. Care Portal is amazing. Not everyone is called to sell their business and jump head first in. Right. No, you'd be crazy to do that. We've established that.

And I worry sometimes when we tell these stories that people hear that and while they're inspired and feel amazed by the work you've done, I don't want them to also feel like, oh, well, if I can't do that, I might as well not even try. I have a friend thought about becoming a missionary, grew up in the foster care thing. And a friend who was a pastor said, you don't need to do that. You'd screw that up because you're an entrepreneur and you're great at it. So this guy is now a billionaire. He gives away every dollar. A few years ago, he and his wife decided, okay, we've got our investments. Not that he does not make money, but at some point in the not too long ago,

they decided with their church and their organization to give away every dollar profit they had from that point forward and he has. Now, if he'd have been a missionary, he might could have helped however many people. But look what he was able to do by staying in what his tools were. So when you think about your relationship with money, ability, and time,

you guys to me are a really interesting example of someone who looked at their relationship with their business and said, well, that's encumbering me and I need to jump, but not everybody can make that jump. And that jumps not for everybody, but you still have a relationship with your money, your talents in your time. And I think a great example of that is not the two of you, but all the people who've surrounded you.

You've got people all around you who haven't sold their businesses. But without them, y'all do nothing. We could not do it. Talk about that relationship with time, talent, and money, not with y'all, but with your organization as a whole. As an example for our listeners to say well I don't have to always just jump at first like these two crazy people did but there's all kinds of places I can get involved with crazy

people and help. Yes. I would say anytime there's a need we immediately go to what is the missing resource and you mentioned time and talent and treasure. We hear that all the time. But truly the greatest missing resource most of the time is simply people. You mean the army of normal folks. The army of normal folks. It's just simply we need... So if you were to ask me today, what's the greatest need at the Dream Center? I mean, I've got 204 kids. What if I had a mentor for every one of them?

What if I had a professional, an attorney once a week came in and took a group of kids and did his own little hour with some of our older seventh and eighth graders. About how the world really works. About how the world really works. What about a banker? Talk about financial literacy. Yes. Yes.

So, you know, I mean that – so the greatest resource we have are people. Yes, money matters and data drives dollars and we all know that you can't run a nonprofit without money. But it's really... Kelly mentioned something earlier. I think this is probably the most important thing that she said out of all the great things she said. But it's not about what we've done. It's about who have we yet to see make that transition. My goal in life is to connect people to resources and people to people because we know, and you know, that unless you're connected to a person, that door is not going to open,

no matter how talented you are. And so sometimes, yes, I need a meal, but mostly I need somebody to help me open that door. And so I don't want to miss this opportunity when it comes to what we have to offer. Our greatest gift is ourself, our time, and the dignity we provide to somebody when we make them more important than ourselves. Do your neighbors think you're radical? No, I don't think so.

I think they- Even when there's a six, eight guy sitting up in your son's bed? Well, maybe. I would say that radical could be your best compliment. I think, for me, and I've heard it said before that you've never truly lived unless you've done something for someone who can never repay you. And I'm living that. I think Joe and I are living the dream, really. And we get to, I would, can I share a story? Yeah. So we had a little girl that started with us in second grade at our afterschool program. We've walked with their family the first year they were there.

It's a mom of six kids, single mom. And probably three months in, I'm standing there talking with her. She's picking up her daughter and I look out and their car is being repossessed out of the parking lot. And I was like, Oh my goodness. And we pile in my car. We go down to orange mountain where they're living and have to stop at the laundromat and finish doing their laundry and then get them all home.

And, and the second year they come back and we're still walking together. And I love this mama so much. And, and, um, this little second graders now in third grade and I'm at their school and I hear kind of a commotion around the corner and I look and it's this mom. And I'm like, what is going on? And she's screaming and yelling and upset. And basically Jada had had incredible behavior problems at school. And they basically had said she can't come back next year. She's going to have to go to another school.

What I knew was mom, there's no way mom is going to be able to get to her job in the morning on time if she's having to go to two different schools now instead of one, and there's just just gonna be a hardship. And so I talked to her, I go with her the next day. Again, it's one of these things she didn't know. I'm like, you can go, we can go to the Shelby County School Board and appeal this, see if we can get her back to this school. And so we went and did that and we left there. We filed the appeal and then I said, now I'm going to take you with me and we're going to go to the school and you're going to apologize to the principal because

what you did, you're asking them for a favor and Teresa, that wasn't, you know, and we have a talk about how the conversation should have gone. You don't get mad. We don't scream. We don't curse out the people we want to help us, you know, and maybe our children will see that behavior and improve. We don't get mad. We don't scream. We don't curse out the people we want to help us. Maybe our children will see that behavior improve. Exactly. We go.

We have a conversation. She cries, apologizes. I talk with the principal. If I walk with this child and her mom, they're in our afterschool program now. We're two months into the school year. They agreed to let her stay at the school. She was failing, her behavior was horrible, but she would come in the afternoon, I mean the school would tell me about her behavior and I was like, really? Because we have not had a

bit, anything, you know, we, she is amazing at the, it was just, it was so crazy to me that, She is amazing at the, it was just, it was so crazy to me that, but anyway, so now this girl, fast forward, she's a junior in high school. Since her freshman year of high school, she has been on the principal's list every quarter. She is an ROTC. She now has her first job, helping pay the family bills and is on a trajectory is dreaming about college. She wants to be a doctor, she said. And she's got and but watch it but again this was seven, eight, nine years. I mean it's been since 2015 so nine years and so I tell people all the time the work we do is not a sprint it's a marathon and so it's the consistency.

And you don't have to give up everything, but guess what? We have an opportunity at our school program for, we call it Mystery Reader Day. You can come in and read a book to the kids. It takes 30 minutes out of your week or 30 minutes out of your month. But the kids notice that you took the time to come in. And let's be candid. Getting kicked out of school in second grade and going to alternative school, you can just about guarantee you're going to add that kid to the roles of the poverty and the jail.

And now, I'm so proud of her. Got some simple intervention and some love and some work. It took me an hour to spend that time, take her to the—and I didn't have to go back to the principal. And I'm not saying—but it was a lesson for mom, you know? And so I always say that we are walking alongside the children, but we're really walking alongside the family because if you're not touching both generations, we can touch kids' lives all day.

But if we're not building that relationship with the family, number one, we don't know how best to walk with this child. If I don't know what's going on at home, I don't know what's going on in that child's life. And if you're listening to us now and you're not ready to sell your business in chump, there's ample opportunity across our country. Absolutely. MemphisStreamC country. Absolutely.

MemphisDreamCenter.com. Just be part of that. Well, that was my next question. I'm plugging that in. How do people get in touch with you? You can go to MemphisDreamCenter.com. That's our website. There is a Get Involved button and it will take you to all of our volunteer opportunities.

You can also email info at MemphisDreamCenter.com for more information. Guys, amazing story. email info at Memphis dream center.com for more information. Guys, amazing story, amazing service. I know you're going to be just like every other guest we have that says humbly, we get more out of it than we put into it. And I think a lot of people think that some all shucks false humility, but it really is the truth. And that's kind of the secret sauce as we beg people to join this army of normal folks and get involved and use your talents and see areas of need and fill it, understand what you get out of that will be twice what you put into it. And I think when you said earlier talking about, you know, everybody doesn't have to

jump in and sell their business and do this. But for me, when I, you know, recruit volunteers or whatever you want to call it, I don't, I mean, we can do this with a few volunteers, but I know the impact it's had on my life and I want that for other people. I want people to get to be a part of this. You know, it's not, we can do it, whether you come or not, but man, you're missing out. It's beautiful. Kelly, Joe, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you joining us and telling us your story. If people are not inspired to get involved after hearing your unbelievable story, I don't know how to inspire them.

Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. It's been an honor. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us this week. If the Carson's have inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by doing something radical like they did, volunteering or donating to folks doing something radical, getting involved with Memphis Dream Center, starting something like it in your own community or

something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks.us and I promise you, I will respond. And if you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate and review it. Join the Army at normalfolks.us.

Consider becoming a premium member there. Any and all of these things that will help us grow, an army of normalfolks. Thanks to our producer, Ironlight Labs. I'm Bill Courtney. I will see you next week. help me out like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Estet Herndon. But we're also gonna have some fun thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God.

We're gonna take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.